"What have I done?" I asked one of my keepers.
He looked at the other with a strange smile and said:
"Hans--he asks what he has done!"
That smile froze my blood.
Soon a deep shadow enveloped the carriage; the horses' hoofs
resounded under an archway. We were entering the Raspelhaus. Of
this place one might say:
"Dans cet antre,
Je vois fort bien comme l'on entre,
Et ne vois point comme on en sort."
All is not rose-colored in this world; from the claws of Rap I fell
into a dungeon, from which very few poor devils have a chance to
escape.
Large dark courtyards and rows of windows like a hospital, and
furnished with gratings; not a sprig of verdure, not a festoon of
ivy, not even a weathercock in perspective--such was my new lodging.
It was enough to make one tear his hair out by the roots.
The police officers, accompanied by the jailer, took me temporarily
to a lock-up.
The jailer, if I remember rightly, was named Kasper Schlüssel; with
his gray, woolen cap, his pipe between his teeth, and his bunch of
keys at his belt, he reminded me of the Owl-God of the Caribs. He
had the same golden yellow eyes, that see in the dark, a nose like a
comma, and a neck that was sunk between the shoulders.
Schlüssel shut me up as calmly as one locks up his socks in a
cupboard, while thinking of something else. As for me, I stood for
more than ten minutes with my hands behind my back and my head bowed.
At the end of that time I made the following reflection: "When
falling, Rap cried out, 'I am assassinated,' but he did not say by
whom. I will say it was my neighbor, the old merchant with the
spectacles: he will be hanged in my place."
This idea comforted my heart, and I drew a long breath. Then I
looked about my prison. It seemed to have been newly whitewashed,
and the walls were bare of designs, except in one corner, where a
gallows had been crudely sketched by my predecessor. The light was
admitted through a bull's-eye about nine or ten feet from the floor;
the furniture consisted of a bundle of straw and a tub.
I sat down upon the straw with my hands around my knees in deep
despondency. It was with great difficulty that I could think
clearly; but suddenly imagining that Rap, before dying, had denounced
me, my legs began to tingle, and I jumped up coughing, as if the
hempen cord were already tightening around my neck.
At the same moment, I heard Schlüssel walking down the corridor; he
opened the lock-up, and told me to follow him. He was still
accompanied by the two officers, so I fell into step resolutely.
We walked down long galleries, lighted at intervals by small windows
from within. Behind a grating I saw the famous Jic-Jack, who was
going to be executed on the morrow. He had on a straitjacket and
sang out in a raucous voice:
"_Je suis le roi de ces montagnes._"
Seeing me, he called out:
"Eh! comrade! I'll keep a place for you at my right."
The two police officers and the Owl-God looked at each other and
smiled, while I felt the goose-flesh creep down the whole length of
my back.