In the stillness of the night the gloomy, desolate hall of the prison now presented a strange aspect. The jailer, bribed with an assignat of fifty francs, then worth only forty sous, however, had consented that his little six-years-old daughter should serve the Grand Cophta as "dove," and had made all other preparations. A table stood in the middle of the hall, on which was a decanter filled with clear, fresh water, around which were three candles in the form of a triangle, and placed as near the decanter as possible, in order that the dove should be able to see the better. The little girl, just aroused from sleep and brought from her bed in her night-gown, sat on a chair close to the table, and behind her stood the earnest, sombre figure of the Grand Cophta. Around the table stood the prisoners, these duchesses and marquises, these ladies of the court of Versailles who had preserved their aristocratic manners in the prison, and were even here so strictly observant of etiquette, that those of them who had enjoyed the honor of the _tabouret_ in the Tuileries, were here accorded the same precedence, and all possible consideration shown them. On the other side of the table, in breathless suspense, her large, dark eyes fastened on the child with a touching expression, stood the unhappy Josephine, and, at some distance behind the ladies, the jailer with his wife. Now the Grand Cophta laid both hands on the child's head and cried in a loud voice, "Open your eyes and look!" The child turned pale and shuddered as it fixed its gaze on the decanter. "What do you see?" asked the Grand Cophta, "I want you to look into the prison of General Beauharnais. What do you see?" "I see a little room," said the child with vivacity. "On a cot lies a young man who sleeps; at his side stands another man, writing on a sheet of paper that lies on a large book." "Can you read?" "No, citizen. Now the man cuts off his hair, and folds it in the paper." "The one who sleeps?" "No, the one who was just now writing. He is now writing something on the back of the paper in which he wrapped the hair; now he opens a little red pocket-book, and takes papers out of it; they are assignats, he counts them and then puts them back in the pocket-book. Now he rises and walks softly, softly." "What do you mean by softly? You have not heard the slightest noise as yet, have you?" "No, but he walks through the room on tiptoe." "What do you see now?" "He now covers his face with his hands and seems to be weeping." "But what did he do with his pocket-book?" "Ah, he has put the pocket book and the package with the hair in the pocket of the coat that lies on the sleeping man's bed." "Of what color is this coat?" "I cannot see, exactly; it is red or brown, lined with blue silk and covered with shining buttons." "That will do," said the Grand Cophta; "you can go to bed, child."