Presently my door opened slightly, that my breakfast might be passed in on a trencher; and again an hour later, that the trencher might be taken out. Soon after that, the door was thrown wide, and a man of some authority, whom I had already taken to be the seneschal of the chateau, courteously requested me to step forth. When I did so, he told me my lodging was ready and bade me follow. At my elbows were two powerful armed servitors of this strange half-military household, to escort me.
I had a moment's hope that I might be taken to some chamber in the great tower; I should thus be nearer the Countess. But such was not the Count's will. I was conducted to the hall staircase, and up two flights, thence along the corridor past my former sleeping chamber, and finally by a small stairway to a sort of loft at that very corner of the chateau against which the great tower was built.
It was a small chamber with one window and an unceiled roof that sloped very low at the sides. I suppose it had been used as a store-room for rubbish. Two worm-eaten chests were its only furniture. On one of these were a basin, a jug of water, and a towel. On the other were a blanket, a sheet, and a pillow. Here then were my bed and wash-stand. There was still space left on the first chest to serve me as dining-table.
Before I could find anything to say upon these meagre accommodations for a gentleman's last lodging in this world, the seneschal bade me good-day, the door was closed and locked, and I was left to my reflections. The room not having been designed as a prison, there was no grilled opening in the door, and I was not exposed to the guard's view.
The Count might have kept me in my former chamber, thought I, the time being so short. Perhaps he feared my making a rope of bed clothes and dropping to the terrace. As for the little room off the hall, it had no real lock, and the guards might become sleepy at night. But why did he make this respite of two days? Was it to give himself time for devising some peculiarly humiliating and atrocious form of death? Or was it mere ironical pretence of mercy in his justice, and might I be surprised with the fatal summons as soon as he was in the humour for it? To this day, I do not clearly know,—or whether he had other matters for his immediate care; or indeed whether, at the instant of pronouncing my sentence in order to discover the Countess's feelings, he actually intended carrying it out.
In any case, now that her heart had betrayed itself, I had little hope of mercy. What came nearest to daunting me was the thought that, if I died, my people might never know for certain what had been my fate, for the Count would probably keep my death a secret, his own dependents being silenced by interest and fear. Yet I felt I had no right to complain of Fate. I had come from home to see danger, and here it was, though my present adventure was something different from cutting off the moustaches of Brignan de Brignan. And still my emotions were sweetened by the sense of what the Countess had disclosed, fatal though that disclosure might be to her also.
Such were the materials of my thoughts for the first hour or so, while I sat on the chest that was to be my bed. But suddenly there came a sharper consciousness of what death meant, and how closely it threatened me. I sprang up, to bestir myself in seeking if there might be some means of escape. The situation had changed since I had willingly lingered at the chateau in order to be near the Countess. The reluctance to betake myself from the place where she was, had not diminished; but I had awakened to the knowledge that my only hope of ever seeing her again lay in present flight, if that were possible. I could serve her better living than dead, better free than a prisoner.
I went to the window, which was wide enough for me to put my head out. My room was at the top of the building, and only the great tower, partly visible at my right, rose higher toward the sky. Below me was a narrow paved space between the house and the outer wall: it ran from the base of the tower at my right, to the garden, far at the left. Beyond the wall was the moat: beyond that, the country toward Montoire. If I could let myself down to the earth by any means, I should still be on the wrong side of the wall. But I might find the postern key, buried under the rose bush near the postern itself.
I looked around the room, but there was nothing that would serve as a means of descent, except the bedding on the larger chest. This I examined: it was the scantiest, being merely a strip of blanket and a strip of sheet, together just sufficient to cover the top of the chest. With the pillow cover and towel, they would not reach half-way to the ground.
Perhaps the chests might contain old clothes, or other materials that would serve to eke out. I tried the lids, but both were strongly locked. The larger chest looked very ancient and rotten: its hinges might be loose. I pulled one end of it out from against the wall, to examine the back. The hinges were immovable. Despondent, I ran my hand further down the back at random, and, to my surprise, felt a small irregular hole, through which I could thrust two fingers. It was evidently a rat hole, for I saw now that when close to the wall, it must have corresponded to a chink between the stones thereof.