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 h