Evening star., 1921-09-25

+, library book, that he had been finger
him. 1t was still early evening in
! early summer, and there was still
| light in the cell. though hardly
enough to read by; but he. had not
been reading even when there had
active tonight. And now there was a
curiously wistful smile on his face.
He would miss that stumbling.
whispering voice. A most strange
thing to miss! Or was it the old man
himself whom he would miss? Not
tomorrow, not even next week. there
still remained sixty-three days-but
siXty-three days, with all the rest of
the five years behind them, gone,
served. wiped out. were like tomor.
row; and. as against a lifer's toll. it
was freedom, full porn and actually
present. Yes. he would miss Tony Lo-
mazzi. There was bond between
the old man and himself. In almost
the first flush of his entry into the
fight amongst his fellow convicts on
account of old Tony Two of them
had gone into the hospital, and he,
Dave Henderson, had gone into the
black hole.
He sat suddenly bolt upright on his
cot. He had not forgotten the horror
of thcse days Of solitary confinement.
He was not likely to forget them-the
silence. the blackness. The silence
that came at last to scream and shrek
at him In myriad voices out of the
blackness until he was upon the verge
of screaming and shrieking back in
raving, unhinged abandon: the black
ness that was as. the blackpess of the
be peopled with hideous phantom
shapes that plagued him until. face
down on his cot, he would dig his
fists into his eyes that he might not
see - the blackness! His hands
clenched hard as the memory of 1t
surged upon him; but a moment later
he laughed a little under his breath.
1t had been bad, bad enough: but he
wasn't there now. was he? Old Tony
hadn't deluged him with any excess
called him a fool-but there had been
a difference after that On the march
out from the cells. old Tony was al
ways the man behind him. and old
Tony's shoulder touch in the lock-step
wasn't as perfunctory as it had been
before. And there had been years Of
that. Yes, he would miss old Tony
LomaZZi!
1nstinctively he turned his head in
the direction of that voice that whis-
ing cell, and his face. lean and hard,
softened. and. tinping the dead-white
prison pallor. flush crept into his
cheeks. The man was Il lifer. A
lifer! God. he knew what that
meant! Five years of living hell
had taught him that. Five years
that were eternities piled upon
eternities. and they We're only a
short step along the path toward the
only goal to which a lifer could look
forward-death.
Yes. he knew: The massed
eternities, that were called five years
by those who walked outside in the
sunlight. where men laughed. and
women smiled, and children played,
had taught him why old Tony
Lomazzi clung to the bars and
whispered.
Five years. Was it only five years
since he had stood in the dock in
sentenced him to-fve years? The
scene was vivid and distinct enough.
Even the ages that spanned the gulf
between the now and then could not
efface that scene. nor dim 1t. nor rob
it of a single stark and naked detail.
Tydeman had been there-Martin X.
Tydeman, that prince of royal sports.
Tydeman was about the only man in
that courtroom whose presence had
made him uneasy; and yet Tydeman,
too, was the only man in that court
room who had been friendly toward
1nillionaire's plea for leniency that
the sentence had been five years, and
not ten, or fifteen. or twenty. or
whatever it might be that the erect.
spare little figure on. the bench. with
the thin, straight lips. had had the
right to pronounce. And Tydeman
was dead now.
Dave Henderson stirred uneasily
on the edge of the cot. He drew his
hand slowly across his eyes. He had
wished from the start, hadn't he,
that it might have been some one
else rather than Martin X. Tydeman?
But it had been Tydeman's money.
and the hundred thousand dollars
alone was all that had counted, and
Tydeman was dead now. had been
dead two or three years, and on that
score that ended it-didn't it"
The dark eyes, that had wavered
abstra ctedly around the cell. narrow
ed suddenly. and from their depths
a smoldering fire seemed to leap as