When Brujon had closed the door, he must have forgotten to touch another spring which would havere-shot the bolt. Owing to this forgetfulness, Lavenne had been able to enter the room simply by picking the lock. But Camus, who seemed never to forget precaution, had not forgotten to touch the bolting spring, with the result that Lavenne was now a prisoner in a prison that threatened to be his tomb.
He knew that it was quite futile, with the means at his disposal, to make any further attempt upon the lock; even had he possessed a crow-bar and all the tools necessary, the noise of the breaking open of the door would arouse the house.
The doorway being impossible, he turned to the window, which he had not yet examined. The lamp held close to the window showed nothing of the dark world outside, but it showed very definitely strong iron bars almost touching the glass.
The window being impossible, he turned to the floor.
There was just a chance that the hollow-sounding portion of the parquet between the table and the window curtains might disclose a means of exit. There was, in fact, more than a chance, for a man like Camus, who forgot nothing, would be the least likely man to forget to provide a secret way of escape from this chamber of secrecy.
Lavenne was not wrong; the parquet on close examination showed the outline of a trap-door so well constructed as to be perfectly indistinguishable to the gaze of a person who was not searching for it.
In five minutes, or less, he had discovered the button of the opening spring. He pressed on it, and the flap, instead of rising, as in the ordinary trap-door, sank, disclosing a perpendicular ladder leading down into absolute darkness.
HERE was a way of escape, but escape to where? He did not consider the latter question for an instant. Replacing the lamp on the table, he glanced round to make sure that everything was in exact order, counted all the articles in his possession, thecrochet, the two extra candles which he carried, etc., just as a surgeon counts the sponges which he has used during an operation, and having satisfied himself that he had disturbed nothing and left nothing behind, he extinguished the lamp, found the trap-door opening in the darkness and came down the ladder. It had fifteen rungs. When he felt the solid ground under his feet, he lit one of his candles and looked about him.
He was standing in a passage that led to a flight of steps descending into darkness, above was the square opening of the trap-door, and shining in the wall on his right, a brass handle. He guessed its use and pulling on it, the flap of the door above rose steadily and slowly and closed with a faint sucking sound like that of a piston driven home in a perfectly fitting cylinder.
It seemed to Lavenne that everything was favouring him, for had he been forced to leave the door open, his plan might have been ruined, as Camus would undoubtedly have suspected a spy on his movements.
With the lighted candle in his hand, he came towards the flight of steps. At the top of this stone stairway, he paused for a moment almost daunted. It seemed to have no end. The light of the candle became swallowed up in the darkness before revealing the last step. There were over a hundred of these steps leading to a passage, or rather a tunnel, which ended by opening into a corridor. The tunnel struck the corridor at right angles, and Lavenne, holding his light to the walls, looked in vain for an indication as to whether he should turn to the right or the left. Failing to find any, he turned to the right.
He had gone only a few yards when an opening in the corridor wall gave him a glimpse of something more daunting than the darkness. It was a skull resting on a heap of bones. The skull, from which the lower jaw was missing, was yet not wholly without speech. It told Lavenne at once where he was.
Pursuing his way and casting the light of the candle into several more of these lidless sarcophagi, he reached a large open space, where over the piles of bones heaped against the walls, the candle-light revealed a Latin inscription cut into the stone.
From this open space to the right, to left, in front and behind of the man who had just entered it, the candle-light showed four corridors each leading to darkness.
Lavenne had left the laboratory of Count Camus only to find himself entangled in the Catacombs of Paris.
Camus’ house seemed built in conformity with his mind, secure, secret, containing many things unrevealable to the light of day, and based on a maze of dark passages offering a means of escape to the mind thatknew them and bewilderment and despair to the mind that did not.
Lavenne knew something of the catacombs, but not much. They lay outside his province.
The Catacombs of Paris are to-day just as they were in the time of the fifteenth Louis, with this difference: they are more fully occupied, since they contain the bones of many of the victims of the Terror. This vast system of tunnelling which extends from the heart of Paris to the plain of Mont Souris is in reality a city where rock takes the place of houses, galleries the place of streets, dead men the place of citizens, and eternal darkness the place of day and night.
It has been closed now for some years on account of the danger to explorers arising from the huge army of rats that have made it their camping-ground. Some years ago a man was attacked and eaten by rats in one of the galleries.
Few inhabitants of the gay city of Paris ever give a thought to the city of Death that lies beneath their feet, and fewer still to the motto that is written on the walls of this vast tomb—just as it is written everywhere:
“Remember, Man, that thou art Dust, and that unto Dust thou shalt return.”
“Remember, Man, that thou art Dust, and that unto Dust thou shalt return.”
It was in this terrific place that Lavenne found himself, with the choice of exploring it to find a way out or returning to encounter Camus.
ONE morning, four days later, the Comte de Sartines, working in his official room in the Hôtel de Sartines, was informed that a person wished to see him on urgent business.
“What is the name?” asked he.
“Brujon, monsieur. It is the steward of M. le Comte Camus.”
“Show him in,” replied the Minister.
He continued writing; then, when the visitor was announced, he turned in his chair, pen in hand.
“Well, monsieur,” said the Minister of Police, “you wish to see me? What is your business?”
“Monsieur,” said Brujon, “I am in great perplexity and distress. For three nights I have not slept, and the thing has worked so on my mind that I said to myself, I will go to Monsieur de Sartines, who is all-powerful, and place this case before him.”
“Yes?”
“Monsieur, four days ago, our pantry-man, Jumeau, who has charge of the silver belonging to my master, asked leave of absence on account of the illness of his mother; he introduced to me a young man, his cousin, named Jouve, in order that Jouve might take his place during the time of his absence. Jouve had an excellentreference, and I engaged him. Well, that night Jouve disappeared. At least, in the morning he was nowhere to be found. Yet he could not have left the house.”
“And why could not he have left the house?”
“Because, monsieur, all the doors are locked, and, what is more, barred on the inside, yet no bar had been removed. My master, when he comes in late, is always admitted by theconcierge, who re-bars the door, all the other doors are equally barred, and that night I examined the fastenings myself. If Jouve had left the house by any door, how could he have replaced the bars?”
