“What devil’s deed have you in your mind?” she mutters, as she sweeps the floor, casting malignant glances at Blanche, seated beside Claire. “Are you expecting a saviour, mistress? Ha! ha! None will come to Xeres. You do not answer? You can weep, therefore you can speak.”
“We are French,” answers Claire, speaking for Blanche. “We mean you no offence by our silence. But, for the sake of mercy, tell us, good mother, is there really no means of escape from this prison?”
“None,” answers the woman, pursing up her thin lips as if it gave her a certain satisfaction. “Think not of it. From hence you go to the gates of death. I can tell you that. Misfortune is the road to a better world. It comforts me to think you are as wretched as I am myself. Fare you well, ladies, till to-morrow. There is not a chamber in the castle nor a step on the stairs that is not slippery with human blood. They die, every soul of them, who come here.”
As she speaks she turns her back to go, when Blanche rushes after her. Roused from her torpor by these horrible words, she seizes the old hag by the shoulders and looks wildly into her eyes.
“Richly, richly would my father requite you, did you save me.”
“Your father?” retorts the woman. “Where is he? Meanwhile they would wring my old neck, and you be no better. No! no!”
“Stay! stay!” cries Blanche, keeping hold on her. “It consoles me to hear another voice and not always to listen to the owls hooting outside, or the ticking of the death-watch in the walls.”
“Let go,” answers the old woman, extricating herself rudely from her weak grasp, “or you shall serve yourselves, mistresses. I cannot help you. When I was young I could not protect myself. Here, not the Holy Virgin herself can save you.” As she speaks she bars the door and disappears, a sneering smile upon her face, furrowed with wrinkles.
Except this woman, no one but the governor enters. He is a stern, morose Castilian, eliminating all expression from his face as he looks at Blanche, yet with a certain kindliness of expression and gesture he cannot altogether disguise, which pains her, for she would gladly think that the world is as dead and buried as she is herself. Not even Claire can comfort her now—Claire, her whole soul in her eyes, watching her every movement, while her own thoughts turn to the fate of the lover who, at her command, risked his life to liberate the queen.
One evening, sitting together at sunset on the tower, the sound of horses’ feet galloping rapidly on the grass rouses them. A white terror is in Blanche’s eyes as she fixes them on Claire, who, leaning over, can perceive a little company of men-at-arms rapidly approaching, bearing a flag with the king’s badge.