The employees in this department seldom spoke to each other. Some of them were old men, some actually tottering and evidently longing for the grave, and when young Barnwell was put among them he was not received with favor, hardly with prison civility.
"He is a spy," said one.
"Put here to watch us," said another.
"But what can he learn? We have no secrets, no desires but to die," remarked a third.
"Yet there must be some reason for this young man's being placed here; keep an eye on him," whispered a fourth.
"Bah!" was the general expression, for they knew there was no occasion to watch them, and if there was they would not be there, but down in the gold mines, hundreds of feet below, where they now suffered with the cold.
And so it passed into a matter of indifference with them. They regarded themselves as favored above the general run of exiles, and they would not, dared not, question the appearance of the newcomer.
As before stated, there was but little to do; in fact. It was little better than a hospital for favored or dying ones, and so they wondered for a little while, and then resolved themselves into the same idiotic company they had become to be.
Barnwell comprehended the situation, and resolved to fit himself to it, for he was buoyed up with a hope of release which the others might once have had, but which they did not have now.
He tried to speak with them, but not one of them appeared to understand English; and after his first day in this department he began to lose heart, and had it not been for the hope which buoyed him up, he might have fallen as low as any of the others there.