But not, at last, for long. Very soon he was engaged in exploring his dungeon, a gloomy cellar, two-thirds of it below the level of the moat, and lit by a single window, deep-shafted under the massive ceiling. His search, at first, yielded him no returns but of impenetrable induracy—no variations, knock where he might, in the echoless irresponsiveness of dumb-thick walls. Only, with that incessant tap-tapping of his, the trouble in his brain fell into rhythm, chiming out eternally, monotonously, the inevitable answer to a fruitless question with which, from the outset, he had been tormenting himself, and from which, for all his sickness of its vanity, he could not escape.
'What hath Cicada done? Concluded me safely sped? Done nothing, therefore. What hath Cicada done? Concluded me safely sped? Done nothing, therefore.'
So, the villainy was working, and he in his dungeon powerless to counteract it.
He lived vividly through all these phases—of despair, of self-concentration, of resourceful hope—during the opening twenty-four hours of his confinement. And then, once upon a time, very suddenly, very softly, very remotely, there was borne in upon him the strange impression that he was not alone in his underworld.
The first shadow of this conviction came to haunt him during the second night of his imprisonment, when, having fallen asleep, there presently stole into his brain, out of a deep sub-consciousness of consciousness, the knowledge that some voice, extraneous to himself, was moaning and throbbing into his ear.
At the outset this voice appealed to him for nothing more than the emotional soft babble of a dream. It seemed to reach to him from a vast distance, breathing very faint, and thin, and sweet through æons of pathetic memories. He could not identify or interpret it, save in so far as its burden always hinted of a wistful sadness. But, gradually, as the spell of it enwrapped and claimed him, out of its inarticulateness grew form, and out of that form recognition.
It was Bernardo singing to his lute. How could he not have known it, when here was the boy actually walking by his side? They trod a smiling meadow, sweet with narcissus and musical with runnels. The voice made ecstasy of the Spring; frisked in the blood of little goats; unlocked the sap of trees, so that they leapt into a spangled spray of blossoms.
A step—and the turf was dry beneath their feet. The sun smote down upon the plain; the grasshopper shrieked like a jet of fire; the full-uddered cattle lowed for evening and the shadowed stall.
Again, a step—and the leaves of the forest blew abroad like flakes of burning paper; the vines shed fruit like heavy drops of blood; the sky grew dark in front, rolling towards them a dun wall of fog—the music wailed and ceased.
He turned upon his comrade; and saw the lute swung aside, the pale lips yet trembling with their song. He knew the truth at once.