Suddenly, while this broken conversation was conducted in a low tone, so as not to draw upon the speakers the indignation of their jailers, they were struck by the singular stillness of the prison. The clanking of chains, the murmur and the groan, the heavy breathing of congregated living beings, the bustle occasioned by the continuous uneasy movement of the restless sufferers, the ceaseless tread of the Children of the Prison, and their bullying voices, all were hushed.
“What is it?” in a lower whisper than ever; and a shaking of the head, and holding their own chains to prevent their rattle, and looks full of wonder, was all that passed between the two listeners. Their amazement was interrupted by a dull, heavy sound, as though a bag of dried bones had been suddenly crushed down by the weight of some powerful foot. Silently they stole to a crevice in the boards, opposite the open door. Not a jailer was to be seen; and the prisoners were motionless and apparently breathless, with the exception of one powerful man, who was just drawing the wooden mallet in his hand for another blow on the temple of the suspended Kathayan. It came down with the same dull, hollow, crushing sound; the body swayed from the point where it was suspended by wrist and ankle, till it seemed that every joint must be dislocated; but the flesh scarcely quivered. The blow was repeated, and then another, and another; but they were not needed. The poor captive Kathayan was dead.
The mallet was placed away from sight, and the daring man hobbled back to his corner, dangling his heavy chain as though it had been a plaything, and striving with all his might to look unconscious and unconcerned. An evident feeling of relief stole over the prisoners; the Children of the Prison came back to their places, one by one, and all went on as before. It was some time before any one appeared to discover the death of the Kathayan. The old Tiger declared it was what he had been expecting, that his living on in this manner was quite out of rule; but that those hardy fellows from the hills never would give in, while there was a possibility of drawing another breath. Then the poor skeleton was unchained, dragged by the heels into the prison-yard, and thrown into a gutter. It did not apparently fall properly, for one of the jailers altered the position of the shoulders by means of his foot; then clutching the long black hair, jerked the head a little farther on the side. Thus the discolored temple was hidden; and surely that emaciated form gave sufficient evidence of a lingering death. Soon after, a party of government officers visited the prison-yard, touched the corpse with their feet, without raising it, and, apparently satisfied, turned away, as though it had been a dead dog, that they cared not to give further attention.
Is it strange that, if one were there, with a human heart within him, not brutalized by crime or steeled by passive familiarity with suffering, he should have dragged his heavy chain to the side of the dead, and dropped upon his sharpened, distorted features the tear, which there was none who had loved him to shed? Is it strange that tender fingers should have closed the staring eyes, and touched gently the cold brow, which throbbed no longer with pain, and smoothed the frayed hair, and composed the passive limbs decently, though he knew that the next moment rude hands would destroy the result of his pious labor? And is it strange that when all which remained of the poor sufferer had been jostled into its sackcloth shroud, and crammed down into the dark hole dug for it in the earth, a prayer should have ascended, even from that terrible prison? Not a prayer for the dead; he had received his doom. But an earnest, beseeching upheaving of the heart, for those wretched beings that, in the face of the pure heavens and the smiling earth, confound, by the inherent blackness of their natures, philosopher, priest, or philanthropist, who dares to tickle the ears of the multitude with fair theories of “Natural religion,” and “The dignity of human nature.”
THE STORY OF LA ROCHE.
BY HENRY MACKENZIE.
