The persons who had been confined there before me must have been legion, for the walls seemed literally covered with words and symbols, some well defined, others only scratched roughly and almost obliterated by the thick slime which covered them. So interested was I in their study that, after a short time, I had gained a pretty accurate knowledge of the appearance and position of most of them. Some had written their names in full, with the date; one had drawn a gallows, and many had inscribed lines of words like poetry, but as they were in Russian I was unable to read them.
I confess, though I gave up the greater portion of every day to the investigation of the self-executed epitaphs of those who had gone before, I made but little progress in their meaning.
Still, they served to occupy my time, and for that alone I was thankful.
I had gone methodically to work in my strange researches, commencing at the door, and taking them one by one from the floor upwards, as far as I could reach. The advancement I made was not great; in fact, I was purposely slow, and took a considerable time over the examination of each one, because I wanted my task to last as long as possible.
Of those upon the sides of the cell I had formed a fairly distinct mental picture, and one day while engaged upon the wall opposite the door groping along as usual, my hand passed over a circular indentation cut deeply in the stone, which I judged to be about six inches in circumference. It was on a level with my head, and by the first touch I distinguished it was entirely different from the others, both in form, size, and general character.
Interested in this discovery, I proceeded to make a minute investigation with the tips of the fingers of both hands.
There were two circles, the one inside the other, about an inch apart, and I felt some writing in the intervening space. Round the circle I ran my fingers; the inscription was not profuse, only nine ill-formed letters.
“The name of some prisoner, perhaps,” I said to myself, as I carefully passed my finger over each letter, and tried to picture it upon my mind.
The first was of so strange a form that I could make nothing out of it, so passed on to the next. This seemed like a small thin line, crooked half-way down; the next was straight, like a figure one, and the next very similar, and so on, until I came to the one I had examined first.
Disappointed because I could not decipher a single character of what seemed hieroglyphics, I passed my hand over the whole in an endeavour to gain a general impression of it, when I found the centre of the circle was occupied by some large solid device.