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Suddenly, in that very spot which looked like a dark hole, a redness
showed. The redness grew larger, and became a light.
There was no uncertainty about it. It soon took a form and angles. The
gate of the jail had just turned on its hinges. The glow painted the
arch and the jambs of the door. It was a yawning rather than an opening.
A prison does not open; it yawns--perhaps from ennui. Through the gate
passed a man with a torch in his hand.
The bell rang on. Ursus felt his attention fascinated by two objects. He
watched--his ear the knell, his eye the torch. Behind the first man the
gate, which had been ajar, enlarged the opening suddenly, and allowed
egress to two other men; then to a fourth. This fourth was the
wapentake, clearly visible in the light of the torch. In his grasp was
his iron staff.
Following the wapentake, there filed and opened out below the gateway in
order, two by two, with the rigidity of a series of walking posts, ranks
of silent men.
This nocturnal procession stepped through the wicket in file, like a
procession of penitents, without any solution of continuity, with a
funereal care to make no noise--gravely, almost gently. A serpent issues
from its hole with similar precautions.
The torch threw out their profiles and attitudes into relief. Fierce
looks, sullen attitudes.
715
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