"At least," said the Arethusa, "be sure that you arrest my comrade;
he will follow me ere long on the same road, and you can tell him
by the sack upon his shoulders."
This promised, the prisoner was led round into the back court of
the building, a cellar door was opened, he was motioned down the
stair, and bolts grated and chains clanged behind his descending
person.
The philosophic and still more the imaginative mind is apt to
suppose itself prepared for any mortal accident. Prison, among
other ills, was one that had been often faced by the undaunted
Arethusa. Even as he went down the stairs, he was telling himself
that here was a famous occasion for a roundel, and that like the
committed linnets of the tuneful cavalier, he too would make his
prison musical. I will tell the truth at once: the roundel was
never written, or it should be printed in this place, to raise a
smile. Two reasons interfered: the first moral, the second
physical.
It is one of the curiosities of human nature, that although all men
are liars, they can none of them bear to be told so of themselves.
To get and take the lie with equanimity is a stretch beyond the
stoic; and the Arethusa, who had been surfeited upon that insult,
was blazing inwardly with a white heat of smothered wrath.
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