When the trial for murder had ended in condemnation, Ralph and Sim were removed from the bar, not to the common gaol from whence they came, but to the castle, and were there committed to a pestilential dungeon under the keep.  This dungeon was known as Doomsdale.  It was indeed a “seminary of every vice and of every disease.”  Many a lean and yellow culprit, it was said, had carried up from its reeking floor into the court an atmosphere of pestilence which avenged him on his accusers.  Some affirmed that none who ever entered it came out and lived.  The access to it was down a long flight of winding stairs, and through a cleft hewn out of the bare rock on which the castle stood.  It was wet with the waters that oozed out of countless fissures and came up from the floor and stood there in pools of mire that were ankle deep.

Ralph was scarcely the man tamely to endure a horrible den like this.  Once again he demanded to see the governor, but was denied that justice.

As a prisoner condemned to die, he, with Sim, was allowed to attend service daily in the chapel of the castle.  The first morning of his imprisonment in this place he availed himself of the privilege.  Crossing the castle green towards the chapel, he attempted to approach the governor’s quarters, but the guard interposed.  Throughout the service he was watchful of any opportunity that might arise, but none appeared.  At the close he was being taken back to Doomsdale, side by side with his companion, when he saw the chaplain, in his surplice, crossing the green to his rooms.  Then, at a sudden impulse, Ralph pushed aside the guard, and, tapping the clergyman on the shoulder, called on him to stop and listen.

“We are condemned men,” he said; “and if the law takes its course, in six days we are to die; but in less time than that we will be dead already if they keep us in that hell on earth.”

The chaplain stared at Ralph’s face with a look compounded equally of amazement and fear.

“Take him away,” he cried nervously to the guard, who had now regained possession of their prisoner.

“You are a minister of the Gospel,” said Ralph.

“Your servant,” said the clergyman, with mock humility.

“My servant, indeed!” said Ralph; “my servant before God, yet beware of hypocrisy.  You are a Christian minister, and you read in your Bible of the man who was cast into a lion’s den, and of the three men who were thrown into the fiery furnace.  But what den of lions was ever so deadly as this, where no fire would burn in the pestilential air?”

“He is mad,” cried the chaplain, sidling off; “look at his eyes.”  The guard were making futile efforts to hurry Ralph away, but he shouted again, in a voice that echoed through the court,—­

“You are a Christian minister, and your Master sent his disciples over all the earth without purse or scrip, but you lie here in luxury, while we die there in disease.  Look to it, man, look to it!  A reckoning day is at hand as sure as the same God is over us all!”