"He were sittin' crouched on the ground, and he looked up at us
vacant-like. His face were all fallen down, as it were, and his mouth
never ceased to shake and whisper.

"The Major shut the door and posted me in a corner. Then he moved to the
creature with his whip.

"'Up!' he cried. 'Up, you dervish, and dance to us!' and he brought the
thong with a smack across his shoulders.

"The creature leapt under the blow, and then to his feet with a cry, and
the Major whipped him till he danced. All round the cell he drove him,
lashing and cutting--and again, and many times again, until the poor
thing rolled on the floor whimpering and sobbing. I shall have to give an
account of this some day. I shall have to whip my master with a red-hot
serpent round the blazing furnace of the pit, and I shall do it with
agony, because here my love and my obedience was to him.

"When it was finished, he bade me put down food and drink that I had
brought with me, and come away with him; and we went, leaving him
rolling on the floor of the cell, and shut him alone in the empty prison
until we should come again at the same time to-morrow.

"So day by day this went on, and the dancing three or four times a week,
until at last the whip could be left behind, for the man would scream and
begin to dance at the mere turning of the key in the lock. And he danced
for four months, but not the fifth.

"Nobody official came near us all this time. The prison stood lonely as a
deserted ruin where dark things have been done.

"Once, with fear and trembling, I asked my master how he would account
for the inmate of 47 if he was suddenly called upon by authority to
open the cell; and he answered, smiling,--

"I should say it was my mad brother. By his own account, he showed me a
brother's love, you know. It would be thought a liberty; but the
authorities, I think, would stretch a point for me. But if I got
sufficient notice, I should clear out the cell.'

"I asked him how, with my eyes rather than my lips, and he answered me
only with a look.

"And all this time he was, outside the prison, living the life of a good
man--helping the needy, ministering to the poor. He even entertained
occasionally, and had more than one noisy party in his house.

"But the fifth month the creature danced no more. He was a dumb, silent
animal then, with matted hair and beard; and when one entered he would
only look up at one pitifully, as if he said, 'My long punishm