But here was no wild voice singing; only at the foot of a low door Meraud saw white fingers that writhed, and a piece of a cheek that lay on the stone, and a voice that called, “Pity, pity, pity,” from under the door. But the stout gaoler had none, for he lifted his boot and trampled and kicked at the fingers and laughed at the scream that followed, as a boy will laugh that stamps on a toad. Meraud had stern words ready on her tongue, but like a coward she forbore, saying to herself, “If I anger him now, he will make Estercel pay for it.”
The next stairs were of the same width, with narrower steps, on which only half the foot at once had leave to rest. As he was preparing to descend, the gaoler took the oil lamp off its nail.
“Take it, your Worship,” said he to Meraud; “it is very dark below in the pit.”
Deeper and deeper down they went, winding their way by a close and narrow stair. At the foot of the steps, a passage slanted downward with a low roof, so low, that the little company were forced to bend their backs till they were near doubled in two. They stood at last upright on the brim of a circular pit. The depth of it was not great; no more, perhaps, than eight or nine feet below them. A great scuffling and squeaking of rats followed their entrance. The lanterns burned badly. Though they could hear a rattling of stones as the creatures ran to their holes, they could make out nothing of them by sight.
“Of all the places I have seen,” said Sir Henry Cuffe, “I like this the worst. I wish I were anywhere else. If I were to see the foul fiend himself sitting there below, I should say it was the very place for him.”
“Nay, nay,” said the gaoler laughing, “he has a better place than this. He has a clean lodging, for what so clean as fire? This is the old cesspool of the castle. Yonder is the spot. Look, there is but a slight flooring of boards placed over the top, and that is rotten now and eaten away. A body has need of circumspection if he would not fall in; and to fall in is death.”
Meraud heard with her ears and took in the sense of what she heard, but her eyes and all her thoughts were busy hunting through those dark spaces for a sign of a living man. But there was none. Their own voices echoed from the low roof. The dead and poisonous air was completely still.
Sir Henry Cuffe turned away from the brink, utterly overcome. Meraud's fierce anxiety spurred her on.
“Where is the prisoner?” she asked. “I can see nothing at all.”
The gaoler stooped and lowered his lantern till a faint light lit the black floor below.
“There he is, safe enough and quiet enough,” said he. “Near gone by this, I expect. They are dying very quick here. One died here yesterday; but this one is rare and strong.”
Meraud looked where the finger pointed: a pale white glimmer seemed to float and flicker above the boards: There was no movement really, it was only her eyes that trembled in her head, shaken by the beating of her heart. “I will go down,” she said. Going over to Sir Henry Cuffe, she took from the poor groaning creature her own light basket, while the gaoler dragged forward and placed in position a ladder that lay by the passage wall. The stout man came down first, Meraud followed and safely reached and stood upon the filthy floor. At the first moment, she fainted up against the stout man's shoulder, but the next second she had thrown it off. Holding up her lantern, she crept along in the direction of the white shadow she had seen.
She reached the place. Stretched along in the darkness of that loathsome floor lay that great form, blood-stained, dirt-stained, naked, save for a cloth about the loins, an image of pained and desolate mortality. The gaoler stooped and laid a hand upon the breast.
“Faith, he's there yet,” he said.
Meraud knelt down shuddering upon her knees and held the lantern up. She moaned like one in mortal pain. Where was all his beauty gone? Was this horrid thing indeed Estercel? She held the lantern to his face, his mouth was open wide and filled up with a swollen bleeding tongue; his eyes were shut and sunk far down in his head. Coarse hair bristled upon his face. The hair of his head was black and matted. Across the mottled purple skin of his forehead the vermin travelled, fast and slow.
Meraud lifted up one heavy hand, then let it drop again: the rats had gnawed the bloody finger ends. Meraud moaned on like a creature in agony. She never knew what sounds she made, but her voice reached Sir Henry Cuffe, who recovered himself somewhat and, descending the ladder with cautious steps, came to her side.
“Faith, that's a pity,” he said in his everyday voice. “A fine frame of a fellow like that. Six feet four or five, I should say, and well put together. Is he gone, Mr. Gaoler?”
