house until dark, then thrusting a
labourer's smock over Martin's robe, led their prisoners to the
castle.

Prisoners were no novelty there, many of these free lances were
born in camp, and had the inherited habits of generations of
robbers, so that it was to them a second nature to mutilate,
imprison, and torture, and slay. They looked upon burghers and
peasants as butchers do on sheep, or rather they looked upon them
as beings made that warriors might wring their hidden hoards from
them, by torture and violence, or even in default of the gold hang
them for amusement, or the like. They had about as much sympathy
for these men of peace as the pike for the roach--they only thought
them excellent eating.

As for the knight--he was a knight, and must be treated as such,
although an enemy. As for the burgher--well, we have discussed the
case. As for the friar--they did not like to meddle with the
Church. They dreaded excommunication, men of Belial though they
were.

The knight was confined in a chamber high up in the tower, from
whence he could see:

The forest dark and gloomy,

And under poetic inspiration compose odes upon liberty. The burgher
and friar were taken downstairs to gloomy dungeons, adjacent to
each other, where they were left to solitude and silence.

Solitary confinement! it has driven many men mad: to be the inmate
of a narrow cell, without a ray of light, groping in one corner for
a rotten bed of straw, groping in the other for a water jug and
loaf of black bread, feeling unclean insects and reptiles struggle
beneath one's feet: oh, horrible!

And such was our Martin's fate.

But he was not alone, his God was with him, as with Daniel in the
lion's den, and he never for one moment gave way to despair. He
accepted the trial as best he might, and bore the chilling
atmosphere and scanty fare like a hero. Yet he was a prisoner in
the castle of his fathers.

And the unjust accusation of Drogo gave him deep pain. The very
thought that his hand actually had administered the fatal draught
was in itself sufficiently painful.

"Vengeance is mine, I will repay," and Martin left it.

The poor burgher in the next cell, groaning in spirit, needs far
more compassion. He was Mayor of Hamelsham, and great in the wool
trade. He had at home a bustling, active wife, mighty at the
spindle and loom. He had two sons, one of twelve, one of five;
three daughters, one almost marriageable; he had six apprentices
and