“He may have had an accomplice in the house,” replied de Sartines, deeply interested and wondering what new move of Lavenne’s this might be, for Beauregard had told him of Lavenne’s suspicions as to Camus, and the whole business, in fact.
“Yes, monsieur,” replied Brujon. “But no silver was taken, no valuables of any sort, why should he have entered the house just to leave it in that manner? Monsieur, I have a feeling that he is still in the house, though, God knows, I have searched diligently enough to find him.”
“Well,” said de Sartines, “what can I do?”
“I do not know, monsieur, but I thought it my duty to consult you.”
“Have you told your master of this affair?”
Brujon hesitated.
“No, monsieur, I have not—he is of such a violent temper——.”
“Precisely. But the fact remains that you have hidden the thing from him, and that fact would not calm the violence of his temper should you disclose the affairnow. He might even do you an injury, so, for the sake of peace and your own skin, I would advise you to say nothing, but keep a vigilant watch. Should Jouve turn up, hidden anywhere, lock him up in a room, and send here at once and I will send a man to arrest him.”
“Thank you, monsieur,” replied Brujon, who seemed relieved by Sartines’ manner and advice. “I will do what you say. Good day, your Excellency.”
When he was gone Sartines rang a bell and ordered Beauregard to be sent to him.
“Ma foi!” said Beauregard, “there is more in this than I can fathom. What can he be doing all these four days?”
“Who knows?” replied the Minister. “But I am quite confident he has not been idle. He will turn up, and I dare swear he will bring with him the rope to hang Monsieur Camus. It has been spinning for a long time and is overdue. Now here is a commission for you. Since I can’t put hands on Lavenne for the business, go yourself to Vincennes and see how Rochefort is doing. They have had orders to make him comfortable, see that these orders have been carried out. We must keep him in a good temper.”
“Yes, monsieur.”
“Have a chat with him; and you might say that the Dubarrys are working in his interests to smooth matters with Choiseul—which, in fact, they are not.”
“Yes, monsieur.”
“See that he is allowed plenty of exercise—tennis and so forth, but always strictly guarded, for I know this devil of a Rochefort, one can’t count on his whims, and should prison gall him he may, even against his own interests,try to break out and fly into the claws of Choiseul.”
“Yes, monsieur.”
Beauregard went off on his mission, and as he left the room, the Vicomte Jean Dubarry was announced.
“My dear Sartines,” cried Jean as they shook hands, “I just called to see if you were going to Choiseul’s reception to-night.”
“I have been invited,” replied Sartines.
“And you will go?”
“Yes, I think I will go—why are you so pressing?”
“Well, as a matter of fact,” said Jean, “Choiseul asked me to make sure of your coming. He wishes peace all round now that the Dauphiness is to arrive so shortly.”
“You are great friends with Choiseul now, you and Madame la Comtesse?”
“We are at peace, for the moment. I do not trust him one hair’s breadth, but we are at peace.”
“Just so,” said Sartines; “and how is Mademoiselle Fontrailles?”
“As beautiful as ever.”
“And as cold?”
“Oh,ma foi!” said Jean, laughing, “I think the ice is broken in that direction—Camus——”
“You mean to say she cares for Camus?”
Jean laughed. “I say nothing. I only know what the Countess told me this morning. Mind this is between ourselves—well, she is Camus’, heart and soul.”
“Peste!What does she see in that fellow?—Are you sure of what you say?”
“I am sure of nothing, but the Countess is. Camille has made her her confidante. I do not know whatwomen see in Camus, but they seem to see something that attracts them.”
“But he is married—Oh,mon Dieu!” cried Sartines, suddenly interrupting himself and breaking into a laugh. “What am I saying—it is well known that Madame Camus is delicate—and should she die——”
“Then our gentleman would be free to marry Camille,” said Jean.
“No, monsieur,” replied Sartines, “I doubt if it would all be as simple as that. However, we will not consider the question of Camus’ marriage with this girl in any event. She is a fool.”
“Why?”
“Why? Because if the Devil had allowed her to care for Rochefort, and she had thrown in her part with him, it would have assisted to smooth matters with Choiseul. The Countess would have worked more earnestly for adémarche, and the Fontrailles would have kept Rochefort contented in Vincennes with a few notes sent to him there— Well, one cannot make up a woman’s mind for her and there is no use in trying. She is going to-night, I suppose, to this affair at Choiseul’s?”
“Oh, you may be sure. Camus will be there.”
The Vicomte went off and Sartines returned to his writing.
But this was to be an eventful morning with him. Five minutes had scarcely passed when the door burst open without knock or warning, and Beauregard, who by this ought to have been on the road to Vincennes, entered, flushed and breathing hard.
“Monsieur,” cried Beauregard, “Rochefort has escaped.”
“Escaped!Mordieu!When did he escape?”
“In the early hours of this morning or during the night. Here is Capitaine Pierre Cousin himself who has brought the story.”
“Show him in,” said Sartines.
SARTINES’ uneasiness about Rochefort had arisen from an intuitive knowledge of that gentleman’s character, and strange misdoubts as to how that character might develop under the double influence of Love and Prison.
As a matter of fact, no sooner had the excitement of his arrival at Vincennes passed off, no sooner had he dined that evening, cracked a bottle of Beaune, joked Bonvallot, and rubbed his hands at the discomfiture of Choiseul, than reaction took place accompanied by indigestion. He flung himself on the bed.
Monsieur de Rochefort was not made for a quiet life. If he could not be hunting or hawking he must be moving—moving on the pavements of Paris, talking, laughing, joking or quarrelling.
Here there was no one to laugh with, joke with, or quarrel with—nothing to walk on, except the floor of his cell. And it was now that he first became aware of a fact which he never knew before: that it was his habit to change about from room to room. He was one of those unfortunates who cannot endure to be long in one place. He never knew this till now.
It was now that he became aware for the first time of another fact unknown to him until this: that he wasa great talker. And of another fact, more general in its application, that to enjoy talking one must been rapportwith the person to whom one is talking.
This latter fact was borne in upon him by the voice of Ferminard.
Ferminard, who had also finished his dinner, seemed now in a sprightly mood, to judge by the voice that came to Rochefort, a voice which came literally from under his bed.
