Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1909-01-28
Copyright. by shOrtstory Pub. Col
By JAMES FRANCIS DWYER

a far-away corner of the cell, and
on hands and knees he started to
search for it.
The sport fascinated him. When he
discovered the metal disc he spun it
up and again started in pursuit. The
leaden hours rolled by slowly, but the
game continued. Gilfllan blessed the
button. He began to feel a love for it.
He called to it when 1t hid from him
in the cracks between the cold stones,
and he cried Historically over it when
he discovered it after a long search.
1t seemed alive. 1t became q COM
panion to him in that horrible, black
vault into which not one single ray of
light came to pierece the darkness.
1t was on the evening of the sixth day
that Nemesis clinched with Gilfllan.
The prisoner had. up to that moment,
thrown the button up a thousand
times and found it in each occasion by
laboriously searching on hands and
knees. But on the evening Of the
sixth day a peculiar incident hap
pened.
The prisoner threw the button up
into the blackness, but it did not come
down again.
Gilfllan waited with aching ears to
hear the tinkle of the metal on the
stone, but he heard no sound. The
button didn't fall, and the silence that
filled the cell as he stood listening,
hurt him. He clenched his teeth to
strangle a scream of terror that fear
pushed to his lips. What was wrong?
The prisoners trembling knees gave
way under him and he sank to the
floor. His hands moved out into the
darkness and commenced to feel the
stone flooring, but every nerve was
taut.
On every other occasion when he
had tossed up the button he had heard
1t fall distinctly, but he was certain
that there was not the slightest sound
after the last toss. Still, he would
search.
The hot hands crept over the stones
eagerly, feverishly. The fingers
worked madly, but the bare flool
Knocked their search. There was nc
button. Again and again and agair
the prisoner searched. Through the
cold hours of the night he crawlet
backwards and forwards till each join
ing between those tombstones of Hope
seemed familiar to his blind fingers
But there was nothing on the floor
The button had not fallen after hi
had jerked it into the b~lackness.
Gilfllan tried to think. Why had i
not returned? he asked himself
What had happened to it? There wa
nothing above him but bare walls, ant
yet! Where was it? Again ant
again he whispered the question of tn
thick black pail that seemed to heav,
around him. He asked it in a loude
tone. He screamed it. Then some
thing like a laugh came from on
corner of that misunderstanding pit O
horror, and Gilfllan was PAM
stricken.
Imagination, contrary to the opinioi
of scientific experts, lies in the ston
ach, and the bread and water diet tina
Gilfillan had been receiving was nc
sufficiently weighty to keep it dowr
The prisoner began to see things. TIL
thick waves of curse-incrusted darl
ness welled up from the corners an
smothered him. Invisible hand
grasped his throat and strangled hin
He kicked at the door leading into tn
dark corridor opening into the mai
wing, but Warder Tomlinson, of tn
night watch, was slightly deaf, az
did not hear him. He raced aroun
the cell with Terror-grasping, gibbel
ing Terror-at his heels, and tn
stone vault echoed to his wild scream
!, of agony.
| When Warder Dunworth opened tn
door on the morning of the sevent
day to acquaint Gilillan of the fac
that his term in dark cell was ovel
the hands of Terror had complete
} their work. The prisoners face wa
battered beyond recognition wher
, he had dashed against the walls in hi
t mad race, and he shrieked wildl
l when the warder attempted to dra
him into the light.
! Eleven years afterwards, when a
> enlightened prison controller did ava
, with the dark cells, the masons, tea
ing down the black vault at Enloti
found a jacket button secured
. fastened in a thick co5web zeal tn
. ceiling of the cell. But in the erin
inal ward of Enlota insane asylum
+ prisoner still spends his days an
nights hunting for that button.
n