sand. I had to pass through that part, to get at the other. My

memory is circumstantial and unshaken. I try it with these details,

and I see them all, in this my cell in the Bastille, near the close of

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

the tenth year of my captivity, as I saw them all that night.

“On some hay on the ground, with a cushion thrown under his

head, lay a handsome peasant boya boy of not more than

seventeen at the most. He lay on his back, with his teeth set, his

right hand clenched on his breast, and his glaring eyes looking

straight upward. I could not see where his wound was, as I

kneeled on one knee over him; but, I could see that he was dying

of a wound from a sharp point.

“‘I am a doctor, my poor fellow,’ said I. ‘Let me examine it.’

“‘I do not want it examined,’ he answered; ‘let it be.’ “It was

under his hand, and I soothed him to let me move his hand away.

The wound was a sword-thrust, received from twenty to twentyfour

hours before, but no skill could have saved him if it had been

looked to without delay. He was then dying fast. As I turned my

eyes to the elder brother, I saw him looking down at this

handsome boy whose life was ebbing out, as if he were a wounded

bird, or hare, or rabbit; not at all as if he were a fellow-creature.

“‘How has this been done, monsieur?’ said I.

“‘A crazed young common