"Am I safe?" asks the inmate of the prison-chamber.

"Sir, there has been a search."

"Leave the pistols," said the voice.

Again, [Endnote: 2] after this time, a long time extending to years,
let us look back into that dim chamber, wherever in the world it was,
into which we had a glimpse, and where we saw apparently a fugitive.
How looks it now? Still dim,--perhaps as dim as ever,--but our eyes, or
our imagination, have gained an acquaintance, a customariness, with the
medium; so that we can discern things now a little more distinctly than
of old. Possibly, there may have been something cleared away that
obstructed the light; at any rate, we see now the whereabouts--better
than we did. It is an oblong room, lofty but narrow, and some ten paces
in length; its floor is heavily carpeted, so that the tread makes no
sound; it is hung with old tapestry, or carpet, wrought with the hand
long ago, and still retaining much of the ancient colors, where there
was no sunshine to fade them; worked on them is some tapestried story,
done by Catholic hands, of saints or devils, looking each equally grave
and solemnly. The light, whence comes it? There is no window; but it
seems to come through a stone, or something like it,--a dull gray
medium, that makes noonday look like evening twilight. Though sometimes
there is an effect as if something were striving to melt itself through
this dull medium, and--never making a shadow--yet to produce the effect
of a cloud gathering thickly over the sun. There is a chimney; yes, a
little grate in which burns a coal fire, a dim smouldering fire, it
might be an illumination, if that were desirable.