Well, s'pose I must let you in: got a lot o'
things, I s'pose?" he says, looking wickedly through the bars as he
springs the bolts, and swings back the gate. "I beg yer pardon a
dozen times! but I didn't recognise ye on the outer side," continues
the official, becoming suddenly servile. He makes a low bow as he
recognises Franconia-motions his hand for them to walk ahead. They
reach the steps leading to the inner gate, and ascending, soon are
in the vaulted passage.
If they will allow him, the polite official will unlock the grated
door. Stepping before Franconia, who, as the clanking of the locks
grate on her ear, is seized with sensations she cannot describe, he
inserts the heavy key. She turns to Harry, her face pallid as
marble, and lays her tremulous hand on his arm, as if to relieve the
nervousness with which she is seized. Click! click! sounds forth:
again the door creaks on its hinges, and they are in the confines of
the prison. A narrow vaulted arch, its stone walls moistened with
pestilential malaria, leads into a small vestibule, on the right
hand of which stretched a narrow aisle lined on both sides with
cells. Damp and pestiferous, a hollow gloominess seems to pervade
the place, as if it were a pest-house for torturing the living.
Even the air breathes of disease,--a stench, as of dead men buried in
its vaults, darts its poison deep into the system. It is this,
coupled with the mind's discontent, that commits its ravages upon
the poor prisoner,--that sends him pale and haggard to a soon-
forgotten grave.
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