"
To deny us our breakfast after standing for hours! It was an awful
threat, and the pitiful, abject silence which instantly fell attested its
awfulness. And it was a cowardly threat. 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.
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.
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