It was a great relief, and restored me to confidence in the establishment.  I am at a loss to explain how my faith should have been confirmed afterwards by coming upon a guillotine—­an awful instrument in the likeness of a straw-cutter, with a decapitated wooden figure under its blade—­which the custodian confessed to be a modern improvement placed there by Signor P——.  Yet my credulity was so strengthened by his candor, that I accepted without hesitation the torture of the water-drop when we came to it.  The water-jar was as well preserved as if placed there but yesterday, and the skeleton beneath it—­found as we saw it—­was entire and perfect.

In the adjoining cell sat a skeleton—­found as we saw it—­with its neck in the clutch of the garrote, which was one of Ecelino’s more merciful punishments; while in still another cell the ferocity of the tyrant appeared in the penalty inflicted upon the wretch whose skeleton had been hanging for ages—­as we saw it—­head downwards from the ceiling.

Beyond these, in a yet darker and drearier dungeon, stood a heavy oblong wooden box, with two apertures near the top, peering through which we found that we were looking into the eyeless sockets of a skull.  Within this box Ecelino had immured the victim we beheld there, and left him to perish in view of the platters of food and goblets of drink placed just beyond the reach of his hands.  The food we saw was of course not the original food.

At last we came to the crowning horror of Villa P——­, the supreme excess of Ecelino’s cruelty.  The guide entered the cell before us, and, as we gained the threshold, threw the light of his taper vividly upon a block that stood in the middle of the floor.  Fixed to the block by an immense spike driven through from the back was the little slender hand of a woman, which lay there just as it had been struck from the living arm, and which, after the lapse of so many centuries, was still as perfectly preserved as if it had been embalmed.  The sight had a most cruel fascination; and while one of the horror-seekers stood helplessly conjuring to his vision that scene of unknown dread,—­the shrinking, shrieking woman dragged to the block, the wild, shrill, horrible screech following the blow that drove in the spike, the merciful swoon after the mutilation,—­his companion, with a sudden pallor, demanded to be taken instantly away.

In their swift withdrawal, they only glanced at a few detached instruments of torture,—­all original Ecelinos, but intended for the infliction of minor and comparatively unimportant torments,—­and then they passed from that place of fear.

III.