‘Not a very pleasant interview, I guess,’ observed the warder, as Quita walked down the stone passage again, sobbing as if her heart would break, and clinging to Rosita’s arm. ‘I told you you’d better not see him. He’s more mad than sane, and I was half afraid he might do you some harm.’
‘Is there,’ demanded Maraquita, as soon as she could command her voice sufficiently to speak, ‘is there any chance of his being able to escape from prison?’
The gaoler laughed.
‘Escape? Well, no. I wouldn’t set my heart on that, if I was you, miss. ’Twould take a better man than he—though he’s a powerful fellow, too—to break through these walls, when he’s once inside them. He’ll never leave them again, unless it’s by the Governor’s orders—you may take your oath of that.’
At Rosita’s house, Jessica received her weeping young mistress again, and conducted her safely back to her own apartments; but it was long before Maraquita could make up her mind whether she should speak to Sir Russell on the subject of De Courcelles or not. Some suspicion might attach to her doing so, though she trusted to her native cunning to make a good story of it. But if she said nothing, and the court took a lenient view of the part he had maintained in the mutiny, Henri de Courcelles might be set at large again, and accomplish his wicked designs upon her life. The love of living, so strong in every human breast, finally outweighed all other considerations, and Maraquita, after a night of painful deliberation, asked Jessica to summon Sir Russell to her side.
The Governor, unused to such amenities on the part of his bride, came with alacrity, and full of tender solicitude for the apprehension and terror she had passed through.
‘You must try and dismiss it all from your mind now, my darling, for the danger is really past. We try the mutineers to-day, and I have very little doubt of the sentence which will be passed upon them.’
‘There is one—the man who spoke to me the other night,’ said Maraquita, trembling; ‘what will they do to him?’
The Governor frowned.
‘You mean the ringleader? I cannot tell; but if I had to decide, I should say that hanging was too good for him. Why do you ask, my dear? Surely you are not interested in his fate.’