"STONE WALLS DO NOT A PRISON MAKE."
The chill and rainy afternoon gave way to an evening as rainy and more
chill. The carriage rolled southward, past St. Ouen, and still on. Those
inside spoke not a word. The men on the coachman's seat protected
themselves from the rain with their cloaks as best they could, and
uttered no complaint. Dick could see nothing through the carriage
window, against the dark sky, but the darker forms of trees and
buildings gliding by. He had too much else on his mind to appreciate the
fact that he was at last about to enter Paris, the goal of his
dream-journeys in childhood. At first he was in a kind of stupor, and
felt like one hurled through increasing darkness towards blackest night,
there to meet annihilation. Then his mind began to work, and soon was in
a whirl. Assassination,--he shrank from it with disgust and horror. The
alternative, death,--he recoiled from the idea, as youth and hope ever
must recoil. Was there no middle course? He racked his brain to find
one; he found it not, yet still he racked his brain.
It was quite dark now, and they had passed the outer barrier without
Dick's noting the fact. But the houses, now close together and of
different character from those of the village of La Chapelle, indicated
that the carriage must be in the faubourg, at least. Presently Dick
perceived that they were passing beneath a great arch (it was the Porte
St. Denis, erected under Louis XIV., though Dick knew it not); then that
they turned to the right, and, a minute later, obliquely to the left,
finally proceeding along a slightly narrower street than they had
already traversed. A movement on the part of the man at his right seemed
to indicate that the destination was near at hand. They were indeed in
the Rue Clery, and approaching the Rue du Petit Carreau, although the
dark streets were nameless to Dick. Suddenly he had an idea. He gave a
start, as if he had awakened from a feverish sleep.
"Messieurs," he said, in a half terrified tone, "I have had a remarkable
dream, a wonderfully vivid one, though I have not for a moment lost
sense of my being with you in this carriage."
"It is the time for acts now, not for dreams," said the leader of the
Brotherhood.
"But this dream concerns the act," said Dick, in an awe-stricken manner.
"It was rather a vision than a dream. I felt, and feel now, as if it
were a message from above."
"Let us hear it, then," said the leader.
"I dreamt all had been carried out as planned, up to the moment of my
striking the blow. And then the man caught the sword entering his body,
and broke it in two, though the hilt was still in my hand. He drew the
point from his side, and stood, very little wounded, before me, while I
looked around in vain for another weapon."
"A message from God, perhaps," said the leader, "to put you on your
guard against such an outcome."
"But, monsieur, I had this dream a second time, and then a third, and it
was always precisely the same."
"It warns you to make the first thrust sure and deep, and to give him no
opportunity of grasping your sword."
"I think, rather, it warns me to provide myself with a second sword. My
keenest impression in the dream was of chagrin at finding myself without
a second weapon after the first had become useless."
"You are doubtless right," said the leader. "One to whom a revelation is
given is the best judge of its meaning. Buckle on one of these swords,
in addition to the one you have."
Dick did as he was bid. A moment later the carriage stopped, close to
the wall of a house at the left side of the street,--for Paris had not
footways then, as London had, and coaches went as near the walls as
their drivers pleased to take them.
One of Dick's guards got out, Dick followed, the leader came last. Dick
could see that these two grasped their pistols beneath their cloaks. He
was before a large and imposing house with a rounded facade. Lights
shone through some of the windows. His two guards led him to the door,
and one of them knocked. The time seemed incredibly long till the
servant came.
"Monsieur Victor Mayet, clerk in the General Control Office, begs an
immediate interview with Monsieur Necker, regarding a matter of the
utmost importance," said Dick, with a steadiness that surprised himself.
The servant went away. Another, and seemingly longer, interval ensued.
At last the servant came back and told Dick to follow.
