They did not secure any result except to increase the prisoners' wonder that such ill-tempered fools could be given any position of responsibility.
A short time previous to our entry Barrett thought he had reason to suspect a tunnel.

He immediately announced that no more rations should be issued until its whereabouts was revealed and the ringleaders in the attempt to escape delivered up to him.

The rations at that time were very scanty, so that the first day they were cut off the sufferings were fearful.

The boys thought he would surely relent the next day, but they did not know their man.

He was not suffering any, why should he relax his severity?
He strolled leisurely out from his dinner table, picking his teeth with his penknife in the comfortable, self-satisfied way of a coarse man who has just filled his stomach to his entire content--an attitude and an air that was simply maddening to the famishing wretches, of whom he inquired tantalizingly: "Air ye're hungry enough to give up them G-d d d s--s of b----s yet ?" That night thirteen thousand men, crazy, fainting with hunger, walked hither and thither, until exhaustion forced them to become quiet, sat on the ground and pressed their bowels in by leaning against sticks of wood laid across their thighs; trooped to the Creek and drank water until their gorges rose and they could swallow no more--did everything in fact that imagination could suggest--to assuage the pangs of the deadly gnawing that was consuming their vitals.