“Poor old boy!” said Fil-de-Soie.
“Old Scratch has cut me!” cried Jacques Collin, tearing himself free from his supporters, and drawing himself up with a fierce look. “There comes a time when the world is too many for us! The beaks gobble us up at last.”
The governor of the Conciergerie, informed of the Spanish priest’s weak state, came himself to the prison-yard to observe him; he made him sit down on a chair in the sun, studying him with the keen acumen which increases day by day in the practise of such functions, though hidden under an appearance of indifference.
“Oh! Heaven!” cried Jacques Collin. “To be mixed up with such creatures, the dregs of society—felons and murders!—But God will not desert His servant! My dear sir, my stay here shall be marked by deeds of charity which shall live in men’s memories. I will convert these unhappy creatures, they shall learn they have souls, that life eternal awaits them, and that though they have lost all on earth, they still may win heaven—Heaven which they may purchase by true and genuine repentance.”
Twenty or thirty prisoners had gathered in a group behind the three terrible convicts, whose ferocious looks had kept a space of three feet between them and their inquisitive companions, and they heard this address, spoken with evangelical unction.
“Ay, Monsieur Gault,” said the formidable la Pouraille, “we will listen to what this one may say——”
“I have been told,” Jacques Collin went on, “that there is in this prison a man condemned to death.”
“The rejection of his appeal is at this moment being read to him,” said Monsieur Gault.
“I do not know what that means,” said Jacques Collin, artlessly looking about him.
“Golly, what a flat!” said the young fellow, who, a few minutes since, had asked Fil-de-Soie about the beans on the hulks.