CHAPTER III.
One day, Charney was breathing the fresh air in the little court of the fortress, at the accustomed hour, his head declining, his eyes downcast, his arms crossed behind him, pacing with slow and measured steps, as if his deliberation tended to enlarge the precincts of his dominion.
Spring was breaking. A milder air breathing around, tantalized him with a vain inclination to enjoy the season of liberty, as master of his time and territory. He was proceeding to number, one by one, the stones paving the courtyard, (doubtless to verify the accuracy of former calculations—for it was by no means the first time they had put his arithmetic to the test), when he perceived a small mound of earth rising between two stones of the pavement, cleft slightly at its summit.
The Count stopped short—his heart beat hurriedly without any rational grounds for emotion, except that every trivial incident affords matter of hope or fear to a captive. In the most indifferent objects, in the most unimportant events, the prisoner discerns traces of a mysterious project for his deliverance.
Who could decide that this trifling irregularity on the surface might not indicate important operations under ground? Subterraneous issues might have been secretly constructed, and the earth be about to open and afford him egress towards the mountains! Perhaps his former friends and accomplices had been sapping and mining, to procure access to his dungeon, and restore him to light and liberty!
He listened! he fancied he could detect the low murmur of a subterraneous sound. He raised his head, and the loud and rapid clang of the tocsin saluted his ear. The ramparts were echoing with the prolonged roll of drums, like the call to arms in time of war. He started—he passed his trembling hand over his forehead, on which cold dews of intense agitation were already rising. Is his liberation at hand? Is France submitted to the domination of a new ruler?
The illusion of the captive vanished as it came. Reflection soon restored him to reason. He no longer possesses accomplices—he never possessed friends! Again he lends a listening ear, and the same noises recur; but they mislead his mind no longer. The supposed tocsin is only the church bell which he has been accustomed to hear daily at the same hour, and the drums, the usual evening signal for retreat to quarters. With a bitter smile, Charney begins to compassionate his own folly, which could mistake the insignificant labors of some insect or reptile, some wandering mole or field-mouse, for the result of human fidelity, or the subversion of a mighty empire.
Resolved, however, to bring the matter to the test, Charney, bending over the little hillock, gently removed the earth from its summit; when he had the mortification to perceive that the wild though momentary emotion by which he had been overcome, was not produced by so much as the labors of an animal armed with teeth and claws! but by the efforts of a feeble plant to pierce the soil—a pale and sickly scatterling of vegetation. Deeply vexed, he was about to crush with his heel the miserable weed, when a refreshing breeze, laden with the sweets of some bower of honeysuckles, or syringas, swept past, as if to intercede for mercy towards the poor plant, which might perhaps hereafter reward him with its flowers and fragrance.
A new conjecture conspired to suspend his act of vengeance. How has this tender plant, so soft and fragile as to be crushed with a touch, contrived to pierce and cleave asunder the earth, dried and hardened into a mass by the sun, daily trodden down by his own footsteps, and all but cemented by the flags of granite between which it was enclosed? On stooping again to examine the matter with more attention, he observed at the extremity of the plant a sort of fleshy valve affording protection to its first and tenderest leaves, from the injurious contact of any hard bodies they might have to encounter in penetrating the earthy crust in search of light and air.