Thither,
also, was old Anthony Rocke taken, closely guarded on the way by two of
the myrmidons.
Chapter XXV.
The "Stone Coffin."
A dreadful dungeon! the last and profoundest of the range of
subterranean cells already described as built below the level of the
river Fleet: a relict, in fact, of the ancient prison which had escaped
the fury of Wat Tyler and his followers, when the rest of the structure
was destroyed by them. Not inaptly was the dungeon styled the "Stone
Coffin." Those immured within it seldom lived long.
A chill like that of death smote Sir Jocelyn, as he halted before the
door of this horrible place. Preceded by Grimbald the jailer, with a
lamp in one hand and a bunch of large keys in the other, and closely
followed by the deputy-warden and Sir Giles Mompesson, our young knight
had traversed an underground corridor with cells on one side of it, and
then, descending a flight of stone steps, had reached a still lower pit,
in which the dismal receptacle was situated. Here he remained up to the
ankles in mud and water, while Grimbald unlocked the ponderous door, and
with a grin revealed the interior of the cavernous recess.
Nothing more dank and noisome could be imagined than the dungeon.
Dripping stone-walls, a truckle-bed with a mouldy straw-mattrass,
rotting litter scattered about, a floor glistening and slippery with
ooze, and a deep pool of water, like that outside, at the further
end,--these constituted the materials of the frightful picture presented
to the gaze.
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