A Servant of Satan: Romantic Career of Prado the Assassin — page 106: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

98 A SERVANT OF SATAN. 4 Four days after leaving the Canary Islands, the attention _ of the convicts was attracted to some rather unusual prep- arations which were being made between decks. <A detach- ment of fifty marines filed in and took up their position amidships. Ata word of command on the part of their officer, they proceeded to load their rifles. “wo gendarmes who were accompanying the convoy thereupon appeared arid likewise loaded their revolvers, with a good deal of -ostentation. A few minutes afterward the warders pasted up in each cage an “ order of the day,” signed by the com- mander, wherein it was stated that in accordance with a de- cision cf the court-martial, the four convicts who had attempted to escape in the harbor of Santa Cruz were about to receive forty lashes ot the ‘‘ cat.” This instrument of torture, which is only used for the punishment of prisoners under sentence of penal servitude, is composed of five thongs of plaited whipcord, thirty inches long and about an inch thick. At the end of each thong are three knots, with small balls of lead. The handle is about two to three feet long and an inch and a half in diam- eter, and is composed of very heavy teak wood. ‘The ti:ongs are carefully tarred until they become as stiff and as hard as iron, after which they are dipped for several hours in the strongest kind of vinegar. The officers having assembled, a wooden bench was brought in by two of the warders, and thereupon the men about to undergo punishment appeared on the scene, stripped to the waist and barefooted. ‘The sentence was then read aloud by the officer of the watch. Convict No. 21,003, the number by which Frederick was known, was the first to undergo the punishment. Two of the warders seized him, and stretching him at full length on the wooden bench, face downward, bound him thereto by means of ropes tied round his shoulders, waist, and ankles. Gomicbooks.com 4