St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1909-02-13
Copyright, by shortstory Pub. Coz
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 1t
up and again started in pursuit. The
leaden hours rolled by slowly, but the
game continued Gilfillan blessed the
button. He began to feel 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 long search.
1t seemed alive. 1t became a COM
panion to him in that horrible, black
vault into which not one single ray OF
light came to pierce the darkness.
1t was ON the evening of the sixth day
that Nemesis clinched with Gilfillan.
The prisoner had, up to that moment,
thrown the button up 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
it 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 floor
Knocked their search. There was nc
button. Again and again and again
the prisoner searched Through the
cold hours of the night he crawled
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 he
INT he
Gilfillan tried to think. Why had il
not returned? he asked himself
What had happened to it? There was
nothing above him but bare walls, and
yet! Where was it? Again and
again he whispered the question of the
thick black pail that seemed to heave
around him. He asked it In louder
tone. He screamed it. Then some.
thing like laugh came from one
corner of that misunderstanding Dit OF
horror. and GiIfillan was panic
stricken.
Imagination, contrary to the opinion
of scientific experts, lies in the stom.
fSh, and the bread and water diet that
Gflf1llan had been receiving was not
sufficiently weighty to keep it down
The prisoner began to see things. The
thick waves of curse-incrusted dark
ness welled up from the corners and
smothered him. Invisible hands
grasped his throat and strangled him
He kicked at the door leading into the
dark corridor opening into the main
wing, but Warder Tomlinson, of the
night watch, was slightly deaf, and
dId not hear him. He raced around
the cell with Terror-grasping gibber.
ing Terror-at his heels, and the
stone vault echoed to his wild screams
of agony.
When Warder Dunworth opened the
door on the morning of the seventh
DAY to acquaint Gilfillan Of the fact
lnat MS term in dark cell was over
the hands of Terror had compIeted
the1r work. The prisoners face was
battered beyond recognition where
ne had dashed against the walls in his
mao race, and he shrieked wildly
When the Warder attempted to drag
him into the light.
Eleven years afterwards. when an
enlightened prison controller did awav
with the dark cells, the masons. tear.
ing down the black vault at EnIota
found jacket button securely
fastened in thick cobweb near the
celilng OF the cell. But in the Grim.
1nal ward of Enlota insane asylum
prisoner still spends his DAVIS and
nights hunting for that button.