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Hardly had its echoes died away when the clanking of chains and the decisive voices of the guards could be heard, issuing from the great stone building in the centre of the yard. Half an hour later the heavily-barred doors of the penitentiary swung open, and the convicts, surrounded by guards, filed slowly out into the courtyard.
As his eyes became better accustomed to the dark, he began to see what kind of a place it was in which he found himself. It was a square little room on the ground-floor, with a single, heavily-barred window, against which the dirt had collected in such quantities as to exclude almost all light.
The Palazzo, as they climbed up through the village towards it, showed itself to be an imposing pile of the later seventeenth century, with heavily-barred lower windows, and, above, a series of graceful loggie on its northern and western fronts which gave it a delicate and habitable air.
It seemed that the guest hall, which was built against the great hall to its left, ran back to the walls of this end of the cross building, for there was a heavily-barred low doorway, which could lead nowhere else, in the wall of the outer living room. The only other door was that of the bedchamber, and that was opposite the entrance.
After lingering a few moments, as though on the chance of hearing more, the stranger advanced and knocked sharply at the heavily-barred door. It was opened in due season and with great caution by old Catherine, who evidently thought the hour ill-chosen for a new-comer, and mistrusted sorely the purpose of his visit.
There was not a particle of furniture in the place, and the only means of light and fresh air entering was through a small, narrow, heavily-barred window. George looked at this with thoughts of escape in his mind, but the prospect was dim and uninviting; even if the bars could be removed he doubted the possibility of forcing himself through the aperture.
He begged then to know what he was to do with them meantime. The adjutant looked savagely round the courtyard, and, pointing to the door of a small dungeon-like guard-room, receiving light and air through one heavily-barred window, said: "Drive the scoundrels in there." The sergeant, tightening his grip upon the stick he carried in virtue of his rank, executed this order with alacrity and zeal.
They put me into a cell, oak walled and strong, and there left me, unfettered, but with a heavily-barred door between me and freedom; and if I could get out, all Denmark and the sea around me held me prisoner. Yet I despaired not altogether, for already I had gone through much danger, and my strength had not failed me.
A side corridor led to a heavily-barred iron door, and this in turn opened upon a steep flight of stone steps, feebly illuminated by the glimmer of wall lamps. At the head and foot stood a mute sentinel like an ebony statue, and below, along the dusky and forbidding passages from which the cells opened, a succession of niches in the wall were each occupied by a similar guardian.
At a signal from within the police entered, resumed charge of the prisoner, and escorted him, by many winding passages, down a steep staircase to an underground passage, ending in a dungeon-like room, badly lighted by one small, heavily-barred window, through which no glimpse of the sky was seen. Here he was left alone, and for a long time utterly neglected.
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