There was a trill of bird-toned laughter, and Minnie Raynor scampered down the stairs as fast as her feet could carry her.
The officer dared not go after her, nor remove his eyes from his charge, but he leaned a little, and tried to catch her. She laughed, and fled on, leaving her blue sash in his hand, and, reaching the outer door of the prison, stood looking at the convicts as they passed by her.
Hundreds of men were there, each stained by some dark crime, yet Minnie smiled into their faces, and saw nothing to fear or dislike. And in every face, as she looked, dimly, as in troubled waters, there shone back on her a faint and far-away reflection of remembered childhood and innocence. Every hard face softened, and met her glance with brightening eyes, and every heart blessed her—the warden’s bonnie little daughter.
Near the end of the line was a man whose overseers never turned their backs on him—of whom every officer in the prison was wary. This man, William Jeffries, had been ten years under sentence of death for wilful murder, and had passed that time in daily expectation of the order for his execution.
If personal beauty had aught to do with virtue, one might say that this sentence was an unjust one; for the convict was not only strikingly handsome, but had an air of superiority. The black hair was thrown carelessly back, and left fully exposed the marble-white, exquisite features, whose expression, when he looked down, was one of pride and melancholy. But when he raised those full black eyes, the beholder shrank involuntarily from their hard and brilliant regard. No smile ever was seen on those compressed, haughty lips; they never spoke save when obliged to, and never asked a favor. And it was well known that he watched, day and, night, for any chance of escape, and cherished a deep, cold hate for his keepers.
As he approached her, Minnie smiled up into his face, then started forward, and, taking his hand, walked on with him, to the horror of the guards and the malicious amusement of the convicts. For the man himself, he merely submitted to the soft clasp of her fingers, and kept his eyes downcast; but his face turned a deep red, which had not faded when he reached his cell door.
There the overseer interfered, and drew Minnie away, just as she was entering the cell.
“I want to go into his play-house, and see the pretty pictures on the walls,” she said.
“You must not!” was the reply. “It is wicked to go in there. It’s no place for you.”