"How is it with you now, Aylward?"
"Better, Squire, better, but may I never touch water again as long
as I live! Alas! poor Dicon has gone, and Stephen also--the
life chilled out of them. The cold is in the very marrow of my
bones. I pray you, let me lean upon your arm as far as the fire,
that I may warm the frozen blood and set it running in my veins
once more."
A strange sight it was to see these twenty naked men crouching in
a half-circle round the fire with their trembling hands extended
to the blaze. Soon their tongues at least were thawed, and they
poured out the story of their troubles with many a prayer and
ejaculation to the saints for their safe delivery. No food had
crossed their lips since they had been taken. The Butcher had
commanded them to join his garrison and to shoot upon their
comrades from the wall. When they refused he had set aside three
of them for execution.
The others had been dragged to the cellar, whither the leering
tyrant had followed them. Only one question he had asked them,
whether they were of a hot-blooded nature or of a cold. Blows
were showered upon them until they answered. Three had said cold,
and had been condemned to the torment of the fire. The rest who
had said hot were delivered up to the torture of the water-cask.
Every few hours this man or fiend had come down to exult over
their sufferings and to ask them whether they were ready yet to
enter his service.
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