Then, our mess-tins cleaned, we go down to the great yard, gray and stagnant.

Just as we pour out into it, there is the clash of a closing gate and a tightened chain.

An armed sentry goes up and down before the gate.

It is forbidden to go out under pain of court-martial.

To westward, beyond some indistinct land, we see the buried station, reddening and smoking like a factory, and sending out rusty flashes.