In case of meeting these, I had resolved to plunge into the tropical jungle which came close down to the beach.

Neither night traveling nor the situation had any terrors for me. I felt my only danger lay in stumbling upon some outpost or sentry who might perceive me before I saw him and so cover me with his rifle before challenging, but I knew from observation since my arrival in Cuba that the discipline among the Spanish soldiers was very slack, and I had a pretty firm belief that isolated sentries usually took a nap while waiting the relief.

After leaving Nunn I started out at a quick pace, alert and confident. The moon had gone down, but the Caribbean Sea was lovely in the starlight, and between watching the phosphorescent ripples of the waters and listening to the night noises of the jungle I soon discovered I was enjoying my jaunt and found myself anticipating the pleasure of the free, open life ahead of me when once beyond the Spanish outposts and a soldier of fortune. I thought what a story of adventure I would have to relate when a year or two later I rejoined my wife and friends, and I felt that a good record won in a fight for "free Cuba" would make men willing to forget my past.

I found my westward march frequently interrupted by spooks—some rock, stump or bush would, to my suspicious eye, take on the human form until I thought it was a sentry on guard and meant danger. Once or twice I sought the shelter of the jungle and spent a long time watching for some sign of movement. On one occasion I painfully made a circuit of nearly a mile to pass a projecting mass of bushes in the belief that there were men behind it. The air was balmy as on a June night at home. I trudged along with my two bottles of water slung across my shoulder tied to a cord, and between them and my revolvers and cartridges I was pretty well loaded down.

Nowhere during the night did I come across any fresh water, but was fated to have a water adventure before daylight which I did not relish. Soon after midnight I sat down on the sand well in the shadow of some palmetto trees and had a very enjoyable lunch of bread and dried beef, washed down by water from my bottle; then lighting a cigar and reclining at full length on the dry sand I passed a pleasant half hour enjoying the fine Havana. I looked forward to the hours of daylight to be spent reclining at ease in the jungle with many anticipations of pleasure. I had a supply of fine cigars, plenty to think about, and the consciousness of having overcome serious difficulties gave me a feeling of elation—then my surroundings were so novel and I was fond of outdoor life.

At 4 o'clock the sky put on a ragged edge of gray in the east, and feeling pretty well satisfied with my progress I began to think of selecting a retreat for the hours of daylight. Suddenly I found myself upon what was evidently the neck of a swamp extending far and wide into the land. I had discovered during the night that there was a well-traveled road skirting and following the beach at a distance of a few hundred yards, but there was danger of my meeting some one there, so I stuck to the beach.

In the middle of the swamp was a clear space of water with marshy banks. As it was nearly daylight, and being in no hurry, my presence in the country unknown, and in no immediate danger, I determined to halt and not tackle the swamp until nightfall again. Then, if seen by any one, I would have some hours of darkness to make myself scarce in the neighborhood.

Turning to follow the edge of the swamp I saw before me on a little lower level than where I stood in the sand what appeared a plot of vivid green grass, and without any precaution stupidly stepped with my full weight upon it, and instantly found myself floundering in four feet of mud and water. I had fallen, and getting back on the solid ground I found myself wet to the shoulders, my legs covered with mud and my pistols, bread, etc., soaking with salt water. At once I ran across the beach and sat down in the warm water of the sea, washing off the mud as well as possible. Then I made my way into the jungle, crossing the road, and going into the thicket a short distance sat down waiting for daylight, purposing to remain concealed near enough to the road to see all passers-by, so that I might judge what sort of people I was among.



As the ground where I stood was low and wet, and my clothes soaking, I feared catching the fever, so made my way well back to where some fallen trees had made a rift in the dense mass of trunks, creepers and foliage, letting in the sunlight. There I pulled off my garments to dry, taking great care not to let any of the poisonous leaves come into contact with my flesh, and made myself comfortable, sitting down to lunch nearly in the state of nature. I was more concerned over my damaged cigars than my dampened cartridges. On examination I found the cigars but slightly wet, so, spreading them out to dry along with the drapery, I lit one and surveyed the position. As the moisture was already steaming out of my garments I took matters cheerfully and considered the outlook good.

Having finished one of my bottles of water, I made up my mind to carry only one, and to take my chance of replenishing that. So long as my health continued perfect I did not require much water; what I feared was that my exposure and change of diet might make me feverish; if so, I would suffer from thirst unless I struck a hilly country.

How much company my watch was to me during those long days and nights! I was never tired of examining it. About 10 o'clock I made my way to the road and placed myself in a mass of foliage, where unseen by any one I had quite a range of the road. Up to this hour I had not seen a soul. At first I watched the little stretch of road with eagerness, but no one appearing I turned my attention to watching the evolutions of a huge yellow spider which was spreading its net near by. While absorbed, and almost fascinated, I was suddenly roused by the sharp, quick beating of hoofs on the sandy road. Giving a startled glance, I saw a man unarmed, but evidently a soldier, gallop quickly by on a mule. Twenty minutes later an old-fashioned cart containing four half-dressed negroes and drawn by four wretched mules passed. The men were silent and downcast. Before 1 o'clock thirty people had passed, several being soldiers of the guardia civil (armed police).

Then starting to spy out the land from the bushes and vines bordering the swamp I could see a bridge crossing the neck of the swamp, but, worst of all, quite a collection of houses at the other side, reaching down to the beach, and a wharf that ran out into the water quite fifty yards, with, no doubt, a guardhouse and police station among them. I saw my way blocked. It seemed certain there would be sentries on guard at the bridge, or so near it as to make it impossible for me to cross unobserved. The swamp extended inland apparently for three or four miles, and the jungle grew so dense as to make it impossible to penetrate it in an effort to go around, so I determined not to venture crossing the bridge, but to swim for it.

The swamp spread on both sides of the lagoon, and there was no such thing as wading in that almost liquid morass, so I tried to find by daylight a place where the mud was covered with water enough at least to make swimming possible, but no such place could I find.

Everywhere a black tangled mass of rotting leaves and creepers spread, making such a horrible slime that I shrank from attempting to cross it to the open water. Once over that there was the same ordeal to go through on the other side, and I knew I could only do it at full length—that is, to lie flat and pull myself along as well as possible. The simplest way was to wade out into the sea, then to swim far enough outside of the pier to escape observation from any one who might chance to be on it.

But this involved the chance of a horrible death, the sea there swarming with sharks, which at night come in shore. Therefore, after cogitating the matter, I resolved to attempt the bridge, taking the risk of being seen. It might prove fatal to be seen, as I would have to bolt back, and once knowing a fugitive was in the jungle they might turn out and hedge me in, unless I took the sea route. This I resolved to do, if the one by the bridge proved impracticable.

So during the afternoon I gathered a small lot of dried limbs and broke them off in sufficient quantity to make a raft capable of bearing about twenty pounds. On this I intended to put my revolvers, cartridges, cigars, etc., and also to rest lightly on it myself, pushing it before me as I swam. After dark I crossed the road into the jungle skirting the beach, carrying my raft, and deposited it on the sand. Lying down in the hot sand near by smoking a cigar, I waited for the moon to go down. I was doing more than watch the stars and moonlit water. I was saying to myself, "What a jolly world is this!"

Then, beginning to argue of human destiny, at last I brought the argument around to Ego, and decided that he was a pretty clever fellow, and that the world meant to treat him well. So Ego, settling down into a very comfortable frame of mind, lighting a fresh cigar and looking across at the dark masses of the coral islets crowned with foliage set in the mirrored waters, passed two delightful hours.

I watched the moon go down and was not impatient, for the beauty of the scene more even than the novelty of the position cast a charm over the spirit and soothed the eye and mind. I wondered how many were seeking me and how many thousands were speculating over my identity and whereabouts, yet not one in his wildest imagination could ever picture the reality of my position in all its strange and magic surroundings. Through all the coming twenty years, nightly in my dungeon, the magician memory would unroll that scene from his pictured chambers. It was all there—the physical that the eye took in and the thoughts evoked and sent swarming to the brain, there to remain engraved until life and memory end.



CHAPTER XXXIII.

SHARKS, SALT WATER ONES, AND OTHER THINGS.

The bridge had no protection along the side save a simple stringpiece of timber. On the far side the houses rested nearly against the bridge entrance, forming a street, which I had to pass through.

The moon went down at 10, but I could hear loud voices and occasional bursts of laughter until 11. Then all grew still save the night noises of the woods and swamps.

