The uproar
ceased as suddenly as it had commenced, but the moat mirrored a
thousand moons in the agitated waters which had overwhelmed its
mantle of weeds.
'You see now,' said lord Herbert, rejoining her while still she
gazed, 'how necessary the cistern is to the keep? Without it, the
few poor springs in the moat would but sustain it as you saw it.
From here I can fill it to the brim.'
'I see,' answered Dorothy. 'But would not a simple overflow serve,
carried from the well through the wall?'
'It would, were there no other advantages with which this mode
harmonised. I must mention one thing more--which I was almost
forgetting, and which I cannot well show you to-night--namely, that
I can use this water not only as a means of defence in the moat, but
as an engine of offence also against any one setting unlawful or
hostile foot upon the stone bridge over it. I can, when I please,
turn that bridge, the same by which you cross to come here, into a
rushing aqueduct, and with a torrent of water sweep from it a whole
company of invaders.
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