Now, all this was said pleasantly enough, as though it were the merriest of jests, and yet to Léon it was not without significance. The cat-like manner of the speaker; the sudden lust of blood which came into his eyes as he leaned over the table and addressed my nephew; the restless movements of the others round about; all betrayed a design so dastardly that no pretence could conceal it. Instantly it dawned upon Léon that the man whose body lay in the rushes had been murdered by that very instrument. Death no Guardsman fears, but the humiliation of such a death as this might have appalled the stoutest heart; and Léon believed now that they meant to kill him. He drained the heavy goblet of its wine to hide his face from those who watched him so curiously, and when he had set the goblet down there was a smile upon his lips.
"I should like to see it, by all means," he said to the prince. "It is odd that I, a Frenchman, am so ignorant, but, upon my word of honour, I have never met 'Dr. Guillotine' in all my life."
"Then you shall meet him now," said his Highness, and touching a bell upon the table, he summoned his servants to the room.
V
Sergeant Bardot and myself, meanwhile, had crossed the river, as you may well have guessed. We found the tub old and crazy, and were but poor watermen. Yet we reached the parapet upon the farther side, and clambering up, we stood and listened if any had discovered us. The sentry, however, made no motion, and perceiving that he was drunk, as we had imagined, we crept towards him and were upon him before he could utter a sound. A moment later he went, a cloth about his mouth, headlong into the moat below us, and we stood there watching his struggles, his musket in Bardot's hands.
It had been a swift coup, and some have complained of what we did. But remember that this was a Russian stronghold, and that it imprisoned a good comrade, and few will condemn us. It was our life or his, and we did not hesitate for Léon's sake. I would do the same to-morrow for the meanest trooper in the Emperor's army.
I say that we killed the man, and yet for the moment the deed did not help us. There was the great gate, shut and barred against the stranger, and twenty men might not have opened it. If we beat upon it and they answered us, what then? The house would be full of Russians, and we were but two against them. By a stratagem alone could we save Léon's life, and calling upon our wits, we began to make a tour of the house to spy out its weaknesses if we could.
These were not readily apparent. Even to an old soldier like Bardot the place seemed impregnable. Everywhere the rugged stone walls confronted us. There was no door other than that which the sentry had guarded. The windows were so many slits in those ramparts of stone. There was not even a water-pipe upon which a man could have got a foothold. We could but stand there and gaze impotently upon that prison which had defied the centuries. It was a torture to me to remember that these impregnable walls answered for the liberty of one so dear to me as my nephew.
VI
I have told you that there had been a glimmer of light shining from a loop-hole in the tower when first we drove up to the place. It was beneath this we came to a halt and stood to reckon with the situation. Bardot's eyes were quick as an animal's, and it was he who perceived a second opening in the wall, but not so high as the other, and without a light beyond to disclose it. When he suggested that he should climb up on my shoulders and get a footing at this spot, I could but ask him what he hoped to effect thereby.
"Had you a rope," said I, "perchance we could look through the window, but since you have not a rope——"
He interrupted me with a little cry. "Major," says he, "there was a rope in the boat."
I retorted that we had used it to make the ship fast, but he laughed at that.
"We shall return by the drawbridge," says he. "Do you stand sentinel here, and I will get what we want." And with that he was off like a shot, and for some minutes I saw him no more.
The interval was spent in listening to a sound of distant music, which I could not hear very plainly. There were women's voices and the music of fiddles, and it seemed to me that I had heard some of their songs in the casinos of my own Paris. Such a surprise was very welcome and put heart into me. Léon could hardly be in peril while women were singing to him. I told Bardot as much when he returned, and his curiosity concerning the voices was not less than my own.
"Let us have a look at them," says he. And with that he climbed upon my shoulders, and throwing the rope he had brought from the boat deftly about the iron bar of the window he pulled himself up like a monkey, and so gained a foothold on the ledge.
For a long time now he did not utter a word. I thought that I heard him laughing softly, and then, of a sudden, he appeared to grow deeply interested in what was happening in the room.
"What do you see, Bardot?" I asked him, anxiety getting the better of me.
He did not reply, but peered the closer betwixt the bars.
"Oh!" cried I impatiently, "there will be some woman for a certainty."
His answer was to take a pistol from his belt and to look to the priming. I could see him quite clearly, one arm being about the iron bar and the other upon the trigger, which he had cocked.
"Good God!" I cried. "You will bring them out on us."
He did not heed me, but throwing his head back, he said in a loud whisper: "They are going to butcher your nephew." At the same moment I heard a dreadful scream from the tower itself.
"Help me up!" cried I, gone mad at my own impotence. "Why do you not fire at them?"
He nodded his head, and thrusting his pistol through the bars, he snapped at an unseen enemy. The weapon did not fire, and he threw it down to me angrily. "Your own," he cried, and came a little way down the rope to reach it.
The next minute there was a loud report, and upon that a hollow sound, as though a great bell had been struck a heavy blow by a hammer.
"Now," cried Bardot quickly, "to the bridge!"
I did not question him, and we ran round together to fling down the bridge, the windlass running out with the sound of a great ship's cable. It seemed inconceivable that the Russians in the place did not attack us. This, however, did not happen.
We ran across the bridge and there crouched as two hunters who themselves were hunted.
"Listen!" says Bardot, bending his ear to the earth.
I imitated him, and heard a strange sound. It was the thunder of cavalry through the wood.
"The Cossacks!" cried I. It seemed to me then that I should never see poor Léon again.
VII
Within the tower the prince was now introducing my nephew to "Dr. Guillotine."
All the resources of a barbarous masquerade were employed in this sorry entertainment.
The stage itself would have served for a miniature Théâtre Français. Brawny Cossacks, clad like the sansculottes of the Revolution, swarmed up on the mock scaffold and cried curses upon their prisoner. The executioner was a huge Tartar with a monstrous black beard and a knife at his girdle. The knitting women of the Place de la Grève were not forgotten. A bevy of hags squatted about the platform and pointed their lean fingers at the miserable prisoner.
Had Léon a doubt hitherto as to the meaning of this foul business, it must have surrendered at the moment when he recognised one of his old troopers among the mock condemned, and perceived that the Russians