And where was Edward Langdale all this time? On the day which saw Lord
Montagu a prisoner in the Bastille, the poor lad had been just a month
in the Chateau de Coiffy; and his captivity was not yet at an end. Care
had been taken that he should have no opportunity of seeing Lord
Montagu; and, though he was well treated, and his personal liberty
seemed but little abridged within the walls, there was a cold, silent
guard kept over him which tended a good deal to subdue his impatient
spirit. If he spoke to any one, he received a civil answer; but it was
confined to two or three words, and never afforded any information. If
he asked for writing-materials, they were promised, but never came. If
he walked on one of the ramparts, there was a soldier at each end, who
never lost sight of him; and his own chamber, with one or two of the
passages near, was the only place where he found himself free from
supervision. His principal resort was the walls, where on fine days he
would sit and think, and gaze over the undulating country round, for
hours,--pondering his own fate, dreaming of Lucette, or asking himself
what the conduct of Monsieur de Bourbonne could mean.
It certainly had its meaning; and the secret was a very simple one. The
reader has already the key in the few words spoken by the count on the
first night of Edward's captivity. He had determined that the youth
should have no communication with Richelieu till he himself had reaped
the reward he expected for the valuable services he believed he had
rendered.
For many reasons, however, the cardinal was slower in bestowing that
reward than the count anticipated. In the first place, his mind was
profoundly occupied with matters which we shall have to touch upon
hereafter. In the next place, the service of the count was not so great
as he imagined. Lord Montagu was a prisoner, it is true; the treaty with
Spain, Lorraine, and Savoy was in the minister's hands; and the schemes
of the external enemies of France were dissipated or deranged; but there
were few names in France itself implicated by the papers which had been
seized, and fewer letters found which could bring home to Richelieu's
foes the treason which many of them had certainly meditated. Thus, day
after day passed without bringing to Monsieur de Bourbonne the expected
recompense; and it suited well with the cardinal's policy to keep the
nobility of the kingdom expectants upon the bounty of the minister, as
they were now daily becoming, rather than dictators to the Government,
as they had too long been. Poor Edward suffered without the minister
knowing it, and, at the end of three long months, the youth determined
to endure but a few days longer. He contrived, with some oil and the
soot of his lamp, to fabricate a sort of ink. A leaf torn out of one of
the books which were amongst the baggage returned to him served him for
paper sufficient to write on; and with such rude materials he contrived
to indite a letter to Monsieur de Bourbonne, which will explain itself.
"Sir," he said, "you informed me that you would send me to the
cardinal prime minister by the very first opportunity; and on that
understanding I gave my parole not to escape. You have broken your
word; and I might be held justifiable in breaking mine: but the word
of an English gentleman is too sacred to be trifled with. I
therefore give you notice of my intention to leave the Castle of
Coiffy as soon as I find an opportunity of doing so after this
letter has had full time to reach you and you have had full time to
take your measures accordingly. Your men have debarred me the use of
pen and ink and cut me off from all communication with others. They
may neglect or refuse to carry this letter; but I shall give it to
one of them for that purpose, and if it do not reach you the fault
is not that of EDWARD LANGDALE.
"_Postscriptum_.--I shall not set out for fourteen days."
This epistle was given to the servant who brought his food, with an
injunction to have it given to the post-courier. At first the man
hesitated to take it; but, on seeing that it was directed to his master,
he ultimately consented; and Edward applied all his thoughts to devise
the means of carrying the resolution he had expressed into execution,
let Monsieur de Bourbonne take what precautions he would. The fourteen
days passed without any answer, and all seemed dull and tranquil as
before; but some messengers had been coming and going, and Edward little
doubted that one of them bore directions in regard to himself. To test
the fact, on the fifteenth morning he walked out upon the walls and
approached quietly one of the little flights of steps that led down from
the ramparts toward some of the outworks. Instantly the sentinel
presented his musketoon, saying, "You cannot pass here."
"Why not?" asked the youth. "I have passed before."
"The orders are changed," answered the man, gruffly. "Keep off, I say."
