ble to see his eyes,
as he sits by the bed, for they are downcast, but we can see that he
has a long, nearly straight nose, and lips tightly pressed together.
His hair is parted and hangs down on each side of his head, stiff and
lank now, owing to the wet, but in happier days it must have hung in
little curls round his neck, just below his ears. He is a tall man,
with a big strong-looking body. In spite of the coarse clothes he
wears, there is a strange dignity about him. You feel something
drawing you to him, making you want to know more about him.

You feel somehow as if you were in the presence of some one who is
very big, and that you yourself are very small, smaller perhaps than
you ever felt in your life. Yet you feel ready to do anything for him,
and, at the same time, you believe that, if only you could make him
know that you are there, he would be ready to do anything for you.
Even in this wretched den he carries himself with an air of authority,
as if he were accustomed to command. Now, at last he is looking up;
and we can see his eyes. Most wonderful eyes they are! Eyes that look
as if they could pierce through all sorts of disguises, and read the
deepest secrets of a man's heart. They are kind eyes too; and look as
if they could be extraordinarily tender at times. They are something
like a shepherd's eyes, as if they were accustomed to gazing out far
and wide in search of strayed sheep and lost lambs. Yet they are also
like the eyes of a Judge; thoroughly well able to distinguish right
from wrong. It would be terrible to meet those eyes after doing
anything the least bit crooked or shabby or untrue. They look as if
they would know at the first glance just how much excuses were worth;
and what was the truth. No wonder that once, when those eyes fell on a
man who was arguing on the wrong side, he felt ashamed all of a sudden
and cried out in terror: 'Do not pierce me so with thine eyes! Keep
thine eyes off me!' Another time when this same prisoner was reasoning
with a crowd of people, who did not agree with him, they all cried out
with one accord: 'Look at his eyes, look at his eyes!' And yet another
time when he was riding through an angry mob, in a city where men were
ready to take his life, they dared not touch him. 'Oh, oh,' they
cried, 'see, he shines! he glisters!'

Then what happened next? We do not want to look at the prisoner in
fancy any longer. We want really to know about him: to hear the
beginni