“You are right to be cautious; but my cause is yours, and yours mine.”
At this moment Pia touched me on the arm. “Will you come and look at this poor soul here?” she asked; and as I turned and we bent over a woman who had fainted, she whispered hurriedly: “That man is a spy. Be careful what you say to him.”
I was astounded. It seemed incredible that any money, any reward however lavish, could induce a man to face the horrors of such an inferno as that gaol.
“Can you lift her to the window?” asked Pia, seeing my look of incredulity; and she whispered: “It is true. I know. Be very careful.”
The man helped me hold the unconscious woman to the air; and when we set her down somewhat revived, he was at me again, seeking to draw some compromising admissions from me in response to his own violent abuse of the Government.
“You are mistaken about me and should not speak so unguardedly to a stranger even in this place,” I answered.
“I should not had I not seen how you sympathize with our friends here. It is true we have not met before, and in that sense we are strangers; but a fellowship of suffering in our common cause makes us all friends—aye, and more than friends.”
“What I have done has been done for motives of mere humanity.”
“But they recognize a leader in you—and I proclaim myself as devoted a follower as any of them.”
“I am no leader of any cause, man. I am an Englishman; my name is Donnington; and I have been brought here through the blundering of the police.”