CHAPTER XXVI.
A Secret Friend.
When Sir Jocelyn again became conscious, he found he had been transported to a different cell, which, in comparison with the "Stone Coffin," was clean and comfortable.

The walls were of stone, and the pallet on which he was laid was of straw, but the place was dry, and free from the noisome effluvium pervading the lower dungeon.

The consideration shown him originated in the conviction on the part of the deputy-warden, that the young man must die if left in his wounded state in that unwholesome vault, and so the removal took place, in spite of the objections raised to it by Sir Giles Mompesson, who would have willingly let him perish.

But Master Tunstall dreaded an inquiry, as the prisoner had not yet been sentenced by the Council.
After glancing round his cell, and endeavouring recal the events that had conducted him to it, Sir Jocelyn tried to raise himself, but found his limbs so stiff that he could not accomplish his object, and he sank back with a groan.

At this moment the door opened, and Grimbald, accompanied by a repulsive-looking personage, with a face like a grinning mask, advanced towards the pallet.
"This is the wounded man, Master Luke Hatton," said the jailer; "you will exert your best skill to cure him; and you must use dispatch, in case he should be summoned before the Council." "The Council must come to him if they desire to interrogate him now," replied Luke Hatton; adding, after he had examined the injuries received by the young knight, "He is badly hurt, but not so severely as I expected.