But of course it is impossible to get to sleep again, I can only follow my whirling thoughts. How in the world am I ever to speak to those men in chapel? What in Heaven's name can I say? How can I trust myself to say anything? How can I urge good conduct, when my whole soul cries out in revolt? How can I preach resignation and patience against this dark background of horror?

An aching, overwhelming sense of the hideous cruelty of the whole barbaric, brutal business sweeps over me; the feeling of moral, physical and mental outrage; the monumental imbecility of it all; the horrible darkness; the cruel iron walls at our backs; the nerve-racking monotone of the whirring dynamo through the other wall; the filth; the vermin; the bad air; the insufficient food; the denial of water; and the overpowering, sickening sense of accumulated misery--of madness and suicide, haunting the place. How can I speak of these things? How can I not speak of them?

How can I----

Hark!

Click! Click! Click! Click! I hear the levers being pressed down by the officer, and the stirring of life along the galleries.

Click! Click! Click! Click! I had no idea it was possible to hear the sounds from the south wing, 'way in here. And it is still so early in the morning--only half past four.

Click! Click! Click! It must be the prisoners who work in the kitchens, they are the only ones who would be moving at such an hour. But again, how is it possible to hear them so far away, shut in as we are by stone walls and iron doors?

Uneasily I shift my position and turn over on my left side, which feels temporarily less bruised and painful than the other. The clicking stops.

But other vague sounds succeed; and then suddenly----

Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! It is the march of the gray companies down the stone walk of the yard.

Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! It is certainly not only the kitchen gang, for there must be many companies of them.

Tramp! Tramp----

But this is ridiculous, at half past four in the morning! It can't be true, it must be my imagination. I am not really hearing these sounds, for my reason tells me they are impossible.

Nevertheless I do hear them. Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!

I try in vain to reason myself out of the evidences of my senses. I am hearing sounds that I am sure do not exist.

Tramp! Tramp! Tramp----

Heavens! Am I going mad?

This is past bearing. I abandon the attempt to sleep and sit up. As I do so the cell is suddenly filled with flying sparks which dance from one end to the other. Aghast, I steady myself with my back against the side of the cell.

This is getting serious. I grit my teeth together, and, shutting my eyes in the hope of keeping out the sight of the flitting sparks, I say firmly to myself, "This must not be. Don't lose your nerve. Cool down. Control yourself. Slow up. Keep steady."

As I rise to my feet my head seems to clear, the sparks disappear, the sound of marching footsteps had already ceased. There is nothing to see or hear--only the dreadful blackness and the dead silence of the night. I take two turns about the cell, carefully refraining from kicking over the bucket in the corner, and then stand close to the grating, in the hope of a breath of cool, fresh air. But there is no such thing in this foetid place.

"Joe! Are you awake?"

"Hello! What's the matter?"

"For God's sake talk to me!"

"Sure! What shall we talk about?"

"Anything. I don't care. Only something."

So Joe begins to chat with me, and presently Number Two joins in, and Number Five has a few words to say. What we talk about I have not the faintest recollection; it is the only part of this night's occurrences that makes no impression whatever on my memory. I only know that I am longing for speedy escape as I have seldom longed for anything; that I am saying constantly to myself, "It can't be more than an hour more! They must surely come in about forty minutes! Half an hour! Half an hour! It can't go beyond that! Oh, why don't they come?"

I answer any remarks directed to me quite at random, for I am waiting, waiting, waiting, and listening.

An hour and a half does not seem such an endless period of time usually.

Well, it all depends. When you are in a dark prison cell, waiting for deliverance, it seems a lifetime. I lived through every hour in the minute of that interminable period of five thousand four hundred seconds.

At last I hear a sound--one of the most welcome sounds I ever heard--the six o'clock train blowing off steam over at the New York Central station.

I find myself wondering why I am not ready to shout with joy, and I discover it is because I feel as if all power of emotion had been crushed out of me. It is not merely utter and hopeless fatigue; it is as if something had broken inside of me; as if I could never be joyous again; as if I must be haunted forever by a sense of shame and guilt for my own share of responsibility for this iniquitous place. My sensation, when at last I hear the sound of the key in the lock of the outer door, is not one of exultation, only of approaching relief from deadly pain--pain which has become almost insupportable.