At midnight I carried my raft down to the edge of the water, then leaving it there for use in case of a repulse, with my ironwood stick in my left hand and my revolver in the right, I marched down to the bridge, but fearing my upright figure might be seen, dark as it was, outlined against the sky, I stooped and crawled along the stringpiece of timber until within twenty feet of the large house at the end of the bridge. Peering through the gloom I listened, but could not see or hear any movement. Straightening myself up I took half a dozen paces, when, in the stillness, I heard a sharp crackle that turned me to stone as the flame of a wax match revealed two soldiers sitting on a bench within the porch of the guardhouse not ten feet away. One had struck the match to light a cigarette. The flame that betrayed them to me showed to them my form outlined on the bridge.

There was a sudden exclamation, a hail, "Quien va!" then a sudden and thrilling rattle of accoutrements, but I had turned and was flying back across the bridge. Suddenly a rifle shot rang out sharply on the night; a second followed, but I was unharmed. In ten seconds I was beside my little raft, and, pushing it before me, waded out in the shallow water. When up to my knees I halted, unstrapped my revolvers and placed them on the raft. Then pulling off my shoes I put them and my load on the raft, fastening all with a string put there for the purpose. Sticking my knife through the lapel of my coat and resting my chin on the raft I began to swim, keeping well out, so as to go outside the long wharf.

In the mean time everything was in commotion ashore. Two more shots were fired, and flashes of the guns proved that a squad had turned out and had crossed the bridge in hot pursuit. Then I blessed the wise forethought that had led me to construct the raft. Certainly it had saved me, for they would surely search the jungle.

During the fearful excitement I had forgotten all about the sharks. In the darkness I had given all my attention to trying to get a glimpse of the wharf. Suddenly, near me in the calm and awful stillness, there sprang out of the dark waters a large fish which fell back with a splash.

My heart stood still and my blood seemed to freeze, for to my horror I fancied I saw the black fins of numberless sharks cutting the water. I saw myself dragged down into the awful depths and torn limb from limb, by the fierce and hungry monsters. I gave up hope and ceased my swimming, expecting every minute to see the water churned into angry foam by the furious sharks. Instinctively I placed my hand on the knife I had thrust through the lapel of my coat for just such an emergency, but strength and courage were all gone and my nerveless hand could not draw it out. It seemed a long time that I waited, half dazed, for death, which I hoped when it came would be swift.

Then I began swimming again, but in a hopeless way. My nerve was all gone. I fancied I was ringed around with the black-finned devils, and thought I could discern the currents from their waving tails; but I kept on swimming, pushing my raft before me, until suddenly I was thrilled through by my foot striking the bottom.

Making a rush for the shore, and once there, heedless of the fact that I was in the rear of the houses, I fell down in the sand, weak and panting, and there I lay until strength enough to walk came to me. Then, taking my baggage from the raft, and cutting the cords that bound it together, I started on. Courage and confidence soon came back, and I kept steadily on for three hours, passing several small salt water inlets, but no fresh water to fill my now empty bottle.

At the first sign of day I went just within the border of the jungle, and lying down was soon asleep, and sleeping soundly, too, for waking I found the sun high in the heavens, and, looking at my watch, saw it was 9 o'clock. At the same time I discovered that I was hungry, with no food save a small piece of dried beef and not a drop of water in my bottle.

The salt water lagoon, or inlet, where I had my adventure of the previous night was marked on my map as a river, but it was not. However, I did not worry over the water question, as I knew I was near the hilly country surrounding the town of Alguizor, an important military headquarters, and I was confident of soon meeting some creek flowing from the hills. As for food, there were to be found in the dense jungle, where the soil was moist and wet, the holes of the nut crabs. They were large and fat—that is, appeared to be fat—and I knew that with plenty of them in the jungle I should not suffer from hunger.

Before starting inland for the day I turned to look at the blue waters rippling under a light breeze, and glancing in the sun, only a few yards away, I smiled to think of the phantoms my fears had conjured up, but for all that I resolved that no more night swims in the sea should find place in my programme.

I made my way with difficulty through the tangled woods, but had gone nearly a mile before I came to the road. After a cautious survey from my shelter, I stepped out on it, and looking away to the west I saw cultivated hills with teams and people moving about; I also saw the road became two—the right-hand one led away from the coast into the hills, the one to the left continued to skirt the beach. Both roads were well traveled, and I knew I was near the tobacco belt, which is cultivated throughout its entire length, from the Gulf to the Caribbean Sea, for a breadth of twenty miles, its western border touching the province of Pinar del Rio. Forty miles beyond that border the rebels held the town of San Cristoval, but I had made up my mind to follow the coast until I reached the hamlet and harbor of Rio de San Diego, fifty miles south from San Cristoval, then to strike north to the town of Passos, twenty miles west of San Cristoval. Once past San Diego, I would be well within the rebel lines, and could safely show myself, although I determined not to do so voluntarily until I was at Passos.

The roundabout way I was traveling doubled the distance, but, aside from getting outside the lines of the Spanish patrols, I was in no particular hurry, and my mode of life was hardening and fitting me for the service in which I was to embark. I counted upon taking ten days, or rather nights, to reach San Diego, and five from there to Passos, where I would make myself known to the rebel chiefs as an American volunteer in the cause of Cuban liberty. And, I thought, what a change of scene for Mr. F. A. Warren. From the Bank of England to a volunteer in a rebel camp in Cuba!



I crossed the road and entered the jungle to pass the day, but as the ground was dry the trees and vines were not so closely matted, making it easier to move about, and a far more agreeable place it was for a daylight picnic than the jungle where I had passed the day before. But no crabs showed themselves, and as there was no animal life to be found, there was nothing but my piece of dried beef to be had "to go into the interior," so I dined off that; then, lighting one of my precious cigars, lay down in a sort of fairy bower to enjoy myself, and succeeded. During the entire day no sight or sound of human form or voice came to me, nor yet of animal life, save only a mateless bird, garbed in green that flitted around. Of course, not a drop of water this whole day long for me, and, though I was moderately thirsty, I did not suffer, despite the fact that I smoked several cigars. But I felt that I must have food and drink that night, whatever risk I incurred in securing it. I determined, therefore, to start early on my journey and get food before the country people were all in bed. As soon as night fell I stepped out on the road and cautiously started westward. Knowing there must be some town or hamlet near by, I purposed to enter, spy out some shop and watch until the shopkeeper was alone, then enter and purchase a supply of such food as he had, then march out and disappear as quickly as possible.

Soon after starting I came to a small place such as the poor whites of the country inhabit, and seeing two women in the doorway I walked in, and with a salute and "Buenas noches, senoritas," I asked for water (agua); they responded with alacrity and brought me some in a cocoanut shell. I saw it was vile stuff, with an earthy taste, but thirsty as I was it tasted like nectar. There was some food on a wooden dish inside, and I suppose they saw me looking at it, for the older woman ran in and returned bringing me two roasted plantains and a rice cake. Just then I discovered a man inside and two others came up from the rear of the house, or I would have purchased food of the women; but, seeing them, I thanked the ladies, and, saying good night, disappeared in the darkness. Picking up the empty bottle I had left in the road I walked on, feasting as I went on my roasted plantains. How nice they tasted!

A mile ahead I came to a tumbledown roadhouse, with quite a crowd of loud-voiced men standing around, who evidently had been indulging in the fiery aguardiente sold there. Like the Levite and priest, I passed by on the other side, giving the place a wide berth. Soon after I entered a town or hamlet of a dozen houses. Two or three passed me in the darkness with a "Buenas noches, senor," to which I mumbled some reply, they doubtless taking me for a neighbor. Two uniformed men, evidently police or soldiers, were lounging in the only shop, and I dared not enter until they were gone. Planting myself in a deep shadow, I sat down waiting for them to go out, but they showed no sign of moving until a shrill voice from a female throat issued from a nearby house, bidding one of the loungers to lounge no more just then, and he, hurriedly obeying the summons, went; soon his companion followed; then, leaving my empty bottle in the road, and with my hand on the revolver in my outside pocket, I entered the shop. The easy-going Cuban shopkeeper paid no particular attention to me, did not even stop rolling the cigarette he was making. After deliberately lighting it, he lazily responded to my "Buenas noches, senor," I saw bread, cakes and ham, and ordered of each; then, seeing some Spanish wine, I took a bottle; also a bottle of pickles. Producing a $10 Spanish bank note, I paid the bill, and emerged into the night with the precious load, and so strong was the animal instinct of hunger upon me that I would have fought to death sooner than surrender the provisions I carried.

