The Mysteries of Paris, Volume 2 of 6

"Well, then, take them along with you. We have got a coach waiting below, for which you will have to pay when you settle the costs. We will go all together to your employer's house, and, if you don't meet with him, why, then, you can deposit these jewels at the office of the prison, where they will be as safe as in the bank; only look sharp, and let's be off before your wife and children perceive us."

"Give me but till to-morrow, – only to bury my child!" implored Morel, in a supplicating voice, half stifled by the heavy sobs he strove in vain to repress.

"Nonsense, I tell you; why, we have lost an hour here already!"

"Besides, it's dull work going to berrins," chimed in Malicorne. "It would be too much for your feelings, p'raps."

"Yes," said Morel, bitterly; "it is dull work to see what we would have given our lives to save laid in the cold earth. But, as you are men, grant me that satisfaction." Then, looking up, and observing the nonchalant air with which his prayer was received, he added, "But no, persons of so much feeling as you are would fear to indulge me, lest I should find it a gloomy sight. Well, then, at least grant me one word!"

"The deuce take your last words! Why, old chap, there seems no end to them. Come, put the steam on; make haste," said Malicorne, with brutal impatience, "or we shall lose t'other gent we're after."

"When did you receive orders to arrest me?"

"Oh, why, judgment was signed four months ago! But it was only yesterday our officer got instructions to put it in execution."

"Only yesterday! And why has it been delayed so long?"

"How the devil should I know? Come, look about you, and put up your things."

"Only yesterday? And during the whole day we saw nothing of Louise! Where can she be? Or what has become of her?" inquired the lapidary mentally, as he took from his table a small box filled with cotton, in which he placed his stones. "But never mind all that now. I shall have plenty of time to think about it when I am in prison."

"Come, look sharp there a bit. Tie up your things to take with you, and put your clothes on, there's a fine fellow!"

"I have no clothes to tie up, and have nothing whatever to take with me except these jewels, that I may deposit them at the office of the prison."

"Well, then, dress yourself as quick as you can."

"I have no other dress than that you now see me in."

"I say, mate," cried Bourdin, "does he really mean to be seen in our company with such rags as those on?"

"I fear, indeed, I shall shame such gentlemen as you are!" said Morel, bitterly.

"It don't much signify," replied Malicorne, "as nobody will see us in the coach."

"Father!" cried one of the children, "mother is calling for you!"

"Listen to me!" said Morel, addressing one of the men with hurried tones; "if one spark of human pity dwells within you, grant me one favour! I have not the courage to bid my wife and children farewell; it would break my heart! And if they see you take me away, they will try to follow me. I wish to spare all this. Therefore, I beseech you to say, in a loud voice, that you will come again in three or four days, and pretend to go away. You can wait for me at the next landing-place, and I will come to you in less than five minutes; that will spare all the misery of taking leave. I am quite sure it would be too much for me, and that I should become mad! I was not far off it a little while ago."

"Not to be caught!" answered Malicorne; "you want to do me! But I'm up to you! You mean to give us the slip, you old chouse!"

"God of heaven!" cried Morel, with a mixture of grief and indignation, "has it come to this?"

"I don't think he means what you say," whispered Bourdin to his companion; "let us do what he asks; we shall never get away unless we do. I'll stand outside the door; there is no other way of escaping from this garret; he cannot get away from us."

"Very well. But what a dog-hole! What a place for a man to care about leaving! Why, a prison will be a palace to it!" Then, addressing Morel, he said, "Now, then, be quick, and we will wait for you on the next landing; so make up some pretence for our going."

"Well," said Bourdin in a loud voice, and bestowing a significant look on the unhappy artisan, "since things are as you say, and as you think you shall be able to pay us in a short time, why, we shall leave you for the present, and return in about four or five days; but you must not disappoint us then, remember!"

"Thank you, gentlemen. I have no doubt I shall be able to pay you then."

The bailiffs then withdrew, while Tortillard, hearing the men talk of quitting the room, had hastened down-stairs for fear of being detected listening.

"There, Madame Morel!" said Rigolette, endeavouring to draw the wife of the lapidary from the state of gloomy abstraction into which she had fallen, "do you hear that? The men have gone, and left your husband undisturbed."

"Mother! mother!" exclaimed the children, joyfully, "they have not taken father away!"

"Morel, Morel!" murmured Madeleine, her brain quite turned, "take one of those diamonds – take the largest – and sell it; no one will know it, and then we shall be delivered from our misery; poor little Adèle will get warm then, and come back to us."

Taking advantage of the instant when no one was observing him, the lapidary profited by it to steal from the room. One of the men was waiting for him on the little landing-place, which was also covered only by the roof; on this small spot opened the door of a garret, which adjoined the apartment occupied by the Morels, and in which M. Pipelet kept his dépôt of leather; and, further, this little angular recess, in which a person could not stand upright, was dignified by the melancholy porter with the name of his Melodramatic Cabinet, because, by means of a hole between the lath and plaster, he frequently indulged in the luxury of woe by witnessing the many touching scenes occasioned by the distress of the wretched family who dwelt in the garret beyond it. This door had not escaped the lynx eye of the bailiff, who had, for a time, suspected his prisoner of intending either to escape or conceal himself by means of it.

"Now, then, let us make a start of it!" cried he, beginning to descend the stairs as Morel emerged from the garret. "Rather a ragged recruit to march with," added he, beckoning to the lapidary to follow him.

"Only an instant, one single instant, for the love of God!" exclaimed Morel, as, kneeling down, he cast a last look on his wife and children through a chink in the door. Then clasping his hands, he said, in a low, heart-broken voice, while bitter tears flowed down his haggard cheeks:

"Adieu, my poor children! my wife! May Heaven preserve you all! Farewell, farewell!"

"Come, don't get preaching!" said Bourdin, coarsely, "or your sermons may keep us here till night, which is what I can't stand, for I am almost froze to death as it is. Ugh! what a kennel! what a hole!"

Morel rose from his knees and was about to follow the bailiff, when the words, "Father! father!" sounded up the staircase.

"Louise!" exclaimed the lapidary, raising his hands towards heaven in a transport of gratitude; "thank God I shall be able to embrace you before I go!"

"Heaven be praised, I am here in time!" cried the voice, as it rapidly approached, and quick, light steps were distinguishable, swiftly ascending the stairs.

"Don't be uneasy, my dear," said a second voice, evidently proceeding from some individual considerably behind the first speaker, but whose thick puffing and laborious breathing announced the coming of one who did not find mounting to the top of the house so easy an affair as it seemed to her light-footed companion.

The reader may, perhaps, have already guessed that the last comer was no other than Madame Pipelet, who, less agile than Louise, was compelled to advance at a much slower pace.

"Louise! Is it, indeed, you, my own, my good Louise?" said Morel, still weeping. "But how pale you look! For mercy's sake, my child, what is the matter?"

"Nothing, father, nothing, I assure you!" said Louise, in much agitation; "but I have run so fast! See, I have brought the money!"

"What?"

"You are free!"

"You knew, then, that – "

"Oh, yes! Here, sir, you will find it quite right," said the poor girl, placing the rouleau of gold in the hands of Malicorne.

"But this money, Louise, – how did you become possessed of it?"

"I will tell you all about it by and by; pray do not be uneasy; let us go and comfort my mother. Come, father."

"No, not just this minute!" cried Morel, remembering that, as yet, Louise was entirely ignorant of the death of her little sister; "wait an instant. I have something to say to you first. But about this money?"

"All right," said Malicorne, as, having finished counting the gold, he put it in his pocket; "precisely one thousand three hundred francs. And is that all you have got for me, my pretty dear?"