Page:Ten Years Later.djvu/187

Rh man appeared, "I am going to visit the towers," said the governor. "No guards, no drums, no noise at all."

"If I were not to leave my cloak here," said Aramis, pretending to be alarmed, "I should really think I was going to prison on my own account." The jailer preceded the governor, Aramis walking on his right hand; some of the soldiers who happened to be in the courtyard drew themselves up in line, as stiff as posts, as the governor passed along. Baisemeaux led the way down several steps which conducted to a sort of esplanade; thence they arrived at the drawbridge, where the sentinels on duty received the governor with the proper honors. The governor turned toward Aramis, and, speaking in such a tone that the sentinels could not lose a word he said, observed: "I hope you have a good memory, monsieur?"

"Why?" inquired Aramis.

"On account of your plans and your measurements, for you know that no one is allowed, not architects even, to enter where the prisoners are, with paper, pens, or pencils."

"Good," said Aramis to himself, "it seems I am an architect, then? It sounds like one of D'Artagnan's jokes, who saw me acting as an engineer at Belle-Isle." Then he added aloud, "Be easy on that score, monsieur; in our profession a mere glance and a good memory are quite sufficient."

Baisemeaux did not change countenance, and the soldiers took Aramis for what he seemed to be. "Very well; we will first visit La Bertaudière," said Baisemeaux, still intending the sentinels to hear him. Then, turning to the jailer, he added, "you will take the opportunity of carrying to No. 2 the few dainties I pointed out."

"Dear Monsieur de Baisemeaux," said Aramis, "you are always forgetting No. 3."

"So I am," said the governor; and upon that they began to ascend. The number of bolts, gratings, and locks for this single courtyard would have sufficed for the safety of an entire city. Aramis was neither an imaginative nor a sensitive man; he had been somewhat of a poet in his youth, but his heart was hard and indifferent, as the heart of every man of fifty-five years of age is, who has been frequently and passionately attached to women in his lifetime, or rather, who has been passionately loved by them. But when he placed his foot upon the worn stone steps, along which so many unhappy wretches had passed, when he felt himself impregnated, as it were, with the atmosphere of