“My presence here must show you, sir, that I have no wish to avoid the punishment I have incurred,” she replied. “I am come to submit myself to the queen. But if you would serve me—serve me without danger to yourself, or departure from your duty—you will convey this letter without delay to her highness’s own hand.”
“It may be matter of difficulty,” rejoined the officer, “for her majesty is at this moment engaged in a secret conference in the Hall Tower, with the chancellor and the Spanish ambassador. Nay, though I would not further wound your feelings, madam, she is about to sign the death-warrants of the rebels.”
“The more reason, then,” she replied, in accents of supplicating eagerness, “that it should be delivered instantly. Will you take it?”
The officer replied in the affirmative.
“Heaven’s blessing upon you!” she fervently ejaculated.
Committing the captives to the guard, and desiring that every attention, consistent with their situation, should be shown them, the officer departed. Half an hour elapsed before his return, and during the interval but few words were exchanged between Cholmondeley and his companion. When the officer reappeared, she rushed towards him, and inquired what answer he brought.
“Your request is granted, madam,” he replied. “I am commanded to bring you to the queen’s presence; and may your suit to her highness prove as successful as your letter! You are to be delivered to the chief jailer, sir,” he added to Cholmondeley, “and placed in close custody.”
As he spoke, Nightgall entered the guard-room. At the sight of his hated rival, an angry flush rose to the esquire’s countenance, nor was his wrath diminished by the other’s exulting looks.
“You will not have much further power over me,” he observed, in answer to the jailer’s taunts. “Cicely, like Alexia, is out of the reach of your malice. And I shall speedily join them.”
“You are mistaken,” retorted Nightgall, bitterly. “Cicely yet lives; and I will wed her on the day of your execution. Bring him away,” he added, to his assistants. “I shall take him, in the first place, to the torture-chamber, and thence to the subterranean dungeons. I have an order to rack him.”
“Farewell, madam,” said the esquire, turning from him, and prostrating himself before his companion, who appeared in the deepest anguish; “we shall meet no more on earth.”
“I have destroyed you,” she cried. “But for your devotion to me, you might be now in safety.”
“Think not of me, madam, I have nothing to live for,” replied the esquire, pressing her hand to his lips. “Heaven support you in this your last, and greatest, and—as I can bear witness—most unmerited trial. Farewell, for ever!”
“Ay, for ever!” repeated the lady. And she followed the officer; while Cholmondeley was conveyed by Nightgall and his assistants to the secret entrance of the subterranean dungeons near the Devilin Tower.
Accompanied by his charge, who was guarded by two halberdiers, the officer proceeded along the southern ward, in the direction of the Hall Tower—a vast circular structure, standing on the east of Bloody Tower. This fabric (sometimes called the Wakefield Tower from the prisoners confined within it, after the battle of that name in 1460, and more recently the Record Tower, from the use to which it has been put) is one of the oldest in the fortress, and though not coeval with the White Tower, dates back as far as the reign of William Rufus, by whom it was erected. It contains two large octagonal chambers—that on the upper story being extremely lofty, with eight deep and high embrasures, surmounted by pointed arches, and separated by thin columns, springing from the groined arches formerly supporting the ceiling, which though unfortunately destroyed, corresponded, no doubt, with the massive and majestic character of the apartment. In this room tradition asserts that
—the aspiring blood of Lancaster
Sank in the ground:
—it being the supposed scene of the murder of Henry the Sixth by the ruthless Gloster. And whatever doubts may be entertained as to the truth of that dark legend, it cannot be denied that the chamber itself seems stamped with the gloomy character of the occurrence. In recent times, it has been devoted to a more peaceful purpose, and is now fitted up with presses containing the most ancient records of the kingdom. The room on the basement floor is of smaller dimensions, and much less lofty. The recesses, however, are equally deep, though not so high, and are headed by semicircular arches. At high tides it is flooded, and a contrivance for the escape of the water has been made in the floor.