“Monsieur de Rochefort,” said the voice, “are you there, Monsieur de Rochefort?”
“Oh,mon Dieu!” cried Rochefort, who had started on his elbow at this sudden interruption of his thoughts. “Am I here? Where else would I be? Yes, I am here—what do you wish?”
“Ma foi!nothing but a little quiet conversation.” Rochefort laughed.
“A little quiet conversation—why, your voice comes to me like the voice of a dog grumbling under my bed. How can one converse under such circumstances? But go on, talk as much as you please, I have nothing to do but listen.”
“Well, Monsieur de Rochefort, you are not encouraging, but I will do my best; it is better to talk to a bad listener than to talk to no one, and it is better to talk to no one than not to talk at all. Let us talk, then, of Monsieur Rousseau’s absurd comedy with music attached to it, which at the instigation of M. de Coigny he produced at Versailles.”
“Good heavens, no! What do you take me for—a music-master? If you cannot talk on reasonable subjects, then be dumb. Let me talk of getting out of this infernal castle of Vincennes, which, it seems to me,I was a fool to have entered. Have you that big sou upon you, M. Ferminard?”
“Yes, M. de Rochefort, it is in my pocket.”
“Well, then, if you wish to be agreeable to me, pass it through the hole to me. I wish to examine it. It, at all events, will speak to me of liberty.”
“Monsieur,” said Ferminard, “if my pockets were full of louis, I would pass them to you for the asking. But the big sou—no.”
“And why not, may I ask?”
“Because, monsieur, it would, as you say, talk to you of liberty, and it might even tempt you to try and make your escape.”
“And why should I not make my escape?”
“For two reasons, monsieur. First, you have forgotten that you are hiding from M. de Choiseul.”
“Curse Choiseul!”
“I agree, yet still you are hiding from him. Secondly——”
“Well?”
“Secondly, monsieur, if you escaped, I would be left with no one to talk to.”
“Have you not Bonvallot?”
“Oh hé!Bonvallot. A man without parts, without understanding, without knowledge of the world! A nice man to leave me in company with!”
“But I do not intend leaving you in his company. I ask you only for the big sou that I may look at it and see what another man has done so that he might obtain his liberty. If you refuse to gratify my curiosity, M. Ferminard, I shall stuff up that hole with my blanket, and there will be an end of our pleasant conversations.”
“Well, M. de Rochefort, here it is, pull your bed out and I will put it in your hand.”
Rochefort arose and pulled his bed out and the hand of Ferminard came through the hole. Rochefort took the coin and approached the lamp with it.
It was indeed a marvel: in a moment he managed to unscrew the two surfaces and from the tiny box which they formed when in apposition leaped a little silvery saw, small as a watch-spring.
Rochefort, leaving the little saw on the table, refastened the box.
“Mordieu!” said he, “it is clever. What will you sell it to me for, Monsieur Ferminard?”
“You shall have it as a gift, M. Rochefort, when we are both breathing the free air of heaven, but only then.”
“You think I will use it to make my escape?”
“No, monsieur, I think you might use it to break your neck, or to be re-captured by this horrible Choiseul whose very name gives me the nightmare.”
“Well, you are wrong,” replied the other. “Were I outside this place I would not be re-captured, simply because I would do what I ought to have done this morning.”
“And what is that?”
“Go straight to his Majesty and tell him the whole of my story and ask him to be my judge—or better still, go straight to de Choiseul and talk to him as a man to a man.”
“To M. de Choiseul?”
“Why, yes. I should never have run away from him. Nor would I, only that on the night of the Presentation I was in a hurry to go to Paris; he tried to stop me and I resisted arrest. And now it seems to me that I am in a hurry to go to Paris again and that de Sartines istrying to stop me, and that I am prepared to resist his hand.”
He had almost forgotten Lavenne and his words, he had almost forgotten the presence of Ferminard on the other side of the wall, and he talked half to himself as he paced the floor uneasily, the big sou in his hand and his mind revolving this new idea that had only just occurred to him.
He should not have resisted arrest, even at the hands of Camus. Choiseul wanted him primarily for the killing of the agent. Had he gone straight to Choiseul and given him the whole truth, including Camus’ conduct in the case of Javotte, whom he could have called as a witness, Choiseul would he now imagined have released him after inquiry. But he had resisted arrest, not because he felt guilty, but because he wanted to go to Paris to meet Camille Fontrailles. Choiseul did not know that.
It seemed to Rochefort, as his thoughts wandered back, that Camille Fontrailles had been his evil star. She it was who had made him join with the Dubarrys, she it was who had made him run away from Choiseul, she it was who, refusing to see him, had put him in such a temper with the world that his mind, unable to think for itself, had allowed other men to think for it.
It seemed to him now that Lavenne’s advice, though it was the best that Lavenne could give, was not the best that Policy could devise. He—Rochefort—was saved from Choiseul for the moment; tucked away in Vincennes he might be saved from Choiseul as long as Choiseul remained in power—but how long would that be?
Choiseul might remain in power for years, and at this thought the sweat moistened M. de Rochefort’s hands, wetting the big sou which he still held, and which, like some magician, whilst talking of Liberty to him, had shown him, as in a vision, his foolishness and his false position.
Sartines had put him under “protection” at Vincennes, not for his—Rochefort’s—sake, but for his—Sartines’—convenience.
So many charming people in this world are wise after the event; it is chiefly the hard-headed and unpleasant and prosperous people whose wisdom, practical as themselves, saves them and makes them prosper. If Rochefort could only have gone back in his life; if he could only have carried his present wisdom back to the night of the Presentation, how differently things might have shaped themselves as regards his interests—or would he, in the face of everything, have pursued the path pointed out to him, as the old romance-writers would have said, “by Love and Folly”?
I believe he would, for M. de Rochefort had amongst his other qualities, good and bad, the persistence of a snail. Not only had Love urged him that night to strike Camus and escape on the horse of Choiseul’s messenger, but Persistence had lent its powerful backing to Love. This gentleman hated to break his word with himself, and, as a matter of fact, he never did. If he had promised himself to repent of his sins and lead a virtuous life, I believe he would have done so.