Picking up my empty bottle I looked out for a chance to fill it as I walked through the town on the main road, which went straight west, but intending to abandon it as soon as I came to the fields and found it was safe to sit down for a feast, then make my way to the beach, now some two miles away, and put in a good distance before daylight. But for two mortal hours the road was bordered by impenetrable walls of cactus and bayonet grass, and to make the matter worse the moon came out from behind the clouds and poured a flood of light on the open road. Twice men on horseback passed me, coming from the opposite direction, and both times I sank down in the shadow of the cactus, both times with revolver in hand, but dreading an encounter, as the noise of firing might wake a hornets' nest about my ears.

At last I came to a road which entered a field. I was soon over the bars and found myself in an old tobacco plantation, now partly planted in Spanish beans. Crossing a couple of fields at the foot of the hills and in going over a triangular piece of ground, I found the ruins of a house, and nearby a small stream of water. I was in luck, and, taking a good drink and filling my bottle, I sat down in a convenient shadow and spread out my eatables. They were a goodly sight, and consisted of four pounds of good ham, a dozen good-sized sweet cakes, two loaves of bread, a bottle of pickles and one of wine, and one of water. I began with a drink of wine, then followed ham and bread and cake for dessert, all washed down with a fine long drink of water. Then lighting a cigar I stretched myself at full length and spent a delightful hour star-gazing.

Then I arose, took another drink of wine, but as it was not particularly select, threw the remainder away, and, filling both bottles from the brook, I prepared to march.

How I wish the kodak fiend existed then and that one of them had happened along just then to take a snap shot at me as I stood there in full marching order, with my water bottles slung over my shoulders, my eatables tied up in a large silk handkerchief, with my garments all in tatters, the result of thorns and creepers snatching at them in my jungle trampings; but, worst of all, my trusty and precious walking boots were beginning to show signs of rough usage.

I struck the road leading to the beach and marched westward, but it was an unknown land, and I was in constant fear of running against some military post or patrol, being thus constantly delayed by long halts to watch some suspicious object or by making long detours to avoid them. Once I had a fright. Two men on horseback riding on the sandy road were almost on me before I saw or heard them, and I only had time to sink into the shadow as they passed almost within reach of my hand. Both were smoking the everlasting cigarette, and were engaged in earnest talk. Daylight came and found me not more than eight or ten miles further on my journey, but I was very well content as I pitched my camp for the day. I had a royal feast, then, after a cigar, lay down to sleep in another fairy bower and slept until noon, and awoke to find myself wondering how matters were going with Capt. Curtin in Havana, rather amused over the state of chagrin I knew he must be in. I thought of a possible future meeting some years ahead, when, all danger over, I would see and chaff him over a bottle of Cliquot and the $50,000 he wouldn't have, and how I went all the same and saved the money.

I realized I must be frugal or my provisions would never hold out; so, after a light lunch, I began to make my way slowly to the beach through the tangled maze of trees and vines. Coming in sight of the blue waters I lay down to sleep again and awoke when the stars were out. The moon would not go down till late, but as there was a deep, broad shadow cast by the trees I walked in it.

Good food and the long day of rest restored my strength. All my confidence returned, and I made good progress. At last the moon went down, and then I pressed rapidly forward, always with revolver in hand, ready for instant action. I think I made fully twenty-five miles this night, but as the coast was indented my progress in a straight direction was not more than half that distance. Just as it began to grow gray in the east I came out on a wide inlet. It ran deep into the land. I recognized it from my map as Puerto del Gato, and then I knew I was in the province of Pinar del Rio and almost out of danger.

I went into the bush again and pitched camp, waiting for daylight to come and reveal my surroundings. Pitching camp consisted in scraping a few leaves together and lying down; but this morning I was too excited to sleep. I felt that I was near my goal, after having safely gone through many dangers. Once across the Puerto del Gato, two nights of travel would place me outside of the farthest Spanish pickets and bring me among friends, far beyond chance of pursuit, and I also knew that the mere knowledge of my presence in the rebel camp would cause all thought of pursuit to be dropped.

When daylight came I stood and looked around. Across the inlet, twenty miles away, I could see only dark masses of green, with no sign of life. To the north the land was hilly, with houses here and there in the distance, and signs of animal life. I cautiously searched the shore for a mile in the hope of finding a boat to cross to the other shore of the inlet, but none was in sight.

About 9 o'clock I saw smoke off at sea, and soon I made out a small Spanish gunboat coming rapidly up. Dropping anchor about a mile up the inlet, she sent a boat ashore. I was feeling sleepy, and, going into the woods again, I took a light lunch, and, emptying one bottle of water, lay down to sleep, resolved to make my plans when I awoke. I did not like the appearance of this gunboat; it seemed to promise the presence of the enemy in force around me, besides being a visible manifestation of the power of that enemy.

When I awoke from my nap I started on a cautious spying out of the land, making my way toward the head of the inlet, but keeping always under the protection of the woods. While going cautiously along I was startled by the notes of a bugle ringing out some military call not far away, and a moment later the gunboat replied with a gun, then steamed out to sea. Continuing my progress through the woods I came to the road, and, hiding securely in a thicket where I could see unseen, I watched. Soon I heard the sound of voices, and then a detail of armed men passed, going leisurely east, escorting an empty wagon drawn by four mules. It meant much, these armed escorts, showing they were in the face of the enemy. Several others passed during the hour of my watch. Then, with many cautious glances up and down the road, I slipped quietly across and crept for two hours through the jungle. Making my way to the side of the bay, I saw that I had left the military post behind me. There were white barracks and a wharf with people walking on it, and here the road and beach were one. This much discovered, I went a safe distance into the jungle and lay down to have a good sleep, feeling I would need all my energy and strength for the coming night, as it promised to be a critical one, especially as I could not afford to wait for the moon to go down, and would not have the shelter of darkness, for the moonlight was so powerful that one could easily read print by it.

I slept until dark, and awoke refreshed, then lunched and nearly finished my last bottle of water. I had only sufficient food for two more light meals. After lunch I smoked for an hour, star-gazing and philosophizing. At 9 o'clock, emerging into the road, I started cautiously out, walking in the shadow of the jungle as much as possible. I thought the head of the inlet was about ten miles away, and expected to find a military post or at least a picket stationed there.

* * * * *

Daylight once more. But it found me happy and content, for the difficulties of the passage of the wide inlet, which had confronted me the night before, had all been surmounted. I was now in a densely wooded point on the western side of the bay. Between me and San Diego lay a wild no man's land of fifty miles. That meant only two nights more of peril and uncertainty, and it was all straight going. So far as the coast line was concerned I was outside of the Spanish lines. Tired out and very well contented, just as the sun rose fiery red above the horizon, I lay down and was at once in dreamland. At noon, hungry and with only a few ounces of food to satisfy my hunger, I woke. Finishing my last bit of ham and bread, I lighted a cigar and set about planning. Pulling out my little map, I began to scan it for the thousandth time. About six miles to the north was the little town of San Miguel. Between me and San Diego lay fifty miles of wild country swept by fire and sword, without an inhabitant and without food. Hungry as I already was, I felt it would not do to undertake a two days' journey through that wilderness without eating. Of course I made a mistake. I was clear of the toils, and I ought to have taken every and any chance rather than enter the enemy's lines again.

I resolved, soon after night came, to set out for San Miguel, watch my chance to enter a shop and purchase food, then, beating a hasty retreat, strike out across the country straight for San Diego, there to find myself among friends in the rebel camp.

I set out and without any particular adventure arrived about 9 o'clock at San Miguel. It proved to be a hamlet with the houses ranged close together on opposite sides of the streets. The moonlight cast a deep shadow on one side, while the opposite side was almost like day. I stood in the deep shadow watching. The first building was evidently a police or military barrack. The door was wide open, but no one was visible inside. About five doors off was a shop, but the door was closed, and from where I stood there appeared no sign of life within. I waited about ten minutes, and rashly concluding that there was no one save the proprietor there, I stepped out of the shadow into the moonlight and hurrying across the street, put my hand on the door, opened it and stepping within found myself in the presence of twenty soldiers, all gossiping, smoking or gambling. Belts and cartridge boxes along with bayonets decorated the walls or were lying about on boxes and barrels.

All eyes were turned on me. I saw myself in a fearful trap and nothing but consummate coolness could keep them from questioning me. My heart beat fast, but with an affectation of indifference I saluted and said: "Buenos noches, senores." They all returned my salutation, but looked at each other eagerly, each waiting for the other to question me.

