Читать книгу At Odds with the Regent - Burton Egbert Stevenson - Страница 7

Table of Contents

The troop of guards continued onward at a rapid pace, separating me from Richelieu, so that I had no opportunity of exchanging a word with him. In a few moments the threatening and gloomy walls of the Bastille loomed ahead, towering over the Porte St. Antoine, and we drew up at the outer gate. The lieutenant exchanged a word with the sentry there, and after a moment the gates creaked back and we entered. I looked about me curiously, for this was the first time I had ever seen the interior of the most famous prison in France, though I had spent an entire afternoon looking at it from the other side of the ditch.

We were in a long court, closed in by lofty walls, the prison itself forming one side. We turned to the right, past some houses built against the outer wall, which I decided were stables, and then the word was given to dismount. Half a dozen guards surrounded us, a bell rang somewhere, and in a moment a man in uniform hurried towards us,—a little, dry man, with tight-shut lips, and eyes whose glance was like a poniard-thrust.

“M. de Maison-Rouge,” said the lieutenant, saluting with great respect, “I have here two prisoners, whom the regent confides to your keeping with instructions to guard them well.”

“The instructions were unnecessary, monsieur,” replied the new-comer, shortly. “No one who enters here ever leaves until it is permitted. Who are the prisoners?”

“Ah, M. de Maison-Rouge,” cried Richelieu, gayly, “I trust you have not forgotten me so speedily?”

The lieutenant-governor of the great prison glanced at the speaker quickly, but his face remained impenetrable, and if he experienced any surprise, he certainly did not show it.

“No, I have not forgotten you, M. le Duc,” he said, quietly. “And the other?”

“Is my friend, Jean de Brancas,” answered Richelieu; and added, smilingly, “It is, I believe, the first time he has had the pleasure of meeting you.”

Maison-Rouge glanced at me coldly. I bowed, but I fear my face betrayed the fact that I considered the meeting anything but a pleasure.

“Very well,” he said. “Wait a moment, lieutenant, and I will send you a receipt for the prisoners. Follow me, messieurs,” he added to us, and led the way to one of the buildings against the outer wall, which proved to be his office. A sentry at the door saluted as we passed. A receipt was written and given to him.

“Now, gentlemen,” said Maison-Rouge, as the door closed, “I must be assured that you carry no weapons or means of escape into the Bastille with you. Give me your word of honor to that effect and I will omit the formality of search.”

“That is most courteous, monsieur,” cried Richelieu. “I give you my word of honor gladly.”

“And I also,” I said. “My sword was my only weapon.”

“That is well,” and Maison-Rouge opened the door. “Follow me, then.”

Midway of the court a drawbridge grated down to let us pass and creakingly rose behind us. Turning again to the right, we were conducted along a still narrower court to a second gate, and passing through this, paused before a second drawbridge, which was also lowered to permit our passage. Still another gate was opened and clanged shut after us, and we were in the great interior court. The afternoon sun illumined it as brightly as it was ever illumined, and I perceived two or three melancholy personages walking slowly up and down, each in charge of a sentry, who followed closely with loaded musket and permitted no word to be exchanged. Three lofty towers flanked the court on either side. They were fully a hundred feet in height, as were the walls between them, and the court itself was near a hundred feet long, by perhaps seventy in width. We were led straight on across another drawbridge into a second court, much smaller than the first, and which resembled nothing so much as a gigantic well. As I afterwards found out, it was, indeed, called the well court.

“I trust I may have my old room, monsieur,” observed Richelieu, as we entered this forbidding place, which made my heart sink within me.

“I see nothing against it,” answered Maison-Rouge. “The Tower du Puits is certainly strong enough to hold even the Duc de Richelieu.”

“That has been proved,” laughed the duke, “since it has already held me for more than a year. I had no reason to complain of your hospitality, monsieur.”

The governor smiled grimly, but said nothing. I wondered how my companion could laugh so lightly in this horrible place.

“And you are not even curious to know what brought me here again?” he continued, in the same tone.

