drawings and found that I had spoken the truth.) Monsieur puts all these
trifles into a small bag, with which I had been furnished (in addition to
the huge duffle-bag) by the generous Red Cross. Labels them (in French):
"Articles found in the baggage of Cummings and deemed _inutile_ to the
case at hand." This leaves in the duffle-bag aforesaid: my fur coat,
which I brought from New York; my bed and blankets and bed-roll, my
civilian clothes, and about twenty-five pounds of soiled linen. "You may
take the bed-roll and the folding bed into your cell"--the rest of my
_affaires_ would remain in safe keeping at the _bureau_.

"Come with me," grimly croaked a lank turnkey creature.

Bed-roll and bed in hand, I came along.

We had but a short distance to go; several steps in fact. I remember we
turned a corner and somehow got sight of a sort of square near the
prison. A military band was executing itself to the stolid delight of
some handfuls of ragged _civiles_. My new captor paused a moment; perhaps
his patriotic soul was stirred. Then we traversed an alley with locked
doors on both sides, and stopped in front of the last door on the right.
A key opened it. The music could still be distinctly heard.

The opened door showed a room, about sixteen feet short and four feet
narrow, with a heap of straw in the further end. My spirits had been
steadily recovering from the banality of their examination; and it was
with a genuine and never-to-be-forgotten thrill that I remarked, as I
crossed what might have been the threshold: "_Mais, on est bien ici_."

A hideous crash nipped the last word. I had supposed the whole prison to
have been utterly destroyed by earthquake, but it was only my door