In the evening came the superintendent, attended by Schiller, another captain, and two soldiers, to make the usual search. Three of these inquisitions were ordered each day, at morning, noon, and midnight. Every corner of the prison was examined, and each article of the most trivial kind. The inferior officers then left, and the superintendent remained a little time to converse with me.

The first time I saw this troop of jailers approach, a strange thought came into my head. Being unacquainted with their habits of search, and half delirious with fever, it struck me that they were come to take my life, and seizing my great chain I resolved to sell it dearly by knocking the first upon the head that offered to molest me.

“What mean you?” exclaimed the superintendent; “we are not going to hurt you. It is merely a formal visit to ascertain that all is in proper order in the prisons.”

I hesitated, but when I saw Schiller advance and stretch forth his hand with a kind, paternal look, I dropped the chain and took his proffered hand. “Lord! how it burns,” he said, turning towards the superintendent; “he ought at least to have a straw bed;” and he said this in so truly compassionate a tone as quite to win my heart. The superintendent then felt my pulse, and spoke some consolatory words: he was a man of gentlemanly manners, but dared not for his life express any opinion upon the subject.

“It is all a reign of terror here,” said he, “even as regards myself. Should I not execute my orders to the rigour of the letter, you would no longer see me here.” Schiller made a long face, and I could have wagered he said within himself, “But if I were at the head, like you, I would not carry my apprehensions so very far; for to give an opinion on a matter of such evident necessity, and so innocuous to government, would never be esteemed a mighty fault.”

When left alone, I felt my heart, so long incapable of any deep sense of religion, stirred within me, and knelt down to pray. I besought a blessing upon the head of old Schiller, and appealing to God, asked that he would so move the hearts of those around me, as to permit me to become attached to them, and no longer suffer me to hate my fellow-beings, humbly accepting all that was to be inflicted upon me from His hand.

About midnight I heard people passing along the gallery. Keys were sounding, and soon the door opened; it was the captain and his guards on search.

“Where is my old Schiller?” inquired I. He had stopped outside in the gallery.

“I am here—I am here!” was the answer. He came towards the table, and, feeling my pulse, hung over me as a father would over his child with anxious and inquiring look. “Now I remember,” said he, “to-morrow is Thursday.”

“And what of that?” I inquired.

“Why! it is just one of the days when the doctor does not attend, he comes only on a Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Plague on him.”

“Give yourself no uneasiness about that!”

“No uneasiness, no uneasiness!” he muttered, “but I do; you are ill, I see; nothing is talked of in the whole town but the arrival of yourself and friends; the doctor must have heard of it; and why the devil could he not make the extraordinary exertion of coming once out of his time?”

“Who knows!” said I, “he may perhaps be here to-morrow,—Thursday though it will be?”

The old man said no more, he gave me a squeeze of the hand, enough to break every bone in my fingers, as a mark of his approbation of my courage and resignation. I was a little angry with him, however, much as a young lover, if the girl of his heart happen in dancing to press her foot upon his; he laughs and esteems himself highly favoured, instead of crying out with the pain.