"Don't put me in there, for Jesus' sake!"
The cry was involuntary, since he knew he would be put in there in any case.
"Ah, go in wid you!"
A shove sent him over the threshold with such force that he fell on the wooden bunk which was all the dog hole contained, while the door clanged behind him.
All that night he lay in a stupor induced by misery. No one came near him; no food or drink was offered him. Thirst made him slightly delirious, which was a relief. Now and then, when his real consciousness partially returned he muttered, half aloud:
"I didn't do it. My hand might have done it—but that wasn't me."
The crepuscular light of morning was not very different from the darkness of night, but it brought his senses back to him sluggishly. Bruised as he was in body, he was still more bruised in mind, and could render to himself no more than a vague account of what had happened yesterday. When a tin of water and a hunk of bread were mysteriously pushed into the cell, he consumed them like an animal, lying down again on the bunk. Without water for a wash, his face and hair were still caked with the mud which also stiffened his clothing.
"My God! what's that?"
Not having seen him before, the guard who summoned him to court was startled by the apparition that crawled to the threshold of the cell when the door was unlocked. The semblance to a boy was little more exact than that of a snow man to a man.
"Ah! my God! my God! Sure you can't go into court like that. They wouldn't know you was a human bein', let alone a prisoner. Wait a bit, and I'll get you somethin' to wash up in."