The Mystery of the Lost Dauphin Part 12

Man is a creature of habit. My senses daily grew more accustomed to the pestilential cavern. I began to distinguish the objects in my dungeon.

Light seemed to gleam faintly through the joinings of the stones. My pupils dilated like those of nocturnal birds. My hearing grew more acute and recognized the jailer's footfall long before he reached my door. I could dimly hear the call of the sentinels and the tramping of the guard.

One night in spring I distinguished voices in the ditch outside my cell and the dull sound of spades. Some one said, "Make it deeper and wider that it may hold the body." A platoon of soldiers halted and struck the breeches of their guns upon the ground. They were arranging an execution!

Only the wall separated us as a voice which was harsh yet timid, almost apologetic, p.r.o.nounced a death sentence. The name of the condemned made me start: Louis Antoine Henri de Bourbon, Conte. Our family blood was about to spatter those walls erected by our ancestors. A sweet sonorous voice penetrated the stones. The Count was asking an officer to be the bearer of a death memento.

"For the Princesse de Rohan," he said, placing in his hands a letter, a ring and a lock of hair.

"Hang a lantern around his neck," was the brutal order that interrupted the prisoner. "No aim can be taken in this darkness."

Then followed a cruel fateful moment; then the order; then the rebounding of the b.a.l.l.s from the outer wall of my dungeon; then the thud of the falling body; then suppressed oaths and stern commands; then the noise of spades. As the platoon of soldiers marched away, I said to myself, "My cousin, the Duke d'Enghien has been keeping me company, and now he lies very close."

No clothes had been given me during my imprisonment and I was in tatters. I shivered, wrapped in my filthy blanket. My hair hung on my shoulders in long matted curls; my face--beardless on entering the tower--was half covered with a tangled crop, my nails so long that they tore off in great shreds unless I gnawed them close with my teeth. I could not calculate the duration of my captivity. I seemed losing the power of thought. I lived over and over my cousin's execution until it seemed to have been my own. I a.s.sured myself that I was awakening after death and I felt the bullet wounds in my head. I refused nourishment, saying feebly that dead men required no food. On the third day of my self-imposed starvation the hinges of my door creaked at an unaccustomed hour and my jailer was communicative for the first time.

"Get up and follow me," he said.

I remained motionless, for was I not a corpse? The man raised me roughly and placed an arm around my shoulders. Then I comprehended that I lived and concluded that execution was about to take place. A great peace followed this conviction. When we reached daylight, the air asphyxiated me like a powerful gas and when my guide opened a door, saying, "Here!"

I fell on the floor in a swoon.

Chapter IX

THE ESCAPE

I regained consciousness upon a real bed. Some people were near me. My jailer, with a softened expression, was handing me a cup of soup. I closed my eyes and realized that some one raised the sheet covering me and searched over my almost nude body for a birthmark. A voice said, "Thank G.o.d, it is he!" and human lips pressed my cadaverous hands.

The tower's warden said affably as he took his leave:

"a.s.sure the Empress that he shall be well cared for."

A man near me murmured "Courage, courage, your Majesty."

My eyes opened and I clasped Montmorin in my arms.

"Your Majesty,"--he began, and I interrupted:

"Do not address me so, Eugene. Do not apply t.i.tles to a wretched outcast. I wish to strip myself of the personality which has caused my martyrdom."

"Well, then, Charles," said Montmorin "I have sought you for four years."

"Four years!" I exclaimed. "Did I remain four years in the Black Hole?"

"I had no clue," said my friend. "I believed you dead, and through indifference concerning my own life, I enlisted in Napoleon's army. The execution of the Due d'Enghien and the conspiracy of Cadouval (of which I shall presently tell you) filled me with such indignation that I resolved to present my resignation. Just then the Empress sent for me.

In a secret interview she informed me that you were in Vincennes dungeon and commissioned me to rescue you. Her hand pushed aside the obstacles between us."

"Blessed be the creole!" I cried.

"Not so fast, Charles. She seeks only her security. Her lord, who is also the lord of Europe, seems to be considering the advisability of relegating her to some corner of his Babylonic Empire, because of her barrenness. She looks upon you as a fine card to play at the opportune moment. Napoleon has forgotten your existence. He is too busy with his conquests to even think of you. Here in prison, your name is No. 86.

Josephine pretends that you are the nephew of a Martinique woman with whom she has a friendship. She does not desire your liberty because it is preferable that you should be where she may at any time lay a hand upon you. But I shall free you, though that must be postponed, as you are now so weak."

