I was feverish, and on occasion I drank sparingly of water from a stinking goatskin.

This goatskin I kept hanging in the sun that the stench of the skin might increase and that there might be no refreshment of coolness in the water.

Food there was, lying in the dirt on my cave- floor--a few roots and a chunk of mouldy barley-cake; and hungry I was, although I did not eat.
All I did that blessed, livelong day was to sweat and swelter in the sun, mortify my lean flesh upon the rock, gaze out of the desolation, resurrect old memories, dream dreams, and mutter my convictions aloud.
And when the sun set, in the swift twilight I took a last look at the world so soon to pass.

About the feet of the colossi I could make out the creeping forms of beasts that laired in the once proud works of men.
And to the snarls of the beasts I crawled into my hole, and, muttering and dozing, visioning fevered fancies and praying that the last day come quickly, I ebbed down into the darkness of sleep.
* * * * * Consciousness came back to me in solitary, with the quartet of torturers about me.
"Blasphemous and heretical Warden of San Quentin whose feet have fast hold of hell," I gibed, after I had drunk deep of the water they held to my lips.

"Let the jailers and the trusties triumph.