He was longing to promise himself now to escape from this infernal prison into which Folly had led him.
“Well, M. de Rochefort,” came the voice of Ferminard, “it is not for me to say whether you are right or wrong, but seeing that you are here, and safe under the protection of M. de Sartines, there is nothing to be done but have patience.”
“Mordieu, patience! To be told that always makes me angry. Monsieur Ferminard, if you use that word again to me I will stuff up that hole with my blanket.”
“Pardon,” said Ferminard. “The word escaped from me, and now, monsieur, if you have done with that big sou.”
“Here is your sou,” replied the other, replacing the coin in the hand of Ferminard that was thrust through the opening, “and now, M. Ferminard, I am going to sit down on my bed and try if sleep will not help me to forget M. de Sartines, M. de Choiseul, myself, and this infernal castle where stupidity has brought me.Bon soir.”
“Bon soir, monsieur,” replied Ferminard.
Rochefort blew out his candle, and having replaced the bed, flung himself upon it, but not to sleep. Camille Fontrailles it was who now haunted him. The rapid events of the day had pushed her image to one side, and now in the darkness it reappeared to torment him. His passion for her, born of a moment, was by no means dead, but it had received a serious blow. At the crucial moment of his life she had refused to see him; after all that he had done for her friends, after all he had sacrificed for her, she had refused to see him, and not only that, she had sent a cold message, and also, she had sent it by the mouth of that fat-lipped libertine, Jean Dubarry.
Jean Dubarry could talk to her through her bedroom door, whilst he, Rochefort, had to remain downstairs, like a servant waiting for a message.
Yes, he would escape, if for no other object than to pull Jean Dubarry’s nose. An intense hatred of the whole Dubarry faction surged up in his mind again. Jean, Chon, and the Countess, he did not know whichwas the more detestable. He rose from his bed. The moon, which was now near the full, was casting her light through the window, a ray fell on the little steel saw that was lying on the table. He picked it up and examined it again.
The window had only one bar, but the bar was fairly thick and it seemed impossible that he could ever cut through it with the instrument in his hand. Yet M. de Thumery had prepared to do so and would he be daunted by a business that an invalid had contemplated and would undoubtedly have carried out had not Death intervened?
He opened the sash of the window carefully and examined the bar. Then he brought his chair to the window, and, standing on the chair and holding either end of the saw between finger and thumb, drew its teeth against the iron of the bar.
It was one of those saws nicknamed “Dust of Iron,” so wonderfully tempered and so keen that, properly used, no iron bar could stand before them. After five minutes’ work Rochefort found that he could use the thing properly and with effect, and it seemed to him that with patience and diligence, working almost night and day, he could cut through the bar top and bottom—in about ten years’ time.
In fact, though five minutes’ work had produced a tiny furrow in the bar sufficient to be felt with his thumb-nail, the whole thing seemed hopeless. But only for a minute. He began to calculate. If five minutes’ labour made a perceptible furrow in the iron of the bar, fifty minutes would give him ten times that result, and a hundred minutes twenty times. Two hours’ labour, then, ought to start him well on his way through the business.
But even with this calculation fresh in his mind, his heart quailed before the thought of what he would have to do and to suffer before the last cut of the saw and the crowning of his efforts.
It was a life’s work compressed into days. The labours of a Titan condensed and diminished, but not in the least lightened, and his heart quailed at the thought, not because he was a coward, but because he knew that if he once took the job in hand he would go through with it to the end.
He came from the window and putting the saw on the table, lay down on the bed. He lay for a few minutes without moving, like a man exhausted. Then all of a sudden, and as though some vital spring had been wound up and set going, he rose from the bed, snatched the saw from the table and approached the bar.
From the next cell he could hear a faint rhythmical sound. It was the sound of Ferminard snoring. Asleep and quite unconscious of the fact that his precious box which he had placed in his pocket after receiving it back, had been rifled of its contents.
NEXT morning, Rochefort awoke after five hours’ sleep to find the daylight streaming into his cell and Bonvallot opening his door to bring him the early morning coffee that was served out to prisoners of the first class.
He had worked for three hours with the saw, and in his dreams he had been still at work, cutting his way through iron bars in a quite satisfactory manner, only to find that they joined together again when cut.
“Here is your coffee,” said Bonvallot, “and a roll—déjeuneris served at noon—and the bed—have you found it comfortable?”
“Mordieu!Comfortable!” grumbled the prisoner, “it seems to me I have been sleeping on brickbats. Put the coffee on the table, Sergeant Bonvallot—that is right, and now tell me, has your Governor, M. le Capitaine Pierre Cousin, returned yet?”
“He has, monsieur.”
“And when may I expect to see him?”
“Ah, when—that I cannot tell you. Maybe to-morrow, maybe the next day, maybe the day after, there are no fixed rules for the visits of the governor through the castle of Vincennes.”
“Maybe to-morrow, maybe the next day—but I wish to see him to-day.”
“Monsieur, that is what the prisoners are always saying. If the governor were to obey the requests of everyone he would be run off his legs.”
“I do not wish to run him off his legs. I simply wish to see him.”
“And what does monsieur wish to see him about?”
“Ma foi!what about, that is a secret. I wish to have a private talk with him.”
“A private talk, why that is in any event impossible.”
“Impossible, how do you mean?”
“When the governor visits the prisoners, monsieur, he is always accompanied by a soldier who remains in the room. That is one of the rules of Vincennes.”
“Confound your rules—There, you can leave me, I am going to get up—and do not forget the writing materials when you come next. I will write the governor a letter—or will some soldier have to read it over his shoulder?”
Bonvallot went out grinning. Rochefort had paid him well for the clean linen and other attentions and he hoped for better payment still.
Then Rochefort got up, still grumbling. The labours of the night before at the bar, and his dreams in which those labours were continued, had not improved his temper. He drank his coffee and ate his roll and then turned to the window to see by daylight what progress he had made with the saw. He was more than satisfied; quite elated also to find that the top part of the bar, just where it entered the stone, had become spindled by rust. Were he to succeed in cutting through the lower part a vigorous wrench would, he felt assured, bring the whole thing away.
He took the little saw from the place where he hadhidden it the night before, and, inspired with new energy, set to work.
