“Sir!” cried Evans, in great excitement, “if there is such a thing you shall see it to-morrow morning.”

“No! to-night! come, you have an hour before you.  Do you want the sinews of war? here, take this five pounds with you; you may have to buy a sight of it; but if you ask him whether I am right in telling you it is not the custom of jails to crucify prisoners in the present century, perhaps the barbarian will produce his record of abuses to prove to you that it is.  Work how you please; but be wary—­be intelligent, and bring me Fry’s ledger—­or never look me in the face again.”

He waved his hand, and Evans strode out of the room animated with a spirit not his own.  He who had animated him lay back on the sofa prostrated.  Half an hour elapsed, no Evans; a quarter of an hour more, still no Evans; but just before the hour struck, in he burst out of breath but red with triumph.

“Your reverence is a witch—­you can see in the dark—­look here, sir!” and he flung a dirty ledger on the table.  “Here’s all the money, sir.  He did not get a farthing of it.  I flattered the creature’s pride, and he dropped the cheese into my hand like the old carrion crow when they asked him for one of his charming songs.  But he had no notion it was going out of the jail; so you’ll bring it in and give it me back the first thing to-morrow, sir.  I must run back, time’s up!—­Good-night, your reverence.  Am I on your side or whose?”

“Good-night, my fine fellow; you shan’t be turned out of the jail now.  Good-night.”

He wanted him gone.  He went to a drawer and took out his own book, a copy of Hawes’s public log-book, which he had made as soon as he came into the jail, with the simple view of guiding himself by the respectable precedents he innocently expected to find there.  He lighted candles, placed his sheets by the side of Fry’s well-thumbed ledger, and plunged into a comparison.

It was as he expected.  On one side lay the bare, simple, brutal truth in Fry’s hand, on the other the same set of facts colored, molded and cooked in every imaginable way to bear inspection, with occasional suppressions where the deed and consequences were too frightful to bear coloring, molding, extenuating or cooking.

The book was a thick quarto, containing a strict record of the prison for four years; two years of Captain O’Connor, and two of Hawes, the worthy who had supplanted him.

Mr. Eden was a rapid penman; he set to, and by half-past eleven o’clock he had copied the first part; for under O’Connor there were comparatively few punishments.  Then he attacked Hawes’s reign.  Sheet after sheet was filled and numbered.  He threw them on another table as each was filled.  Three o’clock; still he wrote with all his might.  Four o’clock; black spots danced before his eyes, and his fingers ached, and his brow burned, and his feet were ice.  Still the light, indefatigable pen galloped along the paper.  Meantime the writer’s feelings were of the most mixed and extraordinary character.  Often his eye flashed with triumph, as Fry exposed the dishonesty and utter mendacity of Hawes.  Oftener still it dilated with horror at the frightful nature of the very revelations.  At six o’clock Fry’s record was all copied out.