The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1886-01-08
TRANSLATION CONFRONTED, 1851
[coNT1NrED.]
CHAPTER *.
THE DoSJoN OF PIsINo.

The fortress of Pisino is one of the
most formidable buildings which arose
in the middle ages. It has Il fine feudal
aspect. It only wants the knights i'll its
vaulted halls and the ia'lies in their long
brocaded robes and pointed bonnets at
It's arched windows, aud the archers and
crossbowmen ON it's mnchicolanons. its
battlemented galleries, at the emDra-
sures of its manemals. its portcullis and
its drawbridges. The stonework is still
intact; but the Governor with his Aus
trian uniform, the soldiers with their
modern weapons, the wartlers and turn
keys who no longer wear the parti-
colored costume, half yellow and half
red, of the old days, strike false note
in the midst of ill this magnificene Of
the past.
It was from the donjon of this fortress
that Count Sandorf was endeavoring to
escape during the last hours before Ills
execution. A mad attempt no doubt;
for the prisoners did not even know in
what part of the donjon their prison lay,
nor anything of the country across which
they would have to journey after their
escape.
And perhaps it was fortunate that
their ignorance was complete in the mat
ter. Had they known more they might
have recoiled before the difficulties, to
say nothing of the impossibilities of such
an enterprise.
It is not that this province OF Ist1ia
offers no favorable chances for an escape,
for no matter what direction the fugi-
lives took they would reach the seacoast
in few hours. It is not that the streets
of Pisino are so carefully guarded that
there is risk of being arrested at the
very first step. But to escape from the
fortress, and particularly from the dom
ion occupied bv the prisoners. had up to
then been considered impossible. Even
the idea had never occurred to any one.
The situation and exterior arrange
ments of the donion in the fortress of
Pisino were as follows: The donjon
occupies one side of the terrace with
Which the town here ends. Leaning
over the parapet of this terrace the eye
plunges into large, deep gulf, whose
rugged sides, covered with thick entan-
clements of creepers, are cut down per-
pendicnarlv. Nothing overhangs the
wall; there is not step to enable any
one to ascend or descend not fence
to halt at; not a prominence to seize
hold upon in any part OF it nothing
but the uncer ain lines, smooth rugged
and irregular, which mark the oblique
clearage of the rocks. In word, it is
an abyss which attracts fassinates and
never gives back anything that drops
into it.
Above the abyss rises one of the side
walls of the donion, pierced with few
windows giving light to the cells on the
different floors Were prisoner to lean
out of one of these openings he would
recoil with terror lest vertigo drag him
into this void below And if he fell
what would be his fate? His body
would be dashed to pieces on the rocks
ct the bottom, or it would be carried
away by the torrent whose current dur
ing food is irresistible.
The abyss is the Brico, as it is called
in the district Through it runs river
known as the Foiba. This river finds
its only outlet in q cavern which it has
gradually cut ont of the rocks, and into
which it falls with the impetuousity of a
tide-race or o whirlpool. Where does it
go as itpasses under the town ? No one
knows Where does it reappear? Not
one knows of this cavern, or rather this
canal, bored in the schists and clays-
no one knows the length, the height or
the direction. Who can say what thous-
ands of angles, what forests of pillars
supporting the enormous substructure
of the fortress and entire city its waters
are dashed against in their course
Many bold explorers, when the water
level has been neither too high nor too
low, have taken a light boat and
endeavored to descend the Foiba through
the gloomy tunnel, but the arches have
been too low and have soon interposed
an impracticable obstacle. In fact,
nothing is known of this subtnrranean
river. Perhaps it is lost in some still
deeper cavern and enters the Adriatic
below the tide mark.
Such, then, was the Brico, of which
Count Sandorf did not even know the
existence; and as the only escape was
by the window of his cell. which opened
above the Brico. he would be almost Us
certain to meet his death as if he stood