Читать книгу: «Prisons and Prayer; Or, a Labor of Love», страница 34
NOT LONELY NOW
I am not lonely, mother, now,
Though far from me you roam.
One dried my tears and smoothed my brow,
And stilled the sob and groan.
I am not lonely, mother, dear,
For Jesus dwells with me, e'en here.
All day I feel Him by my side;
And when betimes would come
The Evil One, I quickly hide
Behind my Precious One.
Think you I'm lonely, mother, dear,
When Jesus thus is ever near?
And when at night I think of thee,
As in my cell I sit,
Bright vision of thy form I see
By His own presence lit.
Can I be lonely, mother, dear,
When thy pure spirit is so near?
Farewell, my darling mother-friend,
And if for aye, Oh! fare thee well!
Whate'er betide, unto the end,
Christ's love for me I'll gladly tell.
The following was written by a young brother who, with his wife, were with me for a time in my work. In thanking them for a kindness done me I used the words, "Jesus is looking on," implying that He would reward them. Only an hour or so afterward the young brother handed me these lines, suggested by my words:
Little did I think when I spoke the words that they would make so deep an impression upon his mind. How little we realize what a word may do.
JESUS IS LOOKING ON
"The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous and his ears are open unto their cry." Ps. 34.
[TUNE, "ARE YOU WITHIN THE FOLD TONIGHT?"]
1. While traveling as a pilgrim
Across life's desert drear,
My feet ofttimes are weary,
Mine eyes oft drop a tear;
But when I look to Jesus,
All weariness is gone,
My heart then joys within me
To know He's looking on.
CHORUS
Yes, He is ever looking on,
With anxious ear our cry to hear.
He hears each sigh,
He sees each tear;
He knows each heart "with sorrow riven,"
He hears each word of joy or moan,
And whispers gently in our ear,
I'm looking, looking on.
2. When troubles rage around me,
And trials fiery come,
My thoughts are then directed
To my eternal home.
Though walking on the mountain,
Or on the verdant lawn,
This is the thought that cheers me,
He's always looking on.
3. When friends do turn against me,
And frown and persecute,
I'm then brought nearer Jesus,
Than when my foes are mute.
While Jesus walks beside me,
His arm I'll lean upon,
And ne'er forget the promise,
He's always looking on.
4. Take courage, brother pilgrim,
And let us journey on,
For soon life's many trials
Will all have passed and gone;
Then sweeping up to glory
We'll join the ransomed throng,
And sing God's endless praises,
While He is looking on.
HOW GOD CALLS MISSIONARIES OUT OF PRISON CELLS
S. H. HADLEY
Superintendent of the Old McAuley Mission
Some of the best missionaries this world ever knew are men who have been sentenced to long terms in prison. Wholly shut away from the world and its dreadful temptations, God had a chance to speak to them. Jerry McAuley was a wonderful example of this, and that drunken loafer and thief was finally used so wonderfully by the Lord God that his name has gone all over this world and has been an inspiration to millions. He was sent to prison from the Fourth Ward of New York for fifteen years at the age of nineteen.
One Sunday morning in the chapel the speaker was old "Awful" Gardener, an old-time ruffian and prize-fighter in New York, but God had got hold of him and he had been wonderfully saved. With tears streaming down his face, he told of the love of Christ, and he said, "Boys, I ought to be wearing the stripes the same as you are, and I feel a deep sympathy for you."
He also quoted some verses from the Scriptures, and after the boys had gone back to their cells Jerry found a Bible in the ventilator of his cell, and, looking it over aimlessly, tried to find the text that "Awful" Gardener had quoted, but instead he found that Christ came to save sinners, and the Holy Spirit showed him his dreadful past life. As the day grew into night, Jerry got down on his knees and began to pray. He had never prayed before, but now he cried to God for help and mercy. How long he was there he does not know, but some time during the night a glorious light dispelled the deep darkness of his soul, and he cried out, "Oh, praise God, I found Jesus, and He gives peace to my soul." The unusual sound brought the keeper, who asked, "What is the matter with you?"
Jerry answered, "I found Jesus, that's what's the matter with me."
He found some opportunities to breathe out the new-found hopes of his soul and the love of Jesus to the prisoners about him. Soon a revival broke out in the prison such as never had been seen before or since, and Jerry was the center of it all. He was pardoned in 1864, but when he got home he had no friends, no money, and he soon fell into bad company, and got to be a worse scoundrel than he ever was before. It was after this he became known as the dangerous East River pirate. He was reclaimed in 1868, and although he fell five times after that during the first eight or nine months, he was finally anchored to Christ.