“Some act of folly, I do not doubt,” said Maison-Rouge, his face clearing a little. “You will never learn discretion.”

“Ah, but this is far less serious,” cried Richelieu. “Before, I offended the prudery of Madame de Maintenon, who was trying to turn Louis into a monk and the court into a priory. This time I have merely killed one of the regent’s friends. The regent is a man, and will soon forgive.”

“I trust so,” and Maison-Rouge glanced at him with the shadow of a smile. “I have no reason to wish you ill, M. le Duc.” Evidently, the winning good humor of my companion had touched even this enfortressed heart.

There was a tower at either corner of the inner court, and it was towards the one at the right that we were led. A door with double bolts barred the bottom of the staircase. The governor threw them back, opened the door, and motioned us before him. I heard the regular step of a sentry in the corridor above, and we passed him at the first landing. He paused to glance at us inquiringly, and then continued his round. At the third landing, Maison-Rouge stopped before a heavy iron door, threw back the bolts and pulled it open. Another inner door was revealed, similarly bolted. This he also opened and held back.

“Ah, I am familiar with this room,” said Richelieu, smiling as he passed into it. I started to follow him, but Maison-Rouge motioned me back.

“What! you would separate me from my friend?” cried Richelieu.

“I regret that it is necessary, monsieur,” said the governor; “but it is the rule, as you should know. He shall lodge in the calotte above you.”

As he spoke I fancied I caught a flash of triumph in Richelieu’s eye, but he made no sign.

“Good-by, then, my friend,” he said, and turned away towards the double-barred window. The doors were clanged shut, the bolts thrown, and I was motioned to mount to the floor above. I did so with a heavy heart. With Richelieu I had some hope, but without him I felt hope to be fruitless. Presently we paused before another door, double-bolted like that on the floor below. Behind it, also, there was an inner door. It was opened, I entered, and heard the bolts shot into place. As I looked back at it I saw that in both doors, near the top there was a narrow orifice through which the sentry in the hall could inspect the cells as he passed and hear what was going on in them.

The calotte was well named, for it was a skullcap indeed. In the centre there was room to stand upright, but the roof sloped on either hand until at the walls it was scarce two feet from the floor. A bench, a chair, and a rickety stove clamped to the wall comprised the furniture.

I threw myself upon the bench, when a sudden thought brought me to my feet as by a spring. For this was the night upon which Richelieu was to meet Mlle. de Valois. That he should fail to do so would be monstrous. Escape, then, was necessary,—escape, not to-morrow or next week, but at once, to-day, within six or eight hours at the uttermost. I groaned aloud. How to escape from this infernal hole? I sprang to the window and tried the bars. They were cemented fast into the masonry. The strength of the door I already knew, and I ran over in my mind the barred gates and raised drawbridges we must pass before we should be without the walls. I gazed out through the bars at the broad country, bright under the rays of the sun, and cursed the chance that had thrown us here, upon this day of all days. I heard the regular step of the sentry in the corridor, as much a prisoner as ourselves until the watch was changed. It came nearer, paused before my door, and then retreated. All was still.

Suddenly I heard a faint tapping as of some one endeavoring to signal me. I looked around trying to locate the sound. I approached the corner from which it seemed to come. It grew louder. I dropped to my knees and crawled yet nearer the wall.

“De Brancas,” I heard a voice call, seemingly a great way off. “De Brancas, are you there?”

“Yes, yes,” I panted. “But where are you, monsieur?” for I could not believe that a human voice could penetrate these walls of stone.

“In the cell below yours, as you know,” replied the voice. “Do you know we must escape to-night?”

“Yes, yes,” I answered again, still more astonished that I could hear his voice so clearly. “The tryst at the dryad fountain.”

“You are a jewel, de Brancas!” cried the duke. “Yes, we must escape and at once. There is no time to lose.”

“But to escape,” I said, “it is necessary to pass through seven barred gates and across three raised drawbridges. That is no easy thing. Have you a plan, monsieur?”

“A plan? No. But let me come to you and we will find a plan.”

