r was
a man of no feeling that I could see, yet of no violence or cruelty; one
whose life was like a wheel, doing the eternal round. He did no more nor
less than his orders, and I made no complaint nor asked any favour. No
one came to me, no message found its way.

Full three months went by in this fashion, and then, one day, who should
step into my dungeon, torch in hand, but Gabord! He raised the light
above his head, and looked down at me most quizzically.

"Upon my soul--Gabord!" said I. "I did not kill you, then?"

"Upon your soul and upon your body, you killed not Gabord."

"And what now, quarrelsome Gabord?" I questioned cheerfully.

He shook some keys. "Back again to dickey-bird's cage. 'Look you,'
quoth Governor, 'who will guard and bait this prisoner like the man he
mauled?' 'No one,' quoth a lady who stands by Governor's chair. And she
it was who had Governor send me here--even Ma'm'selle Duvarney. And she
it was who made the Governor loose off these chains."

He began to free me from the chains. I was in a vile condition. The
irons had made sores upon my wrists and legs, my limbs now trembled so
beneath me that I could scarcely walk, and my head was very light and
dizzy at times. Presently Gabord ordered a new bed of straw brought in;
and from that hour we returned to our old relations, as if there had
not been between us a fight to the death. Of what was going on abroad he
would not tell me, and soon I found myself in as ill a state as before.
No Voban came to me, no Doltaire, no one at all. I sank into a deep
silence, dropped out of a busy world, a morsel of earth slowly coming to
Mother Earth again.

A strange apathy began to settle on me. All those resources of my first
year's imprisonment had gone, and I was alone: my mouse was dead; there
was no history of my life to write, no incident to break the pitiful
monotony. There seemed only one hope: that our army under Amherst would
invest Quebec and take it. I had no news of any movement, winter again
was here, and it must be five or six months before any action could
successfully be taken; for the St. Lawrence was frozen over in winter,
and if the city was to be seized it must be from the water, with
simultaneous action by land.

I knew the way, the only way, to take the city. At Sillery, west of the
town, there was a hollow in the cliffs, up which men, secretly conveyed
above the town by water, could climb. At the top was a plateau, smooth
and fi