He felt no fear of being caught; the size of the saw made it easily hidden, the cut in the bar would only be seen were a person to make a close inspection. The noise of the saw was negligible.
Whilst he was so engaged, Ferminard’s voice broke in upon his labours.
“Good-morning, M. de Rochefort.”
“Good-morning, M. Ferminard—what is it you want?”
“Only a little conversation, monsieur.”
“Well, that is impossible as I am busy.”
“Oh hé, busy! and what are you busy about?”
“I? I am writing letters.”
“Pardon,” said Ferminard. “I will call on you again.”
As he laboured, pausing every five minutes for five minutes’ rest, a necessity due to the cramped position in which he had to work, he heard vague sounds from Ferminard’s cell, where that individual was also, it would seem, at work.
One might have fancied that two or three people were in there laughing and disputing and now quarrelling.
It was Ferminard at work on one of his infernal productions, tragedy or comedy, it would be impossible to say, but making more noise in the close confines of a prison cell than it was ever likely to make in the world.
Afterdéjeuner, when Rochefort, tired out, was lying on his bed, the voice of Ferminard again made itself heard.
“M. de Rochefort—are you inclined for a little talk?”
“No,” replied M. de Rochefort. “But you may talk as much as you like and I will promise not to interrupt—for I am going to sleep.”
“Well, before you go to sleep let me tell you of my new design.”
“Speak.”
“I have torn up the play I was writing.”
“Why, M. Ferminard, have you done that?”
“In order to write a better one.”
“Ah, that is decidedly a good idea.”
“A drama full of action.”
“Hum-hum.”
“M. de Rochefort, you are not listening to me.”
“Eh—what! Where am I—ah, yes, go on, go on—you were saying that you had torn up a play.”
“In order to write a better one, and I am introducing you as one of my characters.”
“You are putting me in your play?”
“Yes, monsieur, I am putting you in my play.”
“Well, M. Ferminard, I forbid it, that’s all. I will not be put in a play.”
“But I am putting myself in also, monsieur.”
“Bon Dieu!what impudence!”
“It is not impudence, but gratitude, monsieur. I will not hide it from you that, despite what brains I have, I am of small extraction; one of therafataille, as they say in the south. But you have always talked to me as your equal; and if I have put myself in the same piece as you it is only as your servant, imprisoned in the next cell to you in the dungeons of the castle of Pompadiglione.”
“And where the devil is Pompadiglione?”
“It is the name of the castle in my play. Well, monsieur, the first scene is just as it is here, now. The count and his servant, imprisoned just as we are in adjoining cells, with a hole in the partition wall through which they can speak to one another, and the servant has discovered a knotted rope, a big sou and a staple just as I have discovered them. Well, monsieur, the count is to be beheaded, and his execution is fixed for the next day, but the faithful servant hands him through the hole in the wall the means for escape, the rope, the big sou containing a saw, and the staple. The count escapes that night.”
“One moment, M. Ferminard, you say he escaped that night?”
“Yes, monsieur.”
“How did he escape?”
“He escaped by cutting away the bar of his cell with the little saw contained in the sou.”
“Oh. And do you fancy he could do that in one night?”
“Not in reality, monsieur, but on the stage he could.”
“Ah, well, I know nothing of these things—well, he escapes, this count—what then?”
“Next morning his escape is discovered and the faithful servant—that is me—refuses to give any explanation, though the hole in the wall has been discovered—he is dumb.”
“Dumb—good heavens, M. Ferminard—that part would never suit you.”
“Pardon me, monsieur, but I believe it would—well, as I was saying, the count, who had indeed escaped by means of the rope from his cell, had not managed to escape from the precincts of the castle. The rope was not long enough and he had to take refuge on a ledgewhere he is shown in the next scene crouching and watching the faithful servant being led forth to execution in his place.”
“Well?”
“That is as far as I have got, monsieur.”
“Oh, you have not fixed on the end of your play yet?”
“No, monsieur.”
“But surely, M. Ferminard, the end is the most important thing in a play?”
Ferminard coughed, irritated, as all geniuses are by criticism.
“Why,” said he, “I thought monsieur said he could not tell a play from a washing-bill.”
“Perhaps, yet even in a washing-bill, M. Ferminard, the end is the most important part, since it sums up the whole matter in francs and sous. But do not let me discourage you, for should you fail to find a good ending I will be able to supply you with one. An idea has occurred to me.”
“And what is that idea, monsieur?”
“I have, yet, to think it out. However, go on with your business in your own way and we will talk of the matter when you have finished. I wish now to sleep.”
He felt irritated with Ferminard. Ferminard was the man who possessed the rope which was the only means of escape, and Ferminard, he felt, would refuse the rope to him, just as he had refused the big sou. By using arguments, threats, or entreaties he might be able to make Ferminard give him the rope, but he was not the man to threaten, entreat, or argue with an inferior. Besides, he was too lazy. The cutting of the window-bar was absorbing all his energies.
Besides, why waste time and tongue-power to obtaina thing that could be obtained when desired by a little finesse. When the time came he would obtain the rope from Ferminard just as he had obtained the saw which Ferminard fancied still to be contained in the sou. Rochefort, whilst feeling friendly towards the dramatist, had very little respect for him; he might be a good actor, but it was evident that he was very much of a child. Besides, he was—as he himself confessed—one of therafataille, a man of the people, and though M. de Rochefort was not in the least a snob, he looked upon the people from the viewpoint of his class. He was not in the least ashamed of the deception he had practiced on Ferminard. The little saw did not belong to Ferminard, he had found it by chance, and it was the property of the dead M. Thumery, or his heirs.
THE next day passed without a visit from the governor, and the next. Rochefort ceased to ask about him; he resented this neglect, now, as a personal insult. He forgot that he was incarcerated under the name of La Porte, and that any neglect of M. La Porte, though unpleasant to M. de Rochefort, need not be taken as a personal affront.
He would have resented the thing more had it not been that he was very busy.
On the afternoon of the fourth day his work was complete. The bar was not quite divided, but sufficiently so to yield to a strong wrench. With his table-knife, which he had been allowed to keep, he had scraped away the rust where the upper part of the bar was mortised into the stone and had verified the weakness of this part of the attachment.
