AT YMEGUEN As if a thief should steal a tainted vest, Some dead man's spoil, and sicken of his pest--_Hood_ 'Tis bitterer to me than wormwood the memory of what followed, and I shall tell the story in the fewest words I may.

We were cast into prison, and lay there for months in a stone cell with little light, and only foul straw to lie on.

At first we were cut and bruised from that tussle and cudgelling in Aldobrand's house, and it was long before we were recovered of our wounds, for we had nothing but bread and water to live on, and that so bad as barely to hold body and soul together.

Afterwards the heavy fetters that were put about our ankles set up sores and galled us so that we scarce could move for pain.

And if the iron galled my flesh, my spirit chafed ten times more within those damp and dismal walls; yet all that time Elzevir never breathed a word of reproach, though it was my wilfulness had led us into so terrible a strait.
At last came our jailer, one morning, and said that we must be brought up that day before the _Geregt_, which is their Court of Assize, to be tried for our crime.