_ BOOK III. PAWNS AND PLAYERS
CHAPTER VI
But when he reached the door at the end of the passage, it was closed, and he could only stand outside and listen. A lamp of pottery, burning wanly on a stone shelf jutting from the wall, showed the door, low, metal-bound, of tough black oak. He could see nothing, but his ears caught fragments of sound at intervals from within; a clank of chains, a scraping as of a heavy object dragged across the floor. He leaned against the wall of the passage, the lamplight on his face, his figure tense with expectation, his hands quite unconsciously hard clenched. Without warning there rose from inside a frantic gibbering, meaningless, bestial, horribly shrill. Nicanor smiled with narrowed eyes.
"Well for me I drew thy sting, old man!" he muttered.
The gibbering broke suddenly into a scream that rang for an instant and stopped short, leaving blank silence. Nicanor's face sharpened and grew pinched with eagerness; under scowling brows his eyes took on a strange glitter like the eyes of an animal in the dark. He crouched closer to the door, his body rigid with the strain of listening. Once more the cry of pain rose, this time sustained and savage with despair; it choked and gurgled horribly into silence; and rose again, more agonized, more bitter.
"Perhaps he wishes now he had not entered that garden!" said Nicanor, and laughed low in triumph. Every nerve was thrilling to the savage lust of blood, half-lost instinct of old days when men lived and died by blood, when the battle was to the strongest, and life was a victim's forfeit. He longed to look through the iron-bound door, to see for himself Marcus paying the price for his temerity. Strangely, he could not bring himself to believe that Marcus was unable to betray him; it seemed to him as though the man's fearful straining after speech must have result of some sort. Even though he knew this idea to be absurd, he found himself on edge with suspense.
The cries became long-drawn, agonized, unceasing. There is but one sound in the world as bad as the sound of a man's screaming, and that other is the scream of a wounded horse. Nicanor set his teeth.
"Now they are twisting the cord about his head.... And yet, though they kill him, the poor fool cannot speak. I have well taken care of that, it appears.... They have him on the stone table, and his hands are bound. I can see it--oh, ay, I can see it well enough. I can see that he writhes in torment; and his face--what would his face be? Purple, perhaps; and the cord about his temples hath bitten through the flesh. There is blood upon his face, and it takes four men to hold him. Body of me! Who would have thought the old man to have such lungs!"
A smothered exclamation from the semi-darkness beside him sent his hand leaping to the dagger concealed in his tunic. In the same instant he saw that it was Eldris.
"Who is it?" she whispered fearfully. "Oh, why do they not kill him and have it over! I heard as I was passing--I had to come!" She clasped her hands over her ears and shuddered. Nicanor folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the wall, looking down at her. When she lowered her hands, he said:
"It may be that our lord hath not given command that he die."
"Who is it?" she repeated.
"Marcus," he answered, and saw her draw breath with a quick sob.
"Ah, poor old man! What hath he done to deserve this?"
"Rather it is because he will not--because he cannot do what they would have him," said Nicanor. His words were reckless, still more his tone; it was even as though he cared not enough about the matter to hide his knowledge from her.
"Do you know what it is? Oh, if they would but kill him in very pity!" She wrung her hands.
"Ay, I know," said Nicanor.
"Was it his fault?" she asked eagerly. He hesitated, his bold eyes on her face.
"No," he said. "It was not his fault. He was in the right."
She turned on him in horror.
"You know him innocent, and yet you stand here idle while he is done to death!" she cried. "Oh, go--go quickly and tell them he is not to blame! Make them set him free!" She caught his arm and he felt her fingers shake. "Are you a coward, that you will listen to his cries when a word of yours could release him? I had not thought it of you--oh, I had not thought it of you!"
"Suppose a word of mine should set me in his place?" said Nicanor harshly. "Maybe I am coward; but calling me one will not make me one. Suppose I were in his place; suppose that in my fall I carried others with me,--others who at all costs must be shielded,--is it not better that one should suffer than that our world should crash about our ears? He is old and worthless--"
"And you are young and worthy to have his blood spilled for you!" she taunted in a shaking voice. "I do not understand, it may be, but it seems that this frail old man must suffer that you, so brave, so powerful, whose life is of so great worth, may go unharmed. Why should you be set in his place? Is the fault yours? If it be, and you seek shelter behind his helplessness, you are lower than the cringing curs. Are you afraid, O great and worthy one, to stand forth and confess your wrong as any man would do?"
