“Captain Moseley, are ye, too, cast into this den of lions?”

“I came hither on an embassage, and I have craved this visit ere I depart.”

“Hast furnished my breakfast?” inquired this stalwart knight from the enchanted wood.  “I think your garrison be short of victual, or my”——­

“Hold thy tongue, thou piece of ill-contrived impertinence,” said the gaoler.  “We have victual and drink too; but for such as thou art, it were an ill-bestowed morsel.  I marvel what can have possessed my lady to keep thee alive!”

The gaoler drew out from his provision bag a small dark-coloured loaf, which he threw at the hungry captive, who, to say the truth, had been half-starved since his imprisonment.

Gideon was devouring it greedily without any further notice, when he suddenly cried out to his keeper—­

“Where gat ye this coarse stuff?  I would not say good-morrow to my dog with so crusty a meal.”

“It was tossed over the wall,” replied the gaoler.  “Our friends oft supply us that way with provision, captain.  I picked it up as I came, and thought it was too good for thy dainty appetite.”

“Captain Moseley,” said the hungry drummer, with great earnestness, “take this.  Break it before thy brethren, and show them how vilely these Egyptian task-masters do entreat us in the house of bondage.”

There was something more than usually impressive in his manner.  Moseley took the loaf as requested; and the gaoler, as if the object before him were beneath suspicion, exclaimed with a knowing look—­

“Had I not brought the manchet myself, and watched thee narrowily, I should have guessed thou hadst crammed some secret message therein to the camp.  But I defy thee, or any of thy batch, to cheat old Gabriel, the rogue’s butler!”

“Prithee, search,” said Captain Moseley, drawing the loaf from his pocket; “thou mayest, peradventure, find treachery in a toothmark, for o’ my troth they be legibly written.”

“Nay,” said Gabriel, with great self-importance, “the knave’s jaws will score no ciphers.  I had as lief interpret pot-hooks and ladles.”

The captain again thrusting it beneath his belt, promised to show his commanders with what coarse fare and severity the prisoners were treated.

“Wilt thou that I intercede for thee before the Countess?” he continued; “if so be that she would remit thee of this durance.”

In a voice of thunder spake the incorrigible Gideon—­

“Intercede!—­I would as lief pray to the saints they should intercede with the Virgin Mary.  I will rot from this perch piecemeal ere I pray to yonder ungodly woman.  Yet shall I escape out of their hands, but not by mine own might, or mine own strength,” said the lion-hearted captive.

Leaving this indomitable Roundhead to his fate, Moseley returned to the camp, reporting the ill success of his mission.