“Ah, no; ah, no,” said the gaoler. “He'll do nicely yet. The rats have been at him, but not much. But we had better move him. Once they begin, they'll soon make an end.”
“Get your men, Mr. Gaoler, and move him then. Come away, mistress,” said Cuffe. But the girl shook her head and made no move. “Mistress, forgive me,” he went on, “I have a weak stomach that will in no wise permit me to remain here. I will await you in the near end of the passage. If you call, I will come at once.”
Meraud never even heard him. She had taken the brandy from the basket and was essaying to pour some drops into the open mouth. The gaoler, who lingered on, watching her curiously, laid his hand upon hers.
“You'll burn his mouth,” he said. “Water is best for him. He's sore from the gag. Now that gentleman up there and myself, too, could make good use of the brandy.”
Meraud paused a minute, then added a few drops of brandy to the soup she had brought and handed the rest to the gaoler. She bathed the face and the bleeding hands with water. She bathed the broad chest, rubbing with her two palms, strong and warm, above the still beating heart. She never saw that she had been left alone. As she worked, she sighed aloud, lost to all but her own agony. The spectacle of his misery was like a whip that scourged her. Her armoury of weapons was taken from her: pride and delight, vanity and malice were slain, and she was left trembling and bare. Diligently, she worked, lifting up that frightful head that had once been so powerful and fair. Again and yet again, she passed drops of soup into the mouth, till it seemed that some was swallowed.
The little rats came and sat in a half circle round, longing for their meal. While Meraud waited, she watched them in the dim light of the lantern. One came quite near to her and sat and washed down its pretty brown sides and smoothed its whiskers and little delicate ears.
“I am no better than you,” said Meraud, softly talking to it while the creature looked at her; “I have served him worse than any of you.”
A small, small sigh and then a struggling groan, another and another came from the mouth of Estercel. His face changed. Meraud's heart bounded half with horror, half with hope. His eyes opened and rested upon her. Meraud lifted up his head again and fed him with the soup. It was from the castle kitchen and strong and good. In spite of the swollen tongue, she got it down, and he began to revive. Meraud had thrown aside her cap and mask; her hair sunned itself all about her head. The tears ran on her white cheeks and dripped from her chin. All the time he ate, the miserable man kept his eyes upon her face. Now and again when she paused, afraid of feeding him too fast, his swollen tongue moved in his mouth, and he tried to speak, but could only mumble unintelligibly. When he had taken all the soup, he remained quiet for a time with his head upon her knees while she chafed his forehead and hands.
Then he opened his eyes again, and a look of awful sweetness spread from his eyes and passed upon his face. She bent down to listen as he tried to speak again. At first, she could not make out what he was saying, then she caught two or three words:
“Bread of the angels!” he stammered out.
Meraud could not understand him at first. Then suddenly, the whole scene of “Crispin and Crispinianus” in their prison cell returned upon her mind, and she found herself repeating aloud, “Bread of the angels is wholesome cheer.” The thought of them and the miserable now came upon her, and her tears came down afresh. She leaned over him.
; “Estercel,” she said. “Will you ever forgive me, Estercel?”
There was no answer. In silence they sat. The little rats never moved, but sat watching. They smelt the bread and soup, but they were afraid of Meraud and remained still. In that vile place, a sort of peace could be felt, the peace of repentance and the quiet of pain.
Suddenly, a sense of some change ran through all the veins of Meraud. Something was different. Estercel had moved: he was pulling himself sideways away from her, as far as his shackled feet would allow. She started and looked down at him. His face was convulsed. He pushed himself backwards from her. He glared upon her with fury as he reared up his head. He was trying to speak, but the words would not come.
Filled with fear, Meraud got upon her knees. Estercel raised himself on his hands.
“Curse you,” he said in loud thick voice, “a curse on you!”
Meraud moved backwards in terror, but not fast enough. Raising himself still higher, the wretched man spat full in her face. Meraud leaped to her feet and screamed with horror and rage.
“Ay, take that,” he stammered, “or come near that I may strike you down. A curse on every drop of food and drink I have had of you. Look now, false devil that you are, was I not dead already, that you must be summoning me back from Paradise to my torment?”
