CHAPTER IX
HOW ONE MAY PASS CLOSE BY HIS DESTINY WITHOUT
KNOWING IT
When the queen held a levee, it was generally in the evening after supper; so much Gabriel learned, and was told also that his new post of captain of the Guards not only allowed but required him to show himself there. He had no desire to shirk that duty, and his only regret was that he had to wait twenty-four hours before fulfilling it. We can see that in zeal and gallantry Monsieur d'Avallon's place was likely to be worthily filled.
But he had to think about killing those twenty-four hours, one after the other,—those everlasting hours which separated him from the eagerly desired moment. This young man, whose joy made him forget his weariness, and who had as yet hardly seen Paris except on his way from one camp to another, started to scour the city with Martin-Guerre in search of a suitable lodging. He had the good luck, for he was in luck that day, to find vacant the very apartments which had formerly been occupied by his father, the Comte de Montgommery. He hired them, although they were somewhat over-fine for a mere captain of the Guards; but he could make himself easy in that regard by simply writing to his faithful Elyot to send him some money from Montgommery. He also wrote to his good nurse Aloyse to come and join him there.
Gabriel's first purpose was thus attained. He was a child no longer now, but a man who had already proved his manhood, and with whom there must be a reckoning; to the honorable qualities which he had inherited from his ancestors he had been able to add some personal renown. Alone and with no other support than his sword, and no recommendation but his gallant behavior, he had reached high rank at twenty-four. At last he might proudly show himself to her whom he loved, as well as to those whom it was his duty to hate. The latter Aloyse could help him to find; the former had found him.
Gabriel went to sleep with his heart at rest, and slept long and well.
The next day he had to present himself to Monsieur de Boissy, Grand Equerry of France, to furnish his proofs of nobility. Monsieur de Boissy, a man of honor, had been the Comte de Montgommery's friend. He understood Gabriel's motives for concealing his true title, and gave him his word that he would keep his secret. In the next place, Monsieur le Maréchal d'Amville presented Gabriel to his company. Then Gabriel at once began his duties by visiting and inspecting the State prisons in Paris,—a painful necessity which it was a part of his functions to yield to once a month.
He began with the Bastille, and ended with the Châtelet.
The governor handed him his list of prisoners, told him which ones had died or been transferred or set free, and which were sick, and finally made them pass in review before him,—a sad review, a mournful spectacle. He thought his duties were done, when the governor of the Châtelet called his attention to a page in his register which was almost blank, and bore only this extraordinary memorandum, which impressed Gabriel more than all the rest:—
"No. 21, X.—Secret prisoner. If during the visit of the governor or the captain of the Guards he makes the least attempt to speak, have him removed to a deeper and harsher dungeon."
"Who is this prisoner of such importance? May I know?" Gabriel asked Monsieur de Salvoison, governor of the Châtelet.
"No one knows who he is," was the reply. "I received him from my predecessor as he had received him from his. You notice that the date of his imprisonment is left blank. It must have been during the reign of François I. that he was brought here. He has undertaken to speak two or three times, so I am told; but at his first word the governor is bound, under the severest penalties, to close the door of his cell, and to remove him at once to a more rigorous dungeon; and this has always been done. There is now only one dungeon left more severe than that he occupies, and confinement in that means death. No doubt they desire that he should finally come to that; but just now the prisoner makes no attempt to speak. He must be some very dangerous criminal. He is always in shackles; and his jailer, to guard against any possibility of an escape, is in and out of his cell every minute."
"But suppose he speaks to the jailer?" said Gabriel.
"Oh, he is a deaf mute, born in the Châtelet, who has never been outside the walls."
Gabriel shuddered. This man, so completely isolated from the world of the living, and who yet lived and thought, inspired in his breast a feeling of compassion mingled with an undefinable dread. What resolution or compunction, what fear of hell or trust in heaven, could prevent so wretched a being from dashing out his brain against the walls of his dungeon? Could it be the thirst for revenge, or some hope of deliverance that enabled him to retain his hold on life!
Gabriel felt a sort of anxious eagerness to see this man; his heart beat faster than it had ever done before except when he was on his way to see Diane. He had visited a hundred other prisoners with no other emotion than a sort of general compassion for their lot; but the thought of this poor wretch appealed to him and moved him more than all the others, and his heart was filled with sorrow when he thought of his tomb-like existence.
"Let us go to Number 21," he said to the governor with a choking voice.
They went down several damp, black stairways, passed under several arches which resembled the horrible spirals of Dante's Inferno; at last the governor said, stopping before an iron door,—
"This is the place. I am not his jailer; he is in the cell, no doubt. But I have duplicate keys; let us go in."
He opened the door, and they went in, with no light but a lantern, held by a turnkey. Then Gabriel saw before him a mute and frightful picture, such as one hardly sees except in the nightmare of delirium.
For walls, nothing but solid rock, black, moss-grown, and noisome; for this gloomy hole was excavated below the bed of the Seine, and the water, in times of freshet, filled it half full. On these loathsome walls were crawling slimy things; and the icy air was broken by no sound except that made by the regular, dull falling of a drop of water from the hideous arch. A little less alive than the drop of water, a little more alive than the almost motionless slugs, two beings that had been human were dragging out their existence there, one guarding the other, both dumb and awe-inspiring.
The jailer, a sort of idiot, a dull-eyed giant, with a face of deathlike pallor, was standing in the shadow, gazing stupidly at the prisoner, who was lying in the corner on a pallet of straw, shackled hand and foot to a chain riveted to the wall. He was an old man, with a long white beard and white hair. When they entered he seemed to be sleeping, and did not stir; he might have been taken for a corpse or a statue.
But suddenly he sat up and opened his eyes, and his gaze met Gabriel's.
He was forbidden to speak; but this terrible and piercing gaze spoke for him. Gabriel was fascinated by it, and could not remove his eyes. The governor and turnkey overhauled all the corners of the dungeon. He, Gabriel, rooted to the spot, neither moved forward nor back, but stood there transfixed by those blazing eyes; he could not get away from them, and at the same time a thousand confused and unutterable thoughts were whirling through his brain.
The prisoner seemed no longer to view his visitor with mere indifference, and there was a moment when he made a motion and opened his lips as if to speak; but the governor having turned back toward them, he remembered in time the rule laid down for him, and his lips spoke only by a bitter smile. He closed his eyes once more, and relapsed into his corpse-like immobility.
"Oh, let us go out!" said Gabriel to the governor. "For God's sake, let us go out! I must have fresh air and see the sunlight again."
He did not recover his tranquillity and his life, so to speak, until he found himself once more in the throng and tumult of the street. And even then the gloomy vision he had seen remained in his mind and pursued him the livelong day, as he walked thoughtfully hither and thither through the streets.
Something seemed to tell him that the fate of this wretched captive was connected with his own, and that a great crisis in his life was impending. Worn out at last by these mysteriously recurring presentiments, he directed his steps as the day drew to its close toward the lists of the Tournelles. The day's jousting, in which Gabriel had not cared to take part, was just coming to an end. Gabriel could see Diane, and she saw him; and this interchange of glances at once put his gloomy thoughts to flight as the rays of the sun disperse the clouds. Gabriel forgot the unfortunate prisoner whom he had seen that day, to give himself up entirely to thoughts of the lovely maiden he was to see again in the evening.