138 MARIE ANTOINETTE'S
scarcely speaking to a human being, swept over him in all the blackness of its horrors.
"As for yourself, " continued the page, "all the enormous cruelties practiced in the Bastile, during the last twenty years, will be heaped upon your shoulders. This man has been an inmate of the lower- cells ; he has been chained by the waist to your dank walls, along which reptiles were eternally dragging their slime across and around him ; he has heard the perpetual lapping of fetid waters against the enormous walls, which were not thick enough to keep the poisonous drops from creeping down the rugged walls, and dropping on his hands, his hair, and his emaciated limbs"Hold! hold!" cried the governor. "If this man says but half of these things to the people, they will seize upon me in the street and tear me limb from limb." "But the danger must be avoided . It is a question of life and death with you and the madame. The king in his clemency is flinging fire-brands among his own enemies, with which they will consume him." "When did you say the pardon would come ?" inquired the governor. "In the morning, very early." "We will be prepared!" The color was coming back to that broad face. The governor had arrived at a conclusion - his prisoner should never go forth to the world to fire the hearts of men against him. He rang a little house-bell that stood upon the table with a sharpness that soon brought Christopher to the room. "Bring me a light, Christopher, and lead the way to the office where our books are kept. " Christopher lighted a lamp, and led the way into a dark, stone chamber, which contained several oaken desks, on which lay ponderous books chained to staples driven deep into the wall. The governor opened one of these imposing volumes, and, after turning over several of its leaves, ran his finger down a column which bore a date that ran back to a period in which Louis the Fifteenth reigned in France. "Only two entered at this period left, " he muttered ; " and this delicate man one of them. How fearfully strong life is. It seems as if some men never would die." "Who are you seeking for-the man who died this morning?" inquired Christopher, who was greatly astonished that the governor should have entered that room, or thought of examining the books. " Did a man die this morning ?" demanded
TALISMAN .
the governor, quickly. "What is his name? How long has he been here ?" "His name," answered Christopher, with a grim smile, " has died out long ago ; but we can trace it by the number, if you will give me time. As to the how long-I cannot remember when he was not here." Here the page stepped forward. "You have seen the man, I suppose -tell me, was he fair or dark, large or small, old or young?" "He was fair, young, sir, when I first knew him, slender, too, and of most gentle bearing. As to age, men grow old here rapidly.” "But he seems old ?" "Yes, a little, worn, old man." "That will do ," said the governor, promptly. "Now let us see this other person . Get the keys, Christopher, I will go with you to the cells- there is the number." Christopher took the scrap of paper, on which a number was written, and selecting a bunch of keys from a heap that lay in one of the desks, took the lamp in his disengaged hand. The governor made a sign to the page, and all three plunged at once into the black labyrinth of passages which led into the stony heart of the prison. Through long, vault- like halls, down narrow chasms, that seemed hewn from the original rock, far into the very bowels of the earth these three persons penetrated. After a time they heard low, sobbing murmurs, indescribably mournful, which came to them out of the darkness, as if the very stones were saturated with tears. Once the clank of a chain broke sharply through these murmurs, and the grinding sound of a curse broke across the blackness of their progress. At last they stopped before an oaken door, studded heavily with great iron knobs, over which time and dampness had woven a coat of reddish rust. A great, clumsy lock of iron spread far out on the ponderous oak, into which Christopher thrust an equally clumsy key, which ground its way through the rasping rust, and was only turned by a vigorous turn of both the keepers powerful hands. At last the door was forced open, and there, sitting upon the bare, wet stones was a human being. He had just been aroused from a dreary sleep, and, supporting himself by the palms of both hands pressed upon the floor, was peering at them through a fall of snow-white hair, which drooped over the most mournfully white face that human eye ever gazed upon. When he saw the light, and more than one human face looking in upon his misery, this man, who
