The other prisoner was kneeling on the floor before the wall, with a
piece of charcoal in his hand, mumbling to himself as he busily added
figures to a sum with which the surface above was already covered. As
the door of the cell closed, he looked around from his work. Like the
man's on the floor, his face had a ghastly pallor, against which the
dirt with which it is stained, shows with peculiarly obscene effect,
while the beards and hair of both had grown long and matted and were
filled with straw. So completely had their miserable condition disguised
them, that Perez would not have known in the dim light of the cell that
he had ever seen either before.
The man who had been kneeling on the floor, after his first look of
dull curiosity, began to stare fixedly at Perez, as if he were an
apparition, and then rose to his feet. As he did so, Perez saw that he
could not be Fennell, for the latter was tall, and this man was quite
short. Yes, the reclining man must be George, and now he noted as an
unmistakable confirmation, a scar on one of the emaciated hands lying
on his breast. "George," he said, stepping to his side. As he did so
he passed athwart the bar of sunshine that was falling on the man's
countenance.
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