ion might mean to one in my position.

A foreign officer failing to be at his post when about to meet his
own countrymen face to face, would be a default open to such
construction as filled me with dismay--a construction which the
wretch who had trapped me would use every means to convert into
the blackest of certainties. When the first feeling of dismay had
passed I made a careful examination of my prison, but the result
brought no encouragement. The vault, which was an outer one, was
only provided with two heavy doors, the one by which I had entered,
and the other doubtless leading to another vault. There was not a
sign of any window or opening, and the walls were covered with a
white coating of fungus. In one corner was some useless household
lumber, and against the wall stood a wooden coffer like those in
well-to-do farmers' houses at home; save for these odds and ends,
the place was indeed empty; in so far, at least, my gentleman had
not lied.

I placed my lanthorn on the floor, and seating myself on the chest,
tried to form some plan of action. There was no use in attempting
to attract attention by raising an outcry, for I was certainly
underground, cut off by the long passage from the house. If I made
a fire the smoke could not escape, and I should only gain suffocation
for my pains. There was absolutely no escape that I could further
by my unaided effort. Dreadful as this thought was, I was tortured
by others infinitely worse; by phantasms that the future might well
convert into horrid realities.

With a too-ready imagination I framed the crafty charges which my
enemy would prefer against me. No sense of shame would prevent him
from distorting my innocent relations towards his wife into a
treacherous attempt upon his honour; he would no doubt trump up
some suggestive story of my presence in his house. My unsupported
statement of my imprisonment must stand against his specious
tale--the word of the accused against that of the injured husband,
and he an official with powerful backing. The ridiculous trap into
which I had so stupidly fallen would be difficult to explain without
derision at any time, but now it was a time of actual war, when
any infraction of duty would be punished with the severest penalty;
nothing short of death would be a sufficient excuse for my failure
to return to my post.

I pictured myself, an alien--for a foreigner is always an alien no
matter what his merit or service may be--fightin