struck below the belt. We could not strike back,
for we were starving; and it is the way of the
world that when one man feeds another he is
that man s master. But the centurion I mean
the adjutant was not satisfied. In the dead
silence he raised his voice again, and repeated the
threat, and amplified it, and glared ferociously.

At last we were permitted to enter the feasting
hall, where we found the ticket men washed but
unfed. All told, there must have been nearly
seven hundred of us who sat down not to meat
or bread, but to speech, song, and prayer. From
all of which I am convinced that Tantalus suffers
in many guises this side of the infernal regions.
The adjutant made the prayer, but I did not take
note of it, being too engrossed with the massed
picture of misery before me. But the speech ran
something like this: " You will feast in paradise.
No matter how you starve and suffer here, you
will feast in paradise, that is, if you will follow the
directions." And so forth and so forth. A clever
bit of propaganda, I took it, but rendered of no
avail for two reasons. First, the men who received
it were unimaginative and materialistic, unaware of
the existence of any Unseen, and too inured to
hell on earth to be frightened by hell to come.
And second, weary and exhausted from the night s
sleeplessness and hardship, suffering from the long

[[131]]

p130 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p131w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p132

v?