FORGOTTEN?
Pabo was hurried away, along a corridor, down a flight of steps, through
the courtyard, and was thrust into a dungeon at the base of a tower on
the east side of the castle. He had to descend into it by steps, and
then the heavy oak door was shut and locked.
The floor was of the limestone rock, with some earth on it; the walls
new, and smelling of mortar. One slit, far up, admitted a ray of light,
and beneath the door was a space of as much as two finger-breadths
between it and the stone sill. No preparations had been made for his
reception. No straw or fern was littered for a bed, nor was a pitcher of
water set for him, that he might quench his thirst. Pabo was hungry; he
had partaken of nothing since he left Caio save a crust that had been
given him at Llanwrda on his way. At Llandeilo the soldiers had
purposely avoided the town, and they had halted nowhere on the way
except at the place Llanwrda, where they had given him a portion of
their breakfast.
Pabo supposed that he was to remain in confinement as long as suited the
convenience of the bishop. He was far from fathoming the purpose of the
prelate in endeavoring to cajole or frighten him into a denial of his
own identity. Had he known the figure Bernard was endeavoring to cut at
his expense, he would have laughed aloud and made his dungeon walls
ring.
He cast himself in a corner against the wall and waited, in the
expectation of his jailer coming in before long with a truss of straw,
some bread and water, and possibly chains for his hands or feet. But
hours passed, and no one came.
From where he sat he could see feet go by his door, and it seemed to him
that towards evening these were the feet of women.
No sentinel paced the court outside his doorway. He heard human voices,
occasionally, but could distinguish no words.
The evening closed in, and still none attended to him. Feeling in his
pouch he found some dried corn from the hermit's store. When wandering
on the mountains he had been wont to thus provide himself, and happily
there remained still some unconsumed. With this he filled his mouth.
He waited on as darkness settled in, so that he could but just
distinguish his window and the gap below the door, and at length fell
into a troubled sleep.
During the night he woke with the cold, and groped for the blankets he
had been accustomed to draw over him in the cell on Mallaen, but here in
the prison of Careg Cennen none were provided. He felt stiff and chilled
in his bones with lying on the bare rock. He turned from side to side,
but could find no relief.
Surely it was not the intention of Gerald of Windsor to detain him there
without the modicum of comforts supplied to the worst of criminals. He
had not offended the Norman baron. If he were not Pabo, as the bishop
insisted, why was he dealt with so harshly? He had not done anything to
show that he was a fanner of rebellion. Against him not a particle of
evidence could be adduced.
The thought that he carried with him the great secret of the hermit also
troubled him. It is said that no witch can die till she has
communicated her hidden knowledge to some sister.
It was to Pabo a thought insupportable that he was unable to impart the
secret deposited with him to some one who could use the knowledge for
the good of his oppressed countrymen.
Hitherto the attempts made by the Welsh to shake off their yoke had been
doomed to failure, largely because of their inability to purchase
weapons and stores that might furnish their levies and maintain them in
the field. It was not that in the Cambrian Mountains there had been
deficiency in resolution and lack of heroism; but it was the poverty of
Wales that had stood no chance against the wealth of England.
For himself Pabo cared little, but he was deeply concerned that he had
no means of conveying the secret that had been entrusted to him to those
who could make good use of it.
He dozed off again in cold and hunger, and fell to dreaming that he had
lit on an ingot of pure gold, so large and so weighty that he could not
himself lift it, and opened his eyes to see a golden bar indeed before
him, but it was one of sunlight, painted on the wall by the rising orb
as it shone through the slit that served as window. He waited now with
impatience, trusting that some one would come to him. Yet time passed
and none arrived.
He moved to one of the steps, seated himself thereon, and looked at the
light between the bottom of the door and the sill. Again he saw what he
conjectured to be women's feet pass by, and presently, but after a long
interval, return; and this time he knew that the feet belonged to a
woman, for she stopped where he could see, set down an earthenware
pitcher, and exchanged some words with a soldier, one of the garrison.
He could see the pitcher nearly to the handle, but not the hand that set
it down and raised it. Yet he distinguished the skirts of the dress and
the tones of voice as those of a woman.
Presently he again heard a voice, that belonged to a female, and by the
intonation was sure that what she spoke was in Welsh. She was calling
and strewing crumbs, for some fell near his door. Immediately numerous
pigeons arrived and pecked up what was cast for them. He could see their
red legs and bobbing heads, and wished that some of the fragments might
have been for him.
He had hardly formed the wish before a crust, larger than any given to
the birds, fell against his door, and there was a rush of pigeons
towards it. Pabo put forth two fingers through the opening, and drew the
piece of bread within. He had hardly secured this, before another piece
fell in the same place, and once more, in the same manner, he endeavored
to capture it. But unhappily it had rebounded just beyond his reach, and
after vain efforts he would have had to relinquish it wholly to the
pigeons had not feet rapidly approached and a hand been lowered that
touched the crust and thrust it hastily under the door, and then pushed
in another even larger.
After this the feet went away. But still the pigeons fluttered and
pecked till they had consumed the last particle cast to them.
Pabo ate the pieces of bread ravenously.
