and the hogs rushed in, I slipped the file
beneath me, under my shoulder blades.

The first of the hogs, as he ran by me, put a hoof into my pannikin
and upset it; and while I struck out at him, to fend him aside,
another brute gobbled up my last morsel of crust. The clatter of the
pannikin brought Marc'antonio to my side. For a while he stood there
looking down on me in the dusk; then walked off through the sty to
the hut and returned with two hurdles which he rested over me, one
against another, tentwise, driving their stakes an inch or two into
the soil. Slight as the fence was, it would protect me from the
hogs; and I thanked him. He growled ungraciously, and, picking up
the pannikin, slouched off upon a second errand. Again when he
brought it replenished, and a fresh loaf of bread with it, I thanked
him, and again his only answer was a growl.

I heard him latch the gate and walk away toward the hut. Night was
falling on the valley. Through my roof of hurdles a star or two
shone down palely. Now was my time. I slipped a hand beneath me and
recovered my file--my blessed file.

The chain about my neck was not very stout. I had felt its links
with my fingers a good score of times in efforts, some deliberate,
others frantic, to loosen it even by a little. Loosen it I could
not; the Prince had done his work too cleverly: but by my calculation
an hour would suffice me to file it through.

But an hour passed, and two hours, and still I lay staring up at the
stars, listening to the hogs as they rubbed flanks and chose and
fought for their lairs: still I lay staring, with teeth clenched and
the file idle in my hand.

I had challenged, and I had sworn. "Bethink you now what pains you
can put upon me. . . ." These tortures were not of her devising; but
I would hold her to them. I was her hostage, and, though it killed
me, I would hold her to the last inch of her bond. As a Catholic,
she must believe in hell. I would carry my wrong even to hell then,
and meet her there with it and master her.

I was mad. After hours of such a crucifixion a man must needs be
mad. . . . "Prosper, lad, your ideas are naught and your ambitions
earth: but you have a streak of damned obstinacy which makes me not
altogether hopeless of you!" These had been Nat's words, a month
ago; and Nat lay in his grave yonder. . . . The cramp in my legs, the
fiery pain ringing my neck, met and ran over me in waves of total
anguish. At th