f the blue heavens. Also an owl flitted across the
window-place of my cell. It had a mouse in its beak, and the shadow of
it and of the writhing mouse for a moment lay upon Irene's breast, for
I turned my head and saw them. It came into my mind that here was an
allegory. Irene was the night-hawk, and I was the writhing mouse that
fed its appetite. Doubtless it was decreed that the owl must be and the
mouse must be, but beyond them both, hidden in those blue heavens, stood
that Justice which we call God.

These were the last things that I saw in this life of mine, and
therefore I remember them well, or rather, almost the last. The very
last of which I took note was Irene's face. It had grown like to that of
a devil. The great eyes in it stared out between the puffed and purple
eyelids. The painted cheeks had sunk in and were pallid beneath and
round the paint. The teeth showed in two white lines, the chin worked.
She was no longer a beautiful woman, she was a fiend.

Irene knocked thrice upon the door. Bolts were thrown back, and men
entered.

"Blind him!" she said.

CHAPTER IX

THE HALL OF THE PIT

The days and the nights went by, but which was day and which was night
I knew not, save for the visits of the jailers with my meals--I who was
blind, I who should never see the light again. At first I suffered much,
but by degrees the pain died away. Also a physician came to tend my
hurts, a skilful man. Soon I discovered, however, that he had another
object. He pitied my state, so much, indeed, he said, that he offered to
supply me with a drug that, if I were willing to take it, would make
an end of me painlessly. Now I understood at once that Irene desired my
death, and, fearing to cause it, set the means of self-murder within my
reach.

I thanked the man and begged him to give me the drug, which he did,
whereon I hid it away in my garments. When it was seen that I still
lived although I had asked for the medicine, I think that Irene believed
this was because it had failed to work, or that such a means of death
did not please me. So she found another. One evening when a jailer
brought my supper he pressed something heavy into my hand, which I felt
to be a sword.

"What weapon is this?" I asked, "and why do you give it to me?"

"It is your own sword," answered the man, "which I was commanded to
return to you. I know no more."

Then he went away, leaving the sword with me.

I drew the familiar blade from it