Jacques interrupted him, and said,—­

“Let us not exaggerate the matter.  I do not meant to escape:  I only want to leave for a time.  I shall come back, I give you my word of honor.”

“Upon my life, that is not what troubles me.  If the question was only to let you run off altogether, I should open the doors wide, and say, ‘Good-by!’ A prisoner who runs away—­that happens every day; but a prisoner who leaves for a few hours, and comes back again—­Suppose anybody were to see you in town?  Or if any one came and wanted to see you while you are gone?  Or if they saw you come back again?  What should I say?  I am quite ready to be turned off for negligence.  I have been paid for that.  But to be tried as an accomplice, and to be put into jail myself.  Stop!  That is not what I mean to do.”

This was evidently but a preface.

“Oh! why lose so many words?” asked Dionysia.  “Explain yourself clearly.”

“Well, M. de Boiscoran cannot leave by the gate.  At tattoo, at eight o’clock, the soldiers on guard at this season of the year go inside the prison, and until reveille in the morning, or, in others words, till five o’clock, I can neither open nor shut the gates without calling the sergeant in command of the post.”

“Did he want to extort more money?  Did he make the difficulties out greater than they really were?”

“After all,” said Jacques, “if you consent, there must be a way.”

The jailer could dissemble no longer:  he came out with it bluntly.

“If the thing is to be done, you must get out as if you were escaping in good earnest.  The wall between the two towers is, to my knowledge, at one place not over two feet thick; and on the other side, where there are nothing but bare grounds and the old ramparts, they never put a sentinel.  I will get you a crowbar and a pickaxe, and you make a hole in the wall.”

Jacques shrugged his shoulders.

“And the next day,” he said, “when I am back, how will you explain that hole?”

Blangin smiled.

“Be sure,” he replied, “I won’t say the rats did it.  I have thought of that too.  At the same time with you, another prisoner will run off, who will not come back.”

“What prisoner?”

“Trumence, to be sure.  He will be delighted to get away, and he will help you in making the hole in the wall.  You must make your bargain with him, but, of course, without letting him know that I know any thing.  In this way, happen what may, I shall not be in danger.”

The plan was really a good one; only Blangin ought not to have claimed the honor of inventing it:  the idea came from his wife.

“Well,” replied Jacques, “that is settled.  Get me the pickaxe and the crowbar, show me the place where we must make the hole, and I will take charge of Trumence.  To-morrow you shall have the money.”

He was on the point of following the jailer, when Dionysia held him back; and, lifting up her beautiful eyes to him, she said in a tremor,—­