scorching heat of the sun. All his fellows-in-misfortune had forsaken
him and threatened his life, because he had refused to be a party to
their setting the prison on fire. They followed him in a crowd, threw
stones at him and chased him up the mountain as far as he could go.

And finally he was stopped by a stone wall.

There was no possibility of climbing over it, and in his despair he
resolved to kill himself by dashing his head against the stones. He
rushed down the mountain, and behold! a gate was opened at the same
moment--a green garden gate... and... he woke up.

When he thought of his life and realised that the green wood was nothing
but the branch of a birch tree, he grew very discontented in his heart.

"If at least it had been a lime tree," he grumbled. And as he listened
he found that it was the birch which had sung so loudly; it sounded as
if some one were sifting sand or gravel, and again he thought of the
lime trees, which make the soft velvety sounds that touch the heart.

On the following day his birch was faded and gave little shade.

On the day after that the foliage was as dry as paper and rattled like
teeth. And finally there was nothing left but a huge birch rod, which
reminded him of his childhood.

He remembered the gourd of the prophet Jonah, and he cursed when the sun
scorched his head.

***

A new king had come to the throne, and he brought fresh life into the
government of the country. The town was to have a new watercourse, and
therefore all the prisoners were commanded to dredge.

It was for the first time after many years that he was allowed to leave
his cliff. He was in the boat, swimming on the water, and saw much
in his native town that was new to him; he saw the railway and the
locomotive. And they began dredging just below the railway station.

And gradually they brought up all the corruption which lay buried at
the bottom of the sea. Drowned cats, old shoes, decomposed fat from the
candle factory, the refuse from the dye works called "The Blue Hand,"
tanners' bark from the tannery, and all the human misery which the
laundresses had batted off the clothes for the last hundred years.
And there was such a terrible smell of sulphur and ammonia that only a
prisoner could be expected to bear it.

When the boat was full, the prisoners wondered what was going to be
done with their cargo of dirt? The riddle was solved when the overseer
steered for their own cliff.

All the mud