She spoke of Dubard, but the prisoner was equally silent concerning him.
“What I can tell you about either of them amounts to nothing without proof, and without my liberty I cannot obtain that. They know it!” he said angrily. “They know that while I am here, in prison, my lips are sealed!”
“But it is infamous!” exclaimed the red-faced old general. “If you were the victim of a plot laid by these two fellows, whoever they are, the matter ought to be sifted to the bottom. I don’t believe you are guilty, Solaro! I told His Excellency the Minister so!”
“Ah, my dear general, you have been my best friend,” declared the man now clothed in sacking in lieu of a uniform. “But your efforts must all be unavailing. They are sending me to the loneliness of Gorgona, that place where many a better man than myself has been driven insane by solitude. They know that on Gorgona I shall not live very long—indeed, they will take very good care of that.”
“They—who are they?” inquired Mary quickly.
“My enemies.”
“Mr Macbean and Dubard, you mean?”
“No, others—others I need not name,” he responded vaguely, with a careless shrug of his shoulders.
“But if you are the victim of a plot it must have been a most elaborate one, for the mass of evidence against you seems overwhelming. What object could the conspirators have had in view? Were they friends of yours?”
“Yes—once. Their object was probably not of their own—but that of others,” he added.