"'It's them d—— river-thieves,' he says, 'with a new kink,——'em! I'll be even with 'em yet. Here's seven holes right up through, an' the Lord only knows how they could do it an' I not hear 'em. They're that thick I believe there's one to every bag of coffee on ship or off; but I'll get 'em yet.' He looked at me sharp as a rat, but I kept my face straight till I'd walked off, an' then I believe I laughed a day without stoppin'.
"That went on three years. I'd got to think no man alive could take me, for I'd been grabbed a dozen times, an' always slipped out somehow. I'd been shot at, an' hit twice; been knocked overboard, an' swum under the dock—'most froze an' stiff with ice before I could get out. An' then to think that it was only a coil of rope took me at last! I thought 'twas spices, but the captain'd been too quick for us, an' every bag was in the government storehouse. I crawled up the side like a cat an' felt round, mad enough to find only that rope; an' I'd just dropped it over the side when there was a light, an' three men on me. I dropped, but they had me. I fought like mad, but the handcuffs were on, an' I was marched off quicker'n I can tell it. An' one was the very man that had sworn to be even with us, an' he knew me on the spot. That trial didn't take long. 'In consideration of my youth,' the judge said, I was to have 'only ten years.' Only ten years! He didn't know how it looked to me, that loved my own life an' freedom so't I couldn't bear a house over me even a day, but must be out in the air. I swore I'd kill whoever took me, an' I fought with the keeper till they chained me like a wild beast; an' that's the way I went to Sing-Sing, an' all warned they'd got the devil's own to deal with.
"There was six months I fought: there wasn't a week I wasn't up for punishment. Do you know what that means? It's better now, they say. Then it meant the shower-bath till you fainted dead, an' when you came to, put back to have it ag'in. It meant the leather collar an' jacket, an' your head wellnigh cut off when, half dead, you had to let it drop a bit. It meant kicks an' cuffs an' floggin's an' half rations. I was down to skin an' bone. 'You're goin', sure, Jack,' I said; an' then I said, 'What's the use? Behave yourself an' maybe you'll get pardoned out, or, better yet, maybe you'll get away.'
"It was tough work. I hated that keeper so't I could have brained him joyfully any minute. I'd set my teeth when he came near, for the murder'd run down my arms till my hands twitched an' tingled to get at him. I swore I'd kill him if I ever got a chance to do it quietly, for he'd treated us worse than dogs. But I mended my ways. It took a year of hard work before I could hold on to myself. I'd get a sight at the sky when we crossed the yard, an' my heart was up in my throat every time. Oh, to be out! If only I could be on the river ag'in an' smell the salt an' feel the wind! I've lain on my floor in the cell many a night an' cried like a baby for only ten minutes' freedom. I'm that way yet: there's wild blood in me from somewhere, an' I'd make a better Indian than white man any day."
Jack's restless motions were the best proof of his theory. As his story began he had sat quietly in the little mission-parlor, but now he was walking hastily up and down, stopping a moment at some special point, then starting again—a tall, lean figure, with characteristic New England face, very thin now, and with a hectic flush on the sunken cheeks, but shrewd and kindly—the narrow chin and high cheek-bones, prominent nose and soft thin hair, seeming to belong wholly to the type of New England villager, and by no possibility to the rough and desperate native of the Fourth Ward. Born in his own place on some quiet inland farm, he would have turned peddler, or, nearer the sea, have chosen that for his vocation; but it was impossible to look upon him as an ex-convict or to do away with the impression of respectability which seems part of the New England birthright.
"At last," he went on, "things changed. A new chaplain came, for one thing, an' I'd got so quiet they changed my cell an' put me on the other side the buildin'. I went on in a kind of dream. I worked like two, an' they begun to take notice of me. The chaplain 'd come an' talk to me, an' he worked over me well; but he might as well have talked to the dead. But my very keepin' still made him think he'd half got me, an' he'd fetch books an' papers; an' things got easier that way. I read an' studied: I was bound now to know something, an' I worked at that hard as I did at everything else; an' there come a time when I was recommended for pardon, an' five years an' a day after I went in he brought it to me. I couldn't speak: I could have gone on my knees to him, an' he had sense to know how I felt.
"'Jack,' he said, 'you're very young yet, an' now is your chance. Try to be an honest man an' pray for help. I wish I knew if you will pray.'
"'You'd make me if any one could,' I says, 'but I ain't sure of the use of it yet: I wish I was.'
"He just looked at me sorrowful, for I hadn't said even that much before, an' I went off.