It was two days after this that the governor saw Hodges come out of a cell laughing.

“What are ye grinning at?” said he, in his amiable way.

“No. 19 is light-headed, sir, and I have been listening to him.  It would make a cat laugh,” said Hodges apologetically.  He knew well enough the governor did not approve of laughing in the jail.

The governor said nothing, but made a motion with his hand, and Hodges opened cell 19 and they both went in.

No. 19 lay on his back flushed and restless with his eyes fixed on vacancy.  He was talking incessantly and without sequence.  I should fail signally were I to attempt to transfer his words to paper.  I feel my weakness and the strength of others who in my day have shown a singular power of fixing on paper the volatile particles of frenzy; however, in a word, the poor thief was talking as our poetasters write, and amid his gunpowder, daffodils, bosh and other constellations there mingled gleams of sense and feeling that would have made you and me very sad.

He often recurred to a girl he called Mary, and said a few gentle words to her; then off again into the wildest flights.  While Mr. Hawes and his myrmidons were laughing at him, he suddenly fixed his eyes on some imaginary figure on the opposite wall and began to cry out loudly, “Take him down.  Don’t you see you are killing him?  The collar is choking him!  See how White he is!  His eyes stare!  The boy will die!  Murder! murder! murder!  I can’t bear to see him die.”  And with these words he buried his head in the bedclothes.

Mr. Hawes looked at Mr. Fry; Mr. Fry answered the look.  “He must have seen Josephs the other day.”

“Ay! he is mighty curious.  Well, when he gets well!” and, shaking his fist at the sufferer, Mr. Hawes went out of the cell soon after.

CHAPTER XI.

“WHAT is your report about No. 19, doctor?”

“The fever is gone.”

“He is well, then?”

“He is well of the fever, but a fever leaves the patient in a state of debility for some days.  I have ordered him meat twice a day—­that is, meat once and soup once.”

“Then you report him cured of his fever?”

“Certainly.”

“Hodges, put No. 19 on the crank.”

“Yes, sir.”

Even the surgeon opened his eyes at this.  “Why, he is as weak as a child,” said he.

“Will it kill him?”

“Certainly not; and for the best of all reasons.  He can’t possibly do it.”

“You don’t know what these fellows can do when they are forced.”

The surgeon shrugged his shoulders and passed on to his other patients.  Robinson was taken out into the yard.  “What a blessing the fresh air is!” said he, gulping in the atmosphere of the yard.  “I should have got well long ago if I had not been stifled in my cell for want of room and air.”

Robinson went to the crank in good spirits; he did not know how weak he was till he began to work; but he soon found out he could not do the task in the time.  He thought therefore the wisest plan would be not to exhaust himself in vain efforts, and he sat quietly down and did nothing.  In this posture he was found by Hawes and his myrmidons.