totftellntp^rsitui 
 
FOR THE TERM OF 
 HIS NATURAL LIFE • 
 
 BY 
 
 MARCUS CLARKE 
 t < 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 "OLD TALES OF A YOUNG COUNTRY," "HOLIDAY PEAK," ETC. 
 
 iLontion 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited 
 
 NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1899 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
lO tJ 
 
 a^f 
 
 is 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The convict of fiction has been hitherto shown only at the 
 beginning or at the end of his career. Either his exile has 
 been the mysterious end to his misdeeds, or he has appeared 
 upon the scene to claim interest by reason of an equally un- 
 intelligible love of crime acquired during his experience in a 
 penal settlement. Charles Reade has drawn the interior of a 
 house of correction in England, and Victor Hugo has shown 
 how a French convict fares after the fulfilment of his sentence. 
 But no writer — so far as I am aware — has attempted to depict 
 the dismal condition of a felon during his term of trans- 
 portation. 
 
 I have endeavoured in " His Natural Life " to set forth the 
 working and results of an English system of transportation 
 j carefully considered and carried out under oflficial supervision; 
 and to illustrate in the manner best calculated, as I think, to 
 attract general attention, the inexpediency of again allowing 
 offenders against the law to be herded together in places 
 remote from the wholesome influence of public opinion, and to 
 be submitted to a discipline which must necessarily depend 
 
 109360 
 
Iv PREFACE. 
 
 for its just administration upon the personal character and 
 temper of their gaolers. 
 
 Some of the events narrated are doubtless tragic and 
 terrible ; but I hold it needful to my purpose to record them, 
 for they are events which have actually occurred, and which, 
 if the blunders which produce them be repeated, must infallibly 
 occur again. It is true that the British Government have 
 ceased to deport the criminals of England, but the method of 
 punishment, of which that deportation was a part, is still in 
 existence. Port Blair is a Port Arthur filled with Indian-men 
 instead of Englishmen ; and, within the last year, France has 
 established, at New Caledonia, a penal settlement which will, 
 in the natural course of things, repeat in its annals the history 
 of Macquarie Harbour and of Norfolk Island. -^ p 
 
 Melbourne, 
 Australia. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PREFACE ....-.-.. iii 
 PROLOGUE I 
 
 BOOK I.— THE SEA. 1827. 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 I. THE PRISON SHIP -II 
 
 II. SARAH PURFOY -18 
 
 III. THE MONOTONY BREAKS ------ 26 
 
 IV. THE HOSPITAL 29 
 
 V. THE BARRACOON ..-.-.- 34 
 
 VI. THE FATE OF THE " HYDASPES " - - ' - 40 
 
 VII. TYPHUS FEVER -.-----• 49 
 
 VIII. A DANGEROUS CRISIS - 57 
 
 IX. woman's WEAPONS -.-•--- 64 
 
 X. EIGHT BELLS - -- - - - - -69 
 
 XI. DISCOVERIES AND CONFESSIONS - - - -78 
 
 XII. A NEWSPAPER PARAGRAPH - - • • - 8I 
 
 BOOK II.— MACQUARIE HARBOUR. 1833. 
 
 L THE TOPOGRAPHY OF VAN DIEMEN'S LAND - • 82 
 
 SI. THE SOLITARY OF " HELL'S GATES " - - - 85 
 
 IIL A SOCIAL EVENING - 88 
 
 IV* THE BOLTER 98 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 V. SYLVIA 
 
 VI. A LEAP IN THE DARK - 
 VII. THE LAST OF MACQUARIE HARBOUR 
 VIII. THE POWER OF THE WILDERNESS 
 IX. THE SEIZURE OF THE "OSPREY" - 
 X. JOHN REX'S REVENGE - 
 XI, LEFT AT "hell's GATES" - 
 XII. "MR." DAWES .... 
 XIII. WHAT THE SEAWEED SUGGESTED 
 XIV. A WONDERFUL DAY'S WORK 
 XV. THE CORACLE .... 
 XVI. THE WRITING ON THE SAND 
 XVII. AT SEA 
 
 PAGE 
 1 02 
 
 los 
 
 112 
 117 
 123 
 129 
 
 I3S 
 147 
 
 15s 
 139 
 167 
 
 174 
 178 
 
 BOOK III.— PORT ARTHUR. 1838. 
 
 L A LABOURER IN THE VINEYARD - - - - 1 85 
 
 IL SARAH PURFOY'S REQUEST 197 
 
 III. THE STORY OF TWO BIRDS OF PREY - - - 20/ 
 
 IV. "THE NOTORIOUS DAWES " - - - . . 215 
 V. MAURICE FRERE'S GOOD ANGEL - - . . 223 
 
 vi. mr. meekin administers consolation - - 228 
 
 vii. rufus dawes's idyll 233 
 
 viii. an escape 237 
 
 ix. john rex's letter home 24 1 
 
 x. what became of the mutineers of the 
 "osprey" 250 
 
 xl a relic of macquarie harbour - - - 262 
 
 xii. at port arthur 265 
 
 xiii. the commandant's butler .... 269 
 xiv. mr. north's indisposition . - 274 
 
CONTENTS. vii 
 
 CHAF. PAGB 
 
 XV. ONE HUNDRED LASHES 282 
 
 XVI. KICKING AGAINST THE PRICKS . . - - 288 
 
 XVII. CAPTAIN AND MRS. FRERE ■ .. - - 292 
 
 XVIII. IN THE HOSPITAL 296 
 
 XIX. THE CONSOLATIONS OF RELIGION . - - 299 
 
 XX. A NATURAL PENITENTIARY 303 
 
 XXL A VISIT OF INSPECTION 306 
 
 XXII. GATHERING IN THE THREADS - - - - SH 
 
 XXIII. RUNNING THE GAUNTLET - - - . . 326 
 
 XXIV. IN THE NIGHT --,..-- 332 
 XXV. THE FLIGHT 338 
 
 XXVI. THE WORK OF THE SEA 343 
 
 XXVII. THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH - - 354 
 
 BOOK IV.— NORFOLK ISLAND. 1846. 
 
 I. EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF THE REV, 
 
 JAMES NORTH 36 1 
 
 II. THE LOST HEIR 372 
 
 III. EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF THE REV. 
 
 JAMES NORTH 382 
 
 IV. EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF THE REV. 
 
 JAMES NORTH 390 
 
 V. MR. RICHARD DEVINE SURPRISED - - - 394 
 
 VI. IN WHICH THE CHAPLAIN IS TAKEN ILL - - 399 
 
 VII. BREAKING A MAN'S SPIRIT 40$ 
 
 VIII. EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF THE REV. 
 
 JAMES NORTH ...... 409 
 
 IX. THE LONGEST STRAW .--■-- 413 
 X A MEETING - - 418 
 
viii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PAGB 
 
 XI. EXTRACTED FROM THE DIAvY OF THE REV. 
 
 JAMES NORTH 425 
 
 XII. THE STRANGE BEHAVIOUR OF MR. NORTH - - 428 
 
 XIII. MR. NORTH SPEAKS 433 
 
 XIV. GETTING READY FOR SEA 439 
 
 XV. THE DISCOVERY 448 
 
 XVI. FIFTEEN HOURS 453 
 
 XVII. THE REDEMPTION 456 
 
 XVIII. THE CYCLONE ,6l 
 
 EPILOGUE 467 
 
 APPENDIX 46q 
 
HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 PROLOGUE. 
 
 ON the evening of the 3rd of May, 1827, the garden of a 
 large red-brick bow-windowed mansion called North- 
 end House, which, enclosed in spacious grounds, stands 
 on the eastern height of Hampstead Heath, between Finchley 
 Road and the Chestnut Avenue, was the scene of a domestic 
 tragedy. 
 
 Three persons were the actors in it. One was an old man, 
 whose white hair and wrinkled face gave token that he was at 
 least sixty years of age. He stood erect with his back to the 
 wall which separates the garden from the Heath, in the attitude 
 of one surprised into sudden passion, and held uplifted the 
 heavy ebon cane, upon which he was ordinarily accustomed to 
 lean. He was confronted by a man of twb-and-twenty, un- 
 usually tall and athletic of figure, dressed in rough seafaring 
 clothes, and who held in his arms, protecting her, a lady of 
 middle age. The face of the young man wore an expression 
 of horror-stricken astonishment, and the slight frame of the 
 grey-haired woman was convulsed with sobs. 
 
 These three people were Sir Richard Devine, his wife, and 
 his only son Richard, who had returned from abroad that 
 morning. 
 
 " So, madam," said Sir Richard, in the high-strung accents 
 which in crises of great mental agony are common to the 
 most self-restrained of us, "you have been for twenty years 
 
 I 
 
ins NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 a. living lie ! For twenty years you have cheated and mocked 
 me. For twenty years — in company with a scoundrel whose 
 name is a byword for all that is profligate and base — you have 
 laughed at me for a credulous and hood-winked fool ; and now, 
 because I dared to raise my hand to that reckless boy, you 
 confess your shame, and glory in the confession ! " 
 
 "Mother, dear mother!" cried the young man, in a paroxysm 
 of grief, " say that you did not mean those words ; you said 
 them but in anger ! See, I am calm now, and he may strike 
 me if he will." 
 
 Lady Devine shuddered, creeping close, as though to hide 
 herself in the broad bosom of her son. 
 
 The old man continued : " I married you, Ellinor Wade, for 
 your beauty; you married me for my fortune. I was a plebeian, 
 a ship's carpenter ; you were well born, your father was a man 
 of fashion, a gambler, the friend of rakes and prodigals. I was 
 rich. I had been knighted. I was in lavour at Court. He 
 wanted money, and he sold you. I paid the price he asked, 
 but there was nothing of your cousin, my lord Bellasis and 
 Wotton, in the bond." 
 
 " Spare me, sir, spare me ! " said Lady Ellinor faintly. 
 
 " Spare you ! Ay, you have spared me, have you not ? 
 Lookye," he cried, in sudden fury, " I am not to be fooled so 
 easily. Your family are proud. Colonel Wade has other 
 daughters. Your lover, my lord Bellasis, even now, thinks 
 to retrieve his broken fortunes by marriage. You have con- 
 fessed your shame. To-morrow your father, your sisters, all 
 the world, shall know the story you have told me ! " 
 
 " By Heaven, sir, you will not do this ! " burst out the young 
 man. 
 
 " Silence, bastard!" cried Sir Richard. "Ay, bite your lips, 
 the word is of your precious mother's making ! " 
 
 Lady Devine slipped through her son's arms and fell on her 
 knees at her husband's feet. 
 
 " Do not do this, Richard. I have been faithful to you for 
 two-and-twcnty years. I have borne all the slights and insults 
 you have heaped upon me. The shameful secret of my early 
 love broke from me when, in your rage, you threatened him. 
 Let me go away ; kill me ; but do not shame me." 
 
 Sir Richard, who had turned to walk away, stopped suddenly 
 and his gicat uhit'.- eyebrows came together ia his red face with 
 
PROLOGUE, 
 
 a savage scowl. He laughed, and in that laugh his fury seemed 
 to congeal into a cold and cruel hate. 
 
 " You would preserve your good name then. You would 
 conceal this disgrace from the world. You shall have your 
 wish — upon one condition." 
 
 "What is it, sir?" she asked, rising, but trembling with 
 terror, as she stood with drooping arms and widely opened 
 eyes. 
 
 The old man looked at her for an instant, and then said 
 slowly, — 
 
 " That this impostor, who so long has falsely borne my 
 name, has wrongfully squandered my money, and unlawfully 
 eaten my bread, shall pack ! That he abandon for ever the 
 name he has usurped ; keep himself from my sight, and never 
 set foot again in house of mine." 
 
 " You would not part me from my only son ! " cried the 
 wretched woman. 
 
 " Take him with you to his father then." 
 
 Richard Devine gently loosed the arms that again clung 
 around his neck, kissed the pale face, and turned his own — 
 scarcely less pale — towards the old man. 
 
 " I owe you no duty," he said. " You have always hated 
 and reviled me. When by your violence you drove me from 
 your house, you set spies to watch me in the life I had chosen. 
 I have nothing in common with you. I have long felt it. 
 Now when I learn for the first time whose son I really am, I 
 rejoice to think that I have less to thank you for than I once 
 believed. I accept the terms you offer. I will go. Nay, 
 mother, think of your good name." 
 
 Sir Richard Devine laughed again. " I am glad to see you 
 are so well disposed. Listen now. To-night I send for Quaid 
 to alter my will. My sister's son, Maurice Frere, shall be my 
 heir in your stead. I give you nothing. You l»ave this house 
 in an hour. You change your name ; you never by word or 
 deed make claim on me or mine. No matter what strait or 
 poverty you plead — if even your life should hang upon the 
 issue — the instant I hear that there exists on earth one who 
 calls himself Richard Devine, that instant shall your mother's 
 shame become a public scandal. You know me. I keep my 
 word. I return iu an hour, madam ; let me find him 
 gone." 
 
HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 He passed them, upright, as if upborne by passion, strode 
 down the garden with the vigour that anger lends, and took 
 the road to London. 
 
 " Richard ! " cried the poor mother. " Forgive me, my son ! 
 I have ruined you." 
 
 Richard Devine tossed his black hair from his brow in sudden 
 passion of love and grief. 
 
 " Mother, dear mother, do not weep," he said, " I am not 
 worthy of your tears. Forgive ! It is I — impetuous and un- 
 grateful during all your years of sorrow — who most need for- 
 giveness. Let me share your burden that I may lighten it. 
 He is just. It is fitting that I go. I can earn a name — a 
 name that I need not blush to bear nor you to hear. I am 
 strong. I can work. The world is wide. Farewell ! my own 
 mother ! " 
 
 " Not yet, not yet ! Ah I see he has taken the Belsize road. 
 Oh, Richard ! pray heaven they may not meet." 
 
 " Tush ! They will not meet ! You are pale, you faint ! " 
 
 " A terror of I know not what coming evil overpowers me. 
 I tremble for the future. Oh, Richard, Richard ! forgive me t 
 pray for me ! " 
 
 " Hush, dearest ! Come, let me lead you in. I wiU write. 
 I win send you news of me once at least, ere I depart. So — 
 you are calmer, mother ! " 
 
 Sir Richard Devine, knight, shipbuilder, naval contractor, 
 and millionaire, was the son of a Harwich boat carpenter. 
 Early left an orphan with a sister to support, he soon reduced 
 his sole aim in life to the accumulation of money. In the 
 Harwich boat-shed, nearly fifty years before, he had contracted 
 — in defiance of prophesied failure — to build the Hastings sloop 
 of war for His Majesty King George the Third's Lords of the 
 Admiralty. This contract was the thin end of that wedge 
 which eventually split the mighty oak block of Government 
 patronage into three-deckers, and ships of the line ; which 
 did good service under Pellew, Parker, Nelson, Hood ; which 
 exfoliated and ramified into huge dockyards at Plymouth, 
 Portsmouth, and Sheerness, and bore, as its buds and flowers, 
 countless barrels of measly pork and maggotty biscuit. The 
 sole aitn of the coarse, pushing, and hard-headed son of Dick 
 
PROLOGUE. 5 
 
 Devine was to make money. He had cringed and crawled 
 and fluttered and blustered, had licked the dust off great men's 
 shoes, and danced attendance in great men's ante-chambers. 
 Nothing was too low, nothing too high for him, A shrewd 
 man of business, a thorough master of his trade, troubled with 
 no scruples of honour or of delicacy, he made money rapidly, 
 and saved it when made. The first hint that the public re- 
 ceived of his wealth was in 1796, when Mr. Devine, one of the 
 shipwrights to the Government, and a comparatively young 
 man of forty-four or thereabouts, subscribed five thousand 
 pounds to the Loyalty Loan raised to prosecute the French 
 war. In 1805, after doing good, and it was hinted not un- 
 profitable, service in the trial of Lord Melville, the Treasurer 
 of the Navy, he married his sister to a wealthy Bristol merchant, 
 one Anthony Frere, and married himself to Ellinor Wade, the 
 eldest daughter of Colonel Wotton Wade, a boon companion 
 of the Regent, and uncle by marriage of a remarkable scamp 
 and dandy, Lord Bellasis. At that time, what with lucky 
 speculations in the Funds — assisted, it was whispered, by secret 
 intelligence from France during the stormy years of '13, '14, 
 and '15 — and the legitimate profit on his Government contracts, 
 he had accumulated a princely fortune, and could afford to live 
 in princely magnificence. But the old-man-of-the-sea burden 
 of parsimony and avarice which he had voluntarily taken upon 
 him was not to be shaken off, and the only show he made of 
 his wealth was by purchasing, on his knighthood, the ram- 
 bling but comfortable house at Hampstead, and ostensibly 
 retiring from active business. 
 
 His retirement was not a happy one. He was a stern father 
 and a severe master. His servants hated, and his wife feared 
 him. His only son Richard appeared to inherit his father's 
 strong will and imperious manner. Under careful supervision) 
 and a just rule he might have been guided to good ; but leit 
 to his own devices outside, and galled by the iron yoke of 
 parental discipline at home, he became reckless and prodigal. 
 The mother — poor, timid Ellinor, who had been rudely torn 
 from the love of her youth, her cousin, Lord Bellasis— tried to 
 restrain him, but the headstrong boy, though owning for his 
 mother that strong love which is often a part of such violent 
 natures, proved intractable, and after three years of parental 
 feud, he went off to the Continent, to pursue there the same 
 
HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 reckless life which in London had offended Sir Richard. 
 Sir Richard, upon this, sent for Maurice Frere, his sister's 
 son — the abolition of the slave trade had ruined the Bristol 
 House of Frere — and bought for him a commission in a 
 marching regiment, hinting darkly of special favours to come. 
 His open preference for his nephew had galled to the quick 
 his sensitive wife, who contrasted with some heart-pangs the 
 gallant prodigality of her father with the niggardly economy of 
 her husband. Between the houses of parvenu Devine and 
 long-descended Wotton Wade there had long been little love. 
 Sir Richard felt that the Colonel despised him for a city-knight, 
 and had heard that over claret and cards Lord Bellasis and 
 his friends had often lamented the hard fortune which gave the 
 beauty, EUinor, to so sordid a bridegroom. Armigell Esmd 
 Wade, Viscount Bellasis and Wotton, was a product of his 
 time. Of good family (his ancestor, Armigell, was reputed 
 to have landed in America before Gilbert or Raleigh), he had 
 inherited his manor of Bellasis, or Belsize, from one Sir Esm^ 
 Wade, ambassador from Queen Elizabeth to the King of Spain 
 in the delicate matter of Mendoza, and afterwards counsellor 
 to James L, and lieutenant of the Tower. This Esmd was a 
 man of dark devices. It was he who negotiated with Mary 
 Stuart for Elizabeth ; it was he who wormed out of Cobham the 
 evidence against the great Raleigh. He became rich, and his 
 sister (the widow of Henry de Kirkhaven, Lord of Hemfleet) 
 manying into the family of the Wottons, the wealth of the 
 house was farther increased by the union of her daughter 
 Sybil with Marmaduke Wade. Marmaduke Wade was a 
 Lord of the Admiralty, and a patron of Pepys, who in his diary 
 [July 17th, 1668] speaks of visiting him at Belsize. He was 
 raised to the peerage in 1667 by the title of Raron Bellasis and 
 Wotton, and married for his second wife Anne, daughter of 
 Philip Stanhope, second Earl of Chesterfield. Allied to this 
 powerful house, the family tree of Wotton Wade grew and 
 flourished. 
 
