"Whither are you taking me?"
"Don't you see?" said the jailer; "into the vaults."
"Deuce take me!" said Cauvignac: "do they propose to bury me alive?"
The jailer shrugged his shoulders, and led the way through a labyrinth
of winding corridors, until they came to a low arched door, on which
the moisture stood in great drops; from the other side came a strange
roaring sound.
The jailer opened the door.
"The river!" cried Cauvignac, starting back in dismay-as his eyes fell
upon a swiftly flowing stream as black and forbidding as Acheron.
"Yes, the river; do you know how to swim?"
"Yes--no--that is to say--Why the devil do you ask me that?"
"Because if you can't swim, we shall have to wait for a boat that is
stationed over yonder, and that means a loss of quarter of an hour, to
say nothing of the danger that some one may hear the signal I shall
have to give, and so discover us."
"Discover us!" cried Cauvignac. "In God's name, my dear fellow, are we
escaping?"
"_Pardieu!_ of course we are."
"Where are we going?"
"Where you please."
"I am free, then?"
"As free as the air."
"Oh, my God!" cried Cauvignac.
Without adding a word to that eloquent exclamation, without looking
to right or left, without thought as to whether his companion was
following him, he darted to the river, and plunged in more rapidly than
a hunted otter. The jailer imitated him, and after a quarter of an hour
of silent efforts to stem the current, they both were within hailing
distance of the boat. The jailer whistled three times; the oarsmen,
recognizing the pre-concerted signal, rowed toward them, promptly
lifted them into the boat, bent to their oars without a word, and in
less than five minutes set them both ashore upon the other bank.
"Ouf!" said Cauvignac, who had not uttered a single word from the
moment that he threw himself into the stream. "Ouf! I am really saved!
Dear jailer of my heart, God will reward you!"
"I have already received forty thousand livres," said the jailer,
"which will help me to wait patiently for the reward God has in store
for me."
"Forty thousand livres!" cried Cauvignac in utter stupefaction. "Who
the devil can have put out forty thousand livres for me?"