arms and legs, the prisoner swept the bed-sheet from him, and sprang
at the wooden rail and grasped the iron stanchion beside it. He had
his knee pressed against the top bar and his bare toes on the iron
rail beneath it. Below him the blue water waited for him. It was cool
and dark and gentle and deep. It would certainly put out the fire in
his bones, he thought; it might even shut out the glare of the sun
which scorched his eyeballs.

But as he balanced for the leap, a swift weakness and nausea swept
over him, a weight seized upon his body and limbs. He could not lift
the lower foot from the iron rail, and he swayed dizzily and trembled.
He trembled. He who had raced his men and beaten them up the hot hill
to the trenches of San Juan. But now he was a baby in the hands of a
giant, who caught him by the wrist and with an iron arm clasped him
around his waist and pulled him down, and shouted, brutally, "Help,
some of youse, quick! he's at it again. I can't hold him."

More giants grasped him by the arms and by the legs. One of them took
the hand that clung to the stanchion in both of his, and pulled back
the fingers one by one, saying, "Easy now, Lieutenant--easy."

The ragged palms and the sea and blockhouse were swallowed up in a
black fog, and his body touched the canvas cot again with a sense of
home-coming and relief and rest. He wondered how he could have cared
to escape from it. He found it so good to be back again that for a
long time he wept quite happily, until the fiery pillow was moist and
cool.

The world outside of the iron bars was like a scene in a theatre set
for some great event, but the actors were never ready. He remembered