The prisoner, after recovering a little from his despondency and despair, proceeded to examine his cage. He walked round it with bent head, for it was barely five and a half feet high, and Casanova was a tall man, of quite six feet. He found that the room was some twelve feet square, with an alcove on the fourth side for a bed which was absent, and there was no other furniture whatever. The one small window was closed with six iron bars and gave but little light for a solid block of stone--part of the architecture--lay more than half across, but there was enough light to show him numbers of rats running to and fro. He fell into a state of semi-coma, and passed several hours absorbed in gloomy reflections. Then suddenly he roused himself and displayed ungovernable fury. No one had come near him, he was suffering from intolerable thirst, and the slow hours dragged along without a sign of relief. He raged and stormed and uttered the most piercing cries but to no purpose, as they were not heard beyond his cell walls, and after an hour or more of vain appeals he threw himself exhausted and despairing on the floor, believing that the inhuman inquisitors meant to leave him there to die. What had he done? He taxed his brain seeking the reason for this abominable ill-usage and could find none. He was willing to confess himself a libertine, a gambler, an overbold talker, with no thought but to enjoy life; but in all this there was nothing criminal, no offence against the state. At last nature came to his aid. Worn out by his fierce passion and the want of food and drink, utterly broken and exhausted, he fell into a sound sleep. His awakening was the more terrible. The great clock above his head, and so near that it seemed in his very room, clanged out midnight, and as he turned his hands touched another, icy cold and motionless. Feeling sure it must be that of some corpse, he again shouted aloud in uncontrollable terror. But it was his own hand; he had lain upon it in his heavy sleep and all feeling had left it. Gradually he recovered himself as the dawn broke gray and imperfect, and about eight o’clock came the welcome sound in the distance of jangling keys and bolts run back, and his gaoler appeared, who asked in brutal derision, “Have you had time to think of food yet? Hungry, eh?” Casanova disdained to complain and quietly called for a full meal. “All right, give me the money. Anything else? Don’t you want a bed, a table, chair and so forth? If you fancy you are only here for one night, you are very much mistaken.” The prisoner made out a list including papers and books, but was plainly told they were forbidden. Then the gaoler, whose name was Laurent, left him and presently returned with soup, a little meat and other necessaries.