We stepped quickly forward, threading the quiet roads as noiselessly as we could, until Vincott stopped before a large building. Lights streamed from the windows, piercing the mirk of the night with brownish rays, and a dull muffled clamour rang through the gateway.
"The Bridewell," whispered Vincott. "Keep your face well shrouded, and for God's sake hide your feet!"
He drew a long breath. I did the same, and we crossed the road and passed beneath the arch.
Mr. Vincott knocked at the great door within the arch, and we were presently admitted and handed over to the guidance of a gaoler.
The fellow led us across a courtyard and into a long room clouded and heavy with the smoke of tobacco.
"Keep the hood close!" whispered my companion a second time.
I muffled my face and bent my head towards the ground. For a noisy clamour of drunken songs and coarse merriment, and, mingled with that, a ceaseless rattle of drinking-cans, rose about me on all sides. It seemed that the Bridewell kept open house that night.
We traversed the room, picking out a path among the captives, for even the floor was littered with men in all imaginable attitudes, some playing cards, some asleep, and most of them drunk. My presence served to redouble the uproar, and each moment I feared that my disguise would be detected. I felt that every eye in the room was centred upon my hood. One fellow, indeed, that sat talking to himself upon a bench, got unsteadily to his feet and reeled towards us. But or ever he came near, the gaoler cut him across the shoulders with his stick and sent him back howling and cursing.
"Back to your kennel!" he shouted. "'Tis an uncommon wench that would visit the lousy likes o' you."
At the far end of the room he unlocked a door which opened on to a narrow flight of stairs. On the landing above he halted before a second door of a more solid make, the panels being strengthened by cross-beams, and secured with iron bars and a massive lock. The gaoler unfastened it and threw it open.
"You have half an hour, mistress," he said, civilly enough. A startled cry of pain broke from the inside, I heard a sharp clink of fetters, and Julian confronted me through the doorway, his eyes ablaze with passion, and every limb strained and quivering.