rever at the beck and call
of every sleepless sot? 'Urgent'--is the Duke's mandate. Shove it through
the lattice then, that a lantern may flash upon it."

I pushed under the door a broad piece of gold, which proved more to the
purpose than much speech.

The door was opened and I showed my pass. That and the gold together
worked wonders.

The jailer rattled his keys, donned a hood and woollen wrapper which he
took down from a nail, and went coughing before me down the chill,
draughty passages. I could hear the prisoners leaping from their couches
within as the light of his cresset filtered beneath their doors. What
hopes and fears stirred them! A summons, it might be, for some one in
that dread warren to come up for a last look at the stars, a walk to the
heading-place through the soft, velvet-dark night--then the block, the
lightning flash of bright steel, a drench of something sweet and strong
like wine upon the lips, and--silence, rest, oblivion.

But we passed the prison doors one by one, and the jailer of the
Wolfsberg went coughing and rasping by to another part of the prison.

"'Tis an ill place for chills," he grumbled. "I have never been free of
them since first I came to this place, no--nor my wife neither. She has
been dead these ten years, praises to the pyx! Ah, would you?" (The torch
threatened to go out, so he held it downward in his hand till the pitch
melted and caught again, and meanwhile we stood blinded in the smoke and
glare which the strong draught forced in our faces.)

At last came the door, a low, iron-spiked grating, like any other of the
hundred we had passed.

"Key-metal is not often weared on this cell," the man chuckled. "Those
stay not long above ground that bide here."

The door swung back on its creaking hinges. I slipped the fellow another
gold piece.

"I must come in with you," he said; "you might do the wench an ill turn
which would cheat the Duke of his show and me of my head to-morrow."

I slipped him another piece of gold, and then three together.

"Risk it, man," I said. "Have I not the Duke's own pass? I will do
her no harm."

"Well," he said, "pray remember I am a man with five poor motherless
children. My wife died of falling down a flight of steps ten years
agone--praise the Lord for His mercies. For He is ever mindful of us, the
sinful children of men."

The sound of his voice died away as the door closed. I turned, and was
alone with the Beloved. The jailer ha