She stopped breathless. He looked at her with eyes hot and sullen.
"Now I should like to wring your neck for that!" he said. At the swift ruthless savagery in his tone the girl shrank back. Nicanor saw and laughed. "Since I may not, I'll take payment otherhow. As for the old man, let him squeal as best likes him. If they break him on the wheel, I shall go and tell them how to do it; if they boil him in oil, I shall go and stir the gravy. Your opinion of the cringing cur should not go unjustified."
The screaming died suddenly into moaning. Eldris covered her face with her hands.
"Oh, but that is worse, if worse can be! Why does he not tell them he knows nothing, has done nothing? Surely they would let him go! Is he trying, perhaps, to shield you?" Her voice, under all its fear and pity, was mocking.
"Not he! He would be glad to see me in his place," Nicanor retorted. He laughed a little. "Strange, is it not, that he doth not tell?--since thumb-screws and argolins soon find a man's limit."
She faced him, gathering all her courage.
"Now do I believe you know more of this than you will say!" she cried.
"Perhaps!" he said boldly. "It is not well to tell all one knows."
"Not even to save a fellow-creature's life! Oh, what are you--brute or man? Man with the speech of angels--brute with the heart of hell!"
"Perhaps!" said Nicanor again. "Why should I tell you what I am?"
"Do you know, yourself?" she questioned.
His eyes hardened.
"Who can know himself?" he parried, with a shrug of his heavy shoulders. "This much I know--that I am brute and man, slave and king. At times I am lower than man, who can be lower than any crawling beast; at times I am more than god, with all the world beneath me. Why? How should I tell?"
"You, who sing of birds and butterflies, of flowers in Summer, of sunshine and sweet love and the brightness of life!" she said bitterly and with reproach. "Indeed, you are two men, and I know not either. One, all men must hate and fear; the other--ah, the other is of the silver tongue. Why should this be? I can tell no more than you--I can but pray that that black beast may be tamed and stilled."
"I say I do not know!" Nicanor said sullenly. "And speak we of something else. I am
one man, Nicanor, slave and teller of tales. That is all with which you have concern. And I do not need praying over."
"Have you no gods?" she asked him, shocked. He looked rather blank at her attack.
"Why, no," he said, and his voice held a faint tinge of surprise. "There are no gods in the bogs and fens and on the hills where I tended sheep. What gods with any sense would live in such parts as these? And I knew no need of them. Why should I have learned? When my mother would tell me of one God whom she worshipped, I would go and play. Is this your God?"
"Ay," she answered, without hesitation. "I think your mother, too, was Christian."
"Maybe," Nicanor answered with indifference. "But he is not the God of the mighty--of none but slaves and bondsmen and the humble, from all that hath been told to me."
"Of those who are oppressed," she said softly. "Wilt let me tell thee of Him? Of how He was born in a stable, with wise men journeying from the East, bearing gifts of homage?"
Nicanor looked at her with a gleam of quickening interest.
"Why, that is a tale," he said. "Now I have never heard of this before. Why was he born in a stable, and what gifts did those wise men bring?"
Within the room the sounds had died, leaving a heavy silence, and neither noticed. For of old Death young Life is ever heedless; ever the brazen fanfare of life's trumpets drowns the thin reed-plaint of death. In the passage their voices whispered guiltily.
"Because His mother went to a place which was called Bethlehem, with Joseph her husband, to pay the taxes, and there was no room at the inn," said Eldris, explaining. "And the angel of the Lord had told Joseph that these things should be, and that he need not put away Mary as he was minded to do." She knew the facts of the story she would tell him; give it form and coherence she could not.
"Who was Mary?"
"The wife of Joseph."
"Why put her away?"
"Because the Child was to be born."
Nicanor drew his heavy eyebrows to a scowl of intense perplexity.
"Now why should he put her away for doing what all good wives should do?"
"Because her child was the Son of God, and at first Joseph did not--"
"And not the son of Joseph!" cut in Nicanor. His voice became all at once enlightened. "Now by my head, this is a quaint tale thou tellest! So the God you Christians worship was a--"
"Oh!" cried Eldris; and the shock in her voice cut his words short. "Never say it! You do not understand! It was a miracle!"
"A miracle--well, that is different," said Nicanor. "I have told tales of miracles, for such things may be. And so--?"
"For it had been foretold that One should be born, of a pure virgin, who should redeem the world and take upon Himself the sins and sorrows of all men. So an angel told Mary that she was blessed among women--but I think that she was frightened."
