He gave a loud and hearty yawn.
“I'll not fail you...” he murmured, as he closed his eyes, and gave a final struggle to get his head at a comfortable angle, “the letter will be written in my best cali... calig.... Lud! but I'm not so drunk as you think I am. ...”
But as if to belie his own oft-repeated assertion, hardly was the last word out of his mouth than his stertorous and even breathing proclaimed the fact that he was once more fast asleep.
With a shrug of the shoulders and a look of unutterable contempt at his broken-down enemy, Chauvelin turned on his heel and went out of the room.
But outside in the corridor he called the orderly to him and gave strict commands that no more wine or brandy was to be served to the Englishman under any circumstances whatever.
“He has two hours in which to sleep off the effects of all that brandy which he had consumed,” he mused as he finally went back to his own quarters, “and by that time he will be able to write with a steady hand.”
Chapter XXXIII: The English Spy
And now at last the shades of evening were drawing in thick and fast. Within the walls of Fort Gayole the last rays of the setting sun had long ago ceased to shed their dying radiance, and through the thick stone embrasures and the dusty panes of glass, the grey light of dusk soon failed to penetrate.
In the large ground-floor room with its window opened upon the wide promenade of the southern ramparts, a silence reigned which was oppressive. The air was heavy with the fumes of the two tallow candles on the table, which smoked persistently.