I had been sentenced, the jailer said. Sentenced for what? I had wronged no man on earth that I was aware of, neither had I done an evil action willingly. What was my offence, and what was my sentence?

For days I lived with this one thought, crushed by its terrible weight, frozen by its ghastly presence. Not days, but years ago it seemed, since I was a man like any other, with an intellect young and fresh, losing itself in a pleasant world of fantasy, with buoyant hopes for the future; an existence full of life and light, gaiety, and unalloyed happiness, with naught to trouble me save the realisation of my fond dream of marrying Vera and dwelling with her in perfect felicity.

Joyous and free had been my thoughts, therefore I was free also.

Alas! those aerial castles, those blissful illusions, had been cruelly dispelled, for I was free no longer.

I was a criminal.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

A SUBTERRANEAN DRAMA.

With my wrists in bonds of iron, and my soul fettered by one idea-- horrible, implacable--the days pa.s.sed: I kept no count of them.

Whilst the glimmer of daylight shone through the c.h.i.n.k above I spent the time sitting engrossed in my own sad thoughts, or pacing the narrow cell for exercise. When it had faded I cast myself, restless and nervous, upon the heap of evil-smelling straw that served as bed, waiting patiently for the reappearance of the streak of grey light.

Those hours of awful silence and suspense I shall never forget.

Do what I might a terrible thought, a deep-rooted conviction, was ever with me, like a spectre haunting me face to face, frustrating every endeavour to close my eyes--it was that by Vera's instrumentality I had been arrested and incarcerated in that foul dungeon.

The jailer, when he brought my daily ration of food, seldom spoke; but on one occasion I asked him:

"What is my sentence?"

"You know better than I," he growled. "Indeed, I do not. Tell me; is it death?"

"No; the death sentence has been abolished by order of the Czar.

Criminals are tortured to death instead of being killed instantaneously by hanging."

"And is this the commencement of my torture?" I asked, glancing round the glistening walls, that looked black and unwholesome in the flickering lamplight.

"You may call it so, if you like," he replied.

"Many prisoners would no doubt prefer the death sentence being pa.s.sed upon them--but that the law now forbids."

"Shall I never leave this horrible place?" I asked.

"Shall I never again see the blessed light of day?"

"Yes," he muttered, ominously, "you will leave here--some day--never to return."

I said no more. I knew he meant that when I left the prison I should be dead.

_Torture till death_! This, then, was my sentence! The words were continually pa.s.sing through my brain, attacking me whilst waking, and intruding themselves upon my spasmodic attempts to sleep; appearing in my dreams in all their hideousness.

Even when I awakened to realise the terrible reality that surrounded me, those four bare walls, coa.r.s.e clothes, straw pallet, and the monotonous tramp of the sentry in the corridor outside my door, the words rang a continuous, demoniacal chorus in my ears. _Torture till death_!

In my solitary confinement I naturally began to seek some means by which to occupy attention and divert my mind from the unjust and horrible sentence.

One matter interested me in a dreamy, indifferent way. It was the inscriptions that had been traced upon the damp walls of my gloomy cell, presumably by former occupants.

Having been in darkness so long, I had developed an acute sensitiveness in the tips of my fingers, almost in the same manner as the blind; and for recreation I took to groping about, feeling the indentations upon the stone, and trying to sketch their appearance mentally.

Hours--nay, days--I spent in this grim but interesting occupation, studying carefully the initials, dates, and other inscriptions, and after I had formed a correct picture in my imagination, I would sit down, wondering by whose hand those letters had been graven; what was the prisoner's crime; and how long he had lived in that terrible tomb.

The persons who had been confined there before me must have been legion, for the walls seemed literally covered with words and symbols, some well defined, others only scratched roughly and almost obliterated by the thick slime which covered them. So interested was I in their study that, after a short time, I had gained a pretty accurate knowledge of the appearance and position of most of them. Some had written their names in full, with the date; one had drawn a gallows, and many had inscribed lines of words like poetry, but as they were in Russian I was unable to read them.

I confess, though I gave up the greater portion of every day to the investigation of the self-executed epitaphs of those who had gone before, I made but little progress in their meaning.

Still, they served to occupy my time, and for that alone I was thankful.

I had gone methodically to work in my strange researches, commencing at the door, and taking them one by one from the floor upwards, as far as I could reach. The advancement I made was not great; in fact, I was purposely slow, and took a considerable time over the examination of each one, because I wanted my task to last as long as possible.

Of those upon the sides of the cell I had formed a fairly distinct mental picture, and one day while engaged upon the wall opposite the door groping along as usual, my hand pa.s.sed over a circular indentation cut deeply in the stone, which I judged to be about six inches in circ.u.mference. It was on a level with my head, and by the first touch I distinguished it was entirely different from the others, both in form, size, and general character.

Interested in this discovery, I proceeded to make a minute investigation with the tips of the fingers of both hands.

There were two circles, the one inside the other, about an inch apart, and I felt some writing in the intervening s.p.a.ce. Round the circle I ran my fingers; the inscription was not profuse, only nine ill-formed letters.

"The name of some prisoner, perhaps," I said to myself, as I carefully pa.s.sed my finger over each letter, and tried to picture it upon my mind.

The first was of so strange a form that I could make nothing out of it, so pa.s.sed on to the next. This seemed like a small thin line, crooked half-way down; the next was straight, like a figure one, and the next very similar, and so on, until I came to the one I had examined first.

Disappointed because I could not decipher a single character of what seemed hieroglyphics, I pa.s.sed my hand over the whole in an endeavour to gain a general impression of it, when I found the centre of the circle was occupied by some large solid device.

I felt again. It bore some resemblance to the letter T inverted, and then momentarily, there flashed across my mind the thought that I had somewhere seen an emblem of similar appearance.

Eagerly I ran my hands over it, carefully fingering the centre, and trying to form a clearer idea of what it was like, when I suddenly recollected where I had met its exact counterpart.

"Yes, there is no mistake," I said in an awed whisper, once more fingering it in breathless excitement.

"The characters must be the same; the centre is the same; it differs in no particular. It is the Seal!"

I stood almost terrified at the unearthly sound of my own words.

Here, in this foul prison, amid all these gruesome surroundings, I had made a strange discovery!

I had deciphered an exact reproduction of the curious seal found upon the body of the woman who had been so mysteriously murdered on that eventful night in Bedford Place--the fatal emblem over which the police of Europe and America had been so puzzled.

The disclosure brought vividly to my mind recollections of the murder which, by rare chance, I detected, and I asked myself whether Fate had decreed that a sketch of the seal should be graven upon the wall of my dungeon.

I am neither a visionary, nor am I superst.i.tious, yet it is probable that my gloomy thoughts, combined with my solitary imprisonment, the lack of exercise, and the horrors of my cell, had produced a slight attack of fever; for while I was musing it seemed as if the mystic symbols a.s.sumed divers grotesque shapes, the outlines of which glowed like fire, and that by my side were hideous grinning demons, who a.s.sumed a threatening att.i.tude towards me.

My breathing became difficult, my head swam, and I sank backward upon the stone seat.

I may have been insensible, or perhaps only sleeping soundly, when there came a jingling of keys, and a harsh grating of bolts. This aroused me.

"Get up," commanded the jailer; "follow me."