Pabo was hurried away, along a corridor, down a flight of steps, through the courtyard, and was thrust into a dungeon at the base of a tower on the east side of the castle. He had to descend into it by steps, and then the heavy oak door was shut and locked.

The floor was of the limestone rock, with some earth on it; the walls new, and smelling of mortar. One slit, far up, admitted a ray of light, and beneath the door was a space of as much as two finger-breadths between it and the stone sill. No preparations had been made for his reception. No straw or fern was littered for a bed, nor was a pitcher of water set for him, that he might quench his thirst. Pabo was hungry; he had partaken of nothing since he left Caio save a crust that had been given him at Llanwrda on his way. At Llandeilo the soldiers had purposely avoided the town, and they had halted nowhere on the way except at the place Llanwrda, where they had given him a portion of their breakfast.

Pabo supposed that he was to remain in confinement as long as suited the convenience of the bishop. He was far from fathoming the purpose of the prelate in endeavoring to cajole or frighten him into a denial of his own identity. Had he known the figure Bernard was endeavoring to cut at his expense, he would have laughed aloud and made his dungeon walls ring.

He cast himself in a corner against the wall and waited, in the expectation of his jailer coming in before long with a truss of straw, some bread and water, and possibly chains for his hands or feet. But hours passed, and no one came.

From where he sat he could see feet go by his door, and it seemed to him that towards evening these were the feet of women.

No sentinel paced the court outside his doorway. He heard human voices, occasionally, but could distinguish no words.

The evening closed in, and still none attended to him. Feeling in his pouch he found some dried corn from the hermit's store. When wandering on the mountains he had been wont to thus provide himself, and happily there remained still some unconsumed. With this he filled his mouth.

He waited on as darkness settled in, so that he could but just distinguish his window and the gap below the door, and at length fell into a troubled sleep.

During the night he woke with the cold, and groped for the blankets he had been accustomed to draw over him in the cell on Mallaen, but here in the prison of Careg Cennen none were provided. He felt stiff and chilled in his bones with lying on the bare rock. He turned from side to side, but could find no relief.

Surely it was not the intention of Gerald of Windsor to detain him there without the modicum of comforts supplied to the worst of criminals. He had not offended the Norman baron. If he were not Pabo, as the bishop insisted, why was he dealt with so harshly? He had not done anything to show that he was a fanner of rebellion. Against him not a particle of evidence could be adduced.

The thought that he carried with him the great secret of the hermit also troubled him. It is said that no witch can die till she has communicated her hidden knowledge to some sister.

It was to Pabo a thought insupportable that he was unable to impart the secret deposited with him to some one who could use the knowledge for the good of his oppressed countrymen.

Hitherto the attempts made by the Welsh to shake off their yoke had been doomed to failure, largely because of their inability to purchase weapons and stores that might furnish their levies and maintain them in the field. It was not that in the Cambrian Mountains there had been deficiency in resolution and lack of heroism; but it was the poverty of Wales that had stood no chance against the wealth of England.

For himself Pabo cared little, but he was deeply concerned that he had no means of conveying the secret that had been entrusted to him to those who could make good use of it.

He dozed off again in cold and hunger, and fell to dreaming that he had lit on an ingot of pure gold, so large and so weighty that he could not himself lift it, and opened his eyes to see a golden bar indeed before him, but it was one of sunlight, painted on the wall by the rising orb as it shone through the slit that served as window. He waited now with impatience, trusting that some one would come to him. Yet time passed and none arrived.

He moved to one of the steps, seated himself thereon, and looked at the light between the bottom of the door and the sill. Again he saw what he conjectured to be women's feet pass by, and presently, but after a long interval, return; and this time he knew that the feet belonged to a woman, for she stopped where he could see, set down an earthenware pitcher, and exchanged some words with a soldier, one of the garrison. He could see the pitcher nearly to the handle, but not the hand that set it down and raised it. Yet he distinguished the skirts of the dress and the tones of voice as those of a woman.

Presently he again heard a voice, that belonged to a female, and by the intonation was sure that what she spoke was in Welsh. She was calling and strewing crumbs, for some fell near his door. Immediately numerous pigeons arrived and pecked up what was cast for them. He could see their red legs and bobbing heads, and wished that some of the fragments might have been for him.

He had hardly formed the wish before a crust, larger than any given to the birds, fell against his door, and there was a rush of pigeons towards it. Pabo put forth two fingers through the opening, and drew the piece of bread within. He had hardly secured this, before another piece fell in the same place, and once more, in the same manner, he endeavored to capture it. But unhappily it had rebounded just beyond his reach, and after vain efforts he would have had to relinquish it wholly to the pigeons had not feet rapidly approached and a hand been lowered that touched the crust and thrust it hastily under the door, and then pushed in another even larger.

After this the feet went away. But still the pigeons fluttered and pecked till they had consumed the last particle cast to them.

Pabo ate the pieces of bread ravenously.

