After a time—­it seemed a day of terrible work and pain to him—­they came to the streets of the town, and in a half conscious sort of way he cursed at the rabble trailing at their heels.  They passed close to the temple, dirt and blood and a burning torment shutting the vision of it from his eyes, and beyond this there was another crowd.  An aisle opened for them, as it had opened for others ahead of them.  In front of the jail they stopped.  Nathaniel’s head hung heavily upon his breast and he made no effort to raise it.  All ambition and desire had left him, all desire but one, and that was to drop upon the ground and lie there for endless, restful years.  What consciousness was left in him was ebbing swiftly; he saw black, fathomless night about him and the earth seemed slipping from under his feet.

A voice dragged him back into life—­a voice that boomed in his ears like rolling thunder and set every fiber in him quivering with emotion.  He drew himself erect with the involuntary strength of one mastering the last spasm of death and as they dragged him through the door he saw there within an arm’s reach of him the great, living face of Strang, gloating at him as if from out of a mist—­red eyed, white fanged, filled with the vengefulness of a beast.

The great voice rumbled in his ears again.

“Take that man to the dungeon!”

CHAPTER X

WINNSOME’S VERDICT OF DEATH

The voice—­the condemning words—­followed Nathaniel as he staggered on between his two guards; it haunted him still as the cold chill of the rotting dungeon walls struck in his face; it remained with him as he stood swaying alone in the thick gloom—­the voice rumbling in his ears, the words beating against his brain until the shock of them sickened him, until he stretched out his arms and there fell from him such a cry as had never tortured his lips before.

Strang was alive!  He had left the spark of life in him, and the woman who loved him had fanned it back into full flame.

Strang was alive!  And Marion—­Marion was his wife!

The voice of the king taunted him from the black chaos that hid the dungeon walls.  The words struck at him, filling his head with shooting pain, and he tottered back and sank to the ground to get away from them.  They followed, and that vengeful leer of the king was behind them, urging them on, until they beat his face into the sticky earth, and smothered him into what he thought was death.

There came rest after that, a long silent rest.  When Nathaniel slowly climbed up out of the ebon shadows again the first consciousness that came to him was that the word-demons had stopped their beating against his brain and that he no longer heard the voice of the king.  His relief was so great that he breathed a restful sigh.  Something touched him then.  Great God! were they coming back?  Were they still there—­waiting—­waiting—­