Guilty Bonds Part 12

I rose, my hands trembling and my teeth chattering so that I could hardly re-arrange my clothes.

What fresh torture was in store for me? I dreaded to think.

At the first step I attempted to take I staggered and almost fell, but recovering myself, followed the turnkey.

After examining my fetters to make certain of their security, he led me through a long dark pa.s.sage, up a flight of steps, down another, and through some intricate places, little more than tunnels. Unlocking a door, he bade me enter.

I did so, and found myself in a square cell, damp, and pitch dark, like my own. We had been joined by another jailer in our walk through the corridor, and both men entered with me.

As the lantern-light fell upon the straw I saw the cell was occupied; a man was lying there, fully dressed, and apparently asleep.

"Prisoner," said the jailer, "take the clothes from off that man, dress yourself in them, and afterwards put your own on him."

"But he will wake," I said.

"Do as I bid," growled the man; "and look sharp; or it will be the worse for you."

For a moment I did not move. I felt dazed.

"Now; do you hear?" cried he angrily, shaking me roughly by the arm.

I stooped over the prostrate man in order to unb.u.t.ton the collar of his coa.r.s.e coat, but in doing so my hand touched his chin. I withdrew it as if I had been stung, for it sent a thrill of horror through me. It was cold as ice.

I was to undress a dead man!

"Why do you hesitate?" the jailer asked gruffly. "Know you not that you must obey?"

"This man is dead!" I said, in alarm.

"And the best thing that could happen to him," was the stern reply.

"Now, how long am I to wait for you?"

His companion grinned at my abhorrence of the task, and uttered some words in Russian, which the other answered.

It was plain I had to obey my heartless janitor, so, kneeling beside the corpse, I managed, by dint of some exertion, to divest it of its grey kaftan, strong knee boots, and sheepskin bonnet. In these I attired myself, afterwards dressing the corpse in my own clothes.

My new garments were such as I had never seen before, and upon my breast was a bra.s.s plate bearing a number.

"Now, take these," commanded the turnkey, throwing his light upon some things in a corner.

I turned and picked them up.

There was a rug, a mess tin, and a wooden spoon.

"What am I to do with these?" I asked.

"You will want them upon your journey."

"My journey! Where, then, am I going?"

"To the mines."

"To Siberia?" I gasped.

"Yes," he answered, adding, "Come, follow me."

I left the side of the dead prisoner and accompanied him back to my own cell.

I would have preferred death ten thousand times, for I knew, too well, that for the Russian convict is reserved that punishment which is tantamount to death by slow torture--a living tomb in the quicksilver mines beyond Tomsk. When sent under the earth he never again sees the sunlight or breathes the fresh air, until a year or so afterwards when he is brought to the surface to die.

Racked by the frightful pain which quicksilver produces, gaunt as skeletons, and with hair and eyebrows dropping off, convicts are kept at labour under the lash by taskmasters who have orders not to spare them, working eighteen hours at a stretch, and sleeping the remaining six in holes in the rock--mere kennels, into which they must crawl.

A sentence of Siberian hard labour always means death, for the Government are well aware it is an absolute impossibility to live longer than five years in such horrible torture in the depths of the earth.

To this terrible existence was I consigned. Was it surprising, therefore, that I hoped--nay, longed--for death instead?

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

GRAVEN ON THE WALL.

I walked back to my cell as one in a dream.

Engrossed with my own reflections, I neither saw nor heard anything until I found myself seated alone in the dark, damp chamber, with the maddening thought of Vera's treachery and triumph torturing and goading me to despair.

I covered my face with my hands, and strove to forget the present and to review the past.

As I pondered, the recollection of my childhood's days came back to me.

I saw the grey-haired stately lady, my mother, whom I loved, whose counsel I had ofttimes wisely taken, but who now, alas! was no more. I saw myself a laughing schoolboy, and later, a rollicking student, one of a crowd in the Latin Quarter; then a young man hard at work with my pen in a tall old house in one of the Inns of Court, burning the midnight oil and striving day and night towards the coveted Temple of Fame.

Later, a man of ample means, and afterwards--a convict.

Next morning, after the warder had paid his matutinal visit and I had appeased my hunger, I naturally turned to the inscriptions as my sole means of occupation; for besides being anxious for anything wherewith to occupy my mind, however trivial, I was also curious to ascertain whether the mysterious device upon the wall really bore a resemblance to the seal, or whether it was only in my distorted imagination that the similarity existed.

Without difficulty I succeeded in placing my hands upon the indentation, and after minute investigation satisfied myself I had not been mistaken.

Though somewhat roughly executed, the symbols were exactly the same as those upon the fatal seal.

While carefully following the lines with my finger tips, I felt, suddenly, what appeared to be some letters, two above the circle and two below, about an inch from the outer ring. At first it did not cross my mind that they could have any connection with it, for I concluded they were but the initials of two prisoners who had occupied the cell.

However, when I had completed my investigation of the inexplicable emblem which had so long occupied my thoughts, I commenced trying to decipher the letters above.

At first I could make nothing out of them, but by pa.s.sing my hand carelessly along I ascertained that they were in the Russian character.

Evidently they were initials.

Fortunately, while at college I had gained a knowledge of the Russian alphabet, and though it was rather imperfect, I was prompted to make an attempt to discover the equivalent of the two letters in English.

The task occupied me a very long time, and after considerable patience and perseverance I found I had translated the initials, although they told me nothing.

The two letters cut in the stone above were "N.S."