Part 26 (1/2)
CHAPTER XVI --CELL NUMBER NINE
AS the sailing-boat cast off, and was shoved away from the side of the steamer, there were eight men aboard. Six grasped the oars, and the young clerk who had signed for the doc.u.ments given to him by the Captain took the rudder, motioning Lermontoff to a seat beside him. All the forward part of the boat, and, indeed, the s.p.a.ce well back toward the stern, was piled with boxes and bags.
”What is this place called?” asked the Prince, but the young steersman did not reply.
Tying the boat to iron rings at the small landing where the steps began, three of the men s.h.i.+pped their oars. Each threw a bag over his shoulder, walked up half a dozen steps and waited. The clerk motioned Lermontoff to follow, so he stepped on the shelf of rock and looked upward at the rugged stairway cut between the main island and an outstanding perpendicular ledge of rock. The steps were so narrow that the procession had to move up in Indian file; three men with bags, then the Prince and the clerk, followed by three more men with boxes. Lermontoff counted two hundred and thirty-seven steps, which brought him to an elevated platform, projecting from a doorway cut in the living rock, but s.h.i.+elded from all sight of the sea. The eastern sun shone through this doorway, but did not illumine sufficiently the large room whose walls, ceiling and floor were of solid stone. At the farther end a man in uniform sat behind a long table on which burned an oil lamp with a green shade. At his right hand stood a broad, round brazier containing glowing coals, after the Oriental fas.h.i.+on, and the officer was holding his two hands over it, and rubbing them together. The room, nevertheless, struck chill as a cellar, and Lermontoff heard a constant smothered roar of water.
The clerk, stepping forward and saluting, presented to the Governor seated there the papers and envelopes given him by the Captain. The officer selected a blue sheet of paper, and scrutinized it for a moment under the lamp.
”Where are the others?”
”We have landed first the supplies, Governor; then the boat will return for the others.”
The Governor nodded, and struck a bell with his open palm. There entered a big man with a bunch of keys at his belt, followed by another who carried a lighted lantern.
”Number Nine,” said the Governor to the gaolers.
”I beg your pardon, sir, am I a prisoner?” asked Lermontoff.
The Governor gave utterance to a sound that was more like the grunt of a pig than the e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of a man. He did not answer, but looked up at the questioner, and the latter saw that his face, gaunt almost as that of a living skeleton, was pallid as putty.
”Number Nine,” he repeated, whereupon the gaoler and the man with the lantern put a hand each on Lermontoff's shoulders, and marched him away.
They walked together down a long pa.s.sage, the swaying lantern casting its yellow rays on the iron bolts of door after door, until at last the gaoler stopped, threw back six bolts, inserted a key, unlocked the door, and pushed it ponderously open. The lantern showed it to be built like the door of a safe, but unlike that of a safe it opened inwards. As soon as the door came ajar Lermontoff heard the sound of flowing water, and when the three entered, he noticed a rapid little stream sparkling in the rays of the lantern at the further end of the cell. He saw a shelf of rock and a stone bench before it. The gaoler placed his hands on a black loaf, while the other held up the lantern.
”That will last you four days,” said the gaoler.
”Well, my son, judging from the unappetizing look of it, I think it will last me much longer.”
The gaoler made no reply, but he and the man with the lantern retired, drawing the door heavily after them. Lermontoff heard the bolts thrust into place, and the turn of the key; then silence fell, all but the babbling of the water. He stood still in the center of the cell, his hands thrust deep in the pockets of his overcoat, and, in spite of this heavy garment, he s.h.i.+vered a little.
”Jack, my boy,” he muttered, ”this is a new deal, as they say in the West. I can imagine a man going crazy here, if it wasn't for that stream. I never knew what darkness meant before. Well, let's find out the size of our kingdom.”
He groped for the wall, and stumbling against the stone bench, whose existence he had forgotten, pitched head forward to the table, and sent the four-day loaf rolling on the floor. He made an ineffectual grasp after the loaf, fearing it might fall into the stream and be lost to him, but he could not find it, and now his designs for measuring the cell gave place to the desire of finding that loaf. He got down on his hands and knees, and felt the stone floor inch by inch for half an hour, as he estimated the time, but never once did he touch the bread.
”How helpless a man is in the dark, after all,” he muttered to himself.
”I must do this systematically, beginning at the edge of the stream.”
On all fours he reached the margin of the rivulet, and felt his way along the brink till his head struck the opposite wall. He turned round, took up a position that he guessed was three feet nearer the door, and again traversed the room, becoming so eager in the search that he forgot for the moment the horror of his situation, just as, when engaged in a chemical experiment, everything else vanished from his mind, and thus after several journeys back and forth he was again reminded of the existence of the stone bench by b.u.t.ting against it when he knew he was still several feet from the wall. Rubbing his head, he muttered some unfavorable phrases regarding the immovable bench, then crawled round it twice, and resumed his transverse excursions. At last he reached the wall that held the door, and now with breathless eagerness rubbed his shoulder against it till he came to the opposite corner. He knew he had touched with knees and hands practically every square inch of s.p.a.ce in the floor, and yet no bread.
”Now, that's a disaster,” cried he, getting up on his feet, and stretching himself. ”Still, a man doesn't starve in four days. I've cast my bread on the waters. It has evidently gone down the stream. Now, what's to hinder a man escaping by means of that watercourse? Still, if he did, what would be the use? He'd float out into the Baltic Sea, and if able to swim round the rock, would merely be compelled to knock at the front door and beg admission again. No, by Jove, there's the boat, but they probably guard it night and day, and a man in the water would have no chance against one in the boat. Perhaps there's gratings between the cells. Of course, there's bound to be. No one would leave the bed of a stream clear for any one to navigate. Prisoners would visit each other in their cells, and that's not allowed in any respectable prison. I wonder if there's any one next door on either side of me. An iron grid won't keep out the sound. I'll try,” and going again to the margin of the watercourse, he shouted several times as loudly as he could, but only a sepulchral echo, as if from a vault, replied to him.
”I imagine the adjoining cells are empty. No enjoyable companions.h.i.+p to be expected here. I wonder if they've got the other poor devils up from the steamer yet. I'll sit down on the bench and listen.”
He could have found the bench and shelf almost immediately by groping round the wall, but he determined to exercise his sense of direction, to pit himself against the darkness.
”I need not hurry,” he said, ”I may be a long time here.”
In his mind he had a picture of the cell, but now that he listened to the water it seemed to have changed its direction, and he found he had to rearrange this mental picture, and make a different set of calculations to fit the new position. Then he shuffled slowly forward with hands outstretched, but he came to the wall, and not to the bench.
Again he mapped out his route, again endeavored, and again failed.