Against The Wall

In a room beside the gateway, into which, as the nearest and most
convenient place, Count Hannibal had been carried from his saddle, a man
sat sideways in the narrow embrasure of a loophole, to which his eyes
seemed glued. The room, which formed part of the oldest block of the
chateau, and was ordinarily the quarters of the Carlats, possessed two
other windows, deep-set indeed, yet superior to that through which
Bigot--for he it was--peered so persistently. But the larger windows
looked southwards, across the bay--at this moment the noon-high sun was
pouring his radiance through them; while the object which held Bigot's
gaze and fixed him to his irksome seat, lay elsewhere. The loophole
commanded the causeway leading shorewards; through it the Norman could
see who came and went, and even the cross-beam of the ugly object which
rose where the causeway touched the land.

On a flat truckle-bed behind the door lay Count Hannibal, his injured leg
protected from the coverlid by a kind of cage. His eyes were bright with
fever, and his untended beard and straggling hair heightened the wildness
of his aspect. But he was in possession of his senses; and as his gaze
passed from Bigot at the window to the old Free Companion, who sat on a
stool beside him, engaged in shaping a piece of wood into a splint, an
expression almost soft crept into his harsh face.

"Old fool!" he said. And his voice, though changed, had not lost all its
strength and harshness. "Did the Constable need a splint when you laid
him under the tower at Gaeta?"