There is an instant's pause. Then----

"Go and get your coat and cap."

The foregoing colloquy has been carried on in low tones for I have no wish to disturb the shop, or make a show of rebellion.[14]

I make my way back to our work-table. "Well, Jack, I'm in for it!"

"What did you tell him?"

"I refused to work any longer."

"Gee! You'll get it in the neck, sure enough. You've committed a serious offense."

"That's all right; but I wish my hands weren't so sticky. I can't get them clean with that cold water."

"I'll get you some hot water."

Jack goes off to fulfill his errand; and I see that Grant has come into the shop and is talking to Captain Kane. Wondering if this is the first the latter has heard of my plan of action, I take my coat and cap down from the hook and put them on. The men begin to feel that something is up; and a number of them cease work and stare as an officer steps up to our table.

"Thomas Brown."

"Yes, sir."

"Come with me."

For a moment I wonder what he would do if I refused. I should like to try; but reluctantly conclude it would be better not. I turn and get one last glimpse of Jack's mournful face, as he stands at a distance with the pail of hot water which he has just secured. Waving my hand to him and stepping off in front of the officer, I make my way out of the shop in the face of its surprised inmates.

In this order we traverse the yard; and again, as on the day of my advent, I feel strangely conscious of many sharp eyes looking out from the various buildings. It is about half past three o'clock.

Just at the end of the south wing is a low building faced with stone, upon the ground floor of which is the jail office. The keeper who has me in charge guides me in and orders me to sit down. I do so. He then exchanges a few words with Captain Martin, who presides at the desk; hands him a yellow slip of paper and disappears up the yard toward the main building.

As I have said before, the one necessary virtue of prison life seems to be patience. I sit, and sit; and my sitting continues, as Mark Twain says about the circular staircase at Niagara Falls, "long after it has ceased to be a novelty and terminates long before it begins to be a pleasure."

In the meantime, the members of the coal gang, returning from work to their cells in the south wing, pass by the door and, looking in, see me awaiting my doom. There is deep surprise on the faces of most of them. The young negro who offered me his mittens, the day we moved the coal cars--Tuesday morning, I think it was, but it seems a long time ago--gives me a cheering nod as he begins to climb the stairs. Then Captain Martin, noticing the attention I am attracting, shuts the door. But it is too late. Undoubtedly the wireless has flashed the message, "Tom Brown's pinched," into every nook and corner of the prison by this time.

At last the P. K. makes his appearance. He takes his seat with an assumption of great dignity in an arm chair; and I rise and stand silently before him. He examines at leisure the yellow slip of paper which Captain Martin has handed to him, and clears his throat. "Thomas Brown," he begins, "you are reported for refusing to work"; and he looks up interrogatively.

"Yes, sir."

"What have you to say for yourself?"

"Well, sir, the rattan has been so stiff and rotten that we couldn't do good work, sir; and you can see for yourself that my fingers are getting swollen and blistered."

"You should have made a complaint to the Captain."

"So we did, sir; but it didn't make any difference. So I just told him that I wouldn't work any more."

There is a moment's pause.

"Well, Brown, this is a very serious offense--refusing to work; and, if you persist in it, I fear you will have to be punished."

"I can't help that, sir."

"Do you still refuse to work?"

"Yes, sir. I shall not work under existing conditions in the shop."

"Well, Brown; I'm very sorry to punish you; but I have to obey the orders laid down in such cases by those in higher authority than I am. Captain Martin, you will take charge of this man."

The P. K. takes his departure. Captain Martin leisurely unhooks a large key from a locker behind his chair and saying briefly: "In here, Brown,"

opens a solid iron door in the wall. We are in the passage which leads to the death chamber; that terrible spot where those who are adjudged guilty by Society of coldly calculated and brutal murder are by coldly calculated and brutal murder put to death by Society. As if one crime of such nature done by a single man, acting individually, can be expiated by a similar crime done by all men, acting collectively!

