Neither is there any expression of the human countenance at all like that expression in every little line of which the frightened heart is seen to beat.

Both are conventionally compared with death; but the difference is the whole deep gulf between the struggle done, and the fight at its most desperate extremity.
He lighted another of his paper cigars at his companion's; put it tightly between his teeth; covered his head with a soft slouched hat; threw the end of his cloak over his shoulder again; and walked out into the side gallery on which the door opened, without taking any further notice of Signor Cavalletto.

As to that little man himself, his whole attention had become absorbed in getting near the door and looking out at it.

Precisely as a beast might approach the opened gate of his den and eye the freedom beyond, he passed those few moments in watching and peering, until the door was closed upon him.
There was an officer in command of the soldiers; a stout, serviceable, profoundly calm man, with his drawn sword in his hand, smoking a cigar.
He very briefly directed the placing of Monsieur Rigaud in the midst of the party, put himself with consummate indifference at their head, gave the word 'march!' and so they all went jingling down the staircase.

The door clashed--the key turned--and a ray of unusual light, and a breath of unusual air, seemed to have passed through the jail, vanishing in a tiny wreath of smoke from the cigar.
Still, in his captivity, like a lower animal--like some impatient ape, or roused bear of the smaller species--the prisoner, now left solitary, had jumped upon the ledge, to lose no glimpse of this departure.