Nicanor nodded, as one in entire understanding. In place of the hard glitter of his eyes had come a certain luminosity as though from inner fires, an odd deep shining; his face was keen with a lively interest.
"And so--what happened then?" he questioned her, even as men, so many times before, had questioned him.
"Yet she was glad, for that she was chosen to bring peace into the world," recounted Eldris. "So they went into Bethlehem, and all the inns were full. But Mary could go no farther, and they went into a stable, where oxen and cattle were stalled. And there the Child was born; and men say that a great star in the sky guided shepherds who fed their flocks upon the moors to that stable where He lay. And it is told that three Kings came out of the East, laden with perfumes and gifts for him who was to be the Saviour of the world."
"Kings," Nicanor repeated, musing. "Then would they be clothed bravely, with jewels and fine linen, and this would make good contrast with the stable. Go on. What did they when they came into the stable?"
"They marvelled greatly that He whom they had journeyed to seek should be but a new-born babe, and they bowed down and worshipped."
"Paid homage," said Nicanor, following out his own train of thought. "Ay, it is a good tale, but as I have heard it, it lacketh something--what? I must think of that. It hath no point, no pivot on which to hang the whole. For, look you, a tale is built as any other thing is built; it must have its parts balanced; it must have cause, and meaning, and effect. This hath a beginning, but it leads nowhere, without end."
"But it hath no end," said Eldris, not understanding. "And it can have no end until the end of time. For it was but the beginning; and the little Jesus that lay in the manger is He who liveth and reigneth above all gods--"
"Now I care not for the little Jesus!" said Nicanor, gruff with impatience. "It is the tale I would get at--the tale! Well, it will come, as always it hath come before. On a night I will wake to find it full-grown in my head and clamoring at my tongue. Now we will go, or that fat lover of thine will be upon us."
Brought back to the present and its portents, Eldris bent her head, listening.
"Why, the cries have ceased," she said.
"Ay, this long time past," said Nicanor carelessly. "How much, think you, human flesh and blood can stand?"
"Is he dead?" she asked, startled.
"I hope so!" said Nicanor. "Nay then, I do not care, which is nearer truth. If I do not fear a fangless serpent in the grass, why should I fear him?"
There was sudden movement behind the door; before either could think of flight it opened, showing the room within. A still figure on the raised slab of stone, for centre of the picture, with two half-stripped Africans beside it; three figures coming doorward: and these were Eudemius, and Marius, and the physician Claudius. Eudemius, his face pinched and gray, leaned tottering with weakness on the arms of the other two; behind them walked a slave with a great peacock fan, and another slave was waiting at the door. At once Nicanor clapped his hardened hand over the thin flame of the lamp on the shelf, and the passage where they stood was plunged in darkness. Before the three lords had reached the threshold, he had drawn the girl out of sight behind one of the squat pillars of the passage. Perhaps no harm would come to them, even were they discovered; but he had reasons for wishing to take no chances. The three passed by unheeding, Eudemius stumbling and cursing because the passage was dark. When they had gone, Nicanor went into the room, where the slaves were busy. Eldris stood hesitating on the threshold, afraid to enter, unwilling to go.
"He is dead, is he?" Nicanor asked, and went and stood over the broken body on the stone slab.
One of the Africans grinned, showing strong white teeth beneath his yellow turban.
"Our lord was a devil to-night," he said. "The madness was on him, and he would have blood. But look you; here is a strange thing." With ungentle hands he forced open the dead jaws, not yet stiffened in the rigor of death. "Now sure this be a miracle, for mine own ears heard him speak but yesterday."
"So?" said Nicanor, with lifted brows. "Now I should have said a week ago, or maybe two. Ay, if you heard him speak yesterday, it was sure a miracle. Likely he hath done something displeasing to his gods."
The slaves carried the limp body away, and others came and resanded the floors.
