months of internment at Ruhleben, after months
of short commons and indifferent accommodation, was still a big bony
fellow of some twenty-five years of age, with broad shoulders, long
arms and legs, and a chest which would have fitted a Hercules. True,
there were hollows in his cheeks, and his eyes were gaunt and sunken,
yet what man in that camp of suffering, what man amongst all the
unfortunate fellows caught in Germany at the outbreak of war and
hustled to Ruhleben, did not, long since, show signs of suffering and
anxiety and of want, often of destitution. As a matter of fact, the
robust Stuart had stood the privations of the place better than the
majority of his fellows; and perhaps his very jauntiness of spirit, the
courage which sustained him and helped also to sustain his comrades,
kept him from feeling his position so acutely, and helped also to
assist him in surviving a state of affairs which to some had long since
become intolerable, which indeed was killing not a few by inches.

By now the trio had crossed the compound, and were within a few feet of
their guards, who, absorbed in whatever had caused the alarm and had
sent them rushing to that corner, seemed to overlook the prisoners--all
the men about them--seemed to be unaware of the crowd collecting in
that quarter. They were gathered in the far corner, just outside one
of the many huts erected there--a sorry affair, which at one time had
done duty on the race-course as a tool-shed. In those days it would
not have been considered good enough even for the dogs of the owners of
German race-horses; but now, yes, it was good enough--too good--for
these enemy prisoners, for these individuals snatched from amongst the
civil population of Germany. Young men, some of them, hale men in
those days before the war; elderly men, invalids from some of Germany's
health resorts--harmless individuals in numerous cases, who, had they
been Germans and in England, would have been left alone, able to live
their lives in peace and security, provided they obeyed certain rules
and regulations of a not too drastic nature; but in Germany German
"frightfulness" allowed of no leniency even to sick men. And here they
were, the hale, the young, the sick, and the old, hustled to Ruhleben,
and herded there together in such an old shed as the one in this far
corner. Many men brought up in luxury in France or in England, needing
care and comfort because of the state of their health,