“Prisoner refractory at the crank,” answered Hodges, doggedly.

The clergyman walked up to Robinson and examined the collar, the waistcoat and the strap.  “Have you the governor’s authority for this act?” said he firmly.

“Rule is if they won’t do their work, the jacket.”

“Have you the governor’s authority for this particular act?”

“In a general way we have.”

“In a word, you are not acting under his authority, and you know it.  Take the man down this moment.”

The men hesitated.

“If you don’t I shall.”

The turnkeys, a little staggered by his firmness, began to confer in whispers.  The chaplain, who was one of your decided men, could not wait the consultation.  He sprang to Robinson’s head and began to undo the collar.  The others, seeing this decided move, came and helped him.  The collar and the strap being loosed, the thief’s body, ensacked as it was, fell helplessly forward.  He had fainted during the discussion; in fact, his senses were shut when the chaplain first came to the cell.  The chaplain caught him, and being a very strong man, saved him from a dangerous fall and seated him gently with his back to the wall.  Water was sprinkled in his face.  The chaplain went hastily to find the governor.  He came to him pale and out of breath.

“I found the turnkeys outraging a prisoner.”

“Indeed!” said the governor.  It was a new idea to him that anything could be an outrage on a prisoner.

“They confessed they had not your authority, so I took upon me to undo their act.”

“Humph!”

“I now leave the matter in your hands, sir.”

“I will see into it, sir.”

The chaplain left Mr. Hawes abruptly, for he was seized with a sudden languor and nausea; he went to his own house and there he was violently sick.  Shaking off as quickly as he could this weakness, he went at once to Robinson’s cell.  He found him coiled up like a snake.  He came hastily into the cell with the natural effusion of a man who had taken another man’s part.

“I want to ask you one question:  What had you done that they should use you like that?”

No answer.

“It is not from idle curiosity I ask you, but that I may be able to advise you, or intercede for you if the punishment should appear too severe for the offense.”

No answer.

“Come, I would wait here ever so long upon the chance of your speaking to me if you were the only prisoner, but there are others in their solitude longing for me; time is precious; will you speak to one who desires to be your friend?”

No answer.

A flush of impatience and anger crossed the chaplain’s brow.  In most men it would have found vent in words.  This man but turned away to hide it from its object.  He gulped his brief ire down and said only, “So then I am never to be any use to you,” and went sorrowfully away.