He was still wondering at the cause of their agitation when the
jailer reopened the door and they were marched out, down the stone
stairs, then sharply to the right and along a narrow corridor.
A lamp flickered at the farther end, over a small door studded with
iron nails; and before this door another small company of soldiers
was drawn up in two rows of six, with their backs to either wall of
the corridor. Between them the prisoners were forced to defile,
still cringing and weeping, as the small door opened and they passed
into the chamber beyond.
And now for the first time Tristram felt thoroughly alarmed.
The chamber was narrow and lofty, and without any window that he
could perceive. But just now it was full of a red light that poured
out through the eyes of a charcoal brazier in the far corner.
Two grim figures in leathern aprons stood over this brazier, with the
glare on their brutal faces--the one puffing with a pair of bellows
till the room was filled with suffocating vapours, the other diving a
handful of irons into the glowing centre, wherein five or six already
glowed at a red heat.
Beside them, and watching these operations with a business-like air,
stood a gentleman in a handsome suit and plumed hat.
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