CHAPTER XVIII
IN THE "TIGER'S DEN"
WHILE all these plans were being hurried forward for his release, Gerard took his imprisonment very philosophically. There was but one circumstance which caused him uneasiness—the doubt whether Dubois could have had time before he was placed under arrest to pass on the instructions he had given him.
But he had no serious fear. If Dubois had been able to set things in motion there would soon be some effort on foot to secure his liberty; while if not, the worst could only be that he himself would be driven to announce his real rank to the Governor.
He was indeed more than half disposed to regret having maintained silence at the moment of arrest. He had measured the lengths to which the Governor was prepared to go; and the brutal command to cut him down if he resisted was one not to be forgotten. That and the indignity to which he, Bourbon's son, had been subjected by this tyrant should be paid for heavily.
He had a recompense, however. Gabrielle had answered nobly to the test he had made. She loved him. He was sure of her now; and with that as a consolation to sustain him, the hours of his retirement passed lightly.
When his gaolers entered and led him from the cell in which he had first been placed to one in which stood the instruments of torture, he regretted no longer that he had not avowed his identity.
Rumours of the Governor's savage treatment of his
