He had bread, and some bottles of wine, a little of which I drank mixed with water. It was the loveliest, most intoxicating meal; and, when it was over, full of a new grace I bid Gogo to my side.
“Now,” said I, “tell me your story.”
“Well, first,” he said with a grunt, “for your safety here. It was the astrologer’s, and now is ours. He was carried away in a thunderstorm, on a red cloud.”
“What do you mean, Gogo, please?”
“I repeat the common superstition. Anyhow, he is gone, and the place is haunted and avoided since. Not a clown but myself will come within a mile of it; and as for me, I have lived here for a month undisturbed already.”
“You? But I know where the poor wretch was taken, and where he died.”
“In the asylum, eh? It is what I supposed; and the red earl comes to his own. Tell me about it.”
“By and by. I want to know first what brought you here.”
“The wish to lose myself and be lost, where I could devise a plan for your rescue.”
“You knew where I had been taken, then?”