y chance.

"You don't know any one from Jamaica?" I asked.

He shook his bullet head, and tapped his purple nose. "Can't be done,"
he said. "You'd get a ornery hallybi fer a guinea a head, but they'd
keep out of this case. They've necks like you and me."

Whilst he was speaking, the whole of the outer world, as far as it
affected me, came suddenly in upon me--that was what I meant to the
great city that lay all round, the world, in the centre of which was my
cell. To the great mass, I was matter for a sensation; to them I might
prove myself beneficial in this business. Perhaps there were others who
were thinking I might be useful in one way or another. There were the
ministers of the Crown, who did not care much whether Jamaica separated
or not. But they wanted to hang me because they would be able to say
disdainfully to the planters, "Separate if you like; we've done our
duty, we've hanged a man."

All those people had their eyes on me, and they were about the only ones
who knew of my existence. That was the end of my Romance! Romance! The
broadsheet sellers would see to it afterwards with a "Dying confession."

CHAPTER FOUR

I never saw my father again until I was in the prisoner's anteroom at
the Old Bailey. It was full of lounging men, whose fleshy limbs bulged
out against the tight, loud checks of their coats and trousers. These
were jailers waiting to bring in their prisoners. On the other side
of one black door the Grand Jury was deliberating on my case, behind
another the court was in waiting to try me. I was in a sort of tired
lull. All night I had been pacing up and down, trying to bring my brain
to think of points--points in my defence. It was very difficult. I knew
that I must keep cool, be calm, be lucid, be convincing; and my brain
had reeled at times, even in the darkness of the cell. I knew it had
reeled, because I remembered that once I had fallen against the stone
of one of the walls, and once against the door. Here, in the light, with
only a door between myself and the last scene, I regained my hold. I was
going to fight every inch from start to finish. I was going to let no
chink of their armour go untried. I was going to make a good fight. My
teeth chattered like castanets, jarring in my jaws until it was painful.
But that was only with the cold.

A hubbub of expostulation was going on at the third door. My turnkey
called suddenly:

"Let the genman in, Charlie. Pal o' ourn," and my fa