hurried on day and night with headlong haste: it was upset, everybody
was thrown out, the prisoner's chain caught and he was dragged until
he lost consciousness. In this state he arrived at Kiow. Here he was
thrown into a cell six feet by five, almost dark and disgustingly
dirty. The wretched man was soon covered from head to foot with
vermin, of which his handcuffs prevented his ridding himself. However,
in a day or two, after a visit from the commandant, his cell was
cleaned. His manacles prevented his walking, or even standing, and the
moral effect of being unable to use his hands was a strange apathy
such as might precede imbecility. He was interrogated several times,
but always adhered to his confession at Kamenitz; menaces of harsher
treatment, even of torture, were tried--means which he knew too well
had been resorted to before; his guards were forbidden to exchange a
word with him, so that his time was passed in solitude, silence and
absolute inoccupation. Since Levitoux, another political prisoner,
fearful that the tortures to which he was subjected might wring from
him confessions which would criminate his friends, had set fire to his
straw bed with his night-lamp and burned himself alive, no lights were
allowed in the cells, so that a great portion of the twenty-four hours
went by in darkness. After some time he was visited by Prince
Bibikoff, the governor-general of that section of the country, one of
the men whose names are most associated with the sufferings of Poland:
he tried by intimidation and persuasion to induce the prisoner to
reveal his projects and the names of his associates. Piotrowski held
firm, but the prince on withdrawing ordered his chains to be struck
off. The relief was ineffable: he could do nothing but stretch his
arms to enjoy the sense of their free possession, and he felt his
natural energy and independence of thought return. He had not been
able to take off his boots since leaving Kamenitz, and his legs were
bruised and sore, but he walked to and fro in his cell all day,