o prove the heat. I had
screwed up my heart to bear the pain as best I might, but when I saw that
iron sighed for sheer relief, because I knew it for only a branding tool,
and not the torture. And so they branded me on the left cheek, setting
the iron between the nose and cheek-bone, where 'twas plainest to be
seen. I took the pain and scorching light enough, seeing that I had
looked for much worse, and should not have made mention of the thing here
at all, were it not for the branding mark they used. Now this mark was a
'Y', being the first letter of Ymeguen, and set on all the prisoners that
worked there, as I found afterwards; but to me 'twas much more than a
mere letter, and nothing less than the black 'Y' itself, or _cross-pall_
of the Mohunes. Thus as a sheep is marked, with his owner's keel and can
be claimed wherever he may be, so here was I branded with the keel of
the Mohunes and marked for theirs in life or death, whithersoever I
should wander. 'Twas three months after that, and the mark healed and
well set, that I saw Elzevir again; and as we passed each other in the
trench and called a greeting, I saw that he too bore the _cross-pall_
full on his left cheek.

Thus years went on and I was grown from boy to man, and that no weak one
either: for though they gave us but scant food and bad, the air was fresh
and strong, because Ymeguen was meant for palace as well as fortress, and
they chose a healthful site. And by degrees the moats were dug, and
ramparts built, and stone by stone the castle rose till 'twas near the
finish, and so our labour was not wanted. Every day squads of our
fellow-prisoners marched away, and my gang was left till nearly last,
being engaged in making good a culvert that heavy rains had broken down.

It was in the tenth year of our captivity, and in the twenty-sixth of my
age, that one morning instead of the guard marching us to work, they
handed us over to a party of mounted soldiers, from whose matchlocks and
long whips I knew that we were going to leave Ymeguen. Before we left,
another gang joined us, and how my heart went out when I saw Elzevir
among them! It was two years or more since we had met even to pass a
greeting, for I worked outside the fortress and he on the great tower
inside, and I took note his hair was whiter and a sadder look upon his
face. And as for the _cross-pall_ on his cheek, I never thought of it at
all, for we were all so well used to the mark, that if one bore