CHAPTER II.
There stood in ancient days, on the banks of the river Seine, a tall strong tower, forming one of the extreme defences of the city of Rouen towards the water. It has long, long been pulled down; but I have myself seen a picture of that capital of Normandy, taken while the tower I speak of yet stood; and though the painter had indeed represented it as crumbling and dilapidated, even in his day, there was still an air of menacing gloom in its aspect, that seemed to speak it a place whose dungeons might have chronicled many a misery--a place of long sorrows, and of ruthless deeds.
In this tower, some four months after the events which we have recorded in the end of the last volume and the beginning of this, were confined two persons of whom we have already spoken much--Arthur Plantagenet and Guy de Coucy.
The chamber that they inhabited was not one calculated either to raise the spirits of a prisoner by its lightsome airiness, or to awaken his regrets by the prospect of the free world without. It seemed as if made for the purpose of striking gloom and terror into the bosoms of its sad inhabitants; and strong must have been the heart that could long bear up under the depressing influence of its heavy atmosphere.
Its best recommendation was its spaciousness, being a square of near thirty feet in length and breadth; but this advantage was almost completely done away by the depression of the roof, the highest extent of which, at the apex of the arches whereof it was composed, was not above eight feet from the floor. In the centre rose a short column of about two feet in diameter, from which, at the height of little more than a yard from the ground, began to spring the segments of masonry forming the low but pointed arches of the vault.
Window there was none; but at the highest part, through the solid bend of one of the arches, was pierced a narrow slit, or loophole, admitting sufficient light into the chamber to render the objects dimly visible, but nothing more.
The furniture which this abode of wretchedness contained was as scanty as could well be, though a pretence of superior comfort had been given to it over the other dungeons, when it was about to be tenanted by a prince. Thus, in one part was a pile of straw, on which De Coucy made his couch; and in another corner was a somewhat better bed, with two coverings of tapestry, placed there for the use of Arthur. There were also two settles--an unknown luxury in prisons of that day, and by the massy column in the centre stood a small oaken table.
At the side of this last piece of furniture, with his arms stretched thereon, and his face buried in his arms, sat Arthur Plantagenet. It was apparently one of those fine sunny days that sometimes break into February; and a bright ray of light found its way through the narrow loophole we have mentioned, and fell upon the stooping form of the unhappy boy, exposing the worn and soiled condition of his once splendid apparel, and the confused dishevelled state of the rich, curling, yellow hair, which fell in glossy disarray over his fair cheeks, as his brow rested heavily upon his arms. The ray passed on, and forming a long narrow line of light upon the pillar, displayed a rusty ring of iron, with its stauncheon deeply imbedded in the stone. Attached to this hung several links of a broken chain; but though the unhappy prince, when he looked upon the manacles that had been inflicted on some former tenant of the prison, might have found that comparative consolation which we derive from the knowledge of greater misery than our own; yet the other painful associations, called up by the sight, more than counterbalanced any soothing comparisons it suggested; and he seemed, in despair, to be hiding his eyes from all and every thing, in a scene where each object he looked upon called up, fresh, some regret for the past, or some dread for the future.
A little beyond, in a leaning position, with his hand grasping one of the groins of the arch, stood De Coucy, in the dim half light that filled every part of the chamber, where that ray already mentioned fell not immediately; and with a look of deep mournful interest, he contemplated his young fellow-captive, whose fate seemed to affect him even more than his own.
During the first few days of their captivity, all the prisoners taken at Mirebeau had been treated by the crafty John with kindness and even distinction; more especially Arthur and De Coucy, at least while William Longsword, the Earl of Pembroke, and some others of the more independent of the English nobility, remained near the person of the king. While this lasted, the youthful mind of Arthur Plantagenet recovered in some degree its tone, though the fatal events of Mirebeau had at first sunk it almost to despair.
On one pretence or another, however, John soon contrived that all those who might have obstructed his schemes, either by opposition or remonstrance, should be despatched on distant and tedious expeditions; and, free from the restraint of their presence, his real feelings towards Arthur, and those who supported him, were not long in displaying themselves.
