The lock of the steel girdle seemed to work stiffly and the soldiers grumbled and strove at it angrily.
“I’d not like to have that same lieutenant in charge of me,” said a youthful, flaxen-haired corporal who made one of the party. “He’s a bad one, I can tell you.”
The grizzled sergeant nodded, watching the efforts at the lock and frowning at the delay.
“I think,” continued the flaxen-haired corporal, “that he knows more ways of getting a groan out of a man than the Grand Inquisitor himself.”
“Ah! I think I understand,” said Nat, and his mouth tightened.
“If he’s got anything ag’in you and there’s anything he wants to make you tell, you’ll understand right enough,” said the old sergeant, grimly.
“I’ve seen a good bit of punishment since I joined His Majesty’s army,” said the corporal, who seemed of a talkative disposition, “but that naval chap do beat all. Mind how he took it out of that private of the forty-seventh the other day?” to the sergeant.
“Torture?” asked Nat.
“You may well say so,” returned the flaxen-haired one. “And when he’d made the private confess, he took the man charged with trying to get him to desert and manhandled him in a way I never heard of before. Did you see the little parade of tar and feathers through the streets?”
“Yes,” replied Nat.