Dick stepped forward, and his two guards returned to the coach. The
servant showed the way up a staircase with a handsome balustrade, and
thence through one of the doors that opened from the corridor, to a rich
and elegant apartment, its ceiling painted with mythological pictures,
its walls decorated with arabesques and medallions. At a magnificently
carved and ornamented desk at the farther end of the room, sat a
gentleman of striking appearance, slender and noble-looking, but haughty
and stiff. The splendid armchair in which he sat was turned sidewise
towards the desk, so that the gentleman, who leaned upon one elbow,
faced Dick as the latter entered. Dick stood at a distance, and bowed
low, the distance being warranted by the singularly cold look of the
gentleman in the chair. It served, in the soft candle-light, to keep
Dick's features vague.
Dick cast a look at the servant, whereupon the gentleman motioned the
latter from the room. Then, his coat still clutched tight over his
swords, Dick said:
"Is it Monsieur Necker I have the honor of addressing?"
"If you are a clerk in the General Control Office you must know that it
is," said the gentleman, in a dry tone.
"But I am not a clerk in the General Control Office," said Dick,
quietly. "I am, through a strange accident, the chosen instrument of a
secret society whose object is to kill you. Don't think I am a madman.
What I say is perfectly true. I have taken an oath that requires me to
make an attempt upon your life. But that obligation, through lack of
foresight, does not forbid my giving you means of defending yourself;
therefore," and here Dick opened wide his coat, and held forth a sword,
"I offer you one of these swords, and beg you to stand on guard. Don't
call for help. If you do that, I must save myself by having at you
immediately. Take the sword, I advise you, for I certainly intend to
attack you."
Monsieur Necker had risen, and he stood looking at Dick in the most
profound astonishment.
[Illustration: "'OH, YOU HAVE A VISITOR! MON DIEU, SILVIUS!'"]
"Why do you keep us waiting, papa?" came a voice from a suddenly opened
doorway, and a moment later a slender figure followed the voice into the
room. "Oh, you have a visitor! _Mon Dieu_, Silvius!"
"_Mon Dieu_, Amaryllis!" Dick's lips went through the motions of these
words, but what he uttered were rather the shadows or ghosts of words
than words themselves. He continued unconsciously to hold out the sword
towards her father, while gazing at her.
"What does it mean, papa?" she asked, in a hushed voice that betokened
vague alarm. "Silvius, what are you doing with those swords?"
Dick's wits returned. "Cannot you see, mademoiselle? I have been chosen
by a certain society to make your father a present of them, in token of
the society's feelings towards him." Whereupon Dick, to show Necker that
everything had been changed by the revelation that he was Germaine's
father, moved courteously to the desk, laid both swords thereon, and
stepped back.
"Leave us alone, my child," said Necker, gently; "and beg your mother
to grant me another half-hour."
"Very well," said the girl, and then, still somewhat puzzled, but with a
parting smile for both Dick and her father, she disappeared through the
doorway.
"And now you will be good enough to explain this scene?" said Necker, in
a tone of authority, having put himself between the swords and Dick.
"All that I said, before the arrival of mademoiselle, was perfectly
true," replied Dick. "But now that I find you are her father, what I
proposed is impossible."
"It is strange you should have known my daughter and not known who her
father was."
"I made her acquaintance at some children's games, and without learning
her name."
"That a youth who amuses himself at children's games should amuse
himself also by belonging to an assassination society, is a novel idea,
to say the least."
"It is a very strange story, monsieur. But if you will take the trouble
to look out into the street, you will see a carriage waiting; with it
are four men who must be already impatient for my return to them. When I
do return, if I tell them you are alive, they will kill me. If I tell
them you are dead, they will guard me closely while they await
confirmation through the public news. When they find that I lied, they
will kill me."
"It begins to appear as if these men ought to be arrested," said Necker,
ringing a bell. He then sat down at the desk and wrote a note, Dick
standing all the while at a respectful distance. A servant entered, and,
in response to a slight gesture from Necker, went close to the latter,
and received some low-spoken instructions, of which Dick caught only the
word "police." The servant then took the note, and hastened from the
room. Throughout this time, Necker had kept an oblique glance on Dick.
