reaking glass
continues. My neighbours appear to have been pursuing a train of thought
similar to mine, for I hear several of them calling to our informant,
and enquiring, "How and why was he killed?"

Then a long, long, anxious wait, and then the reply, "Yes, killed!" Not
by a warder, but by a sentry on guard in the court-yard, who, seeing
Ivanoff at his window, shot him through the head. The occupier of a
neighbouring cell, also at that moment at his window, saw the shot
fired. Others heard the fall of the body. Some have called to him, and
received no reply; therefore Ivanoff is dead. As to why he was
assassinated, nobody knows.

This recital, several times interrupted by noises and screams, is
nevertheless clear and precise. My neighbours, one after the other,
descend from their windows, and commence to break up furniture and
attack the doors. I follow their example, and recommence my work of
destruction. Water-bottle, glass, basin, the wicket in the door, and all
that is fragile in my cell flies to pieces, and, with the broken glass
from the window, covers the floor. In spite of the feverish haste with
which I accomplish this sad task, my heart is not in the work. All this
is so unexpected, so unreal, so violent, that it bewilders me. But
through the bewilderment the questions, "Is it possible? And why?"
continue to force their way. Then I say to myself, "If this man, this
soldier, has really killed Ivanoff, it was, perhaps, in a fit of
drunkenness; or, perhaps, his gun went off accidentally; or, perhaps,
seeing a prisoner at a window, he thought it an attempt at escape."
While these ideas, rapid and confused, rush through my brain, I continue
to break everything breakable that comes under my hands--because the
others are doing the same--because, for prisoners, it is the only means
of protest. The sentiment, however, which dominates me is not one of
rage, but of infinite sadness, which presses me down and renders weak my
trembling arms.

But now the uproar augments. Several prisoners have demolished their
beds, and with the broken parts are attacking the doors. The noise of
iron hurled with force against the oak panels dominates all others.
Through my broken wicket, I hear the voice of the Commandant ordering
the soldiers to fire on any prisoner leaving his cell, and to the
warders to manacle all those who are attempting to break down their
doors.

[Illustration: "NADINE'S DOOR FORCED."]

All these noises, b