CHAPTER XVII.
DAYLIGHT.
A new day dawned for me on the twenty-fifth of February. I rose
as usual a few minutes before six. It was the morning of my release,
or in prison language my "discharge." Yet I felt no excitement.
I was as calm as my cell walls. "Strange!" the reader will say.
Yet not so strange after all. Every day had been filled with expectancy,
and anticipation had discounted the reality.
Instead of waiting till eight o'clock, the usual breakfast hour,
superintendent Burchell brought my last prison meal at seven.
I wondered at his haste, but when he came again, a few minutes later,
to see if I had done, I saw through the game. The authorities wished
to "discharge" me rapidly, before the hour when my friends would
assemble at the prison gates, and so lessen the force of the
demonstration. I slackened speed at once, drank my tea in sips,
and munched my dry bread with great deliberation. "Come," said
superintendent Burchell, "you're very slow this morning." "Oh,"
I replied, "there's no hurry; after twelve months of it a few minutes
make little difference." Burchell put the words and my smile together,
and gave the game up.
Down in the bathroom at the foot of the debtors' wing my clothes
were set out, and some kind hand had spread a piece of bright carpet
for my feet. I dressed very leisurely. With equal tardiness I went
through the ceremony of receiving my effects, carefully checking
every article, and counting the money coin by coin.
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