The boy did not sleep that night, but shrunk away from his bed shuddering. Its heavy, gray blankets seemed laden with disease and sorrow left by some one who had gone before. The dull atmosphere of the prison settled down upon him with sickening density. Into the farthest corner of his whitewashed cell he shrunk, and cowering there, like some poor wounded fawn in its covert, listened to all the noises of the night with ears rendered keen by terror. The smothered moans of the prisoners, the scuttle of rats about the water-pipes, the tramp of the keeper on the stone pavement, far below, all had a weird effect upon him, which amounted almost to madness. Is it strange that the boy did not sleep, and that he crouched low in that dark corner all night long? The dull gray of the morning found him there pale, still, and wildly expectant, as if the next thing that could reach him must be death itself. Then came the clang of opening doors, the harsh sound of feet moving to and fro on the stone pavement, a confusion of voices in command, complaint, piteous expostulation, and coarse oaths; for bad men might be chained by the ankle, but nothing could manacle the vile speech to which they had become so used that it was second nature to them. Now this boy had been bred among women, gentle, good women who feared, or rather loved God, and were kind to each other. Even his mother, though silent, and sometimes a little unsympathetic, was rigid in her ideas of religion, and sanctioned nothing coarse or wicked, either in speech or thought. So the boy had learned all that a delicate girl should have known; and this, added to his natural manliness, had made him far more refined and gentle than lads of his age usually are. He was not the less spirited and ambitious because of the refinement which sprang out of his home life. Real energy is, in fact, all the more effective when a clear conscience and cultivated mind directs it, both in child and man. But what could energy avail the lad in that dreary place? He had nothing to struggle against; a vague idea that he was suspected of crime, and brought there to suffer some terrible punishment, preyed upon him, but what the charge was, or how to help himself, was beyond his power of conjecture. Some bread, and a teacupful of dark liquid the keeper spoke of as coffee, was brought to the cell where he sat trembling and fearfully expectant. The poor boy turned his face away from this food with sick loathing. It seemed as if he could never eat or drink again.