her with
cheerless monotony, the shadows settling deeper and deeper upon their
distant homes, should listen by degrees to any scheme that the more
desperate around them might propose in order to regain their liberty. The
growing agitation was almost entirely among the lower ranks of soldiers
and sailors, although the officers, in their separate quarters, knew what
was going on, and more or less sympathized with it.

There was, however, a particular reason for this state of things. It did
not originate it, but had a great deal to do with aggravating it. The
prisoners, especially the rank and file, were not in the hands of a
sympathetic controller. It was with them, as it sometimes is now, with
large institutions where numbers are collected. The governor may be an
excellent disciplinarian, and do his duty admirably; but the inmates
never feel, consciously or unconsciously, that there is one over them who
takes an _interest_ in their welfare. They are in the cold, and, like
plants, no one is likely to grow better in the cold. Such was the
character of the administration of Captain Mortimer, the Admiralty agent.
He had charge of the comforts of the prisoners; he treated them well
according to the letter of his duty; but it was with coldness and want of
sympathy. And what he did, as is always the case, his subordinates did
likewise. And there can be little doubt that this coldness of treatment
had much to do with the increase of insubordination in the prison.

Victor Malin was a ringleader from the first in this matter. He was
about forty years old; and, as a young man, had taken an active part in
all the diabolical horrors of the streets of Paris during the reign of
terror. He had seen Louis XVI. guillotined, and a few months later the
poor Queen, and had screamed with joy over it. He had seen heads cut off
by the score, and enjoyed his dinner all the more for the sight. He was
therefore a brute, a great big brute, with plenty of animal courage; and
there was no wickedness under the sun that he had not practised in his
time. He was also one of the very few among the prisoners who insulted
the venerable chaplain when he could, though all the notice the good man
took of it was to mutter to himself, "N'importe."

The days were getting short and the nights long when, one evening, a
council of war was being held in one of the barrack rooms. Not all the
inmates were engaged in it, but only a select few, round one