"Yes," he said, "we must eat." And he turned with a snarl on one of the caged wretches behind us who for days had been battening on the food that neither Jack nor I touched.
The man was in the act of dragging Mount's bowl and spoon towards his own nest in the straw, but he dropped the food and shrank back as Mount seized it with an oath.
I also secured my own bowl of bread and broth, and, together, we ate as animals eat, eying the others malevolently and askance.
That night Mount lay awake, watching the grating. At dawn I awoke to watch, and Mount rolled himself up into a ball of buckskin and slept the first peaceful sleep which had come to him since his taking.
The day passed in horrible monotony; our straw had become so foul that my head swam with the stench. But towards evening came a jailer and two soldiers, who raked the filthy straw from our cage, mopped the reeking floor, and when it had partly dried, shook us down a bedding of sweet rye-straw, into which we burrowed like dogs.
That night we heard the noise of hammers overhead, and at first terror seized on all in the cage, for we believed that workmen had come to build gibbets. In the morning, when our jailer arrived to fetch us water, I spoke to him, scarcely expecting a reply, for he had never before paid the faintest attention to questions from any of us.
I was surprised, therefore, when he hesitated, glanced up at me, and finally informed me that the hammering we heard was made by masons and carpenters who were reconstructing the upper tiers of the prison for the new warden and his family.
Presuming on his pleasant manner, I continued my questioning, but he soon silenced me with a shake of his head.
"I know nothing about your case," he said. "Matters move slowly here; the prison is crowded with rebels who have defied the Governor's edict against public assemblies. Their cases come before yours, young man."
"And the others here?" I asked.