A little after two o’clock he heard sounds that made him tremble. There was a great bustle in the corridors; guards running to and fro, and calling each other, a rattling of keys, and the opening and shutting of doors.
The passage was suddenly illuminated; he looked out, and by the uncertain light of the lanterns, he thought he saw Lacheneur, as pale as a ghost, pass the cell, led by some soldiers.
Lacheneur! Could this be possible? He doubted his own eyesight. He thought it must be a vision born of the fever burning in his brain.
Later, he heard a despairing cry. But was it surprising that one should hear such a sound in a prison, where twenty men condemned to death were suffering the agony of that terrible night which precedes the day of execution.
At last, the gray light of early dawn came creeping in through the prison-bars. Chanlouineau was in despair.
“The letter was useless!” he murmured.
Poor generous peasant! His heart would have leaped for joy could he have cast a glance on the courtyard of the citadel.
More than an hour had passed after the sounding of the reveille, when two countrywomen, who were carrying their butter and eggs to market, presented themselves at the gate of the fortress.
They declared that while passing through the fields at the base of the precipitous cliff upon which the citadel was built, they had discovered a rope dangling from the side of the rock. A rope! Then one of the condemned prisoners must have escaped. The guards hastened to Baron d’Escorval’s room—it was empty.
The baron had fled, taking with him the man who had been left to guard him—Corporal Bavois, of the grenadiers.