The keeper charged with
the hall watch, who, as we have said, was much interested for Germain, gave
him every assistance. When he came to himself, when reflection succeeded
the rapid and terrible emotions that had hardly left him the exercise of
his reason, his first thought was for his deliverer.
"Thank you for your attentions, sir," he said to the keeper; "but for that
courageous man, I was lost."
"How are you now?"
"Better. Ah! all that has passed seems to me like a horrid dream!"
"Recover yourself."
"And my savior, where is he?"
"In the governor's room. He is telling how the affray occurred. It appears
that without him----"
"I should have been murdered, sir. Oh! tell me his name--who is he?"
"His name I do not know; he is nicknamed the Slasher; he was once in the
galleys."
"And the crime which brought him here, perhaps, is not serious?"
"Very serious--burglary," said the keeper. "He will probably have the same
dose as Pique-Vinaigre; fifteen or twenty years of hard labor, and the
pillory, as he is an old offender."
Germain shuddered; he would have preferred to be bound by the ties of
gratitude to one less criminal.
"Oh! it is frightful," he said; "and yet this man, without knowing me, took
my part. So much courage, so much generosity."
"What would you have, sir? Sometimes there is some good left in these
people. The most important fact is, that you are saved; to-morrow you will
have your own cell, and for to-night you will sleep in the infirmary,
according to orders.
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