The Inmate of the Dungeon

The Inmate Of The Dungeon, by
W. C. Morrow

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Title: The Inmate Of The Dungeon 1894
Author: W. C. Morrow
Release Date: October 24, 2007 [EBook #23177]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
INMATE OF THE DUNGEON ***

Produced by David Widger

THE INMATE OF THE DUNGEON
By W. C. Morrow
Copyright, 1894, by J. B. Lippincott & Co

After, the Board of State Prison Directors, sitting in session at the
prison, had heard and disposed of the complaints and petitions of a
number of convicts, the warden announced that all who wished to
appear had been heard. Thereupon a certain uneasy and apprehensive
expression, which all along had sat upon the faces of the directors,
became visibly deeper. The chairman--nervous, energetic, abrupt,
incisive man--glanced at a slip of paper in his hand, and said to the
warden:
"Send a guard for convict No-14,208."
The warden started and become slightly pale. Somewhat confused, he
haltingly replied, "Why, he has expressed no desire to appear before
you."
"Nevertheless, you will send for him at once," responded the chairman.
The warden bowed stiffly and directed a guard to produce the convict.
Then, turning to the chairman, he said:
"I am ignorant of your purpose in summoning this man, but of course I
have no objection. I desire, however, to make a statement concerning
him before he appears."
"When we shall have called for a statement from you," boldly
responded the chairman, "you may make one."
The warden sank back into his seat. He was a tall, fine-looking man,
well-bred and intelligent, and had a kindly face. Though ordinarily cool,
courageous, and self-possessed, he was unable to conceal a strong
emotion which looked much like fear. A heavy silence fell upon the
room, disturbed only by the official stenographer, who was sharpening
his pencils. A stray beam of light from the westering sun slipped into
the room between the edge of the window-shade and the sash, and fell
across the chair reserved for the convict. The uneasy eyes of the warden
finally fell upon this beam, and there his glance rested. The chairman,
without addressing any one particularly, remarked:

"There are ways of learning what occurs in a prison without the
assistance of either the wardens or the convicts."
Just then the guard appeared with the convict, who shambled in
painfully and laboriously, as with a string he held up from the floor the
heavy iron ball which was chained to his ankles. He was about
forty-five years old. Undoubtedly he once had been a man of
uncommon physical strength, for a powerful skeleton showed
underneath the sallow skin which covered his emaciated frame. His
sallowness was peculiar and ghastly-It was partly that of disease, and
partly of something worse; and it was this something that accounted
also for his shrunken muscles and manifest feebleness.
There had been no time to prepare him for presentation to the Board.
As a consequence, his unstockinged toes showed through his gaping
shoes; the dingy suit of prison stripes which covered his gaunt frame
was frayed and tattered; his hair had not been recently cut to the prison
fashion, and, being rebellious, stood out upon his head like bristles; and
his beard, which, like his hair, was heavily dashed with gray, had not
been shaved for weeks. These incidents of his appearance combined
with a very peculiar expression of his face to make an extraordinary
picture. It is difficult to describe this almost unearthly expression. With
a certain suppressed ferocity it combined an inflexibility of purpose
that sat like an iron mask upon him. His eyes were hungry and eager;
they were the living part of him, and they shone luminous from beneath
shaggy brows. His forehead was massive, his head of fine proportions,
his jaw square and strong, and his thin, high nose showed traces of an
ancestry that must have made a mark in some corner of the world at
some time in history. He was prematurely old; this was seen in his gray
hair and in the uncommonly deep wrinkles which lined his forehead
and the corners of his eyes and of his mouth.
Upon stumbling weakly into the room, faint with the labor of walking
and of carrying the iron ball, he looked around eagerly, like a bear
driven to his haunches by the hounds. His glance passed so rapidly and
unintelligently from one face to