backside of the rue Saint-Dominique. The only change was that soon after he had been put into the barred waiting-room overlooking the stake, the door opened and a man was thrust in so roughly that he fell sprawling on the floor. Stephen helped him up, and he sat wiping the blood from his face and hands, muttering to himself in Catalan, 'O Mother of God, Mother of God, Lady of Consolation save me.' They fell into conversation and the man, speaking heavily-accented, hesitant French, told a very pitiful tale of the persecution he had suffered for the cause of Catalan independence; but he was a clumsy fellow, an obvious plant who had not even learnt his lesson well, and Stephen grew very tired of him and of his little bladders of gore.
The interrogation that followed was of much the same mediocre quality. Major Clapier produced two people, one a sweating minor zoologist, the other a decayed official, who almost in Fauvet's very terms deposed that Dr Maturin had offered to carry messages, had spoken disrespectfully of the Emperor, and had solicited a fee; a clerk from Beauvillier's hotel followed them and quite truthfully stated that Dr Maturin had desired him to change fifty guineas for napoleons. This, said the major as impressively as he could, was a very grave offence indeed; Dr Maturin now stood convicted on all hands, and as a man of sense he must see that the only way of escaping the penalty was cooperation with the authorities. Nobody seemed to believe it however, and Stephen was hoping that he might be dismissed when after a brief silence a sharp-looking man on the left spoke up. 'Can Dr Maturin explain how it came about that a lady should offer the equivalent of at least a million for his release, if neither he nor she is a political agent?'
Stephen at once replied, 'Can the gentleman possibly conceive of any political agent yet weaned capable of such enormous folly, mortal to himself and to his colleague?'
They looked at one another. 'Then what is the explanation?' asked a captain.
'Only an insufferable coxcomb could reply,' said Stephen.
'Is it possible that the lady, such a lady, could be enamoured of Dr Maturin's person?' cried an officer -the first honest, sincere amazement that had been heard in that room.'
'It is improbable, I must confess,' said Stephen. 'But you are to consider, that both Europa and Pasiphae loved a bull; and that history teems with even less eligible companions.'
They were pondering upon this; the atmosphere was almost relaxed; and Stephen had received veiled looks of wondering respect when a man came in and leaning over Clapier's shoulder spoke to him in a low, urgent tone. The major looked up with a startled expression and hurried from the room. In five minutes he returned with a companion and his face was pale with furious emotion; but Stephen had little time to study Clapier's face, for his companion was Johnson.
'That is the man,' said Johnson at once, and they both looked at Stephen with the bitterest personal hatred and malignity. Clapier stepped forward and said in a low tone, barely under control, 'You killed Dubreuil and Pontet-Canet.' Stephen thought he was going to strike him, but Clapier mastered the impulse and cried 'Take him to the cells. Take him to the bee-hive cell.'
The bee-hive cell was deep in filth and ooze and perhaps it owed its name to the hissing swarms of bluebottles and flies. It was bare, apart from some iron rings let into the wall, and Stephen stood through the ensuing hours by a barred opening at the level of the paving outside, the paving of the execution-ground, loathsome great flies settling thick upon him, their bellies cold.
Standing there he saw the sun go down, the sky turn nacreous so that the roofs beyond the court took on the sharpness of a silhouette: the pallor deepened to an exquisite violet; the outlines vanished, lights appeared and in an uncurtained room beyond the stake he saw a man and woman eating their evening meal. They ate awkwardly, because they were holding hands, and at one point they leaned over the table and kissed.
There were also stars, a sprinkling of small-dust and one great unwinking planet that sloped diagonally down the sky by imperceptible degrees, slanting past a gable before it was lost behind the roofs: Venus perhaps. He felt the ampulla in his cheek - undying mortal sin except by casuistry - and although he had long thought prayer in time of danger indecent, prayers sang in his mind, the long hypnotic cadences of plainchant imploring protection for his love.
The sound of boots at last: light round the door: the grind of keys and in the sudden glare, the renewed buzz of innumerable flies, he made out a sergeant's guard. They marched him back to the room where he had been questioned and there, his eyes accustomed to the light, he saw a general officer, his aide-de-camp, the deputy- governor of the Temple, and the original figurehead colonel, now pale with anxiety.
'Is this your prisoner?' asked the general.
'Yes, sir,' said the governor.
'Then take him back to the Temple. Colonel, you will report to the secretary's office at eight o'clock tomorrow morning.'
It was a silent drive. The governor seemed worn, anxious, old, depressed; the aide-de-camp was pre- occupied with his sword-knot, which had caught in the carriage door.
'There you are, Stephen!' cried Jack. 'There you are at last. By God, we have been so - '
Stephen held up his hand and stood for some moments with his ear to the door. 'Listen, Jack,' he said when the ancient silence had returned, 'is it possible to expedite matters, at all? Johnson is in Paris. He has identified me.'
'Is he, though?' said Jack, and picking up the candle he strode into the jakes. He had everything ready for the coming of his purchase, of blocks stouter than those which had come with their dinner, everything but the breaking of their furniture, whose wood must provide the necessary chocks and wedges; and even that he had already prepared with deep hidden cuts, made by one of Poupette's knives, nicked into a saw. The massive cross-stones of the privy lay bare, loose in their beds: their free ends were still concealed by masonry, carefully arranged, but this masonry could be swept away in a moment and the long deep slabs only waited the application of a mechanical force to raise them. With the blocks he hoped for it would be a fairly easy task to swing them silently in, one after another; he had a good hold-fast in the two lintels, and the line, though thin, was immensely strong. Even with what he had it was not impossible. 'Whip upon whip, double rove, might do it,' he said. 'It all depends on the pins.' He took the pulleys out of his pocket and looked at them again: the axles upon which the little wheels revolved were not above three sixteenths of an inch across; they would have to sustain a very great load; and in all likelihood they were no more than soft iron. 'Lord, what pins,' he said. 'What landsman's pins. But at least the sheaves are strong, and the shells don't signify.' He called to Jagiello to hold the candle and as there was not room for three in the little recess Stephen sat on the bed and watched them.
Jack was a big man, but he moved quickly, neatly, working fast with sure, knowing hands. He was extremely reluctant to cut the line, both on principle and because silk was a treacherous stuff to splice, and in time he had woven the whole into a spider's web, an extraordinarily intricate piece of rigging with cunning knots, stoppers and beckets, the whole designed to concentrate two men's strength on the raising of the left-hand side of the farther