Do you know that every drunkard uses tobacco? Jerry was no exception. Some faithful friends said to him. "Jerry, give up your tobacco for Jesus' sake," and he gave it up, and then he never fell afterward.
He was afterward married to Maria, his faithful wife, who also was redeemed from a drunkard's life, and in 1872 opened the world-renowned McAuley Mission, at 316 Water Street, down on the East Side, nearly under the Brooklyn Bridge.
He stayed here ten years, and then opened the Cremorne Mission, Thirty-second Street and Sixth Avenue, where he died in 1884, and had the largest funeral of any private citizen who was ever buried in New York.
The writer succeeded Jerry McAuley down there, and the work is going on night and day. Drunkards and thieves come in by the thousand, and, thank God, many of them are saved unto life eternal. The writer is also a convert of Jerry McAuley Mission.—The Life Boat.
OUTSIDE THE PRISON WALLS
Free, free at last he left the dreary jail,
And stepped into the dewy April night;
Once more he breathed, untainted, God's pure air,
And saw the evening star's sweet trembling light.
How strange! how strange! and yet how strangely dear
The old familiar turf beneath his feet!
How wonderful once more to be alone
Unwatched, unguarded, 'neath the sky's broad sweep.
Free! free again—but O, so old and worn—
So weary with his wasted, ruined life—
Full twenty years the cell, his only home—
Full twenty years with hopeless misery rife!
His thoughts sped backward till they reached that day
When he had entered that grim house, a boy—
Naught but a boy in stature and in years,
But with a heart all bare of hope and joy.
For in a dreadful moment, crazed with rum,
His hand had laid a fellow creature low,
And for that glass of brandy in his brain
Full twenty years of wretchedness and woe.
And now, a gray-haired man, he walked again
The very path his boyish feet had pressed
So many, many years ago;
And now he wandered lonely, seeking rest.
Where should he go? Where now his footsteps turn?
No living soul was there to welcome him!
No friend of all his youthful days he knew
Would greet again this wanderer in sin.
Unconsciously, he sought his boyhood's home,
The low, white cottage he had held so dear;
'Twas standing in its old accustomed place,
But strangers had dwelt there for many a year.
Where next? The tears stood in his mournful eyes;
His breath came thick and fast—he could not stir,
But leaned upon the old familiar gate
With thoughts of mother—O, could he find her?
Where was she now—that mother, sweet and good,
Who tried with tears and prayers to save her boy,
Who knelt alone at midnight's solemn hour
And mourned for him who should have been her joy.
His faltering steps at last he vaguely turned
Unto the silent churchyard near the sea,
And stood alone while pitying moonbeams spread
Around his form a veil of charity.
Alone with God in that still, solemn place,
Alone with hundreds of the silent dead,
The outcast stood with lowly, sin-sick heart,
The cold night dew upon his drooping head.
At last he found her in a place apart,
Where moonbeams sparkled through the willow boughs,
And shone upon her simple headstone white
That marked the limit of her narrow house.
'Twas but a snowy marble, simple, plain,
That bore her name, her age, and just below—
"Died of a broken heart"—alas! he knew
The cause of all that life and death of woe.
He flung himself face down upon the grass,
Alone between the living and the dead,
And wept and prayed beside the lonely grave
Until in sorrow's slumber sunk his head.
They found him in the morning, stiff and cold,
His hands clasped o'er his mother's lowly grave,
His head upon its turf, as though he thought
That turf the bosom his poor heart had craved.
Upon his pallid cheeks the trace of tears
Showed in the glowing ray of morning's sun,
But o'er that face there shone a wondrous peace,
A smile of joy now all his life was done.
Men marveled that he looked so young again
Despite his crown of sorrow-silvered hair,
And tender-hearted women sighed and wept
And smiled to think that they had found him there.
Ah! God is good! with loving tenderness
He saw the sad, repentant soul alone
Weep out his sin upon his mother's grave,
And gently led the weary wanderer home.
This we believe: That now in Heaven's street
The mother and her son are reconciled,
And all the pain and sin of earth below
Are blotted out, and he is God's own child.
—Hattie F. Crocker, in Union Signal.
IF WE KNEW
If we knew the heart's sad sighing
In the secret hour;
If we knew the bitter crying
O'er the tempter's power,
Slower would we be to censure,
Kinder in reproof;
From the erring, peradventure,
We would not stand aloof.
