Page:The cry for justice - an anthology of the literature of social protest. - (IA cryforjusticea00sinc).pdf/158

 such awful punishment. So this man was Ed Morrell! No wonder I had been agitated

He arose from the chair and stood dejectedly while I took the necessary measurements, and then I led the way to the back room, where the bathtub was located. I started to return to the front room for the purpose of marking his clothes, but he stopped me.

"Wait a minute," he urged. "Wait and see what a man looks like after five years in hell. I was a husky when I went up there, hard as nails and full of red blood, but look at me now."

While speaking, he had dropped off the outer rags, and a moment after stood nude beside the tub of warm water. The enormity of what he had suffered could not have been more forcibly demonstrated. His limbs were horribly emaciated, the knee, elbow, and shoulder bones stood out like huge knots through the drawn and yellow skin, while his ribs reminded me of the carcass of a sheep hanging in front of a butcher's establishment. The hollows between them were deep and dark. I thought of the picture I had seen of the famine-stricken wretches of India

"What are those scars on your back?" I asked as he sank onto his knees in the water.

"Scars," he laughed, sardonically. "Scars? Those ain't scars. They're only the marks where the devil prodded me. I was in the jacket, cinched up so that I was breathing from my throat when he came and tried to make me 'come through,' and when I sneered at him he kicked me over the kidneys. I don't know how many times he kicked; the first kick took my breath away and I saw black, but after they took me out of the sack I couldn't get up, and I had running sores down here