Page:Ossendowski - From President to Prison.djvu/306

294 neither for walks nor to the kitchen for water. In vain the Eagle watched for her through the bars of his window; in vain also the prison awaited her appearance, wishing with its cry of "Chiu! Chiu!" to manifest its hate and disdain for the person who enjoyed the special favour of the authorities. The sad woman seemed to have disappeared, although it was known to all that she was still somewhere in the prison.

Then there came a night of storm. Lightning constantly rent the black mantle of clouds that covered the sky; thunder shook the prison buildings and emphasized their gloom; terror seemed to have shackled nature; a fearful expectancy filled the souls of the prisoners.

The Eagle gazed up at the black sky, watching the lightning that shredded it, and turned away to pace up and down his cell. Without realizing it, he tramped ever quicker and quicker, like a wild beast in its cage. Suddenly he stopped and looked out of the side window in his corner cell, which was half boarded up. He practically never glanced out through this, as it gave on a narrow alleyway separating it from the next building only ten feet away, in which the openings were also covered with boards. To his surprise he noticed that the window directly opposite had lost its wonted covering and was now hung with a white curtain or a sheet, through which the light shone from someone's cell.

The Eagle stood and watched intently, as the shadow of a person moving about with his hands on his head was thrown on the screen. Suddenly the person came nearer to the window, and the Eagle realized that it was a woman. He climbed up on his bench, so that he could press his face against the pane. When he found the boards bothered him, he seized them in his powerful hands and pulled them away from the rusty nails that