one of the dark places of Providence? or was it indeed the vile compost
to mature some beautiful germ? Ah, then, is it possible that Heaven
looks on us so in the mass?

But for me, after a while I lay torpid, and then perchance I slept, for
finally I opened my eyes and found the white strong light; T lay on a
bed, and a surgeon handled me. Too elastic was I to be long crushed,
once the weight removed. Soon I breathed fresh air; and save that my
frame had become in its distortion hideous, I was the same as before.

Then, indeed, began my torture,--torture to which this had been idle
jest. I was taken once more to the room of tribunal. Beside the
Neapolitan a woman sat veiled and shrouded in masses of sable drapery.
"A queen?" I thought, "or a slave?" But I had no further room for fancy;
the same interrogatories as before were given me to answer, and then I
felt why I had been nursed back to life. In the months that had elapsed,
I could not know if Italy were saved or lost, if Naples tottered or
remained impregnable. I stood only on my personal basis of right or
wrong. I refused to open my lips. They wheeled forward a low bed that I
knew well. Oh, the slow starting of the socket! Oh, the long wrench of
tendon and nerve! A bed of steel and cords, rollers and levers, bound me
there, and bent to their creaking toil. I was strong to endure; I had
set my teeth and sworn myself to silence; no woman should hear me moan.
Even in this misery I saw that she who sat there, shaking, fell.

The tyrant was lily-livered; seldom he witnessed what others died under;
he intended nothing further then;--many men who faint at sight of blood
can probe a soul to its utmost gasp. Now he motioned, and they paused.
Then others lifted the woman and held her beside him, yet a little in
advance.