Ambrose opened the great door, pressing a knob beneath the hanging creepers, and we passed in, going straightway to the cell which was allotted to me. There Ambrose set his finger to a little brass button upon the wall, telling me that this would ring a bell in the kitchen. However, he had to ring again before a servant was summoned.
At last he came, rubbing his sleepy eyes. He was a short, thick, swarthy man, dressed cleanly in a shirt and breeches of Indian cotton-stuff. He wore his black moustachios long and curled.
“Supper, Roc,” said Ambrose; and the man made a bow to him, grinning so that his moustachios did stick up on his face like a ram’s horns; and went swiftly from the cell, without opening his mouth.
I asked Ambrose why the man spoke not; he told me that he could not, being a mute. I asked whether he was so born. He told me, no, but that his tongue had been cut out for a punishment.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE MANUSCRIPTS.
I got up betimes on the morrow, being awakened by Ambrose; and, after breakfast, set out with him for the Cloisters.
The Secretary was very gloomy, and brooded in his mind. Nothing worth remark fell out on the way, until we came to the second wood, when, pointing to the right, Ambrose said:
“I ought to have told you: you see that region of the wood? ’tis forbidden ground. The Doctor will have none go there; and woe to the man who disobeyeth him! I may tell you,” added he, “that a deadly swamp is there.”
I was silent for a moment; then I asked him:
“Is nothing there besides the swamp?”