After he had been detained there for some hours in close captivity, not even being allowed to communicate with his friends in the Stone Kitchen, Nightgall returned with an order from the council for his imprisonment in the Nun’s Bower, whither he was forthwith removed. On the way to his place of confinement, he encountered Xit, and the friendly dwarf would fain have spoken with him, but he was kept at a distance by the halberts of the guard. He contrived, however, to inform him by sundry nods, winks, and expressive gestures, that he would keep a sharp watch upon the proceedings of Nightgall.
Having seen Cholmondeley safely bestowed, the jailer repaired to the entrance of the subterranean dungeons, and lighting a torch, opened the door of a small recess, from which he took a mattock and spade. Armed with these implements he proceeded to the vault, beneath the Devilin Tower, where he commenced digging a grave. After labouring hard for a couple of hours, he attained a sufficient depth for his purpose, and taking the torch, ascended to the small chamber. Lifting the skeleton frame in his arms, he returned to the vault. In placing the torch on the ground it upset, and rolling into the grave was extinguished, leaving him in profound darkness. His first impulse was to throw down the body, but having, in his agitation, placed the hands, which were clasped together, over his neck, he found it impossible to free himself from it. His terror was so great that he uttered a loud cry, and would have fled, but his feet were rooted to the spot. He sank at last on his knees, and the corpse dropped upon him, its face coming into contact with his own. Grown desperate, at length, he disengaged himself from the horrible embrace, and threw the body into the grave. Relieved by this step from much of his fear, he felt about for the spade, and having found it, began to shovel in the mould.
While thus employed, he underwent a fresh alarm. In trampling down the mould, a hollow groan issued from the grave. Trembling in every limb, he desisted from his task. His hair stood erect, and a thick damp gathered on his brow. Shaking off his terrors, he renewed his exertions, and in a short time his task was completed.
He then groped his way out of the vault, and having become by long usage familiarised with its labyrinths, soon reached the entrance, where he struck a light, and having found a lantern, set fire to the candle within it. This done, he returned to the vault, where, to his great horror, he perceived that the face of the corpse was uncovered. Averting his gaze from it, he heaped the earth over it, and then flattened the mass with repeated blows of the spade. All trace of his victim being thus removed, and the vault restored to its original appearance, he took back the implements he had used, and struck into a passage leading in another direction.
Pursuing it for some time, he came to a strong door; unlocked it; and, ascending a flight of stone steps, reached another arched passage, which he swiftly traversed. After threading other passages with equal celerity, he came to a wider avenue, contrived under the eastern ramparts, and tracked it till it brought him to a flight of steps leading to a large octangular chamber, surrounded by eight deep recesses, and forming the basement story of the Salt Tower, at that time, and for upwards of a century afterwards, used as one of the prison lodgings of the fortress. In a chamber in the upper story of this fortification’ now occupied as a drawing-room, is a curious sphere, carved a few years later than the date of this chronicle, by Hugh Draper, an astrologer, who was committed to the Tower on suspicion of sorcery.
Quitting this chamber, Nightgall ascended a winding stone staircase which brought him to an arched door, leading to the room just described. Taking a key from the bunch at his girdle, he unlocked it, and entered the room. A female was seated in one corner with her face buried in her hands. Raising her head at his approach, she disclosed the features of Cicely. Her eyes were red with weeping, and her figure attenuated by long suffering. Conceiving from the savage expression of the jailer’s countenance that he meditated some further act of cruelty, she uttered a loud shriek, and tried to avoid him.