"Ha!" said John, "ha!" and there was a sneering accent on the last monosyllable that was but too fatally explained afterwards. "Be it as thou wilt, fair nephew," he added with a smile of dark and bitter meaning--"be it as thou wilt;" and he was turning to leave the apartment.
"Hold, sir, yet one moment!" cried De Coucy. "One word on my account. When I yielded my sword to William of Salisbury, your noble brother, it was under the express promise that I should be treated well and knightly; and he was bound, in delivering me to you, to make the same stipulation in my behalf. If he did do it, you have broken your word. If he did not do it, he has broken his; and one or other I will proclaim a false traitor, in every court of Europe."
John heard him to an end; and then, after eyeing him from head to foot in silence, with an air of bitter triumphant contempt, he opened the door and passed out, without deigning to make the least reply. The door closed behind him--the heavy bolts were pushed forward--and Arthur and De Coucy once more stood alone, cut off from all the world.
The young captive gazed on his fellow-prisoner for a moment or two, with a glance in which the agitation of a weakened frame and a depressed mind might be traced struggling with a sense of dignity and firmness.
De Coucy endeavoured to console him; but the prince raised his hand, with an imploring look, as if the very name of comfort were a mockery. "Have I acted well, sir knight?" he asked. "Have I spoken as became me?"
"Well and nobly have you acted, fair prince," replied De Coucy, "with courage and dignity worthy your birth and station."
"That is enough then!" said Arthur--"that is enough!" and, with a deep and painful sigh, he cast himself again upon the seat; and, once more burying his face on his arms, let the day flit by him without even a change of position.
In the mean while, De Coucy, with his arms folded on his breast, paced up and down the vaulted chamber, revolving thoughts nearly as bitter as those of his fellow-captive. Mirebeau had proved as fatal to him as to Arthur. It had cast down his all. Arthur had struck for kingdoms, and he had struck for glory and fortune--the object of both, however, was happiness, though the means of the one was ambition, and of the other, love. Both had cast their all upon the stake, and both had lost. He, too, had to mourn then the passing away of his last hopes, the bright dream of love, and all the gay and delightful fabrics that imagination had built up upon its fragile base. They had fallen in ruins round him; and his heart sickened when he thought of all that a long captivity might effect in extinguishing the faint, faint glimmering of hope which yet shone upon his fate.
Thus passed the hours till night began to fall; and all the various noises of the town,--the shouts of the boatmen on the river, the trampling of the horses in the streets, the busy buzz of many thousand tongues, the cries of the merchants in the highways, and the rustling tread of all the passers to and fro, which during the day had risen in a confused hum to the chamber in which they were confined, died one by one away; and nothing was at length heard but the rippling of the waters of the Seine, then at high tide, washing against the very foundations of the tower.
It was now the hour at which a lamp was usually brought them; and Arthur raised his head, as if anxious for its coming.