I went on towards the prison of the Wolfsberg; so it was nominated by a sort of grim superiority in that place which was all a prison—­the castle which had lorded it so long over the red clustered roofs and stepped gables of Thorn, solely because it meant prisonment and death to the rebel or the refuser of the Duke’s exactions.

Often had I seen the straggling procession of prisoners rise, head following head, up from that weary staircase, my father standing by, as they came up from the cells, counting his victims silently, like a shepherd who tells his flock as they pass through a gap in the sheepfold.

For me, alas! there was but one in that dread fold to-night.  And she my one ewe lamb who ought to have lain in my bosom.

I clamored long at the gate ere I could make the drowsy jailer hear.  As the minutes slipped away I grew more and more wild with fear and anger.  At midnight I must face the Duke, and it was after ten—­how long I knew not, but I feared every moment that I might hear the brazen clang as the hammer struck eleven.

For time seemed to make no impression on me at all that night.

At last the man came, shuffling, grumbling, and cursing, from his truckle-bed.

“What twice-condemned drunken roysterer may you be, that hath mistaken the prison of Duke Otho for a trull-house?

“An order from the Duke—­to see a prisoner!  Come to-morrow then, and, meanwhile, depart to Gehenna.  Must a man be forever at the beck and call of every sleepless sot?  ’Urgent’—­is the Duke’s mandate.  Shove it through the lattice then, that a lantern may flash upon it.”

I pushed under the door a broad piece of gold, which proved more to the purpose than much speech.

The door was opened and I showed my pass.  That and the gold together worked wonders.

The jailer rattled his keys, donned a hood and woollen wrapper which he took down from a nail, and went coughing before me down the chill, draughty passages.  I could hear the prisoners leaping from their couches within as the light of his cresset filtered beneath their doors.  What hopes and fears stirred them!  A summons, it might be, for some one in that dread warren to come up for a last look at the stars, a walk to the heading-place through the soft, velvet-dark night—­then the block, the lightning flash of bright steel, a drench of something sweet and strong like wine upon the lips, and—­silence, rest, oblivion.

But we passed the prison doors one by one, and the jailer of the Wolfsberg went coughing and rasping by to another part of the prison.

“’Tis an ill place for chills,” he grumbled.  “I have never been free of them since first I came to this place, no—­nor my wife neither.  She has been dead these ten years, praises to the pyx!  Ah, would you?” (The torch threatened to go out, so he held it downward in his hand till the pitch melted and caught again, and meanwhile we stood blinded in the smoke and glare which the strong draught forced in our faces.)