CHAPTER XVIII

IN THE CELL

When Margaret came to herself, after she had fallen in a senseless heap on the cavern floor, she found herself in darkness, and lying on some straw.

Sitting up, she began to link up slowly with the past, so that she recalled her desperate venture into the place which had so much in it to terrify her. With this came the remembrance of the voices she had heard. She recalled it all, and the dread returned, for surely she was lying in the same place, and her surroundings were distressing as before.

These were her thoughts; and, presently, she determined to move away, to get into the outer air again; anywhere, rather than endeavour to find her way along those forbidding passages which led to Herman's home.

She rose to her feet and moved cautiously, with her hands stretched out before her, lest her face should beat against something in the darkness. She had not gone far before she touched a wall, and it felt cold and damp.

Still going carefully, one hand moving along the wall, or what she supposed to be the rocky side of the cavern, she shivered at the thought of what her feet might presently touch--those forbidding skeletons over which, when she first came with Herman, she had thrown her cloak in reverence for the unknown dead.

But with the dread there was another thought, and one of surprise.

This rock, or wall, which she was touching was wet, and the air had a clammy feeling in it. Her hand became so damp that she caught up her skirt to wipe it. She shuddered when she felt her way on again, thinking to get to the opening to the river, for her hand touched a chill and slimy substance, and then it moved.

What did it mean? The rock which she and Herman had gone round was dry; the floor was crisp and dry as well. Thinking of this, she bent down to feel what the floor was like, and it was wet.

She was bewildered. Was she in the same place, or had she wandered somewhere else in a state of semi-consciousness, in a sleep-walk, perhaps? Determined to solve this problem, she moved on, and then her hand touched something which brought a cry of wonder to her lips.

There was a break in the wall, and her hand went out into the open air, but as she moved her hand farther it struck against something, and her fingers closed over a cold iron bar. There was another, and a third. Running her hands up and down the bars, she came to a stop at the top; to another stop at the bottom. Looking before her, she saw something glinting, and, watching it, she knew it to be a star. In her growing astonishment she saw another, and yet one more; then many. There was a moon somewhere, but hidden behind the clouds which again and again rolled by and shut away the stars.

It began to dawn on her that she was not in the cavern. She continued her progress along the wall, and came to something, the discovery of which brought a cry of anguish to her lips. It was a door, cold to the touch, and sheeted with iron, rough on the surface, as though the rust had formed on it because of the dampness of the place. As her soft hand ran over it she felt iron ribs crossing the door from left to right, and solid studs like the square heads of great nails.

A greater horror came to her than if she had found herself shut up in the cavern near to Herman's home; for now she knew that she was not in it.

This was some other place--but what?

Determined to assure herself, she stood with her back to the door, and walked forward slowly, groping in the darkness, with her hand stretched out before her. She had not gone far before her feet brushed against something which rustled, and, stooping, her hand touched some spread-out straw. Once more upright, she moved across the straw, and came to the wall.

The truth dawned on her now, and she sank on the straw with a sense of horror, hopelessness, an indescribable fear--she knew not what to call it. But this she knew, that she was in prison!

She buried her face in her hands and, shuddering, tried to think this thing out. Why should she be in a prison cell, and not in a cavern with an outlet to the open air, where, when she came to herself she might have waited by the river till the day dawned, and she could have gone to the city gates, and so to her home?

She recalled the voices which had startled her in the cavern. To whom did they belong? Were they river robbers? and was it possible that they made the cavern one of their hiding-places? She began to put the thing into shape. These robbers had found her, and had carried her to some inner place, thinking to deal with her later on, when they had time.

It was a terrible plight for a delicate girl to be in, and she prayed for God's shielding if she had fallen into the hands of desperate and disreputable men.

Another thought gripped her which seemed more terrible than the other. What if those voices belonged to the emissaries of the Inquisition, who had gained an inkling of the fact that William Tyndale was hiding hereabouts, and had come to search the cavern on the chance of finding him? If that were so, then they had found her while she was unconscious, and had carried her to this cell. It was fearful to contemplate the possibility, that this was one of the dungeons in the place which was known throughout the city as the Holy House.

Margaret crouched on the heap of straw until the light of the day-dawn began to creep through the barred window. When she lifted her white, drawn, tear-stained face, and gazed around, she saw that it was as she feared. She really was in a prison; and from what was there, it surely was a part of the Inquisitors' House. When her eyes ranged round the damp walls, where the morning sun came in brokenly, and made the lines of trickling moisture gleam, she saw a great crucifix hanging opposite the window, so placed that the prisoner could not fail to be reminded of the religion and the Church to which she was supposed to be a renegade. The size of this one in the cell was disconcerting, for it was as large as life, as though the Inquisitors meant that the figure of the suffering Saviour should be intrusive.

