"Well, Heaven speed you!" said the jester; "and yet that's a sorry wish, too. I should rather say, Heaven delay you! as you are not very willing for the journey, I should think;" and as the young man passed him to enter the cell, he added in a low voice, "I will go and tell your friends the ghosts of your sad case; perhaps they may give you spiritual help." These words, however, from the lips that spoke them, gave no comfort to Ferdinand of Altenburg, and entering his cell, he asked one of the soldiers to bring him any food that was to be allowed him as speedily as possible, and if he could obtain permission to let him have a light. "You shall have both, Herr Ferdinand, without permission," answered the man. "I shall ask no questions about it; and as I have no orders, either one way or the other, they can but blame me for a mistake." For about ten minutes, Ferdinand remained in darkness, after the soldiers left him; but at length his friend reappeared, bringing him a flask of wine, some meat, bread, and a lamp. "I must be quick," he said, as he set them down; "for they've all parted in the hall in bad humour, and old Mosbach is walking about like a she-wolf on a winter's night." Before he touched the provisions, and as soon as the door was closed, Ferdinand took the lamp, and examined the chamber carefully, to see whence the voice he had heard could have proceeded. It was a large, low-roofed room, directly underneath the lower hall, and supported by two short, strong, stone pillars; but though he walked round every side, looking keenly for any break or flaw in the walls, he could find no doorway but that by which he had entered, no aperture but the loophole which gave it light by day. The voice had seemed, however, to come from the other side of the chamber, and there all was blank stone. Could he have deceived himself? he inquired. Could the strange sights and scenes he had lately witnessed have so far excited his imagination, that a wild fancy could assume all the signs of reality? "No, no," he thought, "that cannot be;" and seating himself on the bench, which served for table also, he drank a cupful of the wine, and ate a small portion of the food. As he did so, the same voice spoke again, saying, "Eat and drink heartily: you will need it." "Who are you, and what are you?" exclaimed Ferdinand, starting up, and gazing forward towards the corner from which the sounds seemed to come. But at that moment some one tried the door, as if to ascertain that it was fastened securely; and then he could hear voices speaking without, in which he thought he recognised the tones of old Karl von Mosbach and the Count of Ehrenstein. CHAPTER XXX.