But there, in the very instant of our overwhelming defeat, standing in the dark mouth of the stone conduit leading from the Old Bailey to the dungeons of Newgate, by virtue of the high resolve we made, we conquered Fate at her worst, and by our act in establishing a secret bond of sympathy in our separation dropped the bad, disastrous past, and starting on new things planted our feet on the bottom round of the ladder of success, feeling that, with plenty of faith and endurance, Fortune, frown as she might now, must in some distant day turn her wheel and smile again.
And what was this act? Why, it was a simple one, but bore in it the germ of great things.
As we halted there in the gloom we swore never to give in, however they might starve us, even grind us to powder, as we felt they would certainly try to do. We knew that in their anxiety about our souls they would be sure kindly to furnish each with a Bible, and we promised to read one chapter every day consecutively, and, while reading the same chapter at the same hour, think of the others. For twenty years we kept the promise. Then, making the resolve mentioned in the beginning of this book, I marched back to my cell. The door was opened and closed behind me, leaving me in pitch darkness—a convict in my dungeon. Dressed as I was I lay down on the little bed there, and through all that long and terrible night, with a million dread images rushing through my brain, I lay passive, with wide-open eyes, staring into the darkness, conscious that sanity and insanity were struggling for mastery in my brain, while I, like some interested spectator, watched the struggle; or, again, I was struggling in the air with some powerful but viewless monster form, that clutched my throat with iron fingers, but whose body was impalpable to the grasp of my hands. A mighty space, an eternity of time and daylight came. Then, like one in a dream, I rose mechanically, and, finding the pin I had secreted, I stood on the little wooden bench, and, impelled by some spiritual but irresistible force, I scratched on the wall the message I had resolved to leave:
"In the reproof of chance
Lies the true proof of men."
Then I thought of my friends and my promise, and, like one in a dream, I took the ill-smelling and dirty little Bible from the shelf, and, turning to the first chapter, read:
"And the spirit of God moved upon the waters." ...
"And God said let there be light, and there was light."
Then the book fell from my hand, and I remembered no more. My mind had gone whirling into the abyss.
I was sentenced on Wednesday. For three days, from Thursday to Sunday, my mind was a blank. I have no recollection of my removal under escort from Newgate to Pentonville.
On Sunday, the fourth day of my sentence, like one rousing from a trance, I awoke to find myself shaven and shorn, dressed in a coarse convict uniform, in a rough cell of white-washed brick. The small window had heavy double bars set with thick fluted glass, which, while admitting light, foiled any attempt of the eye to discern objects without. In the corner there was a rusty iron shelf. A board let into the brickwork served for bed, bench and table. A zinc jug and basin for water, with a wooden plate, spoon and salt dish (no knife or fork for twenty years!) completed the furnishings.
As I was looking around in a helpless way a key suddenly rattled in the lock and, the door opening, a uniformed warder stepped in and, giving me a searching look, said in a rough voice: "Come on; you'll do for chapel; you have put on the balmy long enough." His kindly face belied his rough tones, and I followed him out of the door and soon found myself in the prison chapel. None was present, and I was ordered to sit on the front bench at the far end. The benches were simply common flat boards ranged in rows. Soon the prisoners came in singly, marching about two yards apart, and sat on the benches with that interval between them—that is, in the division of the chapel where I sat, it being separated from the rest by a high partition. Soon a white-robed, surpliced clergyman came in, and the service began; but I had no eye or ear, nor any comprehension save in a dim manner, as to what was going on. My brain was trying to connect the past and the present, feeling that something terrible had befallen me, but what it was I could not understand. When the services were over I returned under the escort of the warder, who, when I arrived at my cell, ordered me to go in and close the door, which I did, banging it behind me. It had a spring lock, and when I heard the snap of the catch and looked at the narrow, barred window, with its thick, fluted glass admitting only a dim light, I remembered everything. Like a flash it all came to me, and I realized the full horror of my position. Sitting down on the little board fastened to the wall, serving as bed, seat and table, I buried my face in my hands and began to ponder. Regrets came in floods, with remorse and despair, hand in hand, when, realizing that it was madness to think, I sprang up, saying to myself the hour and minute had come for me to decide—either for madness and a convict's dishonored grave, or to keep the promise I had made to my friends—never to give in, but to live and conquer fate.