Although the outside door of the Governor’s room stood open, the room was not as well illumined as it had been before, for the sun had now gone round to the other side of the island, but to the prisoner’s aching eyes it seemed a chamber of refulgence.  The same lamp was burning on the table, giving forth an odor of bad oil, but in addition to this, two candles were lighted, which supplemented in some slight measure the efforts of the lamp.  At the end of the table lay a number of documents under a paper-weight, arranged with the neat precision of a methodical man.  The Governor had been warming his hands over the brazier, but ceased when Lermontoff was brought up standing before him.  He lifted the paper-weight, took from under it the two letters which Lermontoff had given to the steward on the steamer, and handed them to the prisoner, who thus received them back for the second time.

“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.”

“Then I am here for a lifetime?”

“Yes,” rejoined the Governor, with frigid calmness, “and if you give me no trouble you will save yourself some inconvenience.”

“Do you speak French?” asked the Prince.

“Net.”

“English?”

“Net.”

“Italian?”

“Net.”

“German?”

“Da.”

“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.”

The Governor slowly shook his head.

“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.”