man."
"I think I can promise you," I said, "that the _System_ will be altered
a little. You shall have books and things to write with, and you shall
not be harassed every moment by punishment."
"Take care," he cried in a spasm of dread, putting his hand on mine,
"take care, they may punish me much worse. You don't know what they can
do." I grew hot with indignation.
"Don't say anything, please, of what I have said to you. Promise me, you
won't say anything. Promise me. I never complained, I didn't." His
excitement was a revelation.
"All right," I replied, to soothe him.
"No, but promise me, seriously," he repeated. "You must promise me.
Think, you have my confidence, it is private what I have said." He was
evidently frightened out of self-control.
"All right," I said, "I will not tell; but I'll get the facts from the
others and not from you."
"Oh, Frank," he said, "you don't know what they do. There is a
punishment here more terrible than the rack." And he whispered to me
with white sidelong eyes: "They can drive you mad in a week, Frank."[2]
"Mad!" I exclaimed, thinking I must have misunderstood him; though he
was white and trembling.
"What about the warders?" I asked again, to change the subject, for I
began to feel that I had supped full on horrors.
"Some of them are kind," he sighed. "The one that brought me in here is
so kind to me. I should like to do something for him, when I get out.
He's quite human. He does not mind talking to me and explaining things;
but some of them at Wandsworth were brutes.... I will not think of them
again. I have sewn those pages up and you must never ask me to open them
again: I dare not open them," he cried pitifully.
"But you ought to tell it all," I said, "that's perhaps the purpose you
are here for: the ultimate reason."
"Oh, no, Frank, never. It would need a man of infinite strength to come
here and give a truthful record of all that happened to him. I don't
believe you could do it; I don't believe anybody would be strong enough.
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