SCENE III

     FALDER's cell, a whitewashed space thirteen feet broad by seven
     deep, and nine feet high, with a rounded  ceiling.  The floor is
     of shiny blackened bricks.  The barred window of opaque glass,
     with a ventilator, is high up in the middle of the end wall.  In
     the middle of the opposite end wall is the narrow door.  In a
     corner are the mattress and bedding rolled up [two blankets, two
     sheets, and a coverlet].  Above them is a quarter-circular
     wooden shelf, on which is a Bible and several little devotional
     books, piled in a symmetrical pyramid; there are also a black
     hair brush, tooth-brush, and a bit of soap.  In another corner
     is the wooden frame of a bed, standing on end.  There is a dark
     ventilator under the window, and another over the door.
     FALDER'S work [a shirt to which he is putting buttonholes] is
     hung to a nail on the wall over a small wooden table, on which
     the novel "Lorna Doone" lies open.  Low down in the corner by
     the door is a thick glass screen, about a foot square, covering
     the gas-jet let into the wall. There is also a wooden stool, and
     a pair of shoes beneath it.  Three bright round tins are set
     under the window.

     In fast-failing daylight, FALDER, in his stockings, is seen
     standing motionless, with his head inclined towards the door,
     listening.  He moves a little closer to the door, his stockinged
     feet making no noise.  He stops at the door.  He is trying
     harder and harder to hear something, any little thing that is
     going on outside.  He springs suddenly upright--as if at a
     sound-and remains perfectly motionless.  Then, with a heavy
     sigh, he moves to his work, and stands looking at it, with his
     head doom; he does a stitch or two, having the air of a man so
     lost in sadness that each stitch is, as it were, a coming to
     life.  Then turning abruptly, he begins pacing the cell, moving
     his head, like an animal pacing its cage.  He stops again at the
     door, listens, and, placing the palms of hip hands against it
     with his fingers spread out, leans his forehead against the
     iron.  Turning from it, presently, he moves slowly back towards
     the window, tracing his way with his finger along the top line
     of the distemper that runs round the wall.  He stops under the
     window, and, picking up the lid of one of the tins, peers into
     it.  It has grown very nearly dark.  Suddenly the lid falls out
     of his hand with a clatter--the only sound that has broken the
     silence--and he stands staring intently at the wall where the
     stuff of the shirt is hanging rather white in the darkness--he
     seems to be seeing somebody or something there.  There is a
     sharp tap and click; the cell light behind the glass screen has
     been turned up.  The cell is brightly lighted.  FALDER is seen
     gasping for breath.

     A sound from far away, as of distant, dull beating on thick
     metal, is suddenly audible.  FALDER shrinks back, not able to
     bear this sudden clamour.  But the sound grows, as though some
     great tumbril were rolling towards the cell.  And gradually it
     seems to hypnotise him.  He begins creeping inch by inch
     nearer to the door.  The banging sound, travelling from cell to
     cell, draws closer and closer; FALDER'S hands are seen moving as
     if his spirit had already joined in this beating, and the sound
     swells till it seems to have entered the very cell.  He suddenly
     raises his clenched fists.  Panting violently, he flings himself
     at his door, and beats on it.


                         The curtain falls.