The night before, the jailer of Sauveterre had said to his wife, at supper,--"I am tired of the life I am leading here. They have paid me for my place, have not they? Well, I mean to go.""You are a fool!" his wife had replied. "As long as M. de Boiscoran is a prisoner there is a chance of profit. You don't know how rich those Chandores are. You ought to stay."Like many other husbands, Blangin fancied he was master in his own house.
He remonstrated. He swore to make the ceiling fall down upon him. He demonstrated by the strength of his arm that he was master. But--But, notwithstanding all this, Mrs. Blangin having decided that he should stay, he did stay. Sitting in front of his jail, and given up to the most dismal presentiments, he was smoking his pipe, when M.
Magloire and M. Folgat appeared at the prison, and handed him M.
Galpin's permit. He rose as they came in. He was afraid of them, not knowing whether they were in Miss Dionysia's secret or not. He therefore politely doffed his worsted cap, took his pipe from his mouth, and said,--"Ah! You come to see M. de Boiscoran, gentlemen? I will show you in:
just give me time to go for my keys."
M. Magloire held him back.
"First of all," he said, "how is M. de Boiscoran?""Only so-so," replied the jailer.
"What is the matter?"
"Why, what is the matter with all prisoners when they see that things are likely to turn out badly for them?"The two lawyers looked at each other sadly.
It was clear that Blangin thought Jacques guilty, and that was a bad omen. The persons who stand guard over prisoners have generally a very keen scent; and not unfrequently lawyers consult them, very much as an author consults the actors of the theatre on which his piece is to appear.
"Has he told you any thing?" asked M. Folgat.
"Me personally, nothing," replied the jailer.
And shaking his head, he added,--
"But you know we have our experience. When a prisoner has been with his counsel, I almost always go up to see him, and to offer him something,--a little trifle to set him up again. So yesterday, after M. Magloire had been here, I climbed up"--"And you found M. de Boiscoran sick?"
"I found him in a pitiful condition, gentlemen. He lay on his stomach on his bed, his head in the pillow, and stiff as a corpse. I was some time in his cell before he heard me. I shook my keys, I stamped, Icoughed. No use. I became frightened. I went up to him, and took him by the shoulder. 'Eh, sir!' Great God! he leaped up as if shot and, sitting up, he said, 'What to you want?' Of course, I tried to console him, to explain to him that he ought to speak out; that it is rather unpleasant to appear in court, but that people don't die of it; that they even come out of it as white as snow, if they have a good advocate. I might just as well have been singing, 'O sensible woman.'
The more I said, the fiercer he looked; and at last he cried, without letting me finish, 'Get out from here! Leave me!' "He paused a moment to take a whiff at his pipe; but it had gone out:
he put it in his pocket, and went on,--
"I might have told him that I had a right to come into the cells whenever I liked, and to stay there as long as it pleases me. But prisoners are like children: you must not worry them. But I opened the wicket, and I remained there, watching him. Ah, gentlemen, I have been here twenty years, and I have seen many desperate men; but I never saw any despair like this young man's. He had jumped up as soon as Iturned my back, and he was walking up and down, sobbing aloud. He looked as pale as death; and the big tears were running down his cheeks in torrents."M. Magloire felt each one of these details like a stab at his heart.
His opinion had not materially changed since the day before; but he had had time to reflect, and to reproach himself for his harshness.
"I was at my post for an hour at least," continued the jailer, "when all of a sudden M. de Boiscoran throws himself upon the door, and begins to knock at it with his feet, and to call as loud as he can. Ikeep him waiting a little while, so he should not know I was so near by, and then I open, pretending to have hurried up ever so fast. As soon as I show myself he says, 'I have the right to receive visitors, have I not? And nobody has been to see me?'--'No one.'--'Are you sure?'--'Quite sure.' I thought I had killed him. He put his hands to his forehead this way; and then he said, 'No one!--no mother, no betrothed, no friend! Well, it is all over. I am no longer in existence. I am forgotten, abandoned, disowned.' He said this in a voice that would have drawn tears from stones; and I, I suggested to him to write a letter, which I would send to M. de Chandore. But he became furious at once, and cried, 'No, never! Leave me. There is nothing left for me but death.' "M. Folgat had not uttered a word; but his pallor betrayed his emotions.
"You will understand, gentlemen," Blangin went on, "that I did not feel quite reassured. It is a bad cell that in which M. de Boiscoran is staying. Since I have been at Sauveterre, one man has killed himself in it, and one man has tried to commit suicide. So I called Trumence, a poor vagrant who assists me in the jail; and we arranged it that one of us would always be on guard, never losing the prisoner out of sight for a moment. But it was a useless precaution. At night, when they carried M. de Boiscoran his supper, he was perfectly calm;and he even said he would try to eat something to keep his strength.
Poor man! If he has no other strength than what his meal would give him, he won't go far. He had not swallowed four mouthfuls, when he was almost smothered; and Trumence and I at one time thought he would die on our hands: I almost thought it might be fortunate. However, about nine o'clock he was a little better; and he remained all night long at his window."M. Magloire could stand it no longer.
"Let us go up," he said to his colleague.
They went up. But, as they entered the passage, they noticed Trumence, who was making signs to them to step lightly.
"What is the matter?" they asked in an undertone.