“They had done better had they tried to seize upon Gaston himself,” said Raymond, with a half smile.  “He would have been a prize better worth the taking.  But possibly he would have proved too redoubtable a foe.  Methinks my arm has somewhat lost its strength or cunning, else should I scarce have fallen so easy a prey.  I ought to have striven harder to have kept by Gaston’s side; but I know not now how we came to be separated.  And Roger, too, who has ever been at my side in all times of strife and danger, how came he to be sundered from me likewise?  It must have been done by the fellows who bore me off —­ the followers of the Black Visor.  Strange, very strange!  I know not what to think of it.  But when next my jailer comes he will doubtless tell me where I am and what is desired of me.”

The chances of war were so uncertain, and the captive of one day so often became the victor of the next, that Raymond, who for all his fragile look possessed a large fund of cool courage, did not feel greatly disturbed by the ill-chance that had befallen him.  Many French knights were most chivalrous and courteous to their prisoners; some even permitted them to go out on parole to collect their own ransoms, trusting to their word of honour to return if they were unable to obtain the stipulated sum.  The English cause had many friends amongst the French nobility, and friendships as well as enmities had resulted from the English occupation of such large tracts of France.

So Raymond resolved to make the best of his incarceration whilst it lasted, trusting that some happy accident would soon set him at large again.  With such a brother as Gaston on the outside of his prison wall, it would be foolish to give way to despondency.

He looked curiously about at the cave-like place in which he found himself.  It appeared to be a natural chamber formed in the living rock.  It received a certain share of air and light from a long narrow loophole high up overhead, and the place was tolerably fresh and dry, though its proportions were by no means large.  Still it was lofty, and it was wide enough to admit of a certain but limited amount of exercise to its occupant.

Raymond found that he could make five paces along one side of it and four along the other.  Except the heap of straw, upon which he had been laid, there was no plenishing of any kind to the cell.  However, as it was probably only a temporary resting place, this mattered the less.  Raymond had been worse lodged during some of his wanderings before now, and for the two years that he had lived amongst the Cistercian Brothers, he had scarcely been more luxuriously treated.  His cell there had been narrower than this place, his fare no less coarse than that he had just partaken of, and his pallet bed scarce so comfortable as this truss of straw.

“Father Paul often lay for weeks upon the bare stone floor,” mused Raymond, as he sat down again upon his bed.  “Sure I need not grumble that I have such a couch as this.”