And yet, six years only are past, and not one of us is in solitary. Jake
Oppenheimer was swung off. Ed Morrell was made head trusty of San
Quentin and then pardoned out only the other day. And here I am in
Folsom waiting the day duly set by Judge Morgan, which will be my last
day.

The fools! As if they could throttle my immortality with their clumsy
device of rope and scaffold! I shall walk, and walk again, oh, countless
times, this fair earth. And I shall walk in the flesh, be prince and
peasant, savant and fool, sit in the high place and groan under the
wheel.




CHAPTER V


It was very lonely, at first, in solitary, and the hours were long. Time
was marked by the regular changing of the guards, and by the alternation
of day and night. Day was only a little light, but it was better than
the all-dark of the night. In solitary the day was an ooze, a slimy
seepage of light from the bright outer world.

Never was the light strong enough to read by. Besides, there was nothing
to read. One could only lie and think and think. And I was a lifer, and
it seemed certain, if I did not do a miracle, make thirty-five pounds of
dynamite out of nothing, that all the years of my life would be spent in
the silent dark.