“Will it be so bad as that, indeed?”
He looked up with a start, and perceived Dugald, his jailor, gazing upon him with an expression of indescribable sagacity.
“The master will be sending me with his car to tell the folks at Hechnahoul,” added Dugald.
Still the Baron failed to comprehend the exchange of favors suggested by his jailor's sympathetic voice.
“Go, zen!” he muttered, and bent his head.
“You will not be wishing to send no messages to your friends?”
At last the prisoner understood. For a sovereign Dugald promised to convey a note to the Count; for five he undertook to bribe the chauffeur to convey him to The Lash, when he learned where that gentleman was to be found. And he further decided to be faithful to his trust, since, as he prudently reflected—
“If he will be a real chentleman after all it shall not be well to be hard with him. And if he will not be, nobody shall know.”
The Baron felt a trifle less hopeless now, yet so black did the prospect remain that he firmly believed he should never be able to raise his head again and meet the gaze of his fellow-men; not at least if he stayed in that room till the police arrived.