Page:Ossendowski - From President to Prison.djvu/318

306 went also, expecting to see a very unusual ceremony; nor was I disappointed.

Shilo was in the leading group of the praying prisoners. He prayed passionately, with most graphic gestures making the sign of the Cross, kneeling and bowing repeatedly before the altar. When he rose up and fastened his gaze upon the holy emblem, his eyes were full of such a faith and thankfulness that I felt the soul of this criminal, who had passed through the torture of awaiting death, was at this moment at the feet of God, the Supreme Judge. As he held his eyes steadily on the Cross, he wept and repeated only one word:

"Life &hellip; Life!"

The convicts watched their chained companion, who saw and heard nothing around him in his earnest, ardent prayer, and the fires of emotion and joy lighted their eyes. Surely, in this moment of great relief and spiritual quickening, a wise, well-spoken word of consolation, encouragement and hope might easily have snatched from the clutches of criminal instinct many of these lost, tormented souls. But all this happened in that bag of human dust, this dust which interested nobody and into whose soul nobody cared to look.