Monsieur Lecoq by Émile Gaboriau (romance novel chinese novels .txt) 📕

“We have just taken a look at the prisoner. He is very pale, and his eyes are glittering feverishly. He is reading aloud to divert his mind. Corporal Bavois is looking out of the window. It must be dull music for him.”

The baron’s voice would also be of advantage in overpowering any suspicious sound, should there be one.

And while Bavois worked, M. d’Escorval read, read, read.

He had completed the perusal of the entire paper, and was about to begin it again, when the old soldier, leaving the window, motioned him to stop.

“Half the task is completed,” he said, in a whisper. “The lower bars are cut.”

“Ah! how can I ever repay you for your devotion!” murmured the baron.

“Hush! not a word!” interrupted Bavois. “If I escape with you, I can never return here; and I shall not know where to go, for the regiment, you see, is my only family. Ah, well! if you will give me a home with you, I shall be content.”

Whereupon he swallowed a big draught of brandy, and set to work with renewed ardor.

The corporal had cut one of the second row of bars, when he was interrupted by M. d’Escorval, who, without discontinuing his reading, had approached and pulled Bavois’s long coat to attract his attention.

He turned quickly.

“What is it?”

“I heard a singular noise.”

“Where?”

“In the adjoining room where the ropes are.”

Honest Bavois muttered a terrible oath.

“Do they intend to betray us? I risked my life, and they promised me fair play.”

He placed his ear against an opening in the partition, and listened for a long time. Nothing, not the slightest sound.

“It must have been some rat that you heard,” he said, at last. “Resume your reading.”

And he began his work again. This was the only interruption, and a little before four o’clock everything was ready. The bars were cut, and the ropes, which had been drawn through an opening in the wall, were coiled under the window.

The decisive moment had come. Bavois took the counterpane from the bed, fastened it over the opening in the door, and filled up the keyhole.

“Now,” said he, in the same measured tone which he would have used in instructing his recruits, “attention, sir, and obey the word of command.” Then he calmly explained that the escape would consist of two distinct operations; the first in gaining the narrow platform at the base of the tower; the second, in descending to the foot of the precipitous rock.

The abbé, who understood this, had brought Martial two ropes; the one to be used in the descent of the precipice being considerably longer than the other.

“I will fasten the shortest rope under your arms, Monsieur, and I will let you down to the base of the tower. When you have reached it, I will pass you the longer rope and the crowbar. Do not miss them. If we find ourselves without them, on that narrow ledge of rock, we shall either be compelled to deliver ourselves up, or throw ourselves down the precipice. I shall not be long in joining you. Are you ready?”

M. d’Escorval lifted his arms, the rope was fastened securely about him, and he crawled through the window.

From there the height seemed immense. Below, in the barren fields that surrounded the citadel, eight persons were waiting, silent, anxious, breathless.

They were Mme. d’Escorval and Maurice, Marie-Anne, Abbé Midon, and the four retired army officers.

There was no moon; but the night was very clear, and they could see the tower quite plainly.

Soon after four o’clock sounded they saw a dark object glide slowly down the side of the tower⁠—it was the baron. After a little, another form followed very rapidly⁠—it was Bavois.

Half of the perilous journey was accomplished.

From below, they could see the two figures moving about on the narrow platform. The corporal and the baron were exerting all their strength to fix the crowbar securely in a crevice of the rock.

In a moment or two one of the figures stepped from the projecting rock and glided gently down the side of the precipice.

It could be none other than M. d’Escorval. Transported with happiness, his wife sprang forward with open arms to receive him.

Wretched woman! A terrific cry rent the still night air.

M. d’Escorval was falling from a height of fifty feet; he was hurled down to the foot of the rocky precipice. The rope had parted.

Had it broken naturally?

Maurice, who examined the end of it, exclaimed with horrible imprecations of hatred and vengeance that they had been betrayed⁠—that their enemy had arranged to deliver only a dead body into their hands⁠—that the rope, in short, had been foully tampered with⁠—cut!

Chupin had not taken time to sleep, nor scarcely time to drink, since that unfortunate morning when the Duc de Sairmeuse ordered affixed to the walls of Montaignac, that decree in which he promised twenty thousand francs to the person who should deliver up Lacheneur, dead or alive.

“Twenty thousand francs,” Chupin muttered gloomily; “twenty sacks with a hundred pistoles in each! Ah! if I could discover Lacheneur; even if he were dead and buried a hundred feet under ground, I should gain the reward.”

The appellation of traitor, which he would receive; the shame and condemnation that would fall upon him and his, did not make him hesitate for a moment.

He saw but one thing⁠—the reward⁠—the blood-money.

Unfortunately, he had nothing whatever to guide him in his researches; no clue, however vague.

All that was known in Montaignac was that M. Lacheneur’s horse was killed at the Croix d’Arcy.

But no one knew whether Lacheneur himself had been wounded, or whether he had escaped from the fray uninjured. Had he reached the frontier? or had he found an asylum in the house of one of his friends?

Chupin was thus hungering for the price of blood, when, on the day of the trial, as he was returning from the citadel, after making his deposition, he entered a drinking saloon. While there he heard the name of Lacheneur