When the silence had soaked in thoroughly, he announced in his cold, incisive tone that "there will be no rest periods, no chow, no 'Beddy-by,' until this entire rock face is reduced to ballast rock." He indicated a towering slab of stone. We raised our heads only long enough to reassure ourselves of the utter hopelessness of the task before us. Not daring to look at each other closely, fearing to see our own despair reflected in the faces of others, we picked up our hammers and crowbars and crawled to the top of the monolithic mass. The film must have cleared from my eyes then, momentarily. "Why--this thing is nothing but a huge writing slate," I said to a small, bald inmate beside me. He made a feeble noise in reply. The Captain left, and the only other guard now relaxed in the shade of a boulder nearly fifty yards away. He was smoking a forbidden cigar. Suddenly and unaccountably, I felt a little taller than the others, and everything looked unnaturally clear. The slab was less than six inches wide at the top! "If we work this thing right, this job will practically do itself. We'll be through here before sundown," I heard myself snap out. The others, accustomed now to obeying any imperative voice, fell to with crowbars and peaveys as I directed them. "Use them as levers," I said. "Don't just flail and hack--pry!" No one questioned me. When all of the tools were in position I gave the count: "_One--two--HEAVE!_" The huge slab finally leaned out, wavered for a queasy moment, then fell with a splintering crash onto the boulders below. After the dust settled, we could see that much of the work of breaking up the mass was already accomplished. We descended and set to work with an enthusiasm that was new. Long before sundown, of course, we were marched back to the latrine and then to the mess hall. Later I had expected that some further work would be thrust upon us, but it didn't happen. The grim Captain stopped me as I entered the mess hall. I froze. There was a queer smile on his face, and I had grown to fear novelty. "You had a moment," he said, simply and declaratively. "You didn't miss it, did you?" "No," I replied, not fully understanding. "No, I didn't miss it." "You are more fortunate than most," he went on, still standing between me and the mess hall. "Some people come here year after year, or they go to other places like this, or permit themselves to be confined in the hulls of old submarines, and some even apprentice themselves to medical missionaries in Equatorial Africa; they expose themselves to every conceivable combination of external conditions, but nothing really happens to them. They feel nothing except a fleeting sensation of contrast--soon lost in a torrent of other sensations. No 'moment'; only a brief cessation of the continuing pleasure process. You have been one of the fortunate few, Mr. Devoe."