Once more we hear the outer door open and steps coming along the passage.

I rise from my seat on the floor, and put on my shirt and shoes as I whisper, "Good bye, boys. I wish I could take you with me." Then the inner door is opened, the light is lighted, and my cell door swings out.

Some one stands there--I do not know who--I do not care. Listlessly, like one in a dream, I pick up my cap and coat; and silently, wearily, move out and toward the bench where I changed my clothes last night. Last night!--a thousand years ago. The officer--the keeper--the man, whoever he is, who has come to release me, produces my regular prison uniform; and listlessly, silently, wearily, I make the change, dropping my jail garments upon the floor. I feel as if I should like to grind my heels into the loathsome, hated things.

With a parting look along the row of cells which imprison my comrades, and choking down my feelings as I think of the sick lad we are leaving without water, I stumble along the passage to the jail office, pausing only while my attendant locks behind us the two iron doors. Another moment and I feel my lungs expand with a deep refreshing breath, and find myself out in the ghostly quiet of the prison yard.

The morning air is fresh and cool, and there is a soft gray light which seems to touch soothingly the old gray stones of the prison; but I have a feeling as if nothing were alive, as if I were a gray, uneasy ghost visiting a city of the dead. The only thing suggestive of life seems to be the sound of my heavy shoes upon the stone pavement.

I have a remote impression that my attendant is saying something. Perhaps I answer him. I think I do, but I am not sure. If so, it is only from the force of habit, not from any conscious mental process.

We traverse the upper part of the yard and enter the main building. Here my shoes make such a clatter on the stone floor that my guide looks at them inquiringly. I do not know whether he recommends their removal or whether I do it of my own accord; I am only aware that I have taken them off and am carrying them in my left hand as we mount the iron stairs and creep quietly along the familiar gallery of the second tier.

At Number 15 we stop, the key is turned in the lock, the lever clicks, the door opens, and I enter my cell. I think the man says something; I do not know. I stand motionless just within the door, as it swings to and is locked. The footsteps of my guide retreat along the gallery, down the stairs, and so out of hearing.

There is no sound in the cell house. All is silent, as the gray light of morning steals through the barred windows into the corridor and through the grated door into my cell.

What next?

I do not know.

Suddenly there wells up within me a feeling which is no longer rage, it is a great resistless wave of sympathy for those poor fellows in that Hell I have just left; for those who have ever been there; for those in danger of going there; for all the inmates of this great city within the walls--this great community ruled by hate--where wickedness is the expected thing--where love is forbidden and cast out.

Obeying an impulse I could not control if I would, I throw myself on my knees, with my arms on the chair and my face in my hands, and pray to Our Father who art in Heaven.

My prayer is for wisdom, for courage, for strength. Wisdom to determine my duty, courage to endeavor, and strength to persevere.

May I be an instrument in Thy hands, O God, to help others to see the light, as Thou hast led me to see the light. And may no impatience, prejudice, or pride of opinion on my part hinder the service Thou hast given me to do.

CHAPTER XIV

SUNDAY--THE END

After the emotional crisis I have just passed through, I find myself quite unstrung. For nearly half an hour I can do nothing but sit, limp and exhausted, in the chair and give way to my feelings. On the whole, this is a relief, although it leaves me very weak and wretched. At length, the realization that I must soon take my place in line for the duties of the early morning pulls me together; and after pouring cool water from the meager supply in my pail over my head and face, rearranging my clothes, and draining to the bottom my tin drinking cup, I am somewhat refreshed.

Looking out from my cell across the corridor and through the barred windows of the outer wall, I find the promise of a bright, sunny day; but it gives me no pleasure. I feel utterly dull and depressed. Only a few hours more and I shall be gone forever from this narrow cell--back to my own comfortable home; but the thought arouses no enthusiasm. It does not seem to matter much in the sum of things whether I go or stay. Nothing seems to matter much except the physical sufferings of those poor fellows down in the jail; and at the thought a bitter anger sweeps over me again.

After a few moments, however, I once more regain control of myself, and wait patiently at the door of the cell for the day's routine to begin.