Now that he had not only saved Germaine's father on the present occasion
but had also given him warning against future attempts, Dick had no mind
to betray the Brotherhood further. He saw himself between Scylla and
Charybdis. On the one hand was the danger of his being called upon to
figure as a witness against men who had spared his own life, and of
being mistaken by the world as a common informer. On the other hand was
the probability of his being sought and punished with death by the
Brotherhood, for, though four of its members might be arrested, there
remained a dozen others as resolute, to hunt him down wherever he should
take refuge.
Monsieur Necker began to question him, but he refused to disclose the
slightest additional fact regarding the society. "It is enough," said
Dick, "that its purpose is defeated through your being now on your guard
for the future." He gave his name, though, with his St. Denis abode, and
Necker made a note of them.
From the street below came the sound of a pistol-shot, and then of a
carriage rattling off over the stones. Necker flung open a window, and
saw the carriage fleeing in one direction, his own servant in another.
As Dick guessed, his guards had divined the errand of the servant
leaving the house by a side door, and had sought their own safety, after
having vainly tried to stop the messenger with a shot. It was a relief
to Dick to know that the four were thus out of danger of arrest.
Seeing the present futility of questions, Necker took up the matter of
Dick's own future safety from the Brotherhood. The two were in the midst
of this discussion, when the tramp of several men was heard on the
staircase, then in the corridor. Necker's face took on a peculiar light
as the door opened and in came a uniformed official, followed by a squad
of armed men and conducted by the servant who had been sent with the
note.
"A moment, monsieur," said Necker to the officer, whereupon the
newcomers all bowed and stood still. Necker proceeded to fill in the
blank spaces of a document he had meanwhile taken from a drawer in his
desk, and to which a signature and seal were already affixed. He then
held this out to the officer, who advanced to take it.
"You will send four of your men immediately as this gentleman's escort,
to the place mentioned in that order," said Necker, speaking to the
officer, but motioning towards Dick. "As for you and the rest of your
force, remain here,--I shall have work for you."
While the officer, having read the written order, gave it with some
whispered directions to one of his men, Necker addressed Dick thus:
"Young gentleman, you will not have to fear any present danger from this
well-disposed society of which you have spoken. The place to which you
are about to be conducted will be a safe refuge. I feel it is my duty to
provide for your protection in this manner."
"I thank you, monsieur," said Dick, bowing.
The man who now held the written order, politely motioned Dick to go
before him from the room. Preceded by two men, and followed by two, Dick
went down the staircase and out to the rain-beaten street. There the
party waited, while one of the men hastened off on some errand. He soon
returned, sitting beside the driver, on a large carriage. The man in
authority opened the carriage door, sent one comrade inside, then
courteously begged Dick to enter, then followed in turn, and was
finally joined by his remaining comrade. The man with the driver
remained where he was. The man in command thrust his head out and
shouted the destination to the driver, then closed the door. Dick gave a
violent start.
"To the Bastile," was what the man had called out.
Why had Dick not thought of this possibility sooner?--he asked himself.
There were two very obvious reasons, if not more, why Necker should wish
to keep him caged. First, imprisonment might induce him to break his
silence as to the Brotherhood's place of meeting and as to what names
his eye had caught during the signing of his own to the list. Secondly,
his disclosure, with every attendant circumstance, might be suspected of
being a ruse to gain favor, similar to that by which Latude had brought
well-nigh a lifetime of captivity upon himself; for men who devise such
ruses are to be held as dangerous.
Yes, imprisonment was the logical conclusion of this incident. Dick
shuddered as the word "Bastile" repeated itself in his ears. It had a
far more formidable sound than that of Newgate, though, thank heaven, a
far more gentlemanly one. And so Dick was now about to round out his
prison experience, begun in America as a prisoner of war, and resumed
in London as a civil prisoner, by being a prisoner of state in France!
