The five minutes ticked away and the watch commenced to strike the
hour’s seven strokes. Did it sound the death of Rouletabille? Perhaps
not! For at the first silver tinkle they saw Rouletabille shake himself,
and raise his head, with his face alight and his eyes shining. They saw
him stand up, spread out his arms and cry:
“I have found it!”
Such joy shone in his countenance that there seemed to be an aureole
around him, and none of those there doubted that he had the solution of
the impossible problem.
“I have found it! I have found it!”
They gathered around him. He waved them away as in a waking dream.
“Give me room. I have found it, if my experiment works out. One, two,
three, four, five...”
What was he doing? He counted his steps now, in long paces, as in
dueling preliminaries. And the others, all of them, followed him in
silence, puzzled, but without protest, as if they, too, were caught in
the same strange day-dream. Steadily counting his steps he crossed
thus the court, which was vast. “Forty, forty-one, forty-two,” he cried
excitedly. “This is certainly strange, and very promising.”
The others, although they did not understand, refrained from questioning
him, for they saw there was nothing to do but let him go ahead without
interruption, just as care is taken not to wake a somnambulist abruptly.
They had no mistrust of his motives, for the idea was simply untenable
that Rouletabille was fool enough to hope to save himself from them by
an imbecile subterfuge. No, they yielded to the impression his
inspired countenance gave them, and several were so affected that they
unconsciously repeated his gestures. Thus Rouletabille reached the edge
of the court where judgment had been pronounced against him. There he
had to mount a rickety flight of stairs, whose steps he counted. He
reached a corridor, but moving away from the side where the door was
opening to the exterior he turned toward a staircase leading to the
upper floor, and still counted the steps as he climbed them. Some of the
company followed him, others hurried ahead of him. But he did not seem
aware of either the one or the other, as he walked along living only
in his thoughts. He reached the landing-place, hesitated, pushed open a
door, and found himself in a room furnished with a table, two chairs,
a mattress and a huge cupboard. He went to the cupboard, turned the key
and opened it. The cupboard was empty. He closed it again and put the
key in his pocket. Then he went out onto the landing-place again. There
he asked for the key of the chamber-door he had just left. They gave it
to him and he locked that door and put that key also in his pocket. Now
he returned into the court. He asked for a chair. It was brought him.
Immediately he placed his head in his hands, thinking hard, took the
chair and carried it over a little behind the shed. The Nihilists
watched everything he did and they did not smile, because men do not
smile when death waits at the end of things, however foolish.
Finally, Rouletabille spoke:
“Messieurs,” said he, his voice low and shaken, because he knew that
now he touched the decisive minute, after which there could only be an
irrevocable fate. “Messieurs, in order to continue my experiment I am
obliged to go through movements that might suggest to you the idea of an
attempt at escape, or evasion. I hope you don’t regard me as fool enough
to have any such thought.”
“Oh, monsieur,” said the chief, “you are free to go through all the
maneuvers you wish. No one escapes us. Outside we should have you
within arm’s reach quite as well as here. And, besides, it is entirely
impossible to escape from here.”
“Very well. Then that is understood. In such a case, I ask you now to
remain just where you are and not to budge, whatever I do, if you don’t
wish to inconvenience me. Only please send someone now up to the next
floor, where I am going to go again, and let him watch what happens from
there, but without interfering. And don’t speak a word to me during the
experiment.”
Two of the revolutionaries went to the upper floor, and opened a window
in order to keep track of what went on in the court. All now showed
their intense interest in the acts and gestures of Rouletabille.
The reporter placed himself in the shed, between his death-stool and his
hanging-rope.
“Ready,” said he; “I am going to begin”
And suddenly he jumped like a wild man, crossed the court in a straight
line like a flash, disappeared in the touba, bounded up the staircase,
felt in his pocket and drew out the keys, opened the door of the chamber
he had locked, closed it and locked it again, turned right-about-face,
came down again in the same haste, reached the court, and this time
swerved to the chair, went round it, still running, and returned at the
same speed to the shed. He no sooner reached there than he uttered a cry
of triumph as he glanced at the watch banging from a post. “I have won,”
he said, and threw himself with a happy thrill upon the fatal scaffold.
They surrounded him, and he read the liveliest curiosity in all their
faces. Panting still from his mad rush, he asked for two words apart
with the chief of the Secret committee.
The man who had pronounced judgment and who had the bearing of Jesus
advanced, and there was a brief exchange of words between the two
young men. The others drew back and waited at a distance, in impressive
silence, the outcome of this mysterious colloquy, which certainly would
settle Rouletabille’s fate.
“Messieurs,” said the chief, “the young Frenchman is going to be allowed
to leave. We give him twenty-four hours to set Natacha Feodorovna free.
In twenty-four hours, if he has not succeeded, he will return here to
give himself up.”
A happy murmur greeted these words. The moment their chief spoke thus,
they felt sure of Natacha’s fate.
The chief added:
“As the liberation of Natacha Feodorovna will be followed, the young
Frenchman says, by that of our companion Matiew, we decide that, if
these two conditions are fulfilled, M. Joseph Rouletabille is allowed to
return in entire security to France, which he ought never to have left.”
Two or three only of the group said, “That lad is playing with us; it is
not possible.”
But the chief declared:
“Let the lad try. He accomplishes miracles.”