Page:Ossendowski - From President to Prison.djvu/259

 CHAPTER XXV

UNCONDEMNED PRISON COMPANIONS

NCE, when I was labouring under the irritating influence of such a period of depression, I happened to be walking up and down near our beds of cucumbers and tomatoes. As I made out something moving among the leaves, I began to search for the cause and found a young sparrow with an injured wing. I had, naturally, no idea whence he came nor how he had received his injury, but in my own condition of restricted movement, I felt a particularly keen sympathy for him, took him to my cell and washed and dressed his wound. After I had bound his wing to his body with a bandage, I placed him on the window sill, where my bit of gauze that had been stretched to keep out the flies, this veritable plague of Harbin, was an all-sufficient prison wall for him. Then I made him a nest in a little box, put water and food near it and went away. When I returned, I was as happy as a boy at seeing that he had been pecking at the bread, and I felt quite sure that he would recover, though I had much anxiety as to his ability to fly again.

After some days my little cell-mate became quite tame, taking his food readily from my hand and making known, with piercing little shrieks, his wish to be moved from the window to the table. Several days later I decided to take off the dressing. As soon as the little fellow was 247