We were searched first, and it was done by removing all our clothing.  Then, piece by piece, the guard looked them over.  He ran his hand under the collar of our shirts; he turned our pockets inside out; he patted the lining of our coats; he turned out our stockings and shook them; he looked into our boots.  As he finished with each article, it was thrown over to us and we dressed again.  Our caps, overcoats, braces, belts, and knives were taken away from us.  They were careful to see that we should not be tempted to commit suicide.

When I saw my cap go, I wondered if my maps, which I had sewed in the pasteboard, would escape this man’s hawk eyes.  I thought I had lost my other maps, and wondered how we should ever replace them.  But it would be time enough to think of that—­when we got out.

The guard’s manner was typical of the management at Oldenburg.  It had no element of humanity in it.  It was a triumph of Kultur.  The men might as well have been dummies, set by a clock and run by electricity.

There was a blackboard on the wall which told how many prisoners were in the institution and what they were getting.  The strongest and worst punishment given is called “Streng Arrest,” and the number who were getting it was three.  The guard, while we were there, rubbed out the 3 and put in a 5.

Ted and I looked at each other.

“That’s us,” he said.

Our two little parcels were deposited in a locker downstairs, where other parcels of a like nature were bestowed, and we were conducted up a broad stair and along a passage, and saw before us a long hall, lined with doors sheeted with steel.

The guard walked ahead; Ted and I followed.  At last he unlocked a door, and we knew one of us had reached his abiding-place.

“I always did like a stateroom in the middle of the boat,” Ted said, as the guard motioned to him to go in.  That was the last word I heard for some time, for the guard said not a word to me.  He came into the cell with me, and shut the iron door over the window, excluding every particle of light.

I just had time to see that the cell was a good-sized one—­as cells go.  In one corner there was a steam coil, but it was stone cold, and remained so all the time I was there.  There was a shelf, on which stood a brown earthen pitcher for drinking-water—­but nothing else.  Our footsteps rang hollow on the cement floor, which had a damp feeling, like a cellar, although it was above the ground floor.

Without a word the guard went out, and the key turned in the lock with a click which had a sound of finality about it that left no room for argument.

Well, it has come, I thought to myself—­the real hard German punishment... they had me at last.  The other time we had outwitted them and gained many privileges of which they knew nothing, and Malvoisin had cheered me through the dark hours.

Here there was no Malvoisin, no reading-crack, no friends, nothing to save us.