He sighed, and resigned himself to the inevitable. He looked not into
the future. He might be out again in a day, or he might pine in his
cage, purposely forgotten, the rest of his years. Well, well, no reason
to be downcast! "Heart up, lad!" he said within himself, in the language
of old Tom MacAlister; "wha kens the morrow's shift of the wind of
circumstance?"
After a long ride through streets of frowning houses, the carriage
approached an open "place" or square, at one side of which Dick could
make out, through the window, a huge rectangular building whose uniform
towers, bulging out at regular intervals from straight stone walls,
darkened the sky above an outer wall that enclosed the whole edifice.
That end of the building which fronted the square contained two of the
towers. Towards this front the carriage drove, crossing a drawbridge,
and stopping for the man in command to show his order to the guard
officer.
Dick was then driven past the outer guard-house, crossed a second
bridge, a court, and other enclosures, and finally arrived at a second
guard-house, where he was put down and his name entered on the prison
register. He was then given into the charge of a squad of men, and by
these conducted to an interior paved court, to which an iron-grated
gate opened, and which seemed like the bottom of a vast well. This was
the inside of the rectangle bounded by the eight towers and their
connecting walls.
By the light of lanterns, Dick was led through a door at the side, and
thence, through corridors and up steep stairways, to a large cell. The
lantern's light showed a bare stone-floored chamber, with a table, a
stool, a small bed, an empty fireplace, and in the wall an aperture in
whose depths, though it was designed to serve the purpose of a window,
Dick's sight was lost before coming to the outer end. Before he had time
to ask a question, his conductors had closed the door upon him, turned
its heavy lock, and left him alone in the darkness.
He had been searched in the guard-house, but not required to put on
other clothes. Pleased at this, and at his not having been shackled, he
groped his way to the bed, undressed, and fell into a deep sleep. So
ended the, to him, eventful day of Wednesday, March 12, 1777.
He was visited on Thursday by Monsieur Delaunay, the governor of the
Bastile, and on Friday by the lieutenant of police, each accompanied to
the cell door by soldiers. Each tried by questions, vague promises, and
implied threats, to make him speak of the Brotherhood. Their attempts
failing, the governor visited him a week later, thinking imprisonment
might have had effect upon him. The governor spoke incidentally of the
dungeons, nineteen feet below the level of the courtyard, and five feet
below that of the ditch, their only opening being a narrow loophole to
the latter. But Dick only smiled. A fortnight elapsed before the
governor's next appearance, and still Dick was as silent on the one
topic as ever. The hint as to the dungeon was not carried out. Perhaps
the worthy governor received more money for the food of a prisoner in an
upper cell than for that of a prisoner in a dungeon, and consequently
could make more by underfeeding him. The governor now allowed a month to
pass before renewing his persuasions; after that, two months; and then
he came no more.
Meanwhile, Dick had little to complain of. In fact, many an honest and
hard-working man of talent nowadays might envy such a life as the
ordinary prisoner in the Bastile could lead, especially in the reign of
Louis XVI. Such a prisoner's state, in those old days of tyranny and
oppression, was heavenly, compared with that of an innocent man merely
awaiting trial in the prison of a police court in New York City in this
happy age of liberty and humanity.
Dick was allowed to walk, under guard, not only in the interior court,
but also in a small garden on one of the bastions, where the pure air
was sweetened by the perfume of flowers. He was permitted to have books,
some of which were lent him by the governor, the royal intendant, the
surgeon, and other officers, and some of which were bought, at his
request, out of money allowed for his food. Could he have afforded it
out of his own purse, he might have hired a servant, furnished his room
luxuriously, dressed in the height of fashion, eaten of the choicest
delicacies, practised music and participated in concerts got up under
the governor's patronage, kept birds or cats or dogs, and otherwise
brought to himself the world to which he was forbidden from going. The
comforts of the Bastile, however, were at that time accessible to only
about half a dozen prisoners besides Dick. In 1761 there had been only
four. In 1789, when the Bastile was destroyed, there were only seven.