Edward was satisfied. Monsieur de Bourbonne had received his letter: his
parole was at an end; and he felt almost as if he were already free. Two
days passed without his making any attempt to escape; but he carefully
selected every thing from amongst his baggage which was most valuable,
including money, and packed it in the smallest compass. Sometimes,
indeed, he was tempted to leave all behind him, for he foresaw that he
should have to swim the canal; but the absolute necessity of money in
almost every transaction of life he had learned early, and he remembered
that he had a large piece of France to traverse. His attention was next
directed to ascertain if, by passing boldly through the interior of the
chateau, he could not turn the position of the sentinels upon the walls
just in face of his windows, and emerge upon the opposite ramparts,
which, from all he recollected of the approach to the castle, and from
various other circumstances which had come to his knowledge during his
long stay, he imagined were neither very high nor very well guarded.
Away he went, then, along the passage through which he had always been
allowed to pass, to a door at the end on the left-hand side, where there
had usually sat a servant, and which he had understood,--believed would
be the better word, for he knew not what had led him to the
conclusion,--which he believed led to the apartments of the Countess of
Bourbonne. But now no servant sat there, either to question or let him
pass. The door, however, was shut; and when he tried it he found it
locked.
It was a great disappointment; for the servant who usually sat there was
sometimes male, sometimes female, and he had calculated that he could
devise some means of getting either out of the way. The ramparts before
his windows were too steep for him to attempt the leap. Had the fosse
been immediately below, he might have risked it, trusting that the water
would soften his fall; but a ridge of dry ground ran along under the
wall, and the breaking or dislocation of a limb, with his consequent
recapture, was inevitable. He returned to his room, then, disappointed
but not disheartened, and instantly applied himself to form some new
scheme. The first thought that struck him was that a rope ladder might
be constructed from the ropes which in those days garnished every
bedstead in France. It would be short, indeed, but at all events it
might diminish the distance between the parapet and the ground, and by
dropping from the last round he would not, he thought, have more than
eight or ten feet to fall. He instantly set to work to detach the ropes
from the sacking; but he had not unlaced a yard before he asked himself
how, when it was constructed, he was to fasten the upper end of his
ladder to the parapet. With all his ingenuity, he was puzzled. There was
nothing in the room of which he could make a hook,--nothing in the
world, except an ancient pair of tongs for putting wood upon the fire;
and he might as well have tried to make a hook out of the Colossus of
Rhodes. He looked round and round in vain, when suddenly, as his eyes
rested upon the heavy key in the lock of the door, he thought that keys
would sometimes fit more locks than one. He took it out at once, greased
it well with oil from the lamp, and walked quietly along to the door at
the end of the passage. It was still locked, and by applying his eye to
the key-hole he saw that there was no obstruction. The key had been
taken away,--probably to prevent any tampering with the servants on the
part of the young prisoner. But he saw also three persons sitting by a
large fireplace in the long gallery before him. They were a lady of two
or three and twenty,--probably Madame de Bourbonne,--a very beautiful
child, three years old perhaps, and another woman, whose dress betrayed
the soubrette.
Edward had to return to his room again and wait with impatience for the
trial of the key. As he meditated by the remains of his fire, he
remembered having heard that, but a year or two before, the famous Duke
of Buckingham himself, while ambassador in Paris, in a wild frolic had
passed through the whole of the royal palace disguised as the White
Lady.
"Some sort of disguise might not be amiss," thought Edward. "Each of
these old chateaux has some superstitious tale attached to it. A sheet
and a little lampblack will make a very good ghost. But it is not yet
time."
His impatience had wellnigh ruined all, however; for, just as he was
about to take one of the sheets from the bed to tear a hole for his head
to pass through, the servant entered his room with a fresh supply of
wood.
"When does Monsieur de Bourbonne return?" asked Edward "I hope when he
does he will give me a warmer room."
"I do not know," answered the man, piling some more wood on the fire.
"Some say he comes Saturday. That is the day after to-morrow."
