risoners
of hope.

The walls of a vast enclosure became visible; and over them might be
seen the tops of great cranes, looking like the denuded ribs of
umbrellas. Buildings rose beyond, with deep arched gateways; and a
small town was to be seen further off. Mr. Ernescliffe sent in his
card at the governor's house, and found that the facilities he had
asked for had been granted. They were told that the prisoner they
wished to see was at work at some distance; and while he was summoned,
they were to see the buildings. Dr. May had little heart for making a
sight of them, except so far as to judge of Leonard's situation; and he
was passively conducted across a gravelled court, turfed in the centre,
and containing a few flower-beds, fenced in by Portland's most natural
productions, zamias and ammonites, together with a few stone coffins,
which had once inclosed corpses of soldiers of the Roman garrison.
Large piles of building inclosed the quadrangle; and passing into the
first of these, the Doctor began to realize something of Leonard's
present existence. There lay before him the broad airy passage, and
either side the empty cells of this strange hive, as closely packed,
and as chary of space, as the compartments of the workers of the
honeycomb.

'Just twice as wide as a coffin,' said Hector, doing the honours of
one, where there was exactly width to stand up between the bed and the
wall of corrugated iron; 'though, happily, there is more liberality of
height.'

There was a ground glass window opposite to the door, and a shelf,
holding a Bible, Prayer and hymn book, and two others, one religious,
and one secular, from the library. A rust-coloured jacket, with a
black patch marked with white numbers, and a tarpaulin hat, crossed
with two lines of red paint on the crown, hung on the wall. The Doctor
asked for Leonard's cell, but it was in a distant gallery, and he was
told that when he had seen one, he had seen all. He asked if these
were like those that Leonard had previously inhabited at Milbank and
Pentonville, and hearing that they were on the same model, he almost
gasped at the thought of the young enterprising spirit thus caged for
nine weary months, and to whom this bare confined space was still the
only resting-place. He could not look by any means delighted with the
excellence of the arrangements, grant it though he might; and he was
hurried on to the vast kitchens, their ranges of coppers full of
savou