第14章 MY TRIUMPHANT FINALE(1)

Words are mighty, words are living; Serpents with their venomous stings, Or bright angels crowding round us, With heaven's light upon their wings; Every word has its own spirit, True or false, that never dies; Every word man's lips have uttered Echoes in God's skies.A.A.PROCTER.

My labours were now nearly at an end, and being, so to speak, off duty, I could occupy myself just as I pleased.I therefore resolved to keep watch over Zaluski in his prison.

For the first few hours after his arrest he was in a violent passion; he paced up and down his tiny cell like a lion in a cage; he was beside himself with indignation, and the blood leapt through his veins like wildfire.

Then he became a little ashamed of himself and tried to grow quiet, and after a sleepless night he passed to the opposite extreme and sat all day long on the solitary stool in his grim abode, his head resting on his hands, and his mind a prey to the most fearful melancholy.

The second night, however, he slept, and awoke with a steady resolve in his mind.

"It will never do to give way like this, or I shall be in a brain fever in no time," he reflected."I will get leave to have books and writing materials.I will make the best of a bad business."He remembered how pleased he had been when Gertrude had once smiled on him because, when all the others in the party were grumbling at the discomforts of a certain picnic where the provisions had gone astray, he had gaily made the best of it and ransacked the nearest cottages for bread-and-cheese.He set to work bravely now; hoped daily for his release; read all the books he was allowed to receive, invented solitary games, began a novel, and drew caricatures.

In October he was again examined; but, having nothing to reveal, it was inevitable that he could reveal nothing; and he was again sent back to his cell "to reflect."I perceived that after this his heart began to fail him.

There existed in the House of Preventive Detention a system ofcommunication between the luckless prisoners carried on by means of tapping on the wall.Sigismund, being a clever fellow, had become a great adept at this telegraphic system, and had struck up a friendship with a young student in the next cell; this poor fellow had been imprisoned three years, his sole offence being that he had in his possession a book of which the Government did not approve, and that he was first cousin to a well-known Nihilist.

The two became as devoted to each other as Silvio Pellico and Count Oroboni; but it soon became evident to Valerian Vasilowitch that, unless Zaluski was released, he would soon succumb to the terrible restrictions of prison life.

"Keep up your heart, my friend," he used to say."I have borne it three years, and am still alive to tell the tale.""But you are stronger both in mind and body," said Sigismund; "and you are not madly in love as I am."And then he would pour forth a rhapsody about Gertrude, and about English life, and about his hopes and fears for the future; to all of which Valerian, like the brave fellow he was, replied with words of encouragement.

But at length there came a day when his friend made no answer to his usual morning greeting.

"Are you ill?" he asked.

For some time there was no reply, but after a while Sigismund rapped faintly the despairing words:-"Dead beat!"

Valerian felt the tears start to his eyes.It was what he had all along expected, and for a time grief and indignation and his miserable helplessness made him almost beside himself.At last he remembered that there was at least one thing in his power.Each day he was escorted by a warder to a tiny square, walled off in the exercising ground, and was allowed to walk for a few minutes; he would take this opportunity of begging the warder to get the doctor for his friend.

But unfortunately the doctor did not think very seriously of Zaluski's case.In that dreary prison he had patients in the last stages of all kindsof disease, and Sigismund, who had been in confinement too short a time to look as ill as the others, did not receive much attention.Certainly, the doctor admitted, his lungs were affected; probably the sudden change of climate and the lack of good food and fresh air had been too much for him; so the solemn farce ended, and he was left to his fate."If I were indeed a Nihilist, and suffered for a cause which I had at heart," he telegraphed to Valerian, "I could bear it better.But to be kept here for an imaginary offence, to bear cold and hunger and illness all to no purpose--that beats me.There can't be a God, or such things would not be allowed.""To me it seems," said Valerian, "that we are the victims of violated law.Others have shown tyranny, or injustice, or cruelty, and we are the victims of their sin.Don't say there is no God.There must be a God to avenge such hideous wrong."So they spoke to each other through their prison wall as men in the free outer world seldom care to speak; and I, who knew no barriers, looked now on Valerian's gaunt figure, and brave but prematurely old face, now on poor Zaluski, who, in his weary imprisonment, had wasted away till one could scarcely believe that he was indeed the same lithe, active fellow who had played tennis at Mrs.Courtenay's garden-party.

Day and night Valerian listened to the terrible cough which came from the adjoining cell.It became perfectly apparent to him that his friend was dying; he knew it as well as if he had seen the burning hectic flush on his hollow cheeks, and heard the panting, hurried breaths, and watched the unnatural brilliancy of his dark eyes.