dirty, while even
the slight volume of light which it permitted to pass was obstructed
further by small-mesh wire netting. Consequently the interior was
wrapped in a dismal gloom throughout the greater part of the day,
through which one could scarcely discern the floor when standing
upright. After daylight waned the cell was enveloped in Cimmerian
blackness until daybreak, no lights being permitted.

The bed comprised three rough wooden planks, void of all covering and
mattress, and raised a few inches above the floor. The other
appointments were exceedingly meagre, consisting of a small jug and
basin as well as a small sanitary pan. High on the wall was a broken
shelf. That was all. The wall itself was about two feet in thickness and
wrought of masonry.

The walls themselves were covered with inscriptions written and
scratched by those who had been doomed to this depressing domicile. Some
of the drawings were beautifully executed, but the majority of the
inscriptions testified, far more eloquently than words can describe, to
the utter depravity of many of those who had preceded me, and who had
passed their last span of life on this earth within these confines.

A few minutes sufficed to take in these general features. Then my
attention was riveted upon the floor, and this told a silent, poignant
story which it would be difficult to parallel. The promenade was less
than nine feet--in fact, it was only two full paces--and barely twelve
inches in width. Consequently the occupant, as he paced to and fro, trod
always upon the same spots. And the patterings of the feet in that short
walk had worn the board into hollows at the treads. I felt those hollows
with my hands, traced their formation, and despite my unhappy plight
could not refrain from musing upon the stories which those hollows could
relate--stories of abandoned hope, frenzy, madness, resignation,
suppressed fury, and pathetic awaiting of the doom which could not be
averted.

Those hollows exercised an irresistible fascination for me, and when I
started to walk they drew my feet as certainly as the magnet attracts
the iron filings. I would strive to avoid the hollows and for a few
seconds would succeed, but within a short time my feet fell into them.
Later I learned from one of my wardens that the pacings of the criminals
condemned to this and the other cells is so persistent and ceaseless as
to demand the renewal of the boards at frequent intervals.

In the