My mouth was sore and my throat parched. A rare thirst consumed me, and it was with delight that I observed the slimy coating on the walls made by the constant fall of water from above. I put my lips close to the cold stone, and with much greater patience than I thought could abide in my nature, I waited till little by little, drop by drop, my suffering was assuaged.
It was dark in my prison house. Four small holes pierced the stone roof, and from these came some air and, I hoped, by morning, light also.
I heard the scuffling of a legion of rats; from whence I know not, unless the earthen pipe that thrust its nozzle through the floor gave access to the cell. This, I think, was the case, for soon I felt the pattering of their feet upon my body; the boldest even nibbled at the belt of leather that I wore, and had I not shown signs of life, they might have been yet more uncivil in their advances.
A hundred years passed by, and I was still a prisoner: let one who would assure me that I am wrong, take but my place in that foul spot, and see the bitter truth that lies within such reckoning as mine.
No visitor, grim or otherwise, approached my cell. I would, I believe, have welcomed, in my extremity, Satan himself, but he came not, nor his ministers. The Queen’s hand could not reach me here; Gaston, my faithful comrade, he too was absent, perhaps in pain like me, perhaps in bonds, forgotten and, like me, well-nigh mad.
My head was light from want of food and drink and sleep. I tossed about from side to side in unavailing anguish, and it was not the agony of the bonds eating into my flesh, that cowed me, but the darkness and the solitude.
There in that place of torment my manliness fought against such odds as even now I dread to think on. But praise to Him whose servant I am, at last my braver self prevailed, and when, after those hours of interminable horror, Agno appeared, I did not grovel at his feet, but faced him calmly and, at least in outward seeming, unafraid.
A day had come and gone; the High Priest said my hour was at hand. By his order my bonds were loosed, and the blood rushed painfully through my numbed body, that pricked as with millions of needles.
“What of my friend?” I managed to ask.
Agno smiled with subtile malice.