The chaplain raised his head, when Ludovico, unappalled by his air of consternation, began anew to pace the room, to stamp, to swear, to snap his fingers with all the energy of Italian gesticulation, till, tired out by his own impetuosity, he threw himself on his knees beside the priest, hiding his head in the bedclothes, and murmuring his mea culpa, till, in the midst of a paternoster, he fell asleep.
At dawn of day the chaplain was still praying, and Ludovico still snoring; when a burning hand, placed upon the forehead of the latter, suddenly roused him from his slumbers.
“Give me some drink,” murmured the faint voice of Charney.
And, at the sound of a voice which he had supposed to be for ever silenced, Ludovico opened his eyes wide with stupefaction to fix them on the Count, upon whose face and limbs the moisture of an auspicious effort of nature was perceptible. The fever was yielding to the effect of the powerful sudorific administered by Ludovico; and the senses of Charney being now restored, he proceeded to give rational directions to the jailer concerning the mode of treatment to be adopted; then, turning towards the priest, still humbly stationed on his knees at the bedside, he observed—
“I am not yet dead, sir! Should I recover (as I have every hope of doing), present the compliments of the Count de Charney to his trio of doctors, and tell them I dispense with their further visits, and the blunders of a science as idle and deceptions as all the rest. I overheard enough of their consultations to know that I am indebted to chance alone for my recovery.”
“Chance!” faltered the priest—“chance!”—And, having raised his eyes to Heaven in token of compassion, they fell upon the fatal inscription on the wall—
“Chance, though blind, is the sole author of the creation.”
The chaplain paused, after perusing this frightful sentiment; then, having gathered breath by a deep and painful inspiration, he added, in a solemn voice, the last word inscribed by Charney—
“Perhaps!”