“I will take the matter under consideration,” said Clausen, and then, addressing the escort. “Take the prisoners away”.
The dapper aide-de-camp whispered hurriedly to him, and he nodded with Alsatian solemnity.
“Take what measures you think fit,” he said. “I make you responsible.”
The aide-de-camp rose from his seat and accompanied them out of the hall as the soldiers helped Hornblower to walk. Once through the door the aide-de-camp issued his orders.
“Take that man” — indicating Brown — “to the guardhouse. That man” — this was the Count — “to the room there. Sergeant, you will have charge of him. Lieutenant, you will be personally responsible for this man ‘Ornblower. You will keep two men with you, and you and they will never let him out of your sight. Not for a moment. There is a dungeon under the château here. Take him to it, and stay there with him, and I will come and inspect at intervals. This is the man who escaped four years ago from the Imperial gendarmerie, and who has already been condemned to death in his absence. He is desperate, and you can expect him to be cunning.”
“Very well, sir,” said the lieutenant.
A stone staircase led down to the dungeon, a relic of the not so distant days when the lord of the manor had the right of the high justice, the middle and the low. Now the dungeon showed every sign of long disuse when the clashing bars opened the door into it. It was not damp; on the contrary, it was thick with dust. Through the high barred window came a shaft of sunlight, just sufficient to illuminate the place. The lieutenant looked round at the bare walls; two iron chains stapled to the floor comprised the only furniture.
“Bring some chairs,” he said to one of the men with him, and, after a glance at his weary prisoner. “And find a mattress and bring that too. A palliasse of straw at the least.”
It was chill in the dungeon, and yet Hornblower felt sweat upon his forehead. His weakness was growing with every second, his legs giving way under him even while he stood still, his head swimming. The mattress had hardly been laid upon the floor before he staggered to it and collapsed across it. Everything was forgotten in that moment, even his misery regarding Marie’s death. There was no room for remorse, none for apprehension. He lay there face downward, not quite unconscious, not quite asleep, but oblivious; the throbbing in his legs, the roaring in his ears, the pain in his shoulder, the misery in his soul — all these were nothings at that moment of collapse.
When the bars at the door clashed to herald the entrance of the aide-de-camp Hornblower had recovered somewhat. He was still lying face downward, by now almost enjoying the lack of need to move or think, when the aide-de-camp came in.
“Has the prisoner spoken at all?” he heard the aide-de-camp ask.
“Not a single word,” said the lieutenant.
“The depths of despair,” commented the aide-de-camp with facile sententiousness.
The remark irritated Hornblower, and he was further annoyed at being caught in such an undignified attitude. He turned over and sat up on his palliasse and glared up at the aide-de-camp.
“You have no requests to make?” asked the latter. “No letters you wish to write?”
He did not wish to write a letter upon which his gaolers would fall like vultures upon a corpse. Yet he had to be exigent, had to do something to remove that impression of being in despair. And with that he knew what he wanted and how desperately he wanted it.
“A bath,” he said. He put his hand to his hairy face. “A shave. Clean clothes.”
“A bath?” repeated the aide-de-camp, a little startled. Then a look of suspicion came into his face. “I cannot trust you with a razor. You would try to cheat the firing party.”
“Have one of your men shave me,” said Hornblower, and seeking for something to say to irritate he added. “You can tie my hands while he does it. But first a bucket of hot water, soap, and a towel. And a clean shirt at least.”