commander, whereas Jack was a fairly senior post-captain: no very great man perhaps, no admiral, but quite important enough to preserve him from ill-treatment unless they had some unusually convincing pretext. For his own part, Stephen was not unknown in the scientific world; he had nothing like Davy's European reputation, but even so ... if only he could advertise his presence, that would be a certain protection: although in his case a pretext would be far easier to find. Always providing they really knew who and what he was. He reflected with some satisfaction that they could not reproach him with any breach of strict neutrality during his visit to Paris; but his satisfaction did not last for long. The pretext was the thing, and a little perjury, a little forgery, would soon produce it: the Due d'Enghien had been shot on false documents, and he was a very, very much more important man than Stephen. The pretext: dictatorships were absurdly sensitive to the public opinion they continually outraged; they always had to be in the right, to be morally impeccable: and that was one of the reasons why those who had been much mutilated in their interrogation were rarely allowed to live, whether they had given their information or not. How much did they know in fact? And what was meant by theyl He turned over every faint indication, the Admiral's embarrassment, Duhamel's behaviour to them, the present image of the war as presented by the Moniteur, by the countenance of the people he had seen, the scraps of conversation he had overheard; but now the coach had long since crossed the river and part of his mind was taken up with following its course through the lamp-lit streets of Paris. The choice of their prison would tell him a certain amount. Duhamel gave a stifled groan.
They passed the turning that would have led them to the Faisanderie, and Stephen nodded; at least they were not General Dumesnil's prisoners at present. On without crossing the river to the Conciergerie, on past the Chatelet, and then at last, sweeping in a strong left-hand turn that produced another desperate groan, they drew up in the dark courtyard of what could only be the Temple, although it seemed all wrong in the obscurity: lopsided, obscurely deformed. The Temple: thoroughly ambiguous as a prison; but scarcely army, at all events.
Their entrance into the grim ancient fortress was unlike any that Stephen had ever known. Duhamel had his door open before the carriage stopped, and followed by Jack and Jagiello, who trampled on Stephen and broke his larger bottle in their haste, he ran into the immense vaulted guard-room where those charged with receiving the prisoners sat among scaffolding and pails. With irresistible impetuosity they rushed past the deputy-governor, his secretary, the turnkeys and ran on, pale and earnest, down a dark corridor, Duhamel a good length ahead.
Stephen was left by a heap of ancient stones among the wondering guards. 'What is the matter with Monsieur Duhamel?' asked the deputy-governor, standing there with a list in his hand.
'I believe he has an urgent need,' said Stephen. Pray, sir, what are they doing to the poor old Temple?'
'Alas, sir, they are pulling it down at last,' said the deputy-governor; and then, looking inquisitively at Stephen, 'I do not believe I have the honour of your acquaintance,' he said.
'That is soon repaired,' said Stephen with a bow. 'My name is Maturin, at your service.'
'Ah, Monsieur Maturin,' cried the deputy-governor, looking at his list. 'Just so. Forgive me: I had taken you for ... Give yourself the trouble of going with these gentlemen for the necessary formalities.'
Stephen had been in several prisons, but they had all been underground, and when, after the necessary formalities, which included a thoroughly professional search, he and his companions were led away it seemed to him unnatural to walk up flight after flight of worn stone stairs. Yet up they went, up and up, and along an echoing corridor to three communicating rooms, two with pallets, one with a bed, all dimly seen by lantern-light, and there they were left in the darkness.
After a long and black but airy night - a cruelly disturbed night for Jack, an anxious one for Stephen, a night peaceful only for Jagiello, whose brisk young bowels had quite recovered after the last upheaval - the grey creeping dawn gave them the first clear notion of their quarters. Three little very dirty rooms leading into one another, each with a barred window looking out on to a towering great blank wall on the other side of the dry moat, and each with a judased door on to the corridor. So many doors and windows in so small a space so high up were enough to ensure a strange complication of draughts, but they were not all, since the first room had still another door in the left-hand wall, blind and immovably bolted on the far side, as well as a corbelled projection jutting from the tower, a primitive jakes or privy dating from the Templars themselves, through whose open base the wind came howling in whenever it happened to be in the north or east.
It seemed that until recently the rooms had been inhabited by a single man, a prisoner of some distinction; for there was a reasonable bed in the first room and a wash-hand-stand with a tap from a cistern under the leads, while he had taken his meals in the second, and the third had been his study or music-room - there were still some tattered books in a corner, and a disjointed flute - and judging by the greasy marks in the deep-cut window-seat that he and no doubt other generations of prisoners had left, it was here that he had spent most of his time. This was the only window from which they could see much, the others being little more than shafts in the great cold thickness of the wall; but here, by craning out against the bars, they had a view of the moat below, the wall beyond, and of a file of corbelled privies stretching away on the left hand, each with a strong growth of vegetation below it, favoured by some six hundred years of enrichment.
This was their view on the first morning, and having craned Stephen said that they were in the Courcy tower, probably on the side facing the rue des Neuf Fiancees, the side away from the great tower.
'The great tower of what, if you please?' asked Jagiello.
'Why, of the Temple. The Temple, where the King was imprisoned,' said Stephen, 'and most of his family.'
'The Temple, where they killed poor Wright,' said Jack in a sombre voice, and he gave the guard a sombre, dangerous look when the man came in, rattling his keys, to ask whether these gentlemen wanted the ration or whether they preferred to send out. The search had removed such dangerous things as their razors and Stephen's surprising store of money; the searchers had not found his sudden release, nor could they have done so unless they had searched his vitals; but they had given a receipt for all the rest, stating that the prisoner might draw on the sum for food and approved comforts: spirits were not allowed, nor any publications other than the Moniteur. These gentlemen might have the ration, the prison ration, said the guard (a melancholy man) or they might send out for their victuals. If they chose to send out, Rousseau -tapping his pendulous middle-aged belly - was at their service, for a modest, a very modest consideration. The gaoler was a slow, heavy man, but he knew to a penny the sum that had been taken from the prisoners; there were rich pickings to be had here, and his air was as nearly civil as he could make it. Besides, there was no real ill-nature in his vague, thick-boned face, though his spirits were obviously very low indeed.'
'I should like the ration,' said the penniless Jagiello.
'Nonsense,' said Stephen, and to Rousseau, 'We shall certainly send out. But before that, I must ask you to tell the surgeon that the gentleman here is in urgent need of his attention.'
Rousseau slowly turned his head to Jack, who was indeed most ghastly pale, and contemplated him for a while. 'We have no surgeon, sir,' he said at last. 'The last left three weeks ago. And to think we once had seven; and our own apothecary. Oh the pity of it all.'
