Flambeau looked about him in the
moonlight, as a man struck blind might look in the sun; and his friend went on,
for the first time with eagerness:
"Flambeau," he cried,
"I cannot prove it, even after hunting through the tombs. But I am sure of
it. Let me add just one more tiny fact that tips the whole thing over. The
colonel, by a strange chance, was one of the first struck by a bullet. He was
struck long before the troops came to close quarters. But he saw St. Clare's sword broken. Why was
it broken? How was it broken? My friend, it was broken before the battle."
"Oh!" said his friend, with a sort of forlorn jocularity;
"and pray where is the other
piece?"
"I can tell you," said the
priest promptly. "In the northeast corner of the cemetery of the Cathedral
at Belfast."
"Indeed?" inquired the other. "Have you looked for it?"
"I couldn't," replied
Brown, with frank regret. "There's a great marble monument on top of it; a
monument to the heroic Major Murray, who fell
fighting gloriously at the famous Battle of the Black River."
Flambeau seemed suddenly galvanised
into existence. "You mean," he
cried hoarsely, "that General St.
Clare hated Murray, and murdered him on the field of battle because—"
"You are still full of good and
pure thoughts," said the other. "It was worse than that."
"Well," said the large man, "my stock of evil imagination is used
up."
The priest seemed really doubtful
where to begin, and at last he said again:
"Where
would a wise man hide a leaf? In the forest."
The other did not answer.
"If there were no forest, he
would make a forest. And if he wished to hide a dead leaf, he would make a dead
forest."
There was still no reply, and the
priest added still more mildly and quietly:
"And if a man had to hide a dead
body, he would make a field of dead bodies to hide it in."
Flambeau began to stamp forward with
an intolerance of delay in time or space; but Father Brown went on as if he
were continuing the last sentence:
"Sir Arthur St. Clare, as I have
already said, was a man who read his Bible. That was what was the matter with
him. When will people understand that it is useless for a man to read his Bible
unless he also reads everybody else's Bible? St. Clare was an old Anglo-Indian
Protestant soldier.
"Now, just think what that might
mean. Of course, he read the Old Testament rather than the New. Of course, he
found in the Old Testament anything that he wanted—lust, tyranny, treason. Oh,
I dare say he was honest, as you call it. But what is the good of a man being
honest in his worship of dishonesty?
"In each of the hot and secret
countries to which the man went he kept a harem, he tortured witnesses, he
amassed shameful gold; but certainly he would have said with steady eyes that
he did it to the glory of the Lord. Arthur St. Clare was soon suffocated by difficulties of bribery
and blackmail; and needed more and more cash. And by the time of the Battle of
the Black River he had fallen from world to world to that place which Dante
makes the lowest floor of the universe."
"What do you mean?" asked his friend again.
"I mean that," retorted the
cleric.
Father Brown suddenly pointed at a
puddle sealed with ice that shone in the moon.
"Do you remember whom Dante put
in the last circle of ice?"
"The traitors," said Flambeau, and shuddered.
The priest's voice went on:
"Olivier, as you know, was
quixotic, and would not permit a secret service and spies. The thing, however,
was done, like many other things, behind his back. It was managed by my old friend Espado,
called the Vulture.
"Posing as a sort of
philanthropist at the front, he felt his way through the English Army, and at
last got his fingers on its one corrupt man—please God!— and that man at the
top. St. Clare was in foul need of money, and mountains of it. The discredited
family doctor was threatening those extraordinary exposures that afterwards
began and were broken off. Money was wanted, too, for his daughter's dowry; for
to him the fame of wealth was as
sweet as wealth itself.
"He snapped the last thread,
whispered the word to Brazil, and wealth poured in from the enemies of England.
But another man had talked to Espado
the Vulture as well as he. Somehow Murray, the dark, grim young major from
Ulster had guessed the hideous truth;
and when they walked slowly together down that road towards the bridge ...
Murray was telling the general that he must
resign instantly, or be court- martialled and shot. The general temporised
with him till they came to the fringe of tropic trees by the bridge; and there
by the singing river the general drew his sabre and plunged it through the body of the major."
The wintry road curved over a ridge
in cutting frost, but Flambeau fancied that he saw beyond it faintly the edge
of an aureole that was some fire such as is made by men. He watched it as the
tale drew to its close.
"St. Clare was a hell-hound, but
he was a hound of breed. Never, I'll swear, was he so lucid and so strong as
when poor Murray lay a cold lump at his feet. Never in all his triumphs, as
Captain Keith said truly, was the great man so great as he was in this last
world-despised defeat.
"He looked coolly at his weapon
to wipe off the blood; he saw the point
he had planted between his victim's shoulders had broken off in the body. He saw quite calmly, as through a club
window, all that must follow. He saw that men must find the unaccountable
corpse; must extract the unaccountable sword-point; must notice the
unaccountable broken sword—or absence of sword. He had killed, but not
silenced. But his imperious intellect rose against the facer; there was one way
yet. He could make the corpse less unaccountable. He could create a hill of corpses to cover this one. In
twenty minutes eight hundred English soldiers were marching down to their
death."
