Many a jailer, less hardened than Colonel Kavelin, finds a perverted gratification in delaying to give relieving news to a prisoner--there is a rarely exquisite pleasure in watching the poor thing writhe a little longer. Colonel Kavelin did not deign to set the brother and sister right, and Drexel did not dare to, for the statement that they were to be removed, not executed, would be certain to rouse Freeman’s deadly suspicion. “Let’s have those irons,” said the governor to the guard. Then he looked back at Drexel who had shrunk into the shadow near the door. “These prisoners are inclined to make trouble, Captain Laroque. To save time and a row, we’ll just put the irons on them ourselves. I’ll attend to the man. Women seem your specialty, so I turn her over to you.” Drexel could but obey. He pushed his cap far down, and praying that the dusk of the dungeon might be a mask to him against the eyes of Freeman, he took a set of the irons and moved forward to Sonya. She met him with a gaze of magnificent wrath and contempt. “Is it not enough that you should hang us,” she demanded, “without hanging us in chains?” “We’ll hang you as we please, my lady,” Drexel roughly responded. “Spoken like the infamous Captain Laroque!” she flamed back at him. “That kind of talk will make it all the worse for you,” he growled. He knelt down, the leg-irons in his hands. “Put out your foot!” “I will not!” “Put out your foot, I say!” “I will never submit to chains!” she cried. “Don’t waste words on her--use force,” advised the governor, who with the aid of a guard was practising this expedient on Borodin. “Or wait a minute, and I will help you.” “I can manage her,” Drexel quickly returned. But how he had no idea. Oh, this delay!--with destruction watching from Freeman’s corner. If she only knew! Suddenly he thought of something she had taught him one day in the house in Three Saints’ Court--the telegraph code of political prisoners, by means of which they speak among themselves by dot-and-dash raps upon their dungeon walls. Sonya’s back was to Freeman; the governor was bent over Borodin. He seized one of her ankles. She did not struggle, but she grew rigid. “Oh, you brute!” she breathed hotly. With quick sharp indentations of his thumb Drexel spelled his name upon her ankle. He felt a start go through her. Again he spelled his name; then, ordering the guard away and turning his back to Freeman, he raised his face so that the governor’s light shone full into it. A quivering tensity told him that she saw and recognized. “Put out your foot!” he growled once more. With the wrathful indignation of one who yields to brute force, she acceded; and a minute later, with the same air of outraged pride, she yielded her wrists to the manacles. He had a momentary glimpse of her face. It showed nothing of the hope of life that thrilled her; it showed nothing of her awed astonishment at his presence. Its control was perfect.