I stepped to the counter and asked for bread; two loaves were given me. I picked up some cakes and paid for them. From the door I turned, and putting all my dignity into a bow, I said: "Good night, gentlemen." They all seemed held by a spell, but they looked and were dangerous as death. I closed the door, fully realizing my peril, feeling the storm would break the instant I was out of sight. Fortunately there was no one near, and I ran swiftly across the street into the protecting shadow and crouched down in a dark space between two houses. The cactus-like weeds grew there and pricked me, but I heeded them not, for that instant the soldiers poured out of the shop, an angry and excited mob, buckling on their belts, cartridge boxes and bayonets as they ran. Some had their muskets, others hastened to get them and all save two stragglers rushed out of the town in the direction from which I had entered. I wondered at this, but soon discovered the reason. Some few women, hearing the tumult, came into the street, but seeing nothing, went in again; the stragglers all disappeared and the street was quiet.



I came out of my corner and hurried in the shadow down the road in the opposite direction to the course followed by my pursuers. Arriving at the last house at the foot of the street, I found myself confronted by a small river, quiet and apparently deep, with all the space from the last house to the river one impassable barrier of giant cactus, I had either to swim the river or turn back, and I ought to have plunged in as I was, revolver and all, the distance over being short; and, as I am an expert swimmer, I could easily have got across, loaded down as I was. But a contemptible trifle had weight enough to cause me to adopt the suicidal course of turning back.

The fierce animal instinct of hunger was on me, the smell of the food enraged me, and I thought if I swam the stream the cakes and bread I carried would be soaked and probably lost, for I had them loose in my arms; beside, I was overconfident of my ability to escape my pursuers. They had marched by the road that led behind the village to the bridge crossing the river some distance up; evidently, not seeing me, they took it for granted I knew of the bridge, and had gone that way.

To appease at once my hanger, in a fatal moment I retraced my steps. As I passed a house three women came out. They spoke to me, and in my excitement, instead of saying good evening in Spanish (buenas noches), I said good morning (buenas dias). They, of course, saw I was a stranger.

Just then four soldiers came hurriedly into the street from the road, and I was forced to leave the women and crouch down in my former hiding place. Then they did what women seldom do—betrayed the fugitive. Calling to the soldiers, they pointed out the place I was in. All four came running, and in a moment were almost on top of me. I presented my revolver and snapped the trigger twice without exploding the cartridges; they were too close or too excited to use their muskets, but all four grappled with me, and naturally used me pretty roughly.

There was a terrific hullabaloo, as in response to their cries their comrades came running in. By the time they had hustled me across the street into the shop there was a mob of half a hundred around me. Soon the commander, a captain, appeared. I wish I could say he was a gentleman, but he was not. He was a little, peppery young fellow, apparently with negro blood in his veins, and dictatorial and insulting in manner.

Surely I was an object—a tramp in appearance—but with a diamond ring on my finger (which I had taken from my pocket and slipped on), a revolver strapped to my waist and a splendid chronometer in my pocket. Such an object had never before loomed on their horizon. Was not one glance enough to show that I must be a notable rebel, and there was but one doom for such.

My desperate situation cast out all fear, and I was cold and haughty. Flourishing my police passport, I informed him that I was Stanley W. Parish of New York, a correspondent of the New York Herald, and he had better look out what he was about.

But it was evident that police passports made out in Havana had no currency in the face of the enemy; but at any rate it proved that whatever my intentions might be, I had at least hailed last from Havana, and not from the rebel camp, and this would prevent my peppery captain from enjoying the pleasure of standing me up in the morning, to be fusilladed, such being the law for all captives in the savage contest.

Down my gentleman sat on a barrel, pompous and important, and ordered me to be searched. All this time a dozen hands were holding me fast. I told my officer he was a fool and a clown, but my captors began to go through my pockets, and speedily there was a heap of gold and paper money on the barrel, and my little friend fingered it with a covetous eye. I had my $10,000 in bonds pinned in the sleeve of my undershirt. This they missed, but found all else I carried. In the mean time there was an eager audience looking on, absorbed in the interest of the scene.

There was a collection indeed on that barrel. Beside my ring, there were five other valuable diamonds, my chronometer, which with its regular beat and stem-winding arrangement was a great curiosity. Then the heap of money was a loadstone for all their hungry eyes. The captain was making out an inventory and statement, while I stood white with rage to see the half-breeds, blacks, browns and yellows, handle my property so freely. I was especially in a rage with the impudent captain, who had the nerve to put my watch in his pocket. Absorbed by the interest of the scene, my captors had insensibly loosened their hold, and I determined to have some satisfaction out of the captain. Suddenly seizing one of the revolvers before I could be stopped I gave him a stinging blow with it and sprang on him. We rolled on the floor, and there was a scene. I was dragged off by fifty hands, every one trying to seize me, if only by one hand. My captain got up with the blood running down his face, and, rushing to a peg, he seized a sabre bayonet and flew at me like a mad bull. I shouted at him in Spanish, calling him a cur and coward, bidding him to come on. He was not unwilling, while my captors held me firmly exposed to his assault. Another second would have ended my life, when a woman spectator, who stood near nursing a child, threw her arms around him; this, joined to my indifference, for I continued my jeers and taunts, changed his purpose, to my disappointment, for I preferred death to going back to Havana.

"From Wall Street to Newgate" is replete with stirring incidents, marvelous adventures, hair-breadth escapes and remarkable experiences, such as few men have met with. They are narrated in any easy, picturesque style, evincing sincerity and candor, with no attempt at sensation or exaggeration. The truth told is stranger than fiction, and history may well be challenged to produce another life into which has come so many varied and bewildering events, or to disclose another character, trained in a religious home, having culture and an unusual business talent, whose deflection from the path of honor has stirred to its very depths the entire civilized world.



CHAPTER XXXIV.

ONE LOVELY JUNE MORNING INTO PLYMOUTH HARBOR WE SAIL.

Ten days after the events recorded in the last chapter I sailed once more into Havana. This time a prisoner. Two days after my capture, by order of the Captain-General of Cuba, I was put on board the little gunboat Santa Rita, a wretched little tub that steamed four miles an hour and took eight days going from Puerto Novo on the south to Havana.

I was taken by a guard of soldiers, not to the police barracks, but to the common prison, where an entire corridor was cleared of its inmates to make room for me and my guards. Pinkerton was the first man to call. He, of course, was delighted to see me. While giving me credit for my escape, he told me he did not purpose to have me leave him again, and having permission from the authorities, he or some of his men intended to keep me company night and day. Of course I respected him for his honest determination to do his duty. He really was an altogether good fellow, and showed me all possible courtesy and consideration; in fact, on his first visit he brought me a letter from my wife, along with a box of cigars and a bottle of wine on his own account.

One of his men, by the name of Perry, used to sleep in my little room with me, and every morning Mr. P. would relieve him, remaining until dinner time. We had many long talks on all sorts of subjects, and he gave me many inside histories of famous criminal cases which he had been engaged in. In time we became very good friends.

He also gave me full particulars of the really extraordinary way in which he discovered my presence in the West Indies and the reason which led him to conclude that F. A. Warren and I were one. William Pinkerton ordered him to look up the New York end of the business and see if he could discover the identity of Warren. He was one of the many working on the case, but to him belongs the credit of establishing my identity, also of locating my whereabouts and of effecting my arrest.

When ordered on the case he knew no more about me or the forgery than what he read in the newspapers. He soon made up his mind that I was an American, and that I was a resident either of New York or Chicago. This because I was so young and evidently had a good knowledge of finance and financial matters. So he determined to seek for a clue to F. A. Warren in Wall street. He procured a list of the names of every banker and broker in New York, and then spent some time in interviewing them, his one question being "Now, who is he?" With their assistance he soon made out a list of nearly twenty possible Warrens, and speedily narrowed it down to four, my name being one of the four. He soon located my home, and began making cautious inquiries on the spot from neighbors and others. He discovered that I was believed to be in Europe, and had been there before, and that when I last returned I had paid off debts and apparently had plenty of money. He had become convinced of my identity, but if I were Warren—where was I?

Without arousing suspicion, he heard from some of my acquaintances a saying of mine that whenever I had a bank account, I should live in the tropics. So he reported to his superiors that in his opinion F. A. Warren and I were one, and he believed that, if in America at all, I might be found at some fashionable resort in Florida.

He concluded to go to Florida, and visit the various resorts. Upon his arrival at St. Augustine, he sent letters to several of the West India islands, including Martinique, Jamaica and Cuba, inquiring for the names and descriptions of all wealthy young Americans lately arrived. One letter he sent to Dr. C. L. Houscomb, then the leading American doctor in Havana, who, replying to his inquiry, gave my name among others. After my arrest Dr. Houscomb told me how grieved he was to have betrayed me, but that he thought that Pinkerton was a newspaper man, and wanted the information as a matter of news.