The warmer glow behind the black
winter wood grew richer and brighter, and Flambeau strode on to reach it.
Father Brown also quickened his stride; but he seemed merely absorbed in his
tale.
"Such was the valour of that
English thousand, and such the genius of their commander, that if they had at
once attacked the hill, even their mad march might have met some luck. But the
evil mind that played with them like pawns had other aims and reasons. They
must remain in the marshes by the bridge at least till British corpses should
be a common sight there. Then for the
last grand scene; the silver-haired soldier-saint would give up his
shattered sword to save further slaughter. Oh, it was well organised for an
impromptu. But I think (I cannot prove), I think that it was while they stuck
there in the bloody mire that someone doubted— and someone guessed."
He was mute a moment, and then said: "There
is a voice from nowhere that tells me the man who guessed was the lover ... the
man to wed the old man's child."
"But what about Olivier and the hanging?" asked Flambeau.
"Olivier, partly from chivalry,
partly from policy, seldom encumbered his march with captives," explained
the narrator. "He released everybody in most cases. He released everybody
in this case.
"Everybody but the
general," said the tall man.
"Everybody," said the
priest.
Flambeau knit his black brows.
"I don't grasp it all yet," he said.
"There is another picture,
Flambeau," said Brown in his more mystical undertone. "I can't prove
it; but I can do more—I can see it. There is a camp breaking up on the bare,
torrid hills at morning, and Brazilian uniforms massed in blocks and columns to
march. There is the red shirt and long black beard of Olivier, which blows as
he stands, his broad-brimmed hat in his hand. He is saying farewell to the
great enemy he is setting free—the simple, snow-headed English veteran, who
thanks him in the name of his men. The English remnant stand behind at
attention; beside them are stores and vehicles for the retreat. The drums roll;
the Brazilians are moving; the English are still like statues. So they abide
till the last hum and flash of the enemy have faded from the tropic horizon.
Then they alter their postures all at once, like dead men coming to life; they
turn their fifty faces upon the general—faces not to be forgotten."
Flambeau gave a great jump. "Ah," he cried, "you don't mean—"
"Yes," said Father Brown in
a deep, moving voice. "It was an English hand that put the rope round St.
Clare's neck; I believe the hand that put the ring on his daughter's finger.
They were English hands that dragged him up to the tree of shame; the hands of
men that had adored him and followed him to victory. And they were English
souls who stared at him swinging in that foreign sun on the gallows of palm,
and prayed in their hatred that he might drop off it into hell."
As the two topped the ridge there
burst on them the strong scarlet light of a red-curtained English inn. Its
three doors stood open with invitation; and even where they stood they could
hear the hum and laughter of humanity happy for a night.
"I needn't tell you more,"
said Father Brown. "They tried him in the wilderness and destroyed him. Then,
for the honour of England & of his daughter, they took an oath to seal up for ever the story of the traitor's purse
and the assassin's sword blade. Perhaps —Lord helps them— they tried to forget
it. Let us try to forget it, anyhow;
here is our inn."
"With all my heart," said Flambeau, and striding into the
noisy bar he stepped back and almost fell on the road.
"Look there, in the devil's name!" he cried,
He then pointed rigidly at the square
wooden sign that overhung the road. It showed dimly the crude shape of a sabre hilt and a shortened blade; and was inscribed in false archaic
lettering, "The Sign of the Broken Sword."
"Were you not prepared?"
asked Father Brown gently. "He is the god of this country; half the inns
and parks and streets are named after him and his story."
"You will never have done with
him in England," said the priest, looking down. His marble statues will
erect the souls of proud, innocent boys for centuries, his village tomb will
smell of loyalty as of lilies. Millions who never knew him shall love him like
a father. He shall be a saint; and the truth shall never be told of him,
because I have made up my mind at last. There is so much good and evil in
breaking secrets, that I put my conduct to a test. If it were only that St.
Clare was wrongly praised, I would be silent. And I will."
They plunged into the red-curtained
tavern, which was not only cosy, but even luxurious inside. On a table stood a
silver model of the tomb of St. Clare, the silver head bowed, the silver sword
broken. On the walls were coloured photographs of the same scene, and of the
system of wagonettes that took tourists to see it.
- http://ma-serendipity.blogspot.com.es/2016/05/on-sinners-and-saints-broken-sword.html
- http://ma-serendipity.blogspot.com.es/2016/05/the-broken-sword-abridged-short-story-2.html
by Gilbert Keith Chesterton
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks/c00033.html#story11
audio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XD7w4UxkmU8
First published in The Saturday Evening Post, Jan 7, 1911
No comments:
Post a Comment