Though ungifted with that fine quality which, teaching us to judge and direct our own conduct as well as to understand and govern that of others, truly deserves the name of wisdom, John possessed that knowledge of human nature,--that cunning science in man's weaknesses, which is too often mistaken for wisdom. He well understood, therefore, that the good and noble--even in an age when virtue was chivalrous, and when the protection of the oppressed was a deed of fame--would often suffer violence and cruelty to pass unnoticed, after time had taken the first hard aspect from the deed. He knew that what would raise a thousand voices against it to-day, would to-morrow be canvassed in a whisper, and the following day forgotten: and he judged that, though the first rumour of his severity towards his nephew might for a moment wake the indignation of his barons, yet, long before they were reunited on the scene of action, individual interests, and newer events, would step in, and divert their thoughts to very different channels.
Lord Pembroke was consequently despatched to Guyenne, with several of those unmanageable honest men, whose straightforward honour is the stumbling-block of evil intentions. Lord Salisbury was left once more to protect Touraine with very inefficient forces; and John himself retreated across the Loire, with the prisoners and the bulk of his army.
Each day's march changed his demeanour towards Arthur and his unfortunate companions. His kingly courtesy became gradually scanty kindness, manifest neglect, and, at last, cruel ill usage. The revolted nobles of Poitou had given quite sufficient excuse for the king's severity, towards them, at least; and with little ceremony, either of time or manner, they were consigned to separate prisons, scattered over the face of Maine and Brittany. Arthur and De Coucy were granted a few days more of comparative liberty, following the English army, strongly escorted indeed; but still breathing the free air, and enjoying the sight of fair nature's face. At length, as the army passed through Normandy, their escort, already furnished with instructions to that effect, turned from the line of march, and deposited them within the walls of the castle of Falaise; from which place they were removed to Rouen in the midst of the winter, and confined in the chamber we have already described.
Arthur's mind had borne up at Falaise; so far, at least, that, though he grieved over the breaking of his first splendid hopes, and felt, with all the eager restlessness of youth, the uncomforts of imprisonment, the privation of exercise, the dull monotonous round of daily hours, the want of novelty, and the wearisome continuity of one unchanging train of thought; yet hope was still alive--nay, even expectation; and ceaselessly would he build those blessed castles in the air, that, like the portrait of an absent friend, picture forth the sweet features of distant happiness, far away, but not lost for ever. The air of the prison had there been fresh and light, the governor mild and urbane; and though, there, he had been lodged in a different chamber from De Coucy, yet his spirits had not sunk, even under solitude.
At Rouen, however, though the jailer, for his own convenience, rather than their comfort, placed the two prisoners in the same apartment, Arthur's cheerfulness quickly abandoned him; his health failed, and his hopes and expectations passed away like dreams, as they were. The air, though cold, was close and heavy; and the dim, grey light of the chamber seemed to encourage every melancholy thought.
When De Coucy strove to console him, he would but shake his head with an impatient start, as if the very idea of better days was but a mockery of his hopelessness; and at other times he would sit, with the silent tears of anguish and despair chasing each other down his fair, pale cheeks, hour after hour; as if weeping had become his occupation. As one day followed another, his depression seemed to increase. The only sign of interest he had shown in what was passing in the busy world without, had been the questions which he asked the jailer, morning and evening, when their food or a light was brought them. Then, he had been accustomed anxiously to demand when his uncle John was expected to return from England, and sometimes to comment on the reply; but, after a while, this too ceased, and his whole energies seemed benumbed with despair, from the rising till the setting of the sun.
After it was down, however, he seemed in a degree to re-awaken; and then alone he showed an interest in any thing unconnected with his own immediate fate, when the day had gone, and by the light of the lamp that was given them at night, De Coucy would relate to him many a battle and adventure in the Holy Land--scenes of danger, and terror, and excitement; and deeds of valour, and strength, and generosity, all lighted up with the romantic and chivalrous spirit of the age, and tinged with that wild and visionary superstition which cast a vague sort of shadowy grandeur over all the tales of those days.
Then Arthur's cheek would glow with a flush of feverish interest; and he would ask many an eager question, and listen to long and minute descriptions, that would weary beyond all patience any modern ears; and, in the end, he would wish that, instead of having embarked his hopes in the fatal endeavour of recovering lost kingdoms, and wresting his heritage from the usurper, he had given his life and hopes to the recovery of Christ's blessed cross and sepulchre.
