When the moment came, before the gate of the citadel of Glatz, that the two were to part from her, she stepped from her carriage lightly, and said good-by with a gayety which seemed to Gavin quite heartless. It was a bright moonlight evening, and the lights in the town shone cheerfully. But before them loomed the fortress, black and forbidding. For the first time Gavin’s heart sank; it sank lower still when this woman, whom he had credited with the utmost generosity of heart, showed such indifference to their fate.
“I will remain here a day or two,” she said, “until I can get post-horses. I wish I could do something for you; perhaps I may be able to send you some delicacies for your table. We may hope to meet again; I, an actress, singer, and dancer, go up and down the world earning my living, and I meet everybody in the world at least once, and sometimes twice. I shall not soon forget that evening we spent as the King’s prisoners. Remember me. Adieu.”
The two prisoners were taken before the commandant of the fortress, General Kollnitz, who received them courteously as prisoners of war, and invited them to supper with him. He was of unwieldy bulk, but clear-eyed and clear-headed, and, evidently, a capable man. The only other guest at the table was the adjutant, Pfels, whom St. Arnaud and Gavin found an amiable and soldierly young man.
Gavin by that time had grown so used to sitting at the table with officers, that he felt not only as if he really were an officer, but as if he had always been an officer. He could not rally, however, from his depression. The falsity, as he thought, of Madame Ziska affected him strangely. Naturally, he took his mother as the standard of all women, and he looked for high courage and unswerving loyalty from them all. True, they had no claim on Madame Ziska, but he thought her a brave and honest woman, and St. Arnaud had hinted at chances of assistance from her which had impressed the idea upon him that they might look to her for succour. So he ate his supper silently, while St. Arnaud spared no pains in making himself agreeable to the commandant. He told the story of their capture inimitably, and had the fat general and the slim adjutant both laughing at it, especially at Gavin’s assertion that if only he had kept his wits about him he would have knocked the King down.
At last, supper being over, they were shown two communicating cells high up in the tower of the fortress. A candle was given them, the door locked, and they were left alone. St. Arnaud at once blew out the candle, hid it, and the two, sitting on Gavin’s bed, with the moonlight streaming through a narrow, barred window, realized that they were prisoners. And in the very first hour of their real captivity they began to plan for their escape. Gavin’s first words were: “You counted on Madame Ziska; what think you now?”
“I think,” responded St. Arnaud, with a smile, “that an honest woman like her is more to be trusted than the great ones of earth. Look at our friend the King—singing and drinking with us at night, parting from us in the morning, without asking us if we were in want, or if he could do the smallest thing for us.”
“Humph! Madame Ziska offered to send us something to eat if she had time and could remember it. And she hardly spoke to us after we started on the journey.”
“Did you expect her to set all eyes to watching us by promising us eternal friendship? Now hear me: Madame Ziska’s manner convinced me that she meant to help us substantially; and her coldness to us was intended to throw the rest off the scent. I can tell you this much: I shall very carefully examine any provender that Madame Ziska may chance to remember to send us. I knew a woman once who sent a jewel in an orange. They are, after all, much cleverer than we. Think about that until you go to sleep.”
CHAPTER IV
The first week of captivity passed slowly and heavily for Gavin and St. Arnaud, and it was not lightened when, a few days after, came the news of the defeat of Prince Charles at Leuthen by Frederick of Prussia.