THE END OF THE JOURNEY
Some miles beyond the skirt of the city, on the dusty highway, stood a
vast wall of stone built four-square, along whose top, seen
breast-high, men in dingy _khaki_ patrolled back and forth with rifles
on their shoulders. Fronting the road was a great barred gate, with an
arched top, set in the wall. This opened on a narrow paved court at
one side of which was a two storied frame building, whose door was
marked with the word "warden."
Before this door the next afternoon Harry Sevier stood with a sheriff.
The latter knocked and a heavy-featured man came out. "Well, Warden,"
said the sheriff, "I've brought you another boarder. Here's his
papers."
The other examined the documents, took a fountain-pen from his pocket
and signed one--a form of receipt--and handed it back. "All right," he
said briefly, and rushing open the door, motioned the new arrival to
enter.
When Harry emerged, an hour later, under the care of a uniformed
turn-key, he wore trousers and jacket of coarse fulled cloth with
horizontal stripes of black and yellowish-grey--the badge of the
convict. Under his visored cap his crisp black hair had been clipped
close to the skin. And in the upper office a trusty who acted as clerk
was filling in on an indexed card the physical measurements which, with
the number he wore on a leathern strap about his upper arm, constituted
the formula by which hereafter was to be known the man who had once
been Harry Sevier.
In the centre of the great walled space reared an ancient circular
structure of brick. It was like a huge bee-hive. His conductor led
Harry to a compartment on the lower tier and unlocked an iron door.
"This is yours, 239," he said.
Harry entered. He heard the door clang behind him and the footsteps
retire down the stone corridor. The light from a barred window struck
full into his eyes and for a moment he did not see that another figure,
in the same dingy stripes, sat on the edge of the narrow bunk, looking
at him out of small, red-rimmed eyes.
The occupant rose slowly, thrusting a grimy hand through a shock of
sand-coloured hair, and stared hard at the newcomer. Then he uttered a
howl of evil mirth and recognition.
"Smoke of the devil!" he shouted. "If it ain't the youngster me and
Towler had behind the portiary! Ho-ho! I saw by the papers they'd
nabbed you. And to think the geezer swore it was you that plugged him!
They didn't get me--not that time! I'd be out still if I hadn't tried
to lift a reticule on a street-car. It was my record that did it for
me then. Well, we're pals now, old horse, and we'll celebrate it
right!"
He thrust his arm beneath the rough blanket, brought out a flask, and
uncorked it with his teeth.
"It's the real stuff," he said. "Towler slips it to me--good old pal!
He's got one of the guards 'fixed'! Here--drink hearty!" With a
hoarse laugh he thrust it into Harry's face.
Harry's eyes had been fixed on his with a curious intensity. In that
startling moment, as the fumes of the liquor penetrated his nostrils, a
lurid sequence had flashed to him. This man he had once betrayed by a
base surrender to appetite; now in antic irony, it was this man's crime
that had betrayed him, Harry Sevier, to the same dilemma and a like
shameful penalty. And here was dangled before him the hideous badge
and symbol of his downfall!
He seized the wrist of the outstretched hand with a grasp like steel,
and the flask smashed against the bars of the window. Then he hurled
the other from him across the narrow cell.
His cell-mate clung to the bunk across which he had fallen, and stared
at Harry with a look of slow malevolence. He licked his lips.
"I'll fix you for that!" he said.