'Yes, said his companion. They walked on in silence, once round, twice round, three times round.

  'Talk, you two, shouted the warder. 'That's your instructions. Talk.

  'It makes a change, said the big man.

  'What are you here for? asked Paul. 'You don't mind my asking, do you?

  'It's all in the Bible, said the big man. 'You should read about it there. Figuratively, you know, he added. 'It wouldn't be plain to you, I don't suppose, not like it is to me.

  'It's not an easy book to understand, is it?

  'It's not understanding that's needed. It's vision. Do you ever have visions?

  'No, I'm afraid I don't.

  'Nor does the Chaplain. He's no Christian. It was a vision brought me here, an angel clothed in flame, with a crown of flame on his head, crying "Kill and spare not. The Kingdom is at hand." Would you like to hear about it? I'll tell you. I'm a carpenter by profession, or at least I was, you understand. He spoke with a curious blend of cockney and Biblical English. 'Not a joiner ‑ a cabinet-maker. Well, one day I was just sweeping out the shop before shutting up when the angel of the Lord came in. I didn't know who it was at first. "Just in time," I said. "What can I do for you?" Then I noticed that all about him there was a red flame and a circle of flame over his head, same as I've been telling you. Then he told me how the Lord had numbered His elect and the day of tribulation was at hand. "Kill and spare not," he says. I'd not been sleeping well for some time before this. I'd been worrying about my soul and whether I was saved. Well, all that night I thought of what the angel had told me. I didn't see his meaning, not at first, same as you wouldn't. Then it all came to me in a flash. Unworthy that I am, I am the Lord's appointed, said the carpenter. 'I am the sword of Israel; I am the lion of the Lord's elect.

  'And did you kill anybody? asked Paul.

  'Unworthy that I am, I smote the Philistine; in the name of the Lord of hosts, I struck off his head. It was for a sign of Israel. And now I am gone into captivity, and the mirth is turned into weeping, but the Lord shall deliver me in His appointed time. Woe unto the Philistine in that day! woe unto the uncircumcised! It were better that a stone were hanged about his neck and he were cast into the depths of the sea.

  The warder rang his bell. 'Inside, you two! he shouted.

  'Any complaints? asked the Governor on his rounds.

  'Yes, sir, said Paul.

  The Governor looked at him intently. 'Are you the man I put under special treatment?

  'Yes, sir.

  'Then it's ridiculous to complain. What is it?

  'I have reason to believe that the man I have to take exercise with is a dangerous lunatic.

  'Complaints by one prisoner about another can only be considered when substantiated by the evidence of a warder or of two other prisoners, said the Chief Warder.

  'Quite right, said the Governor. 'I never heard a more ridiculous complaint. All crime is a form of insanity. I myself chose the prisoner with whom you exercise. I chose him for his peculiar suitability. Let me hear no more on this subject, please.

  That afternoon Paul spent another disquieting half-hour on the square.

  'I've had another vision, said the mystical homicide. 'But I don't yet know quite what it portends. No doubt I shall be told.

  'Was it a very beautiful vision? asked Paul.

  'No words can describe the splendour of it. It was all crimson and wet like blood. I saw the whole prison as if it were carved of ruby, hard and glittering, and the warders and the prisoners creeping in and out like little red ladybirds. And then as I watched all the ruby became soft and wet, like a great sponge soaked in wine, and it was dripping and melting into a great lake of scarlet. Then I woke up. I don't know the meaning of it yet, but I feel that the hand of the Lord is hanging over this prison. D'you ever feel like that, as though it were built in the jaws of a beast? I sometimes dream of a great red tunnel like the throat of a beast and men running down it, sometimes one by one and sometimes in great crowds, running town the throat of the beast, and the breath of the beast is like the blast of a furnace. D'you ever feel like that?

  'I'm afraid not, said Paul. 'Have they given you an interesting library book?

  'Lady Almina's Secret, said the lion of the Lord's elect. 'Pretty soft stuff, old‑fashioned, too. But I keep reading the Bible. There's a lot of killing in that.

  'Dear me, you seem to think about killing a great deal.

  'I do. It's my mission, you see, said the big man simply.

