A Royal Prisoner

  CHAPTER XXV

  "I WANT TO LIVE!"

  During two days which passed like two centuries, Fandor had been heldprisoner in his dungeon where death awaited him.

  "I am condemned to death," he exclaimed, "very good, then I will waitfor death."

  But Fandor was of those who do not give up until the struggle is over.Besides, he had his faithful revolver. He could end his life at anymoment and shorten the torture. He had found sufficient ham to last fortwo meals, and when that had been eaten and the last drop of water drunkhe began to suffer the tortures of hunger and thirst. And now, like acaged beast, he paced up and down his prison. His mind went back tostories he had read, stories of entombed miners, of explorers hemmed inby ice, of hunters caught in traps, but in all these cases deliverancein one form or another had come at last--the adventures ended happily.

  "I want to live," he cried aloud, "I want to live!"

  Suddenly a great calm descended upon him. His coolness and clearjudgment returned.

  "To struggle! Yes--but how?"

  At this moment the roar of the Nord-Sud shook his prison walls. An ideatook root in his mind.

  Might it not be possible to burrow his way through the soil directly tothe tunnel! Examining the ground, he decided that it would be simpler totunnel his way like a mole, skirting the concrete base of the statue andreaching the pavement beyond. It would not be hard work to dislodge oneof the paving stones and reach the open air. No sooner was the planconceived than he broke several of the bottles until he obtained a pieceof the thick glass sufficiently jagged to form a trowel.

  With this rough implement he then set to work, scooping up the earth andpiling it on one side of his cell. Patiently and ceaselessly hecontinued, hour after hour, until suddenly the hiss of escaping gascould be faintly heard.

  "I'm done for this time," he cried in despair. "I shall be asphyxiated!"But a gleam of hope quickly set him to work again.

  "Gas is lighter than air. It may percolate through the chinks of themasonry. In any case I'd rather die that way than be starved to death."

  It was a race between the escaping gas and the tunnel.

  Very soon Fandor began to feel a dizziness in his head, and the airbecame more difficult to breathe; suddenly, he had the sensation ofbeing enveloped in an extraordinary blue flame, and then a loud reportdeafened him.

  Fandor's prison, saturated with gas, had suddenly blown up!

  The ground gave way beneath him: he was lying in the ruins.

  Destiny had made a plaything of his efforts.