With this letter in his hand, Pinkerton found a plain path before him. To go ahead of my story a little, I will say here that eventually the bank authorities made him a considerable present in cash, along with their congratulations over his clever detective work. Capt. John Curtin is to-day well and hearty, a prosperous man and very generally respected by the citizens of San Francisco, where he lives.

About ten days after my arrival he brought me a New York Herald containing these dispatches:

(Special to New York Herald.)

Madrid, April 12, 1873.

The American Ambassador, Gen. Sickles, has formally notified Senor Castelar that the American Government will consent to the surrender to the British Government of Bidwell, now under arrest in Havana upon charge of being concerned in the Bank of England forgery.

(Special to New York Herald.)

London, April 12, 1873.

To the great gratification of the authorities here, official confirmation is given to the rumor that the Spanish Government has concluded to grant the extradition of Bidwell, now under arrest in Havana. There seems to be no doubt that Bidwell is the mysterious Frederick Albert Warren, and there is a very general curiosity to see him. Many conflicting stories have been published of his extraordinary escape and equally extraordinary capture. The Times' report had it that he was mortally wounded, and that he had on his person when captured diamonds to an enormous value, which had disappeared soon after. Sergeants Hayden and Green of the Bow Street force and Mr. Good of the bank of England sail on the Java to-morrow to escort Bidwell to London.

So the web was closing in on me. Of my daily sad interviews with my wife I will say nothing here. But could I have foreseen that this woman, on whom I had settled a fortune, would have married another soon after my sentence, I should not have felt so sorrowful on her account. In due time Green, Hayden and Good arrived, and were introduced to me. I did not give in, but made, by the aid of my friends, a hard fight to persuade the Captain-General to suspend the order for my delivery, and succeeded for a time.

At last, after many delays and many plans, early one May morning I was taken to the mouth of the harbor. There the boat of the English warship Vulture was in waiting, and I was formally transferred to the English Government, and Curtin. Perry, Hayden and Green went on board with me. Soon after she steamed out of the harbor. Later in the day the Moselle, the regular passenger steamer to Plymouth and Southampton, came out, and about ten miles out at sea was met by the Vulture's boat, and I and my four guardians were transferred to her.

At last I was off for England, and it looked very much as if Justice would weigh me in her balance after all, the more certainly because I found my wife on the Moselle. I had secretly resolved never to be taken back, but intended the first night out of Havana to jump overboard, possibly with a cork jacket, or something to help to keep me afloat. The waters of the gulf were warm, there were many passing ships, and I would take my chance of surviving the night and being picked up. But, very cleverly, Curtin decided to send my wife with me and treat me like any other cabin passenger, rightly divining I would not kill her by committing suicide or going over the side on chances.

I was well treated all the way over, but every night my prayer was that we might run on an iceberg or go down, so that my wife might be spared long years of agony and me from the misery and degradation of prison life.

I had obtained a position in Havana for one of my servants, but Nunn was returning with me, feeling very badly and most unhappy over the sure prospect of my future misery. I was pleased to think he had held on to the money I had given him. Altogether, he was quite $2,000 ahead, and I wanted to make it $5,000. He certainly deserved it for his constancy and affection.

One lovely June day we sailed into Plymouth, there to land mail and such passengers as wanted to take the express to London. I instructed my wife to go to Southampton while I went ashore with my guardians.

From the London Times, June 10, 1873:

"Among the passengers who landed at Plymouth yesterday morning from the royal mail steamer Moselle was Bidwell, otherwise F. A. Warren, in charge of Detective Sergeant Michael Hayden and William Green, accompanied by Capt. John Curtin and Walter Perry of Mr. Pinkerton's staff. They were joined by Inspector Wallace and Detective Sergeant William Moss of the city police, who had come down from London the previous night to meet the steamer.



"It being known that Bidwell was expected from Havana in the Moselle, an enormous crowd assembled in Milbay pier to await the return of the steam tender with the mail, in order to get a sight of the prisoner, and so great was the crowd that it was with some difficulty that Bidwell and his escort managed to reach cabs, and were driven to the Duke of Cornwall Hotel adjoining the railway station. They left by the 12.45 train for London. A crowd of 20,000 persons were present to see them off, and cheered Bidwell heartily.

"Bidwell will be taken before the Lord Mayor in the justice room at the Mansion House this morning."

Accompanied by my escort of six, I arrived in London one bright Spring morning, just as the mighty masses of that great Babylon were thronging in their thousands toward Epsom Downs, where on that day the Derby, that pivotal event in the English year, was to be run. All London was astir, and had put on holiday attire, while I, now a poor weed drifting to rot on Lethe's wharf, was on my way to Newgate.

Newgate! Then it had come to this! The Primrose Way wherein I had walked and lived delicately at the expense of honor, ended here!

"Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap," was written by one Paul. The wisdom of many was here and condensed in the wit of one, and one with the shrewdest insight into things and a practical knowledge of human history.

I was a prisoner in Newgate. Newgate! The very name casts a chill; so, too, does a sight of that granite fortress rising there in the heart of mighty London. Amid all the throbbing life of that great Babylon it stands—chill and grim—and has stood a prison fortress for 500 years. Through all those linked centuries how many thousands of the miserable and heartbroken of every generation have been garnered within its cold embrace! What sights and sounds those old walls have seen and heard! As I paced its gloomy corridors that first night, pictures of its past rose before me so grim and terrible that I turned shuddering from them, only to remember that I, too, had joined the long unending procession ever flowing through its gates, which had heaped its walls to the top with one inky sea of misery.

In the cruel days of old many a savage sentence had fallen from the lips of merciless judges, but none more terrible than the one which was to fall on us from the lips of their ferocious imitator, Justice Archibald.

I found my three friends already prisoners there, and a sad party we were. When we said good-bye that night on the wharf at Calais, where we sat star-gazing and philosophizing, we little anticipated this reunion.

What a rude surprise it was to find how things were conducted in this same Newgate. I took it for granted—since the law regarded us as innocent until we were tried and convicted—that we could have any reasonable favor granted us there which was consistent with our safe keeping. But no. The system of the convict prison was enforced here, and with the same iron rigor. Strict silence was the rule along with the absolute exclusion of newspapers and all news of the outside world. The rules forbid any delicacy or books being furnished by one's friends from the outside. This iron system is as cruel as unphilosophical, for, pending trial, the inmates are more or less living in a perfect agony of mind, which drives many into insanity or to the verge of insanity, as it did me. How can one, then, when the past is remorse—and the present and future despair—find oblivion or raze out the written troubles of the brain save in absorption in books.

When Claudo is doomed to die and go "he knew not where," peering into the abyss, the fear strikes him that in the unknown he may be "prisoned in the viewless winds" and blown with restless violence round about this pendant world. A terrible figure! It filled at this time some corner of my brain and would not out. It went with me up and down in all my walks in Newgate.



If I had the pen of Victor Hugo, what a picture I would draw of a mind consciously going down into the fearful abyss of insanity, making mighty struggles against it, yet looking on the cold walls shutting one in and weighing down the spirit, feeling that the struggle is ineffectual, the fight all in vain, for the dead, blank walls are staring coldly on you, without giving one reflex message, bearing on their gray surface no thought, no response of mind. For they have been looked over with anxious care to discover if any other mind had recorded there some thought which would awake thought in one's own, and help to shake off the fearful burden pressing one to earth. As a fact, a man so situated does—aye, must—make an effort to leave some visible impress of his mind as a message to his kind. It is a natural law, and the instinct is part of one's being. It is a passion of the mind—a longing to be united to the spiritual mass of minds from which the isolated soul is suffering an unnatural divorce of hideous material walls.

It is this law which makes the savage place his totem on the rocks, and it is, thanks to the same instinct, that this very day our savants are finding beneath the foundations of the temples and palaces which once decked the Phoenician plain, the baked tablets which tell us the family histories, no less than the story of the empires of those days. When the impress was made on the soft clay to be fire-hardened, each writer felt or hoped in the long ages in the far-off unknown,

"When time is old and hath forgot itself, When water drops have worn the streets of Troy And blind oblivion swallowed cities up, And mighty States, characterless, are grated To dusty nothing"——

then some thought, some message from their minds, there impressed on the senseless clay, would be communicated to some other mind, and wake a response there.

Many a time, with a brain reeling in agony, did I turn and stare blankly at those walls, and, in a sort of dumb stupor, search them over in hope to find some word, some message impressed there, some scratch of pen or finger nail. It might be a message of misery, some outcry from a wounded spirit, some expression of despair.

