XIV
OF THE DIFFICULTY WHICH AN HONEST MAN EXPERIENCES
IN SECURING HIS RELEASE FROM PRISON
The student stood for an instant blinded by the abrupt transition from light to darkness. Where was he? He had no idea. Was he near Ascanio or far from him? He knew not. In the corridor through which he had passed, he had noticed but two other doors beside the one which was opened for him. But his primary object was gained; he was under the same roof as his friend.
Meanwhile, as he could not spend the rest of his life in that one spot, and as he could see at the other end of the dungeon, about fifteen feet away, a faint ray of light struggling in through an air-hole, he cautiously put forth his leg, with the instinctive purpose of walking to that spot; but at the second step that he took the floor seemed suddenly to give way under his feet; he plunged down three or four stairs, and would doubtless have gone head foremost against the wall had not his feet come in contact with some object which tripped him up. The result was that he escaped with nothing worse than a few bruises.
The object which had unwittingly rendered him so important a service, uttered a hollow groan.
"I beg your pardon," said Jacques, rising and politely removing his cap. "It seems that I stepped upon some person or some thing, a rudeness of which I should never have been guilty, if I had been able to see clearly."
"You stepped," said a voice, "upon what was for sixty years a man, but is soon to become a corpse for all eternity."
"In that case," said Jacques, "my regret is all the greater for having disturbed you at a moment when you were engaged doubtless, as every good Christian should be at such a time, in settling your accounts with God."
"My accounts are all settled, Master Student: I have sinned like a man, but I have suffered like a martyr; and I hope that God, when weighing my sins and my sorrows, will find that the sum of the latter exceeds that of the former."
"Amen!" said Aubry, "I hope so too with all my heart. But if it will not fatigue you too much, my dear companion in adversity,—I say my dear companion, because I presume you bear no malice on account of the little accident which procured me the honor of your acquaintance a short time since,—if it will not fatigue you too much, I say, pray tell me how you succeeded in ascertaining that I am a student."
"I knew it by your costume, and by the inkhorn hanging at your belt, in the place where a gentleman carries his dagger."