Sadly and doggedly he turned the iron handle, and turned and turned again; and then he panted and rested a minute, and then doggedly to his idle toil again.  He was now so fatigued that his head seemed to have come loose, he could not hold it up, and it went round and round and round with the crank-handle.  Hence it was that Mr. Fry stood at the mouth of the den without the other seeing him.

“Halt,” said Fry.  Robinson looked up, and there was the turnkey inspecting him with a discontented air.  “I’m done,” thought Robinson, “here he is as black as thunder—­the number not right, no doubt.”

“What are ye at,” growled Fry.  “You are forty over,” and the said Fry looked not only ill-used but a little unhappy.  Robinson’s good behavior had disappointed the poor soul.

This Fry was a grim oddity; he experienced a feeble complacency when things went wrong—­but never else.

The thief exulted, and was taken back to his cell.  Dinner came almost immediately.  Four ounces of meat instead of three; two ounces less bread, but a large access of potatoes, which more than balanced the account.

The next day Robinson was put on the crank again, but not till the afternoon.  He had finished about half his task, when he heard at some little distance from him a faint moaning.  His first impulse was to run out of his cell and see what was the matter, but Hodges and Fry were both in the yard, and he knew that they would report him for punishment upon the least breach of discipline.  So he turned and turned the crank, with these moans ringing in his ears and perplexing his soul.

Finding they did not cease, he peeped cautiously into the yard, and there he saw the governor himself as well as Hodges and Fry.  All three were standing close to the place whence these groans issued, and with an air of complete unconcern.

But presently the groans ceased, and then mysteriously enough the little group of disciplinarians threw off their apathy.  Hodges and Fry went hastily to the pump with buckets, which they filled, and then came back to the governor; the next minute Robinson heard water dashed repeatedly against the walls of the cell, and then the governor laughed, and Hodges laughed, and even the gloomy Fry vented a brief grim chuckle.

And now Robinson quivered with curiosity as he turned his crank, but there was no means of gratifying it.  It so happened, however, that some ten minutes later the governor sent Hodges and Fry to another part of the prison, and they had not been gone long before a message came to himself, on which he went hastily out, and the yard was left empty.  Robinson’s curiosity had reached such a pitch that notwithstanding the risk he ran—­for he knew the governor would send back to the yard the very first disengaged officer he met—­he could not stay quiet.  As the governor closed the gate he ran with all speed to the cell, he darted in, and then the thief saw what made the three honest men laugh so.  He saw it, and started back with a cry of dismay, for the sight chilled the felon to the bone.