Well, Auguste is rotting in the ground now. I killed him.
He still hated Auguste even after his death. Because of Auguste he had to stay holed up here, blackness pressing on his eyeballs. His eyes were wide open and he stared till they hurt, but he could see nothing, nothing at all. It was like being blind.
He wished he had told just one of his men where to find him. He badly wanted news of what was going on back at Victor. But if he'd told anyone it would have been Armand, and he couldn't trust the bastard. Armand might stupidly let himself be followed here. Or give way to threats, or even sell him out, if Papa offered a big enough reward.
Armand would. Sure he would. I could see in his eyes how he resented me. He hated Pierre and he hated me too.
Raoul only had two candles left. Should he light one now? He could spare it, because he was going to get out of this mine today—or tonight. He'd waited long enough.
He wasn't sure anymore how long he'd been hiding down here in the dark. When he slept, he had no idea how long he slept. A watch was one of the many things he had forgotten to bring with him, leaving in such a hurry. And yet he'd stupidly brought the silver case with Pierre's spectacles in it. Stuck it in his pocket when he left the trading post to get the mongrel. He felt it now, a hard oval in his coat pocket.
How long?
The men pursuing him had searched the mine, as he figured they would. Days had passed, he was sure, since he'd heard their voices in the mine, footsteps echoing. He was certain he was the only man in Victor who knew about the tunnel he was hiding in, its entrance, just big enough to crawl through, covered by a pile of gravel that appeared to have nothing but wall behind it. He'd tried to disturb the gravel as little as possible while crawling in, and had carefully replaced what he'd pushed aside.
But he might have left some trace on the other side. He'd sat in the blackness, waiting to hear the sounds of digging, his back pressed against the damp rock wall, knees drawn up to his chin. His hands, cold as if they'd been plunged into a snowdrift, had rested on his loaded rifle and his pistol. And he'd drawn his Bowie knife and laid it beside him. They'd pay dearly to take him. If there were no more than four or five of them, he might manage to kill them all and get away.
But the sounds of the search party had faded away. He'd welcomed the black cotton silence that had followed. He would stay down here as long as he could. He'd found a place in his tunnel where underground water had seeped in, and was able to keep refilling his canteen from that. He found another small branch tunnel some distance from where he slept, where he could piss and shit. But he'd come into the mine with only six candles, and he was afraid to use them up, so he spent most of the time sitting in the dark feeling as if he was going mad with alternating worry and boredom.