Four days later the royal order came.  Rupert was to be taken to the dreaded fortress prison of Loches, a place from which not one in a hundred of those who entered in ever came from alive.

Chapter 20:  Loches.

“A British officer; broke out from Lille.  Ah!” the Governor of Loches said to himself, as he glanced over the royal order.  “Something else beyond that, I fancy.  Prisoners of war who try to break prison are not sent to Loches.  I suppose he has been in somebody’s way very seriously.  A fine young fellow, too—­a really splendid fellow.  A pity really; however, it is not my business.

“Number four, in the south tower,” he said, and Rupert was led away.

Number four was a cell on the third story of the south tower.  More than that Rupert did not know.  There was no looking out from the loopholes that admitted light, for they were boarded up on the outside.  There was a fireplace, a table, a chair, and a bedstead.  Twice a day a gaoler entered with provisions; he made no reply to Rupert’s questions, but shook his head when spoken to.

For the first week Rupert bore his imprisonment with cheerfulness, but the absolute silence, the absence of anything to break the dreary monotony, the probability that he might remain a prisoner all his life, was crushing even to the most active and energetic temperament.

At the end of a month the gaoler made a motion for him to follow him.  Ascending the stairs to a great height, they reached the platform on the top of the tower.

Rupert was delighted with the sight of the sky, and of the wide-spreading fields—­even though the latter was covered with snow.  For a half-an-hour he paced rapidly round and round the limited walk.  Presently the gaoler touched him, and pointing below, said: 

“Look!”

Rupert looked over the battlement, and saw a little party issue from a small postern gate far below him, cross the broad fosse, and pause in an open space formed by an outlying work beyond.  They bore with them a box.

“A funeral?” Rupert asked.

The man nodded.

“They all go out at last,” he said, “but unless they tell what they are wanted to tell, they go no other way.”

Five minutes later Rupert was again locked up in his cell, when he was, in the afternoon of the same day, visited by the governor, who asked if he would say where he had taken Mademoiselle Pignerolles.

“You may as well answer,” he said.  “You will never go out alive unless you do.”

Rupert shook his head.

“I do not admit that I know aught concerning the lady you name; but did I so, I should prefer death to betraying her.”

“Ay,” the governor said, “you might do that; but death is very preferable to life at Loches.”

In a day or two Rupert found himself again desponding.