“Eat and drink,” said one of them; but I could do no more than roll my head helplessly from side to side.
Then the other, seeing how foredone I was, put the pitcher to my lips, and I drank, although each mouthful I swallowed of the water was a fresh torment. But with the blessed water there came relief, nay, life itself, for the frenzy died out of my brain, and my mind became calm and clear. Thereafter I ate, and essayed to speak with the two men, but they had evidently been forbidden to converse with me, for they would answer nothing. After a short time they withdrew, bolting and barring the door behind them, and I was left to myself.
Hours dragged slowly by, and, at length, the sleep of exhaustion fell upon me, and when I awoke it was broad daylight. The repose had restored me in a great measure to myself; but the stinging of the cuts made by the bonds on my legs and arms, and the dull throbbing, throbbing of my head, quickly recalled me to the misery of my situation.
In the morning, however, I was released from the ropes, and more food and water were brought me. Again I endeavoured to get the men, who I perceived were the same that had come to me the previous evening, to speak to me, but in vain.
Before they had made their appearance I had seen that I had not been cast into one of the dungeons of Askeaton, but was imprisoned in a chamber which I judged, numbering the steps up which I had been borne, to be at the top of one of the towers of the castle. As soon as they had gone I set about examining the room, albeit I was so stiff and sore that at first I could only crawl and creep on the floor. As this exercise, however, gave me back the use of my limbs, I was soon able to stand and move about with ease.
The room was small and bare, without even a stool or a bench, and was lighted by a little, narrow window, from which I caught glimpses of distant masses of trees and the slopes and peaks of far-off mountains. During my first visit to Desmond, I had made myself familiar with every part of the castle, and I knew that the surmise I had made that the room was high up in a tower was a true one.
There were only the two ways of getting out, the one by the door, the other by the window. The door was firmly secured, for I had tried it, but I might as well have sought to move the stone walls of the chamber. And the window was many feet above the ground or the river, so that it was impossible to escape by it, unless by means of a ladder or a rope, neither of which I possessed.