But their duty was withal of the severest. The invalids went snugly to bed at nine of the clock, or thereabouts, but the veritable men-of-war kept watch and ward all night, turn and turn about, and even when they slept took their repose on a bench, which was placed right across the Prisoner's door. This much-enduring man--for surely no lot could be harder than his--to be thus, and in the very prime and vigour of manhood, cooped up in a worse than gaol, wherein for a long time he was even denied the company of captives as wretched as he,--this slave to some Mightier Will and Sterner Fate than, it would seem, mortal knowledge could wot of, bore his great Distress with an unvarying meekness and calm dignity. With him, indeed, they did as they listed, using him as one that was as Clay in the hands of the Potter; but, not to the extent of one tetchy word or froward movement, did he ever show that he thought his imprisonment unjust, or the bearing of those who were set over him cruel. And this was not an abject stupor or dull indifference, such as I have marked in rogues confined for life in the Bagnios of the Levant, who knew that they must needs pull so many strokes and get so many stripes every day, and so gave up battling with the World, and grinned contumely at their gaolers or the visitors who came sometimes to point at them and fling them copper money. In the King's Prisoner there was a philosophic reserve and quietness that almost approached content; and his resignation under suffering was of that kind that a Just Man may feel who knows that he is upon the ground, and that, howsoever his enemies push at him, he cannot fall far. He never sought to evade the conditions of his captivity or to plead for its being lightened. The courtesies that were offered to him, in so far as the Governor was warranted in offering such civilities, he took as his due; but he never craved a greater indulgence or went one step in word or in deed to obtain a surcease from his harsh and cruel lot.