Within an Inch of His Life Part 19

"Sir," he whispered into his master's ear while helping him to put on his clothes.

"What?"

"Hus.h.!.+ Don't speak so loud! The other window is open. It is only about twenty feet to the ground: the ground is soft. Close by is one of the cellar openings; and in there, you know, there is the old hiding-place.

It is only five miles to the coast, and I will have a good horse ready for you to-night, at the park-gate."

A bitter smile rose on M. de Boiscoran's lips, as he said,--

"And you too, my old friend: you think I am guilty?"

"I conjure you," said Anthony, "I answer for any thing. It is barely twenty feet. In your mother's name"--

But, instead of answering him, M. de Boiscoran turned round, and called M. Galpin. When he had come in, he said to him, "Look at that window, sir! I have money, fast horses; and the sea is only five miles off. A guilty man would have escaped. I stay here; for I am innocent."

In one point, at least, M. de Boiscoran had been right. Nothing would have been easier for him than to escape, to get into the garden, and to reach the hiding-place which his servant had suggested to him. But after that? He had, to be sure, with old Anthony's a.s.sistance, some chance of escaping altogether. But, after all, he might have been found out in his hiding-place, or he might have been overtaken in his ride to the coast.

Even if he had succeeded, what would have become of him? His flight would necessarily have been looked upon as a confession of his guilt.

Under such circ.u.mstances, to resist the temptation to escape, and to make this resistance well known, was in fact not so much an evidence of innocence as a proof of great cleverness. M. Galpin, at all events, looked upon it in that light; for he judged others by himself. Carefully and cunningly calculating every step he took in life, he did not believe in sudden inspirations. He said, therefore, with an ironical smile, which was to show that he was not so easily taken in,--

"Very well, sir. This circ.u.mstance shall be mentioned, as well as the others, at the trial."

Very differently thought the commonwealth attorney and the clerk. If the magistrate had been too much engaged in his dictation to notice any thing, they had been perfectly able to notice the great excitement under which the accused had naturally labored. Perfectly amazed at first, and thinking, for a moment, that the whole was a joke, he had next become furiously angry; then fear and utter dejection had followed one another.

But in precise proportion as the charges had acc.u.mulated, and the evidence had become overwhelming, he had, so far from becoming demoralized, seemed to recover his a.s.surance.

"There is something curious about it," growled Mechinet. M. Daubigeon, on the other hand, said nothing; but when M. de Boiscoran came out of his dressing-room, fully dressed and ready, he said,--

"One more question, sir."

The poor man bowed. He was pale, but calm and self-possessed.

"I am ready to reply," he said.

"I'll be brief. You seemed to be surprised and indignant at any one's daring to accuse you. That was weakness. Justice is but the work of man, and must needs judge by appearances. If you reflect, you will see that the appearances are all against you."

"I see it but too clearly."

"If you were on a jury, you would not hesitate to p.r.o.nounce a man guilty upon such evidence."

"No, sir, no!"

The commonwealth attorney bounded from his chair. He said,--

"You are not sincere!"

M. de Boiscoran sadly shook his head, and replied,--

"I speak to you without the slightest hope of convincing you, but in all sincerity. No, I should not condemn a man, as you say, if he a.s.serted his innocence, and if I did not see any reason for his crime. For, after all, unless a man is mad, he does not commit a crime for nothing. Now I ask you, how could I, upon whom fortune has always smiled; I who am on the eve of marrying one whom I love pa.s.sionately,--how could I have set Valpinson on fire, and tried to murder Count Claudieuse?"

M. Galpin had scarcely been able to disguise his impatience, when he saw the attorney take part in the affair. Seizing, therefore, the opportunity to interfere, he said,--

"Your reason, sir, was hatred. You hated the count and the countess mortally. Do not protest: it is of no use. Everybody knows it; and you yourself have told me so."

M. de Boiscoran looked as if he were growing still more pale, and then replied in a tone of crus.h.i.+ng disdain,--

"Even if that were so, I do not see what right you have to abuse the confidence of a friend, after having declared, upon your arrival here, that all friends.h.i.+p between us had ceased. But that is not so. I never told you any such thing. As my feelings have never changed, I can repeat literally what I have said. I have told you that the count was a troublesome neighbor, a stickler for his rights, and almost absurdly attached to his preserves. I have also told you, that, if he declared my public opinions to be abominable, I looked upon his as ridiculous and dangerous. As for the countess, I have simply said, half in jest, that so perfect a person was not to my taste; and that I should be very unhappy if my wife were a Madonna, who hardly ever deigned to put her foot upon the ground."

"And that was the only reason why you once pointed your gun at Count Claudieuse? A little more blood rus.h.i.+ng to your head would have made you a murderer on that day."

A terrible spasm betrayed M. de Boiscoran's fury; but he checked himself, and said,--

"My pa.s.sion was less fiery than it may have looked. I have the most profound respect for the count's character. It is an additional grief to me that he should have accused me."

"But he has not accused you!" broke in M. Daubigeon. "On the contrary, he was the first and the most eager to defend you."

And, in spite of the signs which M. Galpin made, he continued,--

"Unfortunately that has nothing to do with the force of the evidence against you. If you persist in keeping silence, you must look for a criminal trial for the galleys. If you are innocent, why not explain the matter? What do you wait for? What do you hope?"

"Nothing."

Mechinet had, in the meantime, completed the official report.

"We must go," said M. Galpin

"Am I at liberty," asked M. de Boiscoran, "to write a few lines to my father and my mother? They are old: such an event may kill them."

"Impossible!" said the magistrate.

Then, turning to Anthony, he said,--

"I am going to put the seals on this room, and I shall leave it in the meanwhile in your keeping. You know your duty, and the penalties to which you would be subject, if, at the proper time, every thing is not found in the same condition in which it is left now. Now, how shall we get back to Sauveterre?"

After mature deliberation it was decided that M. de Boiscoran should go in one of his own carriages, accompanied by one of the gendarmes.

M. Daubigeon, the magistrate, and the clerk would return in the mayor's carriage, driven by Ribot, who was furious at being kept under surveillance.

"Let us be off," said the magistrate, when the last formalities had been fulfilled.

M. de Boiscoran came down slowly. He knew the court was full of furious peasants; and he expected to be received with hootings. It was not so.

The gendarme whom the attorney had sent down had done his duty so well, that not a cry was heard. But when he had taken his seat in the carriage, and the horse went off at a trot, fierce curses arose, and a shower of stones fell, one of which wounded a gendarme.

"Upon my word, you bring ill luck, prisoner," said the man, a friend of the other gendarme who had been so much injured at the fire.

M. de Boiscoran made no reply. He sank back into the corner, and seemed to fall into a kind of stupor, from which he did not rouse himself till the carriage drove into the yard of the prison at Sauveterre. On the threshold stood Master Blangin, the jailer, smiling with delight at the idea of receiving so distinguished a prisoner.

"I am going to give you my best room," he said, "but first I have to give a receipt to the gendarme, and to enter you in my book." Thereupon he took down his huge, greasy register, and wrote the name of Jacques de Boiscoran beneath that of Trumence Cheminot, a vagabond who had just been arrested for having broken into a garden.

It was all over. Jacques de Boiscoran was a prisoner, to be kept in close confinement.