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power, with his bare hands, of rending asunder the
solid iron walls of his prison. He could not hope
for liberty from the relenting mercies of his enemy.
His instant death, under any form of refined cruelty,
was not the object of Tolfi, for he might have inflicted
it, and he had not. It was too evident,
therefore, he was reserved for some premeditated
scheme of subtile vengeance ; and what vengeance
could transcend in fiendish malice, either the slow
death of famine, or the still slower one of solitary
incarceration, till the last lingering spark of life
expired, or reason fled, and nothing should remain
to perish but the brute functions of the body!
It was evening when Vivenzio entered his dungeon,
and the approaching shades of night wrapped
it in total darkness, as he paced up and down, revolving
in his mind these horrible forebodings.
No tolling bell from the castle, or from any neighbouring
church or convent struck upon his ear to
tell how the hours passed. Frequently he would
stop and listen for some sound that might betoken
the vicinity of man ; but the solitude of the desert,
the silence of the tomb, are not so still and deep as
the oppressive desolation by which he was encompassed.
His heart sunk within him, and he threw
himself dejectedly upon his couch of straw. Here
sleep gradually obliterated the consciousness of
misery, and bland dreams wafted his delighted
spirit to scenes which were once glowing realities
for him, in whose ravishing illusions he soon lost
the remembrance that he was Tolfi’s prisoner.
When he awoke, it was daylight; but how long
he had slept he knew not. It might be early morning,
or it might be sultry noon, for he could measure
time by no other note of its progress than light and
darkness. He had been so happy in his sleep
