s pursued his
investigations, and gradually became aware that sundry parrots and other
pets which the soldiers and sailors had brought home were adding their
notes of discord to the chorus of sounds.

While he was looking at, and attempting to pat, a small monkey, which
received his advances with looks of astonished indignation, he became
conscious of the fact that a number of eyes were looking down on him
through a crevice at the top of a partition close to his side.

"Who are these?" he asked of a sailor, who stood near him.

"Why, them are the long-term men."

"I suppose you mean prisoners?"

"Yes; that's about it," replied the tar. "Soldiers as has committed
murder--or suthin' o' that sort--an' got twenty year or more for all I
knows. The other fellers further on there, in chains, is short-term
men. Bin an' done suthin' or other not quite so bad, I suppose."

Miles advanced "further on," and found eight men seated on the deck and
leaning against the bulkhead. If his attention had not been drawn to
them, he might have supposed they were merely resting, but a closer
glance showed that they were all chained to an iron bar. They did not
seem very different from the other men around them, save that they were,
most of them, stern and silent.

A powerful feeling of compassion rose in our hero's breast as he looked
at these moral wrecks of humanity; for their characters and prospects
were ruined, though their physique was not much impaired. It seemed to
him such an awful home-coming, after, perhaps, long years of absence,
thus, in the midst of all the bustle and joy of meetings and of pleasant
anticipations, to be waiting there for the arrival of the prison-van,
and looking forward to years of imprisonment instead of reunion with
friends and kindred.

At sight of them a thought sprang irresistibly into our hero's mind,
"This is the result of wrong-doing!"

His conscience was uncomfortably active and faithful that morning.
Somehow it pointed out to him that wrong-doing was a long ladder; that
the chained criminals before him had reached the foot; and that he stood
on the topmost rung. That was all the difference between them and
himself--a difference of degree, not of principle.

Pushing his way a little closer to these men, he found that his was not
the only heart that pitied them. His friend, the younger lady, was
there speaking to them. He could not hear what she said, for the noise
drowned her voice;