THE PRISONERS FREE.
A strange thing happened as the insurgents poured across that
draw-bridge and entered the vast gloom of the prison they had conquered.
Silence, like that of death, fell on them all; the pallor of ghosts
settled on that sea of faces. They felt the awe of four centuries
gathering around them. It was like rushing suddenly into a vast charnel
house.
With mingled loathing and dread they lifted their faces upward, where
the ponderous rope ladders coiled down the towers and swayed heavily
into the darkness forever sleeping below. They stirred sluggishly
against the walls, and took an appearance of awful life, like great
serpents writhing there, and the crowd watched them in ominous silence.
Then an awful scene arose. A man flung himself over the battlements and
snatching at one of these weird ladders, attempted to escape some danger
from above.
Before he was half way down, the body and most evil face of another man,
leaned over the stone-work, and, with an awkwardly held hatchet, began
to hew the ropes.
One after another the strands gave way, till only a single rope was
left. A blow of the hatchet upon this, and the rope began to uncoil,
swifter and swifter, whirling the poor wretch with it, until the last
strand tore apart, and he fell, with a dull, heavy crash, to the court
below.
That poor body was so broken upon the stones, that no one could have
told the bruised face as that of Christopher, the head keeper.
For one awful minute, the crowd had been held dumb with suspense; but,
like wild beasts, those awe-stricken men grew ferocious with the sight
of blood. A shout of triumph from the men overhead, drove them on to
action.
Once more the tumult raged all the fiercer, from this hush of passions.
A hoarse cry rang through the prison,
“To the cells—to the cells! What are we doing here, while a prisoner
remains to be set free? Down to the depths! Down to the depths!”
This cry threw the crowd into fresh tumults of rage. A wild rush was
made for the cells.
Borne forward by the torrent of people, two women kept together,
clinging to each other, and making frantic efforts to come up with a
man, who carried a heavy ax in his hand.
Pale, eager, and panting for breath, the youngest of these females, a
fair delicate girl, was guiding her mother toward a low door, in one of
the towers.
“That is the door; I know it again! Keep close, mamma; Monsieur Jacques
is just before us. He will break it in with his ax. Come, come! Oh God!
help me, they have tore us apart!”
It was true. The woman, in her wild desire to push through the crowd,
was unconscious that Marguerite was not still by her side.
A man passed her bearing a lighted torch. She snatched it from him,
saying sharply, “I have the greatest need.”
The tumult raged louder and more fiercely. Men and women remembered
their hatred of the place, and they roamed through it like tigers. The
doors of the prison began to crash under their axes, while the maddened
crowd rushed downward into the bowels of the earth, burning with
passion, but awe-stricken and silent as an army of ghosts.
The first man who entered the lower corridors was Monsieur Jacques; he
was followed by a woman with a face of marble, who carried a burning
torch in her hand. Three times his ax circled around the head of
Monsieur Jacques, and each time the iron-studded door resisted the blow.
Another and the mass of oak fell in, scattering splinters over a man,
all trembling and white, with eyes gleaming through the long, silver
hair that fell over them, who stood up in the center of the cell,
holding out both hands imploringly.
When the flame of the torch fell upon his face, he uttered a sharp cry,
and shielded his sight with both hands.
Then a voice, hoarse and broken, thrilled the air of the dungeon.
“My husband! Oh, Henry! will you not look upon me?”
A slow shiver ran through the prisoner, the hands fell downward. His
eyes turned wistfully on the eager face bending toward him.
“Henry!”
Again the poor man was seized with a shivering fit. He put the long hair
back from his eyes, looked in that troubled face, and motioned with his
hand that the woman should speak again.
“My poor husband—my own, own Henry!”
He looked around, smiling, and nodded his head.
“That was my name!”
The words fell from his lips at intervals, as if he were counting them;
but the sound pleased him, and he repeated over and over again,
“That was my name!”
“Ah, Henry! try to remember mine. Therese, your wife!”
“My wife! My wife! That was _her_ name!”
He looked at the woman again shyly, and touched her with his finger. She
was crying now, and seeing this, he took up a long tress of his hair and
attempted to wipe the tears from her face; but his hand wandered wide of
its intent, and fell upon her shoulder. She took the pale hand up
tenderly and kissed it, while her tears fell thick and fast.
Something in the touch of her hand, or the mournful look in her eyes,
awoke that dormant soul. He clung close to her hand, his eyes looked
steadily into hers, a soft tremor stole over the gentle whiteness of his
face.
“He knows me,” she said, claiming sympathy from Jacques, who had taken
the torch from her hand. “I think he knows me.”
Jacques nodded his head, great tears were rolling down his cheek, and he
held the torch unsteadily.
“Therese was my wife’s name,” said the prisoner, with the plaintive wail
of a child.
She bent toward him, a smile beamed on her face, one arm stole around
his neck, she pressed her lips upon his.
That instant all strength left him, and he fell into her arms, murmuring
incoherent words.
Had some sweet link of affection drawn that poor soul back to its old
life? The woman thought so, and laying his head upon her bosom, wept
over him.