ed, he tugged at his bonds until the strong staves shook again; he
writhed himself round upon the triangles and spat impotently at Burgess,
who jeered at his torments. North, with his hands to his ears, crouched
against the corner of the wall, palsied with horror. It seemed to him
that the passions of hell raged around him. He would fain have fled, but
a horrible fascination held him back.

In the midst of this--when the cat was hissing its loudest--Burgess
laughing his hardest, and the wretch on the triangles filling the air
with his cries, North saw Kirkland look at him with what he thought a
smile. Was it a smile? He leapt forward, and uttered a cry of dismay so
loud that all turned.

"Hullo!" says Troke, running to the heap of clothes, "the young 'un's
slipped his wind!"

Kirkland was dead.

"Throw him off!" says Burgess, aghast at the unfortunate accident;
and Gabbett reluctantly untied the thongs that bound Rufus Dawes.
Two constables were alongside him in an instant, for sometimes newly
tortured men grew desperate. This one, however, was silent with the
last lash; only in taking his shirt from under the body of the boy, he
muttered, "Dead!" and in his tone there seemed to be a touch of
envy. Then, flinging his shirt over his bleeding shoulders, he walked
out--defiant to the last.

"Game, ain't he?" said one constable to the other, as they pushed him,
not ungently, into an empty cell, there to wait for the hospital guard.
The body of Kirkland was taken away in silence, and Burgess turned
rather pale when he saw North's threatening face.

"It isn't my fault, Mr. North," he said. "I didn't know that the lad was
chicken-hearted." But North turned away in disgust, and Macklewain and
Burgess pursued their homeward route together.

"Strange that he should drop like that," said the Commandant.

"Yes, unless he had any internal disease," said the surgeon.

"Disease of the heart, for instance," said Burgess.

"I'll post-mortem him and see."

"Come in and have a nip, Macklewain. I feel quite qualmish," said
Burgess. And the two went into the house amid respectful salutes from
either side. Mr. North, in agony of mind at what he considered the
consequence of his neglect, slowly, and with head bowed down, as one
bent on a painful errand, went to see the prisoner who had survived. He
found him kneeling on the ground, prostrated. "Rufus Dawes."

At the low tone Rufus Dawes looked up, and, seeing who it was, waved h