A dungeon is by no means an agreeable place; and the dungeon of poor Edward Langdale was not an agreeable dungeon. As was common at that time, before Vauban and others had introduced a better system of fortification, the principal defence of the Castle of Coiffy was a wet ditch or fosse, which differed little from those we see surrounding old castles of the feudal period. This wet ditch was supplied with abundance of water from a spring a little higher up the hill, which, indeed, was the source of one of the principal confluents of the Aube; but the soil, as I have said elsewhere, being somewhat sandy, the banks suffered the water to percolate, somewhat to the detriment of the foundations of the castle; and, had not the masonry been very heavy and the mortar somewhat better than we use in building cockney villas, the square flanking-tower to the right of the gateway as you look east would have been down fifty years before and crushed to death the denizens of poor Edward's dungeon,—if it had been furnished with tenants at that time.

Now, doubtless the reader learned in romance-composition may imagine that I am merely preparing the way for a fine scene of escape from prison, with melodramatic incidents, new songs, scenery, and decorations. But, as I am sorry to say no such heroic result was at this time achieved by Lord Montagu's page, I cannot use it as an incident in this part of my true history. I only mention the percolation of the water of the fosse, and its effect upon the foundations amongst which that and other dungeons were placed, to show that the place of the poor youth's confinement was as damp and disagreeable as it could be. Some stones had fallen from the vault above, some large detached pieces of mortar, green and shiny, covered the mud or stone floor, and the walls were all glistening with dampness; but those walls were too thick and the blocks of stone of which they were composed too heavy for any unaided prisoner to have worked his way out, with the utmost diligence. In one corner of the miserable hole was a sort of camp-bedstead, with a straw bed covered with yellow and green stains from long exposure to the foul, moist air,—disgust and sickness and death to lie upon; and in another corner, high up on the wall, was a little grated window, not so high as the opposite parapet of the glacis, but sufficiently so to admit the air and the sounds from without. The wall was too thick to allow of a prisoner catching even a glimpse of the blue sky or to permit one ray of the sun to enter, even at his rising or his setting. It was indeed a desolate chamber. What an expressive word that desolate is! Although sometimes in the heats of an almost tropical climate—heats often more intense than I ever heard of in the tropics themselves—I sometimes grumble a little at the power and ardor of the sun, yet what would the earth be without him? what is any place on the earth's surface which he does not visit? Desolate, desolate indeed!

The first sound which Edward heard after the bolts had ceased to grate in their sockets was that of a cannon, apparently from the walls of the castle. Some few minutes after the same sound seemed to be repeated from a distance. It might be an echo. He could not tell. But a moment or two after another report was heard, certainly nearer; and then two more confirmed his fancy that they were signal-guns announcing that the well-watched English envoy had been captured and was a prisoner at Coiffy. Some three hours then passed, if not in perfect silence, at least only enlivened by the voices of some soldiers on the ramparts; and then came the squeaking of the wry-necked fife and the beating of drums, intimating to Edward that troops of some kind were drawing round Coiffy. Then were heard voices on the drawbridge, and gay laughter, as if officers were being received into the castle with signs of honor.

All that passed away, and silence resumed her reign till night fell. The light in the lantern burned down almost to the socket. No meat, no drink, had been brought to the prisoner; and he began to ask himself if it could be their intention to starve him there in darkness. His feelings were not pleasant.

Just about that time there was some noise and bustle heard from without,—probably on the drawbridge or at the gate,—the tramp of horses, and voices speaking. Then for a few minutes all was silent again. Then there were sounds just above, more distinct and clear than any he had hitherto heard,—people speaking, and others moving slowly about,—evidently penetrating to the cell which Edward tenanted by the broken parts of the vault on which the flooring of the upper chamber rested.

"Oh!" cried a voice, with a groan, "you have got me by the shoulder just on the wound! Do not do that! Put your hand lower down: not there, not there!—lower still. That young devil! he does not miss his mark, indeed!"

"Lay him on the bed,—flat on his back," said another voice. "Now, Brin, is not that easier for you?" And then followed several sentences in a language Edward did not understand at all.

"The two blacksmiths," said Edward to himself. "They have just brought in the wounded man."

