It was
Christmas Eve, old style, as still observed in some of the provinces,
and the midnight chorus was singing an ancient Christmas hymn which
every Polish child knows from the cradle. For twelve years the dear
familiar melody had not greeted his ears, and now he heard it sung by
his captive fellow-countrymen in a Russian dungeon.
Two days later they set out again, and now he was chained hand and
foot with heavy irons, rusty, and too small for his limbs. The sleigh
hurried on day and night with headlong haste: it was upset, everybody
was thrown out, the prisoner's chain caught and he was dragged until
he lost consciousness. In this state he arrived at Kiow. Here he was
thrown into a cell six feet by five, almost dark and disgustingly
dirty. The wretched man was soon covered from head to foot with
vermin, of which his handcuffs prevented his ridding himself. However,
in a day or two, after a visit from the commandant, his cell was
cleaned. His manacles prevented his walking, or even standing, and the
moral effect of being unable to use his hands was a strange apathy
such as might precede imbecility. He was interrogated several times,
but always adhered to his confession at Kamenitz; menaces of harsher
treatment, even of torture, were tried--means which he knew too well
had been resorted to before; his guards were forbidden to exchange a
word with him, so that his time was passed in solitude, silence and
absolute inoccupation.
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