Low, hidden in the very foundations of the Castle of Rougemont, was an arched dungeon of considerable dimensions, which only the initiated knew.
You descended into it by a winding staircase, excavated in the very thickness of the wall, and entered, after a descent of thirty steps, on opening a huge door of stone, which shut again with a resonant clang, and struck horror into the heart.
It had no communication with other cells, neither had it any species of window; so that those who were within, when the door was shut, were cut off from all sight and sound of the external world.
Summer or winter, night or day, storm or calm, might reign above, all was alike down there.
At one end was a platform of wood raised about a foot from the stone floor; upon this stood an oaken table with writing materials, and behind it a grand mediæval chair with the insignia of justice, the sword and scales, carved thereon; and at the opposite end was an arched recess concealed by a curtain, which hid both the executioners and the implements of torture until they were needed, when some unhappy wretch had to be “put to the question.”
But even in their most ruthless days, the dread ministers of English justice only used torture as a last resource, to wring guilty secrets from the criminal, when the welfare of the State appeared to sanction the cruelty—they never descended to the fearful refinements of the German dwellers on the Rhine in their robber castles, where fiendish ingenuity was displayed in pushing agony to its utmost limits without violating the sanctuary of life.[36]
On the third day solitude and silence having failed of their effect, Cuthbert was brought down into this den.
At the table sat the governor of Rougemont, in his chair of state, and by his side Sir John Redfyrne; a physician, clothed in a long dark cloak, a clerk with pen and parchment, ready to take down the answers of the prisoner, were the only other persons present, at least in sight, when the two gaolers brought down the unfortunate youth.
“Thy name?” said the governor.