  * * *

  Sir Wilfred Lucas-Dockery felt very much like Solomon at ten o'clock every morning of the week except Sunday. It was then that he sat in judgement upon the cases of misconduct among the prisoners that were brought to his notice. From his chair Colonel MacAdder had delivered sentence in undeviating accordance with the spirit and the letter of the Standing Orders Concerning the Government of Her Majesty's Prisons, dispensing automatic justice like a slot machine; in went the offence; out came the punishment. Not so Wilfred Lucas‑Dockery. Never, he felt, was his mind more alert or resourceful or his vast accumulation of knowledge more available than at his little court of summary justice. 'No one knows what to expect, complained warders and prisoners alike.

  'Justice, said Sir Wilfred, 'is the capacity for regarding each case as an entirely new problem. After a few months of his administration, Sir Wilfred was able to point with some pride to a marked diminution in the number of cases brought before him.

  One morning, soon after Paul began on his special régime of reclamation, his companion was called up before the Governor.

  'God bless my soul! said Sir Wilfred; 'that's the man I put on special treatment. What is he here for?

  'I was on night duty last night between the hours of 8 p.m. and 4 a.m., testified the warder in a sing‑song voice, 'when my attention was attracted by sounds of agitation coming from the prisoner's cell. Upon going to the observation hole I observed the prisoner pacing up and down his cell in a state of high excitement. In one hand he held his Bible, and in the other a piece of wood which he had broken from his stool. His eyes were staring; he was breathing heavily, and at times muttering verses of the Bible. I remonstrated with the prisoner when he addressed me in terms prejudicial to good discipline.

  'What are the words complained of? asked the Chief Warder.

  'He called me a Moabite, an abomination of Moab, a wash‑pot, an unclean thing, an uncircumcised Moabite, an idolater, and a whore of Babylon, sir.

  'I see. What do you advise, officer?

  'A clear case of insubordination, sir, said the Chief Warder. 'Try him on No. 1 diet for a bit.

  But when he asked the Chief Warder's opinion, Sir Wilfred was not really seeking advice. He liked to emphasize in his own mind, and perhaps that of the prisoner's, the difference between the official view and his own. 'What would you say was the most significant part of the evidence? he asked.

  The Chief Warder considered. 'I think whore of Babylon, on the whole, sir.

  Sir Wilfred smiled as a conjurer may who has forced the right card.

  'Now I, he said, 'am of different opinion. It may surprise you, but I should say that the significant thing about this case was the fact that the prisoner held a piece of the stool.

  'Destruction of prison property, said the Chief Warder. 'Yes, that's pretty bad.

  'Now what was your profession before conviction? asked the Governor, turning to the prisoner.

  'Carpenter, sir.

  'I knew it, said the Governor triumphantly. 'We have another case of the frustrated creative urge. Now listen, my man. It is very wrong of you to insult the officer, who is clearly none of the things you mentioned. He symbolizes the just disapproval of society and is, like all the prison staff, a member of the Church of England. But I understand your difficulty. You have been used to creative craftsmanship, have you not, and you find prison life deprives you of the means of self‑expression, and your energies find vent in these foolish outbursts? I will see to it that a bench and a set of carpenter's tools are provided for you. The first thing you shall do is to mend the piece of furniture you so wantonly destroyed. After that we will find other work for you in your old trade. You may go. Get to the cause of the trouble, Sir Wilfred added when the prisoner was led away; 'your Standing Orders may repress the symptoms; they do not probe to the underlying cause.

  * * *

  Two days later the prison was in a state of intense excitement. Something had happened. Paul woke as the bell rang at the usual time, but it was nearly half an hour before the doors were unlocked. He heard the warder's 'Slops outside! getting nearer and nearer, interjected with an occasional 'Don't ask questions, 'Mind your own business, or a sinister 'You'll know soon enough, in reply to the prisoner's questions. They, too, had sensed something unusual. Perhaps it was an outbreak of some disease ‑ spotted fever, Paul thought, or a national disaster in the world outside ‑ a war or revolution. In their enforced silence the nerves of all the men were tightened to an acuteness of perception. Paul read wholesale massacres in the warder's face.

  'Anything wrong? he asked.

  'I should bleeding well say there was, said the warder, 'and the next man as asks me a question is going to cop it hot.

  Paul began scrubbing out his cell. Dissatisfied curiosity contended in his thoughts with irritation at this interruption of routine. Two warders passed his door talking.

  'I don't say I'm not sorry for the poor bird. All I says is, it was time the Governor had a lesson.

