A Queen's Error Part 10

I awoke with a feeling of intense cold, the fire was out, and I was lying outside the bed without covering.

The day had fully broken, and there was even an attempt on the part of the sun to pierce the heavy mists of a November morning. I looked around out of the windows, and saw the hills topped with cloud in every direction.

Drawing the rough blankets over me, I lay and thought. My first yearning was for something to eat; I had tasted nothing since lunch the previous day; I was fearfully hungry.

I had lain thus perhaps half an hour between sleeping and waking, when a key was put in the door and it opened, admitting a big, dark man with a long, black beard; he bore in his hands a small table which he placed in the middle of the room.

"Now," I said to myself, "this means breakfast."

I was mistaken.

He brought in next a square box, not unlike the case of a sewing machine, and placed it on the table.

"What can this be?" I muttered as I watched him closely.

In a few minutes footsteps were heard on the stairs, and another man joined him. A great strong fellow with a fair moustache. The two of them wheeled a large chair with gla.s.s arms to it, which I had not noticed before, from one corner of the room, and placed it on one side of the table.

The preparations now had all the appearance of the commencement of some performance; it only needed the princ.i.p.al actor to appear.

He was not long in coming.

Meanwhile, I wondered why the chair had gla.s.s arms to it.

I noticed that the two men, who now stood idly looking out of the windows, did not wear uniforms. They were dressed in ordinary rough-looking clothes of foreign cut; it struck me as very strange. I asked them who they were.

"Are you the warders of the prison?" I said.

"Hein!" the dark one inquired.

"Are you the warders of the prison?" I repeated.

"Find out, _verdammt Englander_," the man replied.

Then I felt certain I was in no English prison. Where was I?

The question was soon answered, the door once more opened and _Saumarez_ entered. I sat up on the bed and fairly gasped; the whole matter was perfectly unintelligible to me. After the first thrill of astonishment my glance went to his eyes.

They were complete; he had another gla.s.s one in the socket, and it exactly matched the real one.

He came towards me with a little bow, and a smile on his red countenance.

"Good morning, Mr. Anstruther," he began, "we seem to be always meeting."

I could not restrain my feelings.

"That is my misfortune," I answered.

He smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

"Perhaps so," he answered casually, "that remains to be seen."

He said some words in German to the two men, which I imperfectly understood, but it seemed to be an order to lift me off the bed, for they immediately did it.

Then one of them unlocked my chain, and the two of them carried me to the chair, and sat me in it.

I now realised that I was in a desperate condition.

"I insist on knowing," I cried to Saumarez, "why I was brought here.

It is very evident that I have been tricked."

Saumarez laughed--a low laugh of enjoyment.

"You certainly came here under a false impression," he sn.i.g.g.e.red; "as for the reason of your coming, you will soon know it. Now, to begin with, where is the key of the safe at 190 Monmouth Street. You have been thoroughly searched and we cannot find it.

"You are not likely to," I answered. "It is in a place where you cannot get at it."

"Indeed!" replied Saumarez. "What place is that?"

"I shall not tell you."

"We shall see," he remarked laconically.

As he spoke, he motioned to the two men to do something with the box on the table.

As they moved towards it, I heard the double report of a sporting gun not far off. Evidently some one was out shooting.

The men went to the table, and, taking off the square lid of the box, disclosed a large galvanic battery!

My blood began to run cold as an awful idea formed itself in my mind.

"Secure him in the chair!" Saumarez said sharply in German.

Before the men could reach me, I darted out of the chair towards the door, but they were too quick for me and caught me before I reached it.

They carried me back struggling to the chair, and one held me down in it while the other pa.s.sed thick straps round me, holding me fast in it, hand and foot. I found, when they had done with me, that my two hands were strapped firmly to the gla.s.s arms of the chair.

Lying back in the chair I noticed high up in the roof an old cobwebbed window, the top of which was standing open for purposes of ventilation.

It looked as if it had not been interfered with for years.

In the position I was in, I could not very well see what was going on in the room, but the next thing I experienced was feeling my wrists being encircled apparently with wire. I gave one convulsive struggle to get free, but it was useless I knew well now what they were going to do.

They were going to torture me by giving me galvanic shocks, and pa.s.sing strong currents through my body.

I had heard of the torture being applied in Russia to political prisoners.

I had, when a boy, patronised those machines which professed to try one's "nerve." I had held the two handles and watched the proprietor draw out the rod from the coil to increase the strength of the current.

I knew how unbearable _that_ feeling could become even with a _weak_ battery. What would it be with this _strong_ one?

Saumarez' voice broke in upon me.