ions lie crumbled in the dust.

The roof was semicircular, and composed of minute bricks, seeming to
form one solid mass; the floor of tiling, arranged in patterns, which
could still be obscurely traced by the light of the lamp left by the
charity of Sidroc to the prisoner; for the dungeon was of bad
reputation; lights had been seen there at unearthly hours, when the
outer door was fast and no inmate existed.

There were two long narrow windows at the end, unbarred, for they were
too small for the human body to pass through them; they looked upon
the valley and, river beneath, for although the dungeon was below the
level of the courtyard, it was above that of the neighbourhood.

The prisoner strode up and down the limited area, wrestling with self,
bending the will by prayer to submit to ignominy and pain, for he knew
now that his father had abandoned him, and that he had to apprehend
the worst; still he did not regret the choice he had made, and he
felt, as he prayed, peace and confidence descend like heavenly dew
upon his soul. Mechanically he cast his eyes around the cell, and
tried to trace out the pattern of the flooring, when he saw that the
central figure, around which the circles and squares converged, was
justice, with the scales, and the motto, "Fiat justitia." He knew the
meaning of the words, for Father Cuthbert had taught him some Latin,
and the conviction flashed upon him that, sooner or later, all the
wrong and evil about him would be righted by the power of a judge as
omnipotent as unerring. And this thought made him the more reconciled
to the apparent injustice of which he was the victim, and he prayed
for his father, that God would enlighten him with the true light.

"Perhaps before he dies he may yet think of me without shame."

For the shame which he unwillingly brought upon a father who was
stern, yet not unkind or void of parental love, was the bitterest
ingredient in the cup.

And so the hours rolled on, which brought the dreaded morn nearer and
nearer; and the victim, comforted by prayer, but without hope in this
world, slept, and thought no longer of the torturer's knife, or felt
the cruel anticipations which would rack the waiting mind.

And while he slept he was wakened, yet but partly wakened, by a voice
which seemed to belong to the borderland 'twixt sleep and waking.

"Alfgar, son of Anlaf, sleepest thou?"

"Surely I dream," thought he, and strove to sleep again.

"Alfgar, son of