out the dynamite they begged me to confess
it and save them all from further misery. And I could tell them only the
truth, that I knew of no dynamite.

One thing the stool told me, before the guards removed him, showed how
serious was this matter of the dynamite. Of course, I passed the word
along, which was that not a wheel had turned in the prison all day. The
thousands of convict-workers had remained locked in their cells, and the
outlook was that not one of the various prison-factories would be
operated again until after the discovery of some dynamite that somebody
had hidden somewhere in the prison.

And ever the examination went on. Ever, one at a time, convicts were
dragged away and dragged or carried back again. They reported that
Warden Atherton and Captain Jamie, exhausted by their efforts, relieved
each other every two hours. While one slept, the other examined. And
they slept in their clothes in the very room in which strong man after
strong man was being broken.

And hour by hour, in the dark dungeons, our madness of torment grew. Oh,
trust me as one who knows, hanging is an easy thing compared with the way
live men may be hurt in all the life of them and still live. I, too,
suffered equally with them from pain and thirst; but added to my
suffering was the fact that I remained conscious to the sufferings of the
others. I had been an incorrigible for two years, and my nerves and
brain were hardened to suffering. It is a frightful thing to see a
strong man broken. About me, at the one time, were forty strong men
being broken. Ever the cry for water went up, and the place became
lunatic with the crying, sobbing, babbling and raving of men in delirium.

Don't you see? Our truth, the very truth we told, was our damnation.
When forty men told the same things with such unanimity, Warden Atherton
and Captain Jamie could only conclude that the testimony was a memorized
lie which each of the forty rattled off parrot-like.

From the standpoint of the authorities, their situation was as desperate
as ours. As I learned afterward, the Board of Prison Directors had been
summoned by telegraph, and two companies of state militia were being
rushed to the prison.

It was winter weather, and the frost is sometimes shrewd even in a
California winter. We had no blankets in the dungeons. Please know that
it is very cold to stretch bruised human flesh on frosty stone. In the
end they did give us water. Jee