streams trickled across the earthen floor, and rats scuttled away at their approach.
“You are in the Tower of London, Smeaton.”
“That I have realized. For what reason have I been brought here?”
“You will know soon enough. Methought I would like to show you the place.”
“I would rather go back. I would have you know that when I said . . . when I said what I did . . . that I lied . . .”
Cromwell held up a thick finger.
“An interesting place, this Tower of London. I thought you would enjoy a tour of inspection before we continue with our cross-examination.”
“I . . . I understand not . . .”
“Listen! Ah! We are nearer the torture chambers. How that poor wretch groans! Doubtless ’tis the rack that stretches his body. These rogues! They should answer questions, and all would be well with them.”
Mark vomited suddenly. The smell of the place revolted him, his head was throbbing, he was in great pain, and he felt he could not breathe in this confined space.
“You will be better later,” said Cromwell. “This place has a decided effect on those who visit it for the first time . . . Here! Someone comes . . .”
He drew Mark to one side of the loathsome passage. Uncanny screams, like those of a madman, grew louder, and peering in the dim light, Mark saw that they issued from the bloody head of what appeared to be a man who was coming towards them; he walked between two strong men in the uniform of warders of the Tower, who both supported and restrained him. Mark gasped with horror; he could not take his eyes from that gory thing which should have been a head; blood dripped from it, splashing Mark’s clothes as the man reeled past, struggling in his agony to dash his head against the wall and so put an end to his misery.
Cromwell’s voice was silky in his ear.
“They have cut off his ears. Poor fool! I trow he thought it smart to repeat what he’d heard against the King’s Grace.”
Mark could not move; it seemed to him that his legs were rooted to this noisome spot; he put out a hand and touched the slimy wall.
“Come on!” said Cromwell, and pushed him.
They went on; Mark was dazed with what he had seen. I am dreaming this, he thought. This cannot be; there could never be such things as this!
The passages led past cells, and Cromwell would have the man shine his lantern into these, that Mark might see for himself what befell those who saw fit to displease the King. Mark looked; he saw men more dead than alive, their filthy rags heaving with the movement of vermin, their bones protruding through their skin. These men groaned and blinked, shutting their eyes from that feeble light, and their clanking chains seemed to groan with them. He saw what had been men, and were now mere bones in chains. He saw death, and smelled it. He saw the men cramped in the Little Ease, so paralyzed by this form of confinement that when Cromwell called to one of them to come out, the man, though his face lit up with a sudden hope of freedom, could not move.
The lantern was shone into the gloomy pits where rats swam and squeaked in a ferocious chorus as they fought one another over dying men. He saw men, bleeding and torn from the torture chambers; he heard their groans, saw their bleeding hands and feet, their mutilated fingers from which the nails had been pulled, their poor, shapeless, bleeding mouths from which their teeth had been brutally torn.
“These dungeons have grown lively during the reign of our most Christian King,” said Cromwell. “There will always be fools who know not when they are fortunate . . . Come, Master Smeaton, we are at our destination.”
They were in a dimly lighted chamber which seemed to Mark’s dazed eyes to be hung with grotesque shapes. He noticed first the table, for at this table sat a man, and set before him were writing materials. He smelled in this foul air the sudden odor of vinegar, and the immediate effect of this—so reminiscent of his pain—was to make him retch. In the center of this chamber was a heavy stone pillar from which was projected a long iron bar, and slung around this was a rope at the end of which was a hook. Mark stared at this with wonder, until