“Drink,” said a voice, the man’s voice, “it will do you good.”
I drank obediently, almost mechanically. Then I was lowered again, and the arm was removed. A great heaviness oppressed my eyelids. I did not struggle against it, but yielded to it gladly and drifted away into the land of mist.
When I opened my eyes again the sun was still shining without the window; nothing in the room was changed. But my head seemed quite clear and I could think without weariness. What was this room in which I found myself? I looked around and examined it attentively. A small room, twelve feet square, perhaps, the bed, two chairs, a small table, and a stove in one corner the only furniture. There were a number of bottles and glasses on the table. I raised my hand to my head, surprised at the effort it cost me, and was astonished to find a bandage about my forehead. What had happened? Had I been injured?
And in a flash it all came back to me,—the arrest, the ride through the night, the encounter with Cartouche, the flash of pistols and then darkness. I must have been wounded in the head. But the regent,—was he safe? Richelieu,—where was he? A thousand questions surged into my brain at once. I raised myself upon my elbow and cried aloud. The door opened in a moment, and a woman entered, the same woman whose face I had already seen bending over me.
“Monsieur is awake, then,” she said, smiling at me kindly, but forcing me gently back upon my pillow. “Monsieur is better.”
“Yes, yes, I am better,” I answered. “But what has happened? Where am I? The regent, Richelieu, Madame du Maine——”
She laid her hand upon my lips.
“Have patience,” she said. “I will call the doctor.”
She left the room while I still lay overwhelmed by my thoughts. She was soon back, and with her was the man who had accompanied her once before, and this time I recognized him as Levau, the surgeon who had bound up my shoulder at the Café Procope.
“Good-morning, M. de Brancas,” he cried, in a jovial voice, as he came to my bedside. “I see you are doing famously and will soon be on your feet again. How do you feel?”