This, however, was only, as we have said, after the sun had gone down, and when the lamp was lighted; for it seemed that then, when the same darkness was apportioned to every one, and when every one sought a refuge within the walls of their dwellings, that he felt not his imprisonment so painfully as when day had risen--day, which to him was without any of day's enjoyments. He could not taste the fresh air--he could not catch the sunshine of the early spring--he could not stretch his enfeebled limbs in the sports of the morning--he could not gaze upon all the unrivalled workmanship of God's glorious, beauty-spreading hand. Daylight to him was all privation; and even the sunbeam that found its way through the loophole in the masonry, seemed but given to wring him with the memory of sweets he could not taste. He thus therefore turned his back towards it, as we have at first depicted him; and burying his eyes upon his arms, gave himself up to the recollection of broken hopes, long-gone visions of empiry and dominion, stifled aspirations after honour and fame, brilliant past schemes of justice and equity, and universal benevolence, and all those bright materials given to youth, out of which manhood preserves so few to carry on into old age. Powerful feelings and generous designs are, alas! too like the inheritance of a miser in the hands of some spendthrift heir--lavished away on trifles in our early years, and needed, but not possessed, in our riper age.
None had been more endowed in such sort than Arthur Plantagenet; but it seemed the will of Fortune, to snatch from him, piece by piece, each portion of his heritage, and to crush the energies of his mind at the same time that she tore from him his right of dominion; and thus, while he lay and pondered over all he had once hoped, there was a touch of bitterness mingled with his grief, to feel that the noblest wishes are but the mock and sport of Fate. Born to a kingdom, yet doomed to a prison; as a child he had entered on the career of a man; he had mingled the bright aspirations of youth with the ambitious yearnings of maturity; and now his infancy lay crushed under the misfortunes of manhood.
De Coucy gazed on him with feelings of deep and painful interest. What he might have been, and what he was; his youth, and his calamities; his crushed mind, and its former gallant energy, stood forth in strong contrast to the eyes of De Coucy, as, leaning against the arch, he contemplated the unhappy prince, whose thin, pale hands, appearing from beneath the curls of his glossy hair, spoke plainly the ravages that confinement and sorrow had worked upon him.
The knight was about to speak, when the sounds of voices approaching were heard through the low small door that opened from their chamber upon a stone gallery at the head of the staircase. De Coucy listened.
"Thou art bold!--thou art too bold!" cried one of the speakers, pausing opposite the door. "Tell not me of other prisoners! Thine orders were strict, that he should be kept alone.--What was 't to thee, if that mad De Coucy had rotted with fifty others in a cell? Thy charge is taken from thee. Speak not! but begone! Leave me thy keys.--Thou, Humbert, stand by with thy men. Listen not; but if I call, rush in. Mark me, dost thou? If I speak loud, rush in!"
The bolts were withdrawn, the key turned, and, the door opening, John, King of England, entered, stooping his head to pass the low arch of the doorway. Arthur had looked up at the first sound, and his pale cheek had become a hue paler, even before the appearance of his uncle; but, when John did at length approach, a quick sharp shudder passed over his nephew's form, as if there had been indeed some innate antipathy, which warned the victim that he was in presence of him destined to be his murderer.
The king advanced a step or two into the chamber, and then paused, regarding Arthur, who had risen from his seat, with a cold and calculating eye. A slight smile of gratification passed over his lip, as he remarked the sallow and emaciated state to which imprisonment and despair had reduced a form but three short months before full of life, and strength, and beauty.
The smile passed away instantly from a face little accustomed to express the real feelings of the heart; but John still continued for a moment to contemplate his nephew evidently little pained at the sight of the change he beheld, whether from that change he augured sufficient depression of mind to second his purpose of wringing from his nephew the cession of his claims, or whether he hoped that sickness might prove as good an auxiliary as murder, and spare him bloodshed, that would inevitably be accompanied by danger, as well as reproach. His eye then glanced through the sombre arches of the vault, till it rested on De Coucy with a sort of measuring fixedness, as if he sought to ascertain the exact space between himself and the knight.
Satisfied on this point, he turned again to Arthur.
"Well, fair nephew," said he, with that kind of irony which he seldom banished from his lips, "for three years I asked you in vain to honour my poor court with your noble presence. You have come at last, and doubtless the reception I have given you is such, that you will never think of departing from a place where you may be hospitably entertained for life. How love you prison walls, fair nephew?"
Arthur replied not; but, casting himself again upon the settle, covered his eyes as before, and seemed, from the quick rise and fall of his shoulders, to weep bitterly.
"Sir King," said De Coucy, interposing indignantly, "thou art, then, even more cruel than report gives thee out. Must thou needs add the torture of thy words to the tyranny of thine actions. In the name of God! bad man, leave this place of wretchedness, and give thy nephew, at least, such tranquillity as a prison may afford."
