“Any road—all our roads here lead to many places,” said Bellines, as he went out.
“Poor Mars Plaisir!” thought Toussaint, as he carefully placed the wood so as to tempt the feeble blaze. “Our road has seemed the same for the last eight months; but it leads to widely different points. I rejoice for him that his has parted off to-day; and for myself, though it shows that I am near the end of mine. Is it this soldier, with comrades, who is to end me? Or is it this supper, better drugged than that of last night? Or will they wait to see whether solitude will kill a busy, ambitious Commander-in-Chief, as they think me?”
Chapter Forty Two.
Free.
Day after day passed on, and the prisoner found no change in his condition—as far, at least, as it depended on his gaolers. He was more ill as he became enveloped in the damps of the spring; and he grew more and more sensible of the comfort of being alone. Death by violence, however, did not come.
He did not give over his concern for Mars Plaisir because he was glad of his absence. He inquired occasionally for the Commandant, hoping that, if he could see Rubaut, he might learn whether his servant was still a prisoner, and whether his release from his cell had been for freedom, or for a worse lot than he had left behind. There was no learning from Bellines, however, whether the Commandant had returned to the fortress, or who was his lieutenant, if he had not. In the middle of April, the doubt was settled by the appearance of Rubaut himself in the cell. He was civil—unusually so—but declared himself unable to give any information about Mars Plaisir. He had nothing more to do with his prisoners when they were once taken out of his charge. He had always business enough upon his hands to prevent his occupying himself with things and people that were gone by. He had delivered Mars Plaisir into proper care; and that was the last he knew of him. The man was well at that time—as well as usual, and pleased enough to be in the open air again. Rubaut could remember no more concerning him—in fact, had not thought of him again, from that day to the present.
“And this is the kind of answer that you would give concerning me, if my sons should arrive hither in search of me some days after my grave had been closed?”
“Come, come! no foreboding!” said Rubaut. “Foreboding is bad.”