s to watch
a green cluster of bananas that hung above him from the awning,
twirling on a string. He could count as many of them as five before
the bunch turned and swung lazily back again, when he could count as
high as twelve; sometimes when the ship rolled heavily he could count
to twenty. It was a most fascinating game, and contented him for many
hours. But when they found this out they sent for the cook to come and
cut them down, and the cook carried them away to his galley.

Then, one day, a man came out from the shore, swimming through the
blue water with great splashes. He was a most charming man, who
spluttered and dove and twisted and lay on his back and kicked his
legs in an excess of content and delight. It was a real pleasure to
watch him; not for days had anything so amusing appeared on the other
side of the prison-bars. But as soon as the keeper saw that the man in
the water was amusing his prisoner, he leaned over the ship's side and
shouted, "Sa-ay, you, don't you know there's skarks in there?"

And the swimming man said, "The h-ll there is!" and raced back to the
shore like a porpoise with great lashing of the water, and ran up the
beach half-way to the palms before he was satisfied to stop. Then the
prisoner wept again. It was so disappointing. Life was robbed of
everything now. He remembered that in a previous existence soldiers
who cried were laughed at and mocked. But that was so far away and it
was such an absurd superstition that he had no patience with it. For
what could be more comforting to a man when he is treated cruelly than
to cry. It was so obvious an exercise, and when one is so feeble that
one cannot vault a four-railed barrier it is something to feel that at
least one is strong enough to cry.

He escaped occasionally, traversing space with marvellous rapidity and
to great distances, but never to any successful purpose; and his
flight inevitably ended in ignominious recapture and a sudden
awakening in bed. At these moments the familiar and hated palms, the
peaks, and the block-house were more hideous in their reality than the
most terrifying of his nightmares.

These excursions afield were always predatory; he went forth always to
seek food. With all the beautiful world from which to elect and
choose, he sought out only those places where eating was studied and
elevated to an art. These visits were much more vivid in their detail
than any he had ever before made to these same resorts