For some half-hour various sounds succeeded, some distinct, others confused, to which the young prisoner did not pay much attention; and then there was a sort of lull,—not quite silence, but still much less bustle. Even slight sounds were easily distinguishable in the dungeon; for the roof was so far dilapidated that here and there the rays of light from above found their way through a chink in the flooring and traced a yellow line upon the pavement. He could hear the wounded man groan and ask in a faint tone for drink.

"He is badly hurt, it seems," said Edward Langdale to himself: "if the horse had not shied away, it would have gone through his head and served the traitor right."

Edward wanted a little more softening to make him a real sentimental hero; but I can only paint him as I find him. He did not feel the slightest remorse for what he had done. He thought it but right,—but just; and he would have done it over again the next minute. It is true, the groans of the wounded man did somewhat annoy him. He felt no pleasure in his pain; but, as to the mere fact of having shot him because he had betrayed his lord, Edward was as hard as a stone.

It seemed, indeed, as if Monsieur de Bourbonne was inclined to try upon the young Englishman the treatment sometimes employed to tame wild beasts,—fasting and darkness. He had kept him without food all day; and now the light in the lantern went out, and all was obscure in the dungeon, except where those yellow streaks from above checkered the floor; and the youth's only entertainment was to listen while a good deal of walking to and fro and speaking took place overhead. He divined from all he heard that a surgeon had been sent for and was performing some operation upon the wounded man. At length the latter exclaimed, "Oh, you have got it now. There, there! that is comfortable. It feels as if you had pulled out a hot coal!"

Just at that time a soldier opened the dungeon-door and brought in a pitcher of cool water and some bread.

"Am I to be kept in darkness?" asked Edward.

"I don't know," answered the man, holding up his own lantern to look at him: "you have offended Monsieur le Comte mightily, it seems; but I do not suppose that he intends you should have no light."

"Well, tell him something for me," replied Edward. "Say that I am greatly obliged to him for all his kindness, but that I have friends in France who will repay him sevenfold, or I am much mistaken in them."

The man went away without reply, but returned in a minute or two with a fresh candle.

"Did you tell him?" asked Edward.

"Yes," answered the soldier, who seemed a good-natured sort of person; "I told him. But you had better not enrage him. It will do no good, young gentleman."

Edward ate heartily of his poor fare, and drank the cool water as if it had been nectar. He had hardly finished the temperate meal, when he heard a voice above which he recognised by a slight hesitation of speech as that of Monsieur de Bourbonne; and he certainly might be excused in his circumstances for listening with all his ears.

First the count made several inquiries as to the state of the wounded man; and then he added, "Well, my good friend, I have got the young tiger who scratched you safely caged in the worst dungeon of the castle. I hope you will get well; but if you should die I will hang him from the herse."

"For God's sake, do not do that, monseigneur," cried the companion of the patient.

"If I die, hang him as high as you please," growled the voice of MaÎtre Brin: "the cardinal cannot do any thing to me after I am dead, and the young devil had better go with me."

"Ha!" said Monsieur de Bourbonne, apparently in a tone of some surprise: "he boasts of having some good friends in France, and speaks as if he personally knew his Eminence."

"And so he does," said Brin's more timid companion: "he is a great favorite of the cardinal; and Monsieur de Tronson warned us not to touch a hair of his head under any circumstances. He said that we should be held to answer for any evil that happened to him. We were only to follow him wherever he went from Nantes, and not lose sight of him till he joined the English lord."

"Then did you first see him at Nantes?" asked the count.

"Surely," replied the other: "we waited in the court-yard while he was in with the cardinal, that we might take good note of him as he came out."

There was a silence of some minutes, and then the voice of the sick man was heard saying, "After all, you had better not treat him badly, monseigneur. I do not think I am very much hurt; and if he is hardly used some of us will suffer, you may be sure."

"You should have told me this before," said Monsieur de Bourbonne, in a very sharp tone.

"Why, what time had we to tell you any thing, monseigneur?" asked the wounded man's brother.

"At all events, we tell you now," growled Brin; "and this talking is not likely to do me good. The lad is as fierce as a young wolf. He threatened to shoot me once before; but he is a pet of the cardinal,—one of his own people, for aught we know,—and, now that you are told he is so, you may use him as you think fit. It is no fault of ours: we have not hurt him."

It is probable that the interview was less satisfactory to the Count de Bourbonne than he had expected; for he brought it speedily to a conclusion, and Edward for full half an hour after heard the two men above talking together in the language he did not understand. At the end of that time the bolt of the door was undrawn, and the soldier who had previously brought him bread and water appeared again, with somewhat of a grin upon his face.

