Beyond came a heavy piece of collar work, the horses
dropping to a walk as they heaved through the drifts towards a
depression between two tors closing the view ahead. Dorothea's eyes,
avoiding the wind, were fixed on the tor to the left, when Endymion
touched her hand and pointed towards the base of the other. There,
grey--almost black--against the white hillside, a mass of masonry
loomed up through the weather; the great circle of the War Prison.
The road did not lead them to it direct. They must halt first at the
bare village of Prince Town, and drink coffee and warm themselves at
the "Plume of Feathers Inn," before facing the last few hundred yards
beneath the lee of North Hessary. But a little before noon, Dorothea--
still with a sense of being lifted on a platform miles above the world
she knew--alighted before a tremendous archway of piled granite set
in a featureless wall, and closed with a sheeted gate of iron. A grey-
coated sentry, pacing here in front of his snow-capped box, challenged
and demanded their business.
"Visitors for the Commandant!" The sentry tugged at an iron bellpull,
and a bell tolled twice within. Dorothea's feet were half-frozen in
spite of her wraps--she stamped them in the snow while she studied the
gateway and the enormous blocks which arched it, unhewn save for two
words carved in Roman capitals--"PARCERE SUBJECTIS."
A key turned in the wicket.
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