CHAPTER XII
FLORINE TO THE RESCUE
A SHROUD of consuming terror now possessed me. I crouched in the dank corner clutching my sword, listening, vainly listening, for some sound out of which to conjure up an assassin. A rat ran across my foot. Screaming out I bounded erect and beat about me with blind desperation. One hand touched the other and shrank from its mate. They were as ice.
Oh, God, the horrid silence! How weightily it bore upon me, stripping me of voice, of courage and of hope. How many, many times I braced myself against the wall, cold with fear at the apprehension of an attack by some demon of the night. How many, many times I sank again into the same dumb misery when no enemy appeared to do me hurt.
So long it had been since the tones of human speech blessed my ears, I almost hoped the marshal's men might come, that I might hear his stern command, "Hang him to yonder window ledge." A rasping thirst roasted my throat until my tongue gritted and ground as a rusted clapper in a bell. I touched it with my hand. It was as dry as Broussard's.
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