"No; yet I shall not see to-morrow's sunset. I dare say no more. I must make my confession."
An hour went by; the solemn mysteries that pass unseen and undreamt-of by the careless world soothed and comforted the doomed man. We know nothing further, nor can we ever know aught concerning this dread interview on the very threshold of invisible death; but, the priest's duty done, the young man craved his blessing and his prayers, and took an agonizing farewell of the last human being who was to show him mercy and promise him forgiveness.
Reluctantly, sorrowfully, the priest parted from the victim, and wended his way through the splendid rooms, whose beauty now seemed so baleful, as though it were but the refinement and gloss of cruelty, the gay mask that hid the torture-chamber.
At the door of the anteroom, the same silent guides were watching his return, and, again blindfolding him, led him out of the gates that closed on such strange mysteries, and hid from view such appalling possibilities of horror.
How many might there have been of these human holocausts, immolated in silence, perchance without the gracious respite allowed this one victim! How many might there have been, perhaps priests, beguiled by a lure such as he had thought his own carrying-off to be, and never allowed to go forth again, as he was being providentially helped to do! And what other crimes besides silent murder might have taken place in that mysterious and seemingly demon-guarded house!
These and other thoughts not unlike them must have pressed painfully on his overstrung mind, as with the same precautions, turnings, doublings, and joltings the Père de Ravignan was driven back to the house of his order, the sinister guides in whose hands his life had helplessly and inevitably lain for several hours preserving yet that impenetrable silence and seemingly respectful behavior, which in themselves were enough to shake the courage of most men.
The house was all astir. Every one had been anxious for the safe return of the superior from his mysterious and perilous errand; for perilous they had intuitively felt it to be, and had indeed once attempted at first to follow the carriage. This, however, had been cleverly frustrated by the well-instructed driver.
Search was made next day by the secret police for any house answering the only description the priest could imperfectly give; inquiries were instituted concerning the disappearance of any person answering the minute description given by the confessor of his young penitent; but although the police swore that they knew every house, and could put their finger upon every individual in Paris, yet not a single trace could be discovered of anything unusual having taken place in the city.
And there the mystery remained and was forgotten, and came to be related only as a tale of dread and wonder, and was only known to few. Even so the secret organization itself, for nothing but vagueness surrounded its palpable though ever-invisible existence, and some believed that the parti prêtre invented stories of its horrors, and others thought they exaggerated the importance of its influence.
Then came '48, with its wild volcanic outburst all over Europe, and under the name of freedom a modern Vehmgericht convulsed and tortured the civilized world. Those who had pooh-poohed its existence or underrated its strength were the first to crouch before its explosive power. Persecution began again, for we all know the story of revolutions, and how the final court of appeal was always death. What mattered it that the persecutors handled the axe, the guillotine, or the rifle, instead of the scourges, the fasces, the swords of the Roman lictors? Amphitheatres there were, and wild beasts to tear the Christians in pieces, although the former were called public squares, and streets, and gardens, and the wild beasts were hideous human forms. One Archbishop of Paris in '48 was shot down—perhaps by chance, but who can tell save only God?—on the barricades, as he was trying to quiet the infuriate rabble; another Archbishop of Paris followed him in '71, more foully murdered in shear demoniac wantonness, because order and authority were represented in his person, and because to be a child of God was a burning reproach offered to the godless and soulless Commune.