I slept again and, when I woke early in the afternoon, insisted on getting
up and being dressed. I was no sooner clad than there entered the
apartment a big, florid, youthful Pannonian sergeant and four legionaries.
I was yet again rearrested!
They led me away, forbidding Agathemer to exchange a word with me, or to
follow us. Through the brilliant July sunlight they led me, along its
northeast flank, up the Steps of Groaning, and to the Mamertine Prison!
There I was handed over to four of the assistants to the Public
Executioner. They stripped me of my outer garments, leaving me naked
except for my tunic. Then they haled me to the trap-door, lifted the trap,
passed ropes under my armpits and lowered me into the dreaded lower
dungeon, the horrible Tullianum!
CHAPTER XXXIX
THE TULLIANUM
Gloomy as is the upper cell of the Mamertine Prison there is light enough
there for my eyes to have been utterly blinded by it as I was lowered into
the black pit beneath. I saw nothing in the brief period while I was being
let down, while the ropes were being drawn up, while the trap-door was
shut down and fitted into place. Then I was in the pitchest darkness, into
which no ray, no glimmer of light could penetrate.
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