What does
it say?" he added, with a shrewd attempt at innocence.
I opened the little paper, held it towards the torch, and read:
"Because of the storm there is no sleeping. Is there not the
watcher aloft? Shall the sparrow fall unheeded? The wicked
shall be confounded."
It was Alixe's writing. She had hazarded this in the hands of my
jailer as her only hope, and, knowing that he might not serve her,
had put her message in vague sentences which I readily interpreted.
I read the words aloud to him, and he laughed, and remarked, "'Tis
a foolish thing that--The Scarlet Woman, mast like."
"Most like," I answered quietly; "yet what should she be doing
there at the Chateau?"
"The mad go everywhere," he answered, "even to the intendance!"
With that he left me, going, as he said, "to fetch crumbs and
wine." Exhausted with the day's business, I threw myself upon
my couch, drew my cloak over me, composed myself, and in a few
minutes was sound asleep. I waked to find Gabord in the dungeon,
setting out food upon a board supported by two stools.
"'Tis custom to feed your dickey-bird ere you fetch him to the
pot." he said, and drew the cork from a bottle of wine.
He watched me as I ate and talked, but he spoke little. When I
had finished, he fetched a packet of tobacco from his pocket. I
offered him money, but he refused it, and I did not press him, for
he said the food and wine were not of his buying.
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