Make your choice." "Deal with me as you please," returned Hugh Calveley sternly.

"What I have to say is to the King, and to the King only; and though you break every bone in my body with your engines, and tear off my flesh with red-hot pincers, you shall not force the secret from me." Master Dendy looked at him, and felt disposed to place him in the dreadful instrument of torture called Skeffington's irons, which was hanging against the wall; but the consideration that had hitherto restrained him--namely, that he was without authority for the step, and might be called to account for it--weighed with him still; wherefore he contented himself with ordering the prisoner to be chained to the pillar; and having seen the injunction obeyed, he left him.
In this miserable plight Hugh Calveley remained for some hours, without light and without food.

How the time was passed none knew; but the two yeomen of the guard who entered the vault found him on his knees absorbed in prayer.

They brought a lamp with them, and refreshments of a better kind than those usually afforded to a prisoner, and set them before him.

But he refused to partake of them.