 In 1784, Philip, third Baron, married the celebrated beauty, 
 Miss Povey, and had issue Armigell Esmd, in whose person 
 the family prudence seemed to have run itself out. 
 
 The fourth Lord Bellasis combined the daring of Armigell, 
 the adventurer, with the evil disposition of Esmd, the lieutenant 
 of the Tower. No sooner had he become master of his fortune 
 
PROLOGUE. 7 
 
 than he took to dice, drink, and debauchery with all the extrava- 
 gance of the last century. He was foremost in every riot, most 
 notorious of all the notorious " bloods " of the day. 
 
 Horace Walpole, in one of his letters to Selwyn in 1785, 
 mentions a fact which may stand for a page of narrative. 
 " Young Wade," he says, " is reported to have lost one thou- 
 sand guineas last night to that vulgarest of all the Bourbons, 
 the Due de Chartres, and they say the fool is not yet nineteen." 
 From a pigeon Armigell Wade became a hawk, and at thirty 
 years of age, having lost together with his estates all chance of 
 winning the one woman who might have saved him — his cousin 
 Ellinor — he became that most unhappy of all beings, a well- 
 bom blackleg. When he was told by thin-lipped, cool Colonel 
 Wade that the rich shipbuilder, Sir Richard Devine, had pro- 
 posed an alliance with fair-haired gentle Ellinor, he swore, 
 with fierce knitting of his black brows, that no law of man nor 
 Heaven should further restrain him in his selfish prodigality. 
 " You have sold your daughter and ruined me," he said, " look 
 to the consequences." Colonel Wade sneered at his fiery 
 kinsman : " You will find Sir Richard's house a pleasant one 
 to visit, Armigell j and he should be worth an income to so 
 experienced a gambler as yourself." Lord Bellasis did visit at 
 Sir Richard's house during the first year of his cousin's mar- 
 riage ; but upon the birth of the son who is the hero of this 
 history, he affected a quarrel with the city-knight, and cursing 
 him to the Prince and Poins for a miserly curmudgeon, who 
 neither diced nor drank like a gentleman, departed, more 
 desperately at war with fortune than ever, for his old haunts. 
 The year 1827 found him a hardened, hopeless old man of sixty, 
 battered in health and ruined in pocket ; but who, by dint of 
 stays, hair-dye, and courage, yet faced the world with undaunted 
 front, and dined as gaily in bailiff-haunted Belsize as he had 
 dined at Carlton House. Of the possessions of the house of 
 Wotton Wade, this old manor, timberless and bare, was all that 
 remained, and its master rarely visited it. 
 
 On the evening of the 3rd May, 1827, Lord Bellasis had 
 been attending a pigeon match at Homsey Wood, and having 
 resisted the importunities of his companion, Mr. Lionel Crofton 
 (a young gentleman-rake, whose position in the sporting world 
 was not the most secure), who wanted him to go on into town, 
 he had avowed his intention of striking across Hampstead to 
 
8 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 Belsize. " I have an appointment at the Fir Trees on the 
 Heath," he said. 
 
 " With a woman ? " asked Mr. Crofton. 
 
 " Not at all ; with a parson." 
 
 " A parson ! " 
 
 " You stare ! Well, he is only just ordained. I met him last 
 year at Bath on his vacation from Cambridge, and he was good 
 enough to lose some money to me." 
 
 "And now waits to pay it out of his first curacy. I wish 
 your lordship joy with all my soul. Then, we must push on, 
 for it grows late." 
 
 " Thanks, my dear sir, for the * we,' but I must go alone," 
 said Lord Bellasis, dryly. " To-morrow you can settle with me 
 for the sitting of last week. Hark ! the clock is striking nine. 
 Good-night." 
 
 ***** 
 
 At half-past nine Richard Devine quitted his mother's house 
 to begin the new life he had chosen, and so, drawn together 
 by that strange fate of circumstance which creates events, the 
 father and son approached each other. 
 
 ***** 
 
 As the young man gained the middle of the path which led 
 to the Heath, he met Sir Richard returning from the village. 
 It was no part of his plan to seek an interview with the man 
 whom his mother had so deeply wronged, and he would have 
 slunk past in the gloom ; but seeing him thus alone returning to 
 a desolated home, the prodigal was tempted to utter some words 
 of farewell and of regret. To his astonishment, however, Sir 
 Richard passed swiftly on, with body bent forward as one in 
 the act of falling, and with eyes unconscious of surroundings, 
 staring straight into the distance. Half-terrified at this strange 
 appearance, Richard hurried onward, and at a turn of the path 
 stumbled upon something which horribly accounted for the 
 curious action of the old man. A dead body lay upon its face 
 in the heather ; beside it was a heavy riding whip stained at the 
 handle with blood, and an open pocket-book. Richard took up 
 the book, and read, in gold letters on the cover, " Lord Bellasis." 
 
 The unhappy young man knelt down beside the body and 
 raised it. The skull had been fractured by a blow, but it 
 seemed that life yet lingered. Overcome with horror — for lie 
 
PROLOGUE. 
 
 could not doubt but that his mother's worst fears had been 
 realized — Richard knelt there holding his murdered father in 
 his arms, waiting until the murderer, whose name he bore, 
 should have placed himself beyond pursuit. It seemed an 
 hour to his excited fancy before he saw a light pass along the 
 front of the house he had quitted, and knew that Sir Richard 
 had safely reached his chamber. With some bewildered inten- 
 tion of summoning aid, he left the body and made towards the 
 town. As he stepped out on the path he heard voices, and 
 presently some dozen men, one of whom held a horse, burst out 
 upon him, and, with sudden fury, seized and flung him to the 
 ground. 
 
 At first the young man, so rudely assailed, did not compre- 
 hend his own danger. His mind, bent upon one hideous 
 explanation of the crime, did not see another obvious one which 
 had already occurred to the mind of the landlord of the Three 
 Spaniards. 
 
 " God defend me ! " cried Mr. Mogford, scanning by the 
 pale light of the rising moon the features of the murdered man, 
 " but it is Lord Bellasis ! — oh, you bloody villain ! Jem, bring 
 him along here, pVaps his lordship can recognize him ! " 
 
 " It was not I!" cried Richard Devine. "For God's sake, 
 
 my lord, say " then he stopped abruptly, and being forced 
 
 on his knees by his captors, remained staring at the dying man, 
 in sudden and ghastly fear. 
 
 Those men in whom emotion has the effect of quickening 
 circulation of the blood reason rapidly in moments of danger, 
 and in the terrible instant when his eyes met those of Lord 
 Bellasis, Richard Devine had summed up the chances of his 
 future fortune, and realized to the full his personal peril. The 
 runaway horse had given the alarm. The drin' ers at the 
 Spaniards' Inn had started to search the Heath, and had dis- 
 covered a fellow in rough costume, whose person was unknown 
 to them, hastily quitting a spot where, beside a rifled pocket- 
 book and a blood-stained whip, lay a dying man. 
 
 The web of circumstantial evidence had enmeshed him. An 
 hour ago escape would have been easy. He would have had 
 but to cry, " I am the son of Sir Richard Devine. Come with 
 me to yonder house, and I will prove to you that I have but 
 just quitted it," — to place his innocence beyond immediate 
 question. That course of action was impossible now. Know- 
 
HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 ing Sir Richard as he did, and believing, moreover, that in his 
 raging passion the old man had himself met and murdered the 
 destroyer of his honour, the son of Lord Bellasis and Lady 
 Devine saw himself in a position which would compel him 
 either to sacrifice himself, or to purchase a chance of safety at 
 the price of his mother's dishonour and the death of the man 
 whom his mother had deceived. If the outcast son were 
 brought a prisoner to North-End House, Sir Richard — now 
 doubly oppressed of fate — would be certain to deny him ; and 
 he would be compelled, in self-defence, to reveal a story which 
 would at once bring his mother to open infamy, and send to 
 the gallows the man who had been for twenty years deceived — 
 the man to whose kindness he owed education and former 
 fortune. He knelt, stupefied, unable to speak or move. 
 
 " Come," cried Mogford again ; " say, my lord, is this the 
 villain ? " 
 
 Lord Bellasis rallied his failing senses, his glazing eyes stared 
 into his son's face with horrible eagerness ; he shook his head, 
 raised a feeble arm as though to point elsewhere, and fell back 
 dead. 
 
 " If you didn't murder him, you robbed him," growled 
 Mogford, " and you shall sleep at Bow-street to-night. Tom, 
 run on to meet the patrol, and tell him to leave word at the 
 Gate-house that I've a passenger for the coach ! — Bring him 
 on. Jack ! — What's your name, eh ? " 
 
 He repeated the rough question twice before his prisonet 
 answered, but at length Richard Devine raised a pale face 
 which stern resolution had already hardened into defiant man- 
 hood, and said, " Dawes — Rufus Dawes." 
 
 * * * ♦ * 
 
 His new life had begun already : for that night one, Rufus 
 Dawes, charged with murder and robbery, lay awake in prison, 
 waiting for the fortune of the morrow. 
 
 Two other men waited as eagerly. One, Mr. Lionel Crofton ; 
 the other, the horseman who had appointment with the mur- 
 dered Lord Bellasis under the shadow of the fir trees on 
 Hampstead Heath. As for Sir Richard Devine, he waited for 
 no one, for upon reaching his room he had fallen senselesr in 
 a fit of apoplexy. 
 
BOOK I. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE PRISON SHIP, 
 
 IN the breathless stillness of a tropical afternoon, when the 
 air was hot and heavy, and the sky brazen and cloudless, 
 the shadow of the Malabar lay solitary on the surface of 
 the glittering sea. 
 
 The sun — who rose on the left hand every morning a blazing 
 ball, to move slowly through the unbearable blue, until he sank 
 fiery red in mingling glories of sky and ocean on the right 
 hand — had just got low enough to peep beneath the awning 
 that covered the poop deck, and awaken a young man, in an 
 undress military uniform, who was dozing on a coil of rope. 
 
 " Hang it ! " said he, rising and stretching himself, with 
 the weary sigh of a man who has nothing to do, " I must have 
 been asleep ; " and then holding by a stay, he turned about 
 and looked down into the waist of the ship. 
 
 Save for the man at the wheel and the guard at the quarter- 
 railing, he was alone on the deck. A few birds flew round 
 about the vessel, and seemed to pass under her stern windows 
 only to appear again at her bows. A lazy albatross, with the 
 white water flashing from his wings, rose with a dabbling 
 sound to leeward, and in the place where he had been, glided 
 the hideous fin of a silently-swimming shark. The seams of 
 the well-scrubbed deck were sticky with melted pitch, and the 
 brass plate of the compass-case sparkled in the sun like a 
 
HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 jewel. There was no breeze, and as the clumsy ship rolled 
 and lurched on the heaving sea, her idle sails flapped against 
 her masts with a regularly recurring noise, and her bowsprit 
 would seem to rise higher with the water's swell, to dip again 
 with a jerk that made each rope tremble and tauten. On the 
 forecastle, some half-dozen soldiers, in all varieties of undress, 
 were playing at cards, smoking, or watching the fishing-lines 
 hanging over the catheads. 
 
 So far the appearance of the vessel differed in nowise from 
 that of an ordinary transport. But in the waist a curious sight 
 presented itself. It was as though one had built a cattle-pen 
 there. At the foot of the foremast, and at the quarter-deck, 
 a strong barricade, loop-holed and furnished with doors for 
 ingress and egress, ran across the deck from bulwark to bul- 
 wark. Outside this cattle-pen an armed sentry stood on guard ; 
 inside, standing, sitting, or walking monotonously, within range 
 of the shining barrels in the arm chest on the poop, were some 
 sixty men and boys, dressed in uniform grey. The men and 
 boys were prisoners of the Crown, and the cattle-pen was their 
 exercise ground. Their prison was down the main hatchway, 
 on the 'tween decks, and the barricade, continued down, made 
 its side walls. 
 
 It was the fag end of the two hours' exercise graciously per- 
 mitted each afternoon by His Majesty King George the Fourth 
 to prisoners of the Crown, and the prisoners of the Crown were 
 enjoying themselves. It was not, perhaps, so pleasant as under 
 the awning on the poop-deck, but that sacred shade was only 
 for such great men as the captain and his officers. Surgeon 
 Pine, Lieutenant Maurice Frere, and, most important personages 
 of all, Captain Vickers and his wife. 
 
 That the convict leaning against the bulwarks would like to 
 have been able to get rid of his enemy the sun for a moment, 
 was probable enough. His companions, sitting on the combings 
 of the mainhatch, or crouched in careless fashion on the shady 
 side of the barricade, were laughing and talking, with blasphe- 
 mous and obscene merriment hideous to contemplate ; but he, 
 with cap pulled over his brows, and hands thrust into the 
 pockets of his coarse grey garments, held aloof from their 
 dismal joviality. 
 
 The sun poured his hottest rays on his head unheeded, and 
 though every cranny and seam in the deck sweltered hot pitch 
 
THE PRISON SHIP. IJ 
 
 under the fierce heat, the man stood there, motionless and 
 morose, staring at the sleepy sea. He had stood thus, in one 
 place or another, ever since the groaning vessel had escaped 
 from the rollers of the Bay of Biscay, and the miserable 
 hundred and eighty creatures among whom he was classed 
 had been freed from their irons, and allowed to sniff fresh air 
 twice a day. 
 
 The low-browed, coarse-featured ruffians grouped about the 
 deck cast many a leer of contempt at the solitary figure, but 
 their remarks were confined to gestures only. There are 
 degrees in crime, and Rufus Dawes, the convicted felon, who 
 had but escaped the gallows to toil for all his life in irons, was 
 a man of mark. He had been tried for the robbery and murder 
 of Lord Bellasis. The friendless vagabond's lame story of 
 finding on the fieath a dying man would not have availed him, 
 but for the curious fact sworn to by the landlord of the 
 Spaniards' Inn, that the murdered nobleman had shaken his 
 head when asked if the prisoner was his assassin. The vaga- 
 bond was acquitted of the murder, but condemned to death 
 for the robbery, and London, who took some interest in the 
 trial, considered him fortunate when his sentence was commuted 
 to transportation for life. 
 
 It was customary on board these floating prisons to keep 
 each man's crime a secret from his fellows, so that if he chose, 
 and the caprice of his jailers allowed him, he could lead a new 
 life in his adopted home, without being taunted with his former 
 misdeeds. But, like other excellent devices, the expedient was 
 only a nominal one, and few out of the doomed hundred and 
 eighty were ignorant of the offence which their companions 
 had committed. The more guilty boasted of their superiority 
 in vice ; the petty criminals swore that their guilt was blacker 
 than it appeared. Moreover, a deed so bloodthirsty and a 
 respite so unexpected, had invested the name of Rufus Dawes 
 with a grim distinction, which his superior mental abihties, no 
 less than his haughty temper and powerful frame, combined 
 to support. A young man of two-and-twenty owning to no 
 friends, and existing among them but by the fact of his crimi- 
 nality, he was respected and admired. The vilest of all the vile 
 horde penned between decks, if they laughed at his " fine airs " 
 behind his back, cringed and submitted when they met him 
 face to face — for in a convict ship the greatest villain is the 
 
14 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 greatest hero, and the only nobility acknowledged by that 
 hideous commonwealth is that Order of the Halter which is 
 conferred by the hand of the hangman. 
 
 The young man on the poop caught sight of the tall figure 
 leaning against the bulwarks, and it gave him an excuse to 
 break the monotony of his employment. 
 
 " Here, you ! " he called out, with an oath, " get out of the 
 gangway ! " 
 
 Rufus Dawes was not in the gangway — was, in fact, a good 
 two feet from it, but at the sound of Lieutenant Frere's voice 
 he started, and went obediently towards the hatchway. 
 
 " Touch your hat, you dog ! " cries Frere, coming to the 
 quarter railing. " Touch your damned hat ! Do you hear?" 
 
 Rufus Dawes touched his cap, saluting in half military 
 fashion. 
 
 " I'll make some of you fellows smart, if you don't have a 
 care," went on the angry Frere, half to himself, and half a]oud. 
 " Insolent blackguards ! " 
 
 And then the noise of the sentry, on the quarter deck below 
 him, grounding arms, turned the current of his thought*. A 
 thin, tall, soldier-like man, with a cold blue eye, and prim 
 features, came out of the cuddy below, handing out a fair- 
 haired, affected, mincing lady, of middle age. Captain Vickers 
 of Mr. Frere's regiment, ordered for service in Van Diemen's 
 Land, was bringing his lady on deck to get an appetite for 
 dinner. 
 
 Mrs. Vickers was forty-two (she owned to thirty-three), and 
 had been a garrison-/5i?//^ for eleven weary years before she 
 married prim John Vickers. The marriage was not a happy 
 one. Vickers found his wife extravagant, vain, and snappish, 
 and she found him harsh, disenchanted, and commonplace. 
 A daughter, born two years after their marriage, was the only 
 link that bound the ill-assorted pair. Vickers idolized little 
 Sylvia, and when the recommendation of a long sea-voyage for 
 his faihng health induced him to exchange into the — th, he 
 insisted upon bringing the child with him, despite Mrs. Vickevs's 
 reiterated objections on the score of educational difficulties. 
 " He could educate her himself, if need be," he said ; " and 
 she should not stay at home." 
 
 So Mrs. Vickers, after a hard struggle, gave up the point and 
 her dreams of Bath together, and followed her husband with 
 
THE PRISON SHIP. 15 
 
 the best grace she could muster. When fairly out to sea she 
 seemed reconciled to her fate, and employed the intervals 
 between scolding her daughter and her maid, in fascinating 
 the boorish young Lieutenant, Maurice Frere. 
 
 Fascination was an integral portion of Julia Vickers's nature ; 
 admiration was all she lived for : and even in a convict ship, 
 with her husband at her elbow, she must flirt, or perish of 
 mental inanition. There was no harm in the creature. She was 
 simply a vain, middle-aged woman, and Frere took her atten- 
 tions for what they were worth. Moreover, her good feeling 
 towards him was useful, for reasons which will shortly appear. 
 
 Running down the ladder, cap in hand, he offered her his 
 assistance. 
 
