He commenced by speaking roughly to Lance almost every time he entered his cell, compelling him to roll up his blankets several times in succession under the pretence of insufficient neatness, swearing at him when there was no one near, and abusing him as a lazy lubber who wouldn't take the trouble to keep his cell neat and wanted to have a body-servant to wait upon him. Among Mr. Bracker's other engaging qualities was that of being a radical of the deepest dye in politics and a democrat particularly advanced. A child of the masses, he had received just sufficient education to qualify him for a rabid advocacy of certain communistic theories. Arising from this mental enlightenment partly, as well as from the fundamental condition of an envious and malignant nature, was a hatred of privileged orders and an unreasoning spite towards gentle-folk and aristocrats of whatever sex or grade. He had read accounts of the French Revolution and lamented that he had not the power to put in force, in these degenerate days, some of the drastic remedies by which 'the people' of France ameliorated their own condition and wiped out the long score of oppressions which they had suffered at the hands of their natural enemies.
As a man, a politician, and a warder he felt therefore a subtle satisfaction in tormenting a member of the hated class secretly. He felt it due to himself also, as a matter of professional etiquette, not to be 'bested' by a prisoner under sentence. He settled to his daily dole of insult with cruel craft and grim resolve. Such may have actuated a plantation overseer in South Carolina towards a contumacious 'nigger' in the good old slave-holding days before the war.
Daily the 'assistant torturer' pursued his course. Mere oaths and continuous abuse were always carefully timed to be out of earshot of all others. Daily Lance Trevanion endured in silence the varied taunts, the bullying tone, which he had never needed to bear from living man before. Indignant scorn lit up his sad despairing eyes at each fresh provocation. More deeply glowed their smouldering fires, but no word came from the tightly-compressed lips; no gesture told of the well-nigh unendurable mental agony within, of the almost unnatural strain.
'Yes, you may look,—blast you for an infernal stuck-up aristocrat,' Bracker said one morning. 'You know you'd like to rub me out, but you're not game—not game—do you hear that? You and all your breed in the old country, and this too, have been living all your lives on the labour of men like me, and treating us like the dirt under your feet, and you can't salute your superiors like another prisoner. You're too grand, I suppose. But by ——, I'll break you down, my fine fellow, before I've done with you. I'll have you on your knees yet. You're not the first that's tried it on with me, and, my word! they paid for it. I'd like you to have seen them knuckle under before I left off dealing with them.'
The next day, on some transparent pretence, Lance was ordered to take up the work of one of the long-sentence prisoners, which involved menial and degrading, not to say disgusting duties. These he performed patiently and mechanically, yet with a far-off look as of a man in a dream. Even this penance was insufficient to appease the malevolence of his tormentor. He made a practice of standing near, watching his victim, enjoying the spectacle of the captive 'swell' engaged for hours in the meanest conceivable employment. From time to time he made brutal jokes upon the situation with his assistant warders or those prisoners who were always ready for personal reasons to take the side of their taskmasters.
After the night's stillness and respite—stillness how oppressive, even terrible in its unbroken silence!—Lance would brace himself to confront anew his bitter fate. He would repeat to himself all the reasons that he could summon for stubborn endurance and patient adherence to the course he had laid down for himself. But with the morning light came his inexorable foe, ordering him here and there, persisting in declaring that he was in the habit of breaking minor regulations, making a laughing-stock of him before other prisoners in every way, driving him along the road which was sure, in Bracker's experience, to land him in some act of overt insubordination.
One morning, after an hour's trial of every species of aggravation, Lance's patience so far failed him that he turned upon his persecutor and told him that no one but a coward would thus treat a man in his position, and who was unable to defend himself or retaliate. He did not say much, but doubtless committed himself to the extent of infringing the gaol regulations, which enjoin respect and obedience to all officials.
His adversary at once seized his advantage, and ordering him back to his cell locked him up, pushing him roughly inside the door. This portion of his duty performed, he lodged a complaint in due form of insubordination against Launcelot Trevanion, hard labour prisoner under sentence.
The gaoler held over the case until the end of the week, when Mr. M'Alpine, as visiting magistrate, regularly attended to hear cases and complaints.
The trial of prisoners charged with such offences is conducted in camera, the magistrate, the gaoler, the parties to the complaint, and the witnesses being only present. For reasons held to be sufficient, the public and the press are excluded. Evidence on oath is taken down in writing, that the depositions may be afterwards referred to. The magistrate decides on the evidence brought before him. The accused is permitted to call witnesses. But for obvious reasons the warders and the companions in captivity of the culprit or complainant constitute necessarily the only available testimony. Thus it is to be feared that occasionally the scales of justice may be deflected, and though forms are adhered to, wrong-doing triumphs and revenge is wreaked.