When he awoke next he was again in his cell, but now his hands were also fettered, and he was chained to a ring in the wall. The death he desired had eluded him, and he was worse off than before. He was stiff and sore all over after his fight, and his head gave him excruciating pain. At his side were a cake of rough bread and a very moderate allowance of water, and he seized upon them greedily, then lapsed into semi-consciousness. For an unknown length of time after this he lived in a kind of delirium, in which past, present, and future were inextricably mingled in his mind, and his only clear feeling was a vehement hatred of any one who came near him. When his brain became less confused he gave himself up to imagining means of gratifying this hatred, walking ceaselessly backwards and forwards in the semicircle of two or three paces’ radius, which was all that his chains would allow. His new gaoler never ventured within his reach, and put his food where he could only touch it by dint of strenuous efforts, and the difficulty was to induce him to come closer. But the words he had heard recurred to Ferrers’ half-maddened brain, and when the gaoler entered the cell one day, expecting to find the prisoner walking about and muttering to himself as usual, he saw only a confused heap by the wall. He called, but received no answer, and in terror lest the Khan should have been baulked of his revenge by the death of his captive, ventured near enough to touch him. The moment he came within reach Ferrers sprang up with a howl like that of a wild beast, and, joining his two fettered hands, smote him on the head with all his strength. The man fell; but the authorities had learnt wisdom from the fate of his predecessor, and Ferrers’ triumph was shortlived. Several men rushed in from the passage, dragged out the gaoler, and, turning upon the prisoner, beat him so cruelly with whips of hide that he sank on the ground bleeding and exhausted. When they left him at last, it was with a promise that he should taste the bastinado on the morrow, and, unhappily for him, his mind was now sufficiently clear to understand all that this implied. All day he lay more dead than alive, and when the door of his cell opened gently, hours before the usual time, he had not strength to look up, even when a light was flashed in his eyes. It was not until a leathern bottle was held to his lips, and a voice said, “Drink this, sahib,” that he awoke from his lethargy, to see a well-known face bending over him. “What, is it you, Mirza?” he asked feebly. “Hush, sahib; I am come to save you,” was the whispered answer. “Only do what I tell you, or both our lives will pay for it.”