But Dick, who lived in an age when young men of talent did not set upon
leisure the value they give it in this overworking period, pined for the
open. He began to grudge the time lost in captivity, and the fear grew
on him that he was doomed indeed to forgetfulness. Summer came and went.
The flowers in the elevated garden withered. Autumn winds howled around
the towers, and winter snow was lodged on the lofty platforms. The
beginning of December brought Dick, through the lieutenant of the
Bastile garrison, the news that in America the British had taken
Philadelphia, but that their Northern army, under Burgoyne, had
surrendered at Saratoga, and that the glorious victory had been largely
won by his own old commanders, Arnold and Morgan. Such tidings made Dick
eager to be out in the world. At night he would fall asleep, gazing at
the dying embers in his fireplace, and dream of broad fields, boundless
stretches of varied country over which he could speed with bird-like
swiftness, barely touching the ground with his feet. At last he resolved
to uncage himself.
The aperture that served as his cell window was defended by iron bars an
inch thick, so crossing one another that each open space was but two
inches square. There were three such gratings. As Dick was high up in
the tower, the outer end of this aperture was at a great distance from
the earth. Dick turned from this opening in despair, put out his fire,
stooped into the fireplace, and examined the interior of the chimney. It
was not very far from the bottom to the top, but the way was guarded by
several iron bars and spikes, securely fixed in hard cement. They had
the look of being less difficult to unfasten than the bars in the window
seemed. Dick resolved to attack the obstructions in the chimney.
There was no iron in his cell, his scanty furniture being joined by
wooden pegs. The stone of his cell floor was so soft that the first
piece of it he succeeded in detaching crumbled like plaster against the
hard cement of the chimney. What was he to do for an instrument with
which to scrape free the iron bars from the cement in which they were
set? His lucky star sent him an inspiration in the shape of a toothache.
By patiently and painfully forcing aside his gum with a chip of
fire-wood, and by strong exertions of thumb and forefinger, he succeeded
in extracting the tooth after several hours' excruciating pain and
labor. With the tooth itself he hollowed out of a fagot's end a place in
which afterward to set its root, which he then fastened securely in this
handle by means of extemporized wooden wedges. He thus had a scraper, so
adjusted that he could apply his full strength in using it. This he hid
in his bed.
He then unravelled underclothing, handkerchiefs, and cravat, and twisted
the threads into a rope, to which he tied, at intervals of one foot,
small wooden bars to serve as hand-holds and foot-rests. All this work
was done at times when he was least likely to be visited by any official
or attendant of the prison.
He tied a heavy fagot, six inches long, to the end of his rope, and by
dint of much practice he finally managed to throw this end up the
chimney and over one of the iron bars therein. He then swung his rope
about until it was so entangled with the suspended fagot as to remain
fast to the bar when he put his weight on it. Armed with his scraper, he
then mounted by the rope to the iron bar, undid and lowered the rope's
end that had the fagot, thus giving himself a double rope to cling to,
and began work with the scraper on the cement that held one of the other
bars than that over which the rope was thrown. Habit had taught him to
see in the dimmest light, and his fingers to find their way in total
darkness. To his joy he soon found that the hard enamel of his tooth had
effect on the surface of the cement.
With what difficulty and pain he worked, supported by his fragile rope
ladder, compelled to brace himself against the sides of the chimney, and
often to find relief from his cramped position by hanging to the iron
bar, is hardly to be imagined. When he desisted he had to descend by the
double rope, then let go of one end and draw the rope by the other end
over the bar, for the rope also had to be hidden in his bed when not in
use.
When not working in the chimney, Dick made additional rope, for that
purpose unravelling all of his clothing and bedding that would not be
missed by any who might enter his cell. He continued to borrow books,
and as he now asked for such as he was already acquainted with,--either
French works that he knew through translation, or French versions of
English works,--he could talk so well of their contents that the
officers he occasionally met supposed him to pass all his time in
reading. So apparent was his seeming contentment, that no one suspected
him of desiring to escape. But that desire increased daily. It was only
stimulated by the news, in February, that France had recognized the
independence of his country and formed an alliance with it.
