ABSTRACT
Helena flung her arms round Waldorf, and Lok endeavoured to reconcile him to his fate – but it was all in vain – he derived no confidence from / his innocence, and no hopes from the powers of truth or justice. He listened only to the suggestions of despair, and sunk into silent anguish. Lok was permitted to attend him to the prison, but not to enter it, being too late to obtain leave from the Governor. He was cast into a subterraneous dungeon – dark, damp, and wretched in every respect that could inspire horror. A bundle of straw, the bed of some former captive, who had recently sought, in the grave, an asylum from his persecutors, offered him a more eligible situation than the cold earth; there he threw himself, and a burst of tears relieved his manly breast; a torpid calmness succeeded, and reflection augmented his grief – nothing could banish it. The pale countenance of Zin rose / on his mind, and inflamed it to the highest pitch, until, spent and wearied, he sunk into a slumber, which continued until the loud clanking of chains echoed along the dreary walls. He started from his miserable bed, and listened with horror to the sound – it jarred every nerve –it thrilled his soul. ‘By what right,’ he exclaimed, ‘has man arrogated to himself a power to tyrannize over his fellow-creatures; to cloud their prospects, to dash their hopes, and sink them to melancholy and despair? Through these massy walls, the cries of misery can never penetrate the ear of justice: the tyrant may satiate his vengeance with impunity; for no more than the voice of the beetle arrests the foot that / crushes it, does the sigh of the victim arrest the hand of oppression. – Here cruelty and death are triumphant. In vain they shake their fetters – in vain they groan: this grave of hope and joy strikes no passenger with grief – the steps of mirth dance round its walls; and the remembrance of gaiety augments the bitterness of the emaciated captive, while he wistfully gazes through his ironed lattice, and sends forth his neglected sighs.’
