Everything arouses foreboding in the minds of those whose friends are in danger. Mademoiselle de Fargas had more than a friend—an adored brother, who was lying in prison, charged with a capital offence. It seemed to her that her brother must be involved in the excitement which had caused the crowd to assemble. Growing pale, she seized the guide's arm, crying: "Oh! my God! what has happened?"
"We shall soon see, mademoiselle," replied René Servet, much less easily moved than his companion.
No one knew positively what had happened. When they had come to relieve the sentinel at two o'clock they had found him gagged and bound hand and foot in his box. All that he could tell was that he had been surprised by four men, and that he had offered a desperate resistance, which had ended in their leaving him in the state in which his comrades had found him. He could give no information concerning what had passed after he had been bound and gagged. He believed, however, that the prisoner had been the object of the attack. The mayor, the commissioner of police, and the fireman's sergeant had then been notified of what had occurred. These three digitaries had then held council, had summoned the sentinel before them, and there he had repeated the same story.
After a half hour of deliberation and surmises, each one more ridiculous than its predecessor, they resolved to end where they ought to have begun, by going to the prison. But, in spite of prolonged knocking, no one came to admit them. But the strokes of the knocker aroused the people in the adjacent houses. They came to the windows, and a series of questions and answers passed, which resulted in a locksmith being sent for.
In the meantime the dawn had come, several dogs began to bark, and the occasional passers-by had grouped themselves round the mayor and the police commissioner; and when the sergeant returned with a locksmith, about four o'clock in the morning, he found quite a crowd gathered in front of the prison doors. The locksmith remarked that if the doors were bolted on the inside all the picklocks in the world would be of no avail. But the mayor, a man of great good sense, ordered him to try first, and if he failed they could devise some other means later. Now, as the Companions of Jehu had been unable to close the door on the outside and to bolt it on the inside at one and the same time, they had simply pulled it to after them; and to the great satisfaction of everybody the door had opened at once.
Then everybody tried to rush into the prison; but the mayor placed the sergeant on guard before the door, with orders to keep them all out. They had to obey the law. The crowd increased, but the mayor's order was respected.
There are not many cells in the prison of Nantua; they consist of three subterranean chambers, in one of which they could hear groans. These groans attracted the attention of the mayor, who interrogated those who were making them through the door, and soon found that they were none other than the doorkeeper and the jailer themselves.
They had proceeded thus far with the municipal investigation, when Diane de Fargas and the landlord of the inn of the Dragon arrived in the square before the prison.