The queen slept with difficulty, and it was a sleep without repose. Hardly had she closed her eyes when she seemed to see blood, when she seemed to hear shrieks.
She had dropped asleep with the file in her hand. One part of the day was devoted by her to prayer, and the guards, seeing her often thus engaged, did not feel any alarm at what they considered an increase of religious feeling.
From time to time, however, she examined the file transmitted to her by one of her intended deliverers, and compared the fragility of the instrument with the strength of the bar.
Fortunately, these bars were only secured in the wall on one side,—that is to say, at the lower part.
The upper part was set in a crossbar; the lower part divided, there was only to pull the bar, and it of course would yield.
But it was not the physical difficulties which worried the queen. She perfectly comprehended that the thing was possible, and it was this very possibility which caused hope, like a blood-red meteor, to dazzle her eyes.
She felt that to reach her, her friends must necessarily sacrifice her guards; and could she at any price consent to the death of the only individuals who, for a length of time, had evinced any interest in her, or pity for her?
On the other hand, beyond these bars which she had been directed to saw, over the bodies of the two men who would have to die in endeavoring to prevent her deliverers from reaching her, were life, liberty, and perhaps vengeance,—three things so sweet, especially to a woman, that she asked pardon of God for so earnestly desiring them.
She believed, moreover, that not the slightest suspicion agitated the minds of her guards; that they had not any idea of a snare (if such a thing existed) into which it was intended their prisoner should fall.