THE DUNGEON CHAMBER.
No sooner did Vandemar hear the door of the dungeon chamber close behind
him than there came a revulsion of feeling. The conviction forced itself
strongly upon him that he was the victim of a plot which had been
successful.
He looked about him, but could see nothing. Then he remembered that he
had come quickly from a brightly lighted room into a dark one, and it
was only natural that his vision should be affected. He must wait until
his eyes accommodated themselves to the darkness. No, he would not wait.
He would leave the place at once. He turned and retraced his steps, as
he supposed, towards the door, but when he reached the wall he could not
find it. He followed the seams between the stones with his fingers. The
horizontal ones were much longer than those which ran perpendicularly,
but they were all too short to indicate the presence of a door. Almost
frenzied, he continued the search until his finger-nails were broken and
torn by conflict with the rough stones. Still he kept on until the skin
was torn from his finger-tips and they were covered with blood. Finally,
his search was rewarded, for he came upon a seam which, beginning at the
floor, extended higher than he could reach. To make sure, he sought for
the hinges, but there were none. Then he remembered that he had read
about dungeon doors which swung upon pivots. Perhaps, if he exerted all
his strength, he might move it; but he soon desisted, nearly exhausted.
Perhaps she could hear his voice, so he called out:
“Vivienne! Vivienne!”
His voice echoed and re-echoed from the walls of the great room.
Startled by the unaccustomed noise, several bats, as he supposed they
were, flew back and forth, flapping their wings. The sound was not so
unpleasant after all. It gave him satisfaction to know that in this dark
and noisome dungeon even such unpleasant companions as bats could live.
If they could survive, perhaps he could, until his friends rescued him.
This thought went through his mind with the rapidity of lightning. He
called the name Vivienne a dozen times, but there was no response. Then
he beat upon the door with his clenched fists. The blows made no
appreciable sound, but he experienced sharp thrills of pain from the
concussion.
“Vivienne!” he cried, “give me my sword. If they come to kill me I am
unarmed. Give me back my sword so that I may defend myself.”
He listened, but there was no sound excepting that produced by the
flapping of the bats’ wings as they circled about the room. Then all his
doubts came back.
“She is faithless! She would not kill me with my own sword when I
offered it to her. No, that would have been too easy a death. Both she
and her brother decided that my death by starvation would be more to
their liking. It would be such a sweet revenge to know that I was dying
by inches. Oh, Vivienne, why does God put such fiendish hearts into such
angelic forms?”
Man, in his direst distress, always accommodates himself to
circumstances and his environment. Thoroughly convinced that his
duration of life depended wholly upon himself, and that he could hope
for no outside assistance, Vandemar determined to make the best of his
condition. Beginning at the door, he followed the wall until he came
back to it. He learned that it was rectangular in shape, fully twice as
long as it was wide. He proved this by pacing the two distances. Then he
walked back and forth, covering the length of the room, groping with his
hands in the hope of finding a chair or cot upon which he could rest,
but there was no article of furniture in the room.
During his monotonous trips, he made an important discovery. In one
corner of the dungeon, far above his reach, was a small window. He
imagined that the moon must have been obscured when he entered the
dungeon, for when its rays fell upon the window, he had discovered
it--but, alas, there was no hope of escape, for it was closely barred.
Even if he could wrench those bars from their fastenings, it would avail
him nothing, for the dungeon was in the uppermost part of the tower, and
he had no rope or other means of descending to the ground.
At last, faint with the loss of blood from his wounds, and overcome by
exhaustion and despair, he threw himself upon the cold, damp stones, and
was soon lost to consciousness.