“I wish to say,” remarked the Governor, with an air of bored indifference which was evidently quite genuine, “that if you make any further attempt to communicate with the authorities, or with friends, you will bring on yourself punishment which will be unpleasant.”
“As a subject of the Czar, I have the right to appeal to him,” said the Prince.
“The appeal you have written here,” replied the Governor, “would have proved useless, even if it had been delivered. The Czar knows nothing of the Trogzmondoff, which is a stronghold entirely under the control of the Grand Dukes and of the Navy. The Trogzmondoff never gives up a prisoner.”
“Yes,” rejoined the Governor, with frigid calmness, “and if you give me no trouble you will save yourself some inconvenience.”
“Then,” continued Lermontoff in German, “I desire to say a few words to you which I don’t wish this gaoler to understand. I am Prince Ivan Lermontoff, a personal friend of the Czar’s, who, after all, is master of the Grand Dukes and the Navy also. If you will help to put me into communication with him, I will guarantee that no harm comes to you, and furthermore will make you a rich man.”
“What you ask is impossible. Riches are nothing to me. Bribery may do much in other parts of the Empire, but it is powerless in the Trogzmondoff. I shall die in the room adjoining this, as my predecessor died. I am quite as much a prisoner in the Trogzmondoff as is your Highness. No man who has once set foot in this room, either as Governor, employee, or prisoner, is allowed to see the mainland again, and thus the secret has been well kept. We have had many prisoners of equal rank with your Highness, friends of the Czar too, I dare say, but they all died on the Rock, and were buried in the Baltic.”
“May I not be permitted to receive certain supplies if I pay for them? That is allowed in other prisons.”
“I can let you have a blanket,” he said, “and a pillow, or a sheepskin if you find it cold at first, but my power here is very limited, and, as I tell you, the officers have little more comfort than the prisoners.”
“Oh, I don’t care anything about comfort,” protested Lermontoff. “What I want is some scientific apparatus. I am a student of science. I have nothing to do with politics, and have never been implicated in any plot. Someone in authority has made a stupid mistake, and so I am here. This mistake I am quite certain will be discovered and remedied. I hold no malice, and will say nothing of the place, once I am free. It is no business of mine. But I do not wish to have the intervening time wasted. I should like to buy some electrical machinery, and materials, for which I am willing to pay any price that is asked.”