Chapter 16

CELL NUMBER NINE

As the sailing-boat cast off, and was shoved away from the side of the steamer, there were eight men aboard. Six grasped the oars, and the young clerk who had signed for the documents given to him by the Captain took the rudder, motioning Lermontoff to a seat beside him. All the forward part of the boat, and, indeed, the space well back toward the stern, was piled with boxes and bags.

"What is this place called?" asked the Prince, but the young steersman did not reply.

Tying the boat to iron rings at the small landing where the steps began, three of the men shipped their oars. Each threw a bag over his shoulder, walked up half a dozen steps and waited. The clerk motioned Lermontoff to follow, so he stepped on the shelf of rock and looked upward at the rugged stairway cut between the main island and an outstanding perpendicular ledge of rock. The steps were so narrow that the procession had to move up in Indian file; three men with bags, then the Prince and the clerk, followed by three more men with boxes. Lermontoff counted two hundred and thirty-seven steps, which brought him to an elevated platform, projecting from a doorway cut in the living rock, but shielded from all sight of the sea. The eastern sun shone through this doorway, but did not illumine sufficiently the large room whose walls, ceiling and floor were of solid stone. At the farther end a man in uniform sat behind a long table on which burned an oil lamp with a green shade. At his right hand stood a broad, round brazier containing glowing coals, after the Oriental fashion, and the officer was holding his two hands over it, and rubbing them together. The room, nevertheless, struck chill as a cellar, and Lermontoff heard a constant smothered roar of water.

The clerk, stepping forward and saluting, presented to the Governor seated there the papers and envelopes given him by the Captain. The officer selected a blue sheet of paper, and scrutinized it for a moment under the lamp.

"Where are the others?"

"We have landed first the supplies, Governor; then the boat will return for the others."

The Governor nodded, and struck a bell with his open palm. There entered a big man with a bunch of keys at his belt, followed by another who carried a lighted lantern.

"Number Nine," said the Governor to the gaolers.

"I beg your pardon, sir, am I a prisoner?" asked Lermontoff.

The Governor gave utterance to a sound that was more like the grunt of a pig than the ejaculation of a man. He did not answer, but looked up at the questioner, and the latter saw that his face, gaunt almost as that of a living skeleton, was pallid as putty.

"Number Nine," he repeated, whereupon the gaoler and the man with the lantern put a hand each on Lermontoff's shoulders, and marched him away. They walked together down a long