t what?

Mercier leaned forward, with something curious pulsing in his breast.
The sort of feeling that he had long since forgotten, for there was
nothing for such feelings to feed upon, here in his prison. Yet the
sensation, vague as it was, seemed to have been recognised, shared for
an instant by the young creature beside him. It was rather uncanny. He
had heard that idiots or half-witted people were like that. She rose
uneasily, placing upon her long, sprawling curls an old sun hat, very
dirty, the brim misshapen by frequent wettings of pipe-clay. A servant
appeared from behind the far corner of the verandah, an old man, dark
skinned, emaciated, clad in a faded red sarong. He was her personal
servant, told off to attend her. Something must be done for the men on
parole, some occupation given them to test their fitness before
returning them again to society. As she passed from the verandah,
followed by the old black man in his red sarong, Mercier felt a
strange thrill. Where were they going, those two?

He turned to the inattentive, vacuous mother. "Your daughter," he
began, "is fast growing up. Soon she will be marrying."

The woman shrugged her shoulders.

"With whom?" she answered. "Who will take her? What dowry can we give
her? We cannot even send her to Singapore to be educated. Who will
take her--ignorant, uneducated--without a _dot_? Besides," she
continued eagerly, warmed into a burst of confidence, "you have
heard--you have seen--the trouble lies here," and she tapped her
forehead significantly.

And with a sigh she concluded, "We are all prisoners here, every one
of us--like the rest."

Mercier rose from the chaise longue, still thinking deeply, still
stirred by the vague emotion that had called forth an answer from the
immature, half-witted child. He had a report to make to the Bureau,
and he must be getting on. Later, when the tide turned, and the
lighter could come against the jetty, he must attend to the cattle.

He did not linger in the office of the Administrator, but sent in his
report by a waiting boy, and then strolled inland by the road that led
past the prison, into the interior of the island. On his way he passed
the graveyard. It was a melancholy graveyard, containing a few
slanting shafts erected to the memory of guards and of one or two
officers who had been killed from time to time by prisoners who had
run amok. Such uprisings occurred now and then, but seldom. He entered
the cemeter