This man carved the walls of his prison house from floor to roof with all

manner of figures of men and animals grouped in intricate designs. He

had toiled there year after year, at his self-appointed task, while

infants grew to boyhood--to vigorous youth--idled through school and

college--acquired a profession--claimed man's mature estate--married and

looked back to infancy as to a thing of some vague, ancient time, almost.

But who shall tell how many ages it seemed to this prisoner? With the

one, time flew sometimes; with the other, never--it crawled always. To

the one, nights spent in dancing had seemed made of minutes instead of

hours; to the other, those selfsame nights had been like all other nights

of dungeon life and seemed made of slow, dragging weeks instead of hours

and minutes.

One prisoner of fifteen years had scratched verses upon his walls, and

brief prose sentences--brief, but full of pathos. These spoke not of

himself and his hard estate, but only of the shrine where his spirit fled

the prison to worship--of home and the idols that were templed there.

He never lived to see them.

The walls of these dungeons are as thick as some bed-chambers at home are

wide--fifteen feet. We saw the damp, dismal cells in which two of Dumas'

heroes passed their confinement--heroes of "Monte Cristo." It was here

that the brave Abbe wrote a book with his own blood, with a pen made of a

piece of iron hoop, and by the light of a lamp made out of shreds of

cloth soaked in grease obtained from his food; and then dug through the

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The Innocents Abroad