Something of this kind had just transpired in the prison. A new convict had been sent in from the courts, and his first resistance of the prison laws had been met with unusual rigor. That night Katharine heard low groans, but no cries followed the crack of the lash, which fell so sharply and lasted so long that every nerve in her body quivered and shrunk with that keen sympathy which made the anguish of a fellow-creature her own.
She arose in the morning literally sore at heart, wounded with more tender anxiety than had ever affected her before regarding the man who had borne those awful lashes so bravely. Her duties for a time lay under ground, where much of the prison work was done. She went about them with a heavy heart. The damp, the close atmosphere, and absence of all sunlight deepened the despondency that had seized upon her. In these subterraneous vaults is a vast oven, in which the prisoners' bread was baked, and here her duties for the morning were appointed. A woman stood before this oven casting wood into the red caverns of fire that glowed behind the rolling smoke. The woman paused with a huge stick of pitch pine half lifted to the oven, and balancing it a moment in her hands, she cast it to the earth, and sitting down upon it began to cry.
Katharine advanced that moment, and touched her on the arm.
"I can't—I can't! Whip me, if you like—put me in with him, but I can't do it!"
The woman evidently thought it one of the keepers, who had watched her rebellious movement. Katharine bent over her.
"What is the matter, Jones? It is only I. Can I help you?"
The woman looked up, relieved by the voice.
"No," she said, heavily. "It is the old story. You heard the lash last night—it kept us all awake. It is a new prisoner they are breaking in; a handsome, fine fellow; but he stood them out like a lion, and now—"
The woman paused and looked toward the oven with a sort of terror in her eyes.
"And now—oh! Jane, is he dead?" whispered Katharine. "Did they kill him?"