It seemed, indeed, as if Monsieur de Bourbonne was inclined to try upon the young Englishman the treatment sometimes employed to tame wild beasts,--fasting and darkness. He had kept him without food all day; and now the light in the lantern went out, and all was obscure in the dungeon, except where those yellow streaks from above checkered the floor; and the youth's only entertainment was to listen while a good deal of walking to and fro and speaking took place overhead. He divined from all he heard that a surgeon had been sent for and was performing some operation upon the wounded man. At length the latter exclaimed, "Oh, you have got it now. There, there! that is comfortable. It feels as if you had pulled out a hot coal!" Just at that time a soldier opened the dungeon-door and brought in a pitcher of cool water and some bread. "Am I to be kept in darkness?" asked Edward. "I don't know," answered the man, holding up his own lantern to look at him: "you have offended Monsieur le Comte mightily, it seems; but I do not suppose that he intends you should have no light." "Well, tell him something for me," replied Edward. "Say that I am greatly obliged to him for all his kindness, but that I have friends in France who will repay him sevenfold, or I am much mistaken in them." The man went away without reply, but returned in a minute or two with a fresh candle. "Did you tell him?" asked Edward. "Yes," answered the soldier, who seemed a good-natured sort of person; "I told him. But you had better not enrage him. It will do no good, young gentleman." Edward ate heartily of his poor fare, and drank the cool water as if it had been nectar. He had hardly finished the temperate meal, when he heard a voice above which he recognised by a slight hesitation of speech as that of Monsieur de Bourbonne; and he certainly might be excused in his circumstances for listening with all his ears. First the count made several inquiries as to the state of the wounded man; and then he added, "Well, my good friend, I have got the young tiger who scratched you safely caged in the worst dungeon of the castle. I hope you will get well; but if you should die I will hang him from the _herse_." "For God's sake, do not do that, monseigneur," cried the companion of the patient. "If I die, hang him as high as you please," growled the voice of Maître Brin: "the cardinal cannot do any thing to me after I am dead, and the young devil had better go with me." "Ha!" said Monsieur de Bourbonne, apparently in a tone of some surprise: "he boasts of having some good friends in France, and speaks as if he personally knew his Eminence."