"A dagger."
"A dagger! how did it come into your hands?"
"Wait one moment. One day, when the turnkey brought my bread and water, he put the lamp upon the stool which happened to be standing near the wall. In the wall at that point was a protruding stone, and I saw some letters cut with a knife upon it. I hadn't time to read them. But I dug up some earth with my hands, moistened it so as to make a sort of paste, and took an impression of the letters, which formed the word Ultor.
"What was the significance of that word, which means avenger? I returned to the stone. I tried to shake it. It moved like a tooth in its socket. By dint of patience and persistent efforts I succeeded in removing it from the wall. I immediately plunged my hand into the hole, and found this dagger.
"Thereupon the longing for liberty, which I had almost lost, returned to me in full force; I resolved to dig a passage-way from this to some dungeon near at hand with the dagger, and there concoct some plan of escape with its occupant. Besides, even if it all ended in failure, the digging and cutting was something to occupy my time; and when you have spent twenty years in a dungeon as I have, young man, you will realize what a formidable enemy time is."
Aubry shuddered from head to foot. "Did you ever put your plan in execution?" he inquired.
"Yes, and more easily than I anticipated. After the twelve or fifteen years that I have been here, they have doubtless ceased to think of my escape as a possibility: indeed, it's very likely that they no longer know who I am. They keep me, as they keep the chain hanging from yonder ring. The constable and the regent are dead, and they alone remembered me. Who would now recognize the name of Etienne Raymond, even in this place, if I should pronounce it? No one."
Aubry felt the perspiration starting from every pore as he thought of the oblivion into which this lost existence had fallen.
"Well?" he exclaimed questioningly,—"well?"
"For more than a year," said the old man, "I dug and dug, and I succeeded in making a hole under the wall large enough for a man to pass through."