ll
to the trenches of San Juan. But now he was a baby in the hands of a
giant, who caught him by the wrist and with an iron arm clasped him
around his waist and pulled him down, and shouted, brutally, "Help,
some of youse, quick! he's at it again. I can't hold him."

More giants grasped him by the arms and by the legs. One of them took
the hand that clung to the stanchion in both of his, and pulled back
the fingers one by one, saying, "Easy now, Lieutenant--easy."

The ragged palms and the sea and blockhouse were swallowed up in a
black fog, and his body touched the canvas cot again with a sense of
home-coming and relief and rest. He wondered how he could have cared
to escape from it. He found it so good to be back again that for a
long time he wept quite happily, until the fiery pillow was moist and
cool.

The world outside of the iron bars was like a scene in a theatre set
for some great event, but the actors were never ready. He remembered
confusedly a play he had once witnessed before that same scene.
Indeed, he believed he had played some small part in it; but he
remembered it dimly, and all trace of the men who had appeared with
him in it was gone. He had reasoned it out that they were up there
behind the range of mountains, because great heavy wagons and
ambulances and cannon were emptied from the ships at the wharf above
and were drawn away in long lines behind the ragged palms, moving
always toward the passes between the peaks. At times he was disturbed
by the thought that he should be up and after them, that some
tradition of duty made his presence with them imperative. There was
much to be done back of the mountains. Some event of momentous import
was being carried forward there, in which he held a part; but the
doubt soon passed from him, and he was content to lie and watch the
iron bars rising and falling between the block-house and the white
surf.

If they had been only humanely kind, his lot would have been bearable,
but they starved him and held him down when he wished to rise; and
they would not put out the fire in the pillow, which they might easily
have done by the simple expedient of throwing it over the ship's side
into the sea. He himself had done this twice, but the keeper had
immediately brought a fresh pillow already heated for the torture and
forced it under his head.

His pleasures were very simple, and so few that he could not
understand why they robbed him of them so jealously. One wa