"Strange!" the reader will say.

Yet not so strange after all.

Every day had been filled with expectancy, and anticipation had discounted the reality.
Instead of waiting till eight o'clock, the usual breakfast hour, superintendent Burchell brought my last prison meal at seven.

I wondered at his haste, but when he came again, a few minutes later, to see if I had done, I saw through the game.

The authorities wished to "discharge" me rapidly, before the hour when my friends would assemble at the prison gates, and so lessen the force of the demonstration.