“What is your motive for this offer?”

“Look there!” returned Nightgall.  “I love that damsel.  He has supplanted me, but he shall not profit by his good fortune.”

“You are the very man I want!” cried Renard, rubbing his hands gleefully.  “Lead me where we can speak more freely.”

The three withdrew unobserved.  Half an hour later Cuthbert dragged himself unwillingly from Cicely’s side and passed into the open air.  As he did so he received a blow on the back of his head which stretched him unconscious on the ground.

When he came to his senses he found himself bound by a chain in a gloomy dungeon, a ghastly, dreadful place, but a few feet in height.  His first instinct was to try to loosen his bonds, but after vainly lacerating his hands he sank down exhausted.

Terrible recollections flashed upon his mind of the pitiless sufferings he had heard that the miserable wretches immured in these dungeons endured before death.

For a time these mental tortures were acute; but at last nature asserted herself, and he sank exhausted into sleep.  He was awakened by a cry, and perceived the tall, skeleton figure of a woman standing by him.  She placed a thin and bony hand upon his shoulder.  He shrank back as far as his chain would permit, horror-stricken.  The figure pursued him, shrieking, “My child!  My child!  You have taken my child!”

Suddenly she stopped and stood erect.  A distant footstep was heard.

“He comes!  He comes!” she cried, and with a loud shriek dashed from the dungeon and disappeared.

In another second Nightgall stood before him.  The gaoler made no attempt to disguise the motives which prompted him to imprison the young esquire.  No threats that Cuthbert could use had the least effect on him.  He quailed before the charge that Cuthbert made at random—­that he had murdered the child of the unfortunate wretch who had disappeared at his coming, but on the question of his release he was obdurate.  If Cuthbert would agree to give up Cicely he should be released; otherwise he should meet with a secret death at the hands of Mauger, the executioner.

At this juncture, Cicely, who had been directed by the dwarf, Xit, appeared.  To save the man she loved she boldly declared that she would wed Nightgall, provided that he would conduct his prisoner outside the walls of the Tower.

“Bring me back some token that you have done so, and I am yours,” she said.

Nightgall consented, and agreed to withdraw while Cuthbert and Cicely arranged privately what the token should be.

Hurriedly Cuthbert gave her a ring to send to Lord Dudley, who, he knew, would at once effect his release.  Then, accompanied by Nightgall, Cicely withdrew from the gloomy dungeon.

Unable to deliver the ring herself to Lord Dudley, Cicely entrusted that task to Xit.  But the vanity of the dwarf prevented the execution of the plan.  As he was exhibiting the ring to Og, Nightgall suddenly approached, and snatched it from him, and, without taking any notice of the little man’s threats, made his way to Cicely.  When he displayed the ring as the token that her lover had been set free, Cicely, shrieking “Lost!  Lost!” fell senseless on the floor.