The chamber was circular, of rough blocks of stone, with two doors. Opposite the one where Eldris stood was a raised dais where were two chairs and a flaring cresset on a tall standard. Around the walls hung instruments of war, of torture, and of the chase; chains with heavy balls of iron attached; a stand of spears, and another of great bronze swords, leaf-shaped and burnished. A collection of daggers hung upon the walls, with the terrible short knives worn by the Saxons, each with the two nicks in the blade which would leave a ragged and dreadful wound. Here also were great six-foot bows, such as the Numidian archers used; and suits of armor in corium and in bronze, with shields and breastplates and crested helmets of brass and iron. Here was a narrow bed, of wood and iron, with bolts and screws for tearing muscle from muscle and joint from joint. Nicanor, with grim humor, had called this the bridal bed, and the name would stick to it forever. And here, higher than a man's height above the floor, was a leaden tank with a water-cock, from which would fall water, drop by drop, hour by hour, into a leaden basin with a drain-pipe sunk into the floor. Once Nicanor had seen a man sit screaming there for untold hours, chained to a stone bench, with water dripping, drop by drop, upon his shaven skull. He had used this upon a day, in a tale he had told in the wine-shop of Nicodemus; and men had shuddered and drawn back from him as from one possessed of unholy powers. And Nicanor, looking at this now, and with that terrible gift of his seeing himself chained and screaming in that other's place, set his teeth and muttered:
"I shall leave this house this night."
But he did not, for he was but mortal, and subject, like other mortals, to the decree of the goddess Fate.
For as the slaves went out of the other door with their buckets of sand, Nicanor heard a cry from where the girl stood in the entrance to the passage; a cry sharp and quick, as he had heard a rabbit squeal in the trap. He wheeled and saw her shrinking inside the doorway, her hands before her face, and over her Hito standing, his little pig's eyes alight.
Now the girl was nothing to Nicanor; he could have cursed her roundly for getting in his way and perplexing him with her troubles when he had need of all his wit to save himself. He would have vented his displeasure upon her as readily as upon Hito. He was not chivalrous; if she had pleased his fancy he would quite surely have pursued her as relentlessly as the steward. But he had said, "None shall touch thee this night"; and he would maintain his word not because he wanted to, but because he must.
"Keep your hands off her!" he said savagely, as Hito stooped. His hands were clenched, his black brows lowering, his mood, plainly, was not to be trifled with. That he should pay for his temerity he knew as well as Hito; but since he was lost in any case, he considered that a little more or less would make small difference.
"What have you to say about it?" Hito snarled. "Did I not send you for the girl? Quartus! Sporus! Come back, ye knaves, and bind me this fellow!"
But Nicanor, with a bound like a tiger cat's, flung himself on the door, slammed it shut, and locked it. And he had need of all his quickness, for he was playing fast and loose with death. Hito yelled and started for the second door through which he had come and near which the girl was crouching. But again Nicanor was too quick. He got between Hito and the door and stood ready to shut it,--erect, defiant, every muscle tense to spring. He would die, that was certain, but he would give somebody trouble first. Now Hito was fat and scant of breath, and Hito was soft with good living and much ease; and when he was cornered, he turned not rat, but rabbit. Moreover, he had seen this lean devil of a slave in action before and he remembered it. So he stopped and merely yelled again for Quartus and Sporus.
Without taking his eyes off the overseer, Nicanor put out his hand and pulled the girl to him.
"If you swoon, I shall kill you!" he muttered, stooping until he could whisper in her ear. "Go to Thorney in the Fords, and find there Nicodemus the One-Eyed, who keeps a wine-shop. Tell him I sent you. I cannot hold our friend here for long, but it is all that I can do. You know what it will mean to be caught and brought back." He raised his voice somewhat, so that Hito should hear apparently without his meaning it. "Go to your room and lock yourself in. We shall see what our lord has to say to such doings!"
He held the door ajar, and pushed the girl through, and closed it, but in the lock there was no key. Hito sneered.
"Clever lad! 'Go to your room and lock yourself in!' Hast thought what will happen when she must come out? 'See what our lord has to say to such doings!' Hast thought that what he will say will be through me? What else didst tell the girl? Answer, son of an ill-famed mother, or the rack shall question for me!"
Nicanor said nothing. His ears strained for approaching footsteps, but the walls were thick, and many had cried for help before and none had heard them. He had no plan; he had given the girl what chance he could, and it was all that he could do. If she could not help herself--well, there would be one more to cross the threshold of fate. His only thought was to give her what time he could. Let her once get away from the house, and over the frozen ground it would be hard to find her trail until morning.
