Atlanta Georgian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, 1912-07-31
The Gates Of Silence"
BY Meta Smmtn5, Author Of " Hustled Up


self to Rimington as, later, he sat In the
cell to which he had been taken-no
longer that grim anteroom to Deaths aud
ience chamber, but a temporary cell
where he would remain until he was
drafted out to begin the new life into
which he had been born-the life Of con
Wet condemned TO penal servitude for
life The reprieve which had been grant
ed to hm-was ii blessing or a curse?
In those first moments in the govern
or's presence when he had realized that
he was not to die. his thoughts had rushed
out to embrace life with a joy and thanks
giving that had bee nso poignant in its
emotion as to cause that womanish faint
which had surprised and Inundated him.
But now-facing the future-facing seven
thousand odd days and nights which
stretched between him and even the hope
Of liberty lit was very different
Twenty Years,
Twenty years In twenty years, if, by
the most exemplary behavior he succeeded
in never losing his remission marks and
by an effort Of self control that even to
contemplate at that moment was tor
ture. he could succeed in making himself
an absolutely passive instrument in the
hands Of those who from henceforth would
have the ordering of his life, he would be
a tree man free mani The words
echoed in Rimingtons brain with bitter
irony An elderly man, broken by prison
life demoralzed perhaps, heaven knew,
by prison association. man who had
cheated the gallows by a fluke, who had
fallen out of his place in the world for
twenty wears What mockery' free
man free man.
And Betty?
No no; he must not think Of her He
could not-he would go mad. He must
shut out all though Of her forever from
his heart-dig a grave for his love and
bury it deep deep--stamp down the cold
wet clay on it with ruthless feet Betty
was lost to him now forever, II was not
decent that dead man as he was should
associate himself in thought with living
woman Before 1t had been different,
going out TO death he had the right to
look forward to reunion beyond the stars.
Now. In the twenty years that stretched
between them, much could happen. 1t
was not conceive BILE thai any woman
could wait twenty years for a-feon. He
would pray every day that she would learn
to see the folly of such waiting In TWEEN
tY years she might become the wife Of an
other man, the mother Of his children -
An Betty Betty! In twenty years! The
mockerY of it,
He sprang to his feet. laughing mad
laughter laughter that rang through the
cell. waking no echo, attracting no atten-
ton They were used to the laughter to
the tears-that are allied to madness
there in those four walls that are fronted
by the grim Gates Of Silence.
Yet if al first he had found that it was
easier to face death with unfalterng
courage than this new life which stretched
out before him in an mimitable vista of
monotony. Jack Remington began as the
time passed to realize that life was sweet
in the possessing that even this life OF
servitude was impregnated with the per
fume of hope.
The chaplain had visited him again
and the doctor alsoa less human per
son than the chaplain, perhaps. but a
good sort all the same-who spoke CHEEKY
words that Remington did not forget
you're beginning a prisoner in ear
nest Well, let me give you an unofficial
! tip Give your will a rest cure while
you're in prison Good conduct in prison
and out of it are different things men
tally s the most useless of sciences to
hfer'"
Beginning as a prisoner in earnest!
The words had an ugly ring. There had
been little enough Of make believe In
what he had endured hitherto Rimington
thought But he was to realize very
acutely the gulf which exists between
the eniency of the treatment melted out
| to the man under sentence of death and
the regulation of penal servitude men
Hitherto he had known nothing by per
sonal experience of the degradation OF
prison death, Of the prison crop, of the
physical examination-all those insignifi
cant items which eat into the soul of the
gently nurtured man in prison. each. as
1t were. cut from the knife that whit
ties down his personality and reduces him
to human automaton without SO much
as name.
Leaving the Prison.
He left the prison that was to have
been his place Of execution and his grave
on the afternoon following his reprieve
He had no idea of his destna ton, though
from vague impressions in his own minC
and from the conversation overheard il
the prison van, he believed he was being
drafted to Norwood Scrubs
To Be Continued in Next Issue.