Now, doubtless the reader learned in romance-composition may imagine that I am merely preparing the way for a fine scene of escape from prison, with melodramatic incidents, new songs, scenery, and decorations. But, as I am sorry to say no such heroic result was at this time achieved by Lord Montagu's page, I cannot use it as an incident in this part of my true history. I only mention the percolation of the water of the fosse, and its effect upon the foundations amongst which that and other dungeons were placed, to show that the place of the poor youth's confinement was as damp and disagreeable as it could be. Some stones had fallen from the vault above, some large detached pieces of mortar, green and shiny, covered the mud or stone floor, and the walls were all glistening with dampness; but those walls were too thick and the blocks of stone of which they were composed too heavy for any unaided prisoner to have worked his way out, with the utmost diligence. In one corner of the miserable hole was a sort of camp-bedstead, with a straw bed covered with yellow and green stains from long exposure to the foul, moist air,--disgust and sickness and death to lie upon; and in another corner, high up on the wall, was a little grated window, not so high as the opposite parapet of the glacis, but sufficiently so to admit the air and the sounds from without. The wall was too thick to allow of a prisoner catching even a glimpse of the blue sky or to permit one ray of the sun to enter, even at his rising or his setting. It was indeed a desolate chamber. What an expressive word that _desolate_ is! Although sometimes in the heats of an almost tropical climate--heats often more intense than I ever heard of in the tropics themselves--I sometimes grumble a little at the power and ardor of the sun, yet what would the earth be without him? what is any place on the earth's surface which he does not visit? Desolate, desolate indeed! The first sound which Edward heard after the bolts had ceased to grate in their sockets was that of a cannon, apparently from the walls of the castle. Some few minutes after the same sound seemed to be repeated from a distance. It might be an echo. He could not tell. But a moment or two after another report was heard, certainly nearer; and then two more confirmed his fancy that they were signal-guns announcing that the well-watched English envoy had been captured and was a prisoner at Coiffy. Some three hours then passed, if not in perfect silence, at least only enlivened by the voices of some soldiers on the ramparts; and then came the squeaking of the wry-necked fife and the beating of drums, intimating to Edward that troops of some kind were drawing round Coiffy. Then were heard voices on the drawbridge, and gay laughter, as if officers were being received into the castle with signs of honor.