"And who is the commandant of this fortress?"
"Colonel Smirnoff. If he knew that I had admitted you, you would never leave this place alive. This is the Schusselburg of Finland--the place of imprisonment for those who have conspired against the State."
"The prison of political conspirators, eh?"
"Alas, m"sieur, yes! The place in which some of the poor creatures are tortured in order to obtain confessions and information with as much cruelty as in the black days of the Inquisition. These walls are thick, and their cries are not heard from the oubliettes below the lake."
I had long ago heard of the horrors of Schusselburg. Indeed who has not heard of them who has traveled in Russia? The very mention of the modern Bastille on Lake Ladoga, where no prisoner has ever been known to come forth alive, is sufficient to cause any Russian to turn pale. And I was in the Schusselburg of Finland!
I turned over the sheet of paper and wrote the question--
"Did Baron Oberg send you here?"
In response, she printed the words--
"I believe so. I was arrested in Helsingfors. Tell Lydia where I am."
"Do you know Muriel Leithcourt?" I inquired by the same means, whereupon she replied that they were at school together.
"Did you see me on board the _Lola_?" I wrote.
"Yes. But I could not warn you, although I had overheard their intentions. They took me ash.o.r.e when you had gone, to Siena. After three days I found myself deaf and dumb--I was made so."
Her allegation startled me. She had been purposely afflicted!
"Who did it?"
"A doctor, I suppose. They put me under chloroform."
"Who?"
"People who said they were my friends."
I turned to the woman in the religious habit, and cried--
"Do you see what she has written? She has been maimed by some friends who intended that the secret she holds should be kept. They feared to kill her, so they bribed a doctor to deliberately operate upon her so that she could neither speak nor hear. And now they are driving her to suicide!"
"M"sieur, I am astounded!" declared the nun. "I have always believed that she was not in her right mind, yet a.s.suredly she seems to be as sane as I am, only willfully mutilated by some pretended friend who determined that no further word should pa.s.s her lips."
"A shameful mutilation has been committed upon this poor defenseless girl!" I cried in anger. "And I will make it my duty to discover and punish the perpetrators of it."
"Ah, m"sieur. Do not act rashly, I pray of you," the woman said seriously, placing her hand upon my arm. "Recollect you are in Finland--where the Baron Oberg is all-powerful."
"I do not fear the Baron Oberg," I exclaimed. "If necessary, I will appeal to the Czar himself. Mademoiselle is kept here for the reason that she is in possession of some secret. She must be released--I will take the responsibility."
"But you must not try to release her from here. It would mean death to you both. The Castle of Kajana tells no secrets of those who die within its walls, or of those cast headlong into its waters and forgotten."
Again I turned to Elma, who stood in anxious wonder of the subject of our conversation, and had suddenly taken the old nun"s hand and kissed it affectionately, perhaps in order to show me that she trusted her.
Then upon the paper I wrote--
"Is the Baron Oberg your uncle?"
She shook her head in the negative, showing that the dreaded Governor-General of Finland had only acted a part towards her in which she had been compelled to concur.
"Who is Philip Hornby?" I inquired, writing rapidly.
"My friend--at least, I believe so."
Friend! And I had all along believed him to be an adventurer and an enemy!
"Why did he go to Leghorn?" I asked.
"For a secret purpose. There was a plot to kill you, only I managed to thwart them," were the words she printed with much labor.
"Then I owe my life to you," I wrote. "And in return I will do my utmost to rescue you from here, if you do not fear to place yourself in my hands."
And to this she replied--
"I shall be thankful, for I cannot bear this awful place longer. I believe they must torture the women here. They will torture me some day.
Do your best to get me out of here and I will tell you everything. But,"
she wrote, "I fear you can never secure my release. I am confined here on a life sentence."
"But you are English, and if you have had no trial I can complain to our Amba.s.sador."
"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. I shuddered at the unspeakable horrors of that grim fortress.
Could I allow this refined defenseless girl to remain an inmate of that Bastille, the terrors of which I had heard men in Russia hint at with bated breath? They had willfully maimed her and deprived her of both hearing and the power of speech, and now they intended that she should be driven mad by that silence and loneliness that must always end in insanity.
"I have decided," I said suddenly, turning to the woman who had conducted me there, and having now removed the steel bonds of the prisoner with a key she secretly carried, stood with folded hands in the calm att.i.tude of the religious.
"You will not act with rashness?" she implored in quick apprehension.
"Remember, your life is at stake, as well as my own."
"Her enemies intended that I, too, should die!" I answered, looking straight into those deep mysterious brown eyes which held me as beneath a spell. "They have drawn her into their power because she had no means of defense. But I will a.s.sume the position of her friend and protector."
"How?"
"The man is awaiting me in the boat outside. I intend to take her with me."
"But, m"sieur, why that is impossible!" cried the old woman in a hoa.r.s.e voice. "If you were discovered by the guards who patrol the lake both night and day they would shoot you both."