throughout the night the quest was pursued. The quest for Cecil Winwood
was vain, and the suspicion against him was general.

"There's only one thing, lads," Skysail Jack finally said. "It'll soon
be morning, and then they'll take us out and give us bloody hell. We
were caught dead to rights with our clothes on. Winwood crossed us and
squealed. They're going to get us out one by one and mess us up. There's
forty of us. Any lyin's bound to be found out. So each lad, when they
sweat him, just tells the truth, the whole truth, so help him God."

And there, in that dark hole of man's inhumanity, from dungeon cell to
dungeon cell, their mouths against the gratings, the two-score lifers
solemnly pledged themselves before God to tell the truth.

Little good did their truth-telling do them. At nine o'clock the guards,
paid bravoes of the smug citizens who constitute the state, full of meat
and sleep, were upon us. Not only had we had no breakfast, but we had
had no water. And beaten men are prone to feverishness. I wonder, my
reader, if you can glimpse or guess the faintest connotation of a man
beaten--"beat up," we prisoners call it. But no, I shall not tell you.
Let it suffice to know that these beaten, feverish men lay seven hours
without water.

At nine the guards arrived. There were not many of them. There was no
need for many, because they unlocked only one dungeon at a time. They
were equipped with pick-handles--a handy tool for the "disciplining" of a
helpless man. One dungeon at a time, and dungeon by dungeon, they messed
and pulped the lifers. They were impartial. I received the same pulping
as the rest. And this was merely the beginning, the preliminary to the
examination each man was to undergo alone in the presence of the paid