"Couldn't they? Never mind, Uncle Christopher! Go on now. I'll tell you presently." Uncle Christopher obeyed, recommencing as before after the gap in the middle of a sentence:
"'... Prison for life accords ill with life and hope and youth and the blood that courses in its veins. Whereas despair in an exhausted frame, and pain and hunger, breed a longing for the worst, and if it may be, for an early death. Hence, Illustrissima, my good supper, which was given ungrudgingly, while it made me another man, and better able to endure the pain left from the blow of my friend who sat at meat with me, gave me also strength to revolt against the terrible doom that awaited me. Also, hope and purpose revived in my heart, and I knew my last word with the world of living men must be spoken before midnight; for this was told me by the dropsical Castellan, with an accursed smile. So I watch for the moment when my friend, whose name was Attilio, is at his topmost geniality with the good wine, and then I speak, none being there to hear, but only he. I speak as to a friend:
"'"You love the good red wine, Messer Attilio, and you love the good red gold. Is it not true? Which do you love the most?" And to this he answered me, "Surely the good red gold, Ser Pittore. For wine will not purchase all one asks. There is nothing gold will not purchase—enough of it!"
"'"Listen! Where are they going to hide me away? Do you know the Castello?"
"'"I was born here. I can tell you all. There is good accommodation in the sotterraneo. It is extended, but it is not lofty. You will have company, but the living is poor, meagre. I have said that you would not see the sun again, but you may! For in one place is a slot, cut slantwise in the stone, that the guests of the Duke who come to stay may not want air. Through the slot, one day in the year only, and then but for a very little space, comes a ray from the sun in heaven. In the old days of the Warrior Duke, when there would be many prisoners of war, they would count the days until the hour of its coming, and then fight for a good place to see the gleam when it came. But the few you will find there will have little heart for that, or anything else."
"'"Is that the only outlet?"
"'"No! There is the door you go in by. One stoops, as one stoops to enter the little prisons of Venezia, deep below the water. And there is the Buco della Fame...." "That is to say," interjected Mr. Pelly, "The Hunger Hole, or Hunger Pit."
"'"What is that?" I then asked.
"'"What they were used to throw bones down, when they had made merry and sucked them dry, to the prisoners below. And there is a drain."
"'"How large is it?"