Then he would put up his hands and press these grisly phantoms out of the dark. He would press them away with one great effort of the will.
They would go, and he remained trembling in the chill, damp negation of light, which was so far more than darkness. He would grope for the pieces of his miserable food, and search the earthen pitcher for water.
And all this, these tortures beyond belief, beyond understanding of the ordinary man, were but as soft couches to one who is weary, food to one hungered, water to lips parched in a desert—compared with the deepest, unutterable descent of all.
The cold and stinking blackness which held him tight as a fossil in a bed of clay was not the worst. His eyes that saw nothing, his limbs that were shot with cramping pain, his nostrils and stomach that could not endure this uncleaned cage, were a torture beyond thinking.
Many a time he thought of the mercy of Bishop Bonner and Queen Mary—the mercy that let a gentleman ride under the pleasant skies of England to a twenty minutes' death—God! these were pleasant tortures! His own present hopelessness, all that he endured in body—why, dear God! these were but pleasant tortures too, things to bite upon and endure, compared with the Satanic horror, the icy dread, the bitter, hopeless tears, when he thought of Elizabeth.
He had long since ceased praying for himself. It mattered little or nothing what happened to him. That he should be taken out to torture would be a relief, a happiness. He would lie in the rack laughing. They could fill his belly with water, or strain the greasy hempen ropes into his flesh, and still he would laugh and forgive them—Dr. Taylor had forgiven less than they would do to him, he would forgive more than all for the sake of Christ and His Maid-Mother. How easy that would be! To be given something to endure, to prove himself a man and a Christian!
But to forgive them for what they might be doing, they might have done, to his dear lady—how could he forgive that to these blood-stained men?
Through all the icy hours he thought of one thing, until his own pains vanished to nothingness.
Perchance, and the dreadful uncertainty in his utter impotence and silence swung like a bell in his brain, and cut through his soul like the swinging pendola which they said the familiars of the Holy Office used, Elizabeth had already suffered unspeakable things.
He saw again a pair of hands—cruel hands—hands with thick thumbs. Had hands like these grasped and twisted the white limbs of the girl he loved? Divorced from him, helpless, away from any comfort, any kind voice, was it not true—was it true?—that already his sweetheart had been tortured to her death?