The long hours went, and Margaret was left to her loneliness. No one came with food, and nothing had passed her lips for all the hours that had gone since she left her home on her father's errand to bid Tyndale leave the city. She looked about to see whether the usual prison fare was in the cell--the bread and water; but none was there.

Nothing living came, save a bird that hopped about on the window-sill, between the bars, and peeped in at the prisoner. Standing in the line of light, the little creature sang his song, but Margaret gained no cheering from it, sweet though it was. There was liberty for that pretty bit of feathered life, which only served to make her feel the misery of her own imprisonment.

The bird flew away, and Margaret's loneliness grew on her. Hunger had begun its torment, and thirst as well. Was this to be her treatment? Had they who brought her here discovered that she was a friend of William Tyndale, and now they meant to leave her to hunger and thirst and loneliness until she died?

That thought brought her from her crouching attitude on to her knees; and then, with her hands clasped and her head bent low, she prayed. She asked for deliverance. She knew not how it would come, but God, she was sure, would find the way. Then came the alternative to her prayer, but she paused and wondered whether she could take it. Could she ask for deliverance, but then say, "If it be possible let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt"? She sobbed, for it was so hard to say, "Thy will be done."

For a time she paused at that point, undergoing the struggle, shrinking from it. She was half rebellious at first; but presently the full surrender came; and the words rang out, "Not as I will but as Thou wilt." If she was to go the way of the martyrs, she pleaded that she might be true, and go on to the end of her martyrdom.

It was late in the afternoon when she heard a sound by the door. A key was thrust into the lock from outside, and it screamed as it turned. Then came the thrusting back of bolts, so many of them, Margaret thought bitterly. What could a girl do, that she should be kept in durance by an iron door, with lock and bolts and bars?

The door opened outwards, and, watching intently, wondering who was coming, she saw two men, cowled and gowned like the Familiars she had sometimes seen in the streets. Neither of them spoke, but one who carried a jar of water in one hand and a loaf in the other, set the water at her feet and tossed the bread on the straw. He turned away in silence, going back to the door with muffled tread, where, he waited, without a word.

Margaret sprang to her feet, and, going to him, caught at his coarse, black robe, but he tore her hand away, still without speaking.

"Why have you brought me here?" she cried, and her face was full of eagerness.

The man made no reply, but stood looking at her, unmoved, apparently, in spite of the traces of her grief on her face.

"Have you no answer for me? If you brought me here, what was your right? And what was my crime, that you should bring me to this horrible place?"

She spoke impulsively and boldly, like one who was fighting for her life, and was taking the chance now that it was here.

The man was silent and still, as though he had been stone, and the girl gazed at him in wonder.

"Do you not hear me?" she cried.

She clutched at his robe and shook his arm, as if to compel him to do something that was human, and not stand there in baleful silence as though he were made of stone. He caught her hand in his, and with a rough wrench that made her cry out with pain, he tore it away from his robe, and thrust her from him with such force that she staggered and fell heavily on the straw.

The other Familiar was meanwhile passing round the cell, looking at everything intently, and especially at the window-bars, as if to satisfy himself that they had not been tampered with, and that there was no possibility of the prisoner's escape. He, too, was silent, and, going to the door when his investigation was ended, he passed away with the other. The door closed noisily, and those sounds which followed made Margaret feel the more how impossible it was to hope for escape.

For a time the bread and water remained untouched, but hunger and thirst compelled her to eat. The coarse black bread, the like of which she had never eaten before, was so dry that she had to soak it in the water. The food satisfied her hunger and took away her sense of weakness, but there was the long night coming, with its loneliness and uncertainty, perhaps its horrors.

The darkness began to enshroud the place, so little was the opening through which the sunset light could come. Somewhere outside, Margaret could hear the birds singing their evening songs, but these grew less and less until the last note came, and the silence of the night began.

Gradually what was in the cell grew indistinct. The image of the Saviour on the cross faded away; and although she had watched it disappear, bit by bit, there was nothing of the crucifix at last for her to see. She turned to the window, but that, too, with its bars, lost its shape, and the night came on so blackly that she would not have known where to look for it. After some hours had gone the cell began to look less dark. The things that had been hidden began to appear, dimly and indistinctly, until the moon came away from the horizon and later shone out clearly while she took her silent night ride through the heavens. This silver light, stealing in, made the cell seem less lonely.

At last, after shaking up the straw, to lie more easily, she threw herself down upon it, after prayer, and fell into a dreamless sleep. When she awoke it was day, and the world was alive and beautiful in the sunshine, although she had no token of what was going on save from the songs of the birds. In the cell itself there was silence but for the scramble of a rat at odd times across the floor. Then she knew what the creature's errand was, for it had eaten some of her bread. All else was quiet, and the stillness of the house to which her cell belonged was such that it appalled her. She would have welcomed the slam of a door, or the sound of a human voice, however harsh, or the tramp of a man's feet.

The thought came to her that possibly a part of her torture was this intolerable loneliness. What might it not mean to her if it continued many days and nights?