"Now," I said to myself, "this means breakfast."
I was mistaken.
He brought in next a square box, not unlike the case of a sewing machine, and placed it on the table.
"What can this be?" I muttered as I watched him closely.
In a few minutes footsteps were heard on the stairs, and another man joined him. A great strong fellow with a fair moustache. The two of them wheeled a large chair with glass arms to it, which I had not noticed before, from one corner of the room, and placed it on one side of the table.
The preparations now had all the appearance of the commencement of some performance; it only needed the principal actor to appear.
He was not long in coming.
Meanwhile, I wondered why the chair had glass arms to it.
I noticed that the two men, who now stood idly looking out of the windows, did not wear uniforms. They were dressed in ordinary rough-looking clothes of foreign cut; it struck me as very strange. I asked them who they were.
"Are you the warders of the prison?" I said.