 "Thank you, Mr. Frere. These horrid ladders. I really 
 — he, he — quite tremble at them. Hot ! Yes, dear me, most 
 oppressive. John, the camp-stool. Pray, Mr. Frere — oh, 
 thank you ! Sylvia ! Sylvia ! John, have you my smelling 
 salts ? Still a calm, I suppose "i These dreadful calms ! " 
 
 This semi-fashionable slip-slop, within twenty yards of the 
 wild beasts' den, on the other side of the barricade, sounded 
 strange ; but Mr. Frere thought nothing of it. Familiarity de- 
 stroys terror, and the incurable flirt fluttered her muslins, and 
 played off her second-rate graces, under the noses of the 
 grinning convicts, with as much complacency as if she had 
 been in a Chatham ball-room. Indeed, if there had been 
 nobody else near, it is not unlikely that she would have 
 disdainfully fascinated the 'tween-decks, and made eyes at the 
 most presentable of the convicts there. 
 
 Vickers, with a bow to Frere, saw his wife up the ladder, and 
 then turned for his daughter. 
 
 She was a delicate-looking child of six years old, with blue 
 eyes and bright hair. Though indulged by her father, and 
 spoiled by her mother, the natural sweetness of her disposition 
 saved her from being disagreeable, and the effects of her 
 education as yet only showed themselves in a thousand im- 
 perious prettinesses, which made her the darling of the ship. 
 Little Miss Sylvia was privileged to go anywhere and do 
 anything, and even convictism shut its foul mouth in her 
 presence. Running to her father's side, the child chattered 
 with all the volubility of flattered self-esteem. She ran hither 
 and thither, asked questions, invented answers, laughed, sang, 
 
l6 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 gambolled, peered into the compass-case, felt in the pockets 
 of the man at the helm, put her tiny hand into the big palm of 
 the officer of the watch, even ran down to the quarter-deck and 
 pulled the coat-tails of the sentry on duty. 
 
 At last, tired of running about, she took a little striped leather 
 ball from the bosom of her frock, and calling to her father, 
 threw it up to him as he stood on the poop. He returned it, 
 and, shouting with laughter, clapping her hands between each 
 throw, the child kept up the game. 
 
 The convicts — whose slice of fresh air was nearly eaten — 
 turned with eagerness to watch this new source of amusement. 
 Innocent laughter and childish prattle were strange to them. 
 Some smiled, and nodded with interest in the varying fortunes 
 of the game. One young lad could hardly restrain himself from 
 applauding. It was as though, out of the sultry heat which 
 brooded over the ship, a cool breeze had suddenly arisen. 
 
 In the midst of this mirth, the officer of the watch, glancing 
 round the fast crimsoning horizon, paused abruptly, and shading 
 his eyes with his hand, looked out intently to the westward. 
 
 Frere, who found Mrs. Vickers's conversation a little tiresome, 
 and had been glancing from time to time at the companion, as 
 though in expectation of some one appearing, noticed the 
 action. 
 
 "What is it, Mr. Best.?" 
 
 " I don't know exactly. It looks to me like a cloud of 
 smoke." 
 
 And, taking the glass, he swept the horizon. 
 
 " Let me see," said Frere ; and he looked also. 
 
 On the extreme horizon, just to the left of the sinking sun, 
 rested, or seemed to rest, a tiny black cloud. The gold and 
 crimson, splashed all about the sky, had overflowed around it, 
 and rendered a clear view almost impossible. 
 
 " I can't quite make it out," says Frere, handing back the 
 telescope. "We can see as soon as the sun goes down a 
 little." 
 
 Then Mrs. Vickers must, of course, look also, and was 
 prettily affected about the focus of the glass, applying herself to 
 that instrument with much girlish giggling, and finally declaring, 
 after shutting one eye with her fair hand, that ** positively she 
 could see nothing but sky, and believed that wicked Mr. Frere 
 was doing it on purpose." 
 
THE PRISON SHIP. 17 
 
 By-and-by, Captain Blunt appeared, and, taking the glass 
 from his officer, looked through it long and carefully. Then 
 the mizen-top was appealed to, and declared that he could see 
 nothing ; and at last the sun went down with a jerk, as though 
 it had slipped through a slit in the sea, and the black spot, 
 swallowed up in the gathering haze, was seen no more. 
 
 As the sun sank, the relief guard came up the after hatchway, 
 and the relieved guard prepared to superintend the descent of 
 the convicts. At this moment Sylvia missed her ball, which, 
 taking advantage of a sudden lurch of the vessel, hopped over 
 the barricade, and rolled to the feet of Rufus Dawes, who was 
 still leaning, apparently lost in thought, against the side. 
 
 The bright spot of colour rolling across the white deck caught 
 his eye ; stooping mechanically, he picked up the ball, and 
 stepped forward to return it. The door of the barricade was 
 open, and the sentry — a young soldier, occupied in staring at 
 the relief guard — did not notice the prisoner pass through it. 
 In another instant he was on the sacred quarter-deck. 
 
 Heated with the game, her cheeks aglow, her eyes sparkling, 
 her golden hair afloat, Sylvia had turned to leap after her play- 
 thing, but even as she turned, from under the shadow of the 
 cuddy glided a rounded white arm ; and a shapely hand caught 
 the child by the sash and drew her back. The next moment 
 the young man in grey had placed the toy in her hand. 
 
 Maurice Frere, descending the poop ladder, had not wit- 
 nessed this little incident; on reaching the deck, he saw only 
 the unexplained presence of the convict uniform. 
 
 " Thank you," said a voice, as Rufus Dawes stooped before 
 the pouting Sylvia. 
 
 The convict raised his eyes and saw a young girl of eighteen 
 or nineteen years of age, tall, and well developed, who, dressed 
 in a loose-sleeved robe of some white material, was standing in 
 the doorway. She had black hair, coiled around a narrow and 
 flat head, a small foot, white skin, well-shaped hands, and large 
 dark eyes, and as she smiled at him, her scarlet lips showed her 
 white even teeth. 
 
 He knew her at once. She was Sarah Purfoy, Mrs. Vickers's. 
 maid, but he never had been so close to her before ; and it 
 seemed to him that he was in the presence of some strange 
 tropical flower, which exhaled a heavy and intoxicating per- 
 fume. 
 
i8 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 For an instant the two looked at each other, and then Rufus 
 Dawes was seized from behind by his collar, and flung with a 
 shock upon the deck. 
 
 Leaping to his feet, his first impulse was to rush upon his 
 assailant, but he saw the ready bayonet of the sentry gleam, 
 and he checked himself with an effort, for his assailant was 
 Mr. Maurice Frere. 
 
 " What the devil do you do here ? " asked that gentleman with 
 an oath. " You lazy skulking hound, what brings you here .'' If 
 I catch you putting your foot on the quarter-deck again, I'll give 
 you a week in irons ! " 
 
 Rufus Dawes, pale with rage and mortification, opened his 
 mouth to justify himself, but he allowed the words to die on his 
 lips. What was the use ? 
 
 " Go down below, and remember what I've told you," cried 
 Frere ; and comprehending at once what had occurred, he made 
 a mental minute of the name of the defaulting sentry. 
 
 The convict, wiping the blood from his face, turned on his 
 heel without a word, and went back through the strong oak 
 door into his den. 
 
 Frere leant forward and took the girl's shapely hand with an 
 easy gesture, but she drew it away, with a flash of her black 
 eyes. 
 
 " You coward ! " she said. 
 
 The stolid soldier close beside them heard it, and his eye 
 twinkled. Frere bit his thick lips with mortification, as he 
 followed the girl into the cuddy. Sarah Purfoy, however, 
 taking the astonished Sylvia by the hand, glided into her 
 mistress's cabin with a scornful laugh, and shut the door 
 behind her. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 SARAH PURFOY. 
 
 CONVICTISM having been safely got under hatches, and 
 put to bed in its government allowance of sixteen inches 
 of space per man, cut a little short by exigencies of ship- 
 board, the cuddy was wont to pass some not unpleasant evenings. 
 
SARAH PURFOY. 19 
 
 Mrs. Vickers, who was poetical and owned a guitar, was also 
 musical and sang to it. Captain Blunt was a jovial, coarse 
 fellow, Surgeon Pine had a mania for story-telling, while if 
 Vickers was sometimes dull, Frere was always hearty. More- 
 over, the table was well served, and what with dinner, tobacco, 
 whist, music, and brandy-and-water, the sultry evenings passed 
 away with a rapidity of which the wild beasts 'tween decks, 
 cooped by sixes in berths of five feet three inches, had no 
 conception. 
 
 On this particular evening, however, the cuddy was dull. 
 Dinner fell flat, and conversation languished. 
 
 " No signs of a breeze, Mr. Best ? " asked Blunt, as the first 
 officer came in and took his seat. 
 
 " None, sir." 
 
 "These — he he! — awful calms," says Mrs. Vickers. "A 
 week, is it not. Captain Blunt ? " 
 
 " Thirteen days, mum," growled Blunt. 
 
 " I remember, off the Coromandel Coast," put in cheerful 
 Pine, "when we had the plague in the Rattlesnake " 
 
 " Captain Vickers, another glass of wine ? " cries Blunt, 
 hastening to cut the anecdote short. 
 
 " Thank you, no more. I have the headache." 
 
 " Headache — um — don't wonder at it, going down among 
 those fellows. It is infamous the way they crowd these ships. 
 Here we have over two hundred souls on board, and not boat 
 room for half of 'em." 
 
 " Two hundred souls ! Surely not," says Vickers. " By 
 the King's Regulations " 
 
 " One hundred and eighty convicts, fifty soldiers, thirty in 
 ship's crew, all told, and — how many ? — one, two, three — seven 
 in the cuddy. How many do you make that ? " 
 
 " We are just a little crowded this time,'' says Best. 
 
 " It is very wrong," says Vickers, pompously. " Very wrong. 
 By the King's Regulations " 
 
 But the subject of the King's Regulations was even more 
 distasteful to the cuddy than Pine's interminable anecdotes, 
 and Mrs. Vickers hastened to change the subject. 
 
 " Are you not heartily tired of this dreadful life, Mr. Frere?" 
 
 " Well, it is not exactly the life I had hoped to lead," said 
 Frere, rubbing a freckled hand over his stubborn red hair ; 
 "but I must make the best of it." 
 
HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 " Yes, indeed," said the lady, in that subdued manner with 
 which one comments upon a well-known accident, "it must 
 have been a great shock to you to be so suddenly deprived of 
 so large a fortune." 
 
 " Not only that, but to find that the black sheep who got it 
 all, sailed for India within a week of my uncle's death ! Lady 
 Devine got a letter from him on the day of the funeral to say 
 that he had taken his passage in the Hydaspes for Calcutta, 
 and never meant to come back again ! " 
 
 " Sir Richard Devine left no other children ? " 
 
 " No, only this mysterious Dick, whom I never saw, but who 
 must have hated me." 
 
 " Dear, dear ! These family quarrels are dreadful things. 
 Poor Lady Devine to lose in one day a husband and a 
 son ! " 
 
 " And the next morning to hear of the murder of her cousin ! 
 You know that we are connected with the Bellasis family. My 
 aunt's father married a sister of the second Lord Bellasis." 
 
 " Indeed. That was a horrible murder. So you think that 
 the dreadful man you pointed out the other day, did it .? " 
 
 " The jury seemed to think not," said Mr. Frere, with a 
 laugh ; " but I don't know anybody else who could have a 
 motive for it. However, I'll go on deck and have a smoke." 
 
 " I wonder what induced that old hunks of a shipbuilder to 
 try to cut off his only son in favour of a cub of that sort," 
 said Surgeon Pine to Captain Vickers as the broad back of 
 Mr. Maurice Frere disappeared up the companion. 
 
 " Some boyish follies abroad, I believe ; self-made men are 
 always impatient of extravagance. But it is hard upon Frere. 
 He is not a bad sort of fellow for all his roughness, and when 
 a young man finds that an accident deprives him of a quarter 
 of a million of money and leaves him without a sixpence 
 beyond his commission in a marching regiment under orders 
 for a convict settlement, he has some reason to rail against 
 fate." 
 
 " How was it that the son came in for the money after all, 
 then ? " 
 
 " "Why it seems that when old Devine returned from sending 
 for his lawyer to alter his will, he got a fit of apoplexy, the 
 result of his rage, I suppose, and when they opened his room 
 door in the mornitig they found him dead." 
 
SARAH PURFOY. 
 
 "And the son's away on the sea somewhere," said Mr. 
 Vickcrs, "and knows nothing of his good fortune. It is quite 
 a romance." 
 
 " I am glad that Frere did not get the money," said Pine, 
 grimly sticking to his prejudice ; " I have seldom seen a face 
 I liked less, even among my yellow jackets yonder." 
 
 "Oh dear, Dr. Pine I How can you?" interjected Mrs. 
 Vickers. 
 
 "Ton my soul, ma'am, some of them have mixed in good 
 society, I can tell you. There's pickpockets and swindlers 
 down below who have lived in the best company." 
 
 " Dreadful wretches ! " cried Mrs. Vickers, shaking out her 
 skirts. "John, I will go on deck." 
 
 At the signal, the party rose. 
 
 " Ecod, Pine," says Captain Blunt, as the two were left 
 alone together, " you and I are always putting our foot into 
 it!" 
 
 " Women are always in the way aboard ship," returned 
 Pine. 
 
 " Ah ! doctor, you don't mean that, I know," said a rich soft 
 voice at his elbow. 
 
 It was Sarah Purfoy emerging from her cabin. 
 
 " Here is the wench ! " cries Blunt. " We were talking ot 
 your eyes, my dear." 
 
 "Well, they'll bear talking about, captain, won't they?* 
 asked she, turning them full upon him. 
 
 " By the Lord, they will ! " says Blunt, smacking his hand on 
 the table. "They're the finest eyes I've seen in my life, and 
 they've got the reddest lips under 'm that " 
 
 " Let me pass. Captain Blunt, if you please. Thank you, 
 doctor." 
 
 And before the admiring commander could prevent her, she 
 modestly swept out of the cuddy. 
 
 " She's a fine piece of goods, eh ? " asked Blunt, watching 
 her. " A spice o' the devil in her, too." 
 
 Old Pine took a huge pinch of snuff. 
 
 " Devil ! I tell you what it is. Blunt, I don't know where 
 Vickers picked her up, but I'd rather trust my life v/ith the 
 worst of those ruffians 'tween decks, than in her keeping, if I'd 
 done her an injury." 
 
 Blunt laughed. 
 
///S NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 " I ik^n't believe she'd think much of sticking a in;\n, either ! • 
 he said rising. ** Put I must go on deck, doctor." 
 
 Pine followed him more slowly. " I don't pretend to know 
 much about women," ho said to himself, " but that girl's got a 
 story of her own, or I'm much mistaken. What brings her on 
 board this ship as lady's maid is more than I can fathom." 
 And as, sticking his pipe between his teeth, he walked down 
 the now deserted deck to the main hatchway, and turned to 
 watch the white figure gliding up and down the poop deck, he 
 saw it joined by ;inother and a d.irker one, he muttered, " She's 
 al"ter no good, I'll swear." 
 
 At that moment his arm was touched by a soldier in undress 
 uniform, who had come up the hatchway. 
 
 "\Vh.uisit?" 
 
 The man drew himself up and saluted. 
 
 " If )x>u plase, doctor, one of the prisoners is taken sick, and 
 as the dinner's over, and he's pretty bad, I ventured to disturb 
 your honour." 
 
 "You ass!" says Pine — who, like m.my gnitT men, had a 
 good heart under his rough shell — "why didn't you tell me 
 before .-* " and knocking the ashes out of his barely-lighted pipe, 
 he stopped that implement with a twist of paper and foUovs-ed 
 his summoner down the hatchway. 
 
 In the me.vntime the wom.m who was the object of the grim 
 old fellow's suspicions was enjoying the comp.\rative coolness of 
 the night air. Her mistress and her mistress's d.uighter had 
 not yet come out of their cabin, and the men had not yet 
 finished their evening's tobacco. The awning had been re- 
 moved, the stars were shining in the moonless sky, the poop 
 guard had shifted itself to the qu.irter-deck, and Miss Sarah 
 Piirfoy was w.vlking up and down the deserted poop, in close 
 t<':ir-<i-Ute with no less a person th.rn Captain Blunt himself. 
 She had passed and repassed him twice silently, and at the 
 third turn, the big fellow, peering into the twilight ahead some- 
 what uneasil) . obeyed the ghtter of her great eyes, and joined her. 
 
 " You weren't put out, my wench," he asked, " at what I said 
 to you below ? " 
 
 She atTected surprise. 
 
 " What do you mean ? *' 
 
 " \\'hy, at my— at what I — at my rudeness, there ! For I 
 was a bit rude, I admit" 
 
SARAH PURFOY. 23 
 
 " I ? O dear, no. You were not rude." 
 
 " Giad you think so !" returned Phineas Blunt, a little ashamed 
 at what looked like a confession of weakness on his part. 
 
 " You would have been — if I had let you." 
 
 "How do you know ?" 
 
 " I saw it in your face. Do you think a woman can't see in 
 a man's face when he's going to insult her?" 
 
 " Insult you, hey ! Upon my word ! " 
 
 " Yes, insult me. You're old enough to be my father, Captain 
 Blunt, but you've no right to kiss me, unless I ask you." 
 
 " Haw, haw ! " laughed Blunt. " I like that. Ask me ! 
 Egad I wish you would, you black-eyed minx ! " 
 
 " So would other people, I have no doubt." 
 
 " That soldier officer for instance. Hey, Miss Modesty ? 
 I've seen him looking at you as though he'd like to try." 
 
 The girl flashed at him with a quick side glance. 
 
 "You mean Lieutenant Frere, I suppose. Are you jealous 
 of him ? " 
 
 " Jealous ! Why, damme, the lad was only breeched the 
 other day. Jealous ! " 
 
 " I think you are — and you've no need to be. He is a stupid 
 booby, though he is Lieutenant Frere." 
 
 " So he is. You are right there, by the Lord." 
 
 Sarah Purfoy laughed a low, full-toned laugh, whose sound 
 made Blunt's pulse take a jump forward, and sent the blood 
 tingling down to his fingers' ends. 
 
 " Captain Blunt," said she, ** you're going to do a very silly 
 thing." 
 
 He came close to her and tried to take her hand. 
 
 "What?" 
 
 She answered by another question. 
 
 " How old are you ? " 
 
 " Forty-two, if you must know. " 
 
 " Oh ! And you are going to fall in love with a girl of 
 nineteen." 
 
 "Who is that?" 
 
 " Myself ! " she said, giving him her hand and smiling at him 
 with her rich red lips. 
 
 The mizen hid them from the man at the wheel, and the 
 twilight of tropical stars held the main deck. Blunt felt the 
 breath of this strange woman warm on his cheek, her eyes 
 
24 SIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 seemed to wax and wane, and the hard, small hand he held 
 burnt like fire. 
 