In less than eight months after setting to work, he had opened a way
through the chimney. So slender was he, and so supple, that he found he
had not to remove all the bars, for he could wriggle between some of
them and the chimney wall. Those that he did unfasten he replaced
loosely in position after each period of work. He now estimated that he
had nearly two hundred feet of rope, and he had been told correctly that
the towers of the Bastile were nearly two hundred feet high. By the
first of August, 1778, all was ready; and Dick waited only for a dark
and rainy night.
Such a night came on Wednesday, August 5th. Dick had walked in the court
that afternoon, under a steady downpour of the kind that lasts
twenty-four hours or more, and he felt assured of a black sky for the
night. He attached his rope in the usual manner, ascended the chimney,
removed the loosely replaced iron bars, one by one, climbed by the rope
to the highest of the bars he had left fast, squeezed through between
that bar and the chimney wall, attached the rope's end to his waist, and
then laboriously worked his way up the rest of the chimney with arms
and legs, rubbing the skin off elbows and knees in doing so. At last he
emerged from the top of the chimney, and, after resting a minute,
dropped on the flat roof of the tower.
For some time, the darkness and rain hid everything from Dick's sight.
But at last, having meanwhile drawn the full length of rope after him
from the chimney, he could make out vaguely the dark houses and streets
stretching far away below. By sheer force of will, and by confining
every thought and moment to his work, he kept himself from turning giddy
at the height.
The lofty platform of the Bastile was surmounted by ordnance, even as in
the days of the Fronde, when the "great Mademoiselle" had fired the guns
on the soldiers of Turenne. Dick fastened his rope around one of these
cannon, and threw the loose end over the battlement of a corner tower.
He believed that the rope would reach down almost to the fosse, which
separated the prison from the outer wall. This ditch was twenty-five
feet deep, but was usually kept dry. Along the inside of the outer wall
ran a wooden gallery, which was paced by sentinels and was reached from
below by two flights of steps.
It was Dick's plan to drop from the rope's end to the fosse, slink up
the steps under cover of darkness and rain, elude the sentinels, reach
the top of the outer wall, and drop therefrom to the ground outside,
trusting to his lightness and his luck to make this last fall an easy
one. He had obtained his knowledge of his surroundings from a book of
memoirs that he had read in his cell, written by a gentleman who had
been imprisoned in the Bastile under the Regency.
He clambered over the battlement, took a good hold of his slender rope,
or, rather, of one of the wooden rounds knotted to it, and let down his
weight over the outer edge of the battlement, grasping at the same time
the next lower round with his other hand. He had an instant of giddiness
and weakness, at the discovery that the rope swung far out in the air,
the wall being overhung by the battlements. He hardened his muscles and
somewhat overcame this momentary feeling. But his arms trembled as he
cautiously disengaged one hand and sought the next round below.
In this manner, swaying in the air, and feeling sometimes as if the
tower were leaning over upon him, and at other times as if it were
receding so as to leave him quite alone between earth and sky, he
gradually made the descent. It began to seem as if the rope were
endless, as if he were doomed forever to descend towards an earth that
fell back from him as he approached. But at last his feet felt about for
the rope below, in vain. His hands soon confirmed the discovery that he
was at the rope's lower end, to which a stout piece of wood was
attached. Yet he was still far from the fosse; indeed, he saw, with
dismay, that he was a good distance above the level of the outer wall.
To drop from such a height would be suicide. To climb back to the top of
the tower was impossible; his strength was almost gone.
