“It’s a weary number of soul miles ye’ll have been travelling, my friend,” thought the priest. “There’s something in you that’s been lightning branded, but it’s putting out green shoots again.” The blue officer was seen approaching. Father Tierney turned with heartiness to meet him. “That poor lad yonder, Captain, he’s not long for this sinful world! If you’ve no objection I’d like to come again—That’s thrue! That’s thrue enough! ‘Who’d mercy have must mercy show.’—Captain, darlint, it’s hot enough to melt rock! Between the time I left Ireland and came to America, and that’s twinty years ago, I went a pilgrimage to Italy. Having seen Rome I wint to Venice. There’s a big palace there where the Doges lived, and up under the palace roof with just a bit of lead like a coffin lid between you and the core of the blessed sun in heaven—there’s the prisons they call _piombi_.—Now you usually think of cold when you think of prisons, but I gather that heat’s more maddening—” Prison X was as capricious as any other despot. The next day was as hot a day, but only so many might go into the air at once. Many, waiting their turn in the black, stifling hall, got no other gleam than that afforded by the grudged opening and the swift closing of the outer door. The next day again the heat held and the despot’s ill humour held. At long intervals the door opened, but before a score had passed, it closed with a grating sound. The fourth morning Stafford found himself again in the sun and shadow of this yard. The earth was harder-baked, the blue sky more fiercely metallic, the bushy head of the one tree seen over the wall more decisively mocking. With it all there was a dizziness in the air. He knew that he had been buoyed by the second wind. As he came out from the gloom into the glare a doubt wound like a snake into his brain. He feared the wind—that it would not last—it was so very sickening out here. He took the shade of the wall, pressed his shoulder against the bricks and closed his eyes. For a minute or more the spirit sank, then the will put its lips to some deep reservoir and drank. Stafford opened his eyes and stood from the wall. Second wind or third wind, it held steady.