On all fours he reached the margin of the rivulet, and felt his way along the brink till his head struck the opposite wall.  He turned round, took up a position that he guessed was three feet nearer the door, and again traversed the room, becoming so eager in the search that he forgot for the moment the horror of his situation, just as, when engaged in a chemical experiment, everything else vanished from his mind, and thus after several journeys back and forth he was again reminded of the existence of the stone bench by butting against it when he knew he was still several feet from the wall.  Rubbing his head, he muttered some unfavorable phrases regarding the immovable bench, then crawled round it twice, and resumed his transverse excursions.  At last he reached the wall that held the door, and now with breathless eagerness rubbed his shoulder against it till he came to the opposite corner.  He knew he had touched with knees and hands practically every square inch of space in the floor, and yet no bread.

“Now, that’s a disaster,” cried he, getting up on his feet, and stretching himself.  “Still, a man doesn’t starve in four days.  I’ve cast my bread on the waters.  It has evidently gone down the stream.  Now, what’s to hinder a man escaping by means of that watercourse?  Still, if he did, what would be the use?  He’d float out into the Baltic Sea, and if able to swim round the rock, would merely be compelled to knock at the front door and beg admission again.  No, by Jove, there’s the boat, but they probably guard it night and day, and a man in the water would have no chance against one in the boat.  Perhaps there’s gratings between the cells.  Of course, there’s bound to be.  No one would leave the bed of a stream clear for any one to navigate.  Prisoners would visit each other in their cells, and that’s not allowed in any respectable prison.  I wonder if there’s any one next door on either side of me.  An iron grid won’t keep out the sound.  I’ll try,” and going again to the margin of the watercourse, he shouted several times as loudly as he could, but only a sepulchral echo, as if from a vault, replied to him.

“I imagine the adjoining cells are empty.  No enjoyable companionship to be expected here.  I wonder if they’ve got the other poor devils up from the steamer yet.  I’ll sit down on the bench and listen.”

He could have found the bench and shelf almost immediately by groping round the wall, but he determined to exercise his sense of direction, to pit himself against the darkness.

“I need not hurry,” he said, “I may be a long time here.”

In his mind he had a picture of the cell, but now that he listened to the water it seemed to have changed its direction, and he found he had to rearrange this mental picture, and make a different set of calculations to fit the new position.  Then he shuffled slowly forward with hands outstretched, but he came to the wall, and not to the bench.  Again he mapped out his route, again endeavored, and again failed.