Now presently, as he sat thus, upon the silence stole a sound, low and murmurous, that rose and fell yet never quite died away.  And Beltane, knowing what sound this was, clenched his hands and bowed his face upon his knees.  As he listened, this drone grew to a sudden squealing cry that rang and echoed from wall to wall, whiles Beltane, crouched in that place of horror, felt the sweat start out upon him, yet shivered as with deadly cold, and ever the cries thrilled within the dark or sank to whimpering moans and stifled supplications.  And ever Beltane hearkened to these fell sounds, staring blindly into the gloom, and ever the new Beltane grew the stronger within him.

Hour after hour he crouched thus, so very silent, so very quiet, so very still, but long after the groans and wailings had died to silence, Beltane stared grim-eyed into the gloom and gnawed upon his fingers.  Of a sudden he espied a glowing spark in the angle of the wall to the right—­very small, yet very bright.

Now as he watched, behold the spark changed to a line of golden light, so that his eyes ached and he was fain to shade them in his shackled arm; and thus he beheld a flagstone that seemed to lift itself with infinite caution, and, thereafter, a voice breathed his name.

“Messire—­messire Beltane!” And now through the hole in the floor behold a hand bearing a lanthorn—­an arm—­a shoulder—­a shrouded head; thus slowly a tall, cloaked figure rose up through the floor, and, setting down the lanthorn, leaned toward Beltane, putting back the hood of his mantle, and Beltane beheld Beda the Jester.

“Art awake, messire Beltane?”

“Aye!” quoth Beltane, lifting his head.  “And I have used mine ears!  The wheel and the pulley are rare begetters of groans, as thou did’st foretell, Fool!  ’Twas a good thought to drag me hither—­it needed but this.  Now am I steel, without and—­within.  O, ’tis a foul world!”

“Nay, messire—­’tis a fair world wherein be foul things:  they call them ‘men.’  As to me, I am but a fool—­mark this motley—­yet hither I caused thee to be dragged that I might save those limbs o’ thine from wheel and pulley, from flame and gibbet, and set thee free within a world which I do hold a fair world.  Yet first—­those fetters—­behold hammer and chisel!  Oswin, thy gaoler, sleepeth as sweet as a babe, and wherefore?  For that I decocted Lethe in his cup.  Likewise the guard below.  My father, that lived here before me (and died of a jest out of season), was skilled in herbs—­and I am his son!  My father (that bled out his life ’neath my lord’s supper table) knew divers secret ways within the thickness of these walls—­so do I know more of Pertolepe’s castle than doth Pertolepe himself.  Come, reach hither thy shackles and I will cut them off, a chisel is swifter than a file—­”

“And why would’st give me life, Fool?”

“For that ’tis a useful thing, messire, and perchance as sweet to thee this night within thy dungeon as to me upon a certain day within the green that you may wot of?” So speaking, Beda the Jester cut asunder the chain that bound the fetters, and Beltane arose and stretched himself and the manacles gleamed on each wide-sundered wrist.