“A pretty prison without a gag in it!” said Hawes; the only reflection he was ever heard to cast on his model jail; then, with sudden ferocity he turned on Sawyer.  “What is the use of you; don’t you know anything for your money? can’t all your science stop this brute’s windpipe, you!”

Science thus blandly invoked came to the aid of inhumanity.

“Humph! have you got any salt?”

“Salt!” roared Hawes, “what is the use of salt?  Oh! ay, I see! run and get a pound, and look sharp with it.”

They brought the salt.

“Now, will you hold your noise?—­then, give it him.”

The scientific operator watched his opportunity, and when the poor biped’s mouth was open howling, crammed a handful of salt into it.  He spat it out as well as he could, but some of it dissolved by the saliva found its way down his throat.  The look of amazement and distress that followed was most amusing to the operators.

“That was, a good idea, doctor,” cried Hawes.

The triumph was premature.  Carter’s cries were choked for a moment by his astonishment.  But the next, finding a fresh torture added to the first, he howled louder than ever.  Then the governor seized the salt, powdered a good handful, and avoiding his teeth crammed it suddenly into the poor creature’s mouth.  He spat it furiously out, and the brine fell like sea-spray upon all the operators, especially on Hawes, who swore at the biped, and called him a beast, and promised him a long spell of the cross for his nastiness.  After Hawes, Fry must take his turn; and so now these three creatures, to whom Heaven had given reason, combined their strength and their sacred reason to torture and degrade one of those whom the French call “betes du bon Dieu”—­a heaven-afflicted—­heaven-pitied brother.

They respected neither the hapless wight nor his owner.  Whenever he opened his mouth with the instinct that makes animals proclaim their hurts and appeal for pity on the chance of a heart being within hearing, then did these show their sense of his appeal thus:  One of the party crammed the stinging salt down his throat; the others watched him, and kept clear of the brine that he spat vehemently out, and a loud report of laughter followed instantly each wild grimace and convulsion of fear and torture.  Thus they employed their reason, and flouted as well as tortured him who had less.

“Haw! haw! haw! haw! haw!”

No lightning came down from heaven upon these merry souls.  The idiot’s spittle did not burn them when it fell on them.  ALL THE WORSE FOR THEM!

They left Carter for hours in the pillory, and soon a violent thirst was added to his sufferings.  Prolonged pain brings on cruel thirst, and many a poor fellow suffered horribly from it during the last hours of his pillory.  But in this case the salt he had swallowed made it more vehement.  Most men go through life and never know thirst.  It is a frightful torture, as any novice would have learned who had seen Carter at six in the evening of this cruel day.  The poor wretch’s throat was so parched he could hardly breathe.  His eyes were all bloodshot and his livid tongue lolled stringless and powerless out of his gasping mouth.  He would have given diamonds for drops of water.