I looked at him a minute seriously, and then, feeling in my coat, handed to him the knife which I had secreted, with the words, “Enough for pecking with, eh?”
He looked at me so strangely, as he weighed the knife up and down in his hand, that I could not at first guess his thought; but presently I understood it, and I almost could have told what he would say. He opened the knife, felt the blade, measured it along his fingers, and then said, with a little bursting of the lips, “Poom! But what would ma’m’selle have thought if Gabord was found dead with a hole in his neck—behind? Eh?”
He had struck the very note that had sung in me when the temptation came; but he was gay at once again, and I said to him, “What is the hour fixed?”
“Seven o’clock,” he answered, “and I will bring your breakfast first.”
“Good-night, then,” said I. “Coffee and a little tobacco will be enough.”
When he was gone, I lay down on my bag of straw, which, never having been renewed, was now only full of worn chaff, and, gathering myself in my cloak, was soon in a dreamless sleep.
I waked to the opening of the dungeon door, to see Gabord entering with a torch and a tray that held my frugal breakfast. He had added some brandy, also, of which I was glad, for it was bitter cold outside, as I discovered later. He was quiet, seeming often to wish to speak, but pausing before the act, never getting beyond a stumbling aho! I greeted him cheerfully enough. After making a little toilette, I drank my coffee with relish. At last I asked Gabord if no word had come to the citadel for me; and he said, none at all, nothing save a message from the Governor, before midnight, ordering certain matters. No more was said, until, turning to the door, he told me he would return to fetch me forth in a few minutes. But when halfway out he suddenly wheeled, came back, and blurted out, “If you and I could only fight it out, m’sieu’! ‘Tis ill for a gentleman and a soldier to die without thrust or parry.”
“Gabord,” said I, smiling at him, “you preach good sermons always, and I never saw a man I’d rather fight and be killed by than you!” Then, with an attempt at rough humour, I added, “But as I told you once, the knot is’nt at my throat, and I’ll tie another one yet elsewhere, if God loves honest men.”
I had no hope at all, yet I felt I must say it. He nodded, but said nothing, and presently I was alone.
I sat down on my straw couch and composed myself to think; not upon my end, for my mind was made up as to that, but upon the girl who was so dear to me, whose life had crept into mine and filled it, making it of value in the world. It must not be thought that I no longer had care for our cause, for I would willingly have spent my life a hundred times for my country, as my best friends will bear witness; but there comes a time when a man has a right to set all else aside but his own personal love and welfare, and to me the world was now bounded by just so much space as my dear Alixe might move in. I fastened my thought upon her face as I had last seen it. My eyes seemed to search for it also, and to find it in the torch which stuck out, softly sputtering, from the wall. I do not pretend, even at this distance of time, after having thought much over the thing, to give any good reason for so sudden a change as took place in me there. All at once a voice appeared to say to me, “When you are gone, she will be Doltaire’s. Remember what she said. She fears him. He has a power over her.”