Part 150 (2/2)
”In the chamber of torture, my lord.”
”Ah!” replied the king, looking at it more closely.
There was something of everything in this chamber--pitchers and wooden horses for the torture by water; wedges and mallets for the torture of the boot; besides stone benches nearly all around the room for the wretches who awaited the torture. Above these benches, at the seats themselves, and at their feet, were iron rings fastened into the walls, without other symmetry than that of the torturing art. But their proximity to the seats sufficiently indicated that they were there in order to await the limbs of those who were to occupy them.
Henry walked on without a word, but not a single detail of all the hideous apparatus which, so to speak, had stamped the history of suffering on the walls escaped him.
The king was so taken up with the objects about him that he forgot to look where he was going, and came to a sudden standstill.
”Ah!” said he, ”what is that?”
And he pointed to a kind of ditch dug in the damp pavement which formed the floor.
”That is the gutter, sire.”
”Does it rain here, then?”
”Yes, sire, blood.”
”Ah!” said Henry, ”very good. Shall we not soon reach my apartment?”
”Yes, my lord, here it is,” said a figure in the dark, which, as it drew nearer, became clearer and more distinguishable.
Henry thought he recognized the voice, and advanced towards the figure.
”So it is you, Beaulieu,” said he. ”What the devil are you doing here?”
”Sire, I have just received my appointment as governor of the fortress of Vincennes.”
”Well, my dear friend, your initiation does you honor. A king for a prisoner is not bad.”
”Pardon me, sire,” said Beaulieu, ”but I have already had two gentlemen.”
”Who are they? But, pardon me, perhaps I am indiscreet. If so, a.s.sume that I have said nothing.”
”My lord, I have not been ordered to keep it secret. They are Monsieur de la Mole and Monsieur de Coconnas.”
”Ah! that is true. I saw them arrested. Poor gentlemen, and how do they bear this misfortune?”
”Differently. One is gay, the other sad; one sings, the other groans.”
”Which one groans?”
”Monsieur de la Mole, sire.”
”Faith,” said Henry, ”I can understand more easily the one who groans than the one who sings. After what I have seen the prison is not a very lively place. On what floor are they?”
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