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Entering by the back way, she tapped softly with the key at one of the cell-doors, and listened. There was no sound within: so she coughed and listened again. Still there was no reply: so she spoke. 'Nolly, dear? murmured Nancy in a gentle voice; 'Nolly?
Then Braquond resolved to organize a revolt, and save the prisoners. He ran to the corridor, and with a voice of authority ordered all the cell-doors to be opened, thus releasing four hundred prisoners. Braquond put himself at their head and led them on. But when they reached the outer gate, they were just in time to witness the departure of the last Vengeur de Flourens.
But wonder of wonders! Paul and Silas sang songs in their prison, and the jailer heard them; then there came an earthquake. Who was he that found his cell-doors opened suddenly, and a messenger from out the courts of heaven there to guide his steps? History is full of marvellous records; I add this to those. The eleventh hour goes always freighted with the weightiest events.
The party numbered seventeen: the Prince, three courtiers, five boys, five girls, the course-marker, the map-maker, and the Jolly-cum-pop. The heart of the jailer was joyful; seventeen inmates was something to be proud of. He ordered his myrmidons to give the prisoners a meal of bread and water through the holes in their cell-doors, and then he sat down to make out his report to the Potentate.
Glancing up, I saw dimly-lighted corridors, running round tier on tier of cell-doors, and connected by light, graceful staircases; a clear view of every door being commanded from the office at the west end of the ground-floor. We were invited one by one into a side office, where we inscribed our names in a big book.
Here fifteen or twenty were crowded together, and, in the burning atmosphere, they stripped themselves stark naked, so that when in the morning the cell-doors were opened, they came forth as from the grave, begging for death.
But here, in the very heart of the building, and moreover with the prayers and cries of the four men under sentence sounding in his ears, and their hands, stretched our through the gratings in their cell-doors, clasped in frantic entreaty before his very eyes, it was particularly remarkable.
Catholics were there, and red tickets were on their cell-doors; Protestants were there, and white tickets marked their apartments; Jews were there, and provision was made for their special observances; but the Atheist was the rara avis, the very phoenix of Holloway Gaol. Let us turn to another method of investigation.
The spider that weaves its web down the wall, the swallow which perhaps flies a single time close under the panes there high up in the wall even the stranger's footstep in the gallery, as he passes the cell-doors, is an event in that mute, solitary life, where the prisoners' thoughts are wrapped up in themselves.
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