  'It might have been one of us, said the other warder in a hushed voice.

  Breakfast arrived. As the hand appeared at his door Paul whispered: 'What's happened?

  'Why, ain't you 'eard? There's been a murder, shocking bloodthirsty.

  'Get on there, roared the warder in charge of the landing.

  So the Governor had been murdered, thought Paul; he had been a rnischievous old bore. Still, it was very disturbing, for the news of a murder which was barely noticed in the gay world of trams and tubes and boxing-matches caused an electric terror in this community of silent men. The interval between breakfast and chapel seemed interminable. At last the bell went. The doors were opened again. They marched in silence to the chapel. As it happened, Philbrick was in the next seat to Paul. The warders sat on raised seats, watchful for any attempt at conversation. The hymn was the recognized time for the exchange of gossip. Paul waited for it impatiently. Clearly it was not the Governor who had been murdered. He stood on the chancel steps, Prayerbook in hand. Mr Prendergast was nowhere to be seen. The Governor conducted the service. The Medical Officer read the lessons, stumbling heavily over the longer words. Where was Mr Prendergast?

  At last the hymn was announced. The organ struck up, played with great feeling by a prisoner who until his conviction had been assistant organist at a Welsh cathedral. All over the chapel the men filled their chests for a burst of conversation.

  'O God, our help in ages past, sang Paul.

  'Where's Prendergast to‑day?

  'What, ain't you 'eard? 'e's been done in.

  'And our eternal home.

  'Old Prendy went to see a chap

  What said he'd seen a ghost;

  Well, he was dippy, and he'd got

  A mallet and a saw.

  'Who let the madman have the things?

  'The Governor; who d'you think?

  He asked to be a carpenter,

  He sawed off Prendy's head.

  'A pal of mine what lives next door,

  'E 'eard it 'appening;

  The warder must 'ave 'eard it too,

  'E didn't interfere.

  'Time, like an ever‑rolling stream,

  Bears all its sons away.

  'Poor Prendy 'ollered fit to kill

  For nearly 'alf an hour.

  'Damned lucky it was Prendergast,

  Might 'ave been you or me!

  The warder says ‑ and I agree -

  It serves the Governor right.

  'Amen.

  From all points of view it was lucky that the madman had chosen Mr Prendergast for attack. Some people even suggested that the choice had been made in a more responsible quarter. The death of a prisoner or warder would have called for a Home Office inquiry which might seriously have discouraged the Lucas‑Dockery reforms and also reflected some discredit upon the administration of the Chief Warder. Mr Prendergast's death passed almost unnoticed. His assassin was removed to Broadmoor, and the life of the prison went on smoothly. It was observed, however, that the Chief Warder seemed to have more influence with his superior than he had had before. Sir Wilfred concentrated his attention upon the statistics, and the life of the prison was equitably conducted under the Standing Orders. It was quite like it had been in old MacAdder's day, the warders observed. But Paul did not reap the benefits of this happy reversion to tradition, because some few days later he was removed with a band of others to the Convict Settlement at Egdon Heath.

  CHAPTER IV Nor Iron Bars a Cage

  The granite walls of Egdon Heath Penal Settlement are visible, when there is no mist, from the main road, and it is not uncommon for cars to stop there a few moments while the occupants stand up and stare happily about them. They are looking for convicts, and as often as not they are rewarded by seeing move across the heath before them a black group of men chained together and uniformly dressed, with a mounted and armed warder riding at their side. They give an appearance of industry which on investigation is quite illusionary, for so much of the day at Egdon is taken up with marching to and from the quarries, in issuing and counting tools, in guarding and chaining and releasing the workmen, that there is very little work done. But there is usually something to be seen from the road, enough, anyway, to be imagined from the very aspect of the building to send the trippers off to their teas with their consciences agreeably unquiet at the memory of small dishonesties in railway trains, inaccurate income tax returns, and the hundred and one minor infractions of law that are inevitable in civilized life.

  Paul arrived from Blackstone late one afternoon in early autumn with two warders and six other long‑sentence prisoners. The journey had been spent in an ordinary third‑class railway carriage, where the two warders smoked black tobacco in cheap little wooden pipes and were inclined towards conversation.

  'You'll find a lot of improvements since you were here last, said one of them. 'There's two coloured‑glass windows in the chapel presented by the last Governor's widow. Lovely they are, St Peter and St Paul in prison being released by an angel. Some of the Low Church prisoners don't like them, though.