Had there been one such—had there been! Every one of my predecessors had left a message on that smooth-painted wall, but the red-tape official rogues—the stultified images sans reason, sans all imagination—had, after the departure of each one, carefully painted over all such legacies.

The hideous cruelty of it all! My blood, boils even now, when I think of it. Even in the days of Elizabeth the keepers of the Tower of London had enough human feeling to leave untouched the inscriptions made by Raleigh and others, and there they are to-day, and to-day wake a response in the heart of every visitor that looks on them.



CHAPTER XXXV.

RUNNING THE GAUNTLET.

My life at Newgate was an ordeal such as I hope no reader of this will ever undergo. Day by day I saw the world slipping from under my feet, and the net drawing its deadly folds closer around me. Soon we all were forced to realize there was no escape for any of us.

Of course, we were all guilty and deserved punishment—I need not say we did not think so then—but the evidence was most weak, and had our trial taken place in America under the too liberal construction of our laws, undoubtedly we all would have escaped. But in England there is no court of criminal appeal, as with us, and when once the jury gives a verdict, that ends the matter. The result is that if judges are prejudiced, or want a man convicted, as in our case, he never escapes. The jury is always selected from the shopkeeping class, and they are horribly subservient to the aristocratic classes. They don't care for evidence—they simply watch the judge. If he smiles, the prisoner is innocent. If he frowns, then, of course, guilty.

With us when a man is charged with an offense against the laws he engages a lawyer—one is sufficient and quite costly enough. In England they are divided into three classes, viz.: solicitors, barristers and Queen's Counsels.

The solicitor takes the case and transacts all the business connected with it. A barrister is the lawyer who is employed by the solicitor to conduct the case in court and make the pleadings. He never comes in contact with the client, but takes the brief and all instructions from the solicitor. The Queen's Counsel is a lawyer of a higher rank, and whenever his serene lordship takes a brief he must, to keep up his dignity, "be supported" by a barrister. So my reader will perhaps understand the raison d'etre of the proverb, "The lawyers own England." As no solicitor can plead in court, so no Queen's Counsel will come in direct contact with a client, and must be "supported" by a barrister. Ergo, any unfortunate having a case in court must fee two, if not three legal sharks to represent him, if represented at all.

We employed as solicitor a Mr. David Howell of 105 Cheapside, and a thoroughgoing, unprincipled rascal he proved to be. He was a small, spare, undersized man, with little beady eyes, light complexion, red hair, and stubby beard, and when he spoke it was with a thin reedy voice. From first to last he managed our case in exactly the way the prosecution would have desired. He bled us freely, and altogether we paid him nearly $10,000, and our defense by our eight lawyers—four Queen's Counsels and four barristers—was about the lamest and most idiotic possible.

We early came to the unanimous conclusion that in our country Howell would have had to face a jury for robbing us, and that but one of our eight lawyers had ability enough to appear in a police court here to conduct a hearing before an ordinary magistrate.

I do not propose to enter into the details of our preliminary hearings before the Lord Mayor at the Mansion House, or of the trial. Both the hearings and trial were sensational in the highest degree, and attracted universal attention all over the English-speaking world. Full-page pictures of the trial appeared in all the illustrated journals of Europe and America, and our portraits were on sale everywhere.

After many hearings before Sir Sidney Waterlaw, we were finally committed for trial.

Editorial from the London Times of Aug. 13, 1873:

THE BANK FORGERIES.

"Monday next has been fixed for the trial, and the depositions taken before the Lord Mayor at the Justice Room of the Mansion House by Mr. Oke, the chief clerk, have been printed for the convenience of the presiding judge and of the counsel on both sides. They extend over 242 folio pages, including the oral and documentary evidence, and make of themselves a thick volume, together with an elaborate index for ready reference. Within living memory there has been no such case for length and importance heard before any Lord Mayor of London in its preliminary stage, nor one which excited a greater amount of public interest from first to last. The Overend Gurney prosecution is the only one in late years which at all approaches it in those respects, but in that the printed depositions only extended over 164 folio pages, or much less than those in the Bank case, in which as many as 108 witnesses gave evidence before the Lord Mayor, and the preliminary examinations—twenty-three in number from first to last—lasted from the first of March until the 2d of July, exclusive of the time spent in remands."

From the London Times, Aug. 10, 1873:

"On the opening of the August sessions of the Old Bailey Central Criminal Court. The court and streets were much crowded from the beginning, and continued so throughout the day. Alderman Sir Robert Carden, representing the Lord Mayor; Mr. Alderman Finis, Mr. Alderman Besley, Mr. Alderman Lawrence, M.P., Mr. Alderman Whetham and Mr. Alderman Ellis, as commissioners of the Court, occupied seats upon the bench, as did also Alderman Sheriff White.

"Sheriff Sir Frederick Perkins, Mr. Under-Sheriff Hewitt and Mr. Under-Sheriff Crosley, Mr. R. B. Green, Mr. R. W. Crawford, M.P., Governor of the Bank. Mr. Lyall, Deputy Governor, and Mr. Alfred de Rothschild were present. The members of the bar mustered in force, and the reserved seats were chiefly occupied by ladies. Mr. Hardinge Gifford, Q.C. (now Lord Chancellor of the British Empire), and Mr. Watkin Williams, Q.C. (instructed by Messrs. Freshfield, the solicitors of the bank), appeared as counsel for the prosecution."

For eight mortal days the final trial dragged on, and there we were pilloried in that horrible dock—a spectacle for the staring throngs that flocked to see the young Americans who had found a pregnable spot in the impregnable Bank of England.

The misery of those eight days! No language can describe it, nor would I undergo it again for the wealth of the world.

The court was filled with fashionables, ladies as well, who flocked to stare at misery, while the corridors of the Old Bailey and the street itself were packed with thousands eager to catch a glimpse of us. The Judge, in scarlet, sat in solemn state, with members of the nobility or gouty Aldermen in gold chains and robes on the bench beside him. The body of the court was filled with bewigged lawyers—a tippling lot of sharks and rogues, always after lunch half tipsy with the punch or dry sherry which English lawyers drink, jesting and cracking jokes, unmindful of the fate of their clients. Capt. Curtin and a score of detectives were present.

No fewer than 213 witnesses were called by the prosecution. Of these about fifty were from America, and by them they traced our lives for many years before. As the forged bills were all sent by mail it was necessary to convict us by circumstantial evidence. The evidence was all very weak, save only in that remarkable matter of the blotting paper. Our conviction was a foregone conclusion.

The jury retired to consider their verdict shortly after 7 o'clock, and on returning into court after the lapse of about a quarter of an hour they gave in a verdict of guilty against all of the four prisoners.



CHAPTER XXXVI.

"NOTHING LEFT US BUT A GRAVE, THAT SMALL MODEL OF THE BARREN EARTH," WITH DISHONOR FOR AN EPITAPH.

Judge Archibald proceeded to pass sentence. He began with the interesting and truthful remark: "I have anxiously considered whether anything less than the maximum penalty of the law will be adequate to meet the requirements of this case, and I think not." We had information that a few days previously a meeting of judges had been held and that he had been advised to pass a life sentence. What he really meant to say was that he had anxiously considered whether anything less would be adequate to satisfy the Bank of England. He went on to say that we had not only inflicted great loss on the bank, but had also seriously discredited that great institution in the eyes of the public. He continued: "It is difficult to see the motives for this crime; it was not want, for you were in possession of a large sum of money. You are men of education, some of you speak the Continental languages, and you have traveled considerably. I see no reason to make any distinction between you, and let it be understood from the sentence which I am about to pass upon you that men of education"—and he might have added, what he undoubtedly thought, Americans—"who commit crimes which none but men of education can commit must expect a terrible retribution, and that sentence is penal servitude for life, and I further order that each one of you pay one-fourth of the costs of prosecution—L49,000, or $245,000 in all."

And, after all, what aroused so greatly his indignation? It was simply this—because we were youngsters and Americans, and had successfully assaulted the fondly imagined impregnable Bank of England, and, worse still, had held up to the laughter of the whole world its red-tape idiotic management, for had the bank asked so common a thing as a reference the fraud would have been made impossible.

Let my reader contrast this modern Jeffreys, his savage tirade, and, for an offense against property, this most brutal sentence, with the treatment of the Warwickshire bank wreckers. Greenaway, the manager of this bank, and three of the directors by false balance sheets and perjured reports for years had looted the bank, finally robbing the depositors of L1,000,000, several of whom committed suicide and thousands more of whom were ruined.

They were tried, convicted, and in being sentenced were told that, being men of high social position, the disgrace in itself was a severe punishment; therefore, he should take that fact into consideration, and ended by sentencing two to eight months', one to twelve and one to fourteen months' imprisonment.

