He gathered his cloak about him and strode away, and the three looked after him with wonder in their faces. Hito was first to voice it.
"Our lives for his life, is it?" he grunted. "So, master slave, you would be important, it seems. What have you done now, that our lord's favorite should give such orders for you? You'll not cheat me for long—promise you that! A little while and he'll forget you; so my turn will come. Quartus, put the chains upon him and take him to the cells."
"Please you, we are told to harm him in no manner," Wardo ventured. Nicanor had done many a good turn to the fair-haired Saxon, as one comrade to another, and Wardo was not one to forget it. "Were he in chains, he would soon fret himself into worse raving, and likely do himself harm."
"Bring him without, then!" said Hito. The two seized Nicanor, and Wardo winked at him behind Hito's back, as the latter got painfully to his feet. Nicanor submitted, sullenly. He, who had trusted to no man save himself, was forced to pin what faith he might to the hint of succor that lay in Wardo's wink. And this was but a frail straw to trust.
They took him along a side passage behind the storerooms, down damp and slippery steps to the depths of the cellars. Here were the dungeons, half of masonry, half of living rock, whose walls glistened with slime where the torchlight fell upon them. They thrust him into the smallest of the cells, and left him.
The light of their torch was shut out with the slamming of the iron door; and darkness, dense and tangible, fell upon him in a reeking pall.
Nicanor spoke aloud, with a laugh that jarred on the heavy stillness.
"When friend Hito gains wind enough after his gambollings to remember that lean lady of his, she should be far enough away to snap her fingers at him. So, the rat is trapped at last. Now to see whether he can fight or no; for if he cannot, he'll have no chance to try again."
Then silence fell; and other rats, boldened by the darkness, began to come forth to peer at the intruder in their midst.