This is the second one

24 1 Narration through his handcuffs and fixed it to their belts, and lashed his arms tight to his sides. They crowded very close about him, with their hands always on him in a careful caressing grip, as though all the while feeling him to make sure he was there. It was like men handling a fish which is still alive and may jump back into the water. But he stood quite unresisting, yielding his arms limply to the ropes, as though he hardly noticed what was happening. Eight o'clock struck and a bugle call, desolately thin in the wet air, floated from the distant barracks. The superintendent of the jail, who was standing apart from the rest of us, moodily prodding the gravel with his stick, raised his head at the sound. He was an army doctor, with a grey toothbrush moustache and a gruff voice. "For God's sake hurry up. Francis," he said irritably. "The man ought to have been dead by this time. Aren't you ready yet?" Francis, the head jailer, a fat Dravidian' in a white drill suit and gold spectacles, waved his black hand. "Yes sir, yes sir," he bubbled. "All iss satisfactorily prepared. The hangman iss wait- ing. We shall proceed." 5 "Well, quick march. then. The prisoners can't get their breakfast till this job's over." We set out for the gallows. Two warders marched on either side of the prisoner, with their rifles at the slope; two others marched close against him, gripping him by arm and shoulder. as though at once pushing and supporting him. The rest of us. magistrates and the like, followed behind. Suddenly, when we had gone ten yards. the procession stopped short without any order or warning. A dreadful thing had happened-a dog. come goodness knows whence. had appeared in the yard. It came bounding among us with a loud volley of barks, and leapt round us wagging its whole body, wild with glee at finding so many human beings together. It was a large woolly dog. half Airedale. half pariah. For a moment it pranced round us, and then. before anyone could stop, it had made a dash for the prisoner and, jumping up. tried to lick his face. Everyone stood aghast. too taken aback even to grab at the dog