In the strange half-delirious fancies which coursed through his brain, he saw, plainly as it seemed to him, the face of the God-forsaken, desperate criminal who had last occupied this very cell. He saw him sitting crouched, hour after hour, day after day, in the very place where he sat. He marked the spot where his boot-heels had worn the solid plank. He saw him taken out to punishment. He saw him return more dogged, hopeless, and defiant than before. Lastly, he could see him apparently standing upright, but in reality suspended by the twisted woollen cord, his blanket torn into strips, gone to carry his case into that ultimate court of appeal where the wrongs of earth shall be righted by the justice of Heaven. * * * * * From this time Lance Trevanion experienced a complete change of sensation. 'Cabined, cribbed, confined' as he was most literally, there seemed to have been breathed into his soul with the salt scent of the ocean that which no art of man could shut out--the hope of freedom, the promise of escape. Moreover, a brief note had reached the address agreed upon between him and Tessie, and the warder, finding it transmutable into sovereigns, had formed a different opinion of Number Fifty-six. He began to look upon him as a victim of oppression, as something out of the run of the ordinary 'crew' of the _President_; finally as a young man who was worth taking a little trouble about, and for whom it might in the end be worth encountering even the serious risk of dismissal. After all, if made worth his while, what did dismissal from the Government service amount to? It involved no moral stigma, no personal disadvantage. If he cleared out with cash enough to set up a public-house, or even a store, at some of these new goldfields which were 'breaking out' every day, how could he do better? Having established friendly relations with his immediate attendant, Lance soon proceeded to reap the benefit of confidential intercourse. Articles of food, 'medical comforts'--luxuries, even--were smuggled in to Number Fifty-six. With the aid of these and recovered appetite, born of the sea air, and the tonic ideas which now pervaded his system, Lance improved measurably. He was reported to the chief officer for good conduct, and that dread official was pleased to address him one day, and, remarking upon his behaviour, to inform him that he would be transferred to the hulk _Success_ at the end of three months, being much earlier than, from the grave nature of his offence, he might have calculated upon. Lance touched his cap, smiling bitterly as he shuffled off on his mechanical round with the faint rattle which his chains _would_ make, however carefully he might be-wrap and bandage them.