“Or dies sooner, for it comes to the same thing.”
La Ramee was going out. He stopped, however, at the door for an instant.
“Whom does your Highness wish me to send to you?”
“Anyone, except Grimaud.”
“The officer of the guard, then, with his chessboard?”
“Yes.”
Five minutes afterward the officer entered and the duke seemed to be immersed in the sublime combinations of chess.
A strange thing is the mind, and it is wonderful what revolutions may be wrought in it by a sign, a word, a hope. The duke had been five years in prison, and now to him, looking back upon them, those five years, which had passed so slowly, seemed not so long a time as were the two days, the forty-eight hours, which still parted him from the time fixed for his escape. Besides, there was one thing that engaged his most anxious thought—in what way was the escape to be effected? They had told him to hope for it, but had not told him what was to be hidden in the mysterious pâté. And what friends awaited him without? He had friends, then, after five years in prison? If that were so he was indeed a highly favored prince. He forgot that besides his friends of his own sex, a woman, strange to say, had remembered him. It is true that she had not, perhaps, been scrupulously faithful to him, but she had remembered him; that was something.
So the duke had more than enough to think about; accordingly he fared at chess as he had fared at tennis; he made blunder upon blunder and the officer with whom he played found him easy game.
But his successive defeats did service to the duke in one way—they killed time for him till eight o’clock in the evening; then would come night, and with night, sleep. So, at least, the duke believed; but sleep is a capricious fairy, and it is precisely when one invokes her presence that she is most likely to keep him waiting. The duke waited until midnight, turning on his mattress like St. Laurence on his gridiron. Finally he slept.
But at daybreak he awoke. Wild dreams had disturbed his repose. He dreamed that he was endowed with wings—he wished to fly away. For a time these wings supported him, but when he reached a certain height this new aid failed him. His wings were broken and he seemed to sink into a bottomless abyss, whence he awoke, bathed in perspiration and nearly as much overcome as if he had really fallen. He fell asleep again and another vision appeared. He was in a subterranean passage by which he was to leave Vincennes. Grimaud was walking before him with a lantern. By degrees the passage narrowed, yet the duke continued his course. At last it became so narrow that the fugitive tried in vain to proceed. The sides of the walls seem to close in, even to press against him. He made fruitless efforts to go on; it was impossible. Nevertheless, he still saw Grimaud with his lantern in front, advancing. He wished to call out to him but could not utter a word. Then at the other extremity he heard the footsteps of those who were pursuing him. These steps came on, came fast. He was discovered; all hope of flight was gone. Still the walls seemed to be closing on him; they appeared to be in concert with his enemies. At last he heard the voice of La Ramee. La Ramee took his hand and laughed aloud. He was captured again, and conducted to the low and vaulted chamber, in which Ornano, Puylaurens, and his uncle had died. Their three graves were there, rising above the ground, and a fourth was also there, yawning for its ghastly tenant.
The duke was obliged to make as many efforts to awake as he had done to go to sleep; and La Ramee found him so pale and fatigued that he inquired whether he was ill.
“In fact,” said one of the guards who had remained in the chamber and had been kept awake by a toothache, brought on by the dampness of the atmosphere, “my lord has had a very restless night and two or three times, while dreaming, he called for help.”
“What is the matter with your Highness?” asked La Ramee.
“ ’Tis your fault, you simpleton,” answered the duke. “With your idle nonsense yesterday about escaping, you worried me so that I dreamed that I was trying to escape and broke my neck in doing so.”
La Ramee laughed.
“Come,” he said, “ ’tis a warning from Heaven. Never commit such an imprudence as to try to escape, except in your dreams.”
“And you are right, my dear La Ramee,” said the duke, wiping away the sweat that stood on his brow, wide awake though he was; “after this I will think of nothing but eating and drinking.”
“Hush!” said La Ramee; and one by one he sent away the guards, on various pretexts.
“Well?” asked the duke when they were alone.
“Well!” replied La Ramee, “your supper is ordered.”
“Ah! and what is it to be? Monsieur, my majordomo, will there be a pie?”
“I should think so, indeed—almost as high as a tower.”
“You told him it was for me?”
“Yes, and he said he would do his best to please your Highness.”
“Good!” exclaimed the duke, rubbing his hands.
“Devil take it, my lord! what a gourmand you are growing; I haven’t seen you with so cheerful a face these five years.”
The duke saw that he had not controlled himself as he ought, but at that moment, as if he had listened at the door and comprehended the urgent need of diverting La Ramee’s ideas, Grimaud entered and made a sign to La Ramee that he had something to say to him.
La Ramee drew near to Grimaud, who spoke to him in a low voice.
The duke meanwhile recovered his self-control.
“I have already forbidden that man,” he said, “to come in here without my permission.”
“You must pardon him, my lord,” said La Ramee, “for
