e
symptom of awkwardness was, that he addressed Toussaint by no sort of
title.

"We have had notice of your approach," said he; "which is fortunate, as
it enables me to conduct you at once to your apartment. Will you
proceed? This way. A torch, Bellines! We have been looking for you
these two days; which happens very well, as we have been enabled to
prepare for you. Torches, Bellines! This way. We mount a few steps,
you perceive. We are not taking you underground, though I call for
lights; but this passage to the left, you perceive, is rather dark.
Yes, that is our well; and a great depth it is--deeper, I assure you,
than this rock is high. What do they call the depth, Chalot? Well,
never mind the depth! You can follow me, I believe, without waiting for
a light. We cannot go wrong. Through this apartment to the left."

Toussaint, however, chose to wait for Bellines and his torch. He chose
to see what he could of the passages of his prison. If this vault in
which he stood were not underground, it was the dreariest apartment from
which the daylight had ever been built out. In the moment's pause
occasioned by his not moving on when desired, he heard the dripping of
water as in a well.

Bellines appeared, and his torch showed the stone walls of the vault
shining with the trickling of water. A cold steam appeared to thicken
the air, oppress the lungs, and make the torch burn dim.

"To what apartment can this be the passage?" thought Toussaint. "The
grave is warm compared with this."

A glance of wretchedness from Mars Plaisir, seen in the torchlight, as
Bellines passed on to the front, showed that the poor fellow's spirits,
and perhaps some visions of a merry life among the soldiers, had melted
already in the damps of this vault. Rubaut gave him a push, which
showed that he was to follow the torch-bearer.

Through this vault was a passage, dark, wet, and slippery. In the
left-hand wall of this passage was a door, studded with iron nails
thickly covered with rust. The key was in this door. During the
instant required for throwing it wide, a large flake of ice fell from
the ceiling of the passage upon the head of Toussaint. He shook it off,
and it extinguished the torch.

"You mean to murder us," said he, "if you propose to place us here. Do
you not know that ice and darkness are the negro's poison? Snow, too,"
he continued, advancing to the cleft of his dungeon wall, at the outward
extremity