 "I believe you are right," he cried, "I am half in love with 
 you already." 
 
 She gazed at him with a contemptuous sinking of her heavily 
 fringed eyelids, and withdrew her hand. 
 
 " Then don't get to the other half, or you'll regret it." 
 
 " Shall I ? " asked Blunt, ^ " That's my affair. Come, you 
 little vixen, give me that kiss you said I was going to ask you 
 for below," and he caught her in his arms. 
 
 In an instant she had twisted herself free, and confronted him 
 with flashing eyes. 
 
 "lYou dare ! " she cried. " Kiss me by force ! Pooh 1 you 
 make love like a schoolboy. If you can ?nake me like you, I'll 
 kiss you as often as you will. If you can't, keep your distance, 
 please." 
 
 Blunt did not know whether to laugh or be angry at this 
 rebuff. He was consciobs that he was in rather a ridiculous 
 position, and so decided to laugh. 
 
 " You're a spit-fire, too. What must I do to make you like me ? " 
 
 She made him a curtsey. 
 
 "That is your affair," she said; and as the head of Mr. 
 Frere appeared above the companion, Blunt walked aft, feeling 
 considerably bewildered, and yet not displeased. 
 
 "She's a fine girl, by jingo," he said, cocking his cap, "and 
 I'm hanged if she ain't sweet upon me." 
 
 And then the old fellow began to whistle softly to himself as 
 he paced the deck, and to glance towards the man who had 
 taken his place with no friendly eyes. But a sort of shame 
 held him as yet, and he kept aloot. 
 
 Maurice Frere's greeting was short enough. 
 
 " Well, Sarah," he said, — " have you got out of your temper? ' 
 
 She frowned. 
 
 " What did you strike the man for ? He did you no harm." 
 
 " He was out of his place. What business had he to come 
 aft ? One must keep these wretches down, rriy girl." 
 
 "Or they will be too much for you, eh? Do you think one 
 man could capture a ship, Mr. Maurice ? " 
 
 " No, but one hundred might." 
 
 " Nonsense ! What could they do against the soldiers ? 
 There are fifty soldiers." 
 
SARAH PURFOY, 25 
 
 " So there are, but " 
 
 " But what ? " 
 
 "Well, never mind. It's against the rules, and I won't 
 have it." 
 
 " ' Not according to the King's Regulations,' as Captain 
 Vickers would say." 
 
 Frere laughed at her imitation of his pompous captain. 
 
 "You are a strange girl; I can't- make you out. Come," and 
 he took her hand, " tell me what you are really ? " 
 
 " Will you promise not to tell ? " 
 
 " Of course." 
 
 " Upon your word ? " 
 
 " Upon my word." 
 
 "Well, then— but you'll tell?" 
 
 " Not I. Come, go on." 
 
 " Lady's-maid in the family of a gentleman going abroad." 
 
 " Sarah, can't you be serious ?" 
 
 " I am serious. That was the advertisement I answered." 
 
 " But I mean what you have been. You were not a lady's- 
 maid all your life ? " 
 
 She pulled her shawl closer round her and shivered. 
 
 " People are not born ladies' maids, I suppose? " 
 
 " Well, who are you, then ? Have you no friends ? What 
 have you been ? " 
 
 She looked up into the young man's face — a little less harsh 
 at that moment than it was wont to be — and creeping closer to 
 him, whispered, — 
 
 "Do you love me, Maurice?" 
 
 He raised one of the little hands that rested on the taffrail, 
 and, under cover of the darkness, kissed it. 
 
 " You know I do," he said. " You may be a lady's-maid or 
 what you like, but you are the loveliest woman I ever met." 
 
 She smiled at his vehemence. 
 
 " Then, if you love me, what does it matter ? " 
 
 " \iyou loved me, you would tell me," said he, with a quick- 
 ness which surprised himself. 
 
 " But I have nothing to tell, and I don't love you — yet." 
 
 He let her hand fall with an impatient gesture; and at that 
 moment Blunt — who could restrain himself no longer — came 
 up. 
 
 " Fine night, Mr. Frere 1 " 
 
26 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 "Yes, fine enough." 
 
 *' No signs of a breeze yet, though." 
 
 " No, not yet." 
 
 Just then, from out of the violet haze that hung over the 
 horizon, a strange glow of light broke, 
 
 " Hallo !" cries Frere, "did you see that ?" 
 
 All had seen it, but they looked for its repetition in vain. 
 
 Blunt rubbed his eyes. 
 
 " I saw it," he said, " distinctly. A flash of light." 
 
 They strained their eyes to pierce through the obscurity. 
 
 " Best saw something like it before dinner. There must be 
 thunder in the air." 
 
 At that instant a thin streak of light shot up and then sank 
 again. 
 
 There was no mistaking it this time, and a simultaneous 
 exclamation burst from all on deck. From out the gloom 
 which hung over the horizon rose a column of flame that 
 lighted up the night for an instant, and then sunk, leaving a 
 dull red spark upon the water. 
 
 " It's a ship on fire ! " cried Frere. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE MONOTONY BREAKS. 
 
 THEY looked again, the tiny spark still burned, and imme- 
 diately over it there grew out of the darkness a crimson 
 spot, that hung like a lurid star in the air. The 
 soldiers and sailors on the forecastle had seen it also, and in 
 a moment the whole vessel was astir. Mrs. Vickers, with little 
 Sylvia clinging to her dress, came up to share the new sensa- 
 tion ; and at the sight of her mistress, the modest maid with- 
 drew discreetly from Frere's side. Not that there was any need 
 to do so ; no one heeded her. Blunt, in his professional ex- 
 citement, had already forgotten her presence, and Frere was 
 in earnest conversation with Vickers. 
 
 "Take a boat !" said that gentleman. "Certainly, my dear 
 Frere, by all means. That is to say, if the captain does not 
 object, and it is not contrary to the Regulations " 
 
THE MONOTONY BREAKS. 27 
 
 " Captain, you'll lower a boat, eh ? We may save some of 
 the poor devils," cries Frere, his heartiness of body reviving at 
 the prospect of excitement. 
 
 " Boat ! " said Blunt, " why, she's twelve miles off and more, 
 and there's not a breath o' wind ! " 
 
 " But we can't let 'em roast like chestnuts ! " cried the other, 
 as the glow in the sky broadened and became more intense. 
 
 " What is the good of a boat ? " said Pine. " The long-boat 
 only holds thirty men, and that's a big ship yonder." 
 
 " Well, take two boats — three boats ! By heaven, you'll 
 never let 'em bum alive without stirring a finger to save 'em ! " 
 
 " They've got their own boats," says Blunt, whose coolness 
 was in strong contrast to the young officer's impetuosity ; " and 
 if the fire gains, they'll take to 'em, you may depend. In the 
 meantime, we'll show 'em that there's some one near 'em.' 
 And as he spoke, a blue light flared hissing into the night. 
 
 " There, they'll see that, I expect ! " he said, as the ghastly 
 flame rose, extinguishing the stars for a moment, only to let 
 them appear again brighter in a darker heaven. 
 
 " Mr. Best — lower and man the quarter-boats ! Mr. Frere — 
 you can go in one, if you like, and take a volunteer or two from 
 those grey jackets of yours amidships. I shall want as many 
 hands as I can spare to man the long-boat and cutter, in case 
 we want 'em. Steady there, lads ! Easy ! " and as the first 
 eight men who could reach the deck parted to the larboard and 
 starboard quarter-boats, Frere ran down on the main-deck. 
 
 Mrs. Vickers, of course, was in the way, and gave a genteel 
 scream as Blunt rudely pushed past her with a scarce-muttered 
 apology ; but her maid was standing erect and motionless, by 
 the quarter-railing, and as the captain paused for a moment to 
 look round him, he saw her dark eyes fixed on him admiringly. 
 He was, as he said, over forty-two, burly and gp-ey-haired, but 
 he blushed like a girl under her approving gaze. Nevertheless, 
 he said only, " That wench is a trump ! " and swore a little. 
 
 Meanwhile Maurice Frere had passed the sentry and leapt 
 down into the 'tween decks. At his nod, the prison door was 
 thrown open. The air was hot, and that strange, horrible 
 odour peculiar to closely-packed human bodies filled the place. 
 It was like coming into a full stable. 
 
 He ran his eje down the double tier of bunks which lined the 
 side of the ship, and stopped at the one opposite him. 
 
28 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 There seemed to have been some disturbance there lately, 
 for instead of the six pair of feet which should have protruded 
 therefrom, the gleam of the bull's-eye showed but four. 
 
 " What's the matter here, sentry ? " he asked. 
 
 ** Prisoner ill, sir. Doctor sent him to hospital." 
 
 " But there should be two." 
 
 The other came from behind the break of the berths. It was 
 Rufus Dawes. He held by the side as he came, and saluted. 
 
 " I felt sick, sir, and was trying to get the scuttle open." 
 
 The heads were all raised along the silent line, and eyes and 
 ears were eager to see and listen. The double tier of bunks 
 looked terribly like a row of wild beast cages at that moment. 
 
 Maurice Frere stamped his foot indignantly. 
 
 "Sick! What are you sick about, you malingering dog? 
 I'll give you something to sweat the sickness out of you. Stand 
 on one side here ! " 
 
 Rufus Dawes, wondering, obeyed. He seemed heavy and 
 dejected, and passed his hand across his forehead, as though he 
 would rub away a pain there. 
 
 " Which of you fellows can handle an oar ? " Frere went on. 
 " There, curse you, I don't want fifty ! Three'll do. Come on 
 now, make haste ! " 
 
 The heavy door clashed again, and in another instant the 
 four "volunteers " were on deck. The crimson glow was turn- 
 ing yellow now, and spreading over the sky. 
 
 "Two in each boat 1" cries Blunt. "I'll burn a blue light 
 every hour for you, Mr. Best ; and take care they don't swamp 
 you. Lower away, lads ! " 
 
 As the second prisoner took the oar of Frere's boat, he uttered 
 a groan and fell forward, recovering himself instantly. Sarah 
 Purfoy, leaning over the side, saw the occurrence. 
 
 " What is the matter with that man ? " she said. " Is he 
 iU?" 
 
 Pine was next to her, and looked out instantly. " It's that 
 big fellow in No. lo," he cried. " Here, Frere !" 
 
 But Frere heard him not. He was intent on the beacon that 
 gleamed ever brighter in the distance. " Give way, my lads ! " 
 he shouted. And amid a cheer from the ship, the two boats 
 shot out of the bright circle of the blue light, and disappeared 
 into the darkness. 
 
 Sarah Purfoy looked at Pine for an explanation, but he turned 
 
THE HOSPITAL, 29 
 
 abruptly away. For a moment the girl paused, as if in doubt ; 
 and then, ere his retreating figure turned to retrace its steps, she 
 cast a quick glance around, and slipping down the ladder, made 
 her way to the 'tween decks. 
 
 The iron-studded oak barricade that, loop-holed for musketry, 
 and perforated with plated trapdoor for sterner needs, separated 
 soldiers from prisoners, was close to her left hand, and the 
 sentry at its padlocked door looked at her inquiringly. She 
 laid her little hand on his big rough one — a sentry is but mortal 
 — and opened her brown eyes at him. 
 
 " The hospital," she said. " The doctor sent me ; " and 
 before he could answer, her white figure vanished down the 
 hatch, and passed round the bulkhead, behind which lay the 
 sick man. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE HOSPITAL. 
 
 THE hospital was nothing more nor less than a partitioned 
 portion of the lower deck, filched from the space allotted 
 to the soldiers. It ran fore and aft, coming close to the 
 stem windows, and was, in fact, a sort of artificial stern cabin. 
 At a pinch, it might have held a dozen men. 
 
 Though not so hot as in the prison, the atmosphere of the 
 lower deck was close and unhealthy, and the girl, pausing to 
 listen to the subdued hum of conversation coming from the 
 soldiers' berths, turned strangely sick and giddy. She drew 
 herself up, however, and held out her hand to a man who came 
 rapidly across the mis-shapen shadows, thrown by the sulkily 
 swinging lantern, to meet her. It was the young soldier who 
 had been that day sentry at the convict gangway. 
 
 "Well, miss,'' he said, " I am here, yer see, wniting for yer." 
 
 " You are a good boy. Miles ; but don't you think I'm worth 
 waiting for .'' " 
 
 Miles grinned from ear to ear. 
 
 " Indeed you be," said he. 
 
 Sarah Purfoy frowned, and then smiled. 
 
 "Come here, Miles ; I've got something for you." 
 
30 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 Miles came forward, grinning harder. 
 
 The girl produced a small object from the pocket of her dress. 
 If Mrs. Vickers had seen it she would probably have been 
 angry, for it was nothing less than the captain's brandy- 
 flask. 
 
 " Drink," said she. " It's the same as they have upstairs, so 
 it won't hurt you." 
 
 The fellow needed no pressing. He took off half the contents 
 of the bottle at a gulp, and then, fetching a long breath, stood 
 staring at her. 
 
 " That's prime ! " 
 
 " Is it ? I daresay it is." She had been looking at him with 
 unaffected disgust as he drank. " Brandy is all you men under- 
 stand." 
 
 Miles — still sucking in his breath — came a pace closer. 
 
 " Not it," said he, with a twinkle in his little pig's eyes. " I 
 understand something else, miss, I can tell yer. " 
 
 The tone of the sentence seemed to awaken and remind her 
 of her errand in that place. She laughed as loudly and merrily 
 as she dared, and laid her hand on the speaker's arm. The 
 boy — for he was but a boy, one of those many ill-reared country 
 louts who leave the plough-tail for the musket, and, for a 
 shilling a day, experience all the " pomp and circumstance of 
 glorious war" — reddened to the roots of his closely cropped 
 hair. 
 
 " There, that's quite close enough. You're only a common 
 soldier, Miles, and you mustn't make love to me." 
 
 " Not make love to yer ! " says Miles. " What did yer tell 
 me to meet yer here for then ? " 
 
 She laughed again, 
 
 " What a practical animal you are ! Suppose I had some- 
 thing to say to you ? " 
 
 Miles devoured her with his eyes. 
 
 " It's hard to marry a soldier," he said, with a recruit's proud 
 intonation of the word ; " but yer might do worse, miss, and I'll 
 work for yer hke a slave, I will." 
 
 She looked at him with curiosity and pleasure. Though her 
 time was evidently precious, she could not resist the temptation 
 of listening to praises of herself. 
 
 " I know you're above me, Miss Sarah. You're a lady, but 
 I love yer, I do, and you drives me wild with yer tricks." 
 
THE HOSPITAL, 31 
 
 "Do I?" 
 
 " Do yer ? Yes, yer do. What did yer come an' make up 
 to me for, and then go sweetheartin' with them others ? " 
 
 "What others?" 
 
 " Why, the cuddy folk — the skipper, and the parson, and 
 
 that Frere. I see yer walkin' the deck wi' un o' nights. 
 
 Dom 'um, I'd put a bullet through his red head as soon as look 
 at un." 
 
 " Hush ! Miles dear — they'll hear you." 
 
 Her face was all aglow, and her expanded nostrils throbbed. 
 Beautiful as the face was, it had a tigerish look about it at that 
 instant. 
 
 Encouraged by the epithet, Miles put his arm round her slim 
 waist, just as Blunt had done, but she did not resent it so 
 abruptly. Miles had promised m.ore. 
 
 " Hush ! " she whispered, with admirably-acted surprise — " I 
 heard a noise ! " and as the soldier started back, she smoothed 
 her dress complacently. 
 
 " There is no one ! " cried he . 
 
 " Isn't there } My mistake, then. Now come here, Miles." 
 
 Miles obeyed. 
 
 "Who is in the hospital?" 
 
 " I dunno." 
 
 "Well, I want to go in." 
 
 Miles scratched his head, and grinned. 
 
 " Yer cam't" 
 
 " Why not ? You've let me in before." 
 
 "Against the doctor's orders. He told me special to let no 
 one in but himself" 
 
 " Nonsense." 
 
 " It ain't nonsense. There was a convict brought in to-night, 
 and nobody's to go near him." 
 
 "A convict!" She grew more interested. "What's the 
 matter with him ? " 
 
 " Dunno. But he's to be kep quiet until old Pine comes 
 down." 
 
 She became authoritative. 
 
 " Come, Miles, let me go in." 
 
 " Don't ask me, miss. It's against orders, and -" 
 
 " Against orders ! Why, you were blustering about shooting 
 people just now." 
 
32 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 The badgered Miles grew angry 
 
 " Was I ? Bluster or no bluster, you don't go in." 
 
 She turned away. " Oh, very well. If this is all the thanks 
 I get for wasting my time down here, I shall go on d. ck 
 again." 
 
 Miles became uneasy. 
 
 " There are plenty of agreeable people there." 
 
 Miles took a step after her. 
 
 " Mr. Frere will let me go in, I daresay, if I ask him." 
 
 Miles swore under his breath. 
 
 " Dom Mr. Frere ! Go in if yer like," he said ; " I w^on't 
 stop yer, but remember what I'm doin' of. " 
 
 She turned again at the foot of the ladder, and came quickly 
 back. " That's a good lad. I knew you would not refuse 
 me ; " and smiling at the poor lout she was befooling, she 
 passed into the cabin. 
 
 There was no lantern, and from the partially-blocked stern 
 windows came only a dim, vaporous light. The dull ripple ol 
 the water as the ship rocked on the slow swell of the sea made 
 a melancholy sound, and the sick man's heavy breathing seemed 
 to fill the air. The slight noise made by the opening door 
 roused him ; he rose on his elbow and began to mutter. Sarah 
 Purfoy paused in the doorway to listen, but she could make 
 nothing of the low, uneasy murmuring. Raising her arm, 
 conspicuous by its white sleeve in the gloom, she beckoned 
 Miles. 
 
 " The lantern," she whispered — " bring me the lantern ! " 
 
 He unhooked it from the rope where it swimg, and brought 
 it towards her. At that moment the man in the bunk sat up 
 erect, and twisted himself towards the light. " Sarah ! " he 
 cried, in shrill, sharp tones. " Sarah ! " and swooped with a 
 lean arm through the dusk, as though to seize her. 
 
 The girl leapt out of the cabin like a panther, struck the 
 lantern out of her lover's hand, and was back at the bunk-head 
 in a moment. The convict was a young man of about four- 
 and-twenty. His hands — clutched convulsively now on the 
 blankets — were small and well-shaped, and the unshaven chin 
 bristled with promise of a strong beard. His wild black eyes 
 glared with all the fire of delirium, and as he gasped for breath, 
 the sweat stood in beads on his sallow forehead. 
 
 The aspect of the man was sufficiently ghastly, and Miles 
 
THE HOSPITAL. 33 
 
 drawing back with an oath, did not wonder at the terror which 
 had seized Mrs. Vickers's maid. With open mouth and agonized 
 face, she stood in the centre of the cabin, lantern in hand, Hke 
 one turned to stone, gazing at the man on the bed. 
 