Meraud wiped her face in the corner of her mantle. For a moment, she remained silent. Then hearing the feet of the men who returned, she forgot all but his extremity.
“I have deserved it, Estercel,” she said, “but I came to take you out of this place. I have been very sorry, Estercel. Will you not forgive me? You have punished me now.”
And all the time that she spoke to him, it seemed that she was talking to a corpse. How could a slain man forgive his slayer? That wild and awful figure opposite, faint, bleeding, maimed, distorted, could it indeed forgive? Slowly, it turned from her and sank down upon the hideous floor, while now the voices of the men returning could be heard above.
“Estercel,” said the girl, again coming nearer to him, “perhaps I shall never see you again. They are coming now to take you away. Will you forgive me before we go?”
The figure on the floor shivered and shook as if with weeping. Something moved and wavered in the miserable darkness, a hand that was searching blindly; was it to find her own? She stepped forward, and though fearing greatly, she took it. In both hers she clasped and kissed it. Then looking on it, saw on the little finger the same twisted golden ring. With fear and humility in her heart, she bent down and kissed it in token of a pure repentance.
Chapter XXI. - The Hope of Owen
Tamburlaine soon got his health again now that he had Owen Joy to be his servant and to give him all the love and the company that he liked to have. It was a hard matter to keep him quiet. He would romp and clatter in his stable, making a noise like that of ten. All the horses and mares in the stalls around would plunge and tear at their chains and whinny in answer to the trumpeting of his voice. The breath of the spring was in his nostrils, and his heart longed for his own country. Moreover, he was not used to so much dry food; he had always had his liberty on the hillside or in the fields, and plenty of sweet grass: now the warm stable and the rich corn heated his blood over-much. Also Estercel had brought him up more like a dog than a horse: he had the habit of play. Imprisonment was therefore worse for him than for another.
Owen had to make a big horse-cloth for him to conceal as much of his curious colour as possible and take him out for a gallop among the mountain valleys of Wicklow. The pulling of the great horse was such that Owen returned home with his arms sore at the shoulders and his hands cut with the leather of the rein.
“Ah,” said he, shaking his head reproachfully at the horse as he watered him in the stable, “you're not good; no, you're not. You're wanting home. Some day you'll be doing a bolt, my fine boy, and leaving master and all behind.”
The little babe that cannot speak understands every word the mother says. So did the horse understand his good servant. He left his water and lifted up his head, all dripping from the bucket, and looked at Owen with sad questioning eyes. He could not bear a reproach in the stable, though when his blood was up, Owen might use all the curses ever he could invent, and Tamburlaine would neither hear nor heed.
“Yes,” said Owen, “you're forgetting the master. You have no heart at all. Look at me, the way I am: thin as a rag and harished. And look at you, the satin and the silk is not in it with your coat,” and he stroked down his yellow-white neck.
The horse knew he was praised, but the sad tone went to his heart. He laid his head on Owen's shoulder, remembering his woes and the dear master he had lost.
“There, there,” said Owen, “go back to your drink. You're not so bad after all. I know you have a feeling heart.”
A tap came to the stable door, and a lad's voice called, “Owen!” He waited till the horse had done drinking, then came out, carrying the pail.
“You're wanted within,” said the young groom.
Owen went into the house and was taken at once into a small dark room, used as a gun-room, on the ground floor. There he waited for long enough. At last, the door opened, and a lady entered dressed in black clothes. It was Meraud, but quite another Meraud. She was pale and red-eyed, and grief had been cutting new lines about her mouth. She held up her head and spoke calmly and fearlessly to Owen; and he, remembering his own threats and ill-deeds, and the knife in his belt, respected her for her courage. Ever since she had been in the stable, he had been thinking what a fool he had been not to cover up his anger and hatred. He had put himself entirely into her hand; ay, and the horse too. She had got all three of them in her hand to play with, powerful sorceress that she was, thought Owen, as he looked at her standing in the door.
Owen was dressed in long trousers tight to the leg, and a rough tunic all of pale-coloured woollen homespun belted about the middle. His knife was stuck in his belt, and he wore solid shoes of half-tanned leather. His big hands hung down by his sides. His black beard showed threads of grey, and his black eyes looked keenly out over the top of his crooked nose. He was ready for either perfidious peace or open war.
