“There is a cellar, Tsayah,” at last she whispered, still shuddering, “a deep cellar, that no one has seen, but horrible cries come from it sometimes, and two nights ago, for three hours, three long hours—such shrieks! Amai-ai! what shrieks! And they say that he was there, Tsayah, and saw and heard it all. That is the reason that his eyes are blinded and his ears benumbed. A great many go into that cellar, but none ever come out again—none but the doomed like him. It is—it is like the West Prison,” she added, sinking her voice still lower, and casting an eager, alarmed look about her. The missionary, too, shuddered, as much at the mention of this prison as at the recital of the woman; for it shut within its walls deep mysteries, which even his jailers, accustomed as they were to torture and death, shrank from babbling of.
The next day a cord was passed around the wrists of the young Kathayan, his arms jerked up into a position perpendicular with his prostrate body, and the end of the cord fastened to a beam overhead. Still, though faint from the lack of food, parched with thirst, and racked with pain, for his feet were swollen and livid, not a murmur of complaint escaped his lips. And yet this patient endurance seemed scarcely the result of fortitude or heroism; an observer would have said that the inner suffering was so great as to render that of the mere physical frame unheeded. There was the same expression of hopelessness, the same unvarying wretchedness, too deep, too real, to think of giving itself utterance on the face as at his first entrance into the prison; and except that he now and then fixed on one of the hopeless beings who regarded him in silent pity, a mournful, half-beseeching, half-vacant stare, this was all.
That day passed away as others had done; then came another night of dreams, in which loved ones gathered around the hearth-stone of a dear, distant home; dreams broken by the clanking of chains, and the groans of the suffering; and then morning broke. There still hung the poor Kathayan; his face slightly distorted with the agony he was suffering, his lips dry and parched, his cheek pallid and sunken, and his eyes wild and glaring. His breast swelled and heaved, and now and then a sob-like sigh burst forth involuntarily. When the Tiger entered, the eye of the young man immediately fastened on him, and a shiver passed through his frame. The old murderer went his usual rounds with great nonchalance; gave an order here, a blow there, and cracked a malicious joke with a third; smiling all the time that dark, sinister smile, which made him so much more hideous in the midst of his wickedness. At last he approached the Kathayan, who, with a convulsive movement, half raised himself from the ground at his touch, and seemed to contract like a shrivelled leaf.
“Right! right, my son!” said the old man, chuckling. “You are expert at helping yourself, to be sure; but then you need assistance. So—so—so!” and giving the cord three successive jerks, he succeeded, by means of his immense strength, in raising the Kathayan so that but the back of his head, as it fell downward, could touch the floor. There was a quick, short crackling of joints, and a groan escaped the prisoner. Another groan followed, and then another—and another—a heaving of the chest, a convulsive shiver, and for a moment he seemed lost. Human hearts glanced heavenward. “God grant it! Father of mercies, spare him farther agony!” It could not be. Gaspingly came the lost breath back again, quiveringly the soft eyes unclosed; and the young Kathayan captive was fully awake to his misery.
“I can not die so—I can not—so slow—so slow—so slow!” Hunger gnawed, thirst burned, fever revelled in his veins; the cord upon his wrists cut to the bone; corruption had already commenced upon his swollen, livid feet; the most frightful, torturing pains distorted his body, and wrung from him groans and murmurings so pitiful, so harrowing, so full of anguish, that the unwilling listeners could only turn away their heads, or lift their eyes to each other’s faces in mute horror. Not a word was exchanged among them—not a lip had power to give it utterance.
“I can not die so! I can not die so! I can not die so!” came the words, at first moaningly, and then prolonged to a terrible howl. And so passed another day, and another night, and still the wretch lived on.
In the midst of their filth and smothering heat, the prisoners awoke from such troubled sleep as they could gain amid these horrors; and those who could, pressed their feverish lips and foreheads to the crevices between the boards to court the morning breezes. A lady with a white brow, and a lip whose delicate vermilion had not ripened beneath the skies of India, came with food to her husband. By constant importunity had the beautiful ministering angel gained this holy privilege. Her coming was like a gleam of sunlight—a sudden unfolding of the beauties of this bright earth to one born blind. She performed her usual tender ministry and departed.
Day advanced to its meridian; and once more, but now hesitatingly, and as though he dreaded his task, the Tiger drew near the young Kathayan. But the sufferer did not shrink from him as before.
“Quick!” he exclaimed, greedily. “Quick! give me one hand and the cord—just a moment, a single moment—this hand with the cord in it—and you shall be rid of me forever!”
The Tiger burst into a hideous laugh, his habitual cruelty returning at the sound of his victim’s voice.