For there was a window in the room, the room that was really my prison.
I stepped over to examine it, pressing my forehead to the panes and plunging my gaze into the outer blanket of darkness.
Nothing! Nothing at all. An impenetrable pall of inky blackness came right up against my eyes. A thick growth of ivy formed an outer curtain over the window, weaving a fabric through and around the heavy iron bars which guarded it.
A prison! That was the very name for it!
I heard footsteps moving softly along one of the partitions behind me. I held my breath. Soon silence returned, complete death-like silence.
I went back to the bed and lay down upon it, waiting, ready for anything. I had my clothes and my boots on. My hand clutched the butt of the automatic in my pocket.
I waited, my eyes glued upon the door, my ears straining to catch the slightest sound.
I waited!