We traverse the passage, up to the very door of the death chamber. Here is another iron door on the right. This is unlocked and opened; and we enter the jail.

It may be well, before beginning the next chapter, to explain just what the jail is like.

Up to the advent of Superintendent Riley, there were in Auburn Prison two types of punishment cells: the jail, and the screen cells. The latter are built into the regular cell blocks and are about three and a half feet wide with the same length and height as the regular cells. They have solid doors of sheet iron pierced by a few round holes about the size of a slate pencil. These holes are probably of comparatively recent origin. The doors of similar cells at Sing Sing and Dannemora had no openings except for a small slit at the extreme bottom and top.

Ventilation there was none; the occupant breathed as best he could, lay on the damp stone floor and went insane for lack of light and air, within full hearing of the officers--and incidentally of the other prisoners. The use of the screen cells at Auburn was ordered discontinued by Superintendent Riley immediately after he had seen and condemned those at Dannemora.

The jail at Auburn is at present the place where all offenders against prison discipline are sent for punishment.

Whether the offense is whispering in the shop or a murderous assault upon an inmate or a keeper, the punishment is exactly the same--varying only in length. So far as I can learn, there is no specific term for any offense; so that when a man goes to the jail, he never knows how long he may be kept there. The official view, as I understand it, is that no matter what the cause for which the man is sent to the jail, he had better stay there until "his spirit is broken."

The jail is admirably situated for the purpose of performing the operation of breaking a man's spirit; for it has on one side the death chamber, and on the other the prison dynamo with its ceaseless grinding, night and day.

It is a vaulted stone dungeon about fifty feet long and twenty wide. It is absolutely bare except for one wooden bench along the north end, a locker where the jail clothes are kept, and eight cells arranged in a row along the east wall and backing on the wall of the death chamber. The eight cells are of solid sheet iron; floor, sides, back and roof. They are studded with rivets, projecting about a quarter of an inch. At the time that Warden Rattigan came into office there was no other floor; the inmates slept on the bare iron--and the rivets! The cells are about four and a half feet wide, eight feet deep and nine feet high. There is a feeble attempt at ventilation--a small hole in the roof of the cell; which hole communicates with an iron pipe. Where the pipe goes is of no consequence for it does not ventilate. Practically there is no air in the cell except what percolates in through the extra heavily grated door.

In the vaulted room outside there are two windows, one at either end, north and south. But so little light comes through these windows that except at midday on a bright, sunny day, if you wish to see the inside of the cells after the doors are opened you must use the electric light.

There are two of these and each is fastened to a long cord, so that it can be carried to the farthest of the eight cells. At the south end of the room is a toilet seat, and a sink with running water where the supply for the prisoners is drawn. Up to the time of Superintendent Riley's and Warden Rattigan's coming into office, the supply of water for each prisoner was limited to ONE GILL FOR TWENTY-FOUR HOURS!

The sink was not used for the prisoners to wash, for the simple reason that the prisoners in the jail were _not allowed to wash_.

Other peculiarities of the jail system will be made clear in the next chapter.

CHAPTER XIII

A NIGHT IN HELL

As Captain Martin and I traverse the long stone passage leading from his office to the death chamber, I listen intently to catch any sound from the jail, for I am wondering whether or not I shall have any companions in misery; but nothing can be heard. Even when the Captain unlocks and opens the door on the right at the end of the passage and I step into the dungeon, there is no indication of any other inhabitants. Except for our own movements the silence is complete, although there is a peculiar reverberation of the vaulted roof which reechoes every sound we make. I am aware of a sort of uncanny feeling about the place, as though there were some sort of living creature--man, ape, or devil--in every cell, with his face close to the bars, peering through and holding his breath.

The Captain, going to a locker which is at his left, backing against the iron wall of the first cell, opens it and takes out a shirt, trousers, coat, cap, and a pair of felt shoes.