The Gadfly by Ethel Voynich (top fiction books of all time .txt) 📕

gorgeous rooms, with beds and couches and low soft lounges. It was night, and he said to himself: “Here, at last, I shall find a quiet place to sleep.” But when he chose a dark room and lay down, someone came in with a lamp, flashing the merciless light into his eyes, and said: “Get up; you are wanted.”

He rose and wandered on, staggering and stumbling like a creature wounded to death; and heard the clocks strike one, and knew that half the night was gone already⁠—the precious night that was so short. Two, three, four, five⁠—by six o’clock the whole town would wake up and there would be no more silence.

He went into another room and would have lain down on a bed, but someone started up from the pillows, crying out: “This bed is mine!” and he shrank away with despair in his heart.

Hour after hour struck, and still he wandered on and on, from room to room, from house to house, from corridor to corridor. The horrible gray dawn was creeping near and nearer; the clocks were striking five; the night was gone and he had found no rest. Oh, misery! Another day⁠—another day!

He was in a long, subterranean corridor, a low, vaulted passage that seemed to have no end. It was lighted with glaring lamps and chandeliers; and through its grated roof came the sounds of dancing and laughter and merry music. Up there, in the world of the live people overhead, there was some festival, no doubt. Oh, for a place to hide and sleep; some little place, were it even a grave! And as he spoke he stumbled over an open grave. An open grave, smelling of death and rottenness⁠—Ah, what matter, so he could but sleep!

“This grave is mine!” It was Gladys; and she raised her head and stared at him over the rotting shroud. Then he knelt down and stretched out his arms to her.

“Gladys! Gladys! Have a little pity on me; let me creep into this narrow space and sleep. I do not ask you for your love; I will not touch you, will not speak to you; only let me lie down beside you and sleep! Oh, love, it is so long since I have slept! I cannot bear another day. The light glares in upon my soul; the noise is beating my brain to dust. Gladys, let me come in here and sleep!”

And he would have drawn her shroud across his eyes. But she shrank away, screaming:

“It is sacrilege; you are a priest!”

On and on he wandered, and came out upon the seashore, on the barren rocks where the fierce light struck down, and the water moaned its low, perpetual wail of unrest. “Ah!” he said; “the sea will be more merciful; it, too, is wearied unto death and cannot sleep.”

Then Arthur rose up from the deep, and cried aloud:

“This sea is mine!”

“Your Eminence! Your Eminence!”

Montanelli awoke with a start. His servant was knocking at the door. He rose mechanically and opened it, and the man saw how wild and scared he looked.

“Your Eminence⁠—are you ill?”

He drew both hands across his forehead.

“No; I was asleep, and you startled me.”

“I am very sorry; I thought I had heard you moving early this morning, and I supposed⁠—”

“Is it late now?”

“It is nine o’clock, and the Governor has called. He says he has very important business, and knowing Your Eminence to be an early riser⁠—”

“Is he downstairs? I will come presently.”

He dressed and went downstairs.

“I am afraid this is an unceremonious way to call upon Your Eminence,” the Governor began.

“I hope there is nothing the matter?”

“There is very much the matter. Rivarez has all but succeeded in escaping.”

“Well, so long as he has not quite succeeded there is no harm done. How was it?”

“He was found in the courtyard, right against the little iron gate. When the patrol came in to inspect the courtyard at three o’clock this morning one of the men stumbled over something on the ground; and when they brought the light up they found Rivarez lying across the path unconscious. They raised an alarm at once and called me up; and when I went to examine his cell I found all the window-bars filed through and a rope made of torn body-linen hanging from one of them. He had let himself down and climbed along the wall. The iron gate, which leads into the subterranean tunnels, was found to be unlocked. That looks as if the guards had been suborned.”

“But how did he come to be lying across the path? Did he fall from the rampart and hurt himself?”

“That is what I thought at first. Your Eminence; but the prison surgeon can’t find any trace of a fall. The soldier who was on duty yesterday says that Rivarez looked very ill last night when he brought in the supper, and did not eat anything. But that must be nonsense; a sick man couldn’t file those bars through and climb along that roof. It’s not in reason.”

“Does he give any account of himself?”

“He is unconscious, Your Eminence.”

“Still?”

“He just half comes to himself from time to time and moans, and then goes off again.”

“That is very strange. What does the doctor think?”

“He doesn’t know what to think. There is no trace of heart-disease that he can find to account for the thing; but whatever is the matter with him, it is something that must have come on suddenly, just when he had nearly managed to escape. For my part, I believe he was struck down by the direct intervention of a merciful Providence.”

Montanelli frowned slightly.

“What are you going to do with him?” he asked.

“That is a question I shall settle in a very few days. In the meantime I have had a good lesson. That is what comes of taking off the irons⁠—with all due respect to Your Eminence.”

“I hope,” Montanelli interrupted, “that you will at least not replace the fetters while he is ill. A man in the condition