i awoke with a start. the moon was still shining. it was midnight. i heard, or thought i heard, a deep moaning. it sounded a little like waves beating on a rockbound coast. then it ceased and was replaced by a musical element that came in certain stately measures. those sounds were in the room, but they came from far away; only by straining my sense of sound to the utmost could i hear anything.

slippers on my feet, flashlight in my hand and the key in the pocket of my dressing-gown, i slowly descended the stairs. loud snores from the servants' room told, or seemed to tell, of their deep slumbers. down into the cellar i went and put the key into the hole of the lock. the key turned easily—no rust there—the springs and the tumblers had been well oiled, like the hinges. it was evident that the door had been used often. turning the light on the hinges, i saw what had made my hand black with oil. earnestly i damned the servants. they knew about the door. they knew what was on the other side!

just as i was about to open the door i heard a woman's voice singing in italian; it sounded like a selection from an opera. it was followed by applause, and then a moaning, and one shrill cry, as though someone had been hurt. there was no doubt now as to where the sounds that i heard in my room had come from; they had come from the other side of the door. there was a mystery there for me to solve. but i was not ready to solve it; so i turned the key noiselessly, and with the door locked, tiptoed back to my bed.

there i tried to put two and two together. they made five, seven, a million vague admixtures of impossible results, all filled with weird forebodings. but never did they make four, and till they did, i knew the answers to be wrong, for two and two had to make four.

many changes of masters! one after another they came and bought and disappeared. a whitewashed wall. what secrets were covered with that whitewash? a door in a cellar. and what deviltry went on behind it? a key and a well-oiled lock, and servants that knew everything. in vain the question came to me. what is back of the door? there was no ready answer. but, donna marchesi knew! was it her voice that i had heard? she knew almost everything about it, but there was one thing that i knew and she did not. she did not know that i could pass through the door and find out what was on the other side. she did not know that i had a key.

the next day i pleaded indisposition and spent most of the hours idling and drowsing in my chamber. not till nearly midnight did i venture down. the servants were certainly asleep that time. a dose of chloral in their wine had attended to the certainty of their slumbers. fully dressed, with an automatic in my pocket, i reached the cellar and opened the door. it swung noiselessly on its well-greased hinges. the darkness on the other side was the blackness of hell. an indescribable odor came to me, a prison smell and with it the soft half sob, half laugh of sleeping children, dreaming in their sleep, and not happy.

i flashed the light around the room. it was not a room but a cavern, a cave that extended far into the distance, the roof supported by stone pillars, set at regular intervals. as far as my light would carry i saw the long rows of white columns.

and to each pillar was bound a man, by chains. they were resting on the stone floor, twenty or more of them, and all asleep. snores, grunts and weary sighs came from them, but not a single eyelid opened. even when i flashed the light in their faces their eyes were shut.

and those faces sickened me; white and drawn and filled with the lines of deep suffering. all were covered with scars; long, narrow, deep scars, some fresh and red, others old and dead-white. at last, the sunken eyelids and the inability to see my flashlight and respond told me the nauseating truth. those men were all blind.