The man with the light replied nothing, but with another, who had been standing behind him, received the prisoner from the hands of his comrades, and, with somewhat more gentleness than they had shown, led him onward. The moment he had taken a step or two forward, a large, oblong mass of solid rock, which, turning upon a pivot, served the purpose of a door, and, when shut, blocked up the whole passage that led under ground to the castle, rolled slowly to behind him. He went on patiently, for it was clear that no effort of his own could effect anything towards his deliverance; and when he had gone on some way and ascended a small flight of steps, he found another armed man standing with a light at a door plated with iron. Those who followed told him to go in, and he found himself in a dungeon, of which he was evidently not the first tenant, for there was a crust of bread covered with long green mould upon the table, and a broken water-pitcher in one corner of the room. There was a bed, too, with some straw, at one side of the door, and a single chair; but besides these necessaries there appeared hanging from the wall, to which they were attached by a stanchion imbedded in the solid masonry, a large, heavy ring, and some strong linked fetters. At these Bernard de Rohan gazed for a moment fiercely, and then turned his eyes to one of his jailers, who had been removing the mouldy crust from the table and the broken water-cruise from the corner of the dungeon.
The man seemed to understand the look at once. "No!" he said, "no! They are not for you unless you are violent. But we may let you speak now as much as you like;" and he untied the scarf from Bernard de Rohan's lips. The young cavalier drew a deep breath, and then demanded, "What is this? Why am I here? Take notice, and remember that I am an officer of Henry the Second, king of France, now actually on his service; that I came hither from the Maréchal de Brissac, with despatches and messages to the Lord of Masseran; and that bitter will be the punishment of all those who injure or detain me."
The man heard him to the end with the most perfect composure, and then replied, "We neither know nor care, young gentleman, who or what you are, or in whose service you are. We obey the commands of our own lord; and, if you are inclined to give up all resistance and be quiet, we will untie your arms, and let you have the free use of your limbs and tongue. There is only one thing necessary for you to tell us. Will you be quiet and peaceable, or will you not?"
"I have no choice," replied Bernard de Rohan, in a bitter tone. "As you have wrongfully and unjustly made me a prisoner, I have no power of resisting whatsoever you choose to do with me."
"That is talking sensibly," replied the man; "but, in the first place, if you please, we will take away all these pleasant little things from you, as I would rather have them in my hand than my throat." And he deliberately stripped the prisoner of all his weapons, to keep them, as he said, with a laugh, for his use at a future time. He then untied his arms, which were benumbed with the tight straining of the cords with which they had bound him, and saying, "I will bring you some food," he moved towards the door where his companions stood.
"I want no food," replied Bernard de Rohan, gloomily; and in his heart he asked himself if any human being could find appetite to eat in such an abode as that.
"You will come to it, young gentleman, you will come to it," replied the man; "before you get out, you will come to it well enough. I have seen many a one who thought of nothing else all the day long but the time for eating and drinking. Why, it was the only thing they had to do with life. They might as well have been a stone in the wall if it had not been for that."
With this awful sermon upon the imprisonment that awaited him, the jailer set down the lamp he held in his hand and went away. He returned in a minute or two, however, with some food, which he placed upon the table before which the young cavalier was still standing, exactly as the other had left him. The man gave him a cold look, as if merely to see how he bore it, and then once more quitted the dungeon, turning the key in the heavy lock.
Bernard de Rohan remained long in that same attitude, and filled with the same dark and melancholy thoughts. Still, still they pressed upon his brain, although he sought to banish them and to bear his condition with his usual equanimity and fortitude. He was not one ever to give way to despair where any opportunity existed for active exertion; but here he could do nothing. With his own hand he could not right himself. With his own voice he could not plead his cause. Talent or genius he might possess, but all in vain. Vigour and courage were useless. There was but one thing left—endurance; a species of courage which the very bravest do not always possess. Bernard de Rohan strove to summon it to his aid. It came but slowly, however; and, when he thought of Isabel of Brienne, his own sweet, beautiful bride, snatched from him in the very first moment that he could call her so, resolution forsook him, and in agony of heart he cast himself down upon the straw in his dungeon. Was that his bridal bed?