'No--listen--a voice! Take care!' he added, in a lower tone, 'we may be
close on some of the servants.'

But, much nearer than he expected, a voice on his right hand demanded,
'Does any good Christian hear me?'

'Who is there?' exclaimed Philip.

'Ah! good sir, do I hear the voice of a companion in misery? Or, if you
be free, would you but send tidings to my poor father?'

'It is a Norman accent!' cried Berenger. 'Ah! ah! can it be poor Landry
Osbert?'

'I am--I am that wretch. Oh, would that M. le Baron could know!'

'My dear, faithful foster-brother! They deceived me,' cried Berenger,
in great agitation, as an absolute howl came from the other side of the
wall: 'M. le Baron come to this! Woe worth the day!' and Berenger with
difficulty mitigated his affectionate servant's lamentations enough to
learn from him how he had been seized almost at the gates of Bellaise,
closely interrogated, deprived of the letter to Madame la Baronne,
and thrown into this dungeon. The Chevalier. Not an unmerciful man,
according to the time, had probably meant to release him as soon as the
marriage between his son and niece should have rendered it superfluous
to detain this witness to Berenger's existence. There, then, the poor
fellow had lain for three years, and his work during this weary time
had been the scraping with a potsherd at the stone of his wall, and his
pertinacious perseverance had succeeded in forming a hole just large
enough to enable him to see the light of the torch carried by the
gentlemen. On his side, he said, there was nothing but a strong iron
door, and a heavily-barred window, looking, like that in the passage,
into the fosse within the walled garden; but, on the other hand, if he
could enlarge his hole sufficiently to creep through it, he could escape
with them in case of their finding a subterranean outlet. The opening
within his cell was, of course, much larger than the very small space
he had made by loosening a stone towards the passage, but he was obliged
always to build up each side of his burrow at the hours of his jailer's
visit, lest his work should be detected, and to stamp the rubbish into
his floor. But while they talked, Humfrey and Philip, with their knives,
scraped so diligently that two more stones could be displaced; and,
looking down the widening hole through the prodigious mass of wall,
they could see a ghastly, ragged, long-bearded scarecrow, with an almost
piteous expression of joy on