The lieutenant himself opened the locks, while two soldiers, standing on either side with flambeaux, gave Dumiger a full view of the desolate stair which he had to ascend. The passage to which it led had been taken out of the thickness of the walls, so massive were they. They passed through a large hall where a huge fire was blazing, about which some soldiers slept, with their cloaks drawn tightly round them to ward off the draughts which came in strong gusts beneath the doors and even through the shutters; one or two with handkerchiefs tied round their heads, to serve the purpose of night-caps, were sitting by the fire smoking. They took the pipes from their lips to salute the lieutenant as he passed, but beyond this notice paid no attention to the object of his visit. It was evidently an event of no uncommon occurrence. More passages, more bars, more doors battered by age and mended by slabs of iron, and at last Dumiger arrived at the room, or rather the cell, which had been prepared for him. The preparations, it must however be admitted, were of the very simplest character. A palliasse thrown down in the corner, a rickety chair, and the strangest apology for a table, were the whole furniture of the place. Without one word of explanation the lieutenant motioned him into his new abode. In vain Dumiger stormed and raved, and desired to know whether this was the way in which free citizens were treated in the free city of Dantzic. The lieutenant only shrugged his shoulders, gave orders to the soldiers to withdraw, and Dumiger was left to his melancholy meditations.
A heavy weight, such as magnetic influence affects the brain with, oppressed his forehead; he threw himself on the palliasse, and endeavored to recall the events of the last few hours: but so rapid and intense had they been, that they already seemed to be numbered amongst the visions of the past. When the heart is oppressed with suffering, and above all, with the most painful of all suffering, anxiety, solitude and sleep are the only consolations. But then the sleep is not the light, happy, joyous slumber, from which we awake refreshed and strengthened; it is a leaden, sullen, sodden trance, from which we awake with the sensation that the whole weight of the atmosphere has been concentrated on our brows. This was the case with Dumiger: the flickering, dreary light of the lamp kept waving before his eyes as he lay there. He felt like a man whose limbs have been paralyzed by some grievous accident. At last be breathed heavily, and the load of oppression fell from his eyelids. Such was the sleep we have described.
When he awoke in the morning the light had gone out; but a few pale, melancholy gleams of morning pierced the prison-bars, which were so far above him that it was not possible for him to reach them. He strove to remember where he was; his eyes fell on the grotesquely-painted figures which covered the walls, and which had escaped his observation on the preceding night. These were the handicraft of some man who had evidently endeavored to wile away his time in prison by caricaturing his persecutors; and certainly he had succeeded in the attempt. Nothing more absurd than some of these pictures could be imagined; every possible deformity was ascribed to the originals, and the sketches were surrounded by pasquinades and quaint devices. Here and there might be found expressions of deeper and more fearful import, if indeed anything could be more fearful than the contrast between the ridiculous and such a dungeon. "Non omnis moriar," wrote one man in a yellow liquid, which too evidently was discolored blood. "Justum et tenacem recti virum," scrawled another, immediately followed by a portrait of the "vultis instantis tyranni," who had, if we may judge by the chain suspended from his neck, once been a famous Grand Master. On one part of the wall might be deciphered a whole romance scrawled with an old nail, in which the prisoner had arrived at such excellence, that the letters were like the most admirable type. It was a long, and doubtless melancholy tale; so much so, that the kind guardians of the place had scratched it with their knives to prevent its being easily deciphered. In fact, that little cell had evidently contained an Iliad of romances; and if the walls could have spoken, or even the scrawls been deciphered, some strange tales, and perhaps many mysterious events, would have come to light. Dumiger gazed on these sad records of prior existences with a melancholy interest. In vain he endeavored to explain to himself the cause of his being treated with such unparalleled severity. He could not recall any crime such as might excuse his incarceration in such an abominable place. He buried his face in his hands. He thought of Marguerite and the clock, and then, happily for him, he wept, as the young alone can weep when they are in sorrow, and when their sorrow is unselfish.
He was roused by an unbolting of bars, the turning of huge, unwieldy keys, and the lieutenant of the castle stood before him.
Dumiger was in that state of mind when whatever of pride belongs to the consciousness of innocence loses its strength. Though there was little to invite confidence in the outward demeanor of the functionary, he ran toward him, seized him by both hands, and exclaimed, "Have pity upon me, sir; tell me why I am here!"
"Pooh, pooh," replied the bronzed old Cerberus: "be a man."
"Be a man!" shrieked Dumiger, "I am a man: and it is because I am a man, a free man of Dantzic, that I appeal against this monstrous treatment. Be a man! why, I appeal to you, sir, to be a man, and to give up that situation, if it can only be retained by cruelty to others. I say again, be you a man, and cease to torture me."
The lieutenant continued looking at him with the most perfect indifference. He whistled a tune, took the only two turns in the cell which its extent permitted, and then, as if a sudden recollection had struck him, put two letters into Dumiger's hands.
"Come, you are not very ill treated, young man, when you are allowed to read."
Dumiger felt a glow of delight thrill through his frame. Everything is by comparison, and after the pain be had endured, the sight of two letters, the one in the handwriting of Marguerite, the other of Carl, made his heart leap with joy. They seemed to him to be the guarantees of immediate safety.