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A BROKEN DBEAM 1C9 their companions. Solitude, without tobacco, is the thing that they really dread. I suppose,' he added, ' that ι of the prisoners you saw to-day, not more than one or two, even if any, were solitary ? ' That was true ; and I asked why, if such was their feeling, the worst of them were not given the only punishment they could appreciate. Colonel Falkland said that this was at present impracticable, for the simple reason that the prison did not admit of it. Packed as the prisoners were, even now there was hardly room for them, and the Government had not a penny with which to enlarge the building. 'But why,' 1 asked, 'need they all be sent to Nicosia? Are there no old prisons in the other parts of the island? And does Cyprus, with its handful of 160,000 inhabitants, really contribute the whgle throng I have been looking at ? ' ' Without a doubt,' said Colonel Falkland, ' there are other prisons in Cyprus—a prison in every district ; but each of these is just as crowded as this. You ask if all the prisoners you have seen come from Cyprus. Every one of them comes from the single district of Nicosia.' Ever since that morning a veil had been drawn across the sun for me ; and now, as I listened, the day grew darker still. One of my Cyprian dreams—of my happy dreams—had been broken : and it was a dream which till to-day I had always taken for a reality. I had imagined that, in spite of their petty, bizarre rascalities, these islanders knew

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