We were sentenced late at night—nearly 10 o'clock—a smoky, foggy London night. The court was packed, the corridors crowded, and when the jury came in with their verdict the suppressed excitement found vent. But when the vindictive and unheard-of sentence fell from the lips of this villain Judge an exclamation of horror fell from that crowded court.

We turned from the Judge and went down the stairs to the entrance to the underground passage leading to Newgate. There we halted to say farewell.



To say farewell! Yes. The Primrose Way had come to an end, but we were comrades and friends still, and in order that in the gloom of the slow-moving days and the blackness and thick horror of the years to come we might have some thought in common, we then and there promised—what could we poor, broken bankrupts promise?

Where or to what in the thick horror enshrouding us could we turn? We had

"Nothing left us to call our own save death, And that small model of the barren earth Which serves as paste and cover to our bones;"

nothing but a grave, that

"Small model of the barren earth,"

with dishonor and degradation for our epitaph!

But there, in the very instant of our overwhelming defeat, standing in the dark mouth of the stone conduit leading from the Old Bailey to the dungeons of Newgate, by virtue of the high resolve we made, we conquered Fate at her worst, and by our act in establishing a secret bond of sympathy in our separation dropped the bad, disastrous past, and starting on new things planted our feet on the bottom round of the ladder of success, feeling that, with plenty of faith and endurance, Fortune, frown as she might now, must in some distant day turn her wheel and smile again.

And what was this act? Why, it was a simple one, but bore in it the germ of great things.

As we halted there in the gloom we swore never to give in, however they might starve us, even grind us to powder, as we felt they would certainly try to do. We knew that in their anxiety about our souls they would be sure kindly to furnish each with a Bible, and we promised to read one chapter every day consecutively, and, while reading the same chapter at the same hour, think of the others. For twenty years we kept the promise. Then, making the resolve mentioned in the beginning of this book, I marched back to my cell. The door was opened and closed behind me, leaving me in pitch darkness—a convict in my dungeon. Dressed as I was I lay down on the little bed there, and through all that long and terrible night, with a million dread images rushing through my brain, I lay passive, with wide-open eyes, staring into the darkness, conscious that sanity and insanity were struggling for mastery in my brain, while I, like some interested spectator, watched the struggle; or, again, I was struggling in the air with some powerful but viewless monster form, that clutched my throat with iron fingers, but whose body was impalpable to the grasp of my hands. A mighty space, an eternity of time and daylight came. Then, like one in a dream, I rose mechanically, and, finding the pin I had secreted, I stood on the little wooden bench, and, impelled by some spiritual but irresistible force, I scratched on the wall the message I had resolved to leave:

"In the reproof of chance Lies the true proof of men."

Then I thought of my friends and my promise, and, like one in a dream, I took the ill-smelling and dirty little Bible from the shelf, and, turning to the first chapter, read:

"And the spirit of God moved upon the waters." ... "And God said let there be light, and there was light."

Then the book fell from my hand, and I remembered no more. My mind had gone whirling into the abyss.

I was sentenced on Wednesday. For three days, from Thursday to Sunday, my mind was a blank. I have no recollection of my removal under escort from Newgate to Pentonville.

On Sunday, the fourth day of my sentence, like one rousing from a trance, I awoke to find myself shaven and shorn, dressed in a coarse convict uniform, in a rough cell of white-washed brick. The small window had heavy double bars set with thick fluted glass, which, while admitting light, foiled any attempt of the eye to discern objects without. In the corner there was a rusty iron shelf. A board let into the brickwork served for bed, bench and table. A zinc jug and basin for water, with a wooden plate, spoon and salt dish (no knife or fork for twenty years!) completed the furnishings.

As I was looking around in a helpless way a key suddenly rattled in the lock and, the door opening, a uniformed warder stepped in and, giving me a searching look, said in a rough voice: "Come on; you'll do for chapel; you have put on the balmy long enough." His kindly face belied his rough tones, and I followed him out of the door and soon found myself in the prison chapel. None was present, and I was ordered to sit on the front bench at the far end. The benches were simply common flat boards ranged in rows. Soon the prisoners came in singly, marching about two yards apart, and sat on the benches with that interval between them—that is, in the division of the chapel where I sat, it being separated from the rest by a high partition. Soon a white-robed, surpliced clergyman came in, and the service began; but I had no eye or ear, nor any comprehension save in a dim manner, as to what was going on. My brain was trying to connect the past and the present, feeling that something terrible had befallen me, but what it was I could not understand. When the services were over I returned under the escort of the warder, who, when I arrived at my cell, ordered me to go in and close the door, which I did, banging it behind me. It had a spring lock, and when I heard the snap of the catch and looked at the narrow, barred window, with its thick, fluted glass admitting only a dim light, I remembered everything. Like a flash it all came to me, and I realized the full horror of my position. Sitting down on the little board fastened to the wall, serving as bed, seat and table, I buried my face in my hands and began to ponder. Regrets came in floods, with remorse and despair, hand in hand, when, realizing that it was madness to think, I sprang up, saying to myself the hour and minute had come for me to decide—either for madness and a convict's dishonored grave, or to keep the promise I had made to my friends—never to give in, but to live and conquer fate.

I determined then and there to live in the future, and never to dwell on the horrible present or past. Then I remembered the last scene in Newgate and my promise to accompany my friends step by step, day by day, in our readings. Finding a Bible on the little rusty iron shelf in the corner, and this being the fourth day of our sentence, I turned to the fourth chapter. It gives the story of Cain's crime and punishment, and I read the graphic narrative with an intensity of interest difficult to describe. When I read, "And Cain said unto the Lord, my punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth," I felt that the cry of Cain in all its intense naturalness, in its remorse and despair, was my own, and I was overcome. Laying the book down, I walked the floor for an hour in agony, until fantastic images came thronging thick and fast to my brain. I realized that my mind was going and felt I must do something to make me forget my misery.

I opened the Bible at random and my eye caught the word "misery." I looked closely at the verse and read:

"Thou shalt forget thy misery, and remember it as waters that pass away."

I threw the book down, crying with vehemence, "That's a lie! God never gives something for nothing." Soon I opened the book again and looked at the context. Those of my readers who care to do so can do the same. The verse is Job xi., 16. The context begins at verse 13. From that hour I never despaired again.

The same day I began committing the Book of Job to memory, and worked for dear life and reason. I became interested, and my interest in that wondrous poem deepened until the study became a passion. Thus I turned the whole current of my thoughts into a new channel. Reason came back, and with it resolution and courage and strength.

I was in Pentonville Prison, in the suburbs of London. All men convicted in England are sent to this prison to undergo one year's solitary confinement. At the completion of the year they are drafted away to the public works' prisons, where, working in gangs, they complete their sentences.

Of my experience in Pentonville during my year of solitude it suffices to say that, passing through a great deal of mental conflict, I found I had grown stronger and was eager for transfer to the other prison, where I could for a few hours each day at least look on the sky and the faces of my fellow men.

At last the day of transfer came, and, escorted by two uniformed and armed warders, I was taken to the famous Chatham Prison, twenty-seven miles from London on the river Medway....

"You were sent here to work, and you will have to do it or I will make you suffer for it," was the friendly greeting that fell on my ears as I stood before a pompous little fellow (an ex-major from the army) at Chatham Prison one lovely morning in 1874.

I had arrived there under escort but an hour before, strong in the resolve to obey the regulations if I could, and never to give in if I had a fair chance; also with a desperate resolve never to submit to persecution, come what might, and these resolutions saved me—but only by a steady and dogged adherence to them on many occasions, through many years and amid surroundings that might well make me—as it did and does many good men—desperate and utterly reckless.

After a few more remarks of a very personal and pungent nature the little fellow marched off with a delicious swagger and an heroical air. I at once turned to the warder and asked, "Who is that little fellow?" "The Governor!" he gasped out. "If he had only heard you!" and then followed a pantomime that implied something very dreadful. Then I marched off to the doctor, and next to the chaplain, who (knowing who I was) asked me if I could read and write, to which I meekly replied, "Yes, sir;" but apparently being doubtful upon the point he gave me a book. Opening it and pretending to read, I said in a solemn tone of voice: "When time and place adhere write me down an ass." He took the book from me, looked at the open page, gazed solemnly in my face with a funny wagging of his head, as much as to say, "you will come to no good," and followed the little major.