 " Ecod, he be a sight !" says Miles, at length. " Come away, 
 miss, and shut the door. He's raving, I tell yer." 
 
 The sound of his voice recalled her. 
 
 She dropped the lantern, and rushed to the bed. 
 
 " You fool ; he's choking, can't you see ."* Water ! give me 
 water ! " 
 
 And wreathing her arms around the man's head, she pulled 
 it down on her bosom, rocking it there, half savagely, to 
 and fro. 
 
 Awed into obedience by her voice, Miles dipped a pannikin 
 into a small unheaded puncheon, cleated in the corner of 
 the cabin, and gave it her ; and, without thanking him, she 
 placed it to the sick prisoner's lips. He drank greedily, and 
 closed his eyes with a grateful sigh. 
 
 Just then the quick ears of Miles heard the jingle of arms. 
 
 " Here's the doctor coming, miss ! " he cried. " I hear the 
 sentry saluting. Come away ! Quick ! " 
 
 She seized the lantern, and, opening the horn slide, ex- 
 tinguished it. 
 
 " Say it went out," she said in a fierce whisper, " and hold 
 your tongue. Leave me to manage." 
 
 She bent over the convict as if to arrange his pillow, and 
 then glided out of the cabin, just as Pine descended the 
 hatchway. 
 
 "Hallo!" cried he, stumbling, as he missed his footing; 
 " Where's the light?" 
 
 " Here, sir," says Miles, fumbling with the lantern. " It's all 
 right, sir. It went out, sir." 
 
 " Went out ! What did you let it go out for, you blockhead ! " 
 growled the unsuspecting Pine. "Just like you boobies ? What 
 is the use of a light if it ' goes out,' eh ? " 
 
 As he groped his way, with out-stretched arms, in the dark- 
 ness, Sarah Purfoy slipped past him unnoticed, and gained the 
 upper deck. 
 
34 !fIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 THE BARRACOON. 
 
 IN the prison of the 'tween decks reigned a darkness preg- 
 nant with murmurs. The sentry at the entrance to the 
 hatchway was supposed to " prevent the prisoners from 
 making a noise," but he put a very Hberal interpretation upon 
 the clause, and so long as the prisoners refrained from shout- 
 ing, yelling, and fighting — eccentricities in which they sometimes 
 indulged — he did not disturb them. This course of conduct 
 was dictated by prudence, no less than by convenience, for one 
 sentry was but little over so many ; and the convicts, if pressed 
 too hard, would raise a sort of bestial boo-hoo, in which all 
 voices were confounded, and which, while it made noise enough 
 and to spare, utterly precluded individual punishment. One 
 could not flog a hundred and eighty men, and it was impossible 
 to distinguish any particular offender. So, in virtue of this last 
 appeal, convictism had established a tacit right to converse in 
 whispers, and to move about inside its oaken cage. 
 
 To one coming in from the upper air, the place would have 
 seemed in pitchy darkness ; but the convict eye, accustomed to 
 the sinister twilight, was enabled to discern surrounding objects 
 with tolerable distinctness. The prison was about fifty feet 
 long and fifty feet wide, and ran tlie full height of the 'tween 
 decks, viz., about five feet ten inches high. The barricade was 
 loop-holed here and there, and the planks were in some places 
 wide enough to admit a musket barrel. On the aft side, next 
 the soldiers' berths, was a trap door, like the stoke-hole of a 
 furnace. At first sight, this appeared to be contrived for the 
 humane purpose of ventilation, but a second glance dispelled 
 this weak conclusion. The opening was just large enough to 
 admit the muzzle of a small howitzer, secured on the deck 
 below. In case of a mutiny, the soldiers could sweep the 
 prison from end to end with grape shot. Such fresh air as 
 there was, filtered through the loop holes, and came, in some- 
 what larger quantity, through a wind-sail passed into the prison 
 from the hatchway. But the wind-sail being necessarily at 
 one end only of the place, the air it brought was pretty well 
 absorbed by the twenty or thirty lucky fellows near it, and 
 
THE BARRACOOM. 35 
 
 the other hundred and fifty did not come so well ofif. The 
 scuttles were open, certainly, but as the row of bunks had been 
 built against them, the air they brought was the peculiar 
 property of such men as occupied the berths into which they 
 penetrated. These berths were twenty-eight in number, each 
 containing six men. They ran in a double tier round three 
 sides of the prison, twenty at each side, and eight affixed to 
 that portion of the forward barricade opposite the door. Each 
 berth was presumed to be five feet six inches square, but the 
 necessities of stowage had deprived them of six inches, and 
 even under that pressure twelve men were compelled to sleep 
 on the deck. Pine did not exaggerate when he spoke of the 
 custom of overcrowding convict ships ; and as he was entitled 
 to half a guinea for every man he delivered alive at Hobart 
 Town, he had some reason to complain. 
 
 When Frere had come down, an hour before, the prisoners 
 were all snugly between their blankets. They were not so 
 now ; though, at the first clink of the bolts, they would be 
 back again in their old positions, to all appearances sound 
 asleep. As the eye became accustomed to the foetid duskiness 
 of the prison, a strange picture presented itself. Groups of 
 men, in all imaginable attitudes, were lying, standing, sitting, 
 or pacing up and down. It was the scene on the poop deck 
 over again ; only, here being no fear of restraining keepers, the 
 wild beasts were a httle more free in their movements. It is 
 impossible to convey, in words, any idea of the hideous phan- 
 tasmagoria of shifting limbs and faces which moved through 
 the evil-smelling twilight of this terrible prison-house. Callot 
 m.ight have drawn it, Dante might have suggested it, but a 
 minute attempt to describe its horrors would but disgust. 
 There are depths in humanity which one cannot explore, as 
 there are mephitic caverns into which one dare not penetrate. 
 
 Old men, young men, and boys, stalwart burglars and high- 
 way robbers, slept side by side with wizened pickpockets or 
 cunning-featured area-sneaks. The forger occupied the same 
 berth with the body-snatcher. The man of education learned 
 strange secrets of house-breakers' craft, and the vulgar ruffian 
 of St. Giles took lessons of self-control from the keener in- 
 tellect of the professional swindler. The fraudulent clerk and 
 the flash " cracksman " interchanged experiences. The smug- 
 gler's stories of lucky ventures and successful runs were capped 
 
36 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 by the footpad's reminiscences of foggy nights and stolen 
 watches. The poacher, grimly thinking of his sick wife and 
 orphaned children, would start as the night-house ruffian 
 clapped him on the shoulder and bade him, with a curse, to 
 take good heart and "be a man." The fast shopboy, whose 
 love of fine company and high living had brought him to this 
 pass, had shaken off the first shame that was on him, and 
 listened eagerly to the narratives of successful vice that fell 
 so glibly from the lips of his older companions. To be trans- 
 ported seemed no such uncommon fate. The old fellows 
 laughed, and wagged their grey heads with all the glee of past 
 experience, and listening youth longed for the time when it 
 might do likewise. Society was the common foe, and magis- 
 trates, jailers, and parsons, were the natural prey of all note- 
 worthy mankind. Only fools were honest, only cowards 
 kissed the rod, and failed to meditate revenge on that world 
 of respectability which had wronged them. Each new comer 
 was one more recruit to the ranks of ruffianism, and not a man 
 penned in that reeking den of infamy but became a sworn 
 hater of law, order, and "free-men." What he might have 
 been before mattered not. He was now a prisoner, and — 
 thrust into a suffocating barracoon, herded with the foulest of 
 mankind, with all imaginable depths of blasphemy and in- 
 decency sounded hourly in his sight and hearing — he lost his 
 self-respect, and became what his jailers took him to be — a wild 
 beast to be locked under bolts and bars, lest he should break 
 out and tear them. 
 
 The conversation ran upon the sudden departure of the 
 four. 
 
 What could they want with them at that hour ? 
 
 " I tell you there's something up on deck," says one to the 
 group nearest him. " Don't you hear all that rumbhng and 
 rolling ?" 
 
 "What did they lower boats for? I heard the dip o' the 
 oars." 
 
 " Don't know, mate. P'r'aps a burial job," hazarded a short, 
 stout fellow, as a sort of happy suggestion. 
 
 " One of those coves in the parlour ! " said another ; and a 
 laugh followed the speech. 
 
 " No such luck. You won't hang your jib for them yet awhile. 
 More like the skipper agone fishin'." 
 
THE BARRACOON. 37 
 
 " The skipper don't go fishin', yer fool. What would he do 
 fishin' ? — special in the middle o' the night." 
 
 " That 'ud be like old Dovery, eh ? " says a fifth, alluding to 
 an old grey-headed fellow, who — a returned convict — was again 
 under sentence for body snatching. 
 
 " Ay," put in a young man, who had the reputation of being 
 the smartest " crow " * in London — " ' fishers of men,' as the 
 parson says." 
 
 The snuffling imitation of a Methodist preacher was good, and 
 there was another laugh. 
 
 Just then a miserable little cockney pick-pocket, feeling his 
 way to the door, fell into the party. 
 
 A volley of oaths and kicks received him. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, gen'l'men," cries the miserable wretch, 
 " but I want h'air." 
 
 " Go to the barber's and buy a wig, then I " says the Crow, 
 elated at the success of his last sally. 
 
 " Oh, sir, my back ! " 
 
 " Get up ! " groaned some one in the darkness. " O Lord, 
 I'm smothering ! Here, sentry !" 
 
 " Vater ! " cried the little cockney. " Give us a drop o' vater, 
 for mercy's sake. I haven't moist'ned my chaffer this blessed 
 day." 
 
 " Half a gallon a day, bo,' and no more," says a sailor next 
 him. 
 
 " Yes, what have yer done with yer half gallon, eh ? " asked 
 the Crow, derisively. 
 
 " Some one stole it," said the sufferer. 
 
 " He's been an' blued it," squealed some one. " Been an' 
 blued it to buy a Sunday veskit with ! Oh, ain't he a vicked 
 young man ? " And the speaker hid his head under the blankets, 
 in humorous affectation of modesty. 
 
 All this time the miserable little cockney — he was a tailor by 
 trade — had been grovelling under the feet of the Crow and his 
 companions. 
 
 "Let me h'up, gents," he implored — "let me h'up. I feel as 
 if I should di^I do." 
 
 " Let the gentleman up," says the humorist in the bunk. 
 " Don't yer see his kerridge is avaitin' to take him to the 
 Hopera?" 
 
 * Crow — The " look-out man " of a burglars" gang. 
 
38 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 The conversation had got a little loud, and, from the top- 
 most bunk on the near side, a bullet head protruded. 
 
 " Ain't a cove to get no sleep ? " cried a gruff voice. " My 
 blood, if I have to turn out, I'll knock some of your empty heads 
 together." 
 
 It seemed that the speaker was a man of mark, for the noise 
 ceased instantly ; and, in the lull which ensued, a shrill scream 
 broke from the wretched tailor. 
 
 "Help! they're killing me ? Ah-h-h-h !" 
 
 " Wot's the matter ? " roared the silencer of the riot, jumping 
 from his berth, and scattering the Crow and his companions 
 right and left. " Let him be, can't yer ? " 
 
 " H'air ! " cried the poor devil — " h'air ; I'm faint- 
 ing!" 
 
 Just then there came another groan from the man in the 
 opposite bunk. 
 
 " Well I'm blessed ! " said the giant, as he held the gasping 
 tailor by the collar and glared round him. " Here's a pretty 
 go I All the blessed chickens ha' got the croup ! " 
 
 The groaning of the man in the bunk redoubled. 
 
 " Pass the word to the sentr>'," says some one more humane 
 than the rest. 
 
 " Ah," says the humorist, " pass him out ; it'll be one the 
 less. We'd rather have his room than his company." 
 
 " Sentry, here's a man sick." 
 
 But the sentry knew his duty better than to reply. He was 
 a young soldier, but he had been well informed of the artfulness 
 of convict stratagems ; and, moreover, Captain Vickers had 
 carefully apprised him " that by the King's Regulations, he was 
 forbidden to reply to any question or communication addressed to 
 him by a convict, but, in the event of being addressed, was to call 
 the fton-cojnmissioned officer on duty/' Now, though' he was 
 within easy hailing distance of the guard on the quarter-deck, 
 he felt a natural disinclination to disturb those gentlemen 
 merely for the sake of a sick convict, and knowing that, in 
 a few minutes, the third relief would come on duty, he decided 
 to wait until then. 
 
 In the meantime the tailor grew worse, and began to moan 
 dismally. 
 
 " Here ! 'ullo ! " called out his supporter, in dismay. " Hold 
 up 'ere! Wot's wrong with yer? Don't come the drops 'ere. 
 
THE BARRACOON. 39 
 
 Pass him down, some of yer," and the wretch was hustled down 
 the line to the doorway. 
 
 " Vater ! " he whispered, beating feebly with his hand on the 
 thick oak. " Get us a drink, mister, for Gord's sake ! " 
 
 But the prudent sentry answered never a word, until the 
 ship's bell warned him of the approach of the relief guard ; and 
 then honest old Pine, coming with anxious face to inquire after 
 his charge, received the intelligence that there was another 
 prisoner sick. He had the door unlocked and the tailor out 
 side in an instant. One look at the flushed, anxious face was 
 enough. 
 
 " Who's that moaning in there ? " he asked. 
 
 It was the man who had tried to call for the sentry an hour 
 back, and Pine had him out also ; convictism beginning to 
 wonder a little. 
 
 " Take 'em both aft to the hospital," he said ; " and, Jenkins, 
 if there are any more men taken sick, let them pass the word 
 for me at once. I shall be on deck." 
 
 The guard stared in each other's faces, with some alarm, but 
 said nothing, thinking more of the burning ship, which now 
 flamed furiously across the placid water, than of peril nearer 
 home; but as Pine went up the hatchway he met Blunt. 
 
 " We've got the fever aboard I " 
 
 " Good God ! Do you mean it. Pine ? " 
 
 Pine shook his grizzled head sorrowfully. 
 
 ." It's this cursed calm that's done it ; though I expected it all 
 along, with the ship crammed as she is. When I was in the 
 Hecuba " 
 
 " Who is it ? " 
 
 Pine laughed a half-pitying, half-angry laugh. 
 
 "A convict, of course. Who else should it be? They are 
 reeking like bullocks at Smithfield down there. A hundred and 
 eighty men penned into a place fifty feet long, with the air like 
 an oven — what could you expect ? " 
 
 Poor Blunt stamped his foot. 
 
 " It isn't my fault," he cried. " The soldiers are berthed aft. 
 If the Government will overload these ships, I can't help it." 
 
 *' The Government ! Ah ! The Government! The Govern- 
 ment don't sleep, sixty men a-side, in a cabin only six feet high. 
 The Government don't get typhus fever in the tropics, does 
 it?" 
 
40 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 « No— but '' 
 
 " But what does the Government care, then ? '* 
 
 Bkmt wiped his hot forehead. 
 
 " Who was the first down ? " 
 
 " No. 97 berth ; ten on the lower tier. John Rex he calls 
 himself." 
 
 " Are you sure it's the fever ? " 
 
 *' As sure as I can be yet. Head like a fire-ball, and tongue 
 like a strip of leather. Gad, don't I know it ? " and Pine 
 grinned mournfully. " I've got him moved into the hospital. 
 Hospital ! It is a hospital ! As dark as a wolf's mouth. I've 
 seen dog-kennels I liked better." 
 
 Blunt nodded towards the volume of lurid smoke that rolled 
 up out of the glow. — " Suppose there is a shipload of those poor 
 devils ? I can't refuse to take 'em in." 
 
 " No," says Pine, gloomily, " I suppose you can't. If they 
 come, I must stow 'em somewhere. We'll have to run for the 
 Cape, with the first breeze, if they do come, that is all I can see 
 for it," and he turned away to watch the burning vesseL 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE FATE OF THE " HYDASPES." 
 
 IN the meanwhile the two boats made straight for the red 
 column that uprose like a gigantic torch over the silent sea. 
 As Blunt had said, the burning ship lay a good twelve 
 miles from the Malabar, and the pull was a long and a weary 
 one. Once fairly away from the protecting sides of the vessel 
 that had borne them thus far on their dismal journey, the 
 adventurers seemed to have come into a new atmosphere. The 
 immensity of the ocean over which they slowly moved revealed 
 itself for the first time. On board the prison ship, surrounded 
 with all the memories if not with the comforts of the shore they 
 had quitted, they had not realized how far they were from that 
 civilization which had given them birth. The well-lighted, well- 
 furnished cuddy, the homely mirth of the forecastle, the setting 
 of sentries and the changing of guards, even the gloom and 
 
THE FATE OF THE " HYDASPES." 41 
 
 terror of the closely-locked prison, combined to make the 
 voyagers feel secure against the unknown dangers of the sea. 
 That defiance of nature which is born of contact with humanity, 
 had hitherto sustained them, and they felt that, though alone 
 on the vast expanse of waters, they were in companionship with 
 others of their kind, and that the perils one man had passed 
 might be successfully dared by another. But now — with one 
 ship growing smaller behind them, and the other, containing 
 they knew not what horror of human agony and human helpless- 
 ness, lying a burning wreck in the black distance ahead of them 
 — they began to feel their own littleness. The Malabar, that 
 huge sea monster, in whose capacious belly so many human 
 creatures lived and suffered, had dwindled to a walnut-shell, 
 and yet beside her bulk how infinitely small had their own frail 
 cock-boat appeared as they shot out from under her towering 
 stern ! Then the black hull rising above them, had seemed a 
 tower of strength, built to defy the utmost violence of wind and 
 wave ; now it was but a slip of wood floating — on an unknown 
 depth of black, fathomless water. The blue-light, which, at its 
 first flashing over the ocean, had made the very stars pale their 
 lustre, and lighted up with ghastly radiance the enormous vault 
 of heaven, was now only a point, brilliant and distinct it is 
 true, but which by its very brilliance dwarfed the ship into 
 insignificance. The Malabar lay on the water like a glow- 
 worm on a floating leaf, and the glare of the signal-fire made 
 no more impression on the darkness than the candle carried 
 by a solitary miner would have made on the abyss of a coal-pit. 
 
 And yet the Malabar held two hundred creatures like 
 themselves ! 
 
 The water over which the boats glided was black and 
 smooth, rising into huge foamless billows, the more terrible 
 because they were silent. When the sea hisses, it speaks, 
 and speech breaks the spell of terror ; when it is inert, heaving 
 noiselessly, it is dumb, and seems to brood over mischief. The 
 ocean in a calm is like a sulky giant ; one dreads that it may 
 be meditating evil. Moreover, an angry sea looks less vast in 
 extent than a calm one. Its mounting waves bring the horizon 
 nearer, and one does not discern how for many leagues the 
 pitiless billows repeat themselves. To appreciate the hideous 
 vastness of the ocean one must see it when it sleeps. 
 
