Part 26 (2/2)

”This is bewildering,” he muttered. ”How the darkness baffles a man. For the first time in my life I appreciate to the full the benediction of G.o.d's command, 'Let there be light.'”

He stood perplexed for a few moments, and, deeply thinking, his hands automatically performed an operation as the servants of habit. They took from his pocket his cigarette case, selected a tube of tobacco, placed it between his lips, searched another pocket, brought out a match-box, and struck a light. The striking of the match startled Lermontoff as if it had been an explosion; then he laughed, holding the match above his head, and there at his feet saw the loaf of black bread. It seemed as if somebody had twisted the room end for end. The door was where he thought the stream was, and thus he learned that sound gives no indication of direction to a man blindfolded. The match began to wane, and feverishly he lit his cigarette.

”Why didn't I think of the matches, and oh! what a pity I failed to fill my pockets with them that night of the Professor's dinner party! To think that matches are selling at this moment in Sweden two hundred and fifty for a halfpenny!”

Guided by the spark at the end of his cigarette, he sought the bench and sat down upon it. He was surprised to find himself so little depressed as was actually the case. He did not feel in the least disheartened.

Something was going to happen on his behalf; of that he was quite certain. It was perfectly ridiculous that even in Russia a loyal subject, who had never done any illegal act in his life, a n.o.bleman of the empire, and a friend of the Czar, should be incarcerated for long without trial, and even without accusation. He had no enemies that he knew of, and many friends, and yet he experienced a vague uneasiness when he remembered that his own course of life had been such that he would not be missed by his friends. For more than a year he had been in England, at sea, and in America, so much absorbed in his researches that he had written no private letters worth speaking of, and if any friend were asked his whereabouts, he was likely to reply:

”Oh, Lermontoff is in some German university town, or in England, or traveling elsewhere. I haven't seen him or heard of him for months. Lost in a wilderness or in an experiment, perhaps.”

These unhappy meditations were interrupted by the clang of bolts. He thought at first it was his own door that was being opened, but a moment later knew it was the door of the next cell up-stream. The sound, of course, could not penetrate the extremely thick wall, but came through the aperture whose roof arched the watercourse. From the voices he estimated that several prisoners were being put into one cell, and he wondered whether or not he cared for a companion. It would all depend.

If fellow-prisoners hated each other, their enforced proximity might prove unpleasant.

”We are hungry,” he heard one say. ”Bring us food.”

The gaoler laughed.

”I will give you something to drink first.”

”That's right,” three voices shouted. ”Vodka, vodka!”

Then the door clanged shut again, and he heard the murmur of voices in Russian, but could not make out what was said. One of the new prisoners, groping round, appeared to have struck the stone bench, as he himself had done. The man in the next cell swore coa.r.s.ely, and Lermontoff, judging from such s.n.a.t.c.hes of their conversation as he could hear that they were persons of a low order, felt no desire to make their more intimate acquaintance, and so did not shout to them, as he had intended to do. And now he missed something that had become familiar; thought it was a cigarette he desired, for the one he had lit had been smoked to his very lips, then he recognized it was the murmur of the stream that had ceased.

”Ah, they can shut it off,” he said. ”That's interesting. I must investigate, and learn whether or no there is communication between the cells. Not very likely, though.”

He crawled on hands and knees until he came to the bed of the stream, which was now damp, but empty. Kneeling down in its course, he worked his way toward the lower cell, and, as he expected, came to stout iron bars. Crouching thus he sacrificed a second match, and estimated that the distance between the two cells was as much as ten feet of solid rock, and saw also that behind the perpendicular iron bars were another horizontal set, then another perpendicular, then a fourth horizontal.

While in this position he was startled by a piercing scream to the rear.

He backed out from the tunnel and stood upright once more. He heard the sound of people splas.h.i.+ng round in water. The screamer began to jabber like a maniac, punctuating his ravings with shrieks. Another was cursing vehemently, and a third appealing to the saints. Lermontoff quickly knelt down in the watercourse, this time facing the upper cell, and struck his third match. He saw that a steel s.h.i.+eld, reminding him of the thin shutter between the lenses of a camera, had been shot across the tunnel behind the second group of cross bars, and as an engineer be could not but admire the skill of the practical expert who had constructed this diabolical device, for in spite of the pressure on the other side, hardly a drop of water oozed through. He tried to reach this s.h.i.+eld, but could not. It was just beyond the touch of his fingers, with his arm thrust through the two sets of bars, but if he could have stretched that far, with the first bar r.e.t.a.r.ding his shoulder, he knew his hand would be helpless even if he had some weapon to puncture the steel s.h.i.+eld. The men would be drowned before he could accomplish anything unless he was at the lever in the pa.s.sage outside.

Crawling into his cell again he heard no more of the chatter and cries of the maniac, and he surmised that the other two were fighting for places on bench or shelf, which was amply large enough to have supported both, had they not been too demented with fear to recognize that fact.

The cursing man was victorious, and now he stood alone on the shelf, roaring maledictions. Then there was the sound of a plunge, and Lermontoff, standing there, helpless and s.h.i.+vering, heard the prisoner swim round and round his cell like a furious animal, muttering and swearing.

”Don't exhaust yourself like that,” shouted Lermontoff. ”If you want to live, cling to the hole at either of the two upper corners. The water can't rise above you then, and you can breathe till it subsides.”

The other either did not hear, or did not heed, but tore round and round in his confined tank, thras.h.i.+ng the water like a dying whale.

”Poor devil,” moaned Jack. ”What's the use of telling him what to do. He is doomed in any case. The other two are now better off.”

A moment later the water began to dribble through the upper aperture into Jack's cell, increasing and increasing until there was the roar of a waterfall, and he felt the cold splas.h.i.+ng drops spurt against him.

Beyond this there was silence. It was perhaps ten minutes after that the lever was pulled, and the water belched forth from the lower tunnel like a mill race broken loose, temporarily flooding the floor so that Jack was compelled to stand on the bench.

He sunk down s.h.i.+vering on the stone shelf, laid his arms on the stone pillow, and buried his face in them.

”My G.o.d, my G.o.d!” he groaned.

<script>