She told me that she was a political prisoner, and that her real name was Pia Rosada, but she had been arrested in a different one. She was a keen revolutionary, goaded into rebellion by the ill-treatment of her relatives. She was only a suspect; but she knew much and looked forward to some kind of torture being employed to force her to turn informer. “They may do what they will, I shall tell nothing,” she said, her eyes lighting with resolution and dauntless courage--a martyr in the making. “I am sorry for you,” I murmured. “I would die a hundred deaths first,” she answered. Then her look changed. Her clear gaze was troubled and she glanced round at the women. “Do you think we have no cause to revolt? Look at these poor creatures;” and her eyes filled with tears. But she dashed them away. “We cannot afford the luxury of tears,” she said hurriedly, and slipped from me to go to one of her charges who woke and sat up and began to weep. In a minute she was soothed and comforted by the touch of those wonderful hands, the glance of the magnetic eyes, and the soft whisper of the sweet calming voice. My thoughts flew to Miralda, and with a shudder of fear I pictured her in the midst of such a scene of abomination and desolate misery. Death was a million times preferable to existence in such a hell of life as this! CHAPTER XXXII A HUNDRED LASHES I was not without apprehension that, as soon as the drunkards and rowdies woke up, there would be some renewal of the night’s disturbances, with trouble to follow for the women and for us who had kept watch over them. But the anticipation was unfounded. The men were too ill to make trouble. The fearful atmosphere they had breathed, combined with the effects of their intoxication, had sapped alike their strength and their energy. Listless, sick both in mind and body, crushed in spirit and utterly downcast, they kept apart from us and huddled together in a compact companionship of weary, lifeless, dejected wretchedness. Several of those at our end of the prison, men and women alike, were in much the same condition. Daylight appeared to add to their sufferings, instead of diminishing it. In the dim gas light they had been spared the sight of the other’s condition; but it was revealed to them now and made them the more conscious of their own evil plight. The pestilential atmosphere had also enfeebled them; and the frail little Pia and her strong helpmate were hard put to it to keep them from giving way. Many of them fainted, gasping piteously for air; and Pia asked me to get the men to help in holding one or two of them up to the windows that they might breathe fresh air in place of the pestilence-laden atmosphere of the gaol. The men agreed readily, although themselves greatly weakened by the night’s experiences, and I had just laid down one woman whom a companion had helped me to revive in this way, when he began to speak of Pia; praising her courage, her endurance and her resource.