CHAPTER XLVII.

DEAD SEA FRUIT.

It was a great relief to Marguerite that there was something for her to accomplish; but for that the suspense would have been terrible. As it was, Monsieur Jacques called an hour before there was any hope of being admitted into the prison. “They would walk slowly,” he said, “and be there at the moment. It would not be the first time he had wandered around that old moat, and watched the grim towers as they blackened the sky. Now, thank God! he could look upon them with hope.”

Marguerite lifted her blue eyes to his face as he said this. They were bright as stars, and for the first time this strong man felt a thrill of something like hope in his bosom. But for him Marguerite knew well enough that her father’s freedom would never have been wrought out, and she longed to throw herself at his feet, and bless him for all the joy that made the morning a heaven to her.

They set forth more than hour before the time—Marguerite still carrying the precious pardon in her bosom; the mother, pale as death, for to her the next hour was momentous beyond anything a human life can experience but once; and Jacques, so strong, so hilarious in his rejoicing, that his very steps seemed regulated to martial music, and his face was almost handsome in its exceeding brightness.

“Another hour,” he said, as he came in sight of the Bastille, “another hour, and the sun will shine on him.”

All at once a new idea struck the man. He had been to the Bastille in disguise more than once, through that means many of its secrets had become known, among the most important that of Dr. Gosner’s identity. If he presented the king’s pardon, the keeper might recognise him, and thus destroy all chance of further information.

This fear made Monsieur Jacques hesitate. Madame Gosner saw this, and the color left her face. At every step she had feared some delay, for nothing but disappointment and trouble seemed absolutely real to her.

“What is it?” she said, in breathless terror. “Why do you hesitate?”

Monsieur Jacques explained the cause of his uneasiness. But directly the cloud left his face. “It proves nothing,” he argued, “except that I am connected with those who have power with the king. Let them recognize my face, the paper itself is our indorsement of loyalty.”

Madame Gosner drew a deep breath, and the light came back to Marguerite’s frightened eyes.

“I feared you were about to forsake us,” she said.

“Did you, indeed, fear it?” he asked, kindling with gratitude.

The intensity of his voice surprised her; she looked up wonderingly. To her Monsieur Jacques was like a brother on whom her weakness could lean with a certainty of support. Could she have seen the smothered passion that lay crouching like a lion in his heart, ready to leap forth at a word or smile from her, the truth would have frightened her. As it was, she gave him a pathetic smile; for, with her whole being so preoccupied, she could do no more than that, but it touched him to the heart.

By this time they were in sight of the Bastille, which was approached through a tangle of narrow streets, and surrounded, so far as the defences would permit, by low and squalid buildings, for the very atmosphere of the prison drove thrift and cheerfulness away. Nothing but misery itself could be forced into propinquity with the fetid waters of that moat, or the sounds that came across it sometimes, when the night was still.

Those three persons stood before the draw-bridge, which led to the governor’s quarters; and looked across it with eager, wistful glances. The gaunt towers, blackened with age, into which the light crept sluggishly through narrow loop-holes that gashed them like wounds; the flat, dead walls, thick almost as the quarries from which they were dug, pierced in like manner with deep slits, which drank up all the light before it penetrated to the dungeons, flung their terrible shadows in the distance. Before them was the draw-bridge, with its ponderous timbers uplifted and held in place by bars of iron that seemed to have rusted in their staples, against which it strained and wailed like a monster bolted to the wall.

Madame Gosner was deadly pale. She was looking upon the tomb of her living husband. Would it ever be opened? Was there force enough in that little slip of paper to loosen the hinges of the massive draw-bridge, and unlock the iron-clad door that frowned behind it?

Time wore on. They saw the golden sunshine creep slowly down the towers, bathing the top, but leaving the base in eternal shadows. Then there was a movement at the draw-bridge, the chains began to rattle, the timbers groaned, swayed, and settled heavily downward. Guards were being placed for the day.

Monsieur Jacques advanced to the guard house and presented his order. The guards passed him and his companions without a word—the king’s signature was enough. In the guard-room they found Christopher. A grim smile quivered across his mouth as he read the paper. Madame Gosner shuddered. She could not mistake that smile for one of pleasure that a prisoner was to be released. Still nothing could be more urbane than this man. “He would call the governor; when an order of release came directly from his majesty, it was usually honored by that high functionary in his own person. Would monsieur and the ladies walk this way?”

There was something forced and hollow in all this politeness, that made the heart in that poor woman’s bosom sink like lead as she followed Christopher into the presence of his master. Marguerite, who remembered the good Doudel, remained outside with Jacques, afraid that the governor would recognise her as the flower girl who had sought his presence once before.

The governor, like his subordinate, was eloquent in expressions of pleasure that the good king had at last extended mercy to a prisoner whose fate had so much in it to deplore. “But he had a doubt, a fear, that the prisoner might be unable to leave the Bastille for a day or two. There had been a report that he was not quite well; indeed, that was not wonderful. Dr. Gosner was almost the oldest prisoner now in the Bastille, that is, counting from the date of his entrance into the fortress. But the goodness of the king might give him new life. Madame should judge for herself; they had no concealments in that place. When the relatives of a prisoner come with an order from the king, all doors were flung open. Would madame please to descend?”

Christopher appeared with the keys, and taking upon himself the air of a commander, led the way into the heart of the prison. There was something unnatural in this man’s demeanor, an air of bravado, which they all noticed without comprehending.

“I think,” he said, loitering by the side of Jacques, “that I have had the pleasure of meeting monsieur before, but where, I cannot remember.”

Jacques had dressed himself that morning with unusual care. A suit of clothes, discarded during the last year, had been brought forth for the occasion; and though Jacques was deficient in the high breeding which so strongly distinguished the man of birth at that period, he possessed the air and look of a man who had thought much, and would act his part bravely, whatever it might be. The wild masses of hair that usually half-concealed his eyes, was now parted, perfumed, and curled in waves that revealed the white breadth of his forehead, and the keen power of those deep-set eyes. With his coarse clothes he had flung off the slouching gait and heavy tread of a workman, and it was with the air of a person who considers the familiarity of strangers an impertinence, that he turned full upon the head keeper.

“If you have been much in Paris when gentlemen happen to stir abroad, it is possible,” he said, “though I have no recollection of the honor.”

He looked earnestly at Christopher as he spoke, and moved on with an appearance of so much tranquillity that the man was baffled, and muttering an excuse, walked on swinging his keys.