And it was a cowardly threat.

We could not strike back, for we were starving; and it is the way of the world that when one man feeds another he is that man's master.

But the centurion--I mean the adjutant--was not satisfied.

In the dead silence he raised his voice again, and repeated the threat, and amplified it.
At last we were permitted to enter the feasting hall, where we found the "ticket men" washed but unfed.

All told, there must have been nearly seven hundred of us who sat down--not to meat or bread, but to speech, song, and prayer.