He was not thirsty. The coolness and moisture of the prison prevented him from becoming parched. What he had received was not, indeed, much, but it was sufficient to take off the gnawing pain that had consumed his vitals.

Now for the first time he realized the force of the prelate's words when he had bidden Gerald of Windsor to cast him—Pabo—into a dungeon, there to be forgotten. Forgotten he was to be, ignored as a human being immured in this subterranean den. He was to be left there, totally unattended and unprovided for. Of this he was now convinced, both because of the neglect he had undergone, and also because of the attempt made by some Welshwoman, unknown to him, surreptitiously to supply him with food. This she would not have done had she not been aware of the fate intended for him. He was to be left to die of cold and hunger and thirst, and was not to leave the prison save as a dwindled, emaciated wreck, with the life driven out of him by privation of all that is necessary for the support of life. He was now well assured of what was purposed, and also, and equally assured, that he had in the castle some friend who would employ all her feminine craft to deliver him from such a fate.

Slowly, tediously the day passed. Still, occasionally voices were audible, but no feet approached the dungeon doorway. Overhead there were chambers, but the prison was vaulted with stone, and even were any persons occupying an upper story, they were not likely to be heard by one below.

It was, perhaps, fortunate that for some time on the mountain Pabo had led a very frugal life and had contented himself with parched grain, or girdle-cakes of his own grinding and making. Yet to these had been added the milk of a goat, and for this he now craved. He thought of his poor Nanny bleating, distressed with her milk; he thought of how she had welcomed him when he returned to the cell. Poor Nanny! What would he not now give for a draught of her sweet sustaining milk!

Another night passed, and again in the morning there ensued the feeding of the pigeons, and therewith a fall of crusts within his reach by the door.

During the day he heard a clatter of hoofs in the courtyard, and by seating himself on the lowest step in his vault, leaning one elbow on another, and bringing first eye and then ear near to the gap below the door, he saw and heard sufficient to lead him to suppose that the bishop was leaving Careg Cennen, to return to his own castle of Llawhaden.

He could even distinguish his strident voice, and catch a few words uttered by him, as he turned his face towards the dungeon-door, and said: "My good friend Gerald—is, humph! the impostor forgotten?"

"Forgotten, as though he had never been," was the response, in the rough tones of the Norman Baron.

Then both laughed.

Pabo clenched his hands and teeth.

Presently, a clatter; and through the gateway passed the cavalcade. There was no drawbridge at Careg Cennen for there was no moat, no water; but there was a portcullis, and there were stout oak-barred doors.

After the departure of the prelate, the castle fell back again into listlessness. No sounds reached the ear of Pabo, save the occasional footfall of one passing across the court with the leisurely pace of a person to whom time was of no value.

On this day the prisoner began to be distressed for water. The walls of his cell, being of pervious limestone, absorbed all moisture from the air, so that none condensed on it. In the morning he had swallowed the dry crusts with difficulty. He now felt that his lips were burning, and his tongue becoming dry. If food were brought him on the morrow, he doubted whether he would then be able to swallow it.

But relief came to him in a manner he had not expected. During the night rain fell, and he found that by crouching on the steps and putting his fingers beneath the door, he could catch the raindrops as they trickled down the oak plank, and convey the scanty supply by this means to his mouth. But with the first glimpse of dawn he saw a means of furnishing water that was more satisfactory. With his fingers he scraped a channel beneath the door to receive the falling drops, and then, by heaping the soil beyond this, forced the water as it ran down the door and dripped, to decant itself in a small stream over the sill. By this means he was able to catch sufficient to assuage the great agony of thirst.

He was thus engaged when suddenly a foot destroyed his contrivance, and next moment he heard a key turned in the lock.

He started from the steps on which he was lying, the door was thrown open, and before him stood a muffled female figure, against the gray early morning light, diffused through thick rain that filled the castle yard.

Without a word the woman signed to Pabo to follow. She made the gesture with impatience, and he obeyed without hesitation.

"Follow me!" she whispered in Welsh, and strode rapidly before him, and passed through a small doorway, a very few steps from the tower, yet in the south face of the castle. She beckoned imperiously to him to enter, then closed the door on him, went back and relocked that of the dungeon. Next moment she was back through the small door. Pabo found himself in a narrow passage that, as far as he could judge, descended by steps.

The woman bolted the door behind.

The place was dark, but she led on.

The way descended by steps, then led along a narrow passage, with rock on one side and wall on the other, till she reached a great natural vault—a cave opening into the heart of the crag on which the castle was built. And here the passage terminated in a wooden stair that descended into darkness, only illumined by one point of red light.

Still she descended, and Pabo followed.

Presently she was at the bottom, and now he saw in a hollow of the rock on one side a little lamp burning with a lurid flame.

She struck off the glowing snuff, and it sent up a bright spire of light.

"Forgotten," said she, turning to Pabo, and throwing back her hood. "Forgotten! Nay, Nest will never forget one of her own people—never."