the prince, he was
borne at a slow pace. After he had suffered all the torture of
anticipated execution the carriage turned off into the public road.
Exposed to the sultry summer-heat, without refreshment or human
consolation, he passed seven dreadful hours in journeying to the place
of destination--a prison fortress. It was nightfall before he arrived;
when, bereft of all consciousness, more dead than alive, his giant
strength having at length yielded to twelve hours' fast and consuming
thirst, he was dragged from the carriage; and, on regaining his senses,
found himself in a horrible subterraneous vault. The first object that
presented itself to his gaze was a horrible dungeon-wall, feebly
illuminated by a few rays of the moon, which forced their way through
narrow crevices to a depth of nineteen fathoms. At his side he found a
coarse loaf, a jug of water, and a bundle of straw for his couch. He
endured this situation until noon the ensuing day, when an iron wicket
in the centre of the tower was opened, and two hands were seen lowering
a basket, containing food like that he had found the preceding night.
For the first time since the terrible change in his fortunes did pain
and suspense extort from him a question or two. Why was he brought
hither? What offence had he committed? But he received no answer; the
hands disappeared; and the sash was closed. Here, without beholding the
face, or hearing the voice of a fellow-creature; without the least clue
to his terrible destiny; fearful doubts and misgivings overhanging alike
the past and the future; cheered by no rays of the sun, and soothed by
no refreshing breeze; remote alike from human aid and human compassion;
--here, in this frightful abode of misery, he numbered four hundred and
ninety long and mournful days, which he counted by the wretched loaves
that, day after day, with dreary monotony, were let down into his
dungeon. But a discovery which he one day made early in his confinement
filled up the measure of his affliction. He recognized the place. It
was the same which he himself, in a fit of unworthy vengeance against a
deserving officer, who had the misfortune to displease him, had ordered
to be constructed only a few months before. With inventive cruelty he
had even suggested the means by which the horrors of captivity might be
aggravated; and it was but recently that he had made a journey hither in
order personally to inspect the place and hasten its completion.