In the line of sunshine which penetrated into the dungeon through its grated window a man was standing, his head thrown rather backwards, holding in his hand one of the posts of his bedstead, and in an attitude of defence.
This man had evidently prepared himself to knock down the first person who should enter his room.
Notwithstanding his long beard, notwithstanding his pallid countenance, notwithstanding his short—cut hair, Billot recognized him. It was Doctor Gilbert.
“Doctor! doctor!” cried Billot to him, “is it you?”
“Who is it that is calling me?” inquired the prisoner.
“It is I—I, Billot, your friend.”
“You, Billot?”
“Yes! yes!—he! he!—we! we!” cried the voices of twenty men, who had run into the passage on hearing the vigorous blows struck by Billot.
“But who are you?”
“We?—why, the conquerors of the Bastille. The Bastille is taken; you are free.”
“The Bastille is taken; I am free!” exclaimed the doctor.
And passing both his hands through the opening, he shook the door so violently that the hinges and the lock appeared nearly yielding to his powerful pressure, and part of a panel, already loosened by Billot, broke off, and remained in the prisoner’s hands.
“Wait, wait!” said Billot, who was afraid that a second effort of so violent a nature would exhaust his strength, which had been overtaxed; “wait.”
And he redoubled his blows.
And indeed, through the opening, which was every moment becoming wider, he could see the prisoner, who had seated himself upon his bench, pale as a spectre, and incapable of raising the bedpost which was lying near him, and who but a few moments before, another Samson, seemed strong enough to shake down the walls of the Bastille.
“Billot! Billot!” murmured he.
“Yes, yes! and I also, my good doctor—I, Pitou—you must remember poor Pitou, whom you placed at board with his aunt Angélique,—Pitou has come to liberate you.”
“But I can get through that hole,” cried the doctor.
“No! no!” cried all the voices; “wait.”
All those present uniting their strength in one simultaneous effort, some slipping a crowbar between the door and the framework, others using a lever between the lock and doorpost, and the remainder pushing with all the might of their shoulders or their hands, the oak gave a last cracking sound, the wall gave way, and they all of them stumbled, one over the other, into the room.
In a moment Gilbert found himself in the arms of Pitou and Billot.
Gilbert, the little country lad of the Château de Taverney, Gilbert, whom we left bathed in his blood in a cavern of the Azores, was now a man from thirty—four to thirty—five years old, of pale complexion, though he was not sickly, with black hair, eyes penetrating and fixed; never did his gaze lose itself in vacuity; never did it wander; when it was not fixed on some exterior object worthy to attract, it was fixed on his own thought, and became only more profound and more gloomy; his nose was straight, being attached to his forehead in a direct line; it rose above a lip of rather scornful expression, which, in the slight space between it and the nether lip, allowed one to perceive the dazzling enamel of his teeth. In ordinary times his dress was simple and grave, like that of a Quaker; but this simplicity was closely allied to elegance, from its extreme neatness. His height was somewhat above the medium stature, and he was well formed; as to his strength, we have just seen the feats it could perform when in a state of over—excitement, whether caused by anger or enthusiastic feeling.
Although in prison for five or six days, the doctor had paid the same attention to his person; his beard, which had grown some few lines, caused the paleness of his complexion to contrast favorably with its darkness, and indicated only a negligence which certainly was not the prisoner’s, but his jailer’s, who had refused to give him a razor, or to allow him to be shaved.
When he had pressed Billot and Pitou in his arms, he turned towards the crowd who had filled his dungeon. Then, as if a moment had sufficed to restore all his self-possession:—