WHAT WAS TALKED ABOUT FOR MORE THAN THREE MONTHS IN THE LITTLE TOWN OF NANTUA  
To Master René's first question, "For heaven's sake! what is going on in the prison, friend Bodoux?" the person thus addressed replied:
"The most extraordinary things that were ever known, Monsieur Servet! When they came to relieve the sentinel this morning, they found him gagged and tied up like a sausage; and just now it seems that they have found Père Rossignol and his turnkey shut up in a cell. What times we live in, good Lord! What times we live in!"
From the very grotesqueness of the reply, Diane saw that he was telling the truth. It was clear to any intelligent person that if the jailer and the turnkey were inside, the prisoner must be outside.
Diane dropped Master René's arm, darted through the crowd, made her way toward the prison, and finally reached the door.
Here she heard some one say: "The prisoner has escaped!"
At the same time, Père Rossignol and the turnkey appeared within the jail, having been released from the cell in the first place by the locksmith, who had opened the door, and in the second place by the mayor and the police commissioner, who had unbound them.
"You cannot pass," said the sergeant to Diane.
"That order may apply to every one else," said Diane, "but not to me. I am the sister of the escaped prisoner."
This reasoning was not very conclusive in point of law,[Pg 413] but it carried with it the logic of the heart, which few men can resist.
"Oh! that is another thing," said the sergeant, lifting his sword. "Pass on, mademoiselle!"
And Diane passed in, to the great astonishment of the crowd, who saw the curtain rising upon a new phase of the drama, and muttered: "It is the prisoner's sister!"
Now everybody in Nantua knew who the prisoner was, and for what cause he was imprisoned.
Père Rossignol and the turnkey were at first in such a state of terror and prostration that neither the mayor nor the police commissioner could get anything out of them. Fortunately the latter bethought him of the idea of giving them each a glass of wine, which enabled the former to relate how six masked men had forced an entrance into the prison, had compelled him and the turnkey Rigobert to go down to the cell with them, and after making sure of the prisoner, who had arrived two days before, had locked them up in his place. Since then they did not know what had happened.
This was all that Diane cared to know for the moment. Convinced that her brother had been taken away by the Companions of Jehu, since Père Rossignol described his assailants as masked men, she hastened from the jail. But she was at once surrounded by an eager crowd, who, having heard that she was the prisoner's sister, wanted to hear the details of his escape.
In a few words Diane told them all she knew, and with great difficulty she rejoined Master René Servet. She was about to give him the order for post-horses to start at once when she heard a man shout that the registry was on fire—a piece of news destined to share the attention of the crowd with that of the prisoner's escape.
Indeed, they had learned almost all that was to be learned, when this unexpected news opened up a new field of conjecture. It was almost certain that there must be some connection between the prisoner's escape and the[Pg 414] fire at the registry. The young girl believed this to be the case. The order to put horses to the chaise died upon her lips, for she felt that this fire would furnish her with further details concerning her brother's escape which might be useful to her.
Time had been speeding on during this investigation. It was now eight o'clock in the morning. This was the time to present herself at the magistrate's house to whom she had the letter. Moreover, the extraordinary events of which the little town of Nantua had been the scene would explain this early visit, especially from the prisoner's sister. Diane, therefore, begged her landlord to take her to Monsieur Pérignon; for such was the name of the president of the tribunal.
Monsieur Pérignon had been one of the first to be awakened by the news which had thrown all Nantua into a turmoil. But he had hurried to the spot in which he, as a judge, was particularly interested; that is to say, to the registry. He had just returned when Mademoiselle de Fargas was announced.
When he reached the office the fire had been extinguished; but it had already consumed a portion of the papers which had been deposited there for safe-keeping. He had questioned the porter, who told him that the clerk had come to the office about half-past eleven with two gentlemen, and that he, the porter, had not thought it necessary to investigate, inasmuch as the clerk frequently came there in the evening to procure papers which he engrossed at home.
Scarcely had the clerk taken his departure when he had noticed a bright light through the windows of the office. Not understanding what it could mean, he had risen and gone in. There he had found a grea............