I should think it remarkably odd if they were Alices too, said Keeling."Nothing more likely," Frank answered.
ONE:"Wh'--who is that?" responded a musical voice. "Why, is that Mr. Smith?" as if I were the last person in the world one should have expected to see there. The like of those moments I had never known. I saw her eyes note the perfect fit of my uniform, though neither of us mentioned it. I tried to tell her that Lieutenant Durand was Ned Ferry and that I was now one of his scouts, but she had already heard both facts, and would not tell me what her father had said about me, it was so good. Standing at the veranda's edge a trifle above me, with her cheek against one of the posts and her gaze on her slipper, she asked if I was glad I was going with Ned Ferry, and I had no more sense than to say I was; but she would neither say she was glad nor tell why she was not.
"We went near the prison while we were in the Tartar city, and so it was proposed that we should see what there was inside. It was the most horrible place I have ever seen, and the wonder is that men can be found inhuman enough to condemn people to be shut up there. There was a large cage so full of men that there was not room on the floor for them all to lie down at once, even if they had been as close together as sardines in a can. We could see through the bars of the cage, as if the captives had been wild animals instead of human beings, and they looked so worn and wretched that we all pitied them very much. If a man is sent to prison in China,[Pg 372] and has no money to pay for his food, he will die of starvation, as the jailers are not required by law to feed the prisoners under their charge. There were men chained, with iron collars around their necks; and others tied, with their hands and feet brought close together. The suffering was terrible, and we were glad to come away after a very few minutes. It is positive that we do not want to see another prison as long as we stay in this country.By the end of another five minutes the Doctor had sacrificed all scruple. His fingers played over that human keyboard with a recklessness that was born of sheer horror of his own actions. He almost fancied that he might suddenly arrive at some kind of mastery of the stunning instrument. He alternated[Pg 166] between that delusion and trusting blindly to chance. It was indeed by accident that he discovered and pressed hard home a large stop marked simply O.
路见不平Eason吼
