The boys gave only a passing glance at these things as they went by. They were much more interested in gazing up from time to time at the stupendous cliffs and precipices which they saw crowning the mountain ranges which seemed to border the road; and on the other side, in looking out far over the water of the lake at the sail boats, or the steamer, or the little row boats which they beheld in the offing.
The road went winding on, following the little indentations of the shore, till at length it reached the castle. It passed close under the castle walls, or, rather, close along the margin of the ditch which separated the foundations of the castle from the main land. There was a bridge across this ditch. This bridge was enclosed, and a little room was built upon it, with windows and a door. The outer door was, of course, towards the road, and it was open when the boys arrived at the place.
The teacher led the way in by this door, and the boys followed him. There was a man there, dressed in the uniform of a soldier. He was a sort of sentinel, to keep the door of the castle. He had a table on one side, with various engravings spread out upon it, representing different views of the castle, both of the interior and of the exterior. There were also little books of description, giving an account of the castle and of its history, and copies of Byron's poem, the Prisoner of Chillon. All these things were for sale to the visitors who should come to see the castle.
The engravings were kept from being blown away by the wind by means of little stone paper weights made of rounded pebble stones, about as large as the palm of the hand, with views of the castle and of the surrounding scenery painted on them. The paper weights were for sale too.
The boys looked at these things a moment, but did not seem to pay much attention to them. They walked on, following their teacher, to the end of the bridge room, where they came to the great castle gates. These were open, too, and they went in. They found themselves in a paved courtyard, with towers, and battlements, and lofty walls all around them. There was a man there, waiting to receive them in charge, and show them into the dungeons.
He led the way through a door, and thence down a flight of stone steps to a series of subterranean chambers, which were very dimly lighted by little windows opening towards the lake. The back sides of the rooms consisted of the living rock; the front sides were formed of the castle wall that bordered the lake.
"Here is the room," said the guide, "where the prisoners who were condemned to death in the castle in former times spent the last night before their execution. That stone was the bed where they had to lie."
So saying, the guide pointed to a broad, smooth, and sloping surface of rock, which was formed by the ledge on the back side of the dungeon. The stone was part of the solid ledge, and was surrounded with ragged crags, just as they had been left by the excavators in making the dungeon; but whether the smooth and sloping surface of this particular portion of the rock was natural or artificial, that is, whether it had been expressly made so to form a bed for the poor condemned criminal, or whether the rock had accidentally broken into that form by means of some natural fissure, and so had been appropriated by the governor of the castle to that use, the boys could not determine.
The guide led the boys a little farther on, to a place where there was a dark recess, and pointing up towards the ceiling, he said,—
"There is where the criminals were hung. Up where I point there is a beam built into the rock; and from that the rope was suspended."