Deep in the foundations of the north-eastern tower the miserable creature was embedded, in a stone chamber as utterly void and empty as despair. The walls, the floor, the roof, were all chiselled as smooth as glass. There was not anywhere foothold for a cat—nor door, nor trap, nor egress, nor window of any kind, save where, just under the ceiling, the grated opening by which he had been lowered let in by day a haggard ghost of light. And even that wretched solace was withdrawn as night fell—became a phantom, a diluted whisp of memory, sank like water into the blackness, and left the fancy suddenly naked in self-consciousness of hell. Then Capello screamed, and threw himself towards the last flitting of that spectre. He fell and bruised his limbs horribly: the very pain was a saving occupation. He struck his skull, and revelled in the agonised dance of lights the blow procured him. But one by one they blew out; and in a moment dead negation had him by the throat again, rolling him over and over, choking him under enormous slabs of darkness. Now, gasping, he cursed his improvidence in not having glued his vision to the place of the light’s going. It would have been something gained from madness to hold and gloat upon it, to watch hour by hour for its feeble re-dawn. Among all the spawning monstrosities of that pit, with only the assured prospect of a lingering death before him, the prodigy of eternal darkness quite overcrowed that other of thirst and famine. Yet the dawn broke, it would seem, before its due. Had he annihilated time, and was this death? He rose rapturously to his feet, and stood staring at the grating, the tears gushing down his fallen cheeks. The bars were withdrawn; and in their place was a lamp intruded, and a face looked down. ’Capello, dost thou hunger and thirst?’ The voice awoke him to life, and to the knowledge of who out of all the world could be thus addressing him. He answered, quaveringly: ’I hunger and thirst, Galeazzo.’ ’It is a beatitude, monk,’ said the voice. ’Thou shalt have thy fill of justice.’ ’Alas!’ cried the prisoner: ’justice is with thee, I fear, an empty phrase.’ ’Comfort thyself,’ said the other: ’I shall make a full measure of it. It shall bubble and sparkle to the brim like a great goblet of Malmsey. Dost know the wine Malmsey, monk?—a cool, heady, fragrant liquid, that gurgles down the arid throat, making one o’ hot days think of gushing weirs, and the green of grass under naked feet.’ The monk fell on his knees, stretching out his arms. ’I ask no mercy of thee, but to end me without torture.’