“Who is this man in the iron mask?” people asked. No-body could tell. Some guessed that he was the king’s cousin who had done some rash things and offended the grand Louis. Some said that he was the king’s own twin brother. Othe-rs said that perhaps he was a certain English prince whom his people wished to keep out of the way. But the secret was well kept, and nobody to this day knows who the mysterious prisoner was.
Perhaps the prisoner tried to escape. Perhaps he tried to remove the iron mask. But, if so, he was guarded so closely that no one outside of the castle ever heard about it.
One day as a fisherman was rowing underneath the prison window, something round and bright fell into his boat. He picked it up. It was a beautiful silver plate, with words written all over the under side of it. The writing seemed to have been scratched there with the point of a knife. It was bright, as though it had just been done.
The fisherman could not read. Poor people did not read in those days. But he knew that the plate came from the man in the iron mask. The jailer often served the prisoner’s dinner in silver dishes. The prisoner had hidden one of the plates, and when he was alone had written his history on it. Then he had thrown it out of the window, hoping that some pitying friend might find it.
The fisherman was frightened almost out of his wits as he looked at the plate. What if the king should hear about it! Would he not think that the fisherman was plotting with the prisoner? Many a poor fellow had been shut up in a dung