Far forward on the left was a sort of cabin; I knew it was the prison by Will’s description. The hospital lay in this end, and I could not see it. The air was fairly sweet and fresh where I stood, owing to the booby-hatch lying wide open, protected as it was by the cuddy recess; but I seemed to fancy a dreadful oppression and closeness of atmosphere in those ’tweendecks where the many shadowy shapes were herded. Which of all those spectral figures was Tom? Oh, my heart! To think of him in his innocence, ironed, entombed in that close and dimly-lighted prison, forced to lie of a night, side by side with felons, obliged to listen to their hideous talk, to their boasts of past crimes, to their threats of darker villainies yet, when the moment should come to free their hand. ‘Now, Jane, your friend must be off,’ said the sentry, ‘or the doctor’ll be coming along.’ I nodded civilly to him, thanked his pretty wife, and went on deck. I was half mad with grief and passion. The reality had far exceeded my imagination of the wretchedness and horror of the prisoners’ quarters. I believe I should have been less shocked had I passed into the ’tweendecks by way of the main-hatch; but it was like taking a view of some nightmare imagination of human misery to peer through the loophole into that tossing, straining, and groaning interior, dimly touched with daylight in the centre, faintly irradiated by lantern-light in other parts, the whole strange shadow of it thickened and jumbled by the scarcely determinable shapes of men sitting, standing, moving, the clank of irons coming from them, and the low growl of speech.