be hopeless, he fell
asleep again, and when he awoke a man with a lantern was standing beside
him. It was a soldier with his food, the ordinary Mexican fare, and
water. Another soldier with a musket stood at the door. There was no
possible chance of a dash for liberty. Ned ate and drank hungrily, and
asked the soldier questions, but the man replied only in monosyllables
or not at all. The boy desisted and finished in silence the meal which
might be either breakfast, dinner or supper for all he knew. Then the
soldier took the tin dishes, withdrew with his comrade, and the door
was locked again.

Ned was left to silence and solitude. But he felt that he must now move
about, have action of some kind. He threw himself against the door in an
effort to shake it, but it did not move a jot. Then he remembered that
he had seen cell doors in a row, and that other prisoners might be on
either side of him. He kicked the heavy cement walls, but they were not
conductors of sound and no answer came.

He grew tired after a while, but the physical exertion had done him
good. The languid blood flowed in a better tide in his veins and his
mind became more keen. There must be some way out of this. Youth could
not give up hope. It was incredible, impossible that he should remain
always here, shut off from that wonderful free world outside. The roll
of the sea over his head made reply.

After a while he began to walk around his cell, around and around and
around, until his head grew dizzy, and he staggered. Then he would
reverse and go around and around and around the other way. He kept this
up until he could scarcely stand. He lay down and tried to sleep again.
But he must have slept a long time before, and sleep would not come. He
lay there on the blankets, staring at the walls and not seeing them,
until the soldiers came again with his food. Ned ate and drank in
silence. He was resolved not to ask a question, and, when the soldiers
departed, not a single word had been spoken.

The next day Ned had fever, the day after that he was worse, and on the
third day he became unconscious. Then he passed through a time, the
length of which he could not guess, but it was a most singular period.
It was crowded with all sorts of strange and shifting scenes, some
colored brilliantly, and vivid, others vague and fleeting as moonlight
through a cloud. It was wonderful, too, that he should live again
through things that he had lived already. He was ba