Presently the band of captives halted before a small door which was thickly studded with large nails. It seemed to form the only opening in a high dead wall, with the exception of two holes about a foot square, which served as windows. This was the Bagnio, or prison, in which the slaves were put each evening after the day's labour was over, there to feed and rest on the stone floor until daylight should call them forth again to renewed toil. It was a gloomy courtyard, with cells around it in which the captives slept. A fountain in the middle kept the floor damp and seemed to prove an attraction to various centipedes, scorpions, and other noisome creatures which were crawling about. Here the captives just arrived had their bonds removed, and were left to their own devices, each having received two rolls of black bread before the jailor retired and locked them up for the night. Taking possession of an empty cell, George Foster sat down on the stone floor and gazed at the wretched creatures around him, many of whom were devouring their black bread with ravenous haste. The poor youth could hardly believe his eyes, and it was some time before he could convince himself that the whole thing was not a dream but a terrible reality. CHAPTER THREE. THE BAGNIO--OUR HERO SEES SOMETHING OF MISERY, AND IS SOLD AS A SLAVE. There are some things in this world so unbelievable that even when we know them to be true we still remain in a state of semi-scepticism. When our unfortunate midshipman awoke next morning, raised himself on his elbow, and felt that all his bones and muscles were stiff and pained from lying on a stone floor, it was some time before he could make out where he was, or recall the events of the last few days. The first thing that revived his sluggish memory was the scuttling away, in anxious haste, of a scorpion that had sought and found comfortable quarters during the night under the lee of his right leg. Starting up, he crushed the reptile with his foot. "You will get used to that," said a quietly sarcastic voice with a slightly foreign accent, close to him. The speaker was a middle-aged man with grey hair, hollow cheeks, and deep sunken eyes. "They trouble us a little at first," he continued, "but, as I have said, we get used to them. It is long since I cared for scorpions." "Have you, then, been long here?" asked Foster. "Yes. Twelve years." "A prisoner?--a slave?" asked the midshipman anxiously. "A prisoner, yes. A slave, yes--a mummified man; a dead thing with life enough to work, but not yet quite a brute, more's the pity, for then I should not care! But here I have been for twelve years--long, long years! It has seemed to me an eternity." "It _is_ a long time to be a slave. God help you, poor man!" exclaimed Foster.