"I ask your pity for
myself, immured in that windowless dungeon, situated on a tiny point of
rock; I, who have roamed the hills and explored the valleys of my own
land on foot, breathing the air of freedom with delight. Let me,
therefore, I beg of you, remain awake that I may taste the pleasure of
anticipation in my thoughts; or is such a wish disobedience on the part
of your first lieutenant? I do not mean it so, and will quietly cry
myself to sleep if you insist."
"Indeed, Hilda," said Roland, laughing, and abandoning the more formal
title of "madam," "I am no such tyrant as you suppose. Besides, your
office of first lieutenant has lapsed, because our men have all gone
south, while we travel north."
"Then may I talk with you?"
"Nothing would please me better. I was thinking of your own welfare, and
not of my desire, when I counseled slumber."
"Oh, I assure you I slept very well during the first part of the night,
for, there being nothing else to do, I went to bed early, and was quite
unconscious until the dreadful ringing of that alarm bell, which set the
whole Castle astir.
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