It is needless to say that all who had taken part in this expedition had worn masks.
This is why the second troop, when they entered the courtyard of the Chartreuse, had asked: "Have you the prisoner?" and why the first troop, after replying in the affirmative, had asked: "Have you the report?" And this is also the reason why Morgan had remarked subsequently: "Then all is well, and justice will be done!"
[CHAPTER V]
THE JUDGMENT
The prisoner was a young man of twenty-two or three years of age, who resembled a woman rather than a man, so slender and fair was he. He was bareheaded and in his shirt sleeves, with pantaloons and boots. The Companion had seized him in his cell just as he was and had hurried him away without allowing him an instant's reflection.
His first thought had been that he was rescued. These men who had entered his cell were beyond question Companions of Jehu; that is to say, they were men who held the same opinions and belonged to the same band as himself. But when he found that they had bound his hands, and when he saw their eyes flashing angrily through their masks, he realized that he had fallen into hands far more terrible than those of his judges—the hands of those whom he had betrayed—and that he could hope for nothing from comrades whom he had been willing to denounce.
On the way he had not asked a single question and no one had spoken to him. The first words he heard from the lips of his judges were the ones they had just pronounced. He was very pale, but this pallor was the only sign of emotion he displayed.
At Morgan's command the pretended monks crossed the cloister. The prisoner walked first between two of them, each holding a pistol in his hand.
The cloister crossed, they passed into the garden. This procession of the twelve marching silently along in the darkness had something terrifying about it. They approached the door of the subterranean vault. One of the two who were walking with the prisoner raised a stone, disclosing a ring beneath it, by means of which he lifted a flagstone which concealed the entrance to a staircase.