In the very instant of settling my shoulder to the charge, I was aware of a sound at my cell door—the cautious groping of wards in a lock. With a suppressed gasp I came round, with my back to the tell-tale grating, and stood like a discovered murderer.
A lance of dull light split the blackness perpendicularly.
“Open again when I tap,” said a little voice—that cracked like thunder in my brain, nevertheless,—and the light closed upon itself.
God of all irony!—the little voice—the little dulcet undertone that had cried patte-pelu upon me in the hall of Justice! So the turnkey had miscalculated or had been misinformed, and M. l’Accusateur Public would not postpone the verbal satisfaction of his cupidity to the Décadi. Le limier rencontrait; I was bayed into a corner, and my wit must measure itself against a double row of teeth.
For an instant a mad resentment against Fate for the infernal wantonness of its cruelty blazed up in my breast, so that I could scarce restrain myself from bounding upon my enemy with yells of fury. Then reason—set, contained and determined—was restored to me, and I stood taut as a bowstring and as vicious.
A moment or two passed in silence. I could make out a dusky undefined heap by the door. “In the dark all cats are grey.”
At length: “Who is there?” I said quietly.
The figure advanced a pace or two.
“Speak small, my friend,” it said, “as if thou wert the very voice of conscience.”
This time there was no doubt. I ground my teeth as I answered: “Of thy conscience, monsieur? Then should I thunder in thy ears like a bursting shell.”