left to scramble. Tristram secured one as the door
clanged and left them in pitch-black night, but gave it up to a
pitiful wretch who crept near and kissing his hand implored leave to
share it. Curling himself up upon the bare floor, he was quickly
asleep and dreaming of Sophia.

A hand shook his shoulder and aroused him. Looking up, he saw a
couple of villainous faces, which he did not recognise as belonging
to the gang he had been walking with for two days. It was morning,
as he could perceive by the light that was strained through a
cobwebbed grating over his head.

The two men demanded if he wished to be tossed in a blanket.
Tristram, not understanding, shook his head.

They thereupon demanded money and began to threaten. Tristram hit
one violently in the eye, and catching the other by the throat
pounded his head against the wall of the dungeon. He was surprised
at the strength left in him, and also at a fury which he had never
felt before in his life. A few of the prisoners roused themselves
listlessly and laughed. He kicked the two fellows out of the way and
lay down again.

Later in the morning he witnessed the game they had meant to play
with him. One of his comrades, a wretched boy, blue with starvation,
denied them money, for the simple reason that he had none in his
pocket. Four of the old hands thereupon produced a filthy
counterpane of coarse cloth and stretched their victim upon it.
Then each took a corner, and raising it as high as they could reach,
they let the counterpane fall on the stone flooring with a horrible
thud. Tristram leapt forward indignantly and caught one of these
ruffians a blow on the back of the neck that sent him down like an
ox. Upon this the other three dropped their sport and fell upon him,
like angry women, tooth and nail. Nobody interfered. He was driven
back against the wall, where he leant, just contriving to keep his
adversaries at arm's length with his fists, and feeling, now that the
first spurt of wrath had left him, that within three minutes he must
faint from hunger and weakness.

There is no knowing how the affair would have ended had not the door
been thrown open at this moment. A couple of priests advanced
between the files of prisoners, who sat up at once and started to
howl out a dismal litany at the top of their lungs. Tristram's
assailants left him hurriedly, and, shrinking back to their pallets,
began to lift their voices with the rest. The