n, which stood alone, and whose portals never opened twice upon
a living captive.

It had the semblance of a vast cage, for the roof, and floor, and
sides, were of iron, solidly wrought, and spaciously constructed. High
above there ran a range of seven grated windows, guarded with massy
bars of the same metal, which admitted light and air. Save these, and
the tall folding-doors beneath them which occupied the centre, no
chink, or chasm, or projection, broke the smooth black surface of the
walls. An iron bedstead, littered with straw, stood in one corner: and
beside it, a vessel with water, and a coarse dish filled with coarser
food.

Even the intrepid soul of Vivenzio shrunk with dismay as he entered
this abode, and heard the ponderous doors triple-locked by the silent
ruffians who conducted him to it. Their silence seemed prophetic of
his fate, of the living grave that had been prepared for him. His
menaces and his entreaties, his indignant appeals for justice, and his
impatient questioning of their intentions, were alike vain. They
listened, but spoke not. Fit ministers of a crime that should have no
tongue!

How dismal was the sound of their retiring steps! And, as their faint
echoes died along the winding passages, a fearful presage grew within
him, that never more the face, or voice, or tread, of man, would greet
his senses. He had seen human beings for the last time! And he had
looked his last upon the bright sky, and upon the smiling earth, and
upon a beautiful world he loved, and whose minion he had been! Here
he was to end his life--a life he had just begun to revel in! And by
what means? By secret poison? or by murderous assault? No--for then it
had been needless to bring him thither. Famine perhaps--a thousand
deaths in one! It was terrible to think of it; but it was yet more
terrible to picture long, long years of captivity, in a solitude so
appalling, a loneliness so dreary, that thought, for want of
fellowship, would lose itself in madness, or stagnate into idiocy.

He could not hope to escape, unless he had the power, with his bare
hands, of rending asunder the solid iron walls of his prison. He could
not hope for liberty from the relenting mercies of his enemy. His
instant death, under any form of refined cruelty, was not the object
of Tolfi, for he might have inflicted it, and he had not. It was too
evident, therefore, he was reserved for some premeditated scheme of
subtle vengeance; and what venge