“Let you come to me?” I cried, in amazement. “Gladly, but how?”

I could hear him laughing to himself.

“Did you think that I spent a year of my life here for nothing?” he asked. “The slab at the corner of your cell is loose and can easily be raised.”

I was panting with excitement. So this was how his voice could reach me!

“A moment!” I cried, and my fingers groped for the loosened slab. It was soon found, but how to raise it was a question, for I could get no hold of it. In an instant I had torn the buckle from my shoe and inserted its edge into the crack. I pried the stone up, but a dozen times it slipped back before I could arrest it. Finally I raised it half an inch, grasped the edge with desperate fingers, and with an effort which made my muscles crack tilted it up. I looked into the hole, but could see nothing.

“The slab is out, monsieur,” I called.

“Good,” said Richelieu, and then there was an instant’s pause. “Now,” he went on, at last, “as I raise this other stone do you slide it back out of the way.”

In a moment it was done, and I found myself looking down into his eyes, so near they almost startled me, for he had placed his chair upon his bench and was standing on it.

“The guard will be back,” he said. “Bring your bench to the corner and lie down upon it.”

I did as he directed, and saw that he had jumped down from his chair and was walking carelessly about his cell. Again the sentry reached the door, paused an instant to glance within, and then went on his round.

Richelieu was back upon his chair in an instant.

“Now,” he said, “I can pay you a ten minutes’ visit. I know the routine of this place,” and he held out his hands to me. I reached down, grasped them, and he scrambled lightly up beside me.

I began to think that, after all, escape might not be such a difficult thing. What other secrets of the prison might he not possess?

“’Tis not the first time I have made that trip,” and he laughed as he brushed the dust from his sleeve. “When the king sent me here to repent of that affair at Marly he permitted my tutor to accompany me. But in the evening we were separated, and he was locked up in this cell to spend the night. We were both dying of ennui, and determined to spend the nights together. So with infinite patience he picked away the cement around this slab and the one under it. As you see, they rest on the girders and so remain in place. The guard cannot see into the cells after night falls, so we were not disturbed. It is fortunate the corner is dark,” he added, “and that the cracks of the floor are filled with dirt, else the ruse might have been discovered since I was last here.”

“And now what?” I asked, trembling with impatience.

“Now to escape,” said the duke, and sat down on the bench to consider.

But to escape, and with only our bare hands for tools! What a problem! Yet I was determined that it should be solved. Others had escaped from the Bastille. Why not we?

“Clearly,” I said, after a moment, “we cannot hope to break down the door nor penetrate these walls.”

My companion nodded in gloomy acquiescence.

“There remains, then, only one possible way,” I went on. “That is by the window.”

“But the bars?”

“We must remove one. Luckily they are single, so that one will be enough.”

“It is ninety feet from the ground.”

“We must get a rope.”

“A rope? Yes. But where?”

“I do not know,” I said, but I arose and went to the window. Yes, it was not less than ninety feet from the ground.

“Well,” said Richelieu, at my elbow, “suppose we had a rope. Suppose we had the bar out. What then? Do you not see the court is full of soldiers? We could not hope to escape them. But even if we did, there is the outer wall still to pass,—forty feet high and with a sentry at every twenty paces.”

I saw that what he said was true. To descend into the court would be to enter a nest of hornets. But of a sudden a new thought came to me.

“Well,” I asked, “if one way is impossible, why not try the other?”

“The other?” exclaimed Richelieu. “What other, de Brancas?”

“The roof,” I cried, and I knew I had found the key to the problem. “It is battlemented, is it not?”

“Yes,” and Richelieu looked more and more astonished. “But I do not yet understand, my friend.”

“Wait,” I said. “Let me think a moment,” and I sat down upon the bench, my head between my hands. Richelieu paced feverishly up and down the cell. At last I had it.

