"Water! water!" moaned Jane, in a whispering voice, feeling as if her throat was scorched, and her dry, parched tongue was swollen to twice its usual size. "Oh, man, man!" she added, clasping her hands, "I will pray for you—I will bless you in my last hour, with my whole heart, and with my whole soul, for one drop, a single drop of water!"
There never was a villain so bad as to be without one redeeming trait; thus, even Dobbie the doomster had his; and now the piteous tone of Jane's husky voice, her pallid face, her entreating and bloodshot eyes, had stirred some secret chord of human sympathy in the recesses of his usually iron heart. He poured a little water into a cup, and approached her. Jane's eyes flashed with thankfulness and joy; but Birrel dashed away the cup with one hand, and laid the other on his poniard.
Jane uttered a tremulous cry of despair.
"Then false coof and half-witted staumrel!" exclaimed the witchfinder; "is it thus ye obey the orders of Redhall, who is our master? Look ye, good mistress, subscribe this paper and we leave you wi' the water-stoup, to drink and to sleep till your heart is contented. But refuse, and woe be unto ye! For here sit we doon to watch by turns, to keep ye, waking and sleepless, with thirst unslackened, till the hour of doom, and so, my Lady Seton, ye have the option; sign and drink, or refuse and suffer."
With one hand he held before her the large and brimming jar; with the other he displayed a paper whereon something was written.
Within the deep jar the water seemed cold and pure, limpid and refreshing; while her thirst was agonizing, and her whole frame felt as if scorched by an internal fire. Her brain was whirling, a sickness was coming over her, and human endurance could withstand the temptation no longer.
For a moment she reflected that it was impossible for any avowal, verbal or written, to make her more utterly miserable or degraded than her sentence had already made her, and aware that nothing now could change the current of her fate save the royal pardon, of which she had not the shadow of a hope, she could only articulate—
"A pen, a pen!—the water!—the water! I am dying—dying of thirst!"
Promptly Birrel produced a pen, which he dipped in a portable inkstand.
She took it with a trembling hand and paused.