After what seemed fully another week of waiting, the guard again came with bread and water. By that time my mind had cleared. I asked the guard to deliver a message to my Lord d'Hymbercourt and offered a large reward for the service. I begged him to say to Hymbercourt that his friends of The Mitre had been arrested and were now in prison. The guard willingly promised to deliver my message, but he did not keep his word, though I repeated my request many times and promised him any reward he might name when I should regain my liberty. With each visit he repeated his promise, but one day he laughed and said I was wasting words; that he would never see the reward and that in all probability I should never again see the light of day. His ominous words almost prostrated me, though again I say I suffered chiefly for Max's sake. Could I have gained his liberty at the cost of my life, nay, even my soul, I should have been glad to do it.
But I will not further describe the tortures of my imprisonment. The greatest of them all was my ignorance of Max's fate. It was a frightful ordeal, and I wonder that my reason survived it.
CHAPTER X
THE HOUSE UNDER THE WALL
To leave Max and myself in our underground dungeon, imprisoned for an unknown, uncommitted crime, while I narrate occurrences outside our prison walls looks like a romancer's trick, but how else I am to go about telling this history I do not know. Yolanda is quite as important a personage in this narrative as Max and myself, and I must tell of her troubles as I learned of them long afterwards.
Castleman reached home ten days or a fortnight after our arrest, bringing with him his precious silks, velvets, and laces to the last ell. As he had predicted, they were quadrupled in value, and their increase made the good burgher a very rich man.
Soon after Castleman reached the House under the Wall, Yolanda came dancing into the room where he was sitting with good Frau Katherine, drinking a bottle of rich Burgundy wine well mixed with pepper and honey.
"Ah, uncle," she cried joyously, "at last you are at home, and I have a fine kiss for you."
"Thank you, my dear," said Castleman, "you have spoiled my wine. The honey will now taste vinegarish."