 The great sky uprose from this silent sea without a cloud. 
 
42 BIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 The stars hung low in its expanse, burning in a violet mist of 
 lower ether. The heavens were emptied of sound, and each 
 dip of the oars was re-echoed in space by a succession of subtle 
 harmonies. As the blades struck the dark water, it flashed fire, 
 and the tracks of the boats resembled two sea-snakes writhing 
 with silent undulations through a lake of quicksilver. 
 
 It had been a sort of race hitherto, and the rowers, with set 
 teeth and compressed lips, had pulled stroke for stroke. At 
 last the foremost boat came to a sudden pause. Best gave a 
 cheery shout and passed her, steering straight into the broad 
 track of crimson that already reeked on the sea ahead. 
 
 " What is it .? " he cried. 
 
 But he heard only a smothered curse from Frere, and then 
 his consort pulled hard to overtake him. 
 
 It was, in fact, nothing of consequence — only a prisoner 
 " giving in." 
 
 " Curse it ! " says Frere, " what's the matter with you ? Oh, 
 you, is it ? — Dawes ! Of course, Dawes. I never expected 
 anything better from such a skulking hound. Come, this sort 
 of nonsense won't do with me. It isn't as nice as lolloping 
 about the hatchways, I dare say, but you'U have to go on, my 
 fine fellow." 
 
 "He seems sick, sir," said compassionate bow. 
 
 " Sick ! Not he. Shamming. Come, give way now ! Put 
 your backs into it ! " and the convict having picked up his oar, 
 the boat shot forward again. 
 
 But, for all Mr. Frere' s urging, he could not recover the way 
 he had lost, and Best was the first to run in under the black 
 cloud that hung over the crimsoned water. 
 
 At his signal, the second boat came alongside. 
 
 " Keep wide," he said. " If there are many fellows yet 
 aboard, they'll swamp us ; and I think there must be, as we 
 haven't met the boats," and then raising his voice, as the 
 exhausted crew lay on their oars, he hailed the burning ship. 
 
 She was a huge, clumsily-built vessel, with great breadth of 
 beam, and a lofty poop-deck. Strangely enough, though they 
 had so lately seen the fire, she was already a wreck, and ap- 
 peared to be completely deserted. The chief hold of the fire 
 was amidships, and the lower deck was one mass of flame. 
 Here and there were great charred rifts and gaps in her sides, 
 and the red-hot fire glowed through these as through the bars 
 
THE FATE OF THE " HYDASPES." 43 
 
 of a grate. The main-mast had fallen on the starboard side, 
 and trailed a blackened wreck in the water, causing the 
 unwieldy vessel to lean over heavily. The fire roared like a 
 cataract, and huge volumes of flame-flecked smoke poured up 
 out of the hold, and rolled away in a low-lying black cloud over 
 the sea. 
 
 As Frere's boat pulled slowly round her stern, he hailed the 
 deck again and again. 
 
 Still there was no answer, and though the flood of light that 
 dyed the water blood-red struck out every rope and spar 
 distinct and clear, his straining eyes could see no living soul 
 aboard. As they came nearer, they could distinguish the 
 gilded letters of her name. 
 
 " What is it, men ? " cried Frere, his voice almost drowned 
 amid the roar of the flames. "Can you see?" 
 
 Rufus Dawes, impelled, it would seem, by some strong 
 impulse of curiosity, stood erect, and shaded his eyes with his 
 hand. 
 
 " Well — can't you speak ? What is it ? " 
 
 ''ThG Hydaspes/" 
 
 Frere gasped. 
 
 The Hydaspes ! The ship in which his cousin Richard 
 Devine had sailed ! The ship for which those in England 
 might now look in vain ! The Hydaspes which — something he 
 had heard during the speculations as to this missing cousin 
 flashed across him. 
 
 " Back water, men ! Round with her ! Pull for your 
 lives ! " 
 
 Best's boat glided alongside. 
 
 " Can you see her name .'' " 
 
 Frere, white with terror, shouted a reply. 
 
 " The Hydaspes I I know her. She is bound for Calcutta, 
 and she has five tons of powder aboard ! " 
 
 There was no need for more words. The single sentence 
 explained the whole mystery of her desertion. The crew had 
 taken to the boats on the first alarm, and had left their death- 
 fraught vessel to her fate. They were miles off by this time, 
 and unluckily for themselves, perhaps, had steered away from 
 the side where rescue lay. 
 
 The boats tore through the water. Eager as the men had 
 been to come, they were more eager to depart. The flames 
 
44 J^^S NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 had even now reached the poop ; in a few minutes it would be 
 too late. For ten minutes or more not a word was spoken. 
 With straining anns and labouring chests, the rowers tugged at 
 the oars, their eyes fixed on the lurid mass they were leaving. 
 Frere and Best, with their faces turned back to the terror they 
 fled from, urged the men to greater efforts. Already the flames 
 had lapped the flag, already the outlines of the stern-carvings 
 were blurred by the fire. 
 
 Another moment, and all would be over. Ah ! it had come 
 at last. 
 
 A dull rumbling sound ; the burning ship parted asunder ; 
 a pillar of fire, flecked with black masses that were beams and 
 planks, rose up out of the ocean ; there was a terrific crash, as 
 though sea and sky were coming together ; and tlien a mighty 
 mountain of water rose, advanced, caught, and passed them, 
 and they were alone— deafened, stunned, and breathless, in 
 a sudden horror of thickest darkness, and a silence like that of 
 the tomb. 
 
 The splashing of the falling fragments awoke them from their 
 stupor, and then the blue light of the Malabar struck out a 
 bright pathway across the sea, and they knew that they were 
 safe. 
 
 • * * * * 
 
 On board the Malabar two men paced the deck, waiting for 
 dawn. 
 
 It came at last. The sky lightened, the mist melted away, 
 and then a long, low, far-off streak of pale yellow light floated 
 on the eastern horizon. By-and-by the water sparkled, and the 
 sea changed colour, turning from black to yellow, and from 
 yellow to lucid green. The man at the masthead hailed the 
 deck. The boats were in sight, and as they came towards the 
 ship, the bright water flashing from the labouring oars, a crowd 
 of spectators hanging over the bulwarks cheered and waved 
 their hats. 
 
 "Not a soul!" cried Blunt. "No one but themselves. 
 Well, I'm glad they're safe any way." 
 
 The boats drew alongside, and in a few seconds Frere was 
 upon deck. 
 
 " Well, Mr. Frere ? " 
 
 ** No use," cried Frere, shivering. *' We only just had time 
 to get away. The nearest thing in the world, sir." 
 
THE FATE OF THE "HYDASPES." 45 
 
 *' Didn't you see any one ? " 
 
 " Not a soul. They must have taken to the boats." 
 
 " Then they can't be far off," cried Blunt, sweeping the 
 horizon with his glass. " They must have pulled all the way, 
 for there hasn't been enough wind to fill a hollow tooth with." 
 
 " Perhaps they pulled in the wrong direction," said Frere. 
 " They had a good four hours' start of us, you know. ' 
 
 Then Best came up, and told the story to a crowd of eager 
 listeners. The sailors having hoisted and secured the boats, 
 were hurried off to the forecastle, there to eat, and relate their 
 experience between mouthfuls, and the four convicts were taken 
 in charge and locked below again. 
 
 "You had better go and turn in, Frere," said Pine gruffly. 
 " It's no use whistling for a wind here all day." 
 
 Frere laughed —in his heartiest manner. " I think I will," 
 he said. " I'm dog tired, and as sleepy as an owl," and he 
 descended the poop-ladder. 
 
 Pine took a couple of turns up and down the deck, and then 
 catching Blunt's eye, stopped in front of Vickers. 
 
 " You may think it a hard thing to say, Captain Vickers, but 
 it's just as well if we don't find these poor devils. We have 
 quite enough on our hands as it is." 
 
 " What do you mean, Mr. Pine ? " says Vickers, his humane 
 feelings getting the better of his pomposity. " You would not 
 surely leave the unhappy men to their fate." 
 
 " Perhaps," returned the other, " they would not thank us for 
 taking them aboard." 
 
 " I don't understand you." 
 
 " The fever has broken out." 
 
 Vickers raised his brows. He had no experience of such 
 things ; and though the intelligence was startling, the crowded 
 condition of the prison rendered it easy to be understood, and 
 he apprehended no danger to himself. 
 
 " It is a great misfortune ; but, of course, you will take such 
 steps " 
 
 " It is only in the prison, as yet," says Pine, with a grim 
 emphasis on the word ; " but there is no saying how long it may 
 stop there. I have got three men down as it is." 
 
 " Well, sir, all authority in the matter is in your hands. Any 
 suggestions you make, I will, of course, do my best to carry 
 out." 
 
46 NTS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 " Thank ye. I must have more room in the hospital to 
 
 begin with. The soldiers must lie a little closer." 
 
 " I will see what can be done." 
 
 " And you had better keep your wife and the little girl as 
 much on deck as possible." 
 
 Vickers turned pale at the mention of his child. " Good 
 heaven ! do you think there is any danger ? " 
 
 " There is, of course, danger to all of us ; but with care we 
 may escape it. There's that maid, too. Tell her to keep to 
 herself a little more. She has a trick of roaming about the 
 ship I don't like. Infection is easily spread, and children 
 always sicken sooner than grown-up people." 
 
 Vickers pressed his lips together. This old man, with his 
 harsh, dissonant voice, and hideous practicality, seemed like 
 a bird of ill-omen. 
 
 Blunt, hitherto silently listening, put in a word for the defence 
 of the absent woman. "The wench is right enough, Pine," 
 said he. "What's the matter with her.-"' 
 
 " Yes, she's all right, I've no doubt. She's less likely to take 
 it than any of us. You can see her vitality in her face — as 
 many lives as a cat. But she'd bring infection quicker than 
 anybody." 
 
 " I'll — I'll go at once," cried poor Vickers, turning round. 
 
 The woman of whoin they were speaking met him at the 
 ladder. Her face was paler than usual, and dark circles round 
 her eyes gave evidence of a sleepless night. She opened her 
 red lips to speak, and then, seeing Vickers, stopped abruptly. 
 
 "Well, what is it?" 
 
 She looked from one to the other. " I came for Dr. Pine." 
 
 Vickers, with the quick intelligence of affection, guessed her 
 errand. " Some one is ill ? " 
 
 " Miss Sylvia, sir. It is nothing to signify, I think. A little 
 feverish and hot, and my mistress " 
 
 Vickers was down the ladder in an instant, with scared face. 
 
 Pine caught the girl's round firm arm. "Where have you 
 been ? " 
 
 Two great flakes of red came out in her white cheeks, and 
 she shot an indignant glance at Blunt. 
 
 " Come, Pine, let the wench alone ! " 
 
 " Were you with the child last night ? " went on Pine, without 
 turning his head. 
 
THE FATE OF THE '' HYDASPES." 47 
 
 " No ; I have not been in the cabin since dinner yesterday. 
 Mrs. Vickers only called me in just now. Let go my arm, sir, 
 you hurt me." 
 
 Pine loosed his hold as if satisfied at the reply. " I beg your 
 pardon," he said, gruffly. " I did not mean to hurt you. But 
 the fever has broken out in the prison, and I think the child 
 has caught it. You must be careful where you go." 
 
 And then, with an anxious face, he went in pursuit of 
 Vickers. 
 
 Sarah Purfoy stood motionless for an instant, in deadly 
 terror. Her lips parted, her eyes glittered, and she made a 
 movement as though to retrace her steps. 
 
 " Poor soul ! " thought honest Blunt, " how she feels for the 
 
 child ! D that lubberly surgeon, he's hurt her ! — Never 
 
 mind, my lass," he said, aloud. It was broad daylight, and he 
 had not as much courage in love-making as at night. " Don't 
 be afraid. I've been in ships with fever before now." 
 
 Awaking, as it were, at the sound of his voice, she came 
 closer to him. " But ship fever ! I have heard of it ! Men 
 have died like rotten sheep in crowded vessels like this." 
 
 "Tush ! Not they. Don't be frightened ; Miss Sylvia won't 
 die, nor you neither." He took her hand. " It may knock off 
 a few dozen prisoners or so. They are pretty close packed 
 down there " 
 
 She drew her hand away, and then, remembering herself, 
 gave it him again. 
 
 " What is the matter ? " 
 
 " Nothing — a pain. I did not sleep last night." 
 
 " There, there ; you are upset, I dare say. Go and lie 
 down." 
 
 She was staring away past him over the sea, as if in thought. 
 So intently did she look that he involuntarily turned his head, 
 and the action recalled her to herself. She brought her fine 
 straight brows together for a moment, and then raised them 
 with the action of a thinker who has decided on his course of 
 conduct. 
 
 " I have a toothache," said she, putting her hand to her face. 
 
 " Take some laudanum," says Blunt, with dim recollections 
 of his old mother's treatment of such ailments. "Old Pine 'II 
 give you some." 
 
 To his great astonishment she burst into tears. 
 
48 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 " There — there ! Don't cry, my dear. Hang it, don't cry. 
 What are you crying about ? " 
 
 She dashed away the bright drops, and raised her face with 
 a rainy smile of trusting affection. 
 
 " Nothing ! I am lonely. So far from home ; and — and 
 Dr. Pine hurt my arm. Look ! " 
 
 She bared that shapely member as she spoke, and sure 
 enough there were three red marks on the white and shining 
 flesh. 
 
 " The ruffian ! " cried Blunt, " it's too bad." And, after a 
 hasty look round him, the infatuated fellow kissed the bruise. 
 " I'll get the laudanum for you," he said. " You sha'n't ask that 
 bear for it. Come into my cabin." 
 
 Blunt's cabin was in the starboard side of the ship, just under 
 the poop awning, and possessed three windows — one looking 
 out over the side, and two upon deck. The corresponding 
 cabin on the other side was occupied by Mr. Maurice Frere. 
 He closed the door, and took down a small medicine chest, 
 cleated above the hooks where hung his signal-pictured 
 telescope. 
 
 " Here," said he, opening it. " I've carrii d this little box for 
 years, but it ain't often I want to use it, thank God. Now, 
 then, put some o' this into your mouth, and hold it there." 
 
 " Good gracious, Captain Blunt, you'll poison me ! Give me 
 the bottle ; I'll help myself." 
 
 " Don't take too much," says Blunt. " It's dangerous stuff, 
 you know." 
 
 " You need not fear. I've used it before." 
 
 The door was shut, and as she put the bottle in her pocket, 
 the amorous captain caught her in his arms. 
 
 " What do you say .'' Come, I think I deserve a kiss for 
 that." 
 
 Her tears were all dry long ago, and had only given increased 
 colour to her face. This agreeable woman never wept long 
 enough to make herself distasteful. She raised her dark eyes 
 to his for a moment, with a saucy smile. " By-and-by," said 
 she, and escaping gained her cabin. It was next to that of 
 her mistress, and she could hear the sick child feebly moaning 
 Her eyes filled with tears — real ones this time. 
 
 " Poor little thing," she said ; " I hope she won't die." 
 
 And then she threw herself on her bed, and buried her hot 
 
TYPHUS FEVER. 49 
 
 head in the pillow. The intelligence of the fever seemed to 
 have terrified her. Had the news disarranged some well- 
 concocted plan of hers? Being near the accomplishment of 
 some cherished scheme long kept in view, had the sudden and 
 unexpected presence of disease falsified her carefully-made 
 calculations, and cast an almost insurmountable obstacle ii\ 
 her path.? 
 
 " She die ! and through me .'' How did I know that he had 
 the fever ? Perhaps I have taken it myself — I feel ill." She 
 turned over on the bed, as if in pain, and then started to a 
 sitting position, stung by a sudden thought. "Perhaps he 
 might die ! The fever spreads quickly, and if so, all this 
 plotting will have been useless. It must be done at once. It 
 will never do to break down now," and taking the phial from 
 her pocket, she held it up, to see how much it contained. It 
 was three parts full. " Enough for both," she said, between 
 her set teeth. The action of holding up the bottle reminded 
 her of amorous Blunt, and she smiled. " A strange way to 
 show affection for a man," she said to herself, "and yet he 
 doesn't care, and I suppose I shouldn't by this time. I'll go 
 through with it, and, if the worst comes to the worst, I can fall 
 back on Maurice." She loosened the cork of the phial, so that 
 it would come out with as little noise as possible, and then 
 placed it carefully in her bosom. " I will get a little sleep if 
 I can," she said. " They have got the note, and it shall be 
 done to-night." 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 TYPHUS FEVER. 
 
 THE felon Rufus Dawes had stretched himself in his bunk 
 and tried to sleep. But though he was tired and sore 
 and his head felt like lead, he could not but keep broad 
 awake. The long pull through the pure air, if it had tired him 
 had revived him, and he felt stronger ; but for all that, the 
 fatal sickness that was on him maintained its hold ; his pulse 
 beat thickly, and his brain throbbed with unnatural heat. Lying 
 in his narrow space — in the semi-darkness — he tossed his limbs 
 
 4 
 
I 
 
 i 
 I 
 
^atfMia JBgQSE. 
 
 isL. iHt jitsviui.v: n^ir ASfi^reit. us 
 
 SBHKC :tc BE IZK CZIE^ Tig Irririr- 
 . 'inmr' 3irw m. Xi; R«i" a 
 
 
 ! ■! i i.'iJ - -;;ir: arrr rr?^ u 
 n^l^y"!! — iHi ,^ TX. 31 
 
 c: nn 
 
 TITTr- 
 
 air"" g riTT tr :zsc: iu^^ees: Tnr ^fer^~ 
 
 JesuEs 3SBES uns a 
 amizrtg' riat. ' 
 
 laLsL. asr an '. jsksf tt 3KSC :K' 
 
 tie linens- jssl 
 
 ' V'tbc air -we tt r- 
 
 — ^-irr 
 
 t^ss mtt' .i^cac; "cn. 
 
 Tcsiru'; 
 
52 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 '* Well ! " says Mr. Gabbett, with the air of one who was 
 but partly convinced, " I s'pose it is." 
 
 "All the more reason of getting it off quick. Another thing, 
 when the boys know there's fever aboard, you'll see the rumpus 
 there'll be. They'll be ready enough to join us then. Once 
 get the snapper chest, and we're right as ninepenn'orth o' 
 hapence." 
 
