burnt his mouth. At
first he called piteously under the door for water, but afterwards he
would beg no more, knowing beforehand what the answer would be. It was
a calculated torture; they promised him as much water as he wished,
after he should have disclosed the names of the guilty, confessing
things of which he had no knowledge. Hunger strove in him against
thirst, but fearing this latter most, he would throw this salted food
into a corner as though it were poison. He was delirious with the
delirium of a shipwrecked man tormented with visions of fresh water
in the midst of the salt waves. In his nightmare he saw clear and
murmuring brooks, great rivers; and seeking freshness for his mouth
he would pass his tongue over the filthy walls, finding a certain
alleviation in the lime of the whitewash.

The privations and the incarceration disturbed his mind with horrible
ravings; often Gabriel was surprised at finding himself on all fours,
growling and barking opposite the door without knowing how or why.

His tormentors seemed to forget him; they had other prisoners to look
after. The jailors gave him water, but whole months passed without
anyone entering his cell. Some nights he would hear vaguely and
far off through the greasy walls wailing and sobs in the adjacent
dungeons. One morning he was awoke by sounds as of thunder, in spite
of a tiny ray of sunlight filtering through his loophole; hearing the
jailors in the corridors near, he understood the mystery. They had
been shooting some of the prisoners.

Luna received as a happiness this hope of death; he would renounce
with pleasure that shadow of a life in a small stone box, tormented by
physical pain and the fear of men's ferocity. His stomach, weakened by
all these privations, refused for many days, with horrible nausea, to
receive the bitter bread and the coppery mess. His want of exercise,
the want of air, and the bad and scanty nourishment had made him
fall into a mortal anaemia; he coughed continually, suffering great
oppression on his chest. The knowledge he had acquired of the human
body in his thirst for knowing everything did not admit of his being
mistaken; he would die as poor Lucy had died.

After a year and a half of imprisonment he appeared before a council
of war, mixed up with a mob of old men, women, and even quite young
people, all weakened and broken by imprisonment, with their skin white
and thick as chewed paper, and that dazed look in their e