In the
opposite wall hung a fourth door, of steel and heavily barred, through
which, level with the eyes, was cut a peep-hole concealed by a swinging
steel disk.
The Sergeant moved rapidly across the room, pushed aside the disk and
brought to view the nose and eyes of a prison guard.
As our guide shot back a bolt, a click like the cocking of a gun sounded
through the room, followed by the jangle of a huge iron ring strung with
keys. Selecting one from the number, he pushed it into the key-hole and
threw his weight against the door. At its touch the mass of steel swung
inward noiselessly as the door of a bank-vault. With the swinging of the
door there reached us the hot, stuffy smell of unwashed bodies under
steam-heat--the unmistakable odor that one sometimes meets in a
court-room.
Marny and I stepped inside. The Sergeant closed the slab of steel,
locking us inside, and then, nodding to us through the peep-hole,
returned to his post in the office.
We stood now on the rim of the crater, looking straight into the
inferno.
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