. The shrieks reached a
climax of anguish, and suddenly stopped. Death-like stillness fell again
upon the prison. Axel spent what was left of the night pacing up and
down.

The prison day did not begin till six. Axel, used to his busy country
life that got him out of his bed and on to his horse at four these fine
summer mornings, heard sounds of life below in the street--early carts
and voices--long before life stirred within the walls. He understood
afterwards why the inmates were allowed to lie in bed so long: it was
convenient for the warders. The prisoners rose at six, and went to bed
again at six, in the full sunshine of those June afternoons. Thus
disposed of, the warders could relax their vigilance and enjoy some
hours of rest. The effect, moralising or the reverse, on the prisoners,
who could by no means get themselves off to sleep at six o'clock, was of
the supremest indifference to everyone concerned. Axel, not yet having
been tried, and not yet therefore having been placed in the common
dormitory, was not forced into bed at any particular time. He might
enjoy evenings as long as those of the warders if he chose, and he might
get up as early as though his horse were waiting below to take him to
his hay-fields if he liked; but this privilege, without the means of
employing the extra hours, was valueless. He watched anxiously for the
broad daylight that would bring his lawyer and put an end to this first
martyrdom of helpless waiting. Towards seven, one of the prisoners,
whose good conduct had procured him promotion to cleaning the passages
and doing other work of the kind, brought him another loaf of bread and
a pot of coffee. From this young man, a white-faced, artful-looking
youth, with closely-cropped hair and wearing the coarse, brown prison
dress, Axel heard that the ghastly screams in the night came from a
prisoner who had _delirium tremens_; he had been put in the cellar to
get over the attack; he could scream as loud as he liked there, and no
one would hear him; they always put him in the cellar when the attacks
came on. The young man grinned. Evidently he thought the arrangement
both good and funny.

"Poor wretch," said Axel, profoundly pitying those other wretched human
beings, his fellow-prisoners.

"Oh, he is very happy there. He plays all day long at catching the
rats."

"The rats?"

"They say there are no rats--that he only thinks he sees them. But
whether the rats are real or not it amuses