"I cannot be hurried,—I have much other business."
"I have only this business in Paris, sir; but it is a business of great haste. This very hour, if it please your Eminence, I would make inquiries at the Bastile."
"It does not please me. You must wait."
"Waiting is not in my commission, sir. I am to work, or to return to London without an hour's delay. Lord Neville is particularly dear to his Highness; and if my inquiries meet not with attention,—on the moment,—I am instructed to waste no time. We must then conclude the envoy of the Commonwealth of England has been robbed and slain, and it will be the duty of England to take redress at once."
"You talk beyond your commission."
"Within it, sir."
"Retire to the anteroom. They will serve you with bread and wine while I make some inquiries."
"It is beyond my commission to eat or drink until I have had speech with Lord Neville. I will wait in this presence, the authority of your Eminence," and Israel let his sword drop and leaned upon it, gazing steadfastly the while into the face of the Cardinal. The twelve troopers with him, followed as one man, his attitude, and even Mazarin's carefully tutored composure could not long endure this silent battery of determined hearts and fixed eyes. He gave the necessary order for the release of Lord Cluny Neville,—"if such a prisoner was really in the Bastile,"—and sending a body of his own Musketeers with it, directed Israel to accompany them.
"These insolent, domineering English!" he muttered; "and this Cromwell, by grace of the devil, their Protector! If I get not the better of them yet, my name is not Mazarin. As for the young man, I meant not this long punishment; I wanted only his papers. As for the jewels, I was not told they came out of his bag,—I did suspect, but what then? I am too much given to suspicions, and the jewels were rare and cheap, and Hortense became them well. I will not give up the jewels—the man may go, but the jewels? I fear they must go, also, or Spain will have her way. Cromwell wants an excuse to withdraw, I will not give him it. And by Mary! I am sorry for the young man. I meant not such injury to him; I must make some atonement to the saints for it."
This sorrow, though brief and passing, was genuine; cruelty was perhaps the one vice unnatural to Mazarin, and he was relieved in what he called his conscience, when he heard that Lord Neville still lived,—if such bare breathing could be called life. For the Bastile seemed to be the Land of Forgetfulness. The Governor had so forgotten Cluny, that his name called up no recollection. He did not know whether he was in the prison or not. He did not know whether he was alive or dead. The head gaoler also had forgotten. Men lost their identity within those walls. The very books of the prison had forgotten Cluny. Their keeper grew cross, and positive of Neville's non-entering, as volume after volume refused to give up his name. But Israel and his men, standing there so determined and so silent, forced him to go back and back, until he came to that fateful day when, before the dawning, the young man had been driven within those terrible gates.