“Shall I never leave this horrible place?” I asked.
“Shall I never again see the blessed light of day?”
“Yes,” he muttered, ominously, “you will leave here—some day—never to return.”
I said no more. I knew he meant that when I left the prison I should be dead.
Torture till death! This, then, was my sentence! The words were continually passing through my brain, attacking me whilst waking, and intruding themselves upon my spasmodic attempts to sleep; appearing in my dreams in all their hideousness.
Even when I awakened to realise the terrible reality that surrounded me, those four bare walls, coarse clothes, straw pallet, and the monotonous tramp of the sentry in the corridor outside my door, the words rang a continuous, demoniacal chorus in my ears. Torture till death!
In my solitary confinement I naturally began to seek some means by which to occupy attention and divert my mind from the unjust and horrible sentence.
One matter interested me in a dreamy, indifferent way. It was the inscriptions that had been traced upon the damp walls of my gloomy cell, presumably by former occupants.
Having been in darkness so long, I had developed an acute sensitiveness in the tips of my fingers, almost in the same manner as the blind; and for recreation I took to groping about, feeling the indentations upon the stone, and trying to sketch their appearance mentally.
Hours—nay, days—I spent in this grim but interesting occupation, studying carefully the initials, dates, and other inscriptions, and after I had formed a correct picture in my imagination, I would sit down, wondering by whose hand those letters had been graven; what was the prisoner’s crime; and how long he had lived in that terrible tomb.