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The Jacket (The Star-Rover)-Part4_JACK LONDON(1876-1916)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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seven pounds. My hair, streaked with gray, was a five-years'



growth, as were my beard and moustache. And I, too, tottered as I

walked, so that the guards helped to lead me across that sun-



blinding patch of yard. And Skysail Jack and I peered and knew each

other under the wreckage.



Men such as he are privileged, even in a prison, so that he dared an

infraction of the rules by speaking to me in a cracked and quavering



voice.

"You're a good one, Standing," he cackled. "You never squealed."



"But I never knew, Jack," I whispered back--I was compelled to

whisper, for five years of disuse had well-nigh lost me my voice.



"I don't think there ever was any dynamite."

"That's right," he cackled, nodding his head childishly. "Stick



with it. Don't ever let'm know. You're a good one. I take my hat

off to you, Standing. You never squealed."



And the guards led me on, and that was the last I saw of Skysail

Jack. It was plain that even he had become a believer in the



dynamite myth.

Twice they had me before the full Board of Directors. I was



alternately bullied and cajoled. Their attitude resolved itself

into two propositions. If I delivered up the dynamite, they would



give me a nominal punishment of thirty days in the dungeon and then

make me a trusty in the prison library. If I persisted in my



stubbornness and did not yield up the dynamite, then they would put

me in solitary for the rest of my sentence. In my case, being a



life prisoner, this was tantamount to condemning me to solitary

confinement for life.



Oh, no; California is civilized. There is no such law on the

statute books. It is a cruel and unusualpunishment, and no modern



state would be guilty of such a law. Nevertheless, in the history

of California I am the third man who has been condemned for life to



solitaryconfinement. The other two were Jake Oppenheimer and Ed

Morrell. I shall tell you about them soon, for I rotted with them



for years in the cells of silence.

Oh, another thing. They are going to take me out and hang me in a



little while--no, not for killing Professor Haskell. I got life-

imprisonment for that. They are going to take me out and hang me



because I was found guilty of assault and battery. And this is not

prison discipline. It is law, and as law it will be found in the



criminal statutes.

I believe I made a man's nose bleed. I never saw it bleed, but that



was the evidence. Thurston, his name was. He was a guard at San

Quentin. He weighed one hundred and seventy pounds and was in good



health. I weighed under ninety pounds, was blind as a bat from the

long darkness, and had been so long pent in narrow walls that I was



made dizzy by large open spaces. Really, mime was a well-defined

case of incipient agoraphobia, as I quickly learned that day I



escaped from solitary and punched the guard Thurston on the nose.

I struck him on the nose and made it bleed when he got in my way and



tried to catch hold of me. And so they are going to hang me. It is

the written law of the State of California that a life-timer like me



is guilty of a capital crime when he strikes a prison guard like

Thurston. Surely, he could not have been inconvenienced more than



half an hour by that bleeding nose; and yet they are going to hang

me for it.



And, see! This law, in my case, is EX POST FACTO. It was not a law

at the time I killed Professor Haskell. It was not passed until



after I received my life-sentence. And this is the very point: my

life-sentence gave me my status under this law which had not yet



been written on the books. And it is because of my status of life-

timer that I am to be hanged for battery committed on the guard



Thurston. It is clearly EX POST FACTO, and, therefore,

unconstitutional.



But what bearing has the Constitution on constitutional lawyers when

they want to put the notorious Professor Darrell Standing out of the



way? Nor do I even establish the precedent with my execution. A

year ago, as everybody who reads the newspapers knows, they hanged



Jake Oppenheimer, right here in Folsom, for a precisely similar

offence . . . only, in his case of battery, he was not guilty of



making a guard's nose bleed. He cut a convict unintentionally with

a bread-knife.



It is strange--life and men's ways and laws and tangled paths. I am




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