I sneered and shrugged my shoulders. “You miserable coward; a mere cur in office, barking only when you think it safe.”
This had the infuriating effect I wished. He lost control of himself, and, pushing the two warders aside, he rushed forward with hand raised to strike me.
I let him come quite close, and then hit him full on his insolent mouth, putting all my weight and strength behind the blow. He went down like a ninepin, and so far as he was concerned, the interview was over.
A pretty considerable row followed. The two warders threw themselves on me and shouted lustily for help. Others rushed to the cell in a ferment of excitement and clustered between me and the bully, much as though I were a wild beast. He was carried off, and Volna, in a maze of distress and consternation, was taken away at the same time.
I was now considered to be a desperate and dangerous prisoner. Handcuffs were placed on my wrists and irons on my legs, neither of the operations being gently performed.
But I did not care. I had got back a little of my own from the brute, and they might do what they pleased with me now. What that would be, I was soon to learn.
I was huddled up on my pallet in the exceedingly uncomfortable position which the irons permitted when the governor of the gaol and a couple of other officials entered with some warders.
He read me a short lecture upon the heinousness of my awful offence, told me that men had been killed who had done less, and then announced that my punishment would be the knout. Three hundred lashes to be administered at intervals of a week, a hundred lashes each time.
“I am an Englishman, and claim the right to communicate with the British Consul, and also my friend, General von Eckerstein.”
“You don’t dare to deny that you struck Colonel Bremenhof?”