I was bathed and cleanly clad. Nourishing and abundant food was given me daily and I was gently tended by Armande, the jailer's excellent daughter. Montmorin cut off my long hair and tangled beard, and, on viewing myself in the mirror, I realized that the cruel operation, whose object had been to disfigure me, had been frustrated by the darkness of the dungeon. I should, otherwise, have been marked as with the pits of that dreadful malady, the smallpox, and been changed past all recognition.

I was born again. The pure blood of Austria and Lorraine had successfully combated what appeared invincible obstacles. Montmorin, who through motives of caution, visited me only twice during my convalescence, was one day overjoyed on seeing my hard rounded flesh and observed that it was time to discuss our flight. I was on the second floor of one of the four towers which flank the historic castle. The windows facing toward the fort were not very high from the ground. If the grating were filed, 'twould be a simple matter to swing down to the bridge spanning the ditch over which the soldiers walked in leaving the fortress. This route of exit was chosen by the soldiers in order to avoid the trouble of raising the portcullis, and it existed through the culpable negligence of the chief; otherwise, I should never have been able to have accomplished my escape. The only necessary precaution was that of selecting an auspicious hour of the night in which to swing down to the ditch, cross the narrow plank and join Montmorin in the woods beyond, awaiting me with a pair of good horses. I had an English file for the severing of my iron bars, also a rope and a dagger. All these I kept upon my body during the day and in my bed at night. I anxiously counted the hours that must pa.s.s before my escape and constantly developed my muscles by gymnastic exercises. Each night I cut through one bar of the grating. I feared that Armande, who was as kind to me as her father was indifferent, might suspect my intention. I therefore adopted toward her the most affectionate demeanor. I praised her beauty and then I realized that she was indeed beautiful. The wine of youth rose in me like a splendid springtide and when Armande trembled in my arms I regretted that I must so soon leave her.

Therese, I know that your austere virtue makes no capitulation to what you would call the sentimental delinquencies of the heart. But to me a woman's breast is more necessary than bread or water. That simple girl loved me in the abandonment of her feminine pity, which is, my chaste sister, the holiest pa.s.sion of humanity.

One day she responded to my caresses with the words:

"I know you are preparing to escape. I will help you, and if a cannon were to announce your flight, I should crawl into its mouth to r.e.t.a.r.d the explosion."

When at last arrived the moment, preconcerted with Montmorin, she clung to me affectionately until the whistle of our accomplice sounded across the ditch. Then, securing the rope securely, she watched me descend, her low sweet voice bidding me G.o.dspeed. I ran in a frenzy to Montmorin. We sprang into our saddles and sped away.

Chapter X

PRUSSIA

Rene was here seized with a fit of coughing.

He looked toward the windows; they were closed; at the fireplace; the c.o.ke burned brightly. Putting down the ma.n.u.script, he soliloquized:

"I ought to examine the doc.u.ments in the box and find out whether Naundorff is a martyr or a visionary."

But the narrative fascinated him and he resumed:

The aggregate terms of my prison life amount to seventeen years.

I said to Montmorin, as we slackened our speed, in order to find a path which led to an obscure hut wherein we were to pa.s.s the night:

"O that I might live among men, daring to breathe! That I might no longer be hunted down as a criminal. Let me cast away the fatal name and obliterate the race forever. Montmorin, renounce political schemes and help me only in this,--to forget the dungeons that have been my dwelling places."

My friend put his arms around me and said: "I promise."

We slept soundly and started the next morning for Prussia, which we safely entered, under pa.s.sports held by Montmorin. We put up at a small inn, exhausted from our rapid traveling. Just as we were dropping off to sleep, an officer entered, roughly ordering us from bed. He brought orders to arrest us as spies. He delivered us to a detachment of troops pertaining to the division under the command of the Duke of Brunswick.

When we had journeyed a short distance, we were surrounded by a body of French, treble our number, and I viewed a battle, for the first time in my life; by the irony of fate, I stood in ranks opposing my countrymen.

Montmorin and I were ordered to fight and we had no choice but that of obeying. Our detachment was overpowered. The enemy cried, "No quarter!"

Montmorin's horse was better than mine.

"Change with me!" he cried. I could not reply, for we all fell back together. My n.o.ble friend placed himself before me and sought to ward off the sabre-strokes. My horse fell pierced by a bullet and I could not extricate myself. Montmorin stooped to disentangle my foot and a French soldier with a tremendous blow cut his head in twain. Another sabre descended on my neck and I lost consciousness.

I awoke in a hospital, amid the fearful groans of the other wounded.