When Dalgetty had recovered, his first demand was to know over whom he had stumbled.

“He was a man a month since,” answered a hollow and broken voice.

“And what is he now, then,” said Dalgetty, “that he thinks it fitting to lie upon the lowest step of the stairs, and clew’d up like a hurchin, that honourable cavaliers, who chance to be in trouble, may break their noses over him?”

“What is he now?” replied the same voice; “he is a wretched trunk, from which the boughs have one by one been lopped away, and which cares little how soon it is torn up and hewed into billets for the furnace.”

“Friend,” said Dalgetty, “I am sorry for you; but PATIENZA, as the Spaniard says.  If you had but been as quiet as a log, as you call yourself, I should have saved some excoriations on my hands and knees.”

“You are a soldier,” replied his fellow-prisoner; “do you complain on account of a fall for which a boy would not bemoan himself?”

“A soldier?” said the Captain; “and how do you know, in this cursed dark cavern, that I am a soldier?”

“I heard your armour clash as you fell,” replied the prisoner, “and now I see it glimmer.  When you have remained as long as I in this darkness, your eyes will distinguish the smallest eft that crawls on the floor.”

“I had rather the devil picked them out!” said Dalgetty; “if this be the case, I shall wish for a short turn of the rope, a soldier’s prayer, and a leap from a ladder.  But what sort of provant have you got here—­what food, I mean, brother in affliction?”

“Bread and water once a day,” replied the voice.

“Prithee, friend, let me taste your loaf,” said Dalgetty; “I hope we shall play good comrades while we dwell together in this abominable pit.”

“The loaf and jar of water,” answered the other prisoner, “stand in the corner, two steps to your right hand.  Take them, and welcome.  With earthly food I have wellnigh done.”

Dalgetty did not wait for a second invitation, but, groping out the provisions, began to munch at the stale black oaten loaf with as much heartiness as we have seen him play his part at better viands.

“This bread,” he said, muttering (with his mouth full at the same time), “is not very savoury; nevertheless, it is not much worse than that which we ate at the famous leaguer at Werben, where the valorous Gustavus foiled all the efforts of the celebrated Tilly, that terrible old hero, who had driven two kings out of the field—­namely, Ferdinand of Bohemia and Christian of Denmark.  And anent this water, which is none of the most sweet, I drink in the same to your speedy deliverance, comrade, not forgetting mine own, and devoutly wishing it were Rhenish wine, or humming Lubeck beer, at the least, were it but in honour of the pledge.”

While Dalgetty ran on in this way, his teeth kept time with his tongue, and he speedily finished the provisions which the benevolence or indifference of his companion in misfortune had abandoned to his voracity.  When this task was accomplished, he wrapped himself in his cloak, and seating himself in a corner of the dungeon in which he could obtain a support on each side (for he had always been an admirer of elbow-chairs, he remarked, even from his youth upward), he began to question his fellow-captive.