Hito took it in his head to make a dash. He started for the door, shouting at the top of his lungs for help. Nicanor barred his passage, silent and inexorable. He did not raise hand against Hito, but stood like a rock against the fat one's futile pummellings. For to strike a superior meant, for a slave, instant and lawful death. Hito would none the less maintain that he had been struck, but Nicanor could not help that. So that Hito battered until his fists were sore; and Nicanor stood and took it silently, with set jaws and eyes gleaming like a wolf's in his dark face. He could not hope to keep Hito there much longer. The latter, wearied at length and puffing, sat on the edge of that grim bridal bed and cursed Nicanor by all the evil gods. After this, when his invention gave out, he fell silent and sat and stared at the tall figure that guarded the door, with his little eyes half closed. But quite suddenly those eyes flew wide with astonishment. For the figure against the door had begun to sway from side to side, gently and rhythmically, with a low mutter of incoherent words. Hito looked again, somewhat startled. The slave's face was set and blank; his eyes stared straight ahead and were dull and without lustre.
"The gods save us!" Hito muttered, watching uneasily. "Hath the man a fit?"
"See them coming!" said Nicanor. His finger pointed here and there, and in spite of himself, Hito's eyes followed it. "Bright maidens, flower-crowned, robed in gauze. Ah, flee not, sweet ones!" He stretched his hands imploringly. "Whence come ye, from the mist? See the mist, how it rises, full of dreams which are to come to men. Are ye dreams, ye radiant ones? No, for ye do not vanish. Ha! I have thee, lovely nymph! and thou shalt find my arms as strong to hold as the gods' from whom thou camest. Unveil thyself, sweet, and let me see thy face. It should be fair, with so fair a form. So--thou thinkest to escape and fly from me?"
He sprang forward, hands outstretched, almost upon Hito, who turned with a yelp of alarm, and dodged. Nicanor started back as one in sudden surprise.
"Ha, Julia, sweet friend!" he cried. "Who sent thee here to me, with thy scarf of gold and pearl, thy raven locks and thy dewy lips, with bells upon thine ankles, and a tambour in thy hand? See, our lord cometh! Let us dance for him that perhaps we may find favor in his sight."
Standing in front of Hito he began to dance, his hands hanging limp at his sides, his face utterly without expression. Hito gasped.
"What hath come to thee?" he quavered. "Fool--come to thy senses before thou art flogged back to them."
"Dance with me, sweet maiden!" said Nicanor; and suddenly caught Hito's fat and helpless hands in his lean brown ones and danced down the length of the room with him. Perforce, since he could not struggle free, Hito ran alongside, dragging back unwillingly, his face gray with fright. At the end of the room Nicanor turned and danced back again, dragging his captive.
"Dance, fair Julia, dance!" he cried; and in his gyrations brought without warning his nail-spiked sandal down on Hito's foot. Hito bellowed and danced upon one foot with pain, and once dancing, found that he could not stop.
"Let me go!" he panted, furious. "Slave--thou madman--let me go, I say! I do not wish to dance--I will not dance!"
"Not when our lord commands it?" cried Nicanor, breathing hard himself. "Why, then, I do not wish to dance either. But since he saith 'Dance,' dance I must, and so must thou, sweet girl!"
"I am no girl!" shrieked Hito, haled off down the room again. "I am Hito, and I command that you stop!"
"Now why give me lies like that?" said Nicanor. "Have I not eyes which have long hungered for thy beauty? Do I not know thee, Julia the dancing girl?"
"Thou art mad in very truth! Good Nicanor--sweet Nicanor--let me go, and I'll swear to keep between us this tale of thy doings!"
Nicanor answered nothing. Always his face was blank, but his grip on Hito's wrists was iron. Up and down the room he went, leaping, dancing; and up and down went Hito after him, struggling, sobbing for breath, his unwieldy bulk trembling with fright and weariness. When his steps slackened, through sheer inability to keep up, Nicanor, with a bound forward, dragged him after, so that, to save himself from falling on his face, he bounded also, on his fat legs, with explosive grunts of breathlessness.
Without warning Nicanor increased his speed and danced faster. He also was panting hard, the strain of towing two hundred odd pounds of unwilling flesh being great. His arms and shoulders shone with sweat; on his forehead his hair was plastered and damp.
"Julia, Julia," he cried, "I pray you stop! I can dance no more. Thou art trained to this work, but I--I faint with weariness. Though our lord flay me, I can dance no more!"--and danced the faster.
"Stop! I stop!" gasped Hito, purple in the face. "
Deae matres! Am I not trying to stop? Stop thyself, or I die! I am exhausted--I have no breath--have a little pity--Oh, nay, nay, I did not mean it! It is as thou sayest, of course! I--was wrong--to thwart thee! I will do whatever thou sayest, if thou wilt let me go! I--I do not think our lord--likes to see--such rapid motion. It maketh his head to swim. I, Julia, pray thee, not--quite--so fast!"
