There was no doubt of the truth of his suspicion; half of them were females. Squatting and crouching there, they raised their blear eyes toward him in sullen indifference; too miserably wretched to heed or resent the look of disgust and surprise which met theirs, other than by a heartless laugh or a ribald jest; too callous to feel, and too broken down in body and soul to taunt. The deputy-sheriff shook his head, for although he had often been amid scenes where the strong heart was wrung; where the debtor, ground down by creditors with hearts of flint, and eyes greedy of gold, was struggling beneath the fangs of the law, and crying for indulgence and mercy: although he had seen the calm, pale look of despair; the silent but resolute face of the man who had parted with his all, and finally yielded his body for the gold which he could not pay; and the wife clasping his neck, and his children clinging to him; ay, actually showing marks of affection to a man who was penniless; yet he had rarely encountered a den like this. He had only witnessed suffering and despair in their first stages. Had he desired to see the human soul when hope had darkened into desperation; when friends had fallen off, or less painful than that, had died; when the body had been wasted, and the blood dried up, and yet had yielded no gold; when even that untiring thing, a creditor, had grown weary of his prey, and had flung his victim adrift, to find none to sympathize, no path open, no home left, and even hope dead; he should have lingered a little longer; and in common with the born thief, the hardened courtezan, the reeling drunkard, and the savage brawler, he would have found those whom the sun of prosperity had once warmed, and who once had little dreamed in what foul haunts they would linger out the remnant of life which was yet in store for them.