He was eating his supper of rice soaked in water—the usual prison fare—when they came to fetch him. But they only rivetted shorter fetters on his hands and feet alike, led him down into a deeper vault, and thrust him into a cold, dark, mouldy cellar, wherein not a single ray of sunlight, nor the sound of a human voice could penetrate.
Yes, this was a worse place than that he had longed to escape from. Above there, they might be evil men, but at least they had had human faces. Their words had been hateful indeed, but they had been human voices that uttered them.
When they clanged the door behind him, and the cold, dark, deathlike silence closed around him, Ráby lost consciousness.
In the afternoon the district commissioner again called on his Excellency, who was engaged in his favourite game of billiards.
"Dare I venture?" began his visitor.
"It is all right. Ráby is transferred into another cell. Now just watch, my friend, what a good shot I shall make."
"Yes, but perhaps they've put him in a worse one still?"
But his Excellency was looking after his ball, for he knew what he was about at billiards, and scored heavily.
The next day the district commissioner went to the Assembly House to investigate the sort of cell Ráby had been removed to. But when he could not find it, and moreover, could, by no means whatever obtain from the officials where the prisoner might be housed, he went again to the governor to demand an explanation.