Free Laura by George Sand Page B

acquisitive as magpies. No doubt when they awoke our men would find themselves condemned to perish from cold and hunger.
    My numbed conscience awoke. I resolved that if need be I would make the crew rise up in revolt, if it was possible to make them understand the situation, and rushed off into the refectory, where I found them all lying pell-mell on the couches or on the floor, in the midst of the debris of broken bottles and overturned tables.
    What had happened at this sinister celebration? Blood, mixed with spilt wine and gin, had spread out to form an already glutinous lake about their motionless hands and their soiled clothing. It was an appalling scene of stupor or disaster succeeding some kind of frenzy of rage or despair. I called out in vain: around me reigned the silence of exhaustion … perhaps of death!
    I touched the first face that presented itself to my hand; it was ice-cold. The smoking, blackened lamp poured an acrid smoke into this sepulchre, already filled with the stench of the orgy, and, askew on its base, dripped the last of its oil onto hair that stood on end in a final expression of horror. There was no other movement or sound; not a moan, not a death-rattle. They were all wounded, mutilated , unrecognisable, murdered by one another. Some had died while attempting a reconciliation, and lay with their arms entwined, after bidding each other a supreme and distressing farewell in wine-dregs and blood.
    I was still standing there, petrified, before this horrible tableau, when I felt a hand take hold of me. It belongedto Nasias who led me outside, and as if he could read my thoughts:
    It is too late, he said with a snigger; they will not rebel against the end that saves them from a slow death a hundred times more cruel than this one. I served them up the wine of rage, and, as they fought against imaginary enemies, they were able to console themselves with the dream of a valiant death. All is well with them now: the Eskimos will give them a tomb beneath the ice, as befits bold explorers. Now then, all is ready, follow me. Whether you like it or not, you can no longer go back.
    I shall not follow you! I cried. You no longer have me under your spell. The crime you have just committed delivers me from your hateful ascendancy. You are a coward , a murderer, a poisoner, and, if I did not regard you as a madman …
    What would you do to Laura’s father? retorted my uncle. Would you then make her an orphan, and could you bring her back single-handedly from the depths of these desert wastes?
    What do you mean? Is it possible that Laura …? No, no … You are insane!
    Look! replied Nasias, who had led me on deck.
    And I saw in an azure cloud the angelic figure of Laura standing on the top step of the companionway outside, preparing to leave the brig.
    Laura, I cried, wait for me! Do not leave alone!
    And I rushed towards her; but she placed a finger to her lips, and, showing me the sledges, she signalled to me to follow and disappeared before I was able to catch up with her.
    Calm yourself, said my uncle, Laura will travel alone in a sledge which I brought along for her. It is she who henceforth will wear our pole star on her brow and who will lead our march to the north. We can only follow her at the distance it pleases her to place between her carriage and ours; but be sure that she will not abandon us, since she is our light and our life.
    I followed my uncle mechanically, convinced that this time I was the plaything of a dream, and he made me get into the sledge reserved for me. I was alone in it, lying down in a sort of fur bed, and, although armed with a whip attached to my arm by a strap, I had no thoughts of using it. I was plunged into a strange torpor. I tried to turn over on my moving couch, as if to rid myself of an extravagant reverie: it was in vain; it seemed to me that I was bound hand and foot in my prison of fur. I tried to see the ghost of Laura again; all I could make out was a confused,