English shilling. But the loss of even these trifling things, since they
meant starvation, inside or out, made all the difference in the world to
the losers, and cut them to the quick, and led to hot disputations.

And, though I strove to maintain a cheerful demeanour, which was not always
easy when the wind blew from the east, my deafness relieved me of any
necessity of joining in that mask of merriment, which, as I have said, as
often as not covered very sick hearts. For though a merry face is better
than a sad one, I take it to be the part of an honest man to bear himself
simply as he is, and the honest sad faces drew me more than the merry
masked ones through which the bones of our skeletons peeped grisly enough
at times.

Thoughts of escape occupied some of us, but for most it was out of the
question. For, even if they could have got out of the enclosure and passed
the sentries, their foreign speech and faces must have betrayed them at
once outside.

To myself, however, that did not so fully apply. In appearance I might
easily pass as an English sailor, and the English speech came almost as
readily to my tongue as my own. It was with vague hopes in that direction,
and also as a means of passing the long dull days, that I began carving
bits of bone into odd shapes, and, when suitable pieces offered, into
snuffboxes, which I sold to the country-folk who came in with provisions.
At first my rough attempts produced but pence, and then, as greater skill
came with practice, shillings, and so I began to accumulate a small store
of money against the time I should need it outside.

In building the prison in so marshy a district, advantage had been taken of
a piece of rising ground. The enclosure was built round it, so that the