"Oh, no," replied the brigand. "He set out for Paris with great speed for several reasons: first, because he knew suspicions are entertained of him in regard to his dealings with the King of Spain; next, because he feared that inquiry would be made as to what has become of you, and he wished to justify himself; and, next, because he did not choose to trust your goodly friend, the Count of Meyrand, in anything, but especially—"
"But where, then, is Isabel?" demanded the young cavalier.
"Ay, who can say!" rejoined Corse de Leon.
Bernard de Rohan started up eagerly. "Let us seek for her at once, then," he said. "If, as you say, all the doors of this castle open to you as easily as to their lord, let us seek her through every room in the place, and take her with us when we go. In Heaven's name leave her not here!"
"She is not here, wherever she is," replied the brigand; "and I trust that by this time she is free; but I will tell you more by-and-by, for I hear the clock striking one, and we shall have just time to reach the hillside before the horses arrive. Come, Monsieur de Rohan, come. They have taken your arms from you, I see. Well, we must find you others."
Thus saying, he raised the lamp, and led the way towards the door. As he went, however, the light fell upon the fetters which hung against the wall, and he paused, gazing upon them and frowning heavily. "Ah, ah, accursed implements of tyranny!" he muttered, "When, when will the time come that ye shall be no longer known! God of Heaven! even then it must be remembered that such things have been. It must be written in books. It must be told in tradition, that men were found to chain their fellow-creatures with heavy bars of iron, to make them linger out the bright space given them for activity and enjoyment in dungeons and in fetters, till the dull flame was extinguished, and dust returned to dust. Would to Heaven that there were no such thing as history, to perpetuate, even unto times when man shall have purified his heart from the filthy baseness of these days, the memory of such enormous deeds as fetters like that record! Out upon it! Was it for this that man learned to dig the ore from the mine, and forge the hard metal in the fire? But come, come! I am forgetting myself;" and he led the way forth along the same path by which Bernard de Rohan had been brought from the chapel. The ponderous doors in the solid rock were all open; but the young cavalier remarked that Corse de Leon closed them one by one behind him, till at length they stood in the open air at the foot of the hill.
It were difficult, nay, impossible, to describe the sensations which the first breath of that free air produced in Bernard de Rohan. It would require to have been a captive, and yet full of the spirit of freedom, to have contemplated long imprisonment, and to be suddenly set free, even to comprehend what he then felt. His sensations, however, found vent but in one exclamation. "Thank God!" he said, and followed his companion, who now, with rapid strides, climbed the opposite side of the hill, till he reached the spot where he had waited for Bernard de Rohan on the night when first they met. No horses were there, however, and Corse de Leon seated himself on a point of the crag, and seemed about to fall into one of his fits of revery; but his young companion was not disposed to rest satisfied without some farther information.
"Now," he said, "now! You promised to tell me more—you promised to tell me more concerning Isabel. With whom is she? In whose hands is she, if not in those of the Lord of Masseran?"
"She was," replied Corse de Leon, "she was in the hands of your bright friend, the Count de Meyrand."
Bernard de Rohan's hand grasped for the hilt of his sword, but it was gone; and he only muttered the words "Villain, villain! I thought I heard that treacherous voice. Who shall one depend upon in this world?"