The place seemed clean
enough: at the far end of the vista a fatigue gang of prisoners was
busy with pails and brushes; but either it had not been thoroughly
ventilated, or the dense numbers packed in it for so many hours a day
had given the building an atmosphere of its own, warm and unpleasant,
if not precisely foetid, after the pure, stinging air of the moorland.
"We can sleep seven hundred here," said the Commandant; "and another
dormitory of the same size runs overhead. The top story they use as a
promenade and for indoor recreation." He pointed to a number of grilles
set in the wall at the back, at equal distances. "For air," he
explained, "and also for keeping watch on _messieurs_. Yes, we find
that necessary. Behind each is a small chamber, hollowed most
scientifically, quite a little temple of acoustics. If Miss Westcote,
now, would care to step into one and listen, while I stand below with
the Major and converse in ordinary tones--"
"No, no," Dorothea declined, hurriedly, and with a shiver.
It hurt her to think of Raoul herded among seven hundred miserables in
this endless barrack, his every movement overlooked, his smallest
speech overheard, by an eaves-dropping sentry.
"I think, Endymion chimed in, my sister feels her long journey, and
would be glad to get our business over."
"Ah, to be sure--a thousand pardons!"
The Commandant shut the door and piloted them across to the hospital
block.
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