I am confined here
on a life sentence."
"But you are English, and if you have had no trial I can complain to our
Ambassador."
"No, I am a Russian subject. I was born in Russia, and went to England
when I was a girl."
That altered the case entirely. As a subject of the Czar in her own
country she was amenable to that disgraceful blot upon civilization that
allows a person to be consigned to prison at the will of a high
official, without trial or without being afforded any opportunity of
appeal. I therefore at once saw a difficulty.
Yet she promised to tell me the truth if I could but secure her release!
A flood of recollections of the amazing mystery swept through my mind. A
thousand questions arose within me, all of which I desired to ask her,
but there, in that noisome prison-house, it was impossible. As I stood
there a woman's shrill scream of excruciating pain reached me,
notwithstanding those cyclopean walls. Some unfortunate prisoner was,
perhaps, being tortured and confession wrung from her lips.
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