CHAPTER V.
FOR a week the Gadfly lay in a fearful state. The attack was a violent one, and the Governor, rendered brutal by fear and perplexity, had not only chained him hand and foot, but had insisted on his being bound to his pallet with leather straps, drawn so tight that he could not move without their cutting into the flesh. He endured everything with his dogged, bitter stoicism till the end of the sixth day. Then his pride broke down, and he piteously entreated the prison doctor for a dose of opium. The doctor was quite willing to give it; but the Governor, hearing of the request, sharply forbade “any such foolery.”
“How do you know what he wants it for?” he said. “It's just as likely as not that he's shamming all the time and wants to drug the sentinel, or some such devilry. Rivarez is cunning enough for anything.”
“My giving him a dose would hardly help him to drug the sentinel,” replied the doctor, unable to suppress a smile. “And as for shamming—there's not much fear of that. He is as likely as not to die.”
“Anyway, I won't have it given. If a man wants to be tenderly treated, he should behave accordingly. He has thoroughly deserved a little sharp discipline. Perhaps it will be a lesson to him not to play tricks with the window-bars again.”
“The law does not admit of torture, though,” the doctor ventured to say; “and this is coming perilously near it.”
“The law says nothing about opium, I think,” said the Governor snappishly.
“It is for you to decide, of course, colonel; but I hope you will let the straps be taken off at any rate. They are a needless aggravation of his misery. There's no fear of his escaping now. He couldn't stand if you let him go free.”
“My good sir, a doctor may make a mistake like other people, I suppose. I have got him safe strapped now, and he's going to stop so.”
“At least, then, have the straps a little loosened. It is downright barbarity to keep them drawn so tight.”