The daily visits I could make him were shortened now, and he was more
strictly kept. Seeing, or fancying, that I was suspected of an intention
of carrying poison to him, I asked to be searched before I sat down
at his bedside, and told the officer who was always there, that I was
willing to do anything that would assure him of the singleness of my
designs. Nobody was hard with him or with me. There was duty to be
done, and it was done, but not harshly. The officer always gave me the
assurance that he was worse, and some other sick prisoners in the
room, and some other prisoners who attended on them as sick nurses,
(malefactors, but not incapable of kindness, God be thanked!) always
joined in the same report.
As the days went on, I noticed more and more that he would lie placidly
looking at the white ceiling, with an absence of light in his face
until some word of mine brightened it for an instant, and then it would
subside again. Sometimes he was almost or quite unable to speak, then
he would answer me with slight pressures on my hand, and I grew to
understand his meaning very well.
The number of the days had risen to ten, when I saw a greater change
in him than I had seen yet. His eyes were turned towards the door, and
lighted up as I entered.
"Dear boy," he said, as I sat down by his bed: "I thought you was late.
But I knowed you couldn't be that."
"It is just the time," said I. "I waited for it at the gate."
"You always waits at the gate; don't you, dear boy?"
"Yes. Not to lose a moment of the time."
"Thank'ee dear boy, thank'ee. God bless you! You've never deserted me,
dear boy."
I pressed his hand in silence, for I could not forget that I had once
meant to desert him.
"And what's the best of all," he said, "you've been more comfortable
alonger me, since I was under a dark cloud, than when the sun shone.
That's best of all."
He lay on his back, breathing with great difficulty. Do what he would,
and love me though he did, the light left his face ever and again, and a
film came over the placid look at the white ceiling.
"Are you in much pain to-day?"
"I don't complain of none, dear boy."
"You never do complain."