He had fixed upon midnight as the hour for his evasion, and nothing remained now but to obtain the rope from the unsuspecting Ferminard.
The latter had also not been idle during the last four days. Happy as a child with a toy, the ingenious Ferminard had not noticed the faint sound of the saw in the next cell. If it reached him at all at times, he no doubt put it down to the noise of a rat.
Never before in his life had he possessed so much paper, ink, and time to write in. Up to this his leisure had been mostly consumed by taverns, good companions, women, and the necessity of getting drunk which his unfortunate temperament imposed on him. Also, in hunting for loans. Now he found himself housed, fed, and cared for, protected from drink and supplied with all the materials his imagination required for the moment. So, for the moment, he was happy and busy, and his happiness would have been more complete had Rochefort been a better listener.
Towards dusk, Rochefort considered that the time had come to negotiate the business of the rope with M. Ferminard. Accordingly, he drew the bed away from the wall, and, kneeling down, approached his head to the opening.
“Monsieur Ferminard.”
“Ho! M. de Rochefort, is that you?”
“Yes, it is I—let us talk for awhile.”
“With pleasure, monsieur.”
He heard Ferminard’s bed being moved away from the wall. Then came the dramatist’s voice.
“I am here, monsieur. I was asleep when you called me and I was dreaming that I was at the Maison Gambrinus drinking some Flemish beer that Turgis had just imported, and that there was a hole in the bottom of my mug, so that as fast as I drank so fast did the beer run out. I got nothing but froth, and even that froth had a taste of soap-suds. Now tell me one thing, M. de Rochefort.”
“Yes?”
“Why is it that when one dreams, one’s dreams are always so unsatisfactory? Whenever I meet a pretty girl in dreamland, she always turns into an old womanwhen I kiss her, and whenever I find myself in good company, I am either dressed in rags, or, what is worse, not dressed at all. If I go to collect money I always enter by mistake the house of some man to whom I owe a debt, and if I find myself on the stage I am always acting some part, the lines of which I have forgotten.”
“The whole world is unsatisfactory, M. Ferminard, and as dreamland is part of the world, why, I suppose it is unsatisfactory too. Now as to that play of yours whose ending you insisted on describing to me this morning, that is like dreamland and the world—unsatisfactory. The ending does not satisfy me in the least.”
“In what way?”
“I have thought of a better.”
“Oh, you have. Well, please explain to me what you mean.”
“I will, certainly. But first let me see that rope which you told me you had discovered, and the discovery of which gave you the idea for this play of yours.”
“The rope, but what can you want with the rope?”
“I will show you when it is in my hands, or at least I will explain my meaning; come, M. Ferminard, the rope, for without it I cannot show you what I want.”
“Wait, monsieur, and I will get it.”
In a moment one end of the precious rope was in Rochefort’s hands. He pulled it through into his cell, noted the length, the thickness and the knots upon it, and was satisfied.
“Well, monsieur?” said the impatient Ferminard.
“Well, M. Ferminard, now I have the rope in my hands I will tell you exactly how your play is going toend, in reality. The count—that is myself, for since you have put me into your play I feel myself justified in acting in it—the count is going to pull his bed to the window of his cell, tie this precious rope to the bedpost, and, crawling out of the window and dangling like a spider, he is going to descend to the ground. He will not remain stuck on a ledge, as in your version of the play, he will reach the ground—then he will pick up his heels and run to Paris, and there he will pull M. de Choiseul’s nose—or make friends with him.”
“But you cannot,” replied Ferminard, not knowing exactly how to take the other.
“And why cannot I?”
“Because, monsieur, the bar of your window would permit you, perhaps, to lower your rope, but it would prevent you from following it.”
“No, M. Ferminard, it would not.”
“Ah, well, then, it must be a most accommodating bar and have altered considerably in strength since you spoke to me of it first.”
“It has.”
“In what way?”
“Why, it has been filed almost in two.”
“Ah,” cried Ferminard, “what is that you say? Filed in two—and since when?”
“Since we had our first talk together.”
“You have cut it then—with what?”
“Heavens! can’t you guess?”
“Your table-knife.”
“Oaf!”
“You had, then, a knife, or file, or saw or something with you.”
“M. Ferminard, prison does not seem to improveyour intelligence. I cut it with the little saw contained in the big sou.”
“But that is impossible, for you had not the sou two minutes in your possession.”
Rochefort laughed. “Open your sou, then, and see what is in it.”
Leaning on his elbow, he laughed to himself as he heard Ferminard moving so as to get the sou from his pocket to open it.
Then he heard the voice of Ferminard who was speaking to himself. “It is gone—he must have taken it—never!—yet it is gone.”
The astonishment evident in Ferminard’s voice at the trick that had been played on him acted upon Rochefort just as the sudden stripping of the bedclothes from a person asleep acts on the sleeper.
It was not stupidity on the part of Ferminard that had prevented him from guessing with what instrument the bar had been cut, it was his complete belief in Rochefort’s honour. His mind, of its own accord, could not imagine the Comte de Rochefort playing him a trick like that, and his voice now betrayed what was passing in his mind.
Had Ferminard been a suspicious man, and had he discovered the abstraction of the saw on his own account, anything he might have said would not have shown Rochefort what he saw now.
He felt as though, by some horrible accident, he had shot and injured his own good faith, fair name and honour.
“Mon Dieu!” said he. “What have I done!”
FOR a moment he said nothing more. And then: “M. Ferminard?”
“Yes, M. de Rochefort?”
“I have been a very great fool, it seems to me, for I did not in the least consider the fact, when I played that deception upon you, that it was an unworthy one. You believed in me. You had formed an opinion of me. You paid me the compliment of never imagining that I would deceive you. Well, honestly and as between man and man, I looked on the matter more in the light of a joke. I said to myself, ‘How he will stare when he finds I have outwitted him.’ It was the trick of a child, for it seems to me one grows childish in prison. Give me that big sou, M. Ferminard.”
Ferminard passed the coin through the hole and Rochefort, rising, opened it, put the little saw in, closed it, and returned it to the other.
“And here is the rope,” said he. “I have no more use for it.”