If we knew the hard, stern struggle
Of the one who fell,
Toiling on 'mid grief and trouble
That none but God can tell,
Our thoughts, perhaps, would be kinder,
Our help more pitiful—
Be of God's love a reminder
To the tempted soul.
If we knew the fierce temptation,
Could we feel the pain
Of the deep humiliation,
The tears shed all in vain,
We, perchance, would be more gentle,
Our tones more tender be;
O'er his fault we'd draw the mantle
Of fervent charity.
If we knew how dark and cheerless
Seem the coming years,
We might then appear more fearless
Of each other's cares.
Could our eyes pierce through the smiling
Of the face so calm,
See the bitter self-reviling,
We'd apply the balm.
Did we walk a little nearer
To Jesus in the way,
Hear His voice a little clearer
We would know how to pray.
He has words of comfort given
That we to them should speak,
Ere the hopeless soul is driven
His faith with God to break.
We shall know each other better,
The mists shall roll away;
Nevermore we'll feel the fetter
Of this toil-worn clay.
Only let us love each other,
'Tis our Lord's command,
To each fainting friend or brother
Reach a helping hand.
—Anna L. Dreyer, of Missionary Training Home at Tabor, Iowa.
LITTLE GRAVES
You have your little grave; I have mine. You have your sad memories; I have mine. For,
"There is no flock, however tended,
But one dead lamb is there;
There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended,
But hath its vacant chair.
"The air is full of farewells to the dying,
And weepings for the dead;
The heart of Rachel for her children crying
Will not be comforted."
I have pleasant thoughts sometimes about these little graves. I think what a safe place the little grave is. Temptations never come there. Sins never pollute there. Tears, pains, disappointments, bereavements, trials, cares, and snares, are all unknown in that silent resting place. And then, Jesus has the keys, and he keeps our treasures safely, and guards them securely. No mother's heart is anxious about a child that is laid in the little grave. No prayers of anguish go up for it as for those tossed by the storms of passion, sunk in the whirlpool of vice, or lost in the wide wilderness of sorrow and of sin. There is now no need of chiding, reproving, watching, and restraining. The chief Shepherd bears the lamb on his own bosom, and it is forever safe.
The little grave is a sacred place. The Lord of glory has passed into the sepulchre, and from it he has opened up the path of life. Hope blooms there, and hearts-ease and amaranth blossom amid the shadows that linger over it, and Jesus watches his treasures and counts his jewels in the little graves.
The little grave shall be opened by and by. The night is dark, but there is a flush of morn upon the mountains, and a gleam of sunlight glows along the distant hills. He who bears the keys of hell and of death, shall come back to open the little graves, and call the sleepers forth. Then cherub forms shall burst the silent tombs, and these green hillocks shall bear their harvest for the garner of our God.—Sel.
THE MOTHER'S WARNING
Touch it not—ye do not know,
Unless you've borne a fate like mine,
How deep a curse, how wild a woe,
Is lurking in that ruby wine.
Look on my cheek—'tis withered now;
It once was round and smooth as thine;
Look on my deeply furrowed brow—
'Tis all the work of treacherous wine.
I had two sons, two princely boys,
As noble men as God e'er gave;
I saw them fall from honor's joys
To fill a common drunkard's grave.
I had a daughter, young and fair,
As pure as ever woman bore.
Where is she? Did you ask me where?
Bend low, I'll tell the tale once more.
I saw that fairy child of mine
Linked to a kingly bridegroom's side;
Her heart was proud and light as thine,
Oh, would to God she then had died!
Not many moons had filled their horn,
While she upon his bosom slept;
'Twas on a dark November morn,
She o'er a murdered husband wept;
Her drunken father dealt the blow—
Her brain grew wild, her heart grew weak;
Was ever tale of deeper woe
A mother's lips had lived to speak?
She dwells in yonder darkened halls,
No ray of reason there does shine;
She on her murdered husband calls.
'Twas done by wine, by cursed wine!
—Temperance Banner.
HARRY'S REMORSE
It's curious, isn't it, chaplain, what a twelve months may bring?
Last year I was in Chicago, gambling and living in sin;
Was raking in pools at the races, and feeing the waiters with ten,
Was sipping mint juleps by twilight, while today I am in the pen.
What led me to do it? What always leads a man to destruction and crime?
The prodigal son you have read of has altered somewhat in his time.
He spends his money as freely as the Biblical fellow of old,
And when it is gone he fancies the husks will turn into gold.
