Archie looked at him a moment. His eyeballs, still protruding from the effects of the ducking-tub, gleamed in the light of the guard lantern. He looked at Ball, finally realized, and began to curse. At last he managed to say:
"I'll croak you for this."
Ball laughed.
"Well, good night, my lad," he said.
Archie lay on a plank, the handcuffs still on him, all the night. In the morning they hung him up again.
The next day, and the next, and the next,--for seven days,--Archie hung in the bull rings. In the middle of the eighth day, after his head had been rolling and lolling about on his shoulders between his cold, swollen, naked arms, he suddenly became frantic, put forth a mighty effort, lifted himself, and began to bite his hands and his wrists, gnashing his teeth on the steel handcuffs, yammering like a maniac.
That evening, the evening of the eighth day, when the guard came and flashed his lamp on him, Archie's body was hanging there, still, his chin on his breast. Down his arms the blood was trickling from the wounds he had made with his teeth. The guard set down his lantern, ran down the corridor, returned presently with Ball, and Jeffries, the doctor.
They lowered his body. The doctor bent his head to the white breast and listened.
"Take him to the hospital," he said. "I guess he's had about all he can stand."
"God, he had nerve!" said Ball, looking at the body. "He wouldn't give in."