"Ha! beau sire de Coucy," cried John with an unaltered tone. "Methinks thou art that gallant knight who proclaimed Arthur Plantagenet King of England in the heart of Mirebeau. His kingdom is a goodly one," he continued, looking round the chamber, "gay and extensive is it! He has to thank thee much for it!--Let me tell thee, sir knight," he added, raising his voice and knitting his brow, "to the bad counsels of thee, and such as thee, Arthur Plantagenet owes all his sorrows and captivity. Ye have poisoned his ear against his kindred; ye have raised up in him ambitious thoughts that become him not; ye have taught him to think himself a king; and ye have cast him down from a prince to a prisoner."
John spoke loudly and angrily, and at the sound the door of the vault was pushed open, showing the form of a man-at-arms about to enter, followed by several others. But the king waved them back with his hand, and turning to Arthur, he proceeded:--"Hearken to me, nephew! The way to free yourself, and to return to the bright world from which you are now cut off, is free and open before you."[[23]]
Arthur raised his head.
"Renounce your claim to kingdoms you shall never possess, and cast from you expectations you can never realise, and you shall be free to-morrow. I will restore to you your duchy of Brittany; I will give you a portion befitting a Plantagenet; and I will treat you kindly as my brother's son. What would you more? You shall have the friendship and protection of the King of England."
"I would rather have the enmity of the King of France," cried Arthur, starting up, as the long catalogue of all John's base perfidies rushed across his mind, coupled with the offer of his friendship--"I would rather have the enmity of the King of France! There is always some resource in the generosity of a true knight."
"Thou art a fool, stubborn boy!" cried John, his eye flashing and his lip curling at his nephew's bold reply--"thou art a stubborn fool! Are not the kings of France the hereditary enemies of our race?"
"Philip of France is my godfather in chivalry," replied Arthur, drawing somewhat nearer to De Coucy, as if for protection from the wrath that was gathering on his uncles brow, "and I would rather place my confidence in him, than in one who wronged my uncle Richard, who wronged my father Geoffrey, and who has broken his word even in respect to me, by thrusting me into a prison, when he promised his barons, as they themselves have told me, to leave me at liberty and to treat me well. He that breaks his word is no good knight, and I tell thee, John of Anjou, thou art false and foresworn!"
John lost his habitual command over his countenance in the excess of his wrath; and his features seemed actually to change under the vehemence of his passion. He set his teeth; he clenched his left hand, as if he would have buried his finger-nails in the palm; and, thrusting his right under his crimson mantle, he evidently drew some weapon from its sheath. But at that moment, De Coucy, taking one stride in advance, opposed himself between the king and his nephew, and with his head thrown back, and his broad chest displayed, prepared at all risks to seize the tyrant, and dash him to atoms if he offered any violence to the unhappy youth that fortune had cast into his power.
John, however, possessed not the heart, even had he been armed in proof, to encounter a knight like De Coucy, though unarmed; and, sheathing again his dagger, he somewhat smoothed his look.
"By St. Paul!" he cried, taking pains, however, not to affect coolness too suddenly, lest the rapidity of the transition should betray its falseness, but carefully letting his anger appear to be slow in subsiding--"by St. Paul! Arthur Plantagenet, thou wilt drive me mad! Wert thou not my brother's son, I would strike thee with my dagger! I came to thee, to give thee liberty, if this taste of imprisonment had taught thee to yield thy empty pretensions to a crown thou canst never win; and thou meetest me with abuse and insult. The consequences be on thine own head, minion! I have dungeons deeper than this, and chains that may weigh somewhat heavy on those frail limbs!"
"Neither dungeons nor chains," replied the gallant boy firmly, "no, nor death itself, shall make me renounce my rights of birth! You judge me cowardly, by the tears I shed but now; but I tell thee, that though I be worn with this close prison, and broken by sorrow, I fear not to meet death, rather than yield what I am bound in honour to maintain. England, Anjou, Guyenne, Touraine, are mine in right of my father; Brittany comes to me from my mother, its heiress; and, even in the grave, my bones shall claim the land, and my tomb proclaim thee an usurper!"
"Ha!" said John, "ha!" and there was a sneering accent on the last monosyllable that was but too fatally explained afterwards. "Be it as thou wilt, fair nephew," he added with a smile of dark and bitter meaning--"be it as thou wilt;" and he was turning to leave the apartment.
