Chapter VIII
A THREE MINUTES' VISIT
I have suffered extreme and protracted bodily pain, at different periodsof my life, but anything like that misery, thank God, I never enduredbefore or since. I earnestly hope it may not resemble any type of deathto which we are liable. I was, indeed, a spirit in prison; andunspeakable was my dumb and unmoving agony.
The power of thought remained clear and active. Dull terror filled mymind. How would this end? Was it actual death?
You will understand that my faculty of observing was unimpaired. I couldhear and see anything as distinctly as ever I did in my life. It wassimply that my will had, as it were, lost its hold of my body.
I told you that the Marquis d'Harmonville had not extinguished hiscarriage lamp on going into this village inn. I was listening intently,longing for his return, which might result, by some lucky accident, inawaking me from my catalepsy.
Without any sound of steps approaching, to announce an arrival, thecarriage-door suddenly opened, and a total stranger got in silently andshut the door.
The lamp gave about as strong a light as a wax-candle, so I could seethe intruder perfectly. He was a young man, with a dark grey loosesurtout, made with a sort of hood, which was pulled over his head. Ithought, as he moved, that I saw the gold band of a military undress capunder it; and I certainly saw the lace and buttons of a uniform, on thecuffs of the coat that were visible under the wide sleeves of hisoutside wrapper.
This young man had thick moustaches and an imperial, and I observed thathe had a red scar running upward from his lip across his cheek.
He entered, shut the door softly, and sat down beside me. It was alldone in a moment; leaning toward me, and shading his eyes with hisgloved hand, he examined my face closely for a few seconds.
This man had come as noiselessly as a ghost; and everything he did wasaccomplished with the rapidity and decision that indicated awell-defined and pre-arranged plan. His designs were evidently sinister.I thought he was going to rob and, perhaps, murder me. I lay,nevertheless, like a corpse under his hands. He inserted his hand in mybreast pocket, from which he took my precious white rose and all theletters it contained, among which was a paper of some consequence to me.
My letters he glanced at. They were plainly not what he wanted. Myprecious rose, too, he laid aside with them. It was evidently about thepaper I have mentioned that he was concerned; for the moment he openedit he began with a pencil, in a small pocket-book, to make rapid notesof its contents.
This man seemed to glide through his work with a noiseless and coolcelerity which argued, I thought, the training of the police department.
He re-arranged the papers, possibly in the very order in which he hadfound them, replaced them in my breast-pocket, and was gone. His visit,I think, did not quite last three minutes. Very soon after hisdisappearance I heard the voice of the Marquis once more. He got in, andI saw him look at me and smile, half-envying me, I fancied, my soundrepose. If he had but known all!
He resumed his reading and docketing by the light of the little lampwhich had just subserved the purposes of a spy.
We were now out of the town, pursuing our journey at the same moderatepace. We had left the scene of my police visit, as I should have termedit, now two leagues behind us, when I suddenly felt a strange throbbingin one ear, and a sensation as if air passed through it into my throat.It seemed as if a bubble of air, formed deep in my ear, swelled, andburst there. The indescribable tension of my brain seemed all at once togive way; there was an odd humming in my head, and a sort of vibrationthrough every nerve of my body, such as I have experienced in a limbthat has been, in popular phraseology, asleep. I uttered a cry and halfrose from my seat, and then fell back trembling, and with a sense ofmortal faintness.
The Marquis stared at me, took my hand, and earnestly asked if I wasill. I could answer only with a deep groan.
Gradually the process of restoration was completed; and I was able,though very faintly, to tell him how very ill I had been; and then todescribe the violation of my letters, during the time of his absencefrom the carriage.
"Good heaven!" he exclaimed, "the miscreant did not get at my box-box?"
I satisfied him, so far as I had observed, on that point. He placed thebox on the seat beside him, and opened and examined its contents veryminutely.
"Yes, undisturbed; all safe, thank heaven!" he murmured. "There arehalf-a-dozen letters here that I would not have some people read for agreat deal."
He now asked with a very kind anxiety all about the illness I complainedof. When he had heard me, he said:
"A friend of mine once had an attack as like yours as possible. It wason board ship, and followed a state of high excitement. He was a braveman like you; and was called on to exert both his strength and hiscourage suddenly. An hour or two after, fatigue overpowered him, and heappeared to fall into a sound sleep. He really sank into a state whichhe afterwards described so that I think it must have been precisely thesame affection as yours."
"I am happy to think that my attack was not unique. Did he everexperience a return of it?"
"I knew him for years after, and never heard of any such thing. Whatstrikes me is a parallel in the predisposing causes of each attack. Yourunexpected and gallant hand-to-hand encounter, at such desperate odds,with an experienced swordsman, like that insane colonel of dragoons,your fatigue, and, finally, your composing yourself, as my other frienddid, to sleep."
"I wish," he resumed, "one could make out who the _coquin_ was whoexamined your letters. It is not worth turning back, however, because weshould learn nothing. Those people always manage so adroitly. I amsatisfied, however, that he must have been an agent of the police. Arogue of any other kind would have robbed you."
I talked very little, being ill and exhausted, but the Marquis talked onagreeably.
"We grow so intimate," said he, at last, "that I must remind you that Iam not, for the present, the Marquis d'Harmonville, but only MonsieurDroqville; nevertheless, when we get to Paris, although I cannot see youoften I may be of use. I shall ask you to name to me the hotel at whichyou mean to put up; because the Marquis being, as you are aware, on histravels, the Hotel d'Harmonville is, for the present, tenanted only bytwo or three old servants, who must not even see Monsieur Droqville.That gentleman will, nevertheless, contrive to get you access to the boxof Monsieur le Marquis, at the Opera, as well, possibly, as to otherplaces more difficult; and so soon as the diplomatic office of theMarquis d'Harmonville is ended, and he at liberty to declare himself, hewill not excuse his friend, Monsieur Beckett, from fulfilling hispromise to visit him this autumn at the Chateau d'Harmonville."
You may be sure I thanked the Marquis.
The nearer we got to Paris, the more I valued his protection. Thecountenance of a great man on the spot, just then, taking so kind aninterest in the stranger whom he had, as it were, blundered upon, mightmake my visit ever so many degrees more delightful than I hadanticipated.
Nothing could be more gracious than the manner and looks of the Marquis;and, as I still thanked him, the carriage suddenly stopped in front ofthe place where a relay of horses awaited us, and where, as it turnedout, we were to part.