The most atrocious experience of the pickets at Occoquan was, however, on the night known to them generally as _The Night of Terror_. This happened to that group of Suffragists who were arrested on November 14, sentenced to Occoquan, and who immediately went on hunger-strike as a protest against not being treated as political prisoners and as the last protest they could make against their imprisonment. Whittaker was away when they arrived, and they were kept in the office which was in the front room of one of the small cottages. Out of these groups there always evolved a leader. If the group included the suave and determined Lucy Burns, she inevitably took command. If it included Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, equally velvet-voiced and immovable, she inevitably became spokesman. This group included both. The Suffragists were then still making their demand to be treated as political prisoners, and so, when the woman at the desk—a Mrs. Herndon—attempted to ask the usual questions, Mrs. Lewis, speaking for the rest, refused to answer them, saying that she would wait and talk to Mr. Whittaker. “You will sit here all night then,” said Mrs. Herndon. The women waited for hours. Mrs. Lewis always describes what follows as a sinister reversal of a French tale of horror she read in her girlhood. In that story, people began mysteriously to disappear from a group. One of them would be talking one instant—the next he was gone; the space where he stood was empty. In this case, slowly, silently, and in increasing numbers, men began to appear from outside, three and then four. Mrs. Herndon again tried to get the Suffragists to register, but they made no reply. “You had better answer up, or it will be the worse for you,” said one man. “I will handle you so you’ll be sorry you made me,” said another. The Suffragists did not reply. Mrs. Nolan says that she could see that Mrs. Herndon was afraid of what was going to happen. Suddenly the door burst open, and Whittaker came rushing in from a conference, it was later discovered, of the District of Columbia Commissioners at the White House—followed by men—more and more of them. The Suffragists had been sitting or lying on the floor. Mrs. Lewis stood up. “We demand to be treated as political pris——” she began. But that was as far as she got. “You shut up! I have men here glad to handle you!” Whittaker said. “Seize her!” Two men seized Mrs. Lewis, dragged her out of the sight of the remaining Suffragists. In the meantime, another man sprang at Mrs. Nolan, who, it will be remembered, was over seventy years old, very frail and lame. She says: I am used to being careful of my bad foot, and I remember saying: “I will come with you; do not drag me. I have a lame foot.” But I was dragged down the steps and away into the dark. I did not have my feet on the ground. I guess that saved me.