Consciousness came back to me in solitary, with the quartet of torturers about me.
“Blasphemous and heretical Warden of San Quentin whose feet have fast hold of hell,” I gibed, after I had drunk deep of the water they held to my lips. “Let the jailers and the trusties triumph. Their time is short, and for them there is no time after time.”
“He’s out of his head,” Warden Atherton affirmed.
“He’s putting it over on you,” was Doctor Jackson’s surer judgment.
“But he refuses food,” Captain Jamie protested.
“Huh, he could fast forty days and not hurt himself,” the doctor answered.
“And I have,” I said, “and forty nights as well. Do me the favour to tighten the jacket and then get out of here.”
The head trusty tried to insert his forefinger inside the lacing.
“You couldn’t get a quarter of an inch of slack with block and tackle,” he assured them.
“Have you any complaint to make, Standing?” the Warden asked.