assed every moment by punishment."

"Take care," he cried in a spasm of dread, putting his hand on mine,
"take care, they may punish me much worse. You don't know what they can
do." I grew hot with indignation.

"Don't say anything, please, of what I have said to you. Promise me, you
won't say anything. Promise me. I never complained, I didn't." His
excitement was a revelation.

"All right," I replied, to soothe him.

"No, but promise me, seriously," he repeated. "You must promise me.
Think, you have my confidence, it is private what I have said." He was
evidently frightened out of self-control.

"All right," I said, "I will not tell; but I'll get the facts from the
others and not from you."

"Oh, Frank," he said, "you don't know what they do. There is a
punishment here more terrible than the rack." And he whispered to me
with white sidelong eyes: "They can drive you mad in a week, Frank."[2]

"Mad!" I exclaimed, thinking I must have misunderstood him; though he
was white and trembling.

"What about the warders?" I asked again, to change the subject, for I
began to feel that I had supped full on horrors.

"Some of them are kind," he sighed. "The one that brought me in here is
so kind to me. I should like to do something for him, when I get out.
He's quite human. He does not mind talking to me and explaining things;
but some of them at Wandsworth were brutes.... I will not think of them
again. I have sewn those pages up and you must never ask me to open them
again: I dare not open them," he cried pitifully.

"But you ought to tell it all," I said, "that's perhaps the purpose you
are here for: the ultimate reason."

"Oh, no, Frank, never. It would need a man of infinite strength to come
here and give a truthful record of all that happened to him. I don't
believe you could do it; I don't believe anybody would be strong enough.
Starvation and purging alone would break down anyone's strength.
Everybody knows that you are purged and starved to the edge of death.
That's what two years' hard labour means. It's not the labour that's
hard. It's the conditions of life that make it impossibly hard: they
break you down body and soul. And if you resist, they drive you
crazy.... But, please! don't say I said anything; you've promised, you
know you have: you'll remember: won't you!"

I felt guilty: his insistence, his gasping fear showed me how terribly
he must have suffered. He was beside himself with dread. I ought to h