Here, so we were told, countless wretched beings, awaiting the
tardy pleasure of the torturer or the headsman, had moldered in
damp and filth and pitchy blackness, knowing day from night only
by the fact that once in twenty-four hours food would be slipped
through a hole in the wall by unseen hands; lying here until
oftentimes death or the cruel mercy of madness came upon them
before the overworked executioner found time to rack their limbs
or lop off their heads.
We were told that two of these cells had been preserved exactly
as they were in the days of the Doges, with no alteration except
that lights had been swung from the ceilings. We could well accept
this statement as the truth, for when the guide led us through a
low doorway and flashed on an electric bulb we saw that the place
where we stood was round like a jug and bare as an empty jug, with
smooth stone walls and rough stone floor; and that it contained
for furniture just two things--a stone bench upon which the captive
might lie or sit and, let into the wall, a great iron ring, to
which his chains were made fast so that he moved always to their
grating accompaniment and the guard listening outside might know
by the telltale clanking whether the entombed man still lived.
There was one other decoration in this hole--a thing more incongruous
even than the modern lighting fixtures; and this stood out in bold
black lettering upon the low-sloped ceiling.
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