"Where?"
"In this barrack-yard," he replied gloomily.
"How, monsieur,—how?"
"Tonnerre de Ciel!" said the ruffian, casting off all disguise, "with a handkerchief at his eyes, and a platoon of twelve muskets levelled at his breast. You have reached Martinique in good time to see how we handle those who have so long trodden the people under foot."
I wrung my hands, and would have sunk on hearing those terrible tidings so coldly, so savagely announced, had not Rouvigny grasped my arm.
"Oh, my father!" I gasped; "and I—I——"
"Must meantime, as an aristocrat, become my prisoner," said he, while his cruel and sinister eyes sparkled with an expression which there was no mistaking, and by which I could not fail to be struck by greater horror and dismay.
"Your prisoner!" I exclaimed, while the light seemed to pass from my eyes, the life from my crushed heart, and the strength from my limbs, as I became insensible, and remember no more until the following day.
By the rays of the sun that played upon the wall, I suspected that noon,—the time at which I was to see my father—must already have arrived. I started on discovering that I was a prisoner in one of the vaulted chambers of the citadel of St. Pierre.
My present situation, the last words of Rouvigny, and the danger that menaced my helpless father, all rushed, with returning life, upon me, and I sank back on the truckle-bed, to which, no doubt, the soldiers had, overnight, conveyed me. My wretched apartment was a mere stone vault. Near me, a pitcher of water was placed upon a stool. I drank thirstily, and on rising looked about me.