“I did injustice,” he said, “to the thieves and outlaws of these woods, when I supposed such banditti to belong to their bands. I might as justly have confounded the foxes of these brakes with the ravening wolves of France!”
Arrived before the castle, the prisoners were compelled by their guards to alight and were hastened across the drawbridge into the castle. They were immediately conducted to an apartment where a hasty repast was offered them, of which none but Athelstane felt any inclination to partake. Neither did he have much time to do justice to the good cheer placed before him, for the guards gave him and Cedric to understand that they were to be imprisoned in a chamber apart from Rowena. Resistance was vain; and they were compelled to follow to a large room, which, rising on clumsy Saxon pillars, resembled the [v]refectories and chapter-houses which may still be seen in the most ancient parts of our most ancient monasteries.
The Lady Rowena was next separated from her train and conducted with courtesy, indeed, but still without consulting her inclination, to a distant apartment. The same alarming distinction was conferred on the young Jewess, Rebecca, in spite of the entreaties of her father, who offered money in the extremity of his distress that she might be permitted to abide with him.
“Base unbeliever,” answered one of his guards, “when thou hast seen thy lair, thou wilt not wish thy daughter to partake it.”
Without further discussion, the old Jew was dragged off in a different direction from the other prisoners. The domestics, after being searched and disarmed, were confined in another part of the castle.
The three leaders of the banditti and the men who had planned and carried out the outrage, Norman knights,—Front-de-Boeuf, the brutal owner of the castle; Maurice de Bracy, a free-lance, who sought to wed the Lady Rowena by force and so had arranged the attack, and Brian de [v]Bois-Guilbert, a distinguished member of the famous order of [v]Knights Templar,—had a short discussion together and then separated. Front-de-Boeuf immediately sought the apartment where Isaac of York tremblingly awaited his fate.
The Jew had been hastily thrown into a dungeon-vault of the castle, the floor of which was deep beneath the level of the earth, and very damp, being lower than the moat itself. The only light was received through one or two loop-holes far above the reach of the captive’s hand. These [v]apertures admitted, even at midday, only a dim and uncertain light, which was changed for utter darkness long before the rest of the castle had lost the blessing of day. Chains and shackles, which had been the portion of former captives, hung rusted and empty on the walls of the prison, and in the rings of one of these sets of fetters there remained two moldering bones which seemed those of the human leg.
At one end of this ghastly apartment was a large fire-grate, over the top of which were stretched some transverse iron bars, half devoured with rust.
The whole appearance of the dungeon might have appalled a stouter heart than that of Isaac, who, nevertheless, was more composed under the imminent pressure of danger than he had seemed to be while affected by terrors of which the cause was as yet remote and [v]contingent. It was not the first time that Isaac had been placed in circumstances so dangerous. He had, therefore, experience to guide him, as well as a hope that he might again be delivered from the peril.
The Jew remained without altering his position for nearly three hours, at the end of which time steps were heard on the dungeon stair. The bolts screamed as they were withdrawn, the hinges creaked as the wicket opened, and Reginald Front-de-Boeuf, followed by two Saracen slaves of the Templar, entered the prison.