2!
Melumant
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A form of torture called the "Check-Clapper" was taken down from the wall and placed in front of the kneeling convict.
The lictors and underlings of the Court crowded every part of it - some of them formed a group around the prisoners - Others were handing over the depositions to them.
There were more prisoners about in the Court, some of whom were so battered as to be only just able to crouch in the baskets in which they had been carried to the Court.
In a more disorderly Court of Justice, I have never before witnessed.
The judges' faces betrayed an inhuman indifference to the cruel tortures they were inflicting, and we all agreed that we had rarely seen more malevolent and revolting countenances.
On a subsequent visit to the same Court, I saw a prisoner kneeling on a coil of chain, his head being made fast by the tail to an upright stick held at his back by a lictor - the torture he was undergoing must have been excruciating.
In the record of what I hope may be my last visit to this "Stall of Torture", I saw a confession wrung from...