d to her that Powell
was afraid of her being dragged down notwithstanding that she very soon
became very sure-footed in all sorts of weather. And Powell was the
only one ready to assist at hand because Anthony (by that time) seemed
to be afraid to come near them; the unforgiving Franklin always looked
wrathfully the other way; the boatswain, if up there, acted likewise but
sheepishly; and any hands that happened to be on the poop (a feeling
spreads mysteriously all over a ship) shunned him as though he had been
the devil.

We know how he arrived on board. For my part I know so little of
prisons that I haven't the faintest notion how one leaves them. It
seems as abominable an operation as the other, the shutting up with its
mental suggestions of bang, snap, crash and the empty silence outside--
where an instant before you were--you _were_--and now no longer are.
Perfectly devilish. And the release! I don't know which is worse. How
do they do it? Pull the string, door flies open, man flies through: Out
you go! _Adios_! And in the space where a second before you were not,
in the silent space there is a figure going away, limping. Why limping?
I don't know. That's how I see it. One has a notion of a maiming,
crippling process; of the individual coming back damaged in some subtle
way. I admit it is a fantastic hallucination, but I can't help it. Of
course I know that the proceedings of the best machine-made humanity are
employed with judicious care and so on. I am absurd, no doubt, but
still... Oh yes it's idiotic. When I pass one of these places ... did
you notice that there is something infernal about the aspect of every
individual stone or brick of them, something malicious as if matter were
enjoying its revenge of the contemptuous spirit of man. Did you notice?
You didn't? Eh? Well I am perhaps a little mad on that point. When I
pass one of these places I must avert my eyes. I couldn't have gone to
meet de Barral. I should have shrunk from the ordeal. You'll notice
that it looks as if Anthony (a brave man indubitably) had shirked it
too. Little Fyne's flight of fancy picturing three people in the fatal
four-wheeler--you remember?--went wide of the truth. There were only
two people in the four-wheeler. Flora did not shrink. Women can stand
anything. The dear creatures have no imagination when it comes to solid
facts of life. In sentimental regions--I won't say. It's another thing
altogether.