They crept—a hundred and odd men—through the stifling passage. They could not stand upright. The sweat drenched their bodies, their hands were wet against the walls. The tunnel that they had been digging for ages had never appeared a short one; to-night it seemed to stretch across infinity. At last they reached the end, the upward slope and then the round chamber that they had made beyond—beyond the stockade! The head of the line had a bit of candle, hoarded against this moment. The spurt of the match caused a start throughout the stretched line, the pale flicker of the candle showed drawn faces.
They had two makeshift picks. How the iron had been obtained and the handles fashioned would make a long story. There had been a sifting of the stronger men to the front; now two of these, standing in the round chamber, raised and swung the picks and attacked the tunnel’s roof. Earth fell with a hollow sound. The hearts of that company beat in response. They were all bowed in the tunnel; their faces gleamed with sweat; their gleaming hands trembled where they pressed them against the walls. The blows of the picks made music, music that agonized while it charmed. They saw the sky and the open country and the river mirroring the stars. They had not a firearm nor a sword among them, but a few had pocket-knives, and others jagged bits of sheet-iron, billets of wood, even sharpened stones. Now and then the line whispered, but it never spoke aloud. The two at the end of the tunnel gave the picks to another two; the iron swung, the earth fell. To the strained hearing of all it fell ever with a more hollow and thunderous sound. Moreover, the sense of space changed, and time likewise. They knew this very long and dark passage so well; every inch of it was familiar; had they not been digging it since the dawn of time? To-night it was luridly strange. Legions of drums beat in the brain, and there were flashes of colour before the eyes. The line was caught in a strange vein of Becoming, and what would Become no man knew. The hundred and odd hoped for the best, but surely all things were becoming portentous.
The two in the round chamber changed again—Maury Stafford now stood there with another. Rhythmically the picks struck the roof, rhythmically the earth fell. Since Sharpsburg of what had not Maury Stafford thought? The mind had tried to become and remain stoical, the mind had sickened, the mind had recovered; it had known the depths and the middle spaces and the blank wind-swept heights; the depths again, the middle spaces, the heights, and every point between. There had been changes in its structure. In its legions of warring elements some, long dominant, had taken a lower place; others were making good their claims to the thrones. He had been well-nigh a year in prison, and a year in prison counted five of earth. He had seen the minds of others dulled; all things sent to sleep except suffering and useless anger, or suffering and useless despondency. He, too, had known dulness for a time, but it had passed. There came in its place a certain lucidity, a certain hardness, and at the same time a widening. The prison bars held the physical man, but the wings of the inner man had broadened and they beat at vaster walls.
The picks struck, the earth fell. Behind him he heard the breathing of the men. He, too, was dizzy from exertion, from the air of the tunnel. As he worked he was saying over to himself, over and over, old lines that came into his head—
“This ae night, this ae night,
Every night and all.
Fire and sleet and candlelight
And Christ receive thy soul—”
The officer working with him uttered a low exclamation. “Look!”
Stafford looked, then turned his head. “Be ready, all of you! We’re nearly through.”