He lurched and nearly fell, and Nicanor jerked him up again. There was the noise of a door being opened. Nicanor knew it must be the door leading to the passage, since the other was locked. He dropped Hito, who crumpled into an abject heap upon the floor, past speech or motion, and went on dancing by himself. From the tail of his eye he saw Wardo the Saxon and Quartus enter and stand gaping, dumb with amazement. Hito shook his fist at them from the floor and stuttered. When breath enough had entered into him, he screamed at them.
"Bind me this madman! He hath a devil in him. Hold him, I say, until I can speak!"
"Why, he's mad!" said Wardo, staring in awe at Nicanor, who, expressionless, danced invincibly.
"Thou sayest!" Quartus agreed, and stared also. "What hath seized him? Here, lad, what means all this? Stop thy prancing and say what thou hast done to our lord Hito, here."
But Nicanor answered nothing, and danced.
"Chain him!" wheezed Hito. "Stop him, or I shall go mad, also, with looking at him! I'll have him strung by the thumbs for this!"
And so it had been done, instantly, madness or no madness, since Hito's word was law, and Hito was very wrathful, but that interruption came from a quarter least expected. A tall figure blocked the open doorway, and a deep voice said:
"What is the meaning of all this?"
Every slave knew it for the voice of their lord's guest, and every slave wheeled and crossed his arms before his face, and wondered what their lord's guest should be doing there,--every slave except Nicanor, who still danced doggedly. It would have needed a quick eye to see that his step had faltered, if never so slightly.
"This fellow hath a devil, lord!" said Hito, with an effort at coherency. "Me he did force to dance until I am no better than dead. He called me Julia and made me to dance with him so that my life fainted in me. He is mad--most mad--and I will have him strung--"
Marius looked at Nicanor, and in his face was recognition and a merciless triumph. He broke Hito's speech midway.
"Who is this fellow?"
"Lord, he is called Nicanor," said Hito. "And he is mad--"
Again Marius's face changed, back to its former haughty calm, in which was mingled a certain satisfaction.
"So--Nicanor, is it? I have seen men seized this way before." He spoke to Hito, but his eyes were on Nicanor. "Most commonly it is the effect of over-severe discipline, but it may be that there are other causes. Then if he is mad, friend Hito, it might be better not to slay him lest the gods take vengeance for him upon you. Were it not best to take him to the dungeons? So, you may see how long this madness of his will last; and when it is past will be the time to punish." His tone assumed sudden authority. "Look to it that you harm him in no manner, but hold him fast where you may deliver him at your lord's word. It will be your life for his life--remember that."
He gathered his cloak about him and strode away, and the three looked after him with wonder in their faces. Hito was first to voice it.
"Our lives for his life, is it?" he grunted. "So, master slave, you would be important, it seems. What have you done now, that our lord's favorite should give such orders for you? You'll not cheat me for long--promise you that! A little while and he'll forget you; so my turn will come. Quartus, put the chains upon him and take him to the cells."
"Please you, we are told to harm him in no manner," Wardo ventured. Nicanor had done many a good turn to the fair-haired Saxon, as one comrade to another, and Wardo was not one to forget it. "Were he in chains, he would soon fret himself into worse raving, and likely do himself harm."
"Bring him without, then!" said Hito. The two seized Nicanor, and Wardo winked at him behind Hito's back, as the latter got painfully to his feet. Nicanor submitted, sullenly. He, who had trusted to no man save himself, was forced to pin what faith he might to the hint of succor that lay in Wardo's wink. And this was but a frail straw to trust.
They took him along a side passage behind the storerooms, down damp and slippery steps to the depths of the cellars. Here were the dungeons, half of masonry, half of living rock, whose walls glistened with slime where the torchlight fell upon them. They thrust him into the smallest of the cells, and left him.
The light of their torch was shut out with the slamming of the iron door; and darkness, dense and tangible, fell upon him in a reeking pall.
Nicanor spoke aloud, with a laugh that jarred on the heavy stillness.
"When friend Hito gains wind enough after his gambollings to remember that lean lady of his, she should be far enough away to snap her fingers at him. So, the rat is trapped at last. Now to see whether he can fight or no; for if he cannot, he'll have no chance to try again."
Then silence fell; and other rats, boldened by the darkness, began to come forth to peer at the intruder in their midst. _