Then my cicerone took me into the main building, filled up to the brim with what seemed to be little brick and stone boxes, and, halting in front of one, said, "This is your cell." Looking around to see if it was safe to talk, he began to question me rapidly about my case, and getting no satisfaction he wound up the questioning with the remark: "Well, you tried to take all our money over to America." Then, becoming confidential, he told me what wicked fellows the other prisoners were, chiefly because they went to the Governor and reported the officers, charging them with maltreatment and bullying particularly, and knocking them about generally. Of course, the warders never did such things, but were really of a very lamblike and gentle nature. In order to back up their lies the prisoners would knock their own heads against the walls and then swear by everything good that some one of the warders had done it. I said, perhaps he had.

Well, he said, perhaps an officer might give a man "a little clip," but never so as to hurt him, and "only in fun, you know." I felt at the time that I would never learn to appreciate Chatham "fun," but on the very next day I was convinced of it when a man named Farrier pulled out from his waistband a piece of rag, and, unrolling it, produced two of his front teeth with the information that a certain warder had struck him with his fist in the mouth and knocked them out.

But to return to my narrative. After many "wise saws and modern instances," he locked me up in the little brick and stone box and departed, having first informed me that I "would go out to labor in the morning."

I looked about my little box with a mixture of curiosity and consternation, for the thought smote me with blinding force that for long years that little box—eight feet six inches in length, seven feet in height and five feet in width, with its floor and roof of stone—would be my only home—would be! must be! and no power could avert my fate.

On the small iron shelf I found a tin dish used by some previous occupant, and smeared inside and out with gruel. There being no water in my jug, when the men came in for dinner, I, in my innocence, asked one of the officers for some water to wash the dish. He looked at me with great contempt and said: "You are a precious flat; lick it off, man. Before long you won't waste gruel by washing your tin dish. You won't be here many days and want to use water to clean your pint."

After dinner I saw the men marched out to labor, and was amazed to see their famished, wolfish looks—thin, gaunt and almost disguised out of all human resemblance by their ill-fitting, mud-covered garments and mud-splashed faces and hands. I myself was kept in, but the weary, almost ghastly spectre march I had witnessed constantly haunted me, and I said, "Will I ever resemble them?" And youthful spirit and pride rushed to the front and cried, "Never!"

Night and supper (eight ounces of brown bread) came at length, and I rose up from my meal cheerful and resolute to meet the worst, be it what it might short of deliberate persecution, with a stout heart and faith that at last all would be well.

In the morning I arose, had my breakfast (nine ounces of brown bread and one pint of gruel), and was eager to learn what this "labor" meant. I was prepared for much, but not for the grim reality. I had been ordered to join eighty-two party—a brickmaking party, but working in the "mud districts." So we, along with 1,200 others, marched out to our work, and as soon as we were outside of the prison grounds I saw a sight that, while it explained the mud-splashed appearance of my spectral array, was enough to daunt any man doomed to join in the game. Mud, mud everywhere, with groups of weary men with shovel, or shovel and barrow, working in it. A sort of road had been made over the mud with ashes and cinders, and our party of twenty-two men, with five other parties, moved steadily on for about a mile until we came to the clay banks or pits. Fortunately we had a very good officer by the name of James. He wanted the work done, and used his tongue pretty freely; still he was a man who would speak the truth, and treated his men as well as he dared to do under the brutal regime ruling in Chatham. He speedily told me off to a barrow and spade, and I was fully enlisted as barrow-and-spade man to Her Majesty.

A steam mill, or "pug," like a monster coffee mill, was used for mixing the clay and sand and delivering it in form of bricks below, where another party received them and laid them out to dry, preparatory to burning. Our duty was "to keep the pug going"—keep it full of clay to the top. The clay was in a high bank; we dug into it from the bottom with our spades, and filled it as fast as possible into our barrows. In front of each man was a "run," formed by a line of planks only eight inches in width, and all converging toward and meeting near the "pug." The distance we were wheeling was from thirty to forty yards, end the incline was really very steep; but that in itself would not have been so bad, but the labor of digging out the clay was severe, and that everlasting "pug" was as hungry as if it were in the habit of taking "Plantation Bitters" to give it an appetite.

One had no period of rest between the filling of one's barrow and the start up the run. In an hour's time my poor hands were covered with blood blisters, and my left knee was a lame duck indeed, made so by the slight wrench given it each time I struck in my spade with my left foot; but I made no complaint. About 10 o'clock the man next to me with an oath threw down his spade and vowed he would do no more work. Putting on his vest and packet, he walked up to the warder, and quite as a matter of course turned his back to him and put both hands behind him. The warder produced a pair of handcuffs, and without any comment handcuffed his hands in that position, and then told him to stand with his back to the work. No one took the slightest notice and the toil did not slacken for an instant, but one man was out of the game, and we had to make his side good.

Noon came at last. We dropped our spades, hastily slipped on our jackets and at once set off at a quick march for the prison. I naturally looked at the various gangs piloting their way through the mud and all steering in a straight line for the Appian way whereon we were, for, as all roads lead to Rome, so all the sticky ways "on the works" led to the prison. Our laconic friend was trudging on behind the party, and to my surprise I noticed that several of the other parties had un enfant perdu, hands behind his back, marching in the rear, and as soon as we reached the prison each poor sheep in the rear fell out quite as a matter of course. When all the men were in, a warder came up and gave the order, "Right turn! Forward!" and off the poor fellows marched to the punishment cells for three days' bread and water each, and no bed, unless one designates an oak plank as such. It was all very sad; 'twas pitiful to see the matter-of-fact way in which every one concerned took it all.

So my first day in the mud and clay came to an end, and I found myself once more in my little box with a night before me for rest and thought. Although I had suffered, yet there were grounds for gratitude and hope, and I felt that I might regard the future steadily and without despair.



CHAPTER XXXVII.

HENCEFORTH A LIGHT WAS TO STREAM THROUGH THE FLUTED GLASS OF MY WINDOW.

The first day was over, but it seemed to me that something more must come. That what I had gone through could mean the life of a day must surely be impossible. Was there nothing before me but isolation so complete that no whisper from the outside world could reach me, that world which compared with the death into which I was being absorbed seemed the only world of the living?

Had I actually nothing to look for but the most repulsive work under the most repulsive conditions? I said there must be surely some change, that wheeling mud forever was not the doom of any man and could certainly not be mine.

I looked about my little cell, the stillness of the grave without, the utter solitude within. The ration which formed my supper was on the table, eight ounces of black bread. Try as I might to cheat myself with hope, I knew that hope for many a long year there was none, that so far as the most vindictive sentence could compass it, for many a long year the earth with her bars was about me.

No "De Profundis" cry could ever ascend from the abyss to the bottom of which I had fallen. What was outside of me had nothing but the hideous.

But although the visible seemed corruption, and the things which my soul, and body, too, had refused to touch were become my sorrowful meat, yet I could not but feel that the invisible, that part of me which no bars could hold and no man deprive me of, was still my own, and that in it I might and would find sufficient to support what I began to feel was, after all, the only man.

To face the actualities of the position was the first thing; not to cheat myself, the second. I had seen the sort of men I was to be with. I set to work to study and to understand the kind of life we were to live together.

At early dawn we rose, receiving immediately after the nine ounces of bread and pint of oatmeal gruel which composed breakfast. At 6.30, to chapel to hear one of the schoolmasters drone through the morning prayers of the English Church service, and listen to some hymn shouted out from throats never accustomed to such accents. Then the morning hours would drag slowly on in the Summer's sun and Winter's blast until the noon hour; then there was the long march back from the scene of my toil to the prison for dinner. Arriving there, each man went to his cell, closing his door, which snapped to, having a spring lock. Soon after a dinner is given consisting of sixteen ounces of boiled potatoes and five ounces of bread, varied on three days of the week with five ounces of meat additional. At 1 o'clock the doors were unlocked and we marched out to our work again. At night, returning to the prison, eight ounces of black bread would be doled out for supper. Then came the hours between supper and bedtime, when shut in between those narrow walls one realized what it was to be a prisoner.

In the corner of the cell there was a board let into the stonework. There was a thin pallet and two blankets rolled up together during the day in a corner of the cell that served for bedding, but so thin and hard was the pallet that one might almost as well have slept on the board. For the first few weeks this bed made my bones ache. Most men have little patience and small fortitude, and this bed kills many of the prisoners. I mean breaks their hearts, simply because they have not the wit to accept the matter philosophically and realize that they can soon become used to any hardship. It took six months for my bones to become used to the hard bed, but for the next nineteen years I used to sleep as sweetly on that oak board as I ever did or now do in a bed of down, only, like Jean Valjean, in "Les Miserables," I had become so used to it that upon my liberation I found it impossible for a time to sleep in a bed.