“But, monsieur,” said Ferminard. He paused, and for a moment said nothing more. Ferminard was, in fact, covered with confusion. Rochefort’s unworthy trick had struck him on the cheek, so to say, and left it burning. He felt ashamed. Ashamed of Rochefortfor playing the trick and ashamed of himself for having found it out, and ashamed of Rochefort knowing that he—Ferminard—thought less of him. Then, breaking silence:
“It is nothing, M. de Rochefort. If you are tired of prison why should you remain? It is true that there may be danger for you from M. de Choiseul, but one does nothing without danger threatening one in this world, it seems to me. Why, even walking across the street one may be run over by a carriage, as a friend of mine was some time ago.”
“My good Ferminard,” said Rochefort, dropping for the first time the prefix “monsieur,” “you are talking for the sake of talking, and for the kind reason that you wish to hide from yourself and me what you are thinking. And you are thinking that the Comte de Rochefort is a man whom you trusted, but whom you do not trust any longer.”
“Monsieur—monsieur!”
“Let me finish. If that is not what you are thinking you must be a fool, and as you are not a fool that is what is in your mind. Well, you are right and wrong. I do not know my own character entirely, but I do know that when I stop to think I am sometimes at a loss to imagine why I have committed certain actions; some of these actions that startle me are good, and some are bad; but they are not committed by the Comte de Rochefort so much as by something that urges the Comte de Rochefort to commit them. I fancy that some men always think before they act, and other men frequently act before they think, but I do know this, that once I am propelled on a course of action I don’t stop to think at all till the business is over one way or another.
“Now, when I took that saw of yours, I said to myself, ‘Here is a joke I will play on M. Ferminard. What a temper he will be in when he finds that I have outwitted him. He wishes to prevent my escape so that he may not be left in loneliness? We will see.’ Well, M. Ferminard, embarked on that course of action, I never stopped to think that all the time I was cutting that bar I was violating your trust in me. When I found that you did not open the sou to examine whether its contents were safe, I should have paused to take counsel with myself and inquire if liberty were worth the deception of a good and honest mind which placed its faith in me. But I did not pause to take counsel with myself, and for two reasons. First, as I said before, I never stop to think when I am in action; secondly, I am so unused to meeting with good and honest minds that I did not suspect one was in the next cell to me. It is true, M. Ferminard. The men with whom I have always lived have been men very much like myself. Men who do not think much, and who, when they do think, are full of suspicion as a rule. We are robbed by our servants, our wives, and our mistresses. We cheat each other, not at cards, but with phrases and at the game of Love, and so forth. You said you were of small extraction and one of therafataille—well, it is among therafataille, among the People, during the last few days that I have met three individuals who have struck me as being the only worthy individuals it has been my lot to meet. They are yourself, Monsieur Lavenne, and little Javotte, a girl whom you do not know.”
“Believe me, monsieur,” said Ferminard, “I have no unworthy thought concerning you. At first, yes, but now after what you have said, no. I am like thatmyself, and had I been in your place, I would, I am very sure, have done as you did.”
“Perhaps,” replied Rochefort. “But I cannot use the rope, so here it is and I will leave my release from prison to God and M. de Sartines.”
He began to push the rope through the hole. It would not go. Ferminard was pushing it back.
“No, M. de Rochefort—one moment till I speak—I have been blinded to my best interests by my desire to keep you as a companion. You must escape, you must do as Fate dictated to you, and to me, when she gave us the fruits of the labours of M. de Thumery. Honestly, now that I think of the matter, I do not trust M. de Sartines a whit. He put us here to keep us out of the way. Well, it seems to me that considering what we have done and what we know, it may be in his interest to keep us here always. Take the rope, M. de Rochefort, use it, follow the dictates of Fate, and don’t forget Ferminard. You will be able to free me, perhaps, once you have gained freedom and the pardon of M. de Choiseul.”
Rochefort said nothing for a moment. He was thinking.
“M. de Rochefort,” went on the other, “the more I consider this matter, the more do I see the pointing of Fate. Take the rope and use it.”
“Very well, then,” said Rochefort. “I will use it for your freedom as well as mine. We will both escape.”
“Impossible. How can I come through this hole?”
“I will find a means. It is now ten o’clock, or at least I heard the chime a moment ago when I was talking to you. Be prepared to leave your cell. Can you climb down a rope?”
“Yes, monsieur, I have done so once in my early days.”
“Well, be prepared to do so again.”
“But I do not see your meaning in the least.”
“Never mind, you will soon.”
“You frighten me.”
“By my faith,” said Rochefort, laughing, “I am not easily frightened, but if I were, I believe I should be frightened now. Put back your bed, M. Ferminard, and when Bonvallot visits you on his last round pretend to be asleep.”
“VERY well, M. de Rochefort,” replied Ferminard. “I will do as you tell me, though as I have just said, I do not know your meaning in the least.”
Rochefort heard him putting his bed back in its place. Then he set about his preparations. He placed the rope under the mattress of his own bed, and stripping the coverlet off, took the upper sheet away. Having replaced the coverlet, he began tearing the sheet into long strips. The sheet was about four feet broad and it gave him eight strips, each about six inches broad by five feet in length. Four of these he placed under the coverlet of his bed just as he had placed the rope under the mattress, the other four he put in his pockets.
Then he sat down on his chair, and, placing his elbows on the table and his chin between his hands, began to review his plans, or rather the new modification of them which the inclusion of Ferminard in his flight necessitated.
When Bonvallot appeared at his door on his last round of inspection, Rochefort was seated like this.
“Ah, ha!” said he, turning his head, “you are earlier to-night, it seems to me.”
“No, monsieur,” replied Bonvallot, “I am not beforemy time, for the clock of the courtyard has struck eleven.”
“Indeed. I did not hear it. Sound does not carry very well among these stone walls, and though the courtyard clock is close to this cell, and though it doesn’t whisper over its work, the sound is scarcely perceptible. A man might shout in my cell, Monsieur Bonvallot, without being heard very far.”
“My faith, you are right,” said Bonvallot. “We had a lunatic of a prisoner in No. 32 down the corridor, and it seemed to me that he spent all his time shouting, but he disturbed no one. Our inn is well constructed, you see, monsieur, so that the guests may have a quiet time.”
