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"But I can't put thumb-screws on him; and how otherwise could I bring a man like him to show me the mine a man who has forsaken his beloved and all material blessings?" "That is another matter," said the minister. "If it is the Fatherland that needs help, he will undoubtedly give up the secret." "Do I have your assurance for that?" "Yes, I will answer for it."
All these things make a great difference to a sailor. But there was no going below for us. The gale was now at its height, "blowing like scissors and thumb-screws;" the captain was on deck; the ship, which was light, rolling and pitching as though she would shake the long sticks out of her; and the sail gaping open and splitting, in every direction.
Never in his life had he visited the Tower, which he looked upon as a place frequented only by Americans or country people; but as, after the park, this was the spot of all others which Bessie wished to see, he went there with her, and joining the party waiting for their ranks to be full, followed the pompous beefeater up stairs and down stairs, and into the lady's chamber, and saw the steps by the water-gate where Elizabeth sat down when she landed there a prisoner to her sister, and saw the thumb-screws and other instruments of torture, and more fire-arms and bayonets grouped in the shape of sunflowers and roses than he had supposed were in the world, and climbed to the little room where Guilford Dudley was imprisoned, and stared stupidly at the name of Jane cut upon the wall, and looked down the staircase under which it was said the murdered princes were thrown, and horrified Bessie by asking who all these people were he had been hearing about.
In Scotland, they were treated with greater barbarity; they were awfully tortured thumb-screws, the boots to crush their knees, pricking them with needles or awls night and day, to prevent a moment's rest, were persevered in until a confession was extorted, to be followed by a frightful death.
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