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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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birds, and there was an examination. A flurry of fast questions was in the air. One of the prisoners was nursing a superficial wound in the foot. He cuddled it, baby-wise, but he looked up from it often to curse with an astonishing utter abandon straight at the noses of his captors. He consigned them to red regions; he called upon the pestilential wrath of strange gods. And with it all he was singularly free from recognition of the finer points of the con- duct of prisoners of war. It was as if a clumsy clod had trod upon his toe and he conceived it to be his privilege, his duty, to use deep, resentful oaths. Another, who was a boy in years, took his plight with great calmness and apparent good nature. He conversed with the men in blue, studying their faces with his bright and keen eyes. They spoke of battles and conditions. There was an acute interest in all their faces dur- ing this exchange of view points. It seemed a great satisfaction to hear voices from where all had been darkness and speculation. The third captive sat with a morose counte- nance. He preserved a stoical and cold attitude. To all advances he made one reply without varia- tion, "Ah, go t' hell!" The last of the four was always silent and, for the most part, kept his face turned in un- molested directions. From the views the youth received he seemed to be in a state of absolute dejection. Shame was upon him, and with it profound regret that he was, perhaps, no more to be counted in the ranks of his fellows. The youth could detect no expression that would allow him to believe that the other was giving a thought to his narrowed future, the pictured dungeons, perhaps, and starvations and brutali- ties, liable to the imagination. All to be seen was shame for captivity and regret for the right to antagonize. |
