But rage cannot last for ever and when some rough prison food—gruel, black bread, and a pannikin of water—was thrust into my cell an hour or two later, the sight of it re-roused my hunger and blanketed my passion. So famished was I by that time that I had to clamp down the desperate impulse to cram it into my mouth with the unbridled voracity of a starving beast.
It was excellent self-discipline to eat it slowly. But I succeeded. I took it, just a mouthful at a time, with long intervals between, thus spreading out the meal over perhaps two hours or more. And at the end of the time I was myself once more, had regained my self-restraint, and was able to think.
What they meant to do with me, I could not see; but what I would do was clear enough. I would conform to every rule of the prison life and wait for the chance of communicating with my friend or with the British Consul. Let that bully break down my resolve, I would not, if I had to stay in the prison till I was grey. And when my time came, I would have a reckoning with him, even if the immediate result was only to bring me back to the prison with a real crime for the reason.
On entering the gaol I had been searched, and my watch and money, everything, indeed, taken from me. I could not, therefore, try the bribery trick again, even if the chance had offered. So I made the best of a very bad job, arranged my torn clothes in such fashion as I could, rubbed the bruises where the brutes had kicked or struck me, and got all the sleep that was possible.
The attempt to starve me was abandoned, and later in the day another meal, black bread and water this time, was served. I was left to myself that day and the whole of the next, except when the food was brought, or when I was ordered roughly to clean the cell, or when a warder in the corridor would open the grill in the door and after grinning at me would utter some vile epithet. They were a genial pleasant set of men.
On the third day, however, a fresh course was attempted. A man I had not seen before entered my cell, and after very little preface hinted that if I would pay him, he would carry some communication to my friends. Suspicious that it was a trick, I declined; and then he urged me to make a full confession of all I knew and submit to the authorities.
“What do you call this but submitting?” I retorted. “I don’t see what other course is left to me. But I have done nothing, and have no confession to make therefore.”
“By submission I mean answer the questions of Colonel Bremenhof.”
“Is that the man who interrogated me?”
“Yes. Will you not confess to——”