Henri seized the hand in his and pressed it to his lips. “Speak to me so again,” he cried, “and I verily believe I shall not die, but live!”
His prayer was granted. He was spoken to, or rather spoken _with_, until St. Priest drew near, and with an anxious air _entreated_, not commanded, his companion to hasten onwards.
Then Henri covered his face with his thin hands and wept quietly--almost the first tears he had shed since leaving Moscow. The gentle shower softened the hard soil of his heart, the flood-gates were thrown open, the fountains of the great deep were unloosed, and the shower became a storm. “Mother, mother!” he sobbed piteously, “O mother!” Wild and passionate was the longing that swept him to see her face again, hers and his sister’s. He thought of the old days--of his happy childhood, of the love and tenderness that used to surround him; and every thought unlocked afresh the source of tears. He wept until he could weep no more.
Meanwhile, Pontet followed the visitors as far as he could, and then spoke to the guard at the door. He came back with a beaming countenance and a manner full of suppressed excitement. “Wonderful news, my comrades!” he began eagerly. “Guess, if you can, who it is that has been among us--that we took for the aide-de-camp of M. de St. Priest?”
“It was an angel from heaven,” murmured one poor sufferer, lifting up a face flushed with fever. “There was light--rest while he was here. Oh, if he could but have stayed! The darkness is coming back now.”
“He has left the light with _me_,” said the Spaniard. “God must have sent him here, his messenger, to fulfil my last wish.”
“But his name, his name?” cried the eager Pontet,--“no one has guessed that yet. Will you try, or shall I tell you? But if I do, you will not believe me.”
“Tell us, tell us,” cried half-a-score of voices.
“The aide-de-camp of St. Priest was no other than our great enemy--our conqueror, Alexander, Emperor of Russia!”
His auditors were utterly incredulous. “Have you lost your senses, Pontet?” they cried; “or have the guards been mocking you and us? Not a physician, not a nurse even, would enter here were a fortune offered as a bribe; and do you expect us to believe that the Czar, our enemy, would risk his life--_for us_?”