“Keep up your heart, boy; he hasn't long to live.”
“He will live too long for me. I can't stay here any longer. You and I shan't often chat together again; perhaps never.”
“Don't talk so, laddie. Keep up your heart—for my sake.”
One bitter tearing sob was all the reply. And so these two parted.
This was just after breakfast. At dinner-time Josephs, not having performed an impossible task, was robbed of his dinner. A little bread and water was served out to him in the yard, and he was set on the crank again with fearful menaces. In particular Mr. Hawes repeated his favorite threat—“I'll make your life hell to you.” Josephs groaned; but what could a boy of fifteen do, overtasked and famished for a month past and fitter now for a hospital than for hard labor of any sort? At three o'clock his progress on the crank was so slow that Mr. Hawes ordered him to be crucified on the spot.
His obedient myrmidons for the fiftieth time seized the lad and crushed him in the jacket, throttled him in the collar, and pinned him to the wall, and this time, the first time for a long while, the prisoner remonstrated loudly.
“Why not kill me at once and put me out of my misery!”
“Hold your tongue.”
“You know I can't do the task you set me. You know it as well as I do.”
“Hold your tongue, you insolent young villain. Strap him tighter, Fry.”