“Trust me, he is dead,” continued he. “They who have announced his fate here have a right to be relied on. It now only remains to be seen how he died. These prison maladies have a strange interest for us who live in the infected climate; and, if I mistake not, I see the 'Moniteur', yonder, a full hour before its usual time. See what a blessing, gentlemen, you enjoy in a paternal Government, which in moments of public anxiety can feel for your distress and hasten to alleviate it!”
The tone of sarcasm he spoke in, the measured fall of every word, sank into the hearers' minds, and though they stood mute, they did not even move from the spot.
“Here is the 'Moniteur' now,” said the quartermaster, opening the paper and reading aloud.
“To his oft-repeated assurances that he would make no attempt upon his life—'”
A rude burst of laughter from George interrupted the reader here.
“I ask your pardon, sir,” said he, touching his cap; “proceed. I promise not to interrupt you again.”
“'That he would make no attempt upon his life, Greneral Pichegru obtained permission that the sentries should be stationed outside his cell during the night. Having provided himself with a fagot, which he secreted beneath his bed, he supped as usual in the evening of yesterday, eating heartily at eleven o'clock, and retiring to rest by twelve. When thus alone he placed the stick within the folds of the black silk cravat he generally wore round his neck, in such a manner as, when twisted, to act like a tourniquet; and having turned it with such a degree of force as to arrest the return of blood from the head, he fastened it beneath his head and shoulders, and in this manner, apoplexy supervening, expired.'”
“Par Saint Louis, sir,” cried George, “the explanation is admirable, and most satisfactorily shows how a man may possess life long enough to be certain he has killed himself. The only thing wanting is for the general to assist in dressing the proces-verbal, when doubtless his own views of his case would be equally edifying and instructive. And see, already the ceremony has begun.”
As he spoke, he pointed to a number of persons who crossed the terrace, preceded by Savary in his uniform of the Gendarmes d'Élite, and who went in the direction of the cell where the dead body lay.
The prisoners now fell into little knots and groups, talking beneath their breath, and apparently terrified at every stir about them. Each compared his sensation of what he thought he heard during the night with the other's. Some asserted that they distinctly heard the chains of the drawbridge creak long after midnight; others vouched for the quick tramp of feet along the corridors, and the sounds of strange voices; one, whose cell was beneath that of Pichegru, said that he was awoke before day by a violent crash overhead, followed by a harsh sound like coughing, which continued for some time and then ceased entirely. These were vague, uncertain signs, yet what horrible thoughts did they not beget in each listener's mind!