FullReads

“‘Sit there,’ pointing to the stool. ‘You are,’ he said, ‘before your father and mother, whom you have offended, and who will now judge you.’

“At this Jacques began to howl, for his father’s face was all distorted. His mother was rigid as an oar.

“‘If you shout, if you stir, if you do not sit still on that stool,’ said Pierre, aiming the gun at him, ‘I will shoot you like a dog.’

“Jacques was mute as a fish. The mother said nothing.

“‘Here,’ said Pierre, ‘is a piece of paper which wrapped a Spanish gold piece. That piece of gold was in your mother’s bed; she alone knew where it was. I found that paper in the water when I landed here to-day. You gave a piece of Spanish gold this night to Mere Fleurant, and your mother’s piece is no longer in her bed. Explain all this.’

“Jacques said he had not taken his mother’s money, and that the gold piece was one he had brought from Nantes.

“‘I am glad of it,’ said Pierre; ‘now prove it.’

“‘I had it all along.’

“‘You did not take the gold piece belonging to your mother?’

“‘No.’

“‘Will you swear it on your eternal life?’

“He was about to swear; his mother raised her eyes to him, and said:–

“‘Jacques, my child, take care; do not swear if it is not true; you can repent, you can amend; there is still time.’

“And she wept.

“‘You are a this and a that,’ he said; ‘you have always wanted to ruin me.’

“Cambremer turned white and said,–

“‘Such language to your mother increases your crime. Come, to the point! Will you swear?’

“‘Yes.’

“‘Then,’ Pierre said, ‘was there upon your gold piece the little cross which the sardine merchant who paid it to me scratched on ours?’

“Jacques broke down and wept.

“‘Enough,’ said Pierre. ‘I shall not speak to you of the crimes you have committed before this. I do not choose that a Cambremer should die on a scaffold. Say your prayers and make haste. A priest is coming to confess you.’

“The mother had left the room; she could not hear her son condemned. After she had gone, Joseph Cambremer, the uncle, brought in the rector of Piriac, to whom Jacques would say nothing. He was shrewd; he knew his father would not kill him until he had made his confession.

“‘Thank you, and excuse us,’ said Cambremer to the priest, when he saw Jacques’ obstinacy. ‘I wished to give a lesson to my son, and will ask you to say nothing about it. As for you,’ he said to Jacques, ‘if you do not amend, the next offence you commit will be your last; I shall end it without confession.’

“And he sent him to bed. The lad thought he could still get round his father. He slept. His father watched. When he saw that his son was soundly asleep, he covered his mouth with tow, blindfolded him tightly, bound him hand and foot–‘He raged, he wept blood,’ my mother heard Cambremer say to the lawyer. The mother threw herself at the father’s feet.

“‘He is judged and condemned,’ replied Pierre; ‘you must now help me carry him to the boat.’

“She refused; and Cambremer carried him alone; he laid him in the bottom of the boat, tied a stone to his neck, took the oars and rowed out of the cove to the open sea, till he came to the rock where he now is. When the poor mother, who had come up here with her brother-in- law, cried out, ‘Mercy, mercy!’ it was like throwing a stone at a wolf. There was a moon, and she saw the father casting her son into the water; her son, the child of her womb, and as there was no wind, she heard BLOUF! and then nothing–neither sound nor bubble. Ah! the sea is a fine keeper of what it gets. Rowing inshore to stop his wife’s cries, Cambremer found her half-dead. The two brothers couldn’t carry her the whole distance home, so they had to put her into the boat which had just served to kill her son, and they rowed back round the tower by the channel of Croisic. Well, well! the belle Brouin, as they called her, didn’t last a week. She died begging her husband to burn that accursed boat. Oh, he did it! As for him, he became I don’t know what; he staggered about like a man who can’t carry his wine. Then he went away and was gone ten days, and after he returned he put himself where you saw him, and since he has been there he has never said one word.”