He was not thirsty. The coolness and moisture of the prison prevented
him from becoming parched. What he had received was not, indeed, much,
but it was sufficient to take off the gnawing pain that had consumed his
vitals.
Now for the first time he realized the force of the prelate's words when
he had bidden Gerald of Windsor to cast him--Pabo--into a dungeon,
there to be _forgotten_. Forgotten he was to be, ignored as a human
being immured in this subterranean den. He was to be left there, totally
unattended and unprovided for. Of this he was now convinced, both
because of the neglect he had undergone, and also because of the attempt
made by some Welshwoman, unknown to him, surreptitiously to supply him
with food. This she would not have done had she not been aware of the
fate intended for him. He was to be left to die of cold and hunger and
thirst, and was not to leave the prison save as a dwindled, emaciated
wreck, with the life driven out of him by privation of all that is
necessary for the support of life. He was now well assured of what was
purposed, and also, and equally assured, that he had in the castle some
friend who would employ all her feminine craft to deliver him from such
a fate.
Slowly, tediously the day passed. Still, occasionally voices were
audible, but no feet approached the dungeon doorway. Overhead there were
chambers, but the prison was vaulted with stone, and even were any
persons occupying an upper story, they were not likely to be heard by
one below.
It was, perhaps, fortunate that for some time on the mountain Pabo had
led a very frugal life and had contented himself with parched grain, or
girdle-cakes of his own grinding and making. Yet to these had been added
the milk of a goat, and for this he now craved. He thought of his poor
Nanny bleating, distressed with her milk; he thought of how she had
welcomed him when he returned to the cell. Poor Nanny! What would he not
now give for a draught of her sweet sustaining milk!
Another night passed, and again in the morning there ensued the feeding
of the pigeons, and therewith a fall of crusts within his reach by the
door.
During the day he heard a clatter of hoofs in the courtyard, and by
seating himself on the lowest step in his vault, leaning one elbow on
another, and bringing first eye and then ear near to the gap below the
door, he saw and heard sufficient to lead him to suppose that the bishop
was leaving Careg Cennen, to return to his own castle of Llawhaden.
He could even distinguish his strident voice, and catch a few words
uttered by him, as he turned his face towards the dungeon-door, and
said: "My good friend Gerald--is, humph! the impostor forgotten?"
"Forgotten, as though he had never been," was the response, in the rough
tones of the Norman Baron.
Then both laughed.
Pabo clenched his hands and teeth.
Presently, a clatter; and through the gateway passed the cavalcade.
There was no drawbridge at Careg Cennen for there was no moat, no water;
but there was a portcullis, and there were stout oak-barred doors.
After the departure of the prelate, the castle fell back again into
listlessness. No sounds reached the ear of Pabo, save the occasional
footfall of one passing across the court with the leisurely pace of a
person to whom time was of no value.
On this day the prisoner began to be distressed for water. The walls of
his cell, being of pervious limestone, absorbed all moisture from the
air, so that none condensed on it. In the morning he had swallowed the
dry crusts with difficulty. He now felt that his lips were burning, and
his tongue becoming dry. If food were brought him on the morrow, he
doubted whether he would then be able to swallow it.
But relief came to him in a manner he had not expected. During the night
rain fell, and he found that by crouching on the steps and putting his
fingers beneath the door, he could catch the raindrops as they trickled
down the oak plank, and convey the scanty supply by this means to his
mouth. But with the first glimpse of dawn he saw a means of furnishing
water that was more satisfactory. With his fingers he scraped a channel
beneath the door to receive the falling drops, and then, by heaping the
soil beyond this, forced the water as it ran down the door and dripped,
to decant itself in a small stream over the sill. By this means he was
able to catch sufficient to assuage the great agony of thirst.
He was thus engaged when suddenly a foot destroyed his contrivance, and
next moment he heard a key turned in the lock.
He started from the steps on which he was lying, the door was thrown
open, and before him stood a muffled female figure, against the gray
early morning light, diffused through thick rain that filled the castle
yard.
Without a word the woman signed to Pabo to follow. She made the gesture
with impatience, and he obeyed without hesitation.
"Follow me!" she whispered in Welsh, and strode rapidly before him, and
passed through a small doorway, a very few steps from the tower, yet in
the south face of the castle. She beckoned imperiously to him to enter,
then closed the door on him, went back and relocked that of the dungeon.
Next moment she was back through the small door. Pabo found himself in a
narrow passage that, as far as he could judge, descended by steps.
The woman bolted the door behind.
The place was dark, but she led on.
The way descended by steps, then led along a narrow passage, with rock
on one side and wall on the other, till she reached a great natural
vault--a cave opening into the heart of the crag on which the castle was
built. And here the passage terminated in a wooden stair that descended
into darkness, only illumined by one point of red light.
Still she descended, and Pabo followed.
Presently she was at the bottom, and now he saw in a hollow of the rock
on one side a little lamp burning with a lurid flame.
She struck off the glowing snuff, and it sent up a bright spire of
light.
"Forgotten," said she, turning to Pabo, and throwing back her hood.
"Forgotten! Nay, Nest will never forget one of her own people--never."