  'We had a lecture last week, too, but it wasn't very popular ‑ "The Work of the League of Nations", given by a young chap of the name of Potts. Still, it makes a change. I hear you've been having a lot of changes at Blackstone.

  'I should just about think we have, said one of the convicts, and proceeded to give a somewhat exaggerated account of the death of Mr Prendergast.

  Presently one of the warders, observing that Paul seemed shy of joining in the conversation, handed him a daily paper. 'Like to look at this, sonny? he said. 'It's the last you'll see for some time.

  There was very little in it to interest Paul, whose only information from the outside world during the last six weeks had come from Sir Wilfred Lucas‑Dockery's weekly bulletins (for one of the first discoveries of his captivity was that interest in 'news' does not spring from genuine curiosity, but from the desire for completeness. During his long years of freedom he had scarcely allowed a day to pass without reading fairly fully from at least two newspapers, always pressing on with a series of events which never came to an end. Once the series was broken he had little desire to resume it), but he was deeply moved to discover on one of the middle plates an obscure but recognizable photograph of Margot and Peter. 'The Honourable Mrs Beste‑Chetwynde, it said below, 'and her son, Peter, who succeeds his uncle as Earl of Pastmaster. In the next column was an announcement of the death of Lord Pastmaster and a brief survey of his uneventful life. At the end it said, 'It is understood that Mrs Beste‑Chetwynde and the young Earl, who have been spending the last few months at their villa in Corfu, will return to England in a few days. Mrs Beste‑Chetwynde has for many years been a prominent hostess in the fashionable world and is regarded as one of the most beautiful women in Society. Her son's succession to the earldom recalls the sensation caused in May of this year by the announcement of her engagement to Mr Paul Pennyfeather and the dramatic arrest of the bridegroom at a leading West End hotel a few hours before the wedding ceremony. The new Lord Pastmaster is sixteen years old, and has up till now been educated privately.

  Paul sat back in the carriage for a long time looking at the photograph, while his companions played several hands of poker in reckless disregard of Standing Orders. In his six weeks of solitude and grave consideration he had failed to make up his mind about Margot Beste-Chetwynde; it was torn and distracted by two conflicting methods of thought. On one side was the dead weight of precept, inherited from generations of schoolmasters and divines. According to these, the problem was difficult but not insoluble. He had 'done the right thing' in shielding the woman: so much was clear, but Margot had not quite filled the place assigned to her, for in this case she was grossly culpable, and he was shielding her, not from misfortune nor injustice, but from the consequence of her crimes; he felt a flush about his knees as Boy Scout honour whispered that Margot had got him into a row and ought jolly well to own up and face the music. As he sat over his post‑bags he had wrestled with this argument without achieving any satisfactory result except a growing conviction that there was something radically inapplicable about this whole code of ready‑made honour that is the still small voice, trained to command, of the Englishman all the world over. On the other hand was the undeniable cogency of Peter Beste‑Chetwynde's. 'You can't see Mamma in prison, can you? The more Paul considered this, the more he perceived it to be the statement of a natural law. He appreciated the assumption of comprehension with which Peter had delivered it. As he studied Margot's photograph, dubiously transmitted as it was, he was strengthened in his belief that there was, in fact, and should be, one law for her and another for himself, and that the raw little exertions of nineteenth‑century Radicals were essentially base and trivial and misdirected. It was not simply that Margot had been very rich or that he had been in love with her. It was just that he saw the impossibility of Margot in prison; the bare connexion of vocables associating the ideas was obscene. Margot dressed in prison uniform, hustled down corridors by wardresses all like the younger Miss Fagan ‑ visited by philanthropic old ladies with devotional pamphlets, set to work in the laundry washing the other prisoners' clothes ‑ these things were impossible, and if the preposterous processes of law had condemned her, then the woman that they actually caught and pinned down would not have been Margot, but some quite other person of the same name and somewhat similar appearance. It was impossible to imprison the Margot who had committed the crime. If some one had to suffer that the public might be discouraged from providing poor Mrs Grimes with the only employment for which civilization had prepared her, then it had better be Paul than that other woman with Margot's name, for anyone who has been to an English public school will always feel comparatively at home in prison. It is the people brought up in the gay intimacy of the slums, Paul learned, who find prison so soul‑destroying.