“Thou too a prisoner in this terrible place, my Gaston?  O brother —­ my brother —­ I trusted that I might have died for us both!”

“A prisoner? nay, Raymond, no prisoner; but as thy rescuer I come.  What, believest thou not?  Then shalt thou soon see with thine own eyes.

“But let me look first upon thy face.  I would see what these miscreants have done to thee.  Thou feelest more like a creature of skin and bone than one of sturdy English flesh and blood.

“The light, Roger!

“Ay, truly, Roger is here with me.  It is to him in part we owe it that we are here this night.  Raymond, Raymond, thou art sorely changed!  Thou lookest more spirit-like than ever!  Thou hast scarce strength to stand alone!  What have they done to thee, my brother?”

But Raymond could scarce find strength to answer.  The revulsion of feeling was too much for him.  When he had heard that terrible sound, and had seen the slab in the floor sink out of sight, he had sprung from his bed of straw, ready to face his cruel foes when they came for him, yet knowing but too well what was in store for him when he was carried down below, as he had been once before.  Then when, instead of the cruel mocking countenance of Peter Sanghurst, he had seen the noble, loving face of his brother, and had believed that he, too, had fallen into the power of their deadly foes, it had seemed to him as though a bitterness greater than that of death had fallen upon him, and the rebound of feeling when Gaston had declared himself had been so great, that the whole place swam before his eyes, and the floor seemed to reel beneath his feet.

“We will get him away from this foul place!” cried Gaston, with flaming eyes, as he looked into the white and sharpened face of his brother, and felt how feebly the light frame leaned against the stalwart arm supporting it.

He half led, half carried Raymond the few paces towards the slab in the floor which formed the link with the region beneath, and the next minute Raymond felt himself sinking down as he had done once before; only then it had been in the clasp of his most bitter foe that he had been carried to that infernal spot.

The recollection made him shiver even now in Gaston’s strong embrace, and the young knight felt the quiver and divined the cause.

“Fear nothing now, my brother,” he said.  “Though we be on our way to that fearful place, it is for us the way to light and liberty.  Our own good fellows are awaiting us there.  I trow not all the hireling knaves within this Castle wall should wrest thee from us now.”

“I fear naught now that thou art by my side, Gaston,” answered Raymond, in low tones.  “If thou art not in peril thyself, I could wish nothing better than to die with thine arm about mine.”

“Nay, but thou shalt live!” cried Gaston, with energy, scarce understanding that after the long strain of such a captivity as Raymond’s had been it was small wonder that he had grown to think death well-nigh better and sweeter than life.  “Thou shalt live to take vengeance upon thy foes, and to recompense them sevenfold for what they have done to thee.  I will tell this story in the ears of the King himself.  This is not the last time that I shall stand within the walls of Saut!”