barred-window

Updated: July 21, 2026

With a guard acting as cowboy, shepherd dog, or convict compeller, we shuffled in a continuous line down the iron stairways and across the hall into the dining room, a cement-floored barred-window desert sown with tables in rows, seating eight men each; guards with clubs standing at coigns of vantage or pacing up and down the aisles, and in one window, commanding the whole room, a guard with a loaded rifle, licensed to shoot down any misbehaver.

Julian Hawthorne - The Subterranean Brotherhood