"We shall rot if we go on like this," said Geoff desperately, when a few days had passed. "I quite believe you, Philip, for my joints, too, feel stiff and useless almost. Supposing we were to beguile the time by a little active exercise--sort of Swedish gymnastics. Eh? Why not?" "Why not?" Philip said eagerly, grasping at the suggestion with the energy almost of a drowning man grasping at a straw. "You've taken squads in that before. Fire away, Geoff! Let's see what we make of it." Thereafter the astonished jailer peeped in more than once on these curious white prisoners of his, to find them perhaps stretched on their backs on the stone floor of the cell, their hands clasped under their heads, and their legs, stretched stiffly in front of them, being slowly raised towards the ceiling. Or he came upon the two facing one another with absolutely solemn visages, on tiptoe, bobbing up and down in the most extraordinary fashion. "Allah, but this is a strange sight!" he told himself on the first occasion, and looked suspiciously round the cell. "No, no! There is no sign of attempted escape--windows are barred as usual. Truly this is a strange experience. Surely these young men, no doubt nobles in their own country, have gone crazy." He was more than dumbfounded, absolutely staggered, one day, when, entering the cell very quietly and very suddenly, he discovered Geoff standing behind his chum, gripping him firmly by the waist and slowly raising him upward, raising him till the lanky figure of Philip was lifted to a horizontal position above Geoff's head, and was slowly pushed upward to the full extent of his arms and then lowered again, only to be pushed once more into the old position; then, as the gaping jailer watched, the figure of the subaltern was brought to a vertical position and lowered ever so gently to the ground till his stockinged toes touched the stone floor of the prison. By then the man's eyes were starting out of his head, and he gripped the edge of the iron door as if to support himself. "Allah is great!" he stuttered. "Surely Allah is great! And these white youths are the strangest of people. See now what they do! They are here in a prison cell, none too comfortable, perhaps, none too bright and cheery, yet with four peaceful walls about them, and a wooden divan on which they may without hindrance sit or lounge the day long, staring maybe at the wall, and dreaming of the past or of the future. And surely the future, in spite of such a prison, has much that is of rosy colour for such youths--youths who are but on the threshold of manhood. There is hope for them, a peaceful life to contemplate, and, within these four walls, no need to do aught else but dream, but let the hours slide away, but let others work for their existence."