has left it," answered the
girl, whose dark violet eyes were dilated by the depth of her emotion.
"I know not if any man ever entered by that way. But my heart told me
that there was one who would not shrink from the task, be the peril
never so great. I will see that the men-at-arms have drink enough to
turn their heads. I have a concoction of herbs which if mingled with
strong drink will cause such sleep to fall upon men that a thunderbolt
falling at their feet would scarce awaken them. I will see that thou
hast the chance thou needest. The rest wilt thou do without a thought of
fear."

"Fear to go where Raymond is -- to share his fate if I may not rescue
him!" cried Gaston. "Nay, sweet lady, that would be indeed a craven
fear, unworthy of any true knight. But tell me more. I have many times
wandered round the Tower of Saut in my boyhood, when its lord and master
was away. Methinks I know every loophole and gate by heart. But the
gates are so closely guarded, and the windows are so narrow and high up
in the walls, that I know not how they may be entered from without."

"True: yet there is one way of which doubtless thou knowest naught, for,
as I have said, men go forth that way, but enter not by it; and the
trick is known only to a few chosen souls, for the victims who pass out
seek not to come again. They drop with sullen plash into the black
waters of the moat, and the river, which mingles its clearer water with
the sluggish stream encircling the Tower, bears thence towards the
hungry sea the burden thus entrusted to its care."

Gaston shivered slightly.

"Thou speakest of the victims done to death within yon gloomy walls. I
have heard dark tales of such ere now."

"Thou hast heard nothing darker than the truth," said the girl, her
slight frame quivering with repressed emotion and a deep and terrible
sense of helpless indignation and pity. "I have heard stories that have
made my blood run cold in my veins. Men have been done to death in a
fashion I dare not speak of. There is a terrible room scarce raised
above the level of the moat, into which I was once taken, and the memory
of which has haunted me ever since. It is within the great mound upon
which the Tower is built; and above it is the dungeon in which the
victim is confined. There is some strange and wondrous device by which
he may be carried down and raised again to his own prison house when his
captor has worked his hideous will upon him. And if he dies,