“There must be some truth in the rumor, for this is the second time that I have heard it. Ah! I understand now. These good people who were watching me so curiously apparently wanted to question me. They were like you, Father Courtois: they want to know what to make of General Bonaparte’s arrival.”
“Do you know what they say, M. Louis?”
“Still another rumor, Father Courtois?”
“I should think so, but they only whisper it.”
“What is it?”
“They say that he has come to demand the throne of his Majesty Louis XVIII. from the Directory and the king’s return to it; and that if Citizen Gohier as president doesn’t give it up of his own accord he will take it by force.”
“Pooh!” exclaimed the young officer with an incredulous air bordering on irony. But Father Courtois insisted on his news with an affirmative nod.
“Possibly,” said the young man; “but as for that, it’s news for me. And now that you know me, will you open the gate?”
“Of course I will. I should think so. What the devil am I about?” and the jailer opened the gate with an eagerness equalling his former reluctance. The young man entered, and Sir John followed him. The jailer locked the gate carefully, then he turned, followed by Roland and the Englishman in turn. The latter was beginning to get accustomed to his young friend’s erratic character. The spleen he saw in Roland was misanthropy, without the sulkiness of Timon or the wit of Alceste.
The jailer crossed the yard, which was separated from the law courts by a wall fifteen feet high, with an opening let into the middle of the receding wall, closed by a massive oaken door, to admit prisoners without taking them round by the street. The jailer, we say, crossed the yard to a winding stairway in the left angle of the courtyard which led to the interior of the prison.