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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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298 hardly have been more afflicted if the Aristocrat had drawn a blank.” They raised the unconscious figure, placed it on a litter they had brought to the door, and bent to carry it away. “The time is short, Evremonde,” said the Spy, in a warning voice. “I know it well,” answered Carton. “Be careful of my friend, I entreat you, and leave me.” “Come, then, my children,” said Barsad. “Lift him, and come away!” The door closed, and Carton was left alone. Straining his powers of listening to the utmost, he listened for any sound that might denote suspicion or alarm. There was none. Keys turned, doors clashed, footsteps passed along distant passages: no cry was raised, or hurry made, that seemed unusual. Breathing more freely in a little while, he sat down at the table, and listened again until the clock struck Two. Sounds that he was not afraid of, for he divined their meaning, then began to be audible. Several doors were opened in succession, and finally his own. A gaoler, with a list in his hand, looked in, merely saying, “Follow me, Evremonde!” and he followed into a large dark room, at a distance. It was a dark winter day, and what with the shadows within, and what with the shadows without, he could but dimly discern the others who were brought there to have their arms bound. Some were standing; some seated. Some were lamenting, and in restless motion; but, these were few. The great majority were silent and still, looking fixedly at the ground. As he stood by the wall in a dim corner, while some of the fifty- two were brought in after him, one man stopped in passing, to embrace him, as having a knowledge of him. It thrilled him with a great dread of discovery; but the man went on. A very few moments after that, a young woman, with a slight girlish form, a sweet spare face in which there was no vestige of colour, and large widely opened patient eyes, rose from the seat where he had observed her sitting, and came to speak to him. “Citizen Evremonde,” she said, touching him with her cold hand. “I am a poor little seamstress, who was with you in La Force.” He murmured for answer: “True. I forget what you were accused of?” “Plots. Though the just Heaven knows that I am innocent of any. Is it likely? Who would think of plotting with a poor little weak creature like me? The forlorn smile with which she said it, so touched him, that tears started from his eyes. “I am not afraid to die, Citizen Evremonde, but I have done nothing. I am not unwilling to die, if the Republic which is to do so much good to us poor, will profit by my death; but I do not know how that can be, Citizen Evremonde. Such a poor weak little creature!” As the last thing on earth that his heart was to warm and soften to, it warmed and softened to this pitiable girl. |
