"Now you are fooling again!" said Jeannette, giggling most immoderately at the gusto with which, unsuspectingly, he swallowed the potion. "Now, get your supper. I cannot spend the whole night with you here. So be quick, or I shall be missed."
Thus exhorted, Paul fell on the victuals with right good will, and drained to the dregs the tankard of spiced ale, all the while interspersing his feeding by casting pitiful glances at Jeannette, which made that mercurial young damsel giggle more immoderately still.
"Don't go, Jeannette," said he beseechingly, as Jeannette was about to turn away. "It is a long time to the next watch, and you can't imagine how creepy I feel in this passage, with that fearful Saxon inside clanking his irons, and tearing about, and not a soul within call if he should break loose."
"Is that the cell in which he is confined?"
"Yes, but he is very quiet just now. Perhaps he hears us talking; but I can hear him tugging at the chains sometimes as though he would tear the place down. He makes me feel as if next moment he'd burst open the door, and murder me. He is a most desperate fellow. You should have seen how he fought on that wall; and there was another one who escaped, a fearful man, too, at his weapons."
"Oh, I saw them, and I noticed how frightened you all were into the bargain. But are those the keys you have at your girdle?"
"Yes; this is the one for the door, and this other one for the manacles," said Paul, holding up a pair of rusty keys to Jeannette's view. "I wish the watch was over," he added, shuddering, "or I had un bon camarade."
"Eh, bien! bon nuit, mon bonhomme," said Jeannette, gathering up the empty tankard, and flitting along the lonesome corridors back again to her mistress, who was waiting with feverish impatience for her return.
"What news have you, Jeannette? Did all go well?"
"Beautiful, my lady. He drank the ale, and praised it finely. I knew he would do that, for those horrid men always praise ale. But the wonder to me is that the beastly stuff did not turn his stomach."