could not have come in my own. I confided my secret to a few of my
countrymen, and asked their aid and advice: I had nothing else to ask
or tell them."

[Illustration: CROSSING THE COURTYARD OF THE PRISON.]

The preliminary interrogatories concluded, he was sent for a more
rigid examination to the fortress of Kiow. He left Kamenitz early in
January at midnight, under an escort of soldiers and police. The town
was dark and silent as they passed through the deserted streets, but
he saw lights in the upper windows of several houses whose inmates had
been implicated in his accusation. Was it a mute farewell or the sign
of vigils of anguish? They traveled all night and part of the next
day: their first halt was at a great state prison, where Piotrowski
was for the first time shut up in a cell. He was suffering from the
excitement through which he had been passing, from the furious speed
of the journey, which had been also very rough, and from a slight
concussion of the brain occasioned by one of the terrible jolts of the
rude vehicle: a physician saw him and ordered repose. The long, dark,
still hours of the night were gradually calming his nerves when he was
disturbed by a distant sound, which he soon guessed to be the clanking
of chains, followed by a chant in which many voices mingled. It was
Christmas Eve, old style, as still observed in some of the provinces,
and the midnight chorus was singing an ancient Christmas hymn which
every Polish child knows from the cradle. For twelve years the dear
familiar melody had not greeted his ears, and now he heard it sung by
his captive fellow-countrymen in a Russian dungeon.

Two days later they set out again, and now he was chained hand and
foot with heavy irons, rusty, and too small for his limbs. The sleigh