NOCTURNAL TRANSMISSIONS : dark tales, both old and new, performed by voice artist Kristin Holland
Jul 24, 2026 · 10 min · 5 segments
The following episode is a teaser for our PATREON SUBSCRIBER EXCLUSIVE presentation of: **'THE IRON SHROUD' by William Mudford** To hear this episode in full subscribe at…
He doubted whether it was not a dream that had passed before his sleeping fancy.
But gradually his scattered thoughts returned, and with them came remembrance.
Once again his eyes had trembled beneath their veiled lids at the sun's radiance, and sought repose in the soft verdure of the olive tree, or the gentle swell of undulating waves.
Oh, that he were a mariner, exposed upon those waves to the worst fury of storm and tempest, or a very wretch, loathsome with disease, plague-stricken, and his body one leprous contagion from crown to sore, hunted forth to gasp out the remnant of infectious life beneath those verdant trees, so he might shun the destiny upon whose edge he tottered.
Vain thoughts like these would steal over his mind from time to time in spite of himself, but they scarcely moved it from that stupor into which it had sunk, and which kept him during the whole night like one who has been drugged with opium.
He was equally insensible to the calls of hunger and of thirst, though the third day was now commencing since even a drop of water had passed his lips.
He remained on the ground, sometimes sitting, sometimes lying, at intervals sleeping heavily, and when not sleeping, silently brooding over what was to come, or talking aloud in disordered speech of his wrongs, of his friends, of his home, and of those he loved, with a confused mingling of all.
If dawn it might be called, the dim obscure light which faintly struggled through the one solitary window of his dungeon.
could hardly be said to notice the melancholy token, and yet he did notice it, for as he raised his eyes and saw the portentous sign, there was a slight convulsive distortion of his countenance.
But what did attract his notice, and at the sight of which his agitation was excessive, was the change his iron bed had undergone.
was a bed no longer it stood before him the visible semblance of a funeral couch or beer when he beheld this he started from the ground and in raising himself suddenly struck his head against the roof which was now so low that he could no longer stand upright god's will was all he said, as he crouched his body and placed his hand upon the pier.
The iron bedstead had been so contrived by the mechanical art of Ludovico Sforza that as the advancing walls came in contact with its head and feet, a pressure was produced upon concealed springs, which, when made to play, set in motion a simple, though ingeniously contrived machinery that effected the transformation.
The object was, of course, to heighten in the closing scene of this horrible drama all the feelings of anguish which the preceding ones had aroused.
For the same reason, the last window was so made as to admit only a shadowy kind of gloom rather than light, that the wretched captive might be surrounded, as it were, with every seeming preparation for approaching.
The air seemed thick, and he breathed with difficulty, or it might be that he fancied it was so, from the hot and narrow limits of his dungeon, which were now so diminished that he could neither stand up nor lie down at his full length.
happy if thus revenge had struck its final blow, for he would have fallen beneath it almost unconscious of a pang.
He doubted whether it was not a dream that had passed before his sleeping fancy.
But gradually his scattered thoughts returned, and with them came remembrance.
Once again his eyes had trembled beneath their veiled lids at the sun's radiance, and sought repose in the soft verdure of the olive tree, or the gentle swell of undulating waves.
Oh, that he were a mariner, exposed upon those waves to the worst fury of storm and tempest, or a very wretch, loathsome with disease, plague-stricken, and his body one leprous contagion from crown to sore, hunted forth to gasp out the remnant of infectious life beneath those verdant trees, so he might shun the destiny upon whose edge he tottered.
Vain thoughts like these would steal over his mind from time to time in spite of himself, but they scarcely moved it from that stupor into which it had sunk, and which kept him during the whole night like one who has been drugged with opium.
He was equally insensible to the calls of hunger and of thirst, though the third day was now commencing since even a drop of water had passed his lips.
He remained on the ground, sometimes sitting, sometimes lying, at intervals sleeping heavily, and when not sleeping, silently brooding over what was to come, or talking aloud in disordered speech of his wrongs, of his friends, of his home, and of those he loved, with a confused mingling of all.
If dawn it might be called, the dim obscure light which faintly struggled through the one solitary window of his dungeon.
could hardly be said to notice the melancholy token, and yet he did notice it, for as he raised his eyes and saw the portentous sign, there was a slight convulsive distortion of his countenance.
But what did attract his notice, and at the sight of which his agitation was excessive, was the change his iron bed had undergone.
was a bed no longer it stood before him the visible semblance of a funeral couch or beer when he beheld this he started from the ground and in raising himself suddenly struck his head against the roof which was now so low that he could no longer stand upright god's will was all he said, as he crouched his body and placed his hand upon the pier.
The iron bedstead had been so contrived by the mechanical art of Ludovico Sforza that as the advancing walls came in contact with its head and feet, a pressure was produced upon concealed springs, which, when made to play, set in motion a simple, though ingeniously contrived machinery that effected the transformation.
The object was, of course, to heighten in the closing scene of this horrible drama all the feelings of anguish which the preceding ones had aroused.
For the same reason, the last window was so made as to admit only a shadowy kind of gloom rather than light, that the wretched captive might be surrounded, as it were, with every seeming preparation for approaching.
The air seemed thick, and he breathed with difficulty, or it might be that he fancied it was so, from the hot and narrow limits of his dungeon, which were now so diminished that he could neither stand up nor lie down at his full length.
happy if thus revenge had struck its final blow, for he would have fallen beneath it almost unconscious of a pang.
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