Champagne, a box at the opera, high steps while fortune is flush;
The passionate kisses of women whose cheeks have forgotten to blush.
The old, old story, chaplain, of pleasure that ends in tears,
The froth that foams for an hour and the dregs that are tasted for years.
Last night as I sat here and pondered on the end of my evil ways,
There rose like a phantom before me the vision of boyhood days;
I thought of my old, old home, chaplain, of the schoolhouse that stood on the hill,
Of the brook that ran through the meadow—I can hear its music still.
And again I thought of my mother, of the mother who taught me to pray,
Whose love was a precious treasure that I heedlessly cast away;
And again I saw in my vision the fresh-lipped, careless boy,
To whom the future was boundless and the world but a mighty toy.
I saw all this as I sat there, of my ruined and wasted life,
And the thoughts of my remorse were bitter, they pierced my heart like a knife.
It takes some courage, chaplain, to laugh in the face of fate,
When the yearning ambition of manhood is blasted at twenty-eight.
—Composed and written by Harry S–while taking a retrospection of the past.
TWENTY—THIRTY-FOUR
The line of dingy-coated men stretched along the broad granite walk and like a great gray serpent wound in and out among the wagon shops and planing mills that filled the prison yard.
Down beyond the foundry the beginning of the line, the head of the serpent, was lost at the stairway leading to the second floor of a long, narrow building in which whisk brooms were manufactured.
An hour before, on the sounding of a brass gong at the front, the same line had wound round the same corners into the building whence now it crawled. There, the men had seated themselves on four-legged stools before benches that stretched across the room in rows. Before each man was set a tin plate of boiled meat; a heavy cup of black coffee, a knife, a fork, and a thick bowl of steaming, odorous soup.
During the meal other men, dressed like the hundreds who were sitting, in suits of dull gray, with little round-crowned, peaked-visored caps to match, moved in and out between the rows, distributing chunks of fresh white bread from heavy baskets. Now and then one of the men would shake his head and the waiter would pass him by, but usually a dozen hands were thrust into a basket at once to clutch the regulation "bit" of half a pound. The men ate ravenously, as if famished.
Yet a silence that appalled hovered over the long bare dining-hall where eight hundred men were being fed. There was no clatter of knives and forks; there were no jests; they moved about as noiselessly as ghosts.
There were faces stamped with indelible marks of depravity and vice, but now and then the "breadtossers" would see uplifted a pair of frank blue eyes, in which burned the light of hope. Men were there who dreamed of a day to come when all would be forgiven and forgotten; when a hand would again be held out in welcome, and a kiss again be pressed to quivering lips. Men there were of all kinds, of all countenances, young and old; the waving, sunlit hair of youth side by side with locks in which the snow was thickly sprinkled. All these men were paying the penalty society imposes on proved criminals.
And now, their dinner over, they were marching back to the shops and mills of the prison, where days and weeks were spent at labor. Those men employed in the wagon-works dropped out of the line when they came opposite the entrance to their building. Those behind pushed forward as their prison-mates disappeared, and never for more than ten seconds was there a gap in the long, gray line.
The whisk-broom factory occupied the second floor of the building at the far end of the prison yard. On the ground floor men worked at lathes, turning out the wooden handles to the brooms that were finished, sorted and tied up-stairs. At the corner the line divided, sixty-five of the men climbed the stairway to the second floor, the other thirty entered the lathe-room below.
A dozen men in blue uniforms marched beside the line on its way from the mess-hall, six on each side, at two yards' distance. Their caps bore "Guard" in gold letters, and each guard carried a short, heavy, crooked cane of polished white hickory. On entering the work-room of the second floor, the men assembled before a railed platform, upon which a red-faced, coatless man stood behind a big desk. In cold, metallic tones he called the numbers of the convicts who in turn replied "Here!" when their numbers were spoken.
"Twenty-thirty-four!" called the red-faced man. There was no response.
"Twenty-thirty-four?" The red-faced man leaned over the desk and glared down. Then a voice from somewhere on the left answered "Here!"
"What was the matter with you the first time?" snapped the foreman.
The man thus questioned removed his cap and took three steps toward the platform. In feature the word "hard" would describe him. His head was long, wide at the forehead, and yet narrow between the temples. His eyes were small and close together. His nose was flat, and mouth hardly more than a straight cut in the lower part of his face. The lower jaw was square and heavy, and the ears protruded abnormally. A trifle above medium height with a pair of drooping, twitching shoulders, the man looked criminal.
