op. Then
the prisoner wept again. It was so disappointing. Life was robbed of
everything now. He remembered that in a previous existence soldiers who
cried were laughed at and mocked.

But that was so far away and it was such an absurd superstition that he
had no patience with it. For what could be more comforting to a man when
he is treated cruelly than to cry. It was so obvious an exercise, and
when one is so feeble that one cannot vault a four-railed barrier it is
something to feel that at least one is strong enough to cry.

He escaped occasionally, traversing space with marvellous rapidity and
to great distances, but never to any successful purpose; and his flight
inevitably ended in ignominious recapture and a sudden awakening in
bed. At these moments the familiar and hated palms, the peaks and the
block-house were more hideous in their reality than the most terrifying
of his nightmares.

These excursions afield were always predatory; he went forth always to
seek food. With all the beautiful world from which to elect and choose,
he sought out only those places where eating was studied and elevated
to an art. These visits were much more vivid in their detail than any he
had ever before made to these same resorts. They invariably began in
a carriage, which carried him swiftly over smooth asphalt. One route
brought him across a great and beautiful square, radiating with rows and
rows of flickering lights; two fountains splashed in the centre of the
square, and six women of stone guarded its approaches. One of the
women was hung with wreaths of mourning. Ahead of him the late twilight
darkened behind a great arch, which seemed to rise on the horizon of the
world, a great window into the heavens beyond. At either side strings
of white and colored globes hung among the trees, and the sound of music
came joyfully from theatres in the open air. He knew the restaurant
under the trees to which he was now hastening, and the fountain beside
it, and the very sparrows balancing on the fountain's edge; he knew
every waiter at each of the tables, he felt again the gravel crunching
under his feet, he saw the maitre d'hotel coming forward smiling to
receive his command, and the waiter in the green apron bowing at his
elbow, deferential and important, presenting the list of wines. But his
adventure never passed that point, for he was captured again and once
more bound to his cot with a close burning sheet.

Or else, he drove more