And he bowed to him.

The serjeant on the right, the doctor, the justice of the quorum, the wapentake, the secretary, all the attendants except the executioner, repeated his salutation still more respectfully, and bowed to the ground before Gwynplaine.

“Ah,” said Gwynplaine, “awake me!”

And he stood up, pale as death.

“I come to awake you indeed,” said a voice which had not yet been heard.

A man came out from behind the pillars.  As no one had entered the cell since the sheet of iron had given passage to the cortege of police, it was clear that this man had been there in the shadow before Gwynplaine had entered, that he had a regular right of attendance, and had been present by appointment and mission.  The man was fat and pursy, and wore a court wig and a travelling cloak.

He was rather old than young, and very precise.

He saluted Gwynplaine with ease and respect—­with the ease of a gentleman-in-waiting, and without the awkwardness of a judge.

“Yes,” he said; “I have come to awaken you.  For twenty-five years you have slept.  You have been dreaming.  It is time to awake.  You believe yourself to be Gwynplaine; you are Clancharlie.  You believe yourself to be one of the people; you belong to the peerage.  You believe yourself to be of the lowest rank; you are of the highest.  You believe yourself a player; you are a senator.  You believe yourself poor; you are wealthy.  You believe yourself to be of no account; you are important.  Awake, my lord!”

Gwynplaine, in a low voice, in which a tremor of fear was to be distinguished, murmured,—­

“What does it all mean?”

“It means, my lord,” said the fat man, “that I am called Barkilphedro; that I am an officer of the Admiralty; that this waif, the flask of Hardquanonne, was found on the beach, and was brought to be unsealed by me, according to the duty and prerogative of my office; that I opened it in the presence of two sworn jurors of the Jetsam Office, both members of Parliament, William Brathwait, for the city of Bath, and Thomas Jervois, for Southampton; that the two jurors deciphered and attested the contents of the flask, and signed the necessary affidavit conjointly with me; that I made my report to her Majesty, and by order of the queen all necessary and legal formalities were carried out with the discretion necessary in a matter so delicate; that the last form, the confrontation, has just been carried out; that you have L40,000 a year; that you are a peer of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, a legislator and a judge, a supreme judge, a sovereign legislator, dressed in purple and ermine, equal to princes, like unto emperors; that you have on your brow the coronet of a peer, and that you are about to wed a duchess, the daughter of a king.”

Under this transfiguration, overwhelming him like a series of thunderbolts, Gwynplaine fainted.

CHAPTER II.