THE TWO PRISONERS (_continued_)
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—_déjeuner_ is
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 had hidden 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.
After _déjeuner_, 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
the _rafataille_, 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 ledge where 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 obtain a 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 the
_rafataille_, 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.