To the question he replied doggedly, "I answered the first time, sir, but I guess you didn't hear me."
The foreman gazed steadily at the man. Their eyes met. The foreman's did not waver, but "2034" lowered his and fumbled nervously at his cap.
"All right," said the foreman, quickly, "but I guess you'd better report to the warden as soon as you get through in here. Don't wait for any piece-work. Go to him as soon as you have finished your task. I'll tell him you're coming. He'll be waiting for you at the front office."
"Yes, sir." The convict did not raise his eyes. He stepped back into the line.
Then, at the clap of the foreman's hands, the men broke ranks, and each walked away to his own bench or machine. Five minutes later, the swish on the corn-wisps as they were separated and tied into rough brooms, and the occasional tap of a hammer, were the only sounds in that long room where sixty-five men toiled.
Now and then one of the men would go to the platform where the foreman sat bent over half a dozen little books, in which it was his duty to record the number of "tasks" completed by each of the workmen "on his contract"—a "task" in the prison vernacular being the work each man is compelled to accomplish within a certain space of time. On the approach of a workman the foreman would look up and a few whispered words would pass between the two. Then the broom-maker would dart into the stock room, adjoining the factory, where, upon receiving a written requisition from the foreman, the officer in charge would give him the material he needed in his work—a ball of twine, or a strip of plush with which the handles of the brooms were decorated.
At ten minutes past three, 2034 crossed to the platform.
"What do you want?" asked the foreman, as he eyed keenly the man in the gray suit.
"A paper of small tacks," was the reply, quickly spoken. The order was written, and as 2034 moved towards the door leading toward the stock-room, the man on the platform asked in an undertone, "Anything wrong, Bill?"
"That's what I don't know, George," the foreman replied. "That man Riley's been acting queer of late. I've got an idea there's something up his sleeve. There's not a harder nut on the contract than that fellow, and by the way he's been carrying on, sullen like and all that, I'm fearing something's going to happen. You remember, don't you? What, no? He's that Riley from Acorn. He came in two years ago on a burglary job in Clive, where he shot a drug clerk that offered objections to his carrying off all there was in the shop. They made it manslaughter and he's in for fifteen years. There's another warrant ready for him when he gets out, for a job done four years ago in Kentucky. He's a bad one. A fellow like that is no good around this shop."
The guard smiled cynically at the foreman's suggestion that a convict may be too bad even for prison surroundings.
"But I've got my eye on him," continued the foreman. "I'm sending him up to the warden this afternoon. Say, George, when you go back, will you tell the warden Riley's coming up to call on him?"
"Sure, Bill," was the smiling reply of the guard as he moved away. Twenty-thirty-four had returned with a paper of tacks and gone directly to his bench.
It was a quarter of four by the foreman's watch when the door at the head of the stairway opened and the warden entered, accompanied by two friends whom he was showing through the "plant," as he preferred to call the prison.
"This is where the whisk-brooms are made," said the warden. "On the floor below, which we just left, you will remember we saw the boys turning out broom-handles. Well, here the brooms are tied and sewed through by hand, over at those benches. In the room beyond, through that door, we keep the stuff handy that is called for from time to time. In a further room is stored the material used in the manufacture of the brooms, the tin tips, the tacks, the twine, and about ten or twelve tons of broom straw."
As the warden ceased speaking, the foreman leaned across the desk and tapped him on the shoulder. "Riley's coming up to see you this afternoon. He's been acting queer—don't answer the call and the like."
The warden only nodded, and continued his explanation to the visitors.
"Now," he said, moving towards the door of the stock-room, "if you will come over here I'll show you our store-room. You see we have to keep a lot of material on hand. Beyond this second room the stuff is stored up, and is taken into the stock-room as it is wanted. Between the rooms we have arranged these big sliding iron doors that, in case of a fire, could be dropped, and thus, for a few minutes at least, cut the flames off from any room but that in which they originated. You see," pulling an iron lever which let the heavy iron sheet slide to the floor, "that completes the wall."
The visitor nodded. "Now, come on through the second room, and into the third," there, ranged regularly on the floor were huge bales of broom straw, and piled against the walls were boxes upon boxes of tacks, velvet, ornamental bits of metal, and all the other separate parts of the commercial whisk broom.
The visitors examined the tacks and the tins and felt of the bales of straw.