Thanks to the darkness and to the noise of the rain, he had not been
seen by the sentinels. It was a time for desperate expedients. He had
noticed that, whenever the rope swung him close to the tower wall, it
swung back to a corresponding distance outward. He now swung in, and, in
rebounding, struck his feet against the tower in such manner as to
propel him farther outward on the return swing. He next guided himself
so as to swing clear of the rounded surface of the tower and yet so as
to kick the tower in passing, and thus to gain additional space and
force for his pendulum-like movement through the air. Continuing thus,
and describing a greater arc at each swing, he found at last that his
outward swing brought him almost directly above the outer wall. At the
next swing, he let the rope go, with the hope of landing somewhere on
the outer wall, which was so near that the fall would not be
exceptionally dangerous.
Through the air he was hurled, far beyond the outer wall. He had
miscalculated. For an instant he was aware of this, and gave himself up
as a dead man. He knew that no human bones could withstand such a
collision with solid earth as he was about to experience. He
instinctively made himself ready for the shock. It came,--with a splash,
an immersion, a gurgling, and a further descent through muddy water. He
had dropped into the aqueduct of the Fosse St. Antoine.
The ten feet of water then in the aqueduct sufficiently broke his fall,
and he rose to the surface in a state of amazement. As there was no
demonstration from the wall over which he had swung, he inferred that
the sound of the rain had drowned the splash of his contact with the
water. He clambered up the bank, slunk along the outer wall of the
Bastile, and emerged in the square before the Porte St. Antoine.
Westward lay the city proper, eastward the Faubourg St. Antoine, with
highways leading to the open country. The first faint sign of dawn was
appearing, so many hours had Dick been employed in his escape. The rain
was still descending, and the water of the ditch was dripping from his
clothes. He stood still for a moment, gazing at the dark roofs of Paris;
then he turned his back upon them, and looked towards the two streets
that opened before him. He chose that towards the right, and plunged
into it. It led him southeastward.
By full dawn he had passed through some open fields to the country, for
the great circular wall completed under Napoleon had not then been even
authorized. Regaining the highway, he proceeded towards Charenton,
making on this occasion more haste on the road _from_ Paris than he had
ever made on the road thereto.
He was moneyless, hatless, clad in outer garments only, his inner ones
having gone to make rope. As the morning advanced, people on the road
stared at him with curiosity. Near Charenton he stepped aside to let a
post-carriage pass towards Paris. To his surprise, the occupant of the
carriage, having observed him in passing, thrust a good-natured face out
of the window, ordered the postilion to stop, and called to Dick:
"My friend, you look wet!"
"I _am_ wet," replied Dick, who had not moved since the carriage had
gone by.
"Haven't I seen you somewhere before?" asked the gentleman in the
carriage.
"The same question was on the tip of my tongue," said Dick. "But I have
already answered it." And then he spoke in English. "Good morning, Lord
George!"
"Why, damme if it isn't Wetheral!" Lord George Winston also spoke
English now, and a very pleased and friendly expression came over his
face.
"Yes, it is Wetheral, and in much the same condition as when he first
had the honor of meeting you."
"Egad, so it seems! Come, then, let me play the Good Samaritan again!"
"I don't see how I can refuse you, my lord," said Dick, looking down at
himself.
"Good! Wilkins, open the door for Mr. Wetheral."
"A moment, my lord. Where are you going?"
"To Paris, of course."
"Then I thank you, but I have important business in the opposite
direction."
"Oh, come into the carriage! I shall not be in Paris long. I've come up
from Fontainebleau, to engage a secretary. Then I am going to make a
tour of France and Germany."
"Do you want a secretary? I am sure I should make a good secretary."
"Why, you are a gentleman."
"Do you want an hostler for a secretary, then?"
"Why, if you really wish it, the post is open to you."
"Then I accept it on the spot."
"Then I have no need to go to Paris. Get in, Mr. Secretary."
Dick obeyed with alacrity, Lord George ordered the postilion to turn
around, and soon they were whirling through Charenton, on the road to
Melun, Dick telling Lord George his story, and receiving the latter's
unsolicited promise to back whatever assertions might become necessary
to show that his lordship's secretary was not the man who had escaped
from the Bastile.