While I am perfectly aware that I am not in the least likely to be harmed, I am shivering with something close akin to a chill of actual terror. If anyone near at hand were to give vent to a sudden yell, I feel as if I might easily lose my self-control and shout and bang my door with the rest of them.
The cries continue, accompanied with other noises that I cannot make out. Then my attention is attracted by whispering down at one of the lower windows in the outer wall of the corridor opposite my cell. It is so dark outside that I can see nothing, not even the dim shapes of the whisperers; but apparently there are two of them, and they are looking in and commenting on the disturbance. Their sinister whispering is very unpleasant. I wonder if they can see what is going on. I feel inclined to call out and ask them, but I do not know who they are; and I do know that such an act would be entirely against the rules and liable to provoke severe punishment, and I am not yet ready to be sent to the jail.
The shouts die down. There are a few more vague and uncertain sounds—all the more dreadful for being uncertain; somewhere an iron door clangs! then stillness follows, like that of the grave.
It is useless—I can make nothing of it all; so I sit down again and try to compose my mind to write, but the effort is not very successful. Presently, just after the bell at the City Hall has given its eight o’clock stroke, the Warden appears quietly at the opening of my cell.
“Something has happened,” I begin breathlessly, “I don’t know what it is, but it ought to be looked into——”
I come to an abrupt stop, for I am suddenly aware of the figure of a man standing in the shadow just behind the Warden.
“Who is that?” I ask, and he steps farther along the gallery, but not where the light from the cell can strike him.
“Only the night officer,” answers the Warden.
That is all very well; but why was the night officer lurking in the dark behind the Warden? I decide to ask him a plain, direct question; for he has already heard what is uppermost in my mind.
“Captain,” I say, politely, “what was that noise I heard a short while ago?”