"Yes. I will kill him if I get a chance; and I feel it in me that the chance will come."
"Well, proceed."
"He kept on whipping me. He whipped me with all the strength of both hands. I could feel the broken skin curl upon my back, and when my head got too heavy to hold it straight it hung down, and I saw the blood on my legs and dripping off my toes into a pool of it on the floor. Something was straining and twisting inside of me again. My back didn't hurt much; it was the thing twisting inside of me that hurt. I counted the lashes, and when I counted to twenty-eight the twisting got so hard that it choked me and blinded me;... and when I woke up I was in the dungeon again, and the doctor had my back all plastered up, and he was kneeling beside me, feeling my pulse."
The prisoner had finished. He looked around vaguely, as though he wanted to go.
"And you have been in the dungeon ever since?"
"Yes, sir; but I don't mind that."
"How long?"
"Twenty-three months."
"On bread and water?"
"Yes; but that was all I wanted."