But he had small chance for either. Without fear or uneasiness, Meraud spoke to him in few brief words.
“I have seen his Excellency the Earl Marshal,” she said, “and Estercel will be set free.”
“Is it true what you say?” said Owen, a sort of bitter earnestness in his manner.
Meraud took no notice of his question; she went quietly on:
“Come tonight at seven o'clock to the gate of the Storehouse Tower, and he will be given up to you at that hour.”
“Mary be praised!” said Owen.
Meraud turned to leave the room, then hesitated, looking at the man's radiant face, all over joy and simplicity.
“He is weak and ill,” she said.
“What matter for that since we have him?” said Owen. “He's great and strong. A good waft of the fresh air and a little sup of sour milk, and he'll be all right enough.”
“You had better have a stretcher to carry him,” said Meraud.
“Ah, no,” said Owen; “ah, no! A stretcher for the like of him, is it? He'd be laughing at me. It's his own good horse I'll bring with me, that goes as easy as the swallow. Sure if he was dying, Estercel would know how to ride him.” He sighed deeply. “I think my heart will burst with joy,” he said, pressing his two hands tight over it.
Meraud looked gravely at him.
“And as for you, noble young woman,” he went on, “I will endeavour to pardon you for your evil-doing if my master wishes it. I am glad after all to think I shall not have to kill you, for it's poor work warring upon women.”
Meraud made as though she heard nothing.
“Seven o'clock,” she said. “Wait by the horse-pond at the gate of the Storehouse Tower,” and then she went away.
Chapter XXII. - The Release
All day, the castle, the camp, and the city had been full
of rumour of excitement. The amazing decision of the council and the great Earl Marshal had been made known. A host had come over to crush Tyrone and the north. That host and its renowned captain were about to turn their backs upon their adversary and conquer him by marching south, and that under the eyes of all Europe and against the furiously expressed will of a most powerful sovereign. Essex might struggle, half-aware. Elizabeth might rage, unconscious, and send out letter after letter of magnificent vituperation and remonstrance. She and he were equally powerless for the present in the hands of clever Cecil, who was forcing Essex to grind the axe for his own destruction.
Therefore, the heavy cannon were already ploughing their road southward, and the stoutest of the soldiery getting ready for the march. Tomorrow, the 9th of May, Essex was to astonish Christendom by setting out backwards in all his glory. For now May was in, and the fresh grass was everywhere springing, a carpet for the feet of men and a pleasure to their eyes, a spread banquet for the hoofed beasts. All round the coasts, the sea appeased herself and smote the rocks more gently. In all the glades of the woods, the young flowers rose up dressed in many colours. And if the rooted green life of the meadows was happy, the free creeping, running, active creatures were many times happier. Theirs was a conscious excitement. The birds went wild in their joy, and not less wild of heart was Estercel's white horse, whenever he might escape from his stable into the free air.
Earth and sky were turning gold in the sunset light as Owen and his little troop rode round the outskirts of the town. They went by circuitous ways to reach the horse-pond near the north-east tower of the castle. Owen rode on Tamburlaine, whose coat was now of a strange-looking cream-colour. He fretted and chafed and could hardly be held in, so eager was he for galloping and play.
It was still the full light of evening as they reached the pond's edge. They took up their station where a few trees might serve them as cover. Overhead, the crows and jackdaws were wheeling to their nests; the quiet of evening was setting in. All about the pond, the ground was trodden by the feet of the horses. Opposite them stood the old grey walls and towers of the city, and the sounds of evening reached their ears. Right in front of them was the square Storehouse Tower, solid and strong with many narrow windows. A small arched door opened on to a rubbish shoot which here almost choked the gripe or moat that surrounded the castle walls. As they watched, a man came out of the door with a sack of rubbish on his back, which he shot down by the side of the moat. There he stood and aired himself a while, rubbing his hands together; then returning again, closed the door behind him. Now and then they heard bursts of shouting and laughter from bands of soldiery returning to camp. Scarcely anyone was in sight but a tall stout gentleman with a page by his side who walked slowly up and down on the other side of the horse-pond.
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