with intoxication of
victory; they mocked me with a bacchanalian frenzy of triumph. Yet I
smiled grimly, for their clamor was no more than the ancient fool's
shout, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians." Great Christ has had his day
since, but he in turn is dead; dead in man's intellect, dead in man's
heart, dead in man's life; a mere phantom, flitting about the aisles
of churches, where priestly mummers go through the rites of a phantom
creed.

I took my prison Bible and read the story of Christ's birth in Matthew
and Luke, Mark and John having never heard of it or forgotten it. What
an incongruous jumble of absurdities! A poor fairy tale of the world's
childhood, utterly insignificant beside the stupendous revelations
of science. From the fanciful story of the Magi following a star to
Shelley's "World on worlds are rolling ever," what an advance! As I
retired to sleep on my plank-bed my mind was full of these reflections,
and when the gas was turned out, and I was left in darkness and silence,
I felt serene and almost happy.

CHAPTER XVII. DAYLIGHT.

A new day dawned for me on the twenty-fifth of February. I rose as usual
a few minutes before six. It was the morning of my release, or in prison
language my "discharge." Yet I felt no excitement. I was as calm as my
cell walls. "Strange!" the reader will say. Yet not so strange after
all. Every day had been filled with expectancy, and anticipation had
discounted the reality.

Instead of waiting till eight o'clock, the usual breakfast hour,
superintendent Burchell brought my last prison meal at seven. I wondered
at his haste, but when he came again, a few minutes later, to see if I
had done, I saw through the game. The authorities wished to "discharge"
me rapidly, before the hour when my friends would assemble at the prison
gates, and so lessen the force of the demonstration. I slackened speed
at once, drank my tea in sips, and munched my dry bread with great
deliberation. "Come," said superintendent Burchell, "you're very slow
this morning." "Oh," I replied, "there's no hurry; after twelve months
of it a few minutes make little difference." Burchell put the words and
my smile together, and gave the game up.

Down in the bathroom at the foot of the debtors' wing my clothes were
set out, and some kind hand had spread a piece of bright carpet for my
feet. I dressed very leisurely. With equal tardiness I went through the
ceremony of receiving my effects, carefull