Some considerable time elapsed before Mr. Bracker returned fully to his senses after regaining consciousness. He had been hurled to the cell floor with such violence that concussion of the brain had taken place, while his swollen throat testified to the deadly gripe of the victim who had so nearly turned the table upon his tormentor. It was fully a week before he was in a condition to give evidence before the Visiting Justice. The interval Lance was condemned to spend in 'solitary,' to be nourished wholly on bread and water,—to be abandoned in fact to the society of the Furies, which none the less mordantly than in the days of the world's green youth rend the heart and shatter the brain of their ill-fated or guilty victim.
Lance was rapidly passing from one stage of misery to the other, from the unmerciful to the merciful woe. As he sat or lay in his cell the long hours through, the thought crossed his brain, revelled and ran riot there, that if he had only persevered in his policy of endurance, if he had been strong and patient instead of weak and impulsive, this needed not to have happened. He might probably have found some door of escape from his tribulation, not literally of course, but through the clergyman and the Visiting Justice, the latter of whom would have been most uncompromising in punishing an official who misused his power.
Now that the storm of passion was over, the fury spent, the brevis insania passed away, calmer reflection would intrude. To what further sentence had he rendered himself liable? Would he be committed for attempted murder, or would it be manslaughter? Should he be condemned to a further sentence of years—long years of imprisonment? Might he not be hanged for the attempt to commit the capital offence? No doubt he intended to kill Bracker—that he would not deny. His mind was made up. If a shameful death or long imprisonment was to be his doom, he would rid himself of a worthless life. He had procured the means of self-destruction during his first remand. The feeling aroused among his fellow-captives by his daring attempt to take the life of his gaoler was peculiar and exceptional. Though many of the prisoners from motive of policy were subservient to Bracker, he was liked by no one. He had been known to be trying to 'break' or crush Trevanion. Cruelties and unnecessary severity springing from the irresponsible use of power are presumably not unknown in gaols. But the prison herd knows that at a certain point despair sets in. Reckless retribution follows, and the life of the agent or leading actor in the tragedy nearly always exacted counts with himself and his fellows merely as dust in the balance.
The criminals like to think that from their midst will arise at least one man who devotes himself to sacrifice, so only may he avenge himself and them upon their enemy. The time comes, and with curious certainty the man. Then the words of the first warder come true. The sullen patience of the harassed convict, who rarely resents routine discipline, however severe, becomes exhausted, and the debt is paid in full by a brutal murder or a life-long injury. Let it be borne in mind that 'early in the fifties' the problem of successful goldfield management was yet unsolved in Australia. The legislation had been chiefly tentative; the police and prison arrangements were incomplete. From the seething mass of the mining population, not always ruled with tact or temper, smarting under alleged injustice and excited by the enormous yield of the precious metal, arose a dangerously large and increasing criminal class. The overcrowded gaols, ample for a pastoral colony, were unable to contain them. Among the more experienced officers apprehensions of a revolt of the mining population—unhappily but too well-founded—began to assume the appearance of certainty. In such event the prisoners, if altogether centralised or confined inland, might easily be liberated—would hardly fail to be so on the first outbreak. Considering these contingencies, the Government of the day determined to relieve the pressure upon the metropolitan gaols by establishing prison hulks. Vessels moored in the waters of Williamstown Bay could be more easily guarded—would obviously be more difficult to escape from. Ships by scores, deserted by their crews, lay at anchor motionless and tenantless as that of the Ancient Mariner. Their owners were too happy to sell at any reasonable price. The idea was approved—not sooner approved than acted upon. The President, the Success, the Sacramento, the Deborah, were purchased and forthwith proclaimed to be, and to be considered, Her Majesty's gaols. They became from that day floating prisons. There were those long after who did not hesitate to designate them as floating hells.
One of the leading ideas connected with the scheme was the compulsory labour of the convicts, who, it was thought, might be employed beneficially to themselves and to the state in building at Williamstown—then a chief port of Melbourne—wharves, lighthouses, and docks. There were millions of tons of blue-stone—a species of volcanic trap—to be had near the shore for the quarrying. Harbour accommodation was miserably insufficient. The labour of a thousand men was a valuable consideration in that day of dearth of every kind of manual labour. Long afterwards the navvies employed in the construction of the Yan Yean aqueduct received one pound sterling per day. At this time double the wage would not have furnished the labour these convicts performed, and in many instances performed well.
The President enjoyed the bad eminence of being styled and worked as a strictly penal hulk—an abode for refractory and desperate criminals. Many of these were, in the prison slang, 'long-sentence men,' incorrigible felons serving a life sentence for repeated offences; men who could not be trusted to work even in the iron-gangs—so skilful and determined were they in all methods of escape. Many of these were doomed never to leave the President's gloomy cells but for the coffin and the shroud. Others again, after performing the allotted form of strictly penal and reformatory discipline, were drafted on board the Success, where they underwent the more popular and varied experience of working in the quarries on the main-land—in irons, it is true, but having the excitement of a daily voyage to and fro in one of the barges used for the purpose.
When Lance was brought up for trial he found to his relief—if indeed anything could have afforded him a gleam of satisfaction—that in spite of the heinousness of his offence—penally considered—a favourable feeling had sprung up with regard to him. Now that Bracker had in their opinion got his deserts, several of the 'good conduct' prisoners came forward with voluntary statements. They had seen the injured man knocking about the prisoner Trevanion. He was always 'tantalising,' and seemed to want to provoke him to a breach of regulations. Had not spoken before, because they were afraid of Bracker, who was well known to be revengeful. It was believed in the gaol (sent round, doubtless, in the wonderful way criminals have of communicating with each other) that he had caused a prisoner in another gaol to hang himself.
Two warders had also noticed his conduct to prisoner Trevanion when he came out of hospital. Thought it severe and unnecessary. The prisoner's own statement was taken on oath. He admitted the offence, but averred that he had become reckless through consistent ill-treatment. Bracker, of course, denied everything in the most unabashed manner, looking with evil eye upon the recalcitrant warders and the 'good conduct' prisoners. But the papers had been sent for in the last inquiry made into his conduct, also upon a charge of cruelty to prisoners. The evidence, unfortunately for him, was very similar. Mr. M'Alpine, who was an unsparing foe to all official misconduct, at once decided against him. After a terrific lecture, he reminded Bracker that he had been disrated for a former offence of a like nature. He should recommend him, therefore, for dismissal, which recommendation, to the general joy of the inhabitants of the Ballarat gaol, was promptly carried out.
'Prisoner Trevanion, whose conduct if condoned must have a bad effect upon the other prisoners (other prisoners, how the words fell like drops of molten lead upon his heart!), is ordered to serve the rest of his sentence on board Her Majesty's hulks at Williamstown.'