als, and the fact that when the windows did come they
seemed shadowed and let in less light, showed that they were winding
into the core or belly of some enormous building. After a little time
the glazed corridors began to be lit by electricity.

At last, when they had walked nearly a mile in those white and polished
tunnels, they came with quite a shock to the futile finality of a
cul-de-sac. All that white and weary journey ended suddenly in an oblong
space and a blank white wall. But in the white wall there were two iron
doors painted white on which were written, respectively, in neat black
capitals B and C.

"You go in here, sir," said the leader of the officials, quite
respectfully, "and you in here."

But before the doors had clanged upon their dazed victims, MacIan had
been able to say to Turnbull with a strange drawl of significance: "I
wonder who A is."

Turnbull made an automatic struggle before he allowed himself to be
thrown into the cell. Hence it happened that he was the last to enter,
and was still full of the exhilaration of the adventures for at least
five minutes after the echo of the clanging door had died away.

Then, when silence had sunk deep and nothing happened for two and a half
hours, it suddenly occurred to him that this was the end of his life. He
was hidden and sealed up in this little crack of stone until the flesh
should fall off his bones. He was dead, and the world had won.

His cell was of an oblong shape, but very long in comparison with its
width. It was just wide enough to permit the arms to be fully extended
with the dumb-bells, which were hung up on the left wall, very dusty. It
was, however, long enough for a man to walk one thirty-fifth part of a
mile if he traversed it entirely. On the same principle a row of fixed
holes, quite close together, let in to the cells by pipes what was
alleged to be the freshest air. For these great scientific organizers
insisted that a man should be healthy even if he was miserable. They
provided a walk long enough to give him exercise and holes large enough
to give him oxygen. There their interest in human nature suddenly
ceased. It seemed never to have occurred to them that the benefit
of exercise belongs partly to the benefit of liberty. They had not
entertained the suggestion that the open air is only one of the
advantages of the open sky. They administered air in secret, but in
sufficient doses, as if it were a medicine. They suggested wa