Rochefort rose from his chair, walked to the door, shut it, and put his back against it.
“Hi,” said Bonvallot, who had been bending to see if the water-pitcher were empty. “What are you doing, monsieur?”
“Nothing. I wish to have a word with you. I am leaving your inn to-night and wish to settle my bill. Do not shout, you will not be heard, and if you move from the place where you are standing——”
Bonvallot, who had grown pale at the first words, suddenly, with head down and arms outstretched, made a dash at Rochefort. The Count, slipping aside, managed to trip him up, and next moment the gallant Bonvallot was on the floor, half-stunned, bleeding from a wound on his forehead, and with Rochefort kneeling across him, a knee on each arm so as to keep him still.
“Now see what you have done,” said the victor. “You might have killed yourself. The wound is nothing, however, and you can charge for it in the bill.”
Bonvallot heaved a few inches as though trying to rise, then lay still.
“There is no use in resisting,” went on the Count, “you have no chance against me, Monsieur Bonvallot, nor have I any wish to harm you. Besides, you will be well paid by me and that wound on your forehead will prove that you did your duty like a man. Now turn on your face, I wish to tie your hands for appearance’s sake.”
Bonvallot in turning made an attempt to break loose and rise, but the Count’s science was too much for him. Literally sitting on his back, or rather on his shoulder-blades, Rochefort, with a strip of the sheet which he took from his pocket, tied the captive’s wrists together. Then he tied the ankles.
“Monsieur,” said Bonvallot, craning his face round, “I make no further resistance, but for the love of the Virgin, bind my knees together and also gag me so that it may be seen that I did my duty.”
“Rest assured,” said Rochefort.
He bound the unfortunate’s knees and elbows, made a gag out of a handkerchief and put it in his mouth. Then, taking ten louis from his pocket, he showed them to the trussed one, and dropped them one by one into the water-pitcher.
Then he took Bonvallot’s keys, left the cell, opened the door of Ferminard’s prison and found that gentleman seated on his bed, a vague figure in the light of the moon, a few stray beams of which were struggling through the window.
“Mordieu!” said Ferminard, “what has happened?”
Rochefort, instead of replying, seized him by the arm, and half pushing, half pulling him, led him into the corridor.
“Now,” said he, “quick; we have no time to waste, I have tied up Bonvallot; but when he does not return to the guard-room they are sure to search. There he is. He is not hurt. Come, help me to pull the bed to the window.”
Ferminard, after a glance at Bonvallot lying on the floor, obeyed mechanically. They got the bed close up with the head-rail under the window. Rochefort tied the rope to the head-rail, and, standing on the bed and opening the sash, seized the bar. It came away in his hands, and then, flinging it on the bed, he seized the rope which he had coiled and flung it out.
This done, he leaned out of the window-place and looked down.
The moonlight lit the castle wall and the dangling rope and showed the black shadow of the moat, a terrific sight that made Rochefort’s stomach crawl and his throat close. This was no castle wall which he had to descend. It was like looking over the cliff at the world’s end or one of those terrific bastions of cloud which one sees sometimes banking the sky before a storm. The moonlight it was that lent this touch of vastness to the prospect below, a prospect that made the sweat stand out on the palms of Rochefort’s hands and his soul to contract on itself.
It was a prospect to be met by the unthinking end of man if one wished for any chance of success, so with a warning to Ferminard not to look before he came, and having wedged two pillows under the rope where it rested on the sill, Rochefort got one leg over the sill, straddled it, got the other leg out and then turned on his face. He was now lying on his stomach across the pillow that was forming a pad for the rope, and as bad luck would have it, a knot in the rope just at this pointdid not make the position any more comfortable. Then he slowly worked his body downwards till he was supported only by his elbows; supporting himself entirely with his left elbow, he seized with his right hand the rope where it rested on the cushion, gave up his elbow hold and with his left hand seized the sill.
He was hanging now with one hand grasping the sill, the other, the rope. The sill was no longer a window-sill, it was the tangible world, to release his hold upon it and to trust entirely to the rope required an effort of will far greater than one would think, so great that even the plucky mind of Rochefort refused the idea for a moment, but only for a moment, the next he was swinging loose.
But for the pad made by the pillow, the rope would have rested so close to the bevelled stone that he might not have been able to seize it. As it was, his knuckles were bruised and cut, and, as he swung in descending, now his shoulder, now his knee came in contact with the wall. As the pendulum lengthened, these oscillations became terrific. Then, all at once he recognized that the business was over; he was only fifteen feet or so from the ground.
The rope was some six feet short, and at the last few feet he dropped, landed safely and then looked up at the wall and the window from which he had come.
Looking up it seemed nothing, and as he stood watching, and just as the clock of Vincennes was chiming the quarter after eleven, he saw a leg protrude from the window, then the body of Ferminard appeared, and Rochefort held his breath as he watched the legs clutching themselves round the rope and the body swinging free. He seized the rope-end and held it to steady it. He had no reason at all, now, to fear; Ferminardseemed as cool and methodical as a spider in his movements, came down as calmly as a spider comes down its thread, released his hold at the proper moment and landed safely.
“Mordieu!but you did that easily,” whispered Rochefort, filled with admiration and not knowing that Ferminard’s courage was due mainly to an imagination that was not very keen and a head that vertigo did not easily affect. “Now let us keep to the shadow of the moat for a moment till that cloud comes over the moon. There are sentries on the battlements.”
“Monsieur,” whispered Ferminard, “it just occurred to me as I was coming down the rope that when our flight is discovered, they may hunt along the roads for us, but they will not warn the gates of Paris to be on the look-out for us, simply because, were we caught, some of M. de Choiseul’s agents might be at the catching, there would be talk, and the discovery might be made that we had been imprisoned secretly to keep us out of M. de Choiseul’s way.”
“Ma foi!” said Rochefort, “there is truth in that—however, it remains to be seen. Ah, here comes the shadow.”
A cloud was slowly drawing across the moon’s face, and in the deep shadow that swept across castle and road and country, the two fugitives scrambled from the moat, found the road and started towards Paris.