, or starved with such patience as he could. There were
times, too, when Ibrahim had no friend to send him his meal into the
prison. And thus each man helped the other in his need. They stood side
by side against the wall at night.

"Yes, Effendi, I am here," and groping with his hand in the black
darkness, he steadied Trench against the wall.

A fight of even more than common violence was raging in an extreme
corner of the prison, and so closely packed were the prisoners that with
each advance of one combatant and retreat of the other, the whole
jostled crowd swayed in a sort of rhythm, from end to end, from side to
side. But they swayed, fighting to keep their feet, fighting even with
their teeth, and above the din and noise of their hard breathing, the
clank of their chains, and their imprecations, there rose now and then a
wild sobbing cry for mercy, or an inhuman shriek, stifled as soon as
uttered, which showed that a man had gone down beneath the stamping
feet. Missiles, too, were flung across the prison, even to the foul
earth gathered from the floor, and since none knew from what quarter
they were flung, heads were battered against heads in the effort to
avoid them. And all these things happened in the blackest darkness.

For two hours Trench stood in that black prison ringing with noise, rank
with heat, and there were eight hours to follow before the door would be
opened and he could stumble into the clean air and fall asleep in the
zareeba. He stood upon tiptoe that he might lift his head above his
fellows, but even so he could barely breathe, and the air he breathed
was moist and sour. His throat was parched, his tongue was swollen in
his mouth and stringy like a dried fig. It seemed to him that the
imagination of God could devise no worse hell than the House of Stone on
an August night in Omdurman. It could add fire, he thought, but only
fire.

"If I were to fall!" he cried, and as he spoke his hell was made
perfect, for the door was opened. Idris es Saier appeared in the
opening.

"Make room," he cried, "make room," and he threw fire among the
prisoners to drive them from the door. Lighted tufts of dried grass
blazed in the darkness and fell upon the bodies of the prisoners. The
captives were so crowded they could not avoid the missiles; in places,
even, they could not lift their hands to dislodge them from their
shoulders or their heads.

"Make room," cried Idris. The whips of his fellow-gaolers enf