With a pale cheek but a firm step Dumiger departed. The last sound that fell upon his ear as he left his door, was the blessing murmured by his bride. Again he felt disposed to turn back and sacrifice all for his affection; but already one of the city guard stood behind him, and the rattle of arms on the pavement told him that his arrest had not been lightly planned or carelessly conducted. The castle toward which Dumiger and his guards directed their steps was the Grimshaus, formerly a citadel and an important point of defense for the town of Dantzic, though now converted into a prison for political offenders and debtors. The reader may be aware that the laws against debtors in the great free commercial cities were intolerably severe. Some men were permitted to groan away their whole lives in hopeless misery. The creditor was in general without pity, and the debtor unpitied. He was entirely at the mercy of the jailer, who had it in his power to load him with chains, and even on the slightest pretext of insubordination to execute summary justice upon him. These laws, however, had as yet little affected Dumiger; though threatened with arrest on one or two previous occasions his difficulties had always been arranged. But the present debt was more serious than any which had as yet been pressed for, and he could not but feel that friends might be less willing to become surety. They arrived at the square in which the Grimshaus was situated. It was a wild, unhealthy, stern, fantastic pile, which stood, in point of fact, upon an island, for a wide, wet ditch surrounded it, except where a drawbridge connected it with the square. The towers and ramparts had in some places mouldered away, and huge bars of iron were introduced in different parts of the wall to give strength to the building by binding the yawning mason-work together. The square was deserted. The cry of the sentinel at the most distant of the landward posts sounded ominous, like that of a lost bird at night. Although the moon shone brightly, it was difficult to distinguish the whole outline of the building, on account of the pestiferous vapors which arose from the moat, and hung like a pall over the recently flooded plain. Through these mists the city chimes sounded muffled and melancholy. It was solitude--of all solitude the most fearful--a prison solitude in the neighborhood of a great town. The very escort appeared to feel the influence of their melancholy and lonely scene, for the jests stopped as the foot of the vanguard clanged on the drawbridge. This was merely the effect of discipline; but to Dumiger it appeared a part of the drama, and it added to his sense of fear. They were detained some time upon the drawbridge while the sergeant was holding some conversation with the officer of the watch.