“Perhaps not; but then I should have lost a most competent groom; and now, thanks to you, I shall keep him.”
“Are you sure he will be worth keeping after this?” asked the Anglo-Indian, sucking at his cheroot, which was but a shade darker than his withered face.
“Worth keeping? He will be better worth it than before. It does them good.”
“That is not my invariable experience,” said Mr. Strachan, shaking his head again.
“But it is mine,” cried the doctor. “They are never any good until they feel your power. They never feel your power until they have first felt the lash:” And he emphasised the sentiment by giving the table a cut with his cane.
“I have not always found it so,” maintained the other. “In your place I should have let that man go to quarter sessions. There are the makings of a desperate criminal in him, or I’m much mistaken.”
Dr. Sullivan flushed and brightened beneath his white hairs, like a man on his mettle. “Desperate criminal?” he repeated eagerly. “He’s one already, my dear sir; and all the better! We’ll see what we can do to tame him. We’ll see what we can do to break his spirit! You know what my son says, Strachan? He never was bested by a convict yet; it would never do for him to remain bested by this one; and that’s another reason why he mustn’t slip through our fingers just yet. No; we shall show him who are his masters; we shall bend or break his spirit as I bend—”
He sprang up, with his bamboo cane, and rushed to the door, as a sudden outcry arose in the yard. At the door, however, even Dr. Sullivan paused aghast.
