“Let us not exaggerate the matter. I do not mean to escape: I only want
to leave for a time. I shall come back, I give you my word of honor.”
“Upon my life, that is not what troubles me. If the question was only
to let you run off altogether, I should open the doors wide, and say,
‘Good-by!’ A prisoner who runs away--that happens every day; but a
prisoner who leaves for a few hours, and comes back again--Suppose
anybody were to see you in town? Or if any one came and wanted to see
you while you are gone? Or if they saw you come back again? What should
I say? I am quite ready to be turned off for negligence. I have been
paid for that. But to be tried as an accomplice, and to be put into jail
myself. Stop! That is not what I mean to do.”
This was evidently but a preface.
“Oh! why lose so many words?” asked Dionysia. “Explain yourself clearly.”
“Well, M. de Boiscoran cannot leave by the gate. At tattoo, at eight
o’clock, the soldiers on guard at this season of the year go inside the
prison, and until _reveille_ in the morning, or, in others words, till
five o’clock, I can neither open nor shut the gates without calling the
sergeant in command of the post.”
“Did he want to extort more money? Did he make the difficulties out
greater than they really were?”
“After all,” said Jacques, “if you consent, there must be a way.”
The jailer could dissemble no longer: he came out with it bluntly.
“If the thing is to be done, you must get out as if you were escaping
in good earnest. The wall between the two towers is, to my knowledge,
at one place not over two feet thick; and on the other side, where there
are nothing but bare grounds and the old ramparts, they never put a
sentinel. I will get you a crowbar and a pickaxe, and you make a hole in
the wall.”
Jacques shrugged his shoulders.
“And the next day,” he said, “when I am back, how will you explain that
hole?”
Blangin smiled.
“Be sure,” he replied, “I won’t say the rats did it. I have thought of
that too. At the same time with you, another prisoner will run off, who
will not come back.”
“What prisoner?”
“Trumence, to be sure. He will be delighted to get away, and he will
help you in making the hole in the wall. You must make your bargain with
him, but, of course, without letting him know that I know any thing. In
this way, happen what may, I shall not be in danger.”
The plan was really a good one; only Blangin ought not to have claimed
the honor of inventing it: the idea came from his wife.
“Well,” replied Jacques, “that is settled. Get me the pickaxe and the
crowbar, show me the place where we must make the hole, and I will take
charge of Trumence. To-morrow you shall have the money.”
He was on the point of following the jailer, when Dionysia held him
back; and, lifting up her beautiful eyes to him, she said in a tremor,--
“You see, Jacques, I have not hesitated to dare every thing in order to
procure you a few house of liberty. May I not know what you are going to
do in that time?”