While in this position he was startled by a piercing scream to the
rear. He backed out from the tunnel and stood upright once more. He
heard the sound of people splashing round in water. The screamer began
to jabber like a maniac, punctuating his ravings with shrieks. Another
was cursing vehemently, and a third appealing to the saints.
Lermontoff quickly knelt down in the watercourse, this time facing the
upper cell, and struck his third match. He saw that a steel shield,
reminding him of the thin shutter between the lenses of a camera, had
been shot across the tunnel behind the second group of cross bars, and
as an engineer be could not but admire the skill of the practical
expert who had constructed this diabolical device, for in spite of the
pressure on the other side, hardly a drop of water oozed through. He
tried to reach this shield, but could not. It was just beyond the
touch of his fingers, with his arm thrust through the two sets of
bars, but if he could have stretched that far, with the first bar
retarding his shoulder, he knew his hand would be helpless even if he
had some weapon to puncture the steel shield. The men would be drowned
before he could accomplish anything unless he was at the lever in the
passage outside.
Crawling into his cell again he heard no more of the chatter and cries
of the maniac, and he surmised that the other two were fighting for
places on bench or shelf, which was amply large enough to have
supported both, had they not been too demented with fear to recognize
that fact.
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