In this manner days lengthened into weeks. He tried in vain to open any intercourse with his ferocious jailor, whose ward was sometimes shared by a comrade, when there was much ungodly revelry below, and snatches of Danish war songs mingled with profane oaths. The deep, deep bay of the mastiff sometimes gave warning of the advent of a stranger, or of the step heard from the distance, in the still deep night; but this was all that Alfgar could learn of the outer world, from which he was banished at so critical a moment.