 This conversation, interspersed with oaths and slang as it 
 was, had an intense interest for Rufus Dawes. Plunged into 
 prison, hurriedly tried, and by reason of his surroundings 
 ignorant of the death of his father and his own fortune, he had 
 hitherto — in his agony and sullen gloom — held aloof from the 
 scoundrels who surrounded him, and repelled their hideous 
 advances of friendship. He now saw his error. He knew that 
 the name he had once possessed was blotted out, that any shred 
 of his old life which had clung to him hitherto, was shrivelled 
 in the fire that consumed the Hydaspes. The secret, for the 
 preservation of which Richard Devine had voluntarily flung 
 away his name, and risked a terrible and disgraceful death, 
 would be now for ever safe ; for Richard Devine was dead — 
 lost at sea with the crew of the ill-fated vessel in which, deluded 
 by a skilfully-sent letter from the prison, his mother believed 
 him to have sailed. Richard Devine was dead, and the secret 
 of his birth would die with him. Rufus Dawes, his alter ego, 
 alone should live. Rufus Dawes, the convicted felon, the 
 suspected murderer, should live to claim his freedom, and work 
 out his vengeance ; or, rendered powerful by the terrible ex- 
 perience of the prison-sheds, should seize both, in defiance of 
 jail or jailer. 
 
 With his head swimming, and his brain on fire, he eagerly 
 listened for more. It seemed as if the fever which burnt in his 
 veins had consumed the grosser part of his sense, and given 
 him increased power of hearing. He was conscious that he 
 was ill. His bones ached, his hands burned, his head throbbed, 
 but he could hear distinctly, and, he thought, reason on what 
 he heard profoundly. 
 
 " But we can't stir without the girl," Gabbett said. " She's 
 got to stall off the sentry and give us the orfice." 
 
 The Crow's sallow features lighted up with a cunning smile. 
 
 ** Dear old caper merchant ! Hear him talk !" said he, "as 
 if he had the wisdom of Solomon in all his glory? Look here!" 
 
TYPHUS FEVER. 53 
 
 And he produced a dirty scrap of paper, over which his 
 companions eagerly bent their heads. 
 
 "Where did yer get that?" 
 
 " Yesterday afternoon Sarah was standing on the poop throw- 
 ing bits o' toke to the gulls, and I saw her a-looking at me very 
 hard. At last she came down as near the barricade as she 
 dared, and throwed crumbs and such like up in the air over the 
 side. By-and-by a pretty big lump, doughed up round, fell 
 close to my foot, and, watching a favourable opportunity, I 
 pouched it. Inside was this bit o' rag-bag." 
 
 "Ah!" said Mr. Gabbett, "that's more like. Read it out, 
 Jemmy." 
 
 The writing, though feminine in character, was bold and 
 distinct. Sarah had evidently been mindful of the education 
 of her friends, and had desired to give them as little trouble 
 as possible. 
 
 All is right. Watch nie when I come up to-mo7row evening 
 at three bells. If I drop my handkerchief, get to work at the 
 time agreed on. The sentry will be safe. 
 
 Rufus Dawes, though his eyelids would scarcely keep open, 
 and a terrible lassitude almost paralysed his limbs, eagerly 
 drank in the whispered sentence. There was a conspiracy to 
 seize the ship. Sarah Purfoy was in league with the convicts — 
 was herself the wife or mistress of one of them. She had come 
 on board armed with a plot for his release, and this plot was 
 about to be put in execution. He had heard of the atrocities 
 perpetrated by successful mutineers. Story after story of such 
 nature had often made the prison resound with horrible mirth. 
 He knew the characters of the three ruffians who, separated 
 from him by but two inches of planking, jested and laughed 
 over their plans of freedom and vengeance. Though he con- 
 versed but little with his companions, these men were his berth 
 mates, and he could not but know how they would proceed to 
 wreak their vengeance on their jailers. 
 
 True, that the head of this formidable chimera — John Rex, 
 the forger — was absent, but the two hands, or rather claws — the 
 burglar and the prison-breaker — were present, and the slimly- 
 made, effeminate Crow, if he had not the brains of his master, 
 yet made up for his flaccid muscles and nerveless frame by a 
 cat-like cunning, and a spirit of devilish volatility that nothing 
 could subdue. With such a powerful ally outside as the mock 
 
54 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 maid-servant, the chance of success was enormously increased. 
 There were one hundred and eighty convicts and but fifty 
 soldiers. If the first rush proved successful — and the precau- 
 tions taken by Sarah Purfoy rendered success possible— the 
 vessel vi^as theirs. Rufus Dawes thought of the little bright- 
 haired child who had run so confidingly to meet him, and 
 shuddered. 
 
 " There ! " said the Crow, with a sneering laugh, " what do 
 you think of that ? Does the girl look like nosing us now ? " 
 
 " No," says the giant, stretching his great arms with a grin 
 of delight, as one stretches one's chest in the sun, " that's right, 
 that is. That's more like bizness." 
 
 " England, home, and beauty ! " said Vetch, with a mock- 
 heroic air, strangely out of tune with the subject under discus- 
 sion. " You'd like to go home again, wouldn't you, old man "i " 
 
 Gabbett turned on him fiercely, his low forehead wrinkled 
 into a frown of ferocious recollection. 
 
 " You/" he said — "You think the chain's fine sport, don't 
 yer? But I've been there, my young chicken, and I knows 
 what it 7neans." 
 
 There was silence for a minute or two. The giant was 
 plunged in gloomy abstraction, and Vetch and the Moocher 
 interchanged a significant glance. Gabbett had been ten years 
 at the colonial penal settlement of Macquarie Harbour, and 
 he had memories that he did not confide to his companions. 
 When he indulged in one of these fits of recollection, his friends 
 found it best to leave him to himself 
 
 Rufus Dawes did not understand the sudden silence. With 
 all his senses stretched to the utmost to listen, the cessation of 
 the whispered colloquy affected him strangely. Old artillery- 
 men have said that, after being at work for days in the trenches, 
 accustomed to the continued roar of the guns, a sudden pause 
 in the firing will cause them intense pain. Something of this 
 feeling was experienced by Rufus Dawes. His faculties of 
 hearing and thinking — both at their highest pitch — seemed to 
 break down. It was as though some prop had been knocked 
 from under him. No longer stimulated by outward sounds, his 
 senses appeared to fail him. The blood rushed into his eyes 
 and ears. He made a violent, vain effort to retain his con- 
 sciousness, but with a faint cry, fell back, striking his head 
 against the t<^gQ of the bunk. 
 
TYPHUS FEVER. 55 
 
 The noise roused the burglar in an instant. There was some 
 one in the berth ! The three looked into each other's eyes, in 
 guilty alarm, and then Gabbett dashed round the partition. 
 
 "It's Dawes!" said the Moocher. "We had forgotten 
 him ! " 
 
 " He'll join us, mate — he'll join us ! " cried Vetch, fearful of 
 bloodshed. 
 
 Gabbett uttered a furious oath, and flinging himself on to the 
 prostrate figure, dragged it, head foremost, to the floor. The 
 sudden vertigo had saved Rufus Dawes's life. The robber 
 twisted one brawny hand in his shirt, and pressing the knuckles 
 down, prepared to deliver a blow that should for ever silence 
 the listener, when Vetch caught his arm. " He's been asleep," 
 he cried. " Don't hit him ! See, he's not awake yet." 
 
 A crowd gathered round. The giant relaxed his grip, but 
 the convict gave only a deep groan, and allowed his head to fall 
 on his shoulder. 
 
 " You've killed him ! " cried some one. 
 
 Gabbett took another look at the purpling face and the 
 bedewed forehead, and then sprang erect, rubbing at his right 
 hand, as though he would rub off something sticking there. 
 
 " He's got the fever ! " he roared, with a terror-stricken 
 grimace. 
 
 " The what ? " asked twenty voices. 
 
 "The Fever, ye grinning fools ! " cried Gabbett. " I've seen 
 it before to-day. The Typhus is aboard, and he's the fourth 
 man down ! " 
 
 The circle of beast-like faces, stretched forward to " see the 
 fight," widened at the half-uncomprehended, ill-omened word. 
 It was as though a bombshell had fallen into the group. Rufus 
 Dawes lay on the deck motionless, breathing heavily. The 
 savage circle glared at his prostrate body. The alarm ran 
 round, and all the prison crowded down to stare at him. All 
 at once he uttered a groan, and turning, propped his body on 
 his two rigid arms, and made an effort to speak. But no sound 
 issued from his convulsed jaws. 
 
 " He's done," said the Moocher brutally. " He didn't hear 
 nuffin, I'll pound it." 
 
 The noise of the heavy bolts shooting back broke the spell. 
 The first detachment were coming down from " exercise." The 
 door was flung back, and the bayonets of the guard gleamed in 
 
56 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 a ray of sunshine that shot down the hatchway. This ghmpse 
 of sunhght — sparkling at the entrance of the foetid and stifling 
 prison — seemed to mock their miseries. It was as though 
 heaven laughed at them. By one of those terrible and strange 
 impulses which animate crowds, the mass, turning from the 
 sick man, leapt towards the doorway. The interior of the 
 prison flashed white with suddenly turned faces. The gloom 
 scintillated with rapidly moving hands. " Air ! air ! Give us 
 air ! " 
 
 " That's it ! " said Sanders to his companions. " I thought 
 the news would rouse 'em." 
 
 Gabbett — all the savage in his blood stirred by the sight of 
 flashing eyes and wrathful faces — would have thrown himself 
 forward with the rest, but Vetch plucked him back. 
 
 " It'll be over in a moment," he said. *' It's only a fit they've 
 got." 
 
 He spoke truly. Through the uproar was heard the rattle 
 of iron on iron, as the guard " stood to their arms," and the 
 wedge of grey cloth broke, in sudden terror of the levelled 
 muskets. 
 
 There was an instant's pause, and then old Pine walked, un- 
 molested, down the prison and knelt by the body of Rufus 
 Dawes. 
 
 The sight of the familiar figure, so calmly performing its 
 familiar duty, restored all that submission to recognized autho- 
 rity which strict discipline begets. The convicts slunk away 
 into their berths, or officiously ran to help " the doctor," with 
 affectation of intense obedience. The prison was like a school- 
 room, into which the master had suddenly returned. " Stand 
 back, my lads ! Take him up, two of you, and carry him to 
 the door. The poor fellow won't hurt you." His orders were 
 obeyed, and the old man, waiting until his patient had been 
 safely received outside, raised his hand to command attention. 
 " I see you know what I have to tell. The fever has broken 
 out. That man has got it. It is absurd to suppose that no one 
 else will be seized. I might catch it myself. You are much 
 crowded down here, I know ; but, my lads, I can't help that ; 
 I didn't make the ship, you know." 
 
 " 'Ear, 'ear ! " 
 
 *' It is a terrible thing, but you must keep orderly and quiet, 
 and bear it like men. You know what the discipline is, and it 
 
A DANGEROUS CRISIS. 57 
 
 is not in my power to alter it. I shall do my best for your com- 
 fort, and I look to you to help me." 
 
 Holding his grey head very erect indeed, the brave old fellow 
 passed straight down the line, without looking to the right or 
 left. 
 
 He had said just enough, and he reached the door amid a 
 chorus of " 'Ear, 'ear !" "Bravo ! " "True for you, docther !" 
 and so on. But when he got fairly outside, he breathed more 
 freely. He had performed a ticklish task, and he knew it. 
 
 " 'Ark at 'em," growled the Moocher from his corner, 
 " a-cheerin' at the bloody noos ! ' 
 
 " Wait a bit," said the acuter intelligence of Jemmy Vetch. 
 " Give 'em time. There'll be three or four more down afore 
 night, and then we'll see ! '' 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 A DANGEROUS CRISIS. 
 
 IT was late in the afternoon when Sarah Purfoy awoke from 
 her uneasy slumber. She had been dreaming of the deed 
 she was about to do, and was flushed and feverish ; but, 
 mindful of the consequences which hung upon the success or 
 failure of the enterprise, she rallied herself, bathed her face and 
 hands, and ascended, with as calm an air as she could assume, 
 to the poop-deck. 
 
 Nothing was changed since yesterday. The sentries' amis 
 glittered in the pitiless sunshine, the ship rolled and creaked on 
 the swell of the dreamy sea, and the prison-cage on the lower 
 deck was crowded with the same cheerless figures, disposed in 
 the attitudes of the day before. Even Mr. Maurice Frere, 
 recovered from his midnight fatigues, was lounging on the 
 same coil of rope, in precisely the same position. 
 
 Yet the eye of an acute observer would have detected some 
 difference beneath this outward varnish of similarity. The man 
 at the wheel looked round the horizon more eagerly, and spit 
 into the swirling, unwholesome-looking water with a more 
 dejected air than before. The fishing-lines still hung dangling 
 
58 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 over the catheads, but nobody touched them. The soldiers and 
 sailors on the forecastle, collected in knots, had no heart even 
 to smoke, but gloomily stared at each other. Vickers was in 
 the cuddy writing ; Blunt was in his cabin ; and Pine, with two 
 carpenters at work under his directions, was improvising in- 
 creased hospital accommodation. The noise of mallet and 
 hammer echoed in the soldiers' berth ominously ; the workmen 
 might have been making coffins. The prison was strangely 
 silent, with the lowering silence which precedes a thunder- 
 storm ; and the convicts on deck no longer told stories, nor 
 laughed at obscene jests, but sat together, moodily patient, as if 
 waiting for something. Three men — two prisoners and a soldier 
 — had succumbed since Rufus Dawes had been removed to the 
 hospital ; and though as yet there had been no complaint or 
 symptom of panic, the face of each man, soldier, sailor, or 
 prisoner, wore an expectant look, as though he wondered whose 
 turn would come next. On the ship — rolling ceaselessly from 
 side to side, like a wounded creature, on the opaque pro- 
 fundity of that stagnant ocean— a horrible shadow had fallen. 
 The Malabar seemed to be enveloped in an electric cloud, 
 whose sullen gloom a chance spark might flash into a blaze 
 that should consume her. 
 
 The woman who held in her hands the two ends of the chain 
 that would produce this spark, paused, came up upon deck, 
 and, after a glance round, leant against the poop-railing and 
 looked down into the barricade. As we have said, the prisoners 
 were in knots of four and five, and to one group in particular 
 her glance was directed. Three men, leaning carelessly against 
 the bulwarks, watched her every motion. 
 
 " There she is, right enough," growled Mr. Gabbett, as if in 
 continuation of a previous remark. " Flash as ever, and look- 
 ing this way, too." 
 
 " I don't see no wipe," said the practical Moocher. 
 
 " Patience is a virtue, most noble knuckler ! " says the Crow, 
 with affected carelessness. " Give the young woman time." 
 
 " Blowed if I'm going to wait no longer," says the giant, 
 licking his coarse blue lips. " 'Ere we've been bluffed off day 
 arter day, and kep' dancin' round the Dandy's wench like a 
 parcel o' dogs. The fever's aboard, and we've got all ready. 
 What's the use o' waitin'? Orfice, or no orfice, I'm for bizniss 
 at once ! " 
 
A DANGEROUS CRISIS. 59 
 
 " There, look at that," he added, with an oath, as the 
 
 figure of Maurice Frere appeared side by side with that of the 
 waiting-maid, and the two turned away up the deck together. 
 
 " It's all right, you confounded muddlehead ! " cried the Crow, 
 losing patience with his perverse and stupid companion. " How 
 can she give us the office with that cove at her elbow ? " 
 
 Gabbett's only reply to this question was a ferocious grunt, 
 and a sudden elevation of his clenched first, which caused Mr. 
 Vetch to retreat precipitately. The giant did not follow ; and 
 Mr. Vetch, folding his arms, and assuming an attitude of easy 
 contempt, directed his attention to Sarah Purfoy. She seemed 
 an object of general attraction, for at the same moment a young 
 soldier ran up the ladder to the forecastle, and eagerly bent his 
 gaze in her direction. 
 
 Maurice Frere had come behind her and touched her on the 
 shoulder. Since their conversation the previous evening, he 
 had made up his mind to be fooled no longer. The girl was 
 evidently playing with him, and he would show her that he was 
 not to be trifled with. 
 
 " Well, Sarah ! " 
 
 " Well, Mr. Frere," dropping her hand, and turning round 
 with a smile. 
 
 " How well you are looking to-day ! Positively lovely ! " 
 
 "You have told me that so often," says she, with a pout. 
 " Have you nothing else to say ? " 
 
 " Except that I love you." This in a most impassioned 
 manner. 
 
 " That is no news. I know you do." 
 
 " Curse it, Sarah, what is a fellow to do ? " His profligacy 
 was failing him rapidly. " What is the use of playing fast and 
 loose with a fellow this way ? " 
 
 " A ' fellow ' should be able to take care of himself, Mr. Frere. 
 I didn't ask you to fall in love with me, did I ? If you don't 
 please me, it is not your fault, perhaps." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 "You soldiers have so many things to think of — your guards 
 and sentries, and visits and things. You have no time to spare 
 for a poor woman like me." 
 
 " Spare ! " cries Frere, in amazement. " Why, damme, you 
 won't let a fellow spare ! I'd spare fast enough, if that was all." 
 
 She cast her eyes down to the deck, and a modest flush rose 
 
HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 in her cheeks. " I have so much to do," she said, in a half- 
 whisper. "There are so many eyes upon me, I cannot stir 
 without being seen." 
 
 She raised her head as she spoke, and to give effect to her 
 words, looked round the deck. Her glance crossed that of the 
 young soldier on the forecastle, and though the distance was 
 too great for her to distinguish his features, she guessed who he 
 was — Miles was jealous. Frere, smiling with delight at her 
 change of manner, came close to her, and whispered in her ear. 
 She affected to start, and took the opportunity of exchanging a 
 signal with the Crow. 
 
 " I will come at eight o'clock," said she, with modestly averted 
 face. 
 
 " They relieve guard at eight," he said, deprecatingly. 
 
 She tossed her head. "Very well, then, attend to your guard; 
 / don't care." 
 
 " But, Sarah, consider " 
 
 "As if a woman in love ever considers ! " said she, turning 
 upon him a burning glance, which in truth might have melted 
 a more icy man than he, 
 
 She loved him then ! What a fool he would be to 
 
 refuse. To get her to come was the first object ; how to make 
 duty fit with pleasure would be considered afterwards. Besides, 
 the guard could relieve itself for once without his supervision. 
 
 " Very well, at eight then, dearest." 
 
 ** Hush ! " said she. " Here comes that stupid captain." 
 
 And as Frere left her, she turned, and, with her eyes fixed on 
 the convict barricade, dropped the handkerchief she held in her 
 hand over the poop railing. It fell at the feet of the amorous 
 captain, and with a quick upward glance, that worthy fellow 
 picked it up, and brought it to her. 
 
 " Oh, thank you. Captain Blunt," said she, and her eyes 
 spoke more than her tongue. 
 
 "Did you take the laudanum?" whispered Blunt, with a 
 twinkle in his eye. 
 
 " Some of it," said she. " I will bring you back the bottle 
 to-night." 
 
 Blunt walked aft, humming cheerily, and saluted Frere with 
 a slap on the back. The two men laughed, each at his own 
 thoughts, but their laughter only made the surrounding gloom 
 seem deeper than before. 
 
