This
time the Cardinal is determined to put it down.'
'He and I are old friends,' I said confidently.
'So I have heard,' he anwered, with a short laugh. 'I think that
the same was said of Chalais. I do not remember that it saved
his head.'
This was not reassuring. But worse was to come. Early in the
morning orders were received that I should be treated with
especial strictness, and I was given the choice between irons and
one of the cells below the level. Choosing the latter, I was
left to reflect upon many things; among others, on the queer and
uncertain nature of the Cardinal, who loved, I knew, to play with
a man as a cat with a mouse; and on the ill effects which
sometimes attend a high chest-thrust however carefully delivered.
I only rescued myself at last from these and other unpleasant
reflections by obtaining the loan of a pair of dice; and the
light being just enough to enable me to reckon the throws, I
amused myself for hours by casting them on certain principles of
my own. But a long run again and again upset my calculations;
and at last brought me to the conclusion that a run of bad luck
may be so persistent as to see out the most sagacious player.
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