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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, sometimes 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 those 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 called—the dim obscure light which faintly
struggled through the ONE SOLITARY window of his
dungeon. He could hardly be said to notice the
melancholy token. And yet he did notice it; for
as he raised his eyes and saw the portentous sign,
there 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 started from the 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. The 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 pressure
was produced upon concealed springs, which when
made to play, set in motion a very simple though
ingeniously contrived machinery, that effected the