Page:William Le Queux - The Czar's Spy.djvu/237

Rh length, however, after several attempts, she succeeded in printing in uneven capitals the response:

"I know you. You were on the yacht. I thought they killed you."

The thin-faced old woman saw her response — a reply that was surely rational enough — and her brows contracted with displeasure.

"Why are you here?" I wrote, not allowing the sister to get sight of my question.

In response, she wrote painfully and laboriously —

"I am condemned for a crime I did not commit. Take me from here, or I shall kill myself."

"Ah!" exclaimed the old woman. "You see, poor girl, she believes herself innocent! They all do."

"But why is she here?" I demanded fiercely.

"I do not know, m'sieur. It is not my duty to inquire the history of their crimes. When they are ill I nurse them; that is all."

"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."