There had been a plot among the convicts to batter down the shaky old stockade, and break for freedom. They had secured a gun and some ammunition, where, no one could tell, and the plot had well-nigh succeeded. The guard on the wall had been killed, three men had escaped, and the prison bloodhounds were lying in the kennel with their throats cut.
Already the governor of the State had telegraphed freedom to the convicts not in the scheme who would give the names of those engaged in it. Even the leader’s name; for that freedom was offered, pardon unconditional.
Something let fall discovered to the warden that Jim, while not in, was familiar with the whole history of the insurrection. The offer of freedom had no further effect upon him than a careless refusal to comply with the terms set forth. But when force was suggested, he set his lips in that old way that belonged to his mother, and said nothing. Three days they gave him to “knock under.” But the only change noticeable during that time was a more decided sullenness, a look in the cold, gray eyes that meant death rather than yielding.
Once the soft-voiced young man who had put out his hand in his defence the day of his arrival at the stockade, and had afterward called him “friend,” the only time he had ever heard the word addressed to himself, once he came over where Jim sat cleaning the warden’s boots, and motioned him.
Jim shook his head, and went on blacking the big boots. But when the young convict drew nearer, and tried to take his hand, he drew back, and struck at him viciously with the blacking brush.
“Git out, will you! And don’t come a-fooling with this brush, lest you want your d—n head broke.”
He had seen a guard spying upon them at a half open door in the rear of the young convict. At Jim’s outburst of temper the guard entered.
“Come away from him, Solly,” he said, “the surly beast is as like as not to knock your brains out.”
The convict turned to obey, but the glance he got of Jim’s face carried a full explanation. The temper was affected to keep down suspicion. After that came the punishment at the pump, the merciless beating, and then, all things proving unavailing, he was put in the dungeon to have the “truth starved out of him.”