Edward let him depart, and then sat and listened. For at least two hours
sounds were still to be heard in the chateau; but they gradually died
away. At midnight the password was heard upon the walls; then there was
some tramping up and down; and then all was silent. Edward knew that
there was a snug, warm pavilion, or look-out, thrown forth from the
walls, whence the whole line of the curtain on that side could be seen,
but which was sheltered from all rude winds; and he doubted not the two
guards had retreated to its friendly covering,--for it was a cold spring
night, and the keen blast was sweeping over the open country round. He
waited some five minutes longer, and then wrapped the sheet round him,
smeared his face with the soot of the lamp, and sallied out with the key
in his hand. All was darkness in the passage, and he had to feel with
his fingers along the wall, not without some anxiety as to how he should
find his way through the part of the house with which he was not
acquainted. Liberty was at stake, however, and on he went. Fortune
favored him: at the end of the passage a faint light came through the
key-hole of the door he was in search of. It was red, though dim; and he
at once comprehended that it did not proceed from any lamp left burning,
but from the embers of a half-exhausted fire. Then came the
all-important moment. Quietly and slowly he applied the key to the lock.
It entered readily; but when he came to turn it there was some
resistance. He was almost in despair; but, thinking he might not have
pressed the key home, he pushed hard, and it started forward with some
noise. He paused to listen, but there was no sound, and, twisting it
slowly round, the lock gave way, the door opened, and the gallery he had
seen through the key-hole was before him, with the wood fire burnt low
in a large fireplace on the left-hand side. There were a number of doors
on the right, tight shut, to keep out the wintry air; but the gallery
was vacant, and the fire gave light enough. On then he strode toward the
opposite end, calculating that he was now in the great tower or
lodging-part of the castle, and soon reached the farther extremity of
the gallery, where another door presented itself, with the key in the
lock. The moment he opened it, the cold air rushed in, and he found
himself in a little garden upon the inner ramparts. All was still; and
there seemed nothing there but one or two bare apple-trees and some
withered shrubs and flowers.
The rampart, however, was very high, and all the young man's trouble
would have been in vain had he not divined that there must be some lower
outwork to defend the foot of the wall. The moon was not yet up: there
was no light but that of the stars; and he walked cautiously along under
the parapet till he came to some descending steps. He could see no one
on the walls; but the dry leaves crackled under his footsteps and more
than once made him stop, thinking a sentinel was near. At the bottom of
the steps was another wall, with embrasures and a solitary cannon,
evidently commanding the approach from some work below; and, making his
way along for about forty steps, Edward reached some more stairs, which
led him down to what seemed a small bastion.
At the foot he paused, for upon the wall of the outwork he perceived
some dark object, which he could not clearly make out. It was too large
for a man, he thought, and it remained motionless; and after gazing for
several minutes he quietly mounted the five steps which led up to the
platform. He then perceived that the object which had alarmed him was a
rude sentry-box, with a cannon hard by; and, having ascertained that it
was empty, he looked over and beheld the river flowing quietly through
the fosse at the foot.
The wall was about eleven feet in height, and he certainly would not
have feared to leap. But noise was to be avoided; and, tying the end of
the sheet to one of the trunnions of the cannon, the young adventurer
let himself down by his hands as far as he could, and then dropped into
the water. A slight splash was all the sound; but he sunk deep, and his
feet touched the bottom. He rose again, however, and, thanking in heart
the harsh angler who had first counselled him to learn to swim, he
struck out for the other side of the fosse, and reached it in a moment.
It was a sharp night, it is true, for cold bathing; but his heart felt
warm with the consciousness of freedom, and, getting amongst the low
bushes which covered a good part of the ground on the Lorraine side of
the castle, he walked rapidly round to the other side, and then struck
across the country directly toward the heart of Burgundy.
Edward had many motives for so shaping his course. He had heard a vague
rumor that the Duke of Lorraine had made his peace with France, and
therefore he was as likely to be interrupted in the duke's territories
as anywhere. In the next place, he knew that his evasion must be
discovered early on the following morning, and the pursuit was of course
likely to be directed on the side where the open doors and the sheet
tied to the cannon gave evidence of the course he had first taken. But,
after all, there was a certain degree of whim, or character, or call it
what you like, in it. He had told Monsieur de Bourbonne that if at
liberty he would go straight to the Cardinal de Richelieu. Some people
might have thought that it was going straight into a lion's den. But
Edward did not fear; and he determined to go frankly and at once throw
himself upon the cardinal's generosity, tell him all he had done and all
he had suffered, and show him that he had kept his word in coming back
to him, though only seven months, instead of two years, had passed since
they had parted. He anticipated no obstruction in that direction if he
could once get at a distance from Coiffy; for he still had the
cardinal's safe-conduct about him.