"Well, young gentleman," he said, "Monsieur le Comte begs you will send him up the safe-conduct you mentioned to him. After seeing that, perhaps they may treat you better."

"Tell him I will not!" said Edward, in a resolute tone: "he may come and take it from me by force,—or he may see it here in my presence; but I give it out of my own hands to no one,—especially not to one who has treated me unlike a soldier and a gentleman. Tell him what I say."

The soldier laughed. "'Pon my word, you are a bold one!" he said. "Do you not know you are quite in his power?"

"Not so much as you think," replied Edward: "I am not the least afraid of him. Tell him exactly what I say."

A full hour passed; and probably it was spent in some degree of anxious and hesitating deliberation between Monsieur de Bourbonne and the Count de Boulogne, his father-in-law, for they remained the whole of that time shut up together in a small room on the second floor. One can easily conceive that it was a hard thing for a proud and irritable man to make any concession to a mere lad who set him at defiance in language somewhat tinged with contempt. But a bold face stoutly kept up has a great effect upon most men; and if Edward had known the count intimately he could not (though it was entirely accidental) have chosen his course better. De Bourbonne was brave, and even rash; but he had a terrible reverence for power, and, when he found the youth's account of himself confirmed even by the very man whose life he had nearly taken, fancy conjured up all sorts of ministerial indignation, and showed him the service he had rendered in the capture of Lord Montagu—on which he had based many gorgeous dreams—more than counterbalanced in the eyes of Richelieu by his treatment of one of the cardinal's favorites. Monsieur de Boulogne, too, an older and milder man, strongly counselled moderation and gentleness, somewhat censured what had been already done, and advised recourse to measures perhaps too directly and suddenly opposed.

Still, pride struggled hard with De Bourbonne. He vowed he did not and would not believe the tale which he had heard. What hold, he asked, could a mere fierce English lad have upon the cardinal? and for some time his father-in-law reminded him in vain that Richelieu, though a wonderfully great man, was somewhat capricious in his affections, suggested that, as he was not a little superstitious, too, in regard to astrology and the occult sciences, he might find some imaginary connection between the youth's fate and his own, and pointed out that it was utterly improbable Edward should treat him with such daring disrespect if he was not certain of some very strong support.

In the mean time the poor prisoner remained in some doubt and anxiety. Imprisonment, solitude, and low diet had gone some way to tame the wild bird, and the uncertainty of the last hour had been very heavy. He had fancied that the words he had heard spoken by the wounded man and his companion would produce an immediate change; but, as minute after minute passed by and nothing indicated any better treatment, he began to despond. At length, however, he heard the tramp of feet and the jingle of spurs, and a man with a torch opened the door, admitting Monsieur de Boulogne and one or two attendants.

"Young gentleman," said the old nobleman, with a reproving but fatherly air, "you have been acting very rashly and impetuously toward the count my son-in-law."

"And how has he been acting toward me, sir?" asked Edward, in a more respectful tone than he had used in speaking to the younger man.

"Somewhat harshly, I am afraid," said the other, looking round him: "he could not have known the state of this place, or he would not have put you here."

"What right had he to put me in a dungeon at all?" asked Edward.

"Why, you shot and nearly killed one of his attendants," was the reply.

"Not at all," answered Edward. "You are deceived, sir. I shot an attendant of Lord Montagu whom I caught in the act of betraying his master. Ask his lordship—ask the man himself or his brother—if they had not both taken service with my lord and received his money."

The old gentleman smiled. "That puts a new face upon the matter," he said. "But let us leave recriminations. I wish to smooth matters down between you and my fiery relative. You say you have a safe-conduct from his Eminence of Richelieu. Let me see it."

"On the sole condition, sir, that you restore it to me at once," said Edward, putting his hand into a pocket in the breast of his coat and taking out the passport in its velvet case.

"Let me examine it," said Monsieur de Boulogne. "Do not fear. You shall have it again in a moment."

"I do not fear," replied the youth, giving him the case. "I am sure you are a man of honor, by your face."

"Here, man, hold the torch nearer," said the count; and, putting a pair of spectacles—or banicles, as they were then commonly called—upon his nose, he proceeded to examine the safe-conduct minutely. But all was in proper form and order, calling upon all royal officers, governors of cities, castles, or provinces, to let the Seigneur Edward Langdale and suite pass and repass, without limitation of time or place, throughout the land of France; and there was the seal of the council, and the undoubted signature of the prime minister.