"Hold, sir, yet one moment!" cried De Coucy. "One word on my account. When I yielded my sword to William of Salisbury, your noble brother, it was under the express promise that I should be treated well and knightly; and he was bound, in delivering me to you, to make the same stipulation in my behalf. If he did do it, you have broken your word. If he did not do it, he has broken his; and one or other I will proclaim a false traitor, in every court of Europe."
John heard him to an end; and then, after eyeing him from head to foot in silence, with an air of bitter triumphant contempt, he opened the door and passed out, without deigning to make the least reply. The door closed behind him--the heavy bolts were pushed forward--and Arthur and De Coucy once more stood alone, cut off from all the world.
The young captive gazed on his fellow-prisoner for a moment or two, with a glance in which the agitation of a weakened frame and a depressed mind might be traced struggling with a sense of dignity and firmness.
De Coucy endeavoured to console him; but the prince raised his hand, with an imploring look, as if the very name of comfort were a mockery. "Have I acted well, sir knight?" he asked. "Have I spoken as became me?"
"Well and nobly have you acted, fair prince," replied De Coucy, "with courage and dignity worthy your birth and station."
"That is enough then!" said Arthur--"that is enough!" and, with a deep and painful sigh, he cast himself again upon the seat; and, once more burying his face on his arms, let the day flit by him without even a change of position.
In the mean while, De Coucy, with his arms folded on his breast, paced up and down the vaulted chamber, revolving thoughts nearly as bitter as those of his fellow-captive. Mirebeau had proved as fatal to him as to Arthur. It had cast down his all. Arthur had struck for kingdoms, and he had struck for glory and fortune--the object of both, however, was happiness, though the means of the one was ambition, and of the other, love. Both had cast their all upon the stake, and both had lost. He, too, had to mourn then the passing away of his last hopes, the bright dream of love, and all the gay and delightful fabrics that imagination had built up upon its fragile base. They had fallen in ruins round him; and his heart sickened when he thought of all that a long captivity might effect in extinguishing the faint, faint glimmering of hope which yet shone upon his fate.
Thus passed the hours till night began to fall; and all the various noises of the town,--the shouts of the boatmen on the river, the trampling of the horses in the streets, the busy buzz of many thousand tongues, the cries of the merchants in the highways, and the rustling tread of all the passers to and fro, which during the day had risen in a confused hum to the chamber in which they were confined, died one by one away; and nothing was at length heard but the rippling of the waters of the Seine, then at high tide, washing against the very foundations of the tower.
It was now the hour at which a lamp was usually brought them; and Arthur raised his head, as if anxious for its coming.
"Enguerand is late to-night," said he. "But I forgot; I heard my uncle discharge him from his office. Perhaps the new governor will not give us any light. Yet, hark! I hear his footstep. He is lighting the lantern in the passage."
He was apparently right, for steps approached, stopping twice for a moment or two, as if to fulfil some customary duty, and then coming nearer, they paused at the door of their prison. The bolts were withdrawn, and a stranger, bearing a lamp, presented himself. His face was certainly not very prepossessing, but it was not strikingly otherwise; and Arthur, who with a keen though timid eye scanned every line in his countenance, was beginning in some degree to felicitate himself on the change of his jailer, when the stranger turned and addressed him in a low and somewhat unsteady voice.
"My lord," said he, "you must follow me; as I am ordered to give you a better apartment. The sire De Coucy must remain here till the upper chamber is prepared."
Fear instantly seized upon Arthur. "I will not leave him," cried he, running round the pillar, and clinging to De Coucy's arm. "This chamber is good enough; I want no other."
"Your hand is not steady, sirrah!" said De Coucy, taking the lamp from the man, and holding it to his pale face. "Your lip quivers, and your cheek is as blanched as a templar's gown."
"'Tis the shaking fever I caught in the marshes by Du Clerc," replied the other; "but what has that to do with the business of Prince Arthur, beau sire?"
"Because we doubt foul play, varlet," replied De Coucy, "and you speak not with the boldness of good intent."
"If any ill were designed, either to you or to the prince," replied the man more boldly, "'t would be easily accomplished, without such ceremony. A flight of arrows, shot through your doorway, would leave you both as dead as the saints in their graves."
"That is true too!" answered De Coucy, looking to Arthur, who still clung close to his arm. "What say you, my prince?"
"It matters little what the duke says, beau sire," said the jailer, interposing, "for he must come. Several of the great barons have returned to the court sooner than the king expected; and he would not have them find prince Arthur here, it seems. So, if he come not by fair means, I must e'en have up the guard, and take him to his chamber by force."
