Peter had been in the “hole” perhaps three days, perhaps a week--he
did not know, and no one ever told him. The door was opened again,
and for the first time he heard a voice, “Come out here.”
Peter had been longing to hear a voice; but now he shrunk terrified
into a corner. The voice was the voice of Guffey, and Peter knew
what it meant. His teeth began to rattle again, and he wailed, “I
dunno anything! I can’t tell anything!”
A hand reached in and took him by the collar, and he found himself
walking down the corridor in front of Guffey. “Shut up!” said the
man, in answer to all his wailings, and took him into a room and
threw him into a chair as if he had been a bundle of bedding, and
pulled up another chair and sat down in front of Peter.
“Now look here,” he said. “I want to have an understanding with you.
Do you want to go back into that hole again?”
“N-n-no,” moaned Peter.
“Well, I want you to know that you’ll spend the rest of your life in
that hole, except when you’re talking to me. And when you’re talking
to me you’ll be having your arms twisted off you, and splinters
driven into your finger nails, and your skin burned with
matches--until you tell me what I want to know. Nobody’s going to
help you, nobody’s going to know about it. You’re going to stay here
with me until you come across.”
Peter could only sob and moan.
“Now,” continued Guffey, “I been finding out all about you, I got
your life story from the day you were born, and there’s no use your
trying to hide anything. I know your part in this here bomb plot,
and I can send you to the gallows without any trouble whatever. But
there’s some things I can’t prove on the other fellows. They’re the
big ones, the real devils, and they’re the ones I want, so you’ve
got a chance to save yourself, and you better be thankful for it.”
Peter went on moaning and sobbing.
“Shut up!” cried the man. And then, fixing Peter’s frightened gaze
with his own, he continued, “Understand, you got a chance to save
yourself. All you got to do is to tell what you know. Then you can
come out and you won’t have any more trouble. We’ll take good care
of you; everything’ll be easy for you.”
Peter continued to gaze like a fascinated rabbit. And such a longing
as surged up in his soul--to be free, and out of trouble, and taken
care of! If only he had known anything to tell; if only there was
some way he could find out something to tell!