"Very interesting," observed one of the men, as he drew his cigar case from his pocket, and biting the tip from one of the cigars it contained, struck a little wax match on the sole of his shoe. He held the match in his hand till it had burned down, then threw it on the floor, and followed the warden and the other visitor under the heavy iron screen into the workingroom of the factory.
The foreman was busy at his books and did not observe the little party as it passed through on the other side of the broom-bins and out at the big door.
Two minutes later, 2034 happened to look out through the window across his bench and he saw the warden with his friends crossing the prison yards to the foundry. A guard just then sauntered into the room and stopped at the first of the bins. He idly picked up one of the finished brooms and examined it. His attention a moment later was attracted by some one pulling at his coat from behind. He turned.
"Why, Tommy, my boy, what is it?"
The two soft brown eyes of a little boy were turned up to him. "I'm looking for papa," replied the little fellow. "The foreman down-stairs said he come up here. Uncle George is back in the house, and mamma sent me out to find papa."
The guard patted the little fellow's head. "And we'll find him, Tommy," he said. He went over to the foreman's desk. "Bill, did the warden come up here? Tommy is looking for him; his mother sent him out."
The foreman raised his eyes from his books. "Yes," he replied, "he went in there, with a couple of gentlemen."
The guard looked down at the little boy. "He's in the store-room," he said, "you'll find him in there, Tommy."
Then he turned and walked out of the shop. The child ran on into the room beyond. His father was not there. The stock-keeper did not observe the little boy as he tiptoed, in a childish way, past the desk. Tommy passed on into the farther room. He knew he would find his father in there, and he would crawl along between the tiers of straw bales and take him by surprise.
He had hardly passed when the stock-keeper, raising his head from the list of material he was preparing, held his face and sniffed the air. Quietly he rose from his revolving chair and went to the straw-room door. He merely peered inside. Turning suddenly, he pressed upon the lever near the door and the iron screen slid down into place, cutting off the farther room. Then, snatching a few books that lay on his desk, he slipped out into the shop, and at that door released the second screen. As it fell into place with a slight crunching noise, the foreman turned in his chair. The eyes of the two met. The stock-keeper raised his hand and touched his lip with the first finger. He crossed rapidly to the desk.
"Get the men out! Get the men out!" he gasped. "The store-room is on fire!"
The foreman rapped on the table twice. Every man in that room turned and faced the desk.
"Work is over for today," said the foreman. His manner was ominously calm, and the men looked at one another wonderingly.
"Fall in!"
At the order, the dingy gray suits formed in the same old serpent, and the line moved rapidly through the door at the end of the room and down the outside stairs.
There, in front of the building, they were halted, and a guard dispatched to find the warden. He was discovered in the foundry. "Fire in the broom-shop!" whispered the guard.
The warden's face paled. He dashed through the doorway, and one minute later came around the corner of the building, just in time to see the first signs of flames against the windows of the rear room up-stairs.
Within five seconds, a troop of fifteen guards had drawn the little hand-engine from its house and hitched the hose to the hydrant nearest the shop. From all the other buildings the men were being marched to their cells.
"These men!" hurriedly whispered the foreman to the warden. "What shall I do with them?"
"Get 'em inside as soon as you can! This won't last long, the front of the building is cut off. It'll all be over in ten minutes."
The foreman gave an order. At that instant a woman came running down the prison yard. Reaching the warden's side, she fell against him heavily.
"Why, Harriet," he exclaimed, "what is the matter?"
"Oh," she gasped, "Tommy! Tommy! Where is Tommy?"
A guard at the end of the engine rail turned ashy white. He raised a hand to his head, and with the other grasped the wheel to keep from falling. Then he cried, "Mr. Jeffries, I—I believe Tommy is up there in the stock-room. He went to look—"
The warden clutched the man's arm. "Up there? Up there?" he cried.
The sudden approach of the woman and the words that followed had wrought so much confusion that the men had paid no attention to the foreman's command, and he had even failed to notice their lack of attention, in the excitement of that moment.
"Great God!" cried the warden. "What can I do—what can I do? No one can live up there!"
There was a crash. One of the windows fell out. "Get a ladder!" some one cried. A guard ran back toward the prison-house. Then, in the midst of the hubbub, a man in a dingy gray suit stepped out a yard from the line of convicts. His prison number was 2034. He touched his little square cap.
"If you'll give me permission, I think I can get up there," was all he said.
"You! you!" exclaimed the warden. "No, no; I will tell no man to do it!"
There was a second crash. Another window had fallen out, and now the tongues of flame were lapping the outer walls above.