"Ha!" said Arthur, somewhat loosening his hold of De Coucy's arm. "What barons are returned, sayest thou?
"I know not well," said the jailer carelessly; "Lord Pembroke I saw go by, and I heard of good William with the Longsword; but I marked not the names of the others, though I was told them."
Arthur looked to De Coucy as if for advice. "The ague fit has marvellously soon passed," said the knight, fixing his eyes sternly upon the stranger. "By the holy rood! if I thought that thou playedst us false, I would dash thy brains out against the wall!"
"I play you not false, sir knight," replied the man in an impatient tone. "Come, my lord," he continued to Arthur, "come quickly, for come you must. You will find some fresh apparel in the other chamber. To-morrow they talk of having you to the court; for these proud lords, they say, murmur at your being kept here."
There was a vague suspicion of some treachery still rested on the mind of De Coucy. The man's story was probable. It was more than probable, it was very likely; but yet the knight did not believe it, he knew not why. On Arthur, however, it had its full effect. He was aware that lord Pembroke, together with several of the greater barons of England, had wrung a promise for his safety, from king John, long before the relief of Mirebeau; and he doubted not that to their remonstrance he owed this apparent intention to alleviate his imprisonment.
"I must leave you, I am afraid, beau sire de Coucy," said the prince. "I would fain stay here; but, I fear me, it is vain to resist."
"I fear me so too," replied the knight. "Farewell, my noble prince! We shall often think of each other, though separated. Farewell!"
De Coucy took the unhappy boy in his arms, and pressed him for a moment to his heart, as if he had been parting with a brother or a child. He could no way explain his feelings at that moment. They had long been companions in many of those bitter hours which endear people to each other, more perhaps than even hours of mutual happiness; but there was something in his bosom beyond the pain of parting with a person whose fate had even thus been united with his own. He felt that he saw Arthur Plantagenet for the last time; and he gave him, as it were, the embrace of the dying.
He would not, however, communicate his own apprehensions to the bosom of the prince; and, unfolding his arms, he watched him while, with a step still hesitating, he approached the doorway.
The jailer followed, and held open the door for him to pass out. Arthur, however, paused for a moment, and turned a timid glance towards De Coucy, as if there was some misdoubting in his bosom too; then, suddenly passing his hand over his brow, as if to clear away irresolution, he passed the doorway.
The instant he entered the passage beyond, he stopped, exclaiming, "It is my uncle!" and turned to rush back into the cell; but before he could accomplish it, or De Coucy could start forward to assist him, the new jailer passed out, pushed the unhappy prince from the threshold, and shutting the door, fastened it with bolt after bolt.
"Now, minion," cried a voice without, which De Coucy could not doubt was that of king John, "wilt thou brave me as thou didst this morning?--Begone, slave!" he added, apparently speaking to the jailer; "quick! begone!" and then again turning to his nephew, he poured upon him a torrent of vehement and angry vituperation.
In that dark age such proceedings could have but one purpose, and De Coucy, comprehending them at once, glanced round the apartment in search of some weapon wherewith he might force the door; but it was in vain--nothing presented itself. The door was cased with iron, and the strength of Herculus would not have torn it from its hinges. Glaring then like a lion in a cage, the knight stood before it, listening for what was to follow,--doubting not for a moment the fearful object of the bad and bloodthirsty monarch,--his heart swelling with indignation and horror, and yet perfectly impotent to prevent the crime that he knew was about to be perpetrated.
"John of Anjou!" he cried, shouting through the door. "Bloodthirsty tyrant! beware what you do! Deeply shall you repent your baseness, if you injure but a hair of his head! I will brand your name with shame throughout Europe! I will publish it before your barons to your teeth! You are overheard, villain, and your crime shall not sleep in secret!"
But, in the dreadful scene passing without, neither nephew nor uncle seemed to heed his call. There was evidently a struggle, as if the king endeavoured to free himself from the agonised clasp of Arthur, whose faint voice was heard, every now and then, praying in vain for mercy, at the hands of the hard-hearted tyrant in whose power he was. At length the struggle seemed to grow fainter. A loud horrific cry rang echoing through the passages; and then a heavy, deadly fall, as if some mass of unelastic clay were cast at once upon the hollow stone of the pavement. Two or three deep groans followed; and then a distinct blow, as if a weapon of steel, stabbed through some softer matter, struck at last against a block of stone. A retreating step was heard; then whispering voices; then, shortly after, the paddling of a boat in the water below the tower--a heavy plunge in the stream--and all was silent.[[24]]