hoped Mrs. Frere would tell the captain how it happened"
flung open the door of a cell on the right hand of the doorway. It was
so dark that, at first, Sylvia could distinguish nothing but the outline
of a framework, with something stretched upon it that resembled a human
body. Her first thought was that the man was dead, but this was not
so--he groaned. Her eyes, accustoming themselves to the gloom, began to
see what the "punishment" was. Upon the floor was placed an iron frame
about six feet long, and two and a half feet wide, with round iron bars,
placed transversely, about twelve inches apart. The man she came to
seek was bound in a horizontal position upon this frame, with his neck
projecting over the end of it. If he allowed his head to hang, the blood
rushed to his brain, and suffocated him, while the effort to keep it
raised strained every muscle to agony pitch. His face was purple, and he
foamed at the mouth. Sylvia uttered a cry. "This is no punishment; it's
murder! Who ordered this?"

"The Commandant," said Troke sullenly.

"I don't believe it. Loose him!"

"I daren't mam," said Troke.

"Loose him, I say! Hailey!--you, sir, there!" The noise had brought
several warders to the spot. "Do you hear me? Do you know who I am?
Loose him, I say!" In her eagerness and compassion she was on her knees
by the side of the infernal machine, plucking at the ropes with her
delicate fingers. "Wretches, you have cut his flesh! He is dying! Help!
You have killed him!" The prisoner, in fact, seeing this angel of mercy
stooping over him, and hearing close to him the tones of a voice that
for seven years he had heard but in his dreams, had fainted. Troke and
Hailey, alarmed by her vehemence, dragged the stretcher out into the
light, and hastily cut the lashings. Dawes rolled off like a log, and
his head fell against Mrs. Frere. Troke roughly pulled him aside, and
called for water. Sylvia, trembling with sympathy and pale with passion,
turned upon the crew. "How long has he been like this?"

"An hour," said Troke.

"A lie!" said a stern voice at the door. "He has been there nine hours!"

"Wretches!" cried Sylvia, "you shall hear more of this. Oh, oh! I am
sick!"--she felt for the wall--"I--I--" North watched her with agony on
his face, but did not move. "I faint. I--"--she uttered a despairing cry
that was not without a touch of anger. "Mr. North! do you not see? Oh!
Take me home--take me home!" and she would have fallen ac