in the press. As this
seemed insufficient, after a lapse of five minutes, he added another
hundred weight. The prisoner breathed with difficulty. Still, his robust
frame enabled him to hold out. After he had endured this torture for an
hour, at a sign from Wild another hundred weight was added. In a few
minutes, an appalling change was perceptible. The veins in his throat
and forehead swelled and blackened; his eyes protruded from their
sockets, and stared wildly; a thick damp gathered on his brow: and blood
gushed from his mouth, nostrils, and ears.

"Water!" he gasped.

The executioner shook his head.

"Do you submit?" interrogated Wild.

Blueskin answered by dashing his head violently against the flagged
floor. His efforts at self-destruction were, however, prevented.

"Try fifty pounds more," said Jonathan.

"Stop!" groaned Blueskin.

"Will you plead?" demanded Wild, harshly.

"I will," answered the prisoner.

"Release him," said Jonathan. "We have cured his obstinacy, you
perceive," he added to Marvel.

"I _will_ live," cried Blueskin, with a look of the deadliest hatred at
Wild, "to be revenged on you."

And, as the weights were removed, he fainted.

CHAPTER XVI.

How Jack Sheppard's Portrait was painted.

Early in the morning of Thursday, the 15th of October, 1724, the door of
the Castle was opened by Austin, who, with a look of unusual importance,
announced to the prisoner that four gentlemen were shortly coming up
with the governor to see him,--"four _such_ gentlemen," he added, in a
tone meant to impress his auditor with a due sense of the honour
intended him, "as you don't meet every day."

"Is Mr. Wood among them?" asked Jack, eagerly.

"Mr. Wood!--no," replied the turnkey. "Do you think I'd take the trouble
to announce _him_? These are persons of consequence, I tell you."

"Who are they?" inquired Sheppard.

"Why, first," rejoined Austin, "there's Sir James Thornhill, historical
painter to his Majesty, and the greatest artist of the day. Those grand
designs in the dome of St. Paul's are his work. So is the roof of the
state-room at Hampton Court Palace, occupied by Queen Anne, and the
Prince of Denmark. So is the chapel of All Souls at Oxford, and the
great hall at Blenheim, and I don't know how many halls and chapels
besides. He's now engaged on the hall at Greenwich Hospital."

"I've heard of him," replied Jack, impatiently. "Who are the others?"

"Let me see. There's a