But now things were different. He was a prisoner under sentence. Bound to conform to the regulations of the establishment, who must obey orders. Do, in plain words, what he was told, no matter in what tone or manner couched, must perform menial services, descend from his former position to be the servant of servants, nay more, their dumb and unresisting slave, unless he saw fit to defy the terrible and crushing weight of prison authority. Should he submit? he asked himself, sitting down on the scanty bedding, neatly folded on a narrow board.
'Should he submit? or rather should he not give volcanic vent to his untamed temper, strangle the warder who next came to his cell, and "run amok," scattering the gaol guards, dying by a rifle bullet rather than by the slower but not less certain action of the prison atmosphere? Had it not killed so many another, born, like him, to a life of freedom?—and yet—he was young—so young! Life had joys in store—for a man of three-and-twenty, even if he had to waste two years in this thrice accursed living tomb! Disgrace! dishonour! Of course it was—would be all the days of his life. Still there were other countries—other worlds, almost, of which he had since his arrival in Australia heard more than all his schooling had taught him. The Pacific Slope; the South-Sea Islands; the Argentine Republic; New Mexico; Texas; Colorado! These were localities of which many a miner talked as familiarly as Jack Polwarth of Cornwall or Devon. Two years would pass somehow. How many weeks was it? A hundred and more! The Judge, however, had ordered the time he had spent under committal to be deducted from the whole term—that was something. Well, he would see it out. He had friends still who were staunch and true. He would change his name and go to one of those places in the New World where men were not too particular about their associates' former lives—as long as they paid their way and lived a manly life. But home! Home to Wychwood! Home to his father and Estelle! Never! No! He could not look them in the face again.'
These reflections were brought to a close abruptly by the sudden opening of the cell door and the entrance of two warders, one of whom carried a suit of prison clothes. One was a tall powerful man with a hard expression of countenance and a cruel mouth. He looked at Lance with a cold, scrutinising air.
'Stand up, prisoner Trevanion,' he said, as if reading out of a book, 'and the next time you hear your cell door open comply with the regulations.'
'What regulations?' inquired Lance.
'They're on that board,' pointing to a small board placed in a corner of the cell. 'You can read, I expect? Now, strip, and dress yourself in this uniform.'
Disencumbering himself of his ordinary garments, Lance soon found himself attired in a striped suit of coarse cloth, fitted also with rough blucher boots and a woollen cap.
'Follow Warder Jackson.'
The shorter warder grinned: 'You've got to see the barber and the photographer next. You won't hardly know yourself, will he, Bracker? We've got yer photer' before you was took, and now all we want is yer jug likeness. Then we have yer both ways in case yer gives us leg-bail. Turn.'
They halted in a wide passage where a man in prison garb stood by a camera. He had been a photographer before committing the forgery for which he was imprisoned. His talents were now utilised in securing likenesses of his fellow-prisoners, a modern gaol invention which had proved of immense value in the identification of criminals who had either escaped or had committed fresh crimes.