The face of the count turned very grave as he read. "This is odd!" he said. "My son should have seen this. Here is your suite mentioned, young gentleman. Of whom consists your suite?"

"I might reply," said Edward, "that any one I choose to name is of my suite, for his Eminence put no restriction. But I wish not to quibble. The suite of which he speaks is now at Nancy,—with the exception of one page," he added, half smiling, "who is in Venice."

"Well, this is all very strange," said the old man. "I cannot understand the cardinal's giving you such a wide safe-conduct at all,—an Englishman,—and a youth like you."

"I am neither bound nor inclined to explain the motives of his Eminence," replied Edward. "If you think fit to interrogate any one upon that subject, it must be himself."

"God forbid!" cried Monsieur de Boulogne, eagerly. "There! take the paper and come with me. I will take this business on myself. Two such young, rash spirits may make mischief."

Edward followed, willingly enough; and the old count led him up the stairs from the dungeon to a tolerably comfortable room in one of the towers above, where he left him on his promise to remain till Monsieur de Bourbonne could be conferred with. In a few minutes the two noblemen entered together, De Bourbonne evidently struggling—not very successfully—to keep up his dignity while forced to make disagreeable concessions.

"The Count de Boulogne informs me, sir," he said, "that you have really got a safe-conduct from his Eminence of Richelieu."

"Which you have known ever since mid-day," said Edward.

"Hush! hush!" said the elder gentleman. "No more of that. Tell my son-in-law, young gentleman, what it is you demand of him in the circumstances."

"I demand that he shall respect the cardinal's safe-conduct," answered the youth.

But De Bourbonne waved his hand, saying, "I will respect it by sending you to his Eminence under guard on the very first opportunity. What more?"

"That I be no more put in a wet dungeon; that I be not fed on bread and water; that I have my baggage restored to me; and that I be treated in every respect as that safe-conduct gives me a right to expect."

"Granted," said the count, "but upon the clear understanding that you are a prisoner and remain such till I can send you to the cardinal."

"With the clear understanding added," replied Edward, "that you shall be called to a strict account for every hour you keep me prisoner without lawful cause, and for your manifest disobedience of the cardinal's written orders under his own hand and seal."

The count's face flushed, and he exclaimed, in evident embarrassment, "What the fiend are you to the cardinal, or the cardinal to you?"

But Edward saw that, one way or another, he had got the advantage. "That, sir," he said, in a cool tone, "you may have to learn hereafter, from other lips than mine. In the mean time you can do exactly as you think fit. Obey the commands you have received in the king's name, or disobey them, as seems expedient to you; but only do not put me in a damp dungeon or feed me on bread and water any more, for it is as unpleasant to me as it may be dangerous to yourself."

"But suppose the safe-conduct is a forgery," said De Bourbonne.

"It would be a curious one," replied the youth, with perfect composure,—"somewhat bold to devise and difficult to practise. Of that you can judge yourself; but take care you judge right. I have but one other demand to make; namely, to be permitted to visit my Lord Montagu."

"He has gone to bed," said De Bourbonne, sharply, "and I shall consider of the matter further till to-morrow. I have now one more question. How much liberty in this castle do you want? It will depend entirely upon whether you do or do not give me your parole of honor that you will not attempt to escape."

"Now, this is strange!" said Edward, with an irrepressible laugh. "One moment I am suspected of forgery, and the next my word of honor is to be relied upon implicitly. However, Monsieur le Comte, as I have no intention of leaving you quite so soon, and as, if I did escape, I should run straight to his Eminence, to whom you say you intend to send me, I will give you my parole. But would you allow me to insinuate that I am exceedingly hungry, and that I have always considered a little good wine of Beaugency better than a draught of cold water out of a pitcher not over-clean?"

Both the counts laughed; and old Monsieur de Boulogne, taking his son-in-law by the arm, led him away, saying, in a low voice, "Come, come! I shall make you two better friends before I have done."

"You will need to do so, father," said M. de Bourbonne; "for, on my life, it shall be long enough before that keen boy sees the cardinal. If what he says is true,—as I suppose it is,—the tales he has to tell might ruin us; and, if it is false, he well deserves a good long spell of imprisonment."