“M. le Duc,” I said, as calmly as I could, for my heart was beating madly, “I have a plan. It is not promising, perhaps, but I believe it is the best that offers. I will remove one of the bars of the window. We will secure a rope. I will stand upon the sill without and throw the rope over a merlon of the battlement. We will mount to the roof and after that trust to Providence. There must be some way down, and if there is, we will find it.”

Richelieu’s eyes were blazing.

“But can we do all this?” he asked.

“We must,” I said. “The most difficult thing is the rope. It must be twenty or thirty feet long, and strong enough to bear us. If we had our cloaks——”

“I will get our cloaks,” cried Richelieu. “I will make the rope. Come, I must return. The guard will soon be here. Slip the stones into place after me,” and he dropped lightly into his cell.

I dropped the stones back into place, and heard him pounding at his door. The sentry answered him.

“There is no bedding in this place,” called Richelieu, “and it will be cold to-night. At least I and my friend should have our cloaks. Ask M. de Maison-Rouge if he will not send to my hotel and secure us two good, heavy ones.”

The guard went away, but soon came back again.

“Your request is granted, monsieur,” he said. “You shall have your cloak,” and then he mounted to my door and repeated the message to me.

I had the slabs out again in a moment.

“That provides the rope,” I said, looking down into the duke’s excited face. “Now it is for me to remove the bar. It will make some noise. Do you listen for the sentry and warn me when he approaches.”

Richelieu nodded, and turned away to listen at his door.

I went to the window and examined it bar by bar. None of them showed any sign of weakness, but at one end of the second bar from the bottom there was a little crack in the cement. I must have something to use as a chisel. But what? My eyes fell upon the stove. It was falling to pieces, and I wrenched loose a portion of the side, which would do admirably for a maul. But for a chisel I must have something with a point,—why not one of the clamps which held it to the wall? They had been driven into the cement, how far I could not guess. I chose the one which seemed a little loose, and using the piece of iron for a lever, managed to start it. A second wrench, a third—and I had it out. It was a sorry chisel, but must do, in want of something better. I muffled my handkerchief about the piece of iron in order to deaden the noise as much as possible and attacked the cement about the bar. I saw that I could chip it away a little at a time.

So I toiled on through the afternoon, Richelieu warning me when the sentry approached along the corridor. It was weary work, yet my heart was light, for I had soon made a considerable impression, and knew I should succeed. My arms were aching and my hands were torn and blistered, but as evening came one end of the bar was loose, and I felt that I could pull it out. I stopped work then, told Richelieu of my success, and carefully gathering up the cement which I had loosened, threw it under the floor, and slipped the stones back into place. I drove the clamp back into the wall, replaced the piece of stove, and threw myself upon my bench to rest.

Scarcely had I done so when I heard footsteps approaching. The door opened and a man appeared upon the threshold carrying my supper, and I caught a glimpse of the guard standing in the dark corridor behind him. He placed the food upon the floor, went out again, and returned in a moment with a cloak, which he threw upon the chair, and withdrew without a word, bolting the doors behind him. I caught up the cloak, and saw with satisfaction that it was a strong and heavy one. But before I set to work upon it I turned to the food. A square of bread, a piece of meat, another of cheese, and a bottle of vile wine was all; but I was in no mood to quarrel with it, for I had eaten nothing since morning, and soon devoured it to the last morsel. Then I tore the cloak into broad strips and twisted and knotted them together. At the end of half an hour I had a strong rope, not less than twenty feet in length. A tap on the floor told me that Richelieu had also completed his task, and I sat down to wait for darkness.

It was not long in coming, and so soon as I saw from my window that night had fallen in earnest, I raised the slabs and pulled Richelieu up beside me. Then I dropped the stones back into place, so that, when our escape was discovered, our means of communication might not be too readily disclosed. Richelieu had brought with him the rope which he had made, and I knotted both ends of it to mine, making a great loop. Then I sprang to the window and wrenched out the bar.

“We are ready,” I said, and I felt my arms trembling with excitement.

Richelieu reached out and wrung my hand.

“I will go first,” he said.

“No, no!” I cried, and before he could prevent me I had pushed my body between the bars and was clinging to the sill without.