'Two years agone Hector Marot, the highwayman, was shut up in this very
Boteler dungeon. I was myself on guard in the corridor that night, and
saw the prisoner at ten o'clock sitting on that bed even as you are now.
At twelve I had occasion to look in, as my custom is, with the hope
of cheering his lonely hours, when lo, he was gone! Yes, you may well
stare. Mine eyes had never been off the door, and you can judge what
chance there was of his getting through the windows. Walls and floor are
both solid stone, which might be solid rock for the thickness. When
I entered there was a plaguy smell of brimstone, and the flame of my
lanthorn burned blue. Nay, it is no smiling matter. If the Devil did not
run away with Hector Marot, pray who did? for sure I am that no angel of
grace could come to him as to Peter of old. Perchance the Evil One may
desire a second bird out of the same cage, and so I tell you this that
you may be on your guard against his assaults.'

'Nay, I fear him not,' I answered.

'It is well,' croaked the Captain. 'Be not cast down!' His head
vanished, and the key turned in the creaking lock. So thick were the
walls that I could hear no sound after the door was closed. Save for
the sighing of the wind in the branches of the trees outside the narrow
window, all was as silent as the grave within the dungeon.

Thus left to myself I tried to follow Captain Sinclair's advice as to
the keeping up of my heart, though his talk was far from being of a
cheering nature. In my young days, more particularly among the sectaries
with whom I had been brought most in contact, a belief in the occasional
appearance of the Prince of Darkness, and his interference in bodily
form with the affairs of men, was widespread and unquestioning.
Philosophers in their own quiet chambers may argue learnedly on the
absurdity of such things, but in a dim-lit dungeon, cut off from the
world, with the grey gloaming creeping down, and one's own fate hanging
in the balance, it becomes a very different matter. The escape, if the
Captain's story were true, appeared to border upon the miraculous. I
examined the walls of the cell very carefully. They were formed of great
square stones cunningly fitted together. The thin slit or window was
cut through the centre of a single large block. All over, as high as
the hand could reach, the face of the walls was covered with letters and
legends cut by many generations of captives. The floor was composed of