Though the woman who had led me there endeavored to prevent it, I handed her the pencil, and placed the paper on the table for her to write.
The nun tried to snatch it up, but I held her arm gently and forcibly, saying in French:
"No. I wish to see if she is really insane. You will at least allow me this satisfaction."
And while we were in altercation, Elma, with the pencil in her fingers, tried to write, but by reason of her hands being bound so closely was unable. At length, however, after several attempts, she succeeded in printing in uneven capitals the response:
"I know you. You were on the yacht. I thought they killed you."
The thin-faced old woman saw her response—a reply that was surely rational enough—and her brows contracted with displeasure.
"Why are you here?" I wrote, not allowing the sister to get sight of my question.
In response, she wrote painfully and laboriously:
"I am condemned for a crime I did not commit. Take me from here, or I shall kill myself."
"Ah!" exclaimed the old woman. "You see, poor girl, she believes herself innocent! They all do."
"But why is she here?" I demanded fiercely.
"I do not know, m'sieur. It is not my duty to inquire the history of their crimes. When they are ill I nurse them; that is all."
"And who is the commandant of this fortress?"
"Colonel Smirnoff. If he knew that I had admitted you, you would never leave this place alive. This is the Schusselburg of Finland—the place of imprisonment for those who have conspired against the State."
"The prison of political conspirators, eh?"
"Alas, m'sieur, yes! The place in which some of the poor creatures are tortured in order to obtain confessions and information with as much cruelty as in the black days of the Inquisition. These walls are thick, and their cries are not heard from the oubliettes below the lake."
I had long ago heard of the horrors of Schusselburg. Indeed who has not heard of them who has traveled in Russia? The very mention of the modern Bastille on Lake Ladoga, where no prisoner has ever been known to come forth alive, is sufficient to cause any Russian to turn pale. And I was in the Schusselburg of Finland!
I turned over the sheet of paper and wrote the question—
"Did Baron Oberg send you here?"
In response, she printed the words—
"I believe so. I was arrested in Helsingfors. Tell Lydia where I am."
"Do you know Muriel Leithcourt?" I inquired by the same means, whereupon she replied that they were at school together.
"Did you see me on board the Lola?" I wrote.
"Yes. But I could not warn you, although I had overheard their intentions. They took me ashore when you had gone, to Siena. After three days I found myself deaf and dumb—I was made so."
Her allegation startled me. She had been purposely afflicted!
"Who did it?"
"A doctor, I suppose. They put me under chloroform."
"Who?"
"People who said they were my friends."
I turned to the woman in the religious habit, and cried—
"Do you see what she has written? She has been maimed by some friends who intended that the secret she holds should be kept. They feared to kill her, so they bribed a doctor to deliberately operate upon her so that she could neither speak nor hear. And now they are driving her to suicide!"
"M'sieur, I am astounded!" declared the nun. "I have always believed that she was not in her right mind, yet assuredly she seems to be as sane as I am, only willfully mutilated by some pretended friend who determined that no further word should pass her lips."
"A shameful mutilation has been committed upon this poor defenseless girl!" I cried in anger. "And I will make it my duty to discover and punish the perpetrators of it."
"Ah, m'sieur. Do not act rashly, I pray of you," the woman said seriously, placing her hand upon my arm. "Recollect you are in Finland—where the Baron Oberg is all-powerful."
"I do not fear the Baron Oberg," I exclaimed. "If necessary, I will appeal to the Czar himself. Mademoiselle is kept here for the reason that she is in possession of some secret. She must be released—I will take the responsibility."
"But you must not try to release her from here. It would mean death to you both. The Castle of Kajana tells no secrets of those who die within its walls, or of those cast headlong into its waters and forgotten."
Again I turned to Elma, who stood in anxious wonder of the subject of our conversation, and had suddenly taken the old nun's hand and kissed it affectionately, perhaps in order to show me that she trusted her.
Then upon the paper I wrote—
"Is the Baron Oberg your uncle?"
She shook her head in the negative, showing that the dreaded Governor-General of Finland had only acted a part towards her in which she had been compelled to concur.
