Count Hannibal

"My lord?"

"Water!" he said. "Water, fool!" And, having drunk, he turned his face

to the wall, lest he should name her or ask for her.

For the desire to see her before he died, to look into her eyes, to touch

her hand once, only once, assailed his mind and all but whelmed his will.

She had been with him, he knew it, in the night; she had left him only at

daybreak. But then, in his state of collapse, he had been hardly

conscious of her presence. Now to ask for her or to see her would stamp

him coward, say what he might to her. The proverb, that the King's face

gives grace, applied to her; and an overture on his side could mean but

one thing, that he sought her grace. And that he would not do though the

cold waters of death covered him more and more, and the coming of the

end--in that quiet chamber, while the September sun sank to the appointed

place--awoke wild longings and a wild rebellion in his breast. His

thoughts were very bitter, as he lay, his loneliness of the uttermost. He

turned his face to the wall.

In that posture he slept after a time, watched over by Bigot with looks

of rage and pity. And on the room fell a long silence. The sun had

lacked three hours of setting when he fell asleep. When he re-opened his

eyes, and, after lying for a few minutes between sleep and waking, became

conscious of his position, of the day, of the things which had happened,

and his helplessness--an awakening which wrung from him an involuntary

groan--the light in the room was still strong, and even bright. He

fancied for a moment that he had merely dozed off and awaked again; and

he continued to lie with his face to the wall, courting a return of

slumber.

But sleep did not come, and little by little, as he lay listening and

thinking and growing more restless, he got the fancy that he was alone.

The light fell brightly on the wall to which his face was turned; how

could that be if Bigot's broad shoulders still blocked the loophole?

Presently, to assure himself, he called the man by name.

He got no answer.

"Badelon!" he muttered. "Badelon!"

Had he gone, too, the old and faithful? It seemed so, for again no

answer came.

He had been accustomed all his life to instant service; to see the act

follow the word ere the word ceased to sound. And nothing which had gone

before, nothing which he had suffered since his defeat at Angers, had

brought him to feel his impotence and his position--and that the end of

his power was indeed come--as sharply as this. The blood rushed to his

head; almost the tears to eyes which had not shed them since boyhood, and

would not shed them now, weak as he was! He rose on his elbow and looked

with a full heart; it was as he had fancied. Badelon's stool was empty;

the embrasure--that was empty too. Through its narrow outlet he had a

tiny view of the shore and the low rocky hill, of which the summit shone

warm in the last rays of the setting sun.