The following morning's sun rose bright and cloudless. At four o'clock in the morning various troops of soldiers surrounded the approaches to Bicêtre.
We shall now return to Calabash and her mother in their dungeon.
CHAPTER IX.
THE TOILET.
The condemned cell of Bicêtre was situated at the end of a gloomy passage, into which a trifling portion of light and air was admitted by means of small gratings let into the lower part of the wall. The cell itself would have been wholly dark but for a kind of wicket, let into the upper part of the door, which opened into the corridor before mentioned.
In this wretched dungeon, whose crumbling ceiling, damp, mouldy walls, and stone-paved floor struck a death-chill like that of the grave, were confined the Widow Martial, and her daughter Calabash.
The harsh, angular features of the widow stood out amidst the imperfect light of the place, cold, pale, and immovable as those of a marble statue. Deprived of the use of her hands, which were fastened beneath her black dress by the strait-waistcoat of the prison, formed of coarse gray cloth and tightly secured behind her, she requested her cap might be taken off, complaining of an oppression and burning sensation in her head; this done, a mass of long, grizzled hair fell over her shoulders.
Seated at the side of her bed, she gazed earnestly and fixedly at her daughter, who was separated from her by the width of the dungeon, and, wearing like her mother the customary strait-waistcoat, was partly reclining and partly supporting herself against the wall, her head bent forward on her breast, her eye dull and motionless, and her breathing quick and irregular. From time to time a convulsive tremor rattled her lower jaw, while her features, spite of their livid hue, remained comparatively calm and tranquil.