"Have no fear, Ascanio, for I am watching over you and Colombe," his confidence in the master was so great that, relying upon that promise alone, he would have waited without anxiety for the prison doors to be thrown open, sure that thrown open they would be, in spite of bars and locks.
But he had not seen Benvenuto, and Benvenuto did not know that his cherished pupil, the son of his Stefana, was a prisoner. It would have taken a whole day to carry the intelligence to him at Fontainebleau, assuming that it had occurred to any one to do it, another day to return to Paris, and in two days the enemies of the lovers might gain a long lead upon their defender.
So it was that Ascanio passed the rest of the day and the whole of the night following his arrest without sleep, sometimes pacing back and forth in his cell, sometimes sitting down, and occasionally throwing himself upon the bed, which was provided with white sheets,—a special mark of favor which proved that Ascanio had been particularly commended to the attention of the authorities. During that day and night and the following morning nothing worthy of note occurred, unless it was the regular visit of the jailer to bring his food.
About two o'clock in the afternoon, as nearly as the prisoner could judge by his reckoning of the time, he thought that he heard voices near at hand: it was a dull, indistinct murmur, but evidently caused by the vocal organs of human beings. Ascanio listened and walked toward the point whence the sound seemed to come; it was at one of the corners of his cell. He silently put his ear to the wall and to the ground, and found that the voices apparently came from beneath the floor.
It was evident that he had neighbors who were separated from him only by a thin partition or an equally thin floor. After some two hours the sounds ceased, and all was still once more.
Toward night the noise began again, but this time it was of a different nature. It was not that which would be made by two persons speaking together, but consisted of dull, hurried blows as of some one cutting stone. It came from the same place, did not cease for a second, and seemed to come nearer and nearer.
Absorbed as Ascanio was in his own thoughts, this noise seemed to him deserving of some attention none the less, so he sat with his eyes glued to the spot whence it came. He judged that it must be near midnight, but he did not once think of sleeping, notwithstanding that he had not slept for so many hours.
The noise continued: as it was long past the usual hour for work, it was evidently some prisoner seeking to escape. Ascanio smiled sadly at the thought that the poor devil, who would think for a moment, mayhap, that he was at liberty, would find that he had simply changed his cell.
At last the noise approached so near that Ascanio ran and seized his lamp, and returned with it to the corner; almost at the same moment the earth rose up in that spot, and as it fell away disclosed a human head.
Ascanio uttered an exclamation of wonder, followed by a cry of joy, to which a no less delighted cry made answer. The head belonged to Jacques Aubry.