t just as we passed, shrieking and laughing over
nothing, the way kiddies do, and that was about the only pleasant
sight in the ride. I had quite a turn when we came to the New Hospital
just beyond, for I thought it was Holloway, and it came over me what
eight months in such a place meant. I believe if I hadn't pulled
myself up sharp, I'd have jumped out into the street and run away. It
didn't last more than a few seconds, but I don't want any more like
them. I was afraid, afraid--there's no use pretending it was anything
else. I was in a dumb, silly funk, and I turned sick inside and shook,
as I have seen a horse shake when he shies at nothing and sweats and
trembles down his sides.

"During those few seconds it seemed to be more than I could stand; I
felt sure that I couldn't do it--that I'd go mad if they tried to
force me. The idea was so terrible--of not being master over your own
legs and arms, to have your flesh and blood and what brains God gave
you buried alive in stone walls as though they were in a safe with a
time-lock on the door set for eight months ahead. There's nothing to
be afraid of in a stone wall really, but it's the idea of the
thing--of not being free to move about, especially to a chap that has
always lived in the open as I have, and has had men under him. It was
no wonder I was in a funk for a minute. I'll bet a fiver the others
were, too, if they'll only own up to it. I don't mean for long, but
just when the idea first laid hold of them. Anyway, it was a good
lesson to me, and if I catch myself thinking of it again I'll whistle,
or talk to myself out loud and think of something cheerful. And I
don't mean to be one of those chaps who spends his time in jail
counting the stones in his cell, or training spiders, or measuring how
many of his steps make a mile, for madness lies that way. I mean to
sit tight and think of all the good times I've had, and go over them
in my mind very slowly, so as to make them last longer and remember
who was there and what we said, and the jokes and all that; I'll go
over house-parties I have been on, and the times I've had in the
Riviera, and scouting-parties Dr. Jim led up country when we were
taking Matabele Land.

"They say that if you're good here they give you things to read after
a month or two, and then I can read up all those instructive books
that a fellow never does read until he's laid up in bed.

"But that's crowding ahead a bit; I must keep to what ha