The jailors gave him water, but whole months passed without anyone entering his cell.

Some nights he would hear vaguely and far off through the greasy walls wailing and sobs in the adjacent dungeons.

One morning he was awoke by sounds as of thunder, in spite of a tiny ray of sunlight filtering through his loophole; hearing the jailors in the corridors near, he understood the mystery.

They had been shooting some of the prisoners.
Luna received as a happiness this hope of death; he would renounce with pleasure that shadow of a life in a small stone box, tormented by physical pain and the fear of men's ferocity.

His stomach, weakened by all these privations, refused for many days, with horrible nausea, to receive the bitter bread and the coppery mess.