He set about making a meal.
Ralph chanced saying: “I hope you’re enjoying it. If there’s any over, don’t forget me.”
Leonard rose with his fists clenched.
“All right: I’ll shut up,” said Ralph.
Leonard sat down again.
The hours passed. It grew dusk. Beaumagnan appeared to be asleep. Leonard smoked pipe after pipe, Ralph scolded himself for having been so careless as not to have kept an eye on Josephine.
“I ought to have been distrusting her all the time,” he said to himself. “I’ve a long way to go yet to make her value me at my true worth. But what decision! What a clear view of the reality! And what a freedom from scruples! Just one single defect which prevents the monster from being perfect—her nervous system of a degenerate. And lucky for me it is to-day that she has that nervous system, since it will allow me to get to Mesnil-sous-Jumièges before her.”
He had not the slightest doubt that it was possible to escape from Leonard. He had observed that the bonds which bound his ankles were loosened by certain movements, and feeling sure of getting his right leg free, he considered with satisfaction the effect of a kick on the point of Leonard’s jaw. After that, hell for leather to the treasure!
The darkness thickened in the room. Leonard lit a candle, smoked a last pipe, and drank a last glass of wine. After that he became so sleepy that he nodded first to the right and then to the left with such vigor that he nearly fell off his chair. Then he tried holding the candle in his hand in order that the hot wax should fall on it and wake him up. He took a look at the two prisoners, another at the rope that ran through the back of the chair which was to act as an alarm, and went to sleep.
Ralph worked away slowly and gently at the task of freeing himself, not without success. It must be about nine o’clock.