Page:Iron shroud, or, Italian revenge (1).pdf/19

 night, like one who had been drugged with opium. He was equally insensible to the calls of hunger and of thirst, though the third day was now commencing since even a drop of water had passed his lips. He remained on the ground, sometimes sitting, somctimessometimes [sic] lying; at intervals, sleeping heavily; and when not sleeping, silently brooding over what was to come, or talking aloud, in disordered speech, of his wrongs, of his friends, of his home, and of thoscthose [sic] he loved, with a confused mingling of all.

In this pitiable condition, the sixth and last morning dawned upon Vivenzio, if dawn it might be callcdcalled [sic]—the dim obscure light which faintly struggled through the window of his dungeon. He could hardly be said to notice the mclancholymelancholy [sic] token. And yet he did notice it; for as hche [sic] raiscdraised [sic] his eyes and saw the portentous sign, thcrcthere [sic] was a slight convulsive distortion of his countenance. But what did attract his notice, and at the sight of which his agitation was excessive, was the change his iron bed had undergone. It was a bed no longer. It stood before him, the visible semblance of a funeral couch or bier! When he beheld this, he startcdstarted [sic] from thcthe [sic] ground; and, in raising himself, suddenly struck his head against the roof, which was now so low that he could no longer stand upright. "God’s will be done!" was all he said, as he crouched his body, and placed his hand upon the bier; for such it was. ThcThe [sic] iron bedstead had been so contrived, by the mechanical art of Ludovico Sforza, that as the advancing walls came in contact with it, head and feet, a pressuropressure [sic] was produced upon concealed springs, which when made to play, sctset [sic] in motion a very simple though ingeniously contrived machinery, that effected the