A DANGEROUS CRISIS. 6i 
 
 Sarah Purfoy, casting her eyes toward the barricade, observed 
 a change in the position of the three men. They were together 
 once more, and the Crow, having taken off his prison cap, held 
 it at arm's length with one hand, while he wiped his brow with 
 the other. Her signal had been observed. 
 
 During all this, Rufus Dawes, removed to the hospital, was 
 lying flat on his back, staring at the deck above him, trying to 
 think of something he wanted to say. 
 
 When the sudden faintness, which was the prelude to his 
 sickness, had overpowered him, he remembered being torn 
 out of his bunk by fierce hands — remembered a vision of 
 savage faces, and the presence of some danger that menaced 
 him. He remembered that, while lying on his blankets, 
 struggling with the coming fever, he had overheard a con- 
 versation of vital importance to himself and to the ship, but 
 of the purport of that conversation he had not the least idea. 
 In vain he strove to remember — in vain his will, struggling with 
 delirium, brought back snatches and echoes of sense ; they 
 slipped from him again as fast as caught. He was oppressed 
 with the weight of half-recollected thought. He knew that a 
 terrible danger menaced him ; that could he but force his brain 
 to reason connectedly for ten consecutive minutes, he could give 
 such information as would avert that danger, and save the ship. 
 But, lying with hot head, parched lips, and enfeebled body, he 
 was as one possessed — he could move nor hand nor foot. 
 
 The place where he lay was but dimly lighted. The ingenuity 
 of Pine had constructed a canvas blind over the port, to prevent 
 the sun striking into the cabin, and this blind absorbed much of 
 the light. He could but just see the deck above his head, and 
 distinguish the outlines of three other berths, apparently similar 
 to his own. The only sounds that broke the silence were the 
 gurgling of the water below him, and the Tap tap, Tap tap, of 
 Pine's hammers at work upon the new partition. By-and-by 
 the noise of these hammers ceased, and then the sick man 
 could hear gasps, and moans, and mutterings — the signs that 
 his companions yet lived. 
 
 All at once a voice called out, " Of course his bills are worth 
 four hundred pounds ; but, my good sir, four hundred pounds 
 to a man in my position is not worth the getting. ' Why, I've 
 given four hundred pounds for a freak of my girl Sarah ! Is it 
 right, eh, Jezebel ? She's a good girl, though, as girls go. 
 
62 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 Mrs. Lionel Crofton, of the Crofts, Sevenoaks, Kent — Sevenoaks, 
 Kent — Seven " 
 
 A gleam of light broke in on the darkness which wrapped 
 Rufus Dawes' tortured brain. The man was John Rex, his 
 berth mate. With an effort he spoke. 
 
 " Rex ! " 
 
 " Yes, yes. I'm coming ; don't be in a hurry. The sentry's 
 safe, and the howitzer is but five paces from the door. A rush 
 upon deck, lads, and she's ours ! That is, mine. Mine and my 
 wife's, Mrs. Lionel Crofton, of Seven Crofts, no oaks — Sarah Pur- 
 foy, lady's-maid and nurse — ha ! ha ! — lady's-maid and nurse ! " 
 
 This last sentence contained the name-clue to the labyrinth 
 in which Rufus Dawes' bewildered intellects were wandering. 
 ** Sarah Purfoy ! " He remembered now each detail of the 
 conversation he had so strangely overheard, and how impera- 
 tive it was that he should, without delay, reveal the plot that 
 threatened the ship. How that plot was to be carried out, 
 he did not pause to consider ; he was conscious that he was 
 hanging over the brink of delirium, and that, unless he made 
 himself understood before his senses utterly deserted him, all 
 was lost. 
 
 He attempted to rise, but found that his fever-thralled limbs 
 refused to obey the impulse of his will. He made an effort to 
 speak, but his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, and his 
 jaws stuck together. He could not raise a finger nor utter a 
 sound. The boards over his head waved like a shaken sheet, 
 and the cabin whirled round, while the patch of light at his 
 feet bobbed up and down like the reflection from a wavering 
 candle. He closed his eyes with a terrible sigh of despair, and 
 resigned himself to his fate. At that instant the sound of 
 hammering ceased, and the door opened. It was six o'clock, 
 and Pine had come to have a last look at his patients before 
 dinner. It seemed that there was somebody with him, for a 
 kind, though somewhat pompous, voice remarked upon the 
 scantiness of accommodation, and the " necessity — the absolute 
 necessity " — of complying with the King's Regulations. 
 
 Honest Vickers, though agonized for the safety of his child, 
 would not abate a jot of his duty, and had sternly come to visit 
 the sick men, aware as he was that such a visit would necessi- 
 tate his isolation from the cabin where his child lay. Mrs. 
 Vickers — weeping and bewailing herself coquettishly at garrison 
 
A DANGEROUS CRISIS. 63 
 
 parties — had often said that " poor dear John was such a 
 disciplinarian, quite a slave to the service." 
 
 " Here they are," said Pine ; " six of 'em. This fellow " — 
 going to the side of Rex — "is the worst. If he had not a 
 constitution like a horse, I don't think he could live out the 
 night." 
 
 " Three, eighteen, seven, four," muttered Rex ; " dot and 
 carry one. Is that an occupation for a gentleman ? No, sir. 
 Good-night, my lord, good-night. Hark ! The clock is striking 
 nine ; five, six, seven, eight ! Well, you've had your day, and 
 can't complain." 
 
 "A dangerous fellow," says Pine, with the light upraised. 
 "A very dangerous fellow — that is, he was. This is the place, 
 you see — a regular rat-hole ; but what can one do? " 
 
 " Come, let us get on deck," said Vickers, with a shudder of 
 disgust. 
 
 Rufus Dawes felt the sweat break out into beads on his 
 forehead. They suspected nothing. They were going away. 
 He must warn them. With a violent effort, in his agony he 
 turned over in the bunk and thrust out his hand from the 
 blankets. 
 
 " Hullo ! what's this ? " cried Pine, bringing the lantern to 
 bear upon it. " Lie down, my man. Eh ! — water, is it ? 
 There, steady with it now ; " and he lifted a pannikin to the 
 blackened, froth-fringed lips. The cool draught moistened his 
 pjirched gullet, and the convict made a last effort to speak. 
 
 "Sarah Purfoy — to-night — the prison — MUTINY !" 
 
 The last word, almost shrieked out, in the sufferer's desperate 
 efforts to articulate, recalled the wandering senses of John 
 Rex. 
 
 " Hush ! " he cried. " Is that you, Jemmy ? Sarah's right. 
 Wait till she gives the word." 
 
 " He's raving," said Vickers. 
 
 Pine caught the convict by the shoulder. "What do you say, 
 my man ? A mutiny of the prisoners ! " 
 
 With his mouth agape and his hands clenched, Rufus Dawes, 
 incapable of further speech, made a last effort to nod assent, but 
 his head fell upon his breast ; the next moment, the flickering 
 light, the gloomy prison, the eager face of the doctor, and the 
 astonished face of Vickers, vanished from before his straining 
 eyes. He saw the two men stare at each other, in mingled 
 
64 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 incredulity and alarm, and then he was floating down the cool 
 brown river of his boyhood, on his way — in company with 
 Sarah Purfoy and Lieutenant Frere — to raise the mutiny in 
 the Hydaspes, that lay on the stocks in the old house at 
 Hampstead. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 woman's weapons. 
 
 THE two discoverers of this awkward secret held a council 
 of war. Vickers was for at once calling the guard, and 
 announcing to the prisoners that the plot — whatever it 
 might be — had been discovered ; but Pine, accustomed to 
 convict ships, overruled this decision. 
 
 "You don't know these fellows as well as I do," said he. 
 " In the first place there may be no mutiny at all. The whole 
 thing is, perhaps, some absurdity of that fellow Dawes — and 
 should we once put the notion of attacking us into the prisoners' 
 heads, there is no telling what they might do." 
 
 " But the man seemed certain," said the other. " He men 
 tioned my wife's maid, too !" 
 
 " Suppose he did ? — and, begad, I daresay he's right, — I never 
 liked the look of the girl. To tell them that we have found 
 them out this time won't prevent 'em trying it again. We don't 
 know what their scheme is either. If it is a mutiny, half the 
 ship's company may be in it. No, Captain Vickers, allow me, 
 as surgeon-superintendent, to settle our course of action. You 
 are aware that " 
 
 " That, by the King's Regulations, you are invested with 
 
 full powers," interrupted Vickers, mindful of discipline in any 
 extremity. " Of course, I merely suggested — and I know no- 
 thing about the girl, except that she brought a good character 
 from her last mistress — a Mrs. Crofton I think the name was. 
 We were glad to get anybody to make a voyage like this." 
 
 "Well," says Pine, "look here. Suppose we tell these 
 scoundrels that their design, whatever it may be, is known. 
 Very good. They will profess absolute ignorance, and try again 
 on the next opportunity, when, perhaps, we may not know any- 
 thing about it. At all events, we are completely ignorant of the 
 
WOMAN'S WEAPONS. 65 
 
 nature of the plot and the names of the ringleaders. Let us 
 double the sentries, and quietly get the men under arms. Let 
 Miss Sarah do what she pleases, and 7uhen the mutiny breaks 
 out, we will nip it in the bud ; clap all the villains we get in 
 irons, and hand them over to the authorities in Hobart Town. 
 I am not a cruel man, sir, but we have got a cargo of wild beasts 
 aboard, and we must be careful." 
 
 " But surely, Mr. Pine, have you considered the probable loss 
 of life? I — really — some more humane course. Preventioii, 
 you know " 
 
 Pine turned round upon him with that grim practicality which 
 was a part of his nature. " Wave you considered the safety ot 
 the ship. Captain Vickers ? You know, or have heard of, the 
 sort of things that take place in these mutinies. Have you con- 
 sidered what will befall those half-dozen women in the soldiers' 
 berths ? Have you thought of the fate of your own wife and 
 child?" 
 
 Vickers shuddered. 
 
 " Have it your way, Mr. Pine ; you know best perhaps. But 
 don't risk more lives than you can help." 
 
 " Be easy, sir," says old Pine ; " I am acting for the best ; 
 upon my soul I am. You don't know what convicts are, or 
 rather what the law has made 'em — yet " 
 
 " Poor wretches !" says Vickers, who, like many martinets, 
 was in reality tender-hearted. " Kindness might do much for 
 them. After all, they are our fellow-creatures." 
 
 "Yes," returned the other, "they are. But if you use that 
 argument to them when they have taken the vessel, it won't 
 avail you much. Let me manage, sir ; and for God's sake, say 
 nothing to anybody. Our lives may hang upon a word." 
 
 Vickers promised, and kept his promise so far as to chat 
 cheerily with Blunt and Frere at dinner, only writing a brief note 
 to his wife to tell her that, whatever she heard, she was not to 
 stir from her cabin until he came to her ; he knew that, with all 
 his wife's folly, she would obey unhesitatingly when he couched 
 an order in such terms. 
 
 According to the usual custom on board convict ships, the 
 guards relieved each other every two hours, and at six p.m. the 
 poop guard was removed to the quarter-deck, and the arms 
 which, in the day-time, were disposed on the top of the arm- 
 chest, were placed in an arm-rack constructed on the quarter- 
 
 5 
 
66 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 deck for that purpose. Trusting nothing to Frere — who, indeed, 
 by Pine's advice, was, as we have seen, kept in ignorance of the 
 whole matter — Vickers ordered all the men, save those who had 
 been on guard during the day, to be'under arms in the barrack, 
 forbade communication with the upper deck, and placed as 
 sentry at the barrack door his own servant, an old soldier, on 
 whose fidelity he could thoroughly rely. He then doubled the 
 guards, took the keys of the prison himself from the non-com- 
 missioned officer whose duty it was to keep them, and saw that 
 the howitzer on the lower deck was loaded with grape. It was 
 a quarter to seven when Pine and he took their station at the 
 main hatchway, determined to watch until morning. 
 
 At a quarter past seven, any curious person looking through 
 the window of Captain Blunt's cabin would have seen an un- 
 usual sight. That gallant commander was sitting on the bed- 
 place, with a glass of rum and water in his hand, and the 
 handsome waiting-maid of Mrs. Vickers was seated on a stool 
 by his side. At a first glance it was perceptible that the captain 
 was very drunk. His grey hair was matted all ways about his 
 reddened face, and he was winking and blinking like an owl in 
 the .sunshine. He had drunk a larger quantity of wine than 
 usual at dinner, in sheer delight at the approaching assignation, 
 and having got out the rum bottle for a quiet " settler" just as 
 the victim of his fascinations glided through the carefully-adjusted 
 door, he had been persuaded to go on drinking. 
 
 " Cue-come, Sarah," he hiccuped. " It's all very fine, my 
 lass, but you needn't be so — hie— proud, you know. I'm a plain 
 sailor — plain s'lor, Srr'h. Ph'n'as Bub — blunt, commander of 
 the Mal-Mal- Malabar. Wors^ 'sh good talkin' ?" 
 
 Sarah allowed a laugh to escape her, and artfully protruded 
 an ankle at the same time. The amorous Phineas lurched over, 
 and made shift to take her hand. 
 
 " You lovsh me, and I— hie — lovsh you, Sarah. And a preshus 
 tight little craft you — hie — are. Giv'sh — kiss, Sarah." 
 
 Sarah got up and went to the door. 
 
 ** Wotsh this ? Goin' ! Sarah, don't go," and he staggered 
 up ; and, with the grog swaying fearfully in one hand, made 
 at her. 
 
 The ship's bell struck seven. Now or never was the time. 
 Blunt caught her round the waist with one arm, and hiccuping 
 with love and rum, approached to take the kiss he coveted. 
 
WOMAN'S WEAPONS. 67 
 
 She seized the moment, surrendered herself to his embrace 
 drew from her pocket the laudanum bottle, and passing her 
 hand over his shoulder, poured half its contents into the glass 
 
 " Think I'm — hie — drunk, do yer ? Nun-not I, my wench." 
 
 " You will be if you drink much more. Come, finish that and 
 be quiet, or I'll go away." 
 
 But she threw a provocation into her glance as she spoke, 
 which belied her words, and which penetrated even the sodden 
 intellect of poor Blunt. He balanced himself on his heels for a 
 moment, and holding by the moulding of the cabin, stared at 
 her with a fatuous smile of drunken admiration, then looked at 
 the glass in his hand, hiccuped with much solemnity thrice, 
 and, as though struck with a sudden sense of duty unfulfilled, 
 swallowed the contents at a gulp. The effect was almost instan- 
 taneous. He dropped the tumbler, lurched towards the woman 
 at the door, and then making a half turn in accordance with 
 the motion of the vessel, fell into his bunk, and snored like a 
 grampus. 
 
 Sarah Purfoy watched him for a few minutes, and then having 
 blown out the light, stepped out of the cabin, and closed the 
 door behind her. The dusky gloom which had held the deck 
 on the previous night enveloped all forward of the mainmast. 
 A lantern swung in the forecastle, and swayed with the motion 
 of the ship. The light at the prison door threw a glow through 
 the open hatch, and in the cuddy, at her right hand, the usual 
 row of oil-lamps burned. She looked mechanically for Vickers, 
 who was ordinarily there at that hour, but the cuddy was empty. 
 So much the better, she thought, as she drew her dark cloak 
 around her, and tapped at Frere's door. As she did so, a 
 strange pain shot through her temples, and her knees trembled. 
 With a strong effort she dispelled the dizziness that had almost 
 overpowered her, and held herself erect. It would never do to 
 break down now. 
 
 The door opened, and Maurice Frere drew her into the cabin. 
 " So you have come ? " said he. 
 
 " You see I have. But, oh ! if I should be seen I " 
 
 " Seen ? Nonsense ! Who is to see you ?" 
 
 " Captain Vickers, Doctor Pine, anybody." 
 
 " Not they. Besides, they've gone off down to Pine's cabin 
 since dinner. They're all right." 
 
 Gone off to Pine's cabin ! The intelligence struck her with 
 
68 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 dismay. What was the cause of such an unusual proceeding ? 
 Surely they did not suspect ? " What do they want there ? " 
 she asked. 
 
 Maurice Frere was not in the humour to argue questions of 
 probability. " Who knows ? I don't. Confound 'em," he added, 
 " what does it matter to us ? We don't want them, do we, 
 Sarah ? " 
 
 She seemed to be listening for something, and did not reply. 
 Her nervous system was wound up to the highest pitch of ex- 
 citement. The success of the plot depended on the next five 
 minutes. 
 
 " What are you staring at ? Look at me, can't you ? What 
 eyes you have ! And what hair ! " 
 
 At that instant the report of a musket-shot broke the silence. 
 The mutiny had begun ! 
 
 The sound awoke the soldier to a sense of his duty. He sprang 
 to hi"^ feet, and disengaging the arms that clung about his neck, 
 made for the door. The moment for which the convict's accom- 
 plice had waited, approached. She hung upon him with all her 
 weight. Her long hair swept across his face, her warm breath 
 was on his cheek, her dress exposed her round, smooth shoulder. 
 He, intoxicated, conquered, had half turned back, when sud- 
 denly the rich crimson died away from her lips, leaving them 
 an ashen grey colour. Her eyes closed in agony, loosing her 
 hold of him, she staggered to her feet, pressed her hands upon 
 her bosom, and uttered a sharp cry of pain. 
 
 The fever which had been on her for two days, and which, by 
 a strong exercise of will, she had struggled against, — encouraged 
 by the violent excitement of the occasion, had attacked her at 
 this supreme moment. Deathly pale and sick, she reeled to the 
 side of the cabin. 
 
 There was another shot, and a violent clashing of arms ; and 
 Frere, leaving the miserable woman to her fate, leapt out on to 
 the deck. 
 
EIGHT BELLS. 69 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 EIGHT BELLS. 
 
 AT seven o'clock there had been also a commotion in the 
 prison. The news of the fever had awoke in the convicts 
 all that love of liberty which had but slumbered during 
 the monotony of the earlier part of the voyage. Now that death 
 menaced them, they longed fiercely for the chance of escape 
 which seemed permitted to freemen. " Let us go out ! " they 
 said, each man speaking to his particular friend. " We are 
 locked up here to die like sheep. " Gloomy faces and despond- 
 ing looks met the gaze of each, and sometimes across this gloom 
 shot a fierce glance that lighted up its blackness, as a lightning- 
 flash renders luridly luminous the indigo dulness of a thunder- 
 cloud. By-and-bye, in some inexplicable way, it came to be 
 understood that there was a conspirac> afloai, that they were 
 to be released from their shambles, that some amongst them 
 had been plotting their freedom. The 'tween decks held its foul 
 breath in wondering anxiety, afraid to breathe its suspicions. 
 The influence of this predominant idea showed itself by a 
 strange shifting of atoms. The mass of villainy, ignorance, and 
 innocence began to be animated with something like a uniform 
 movement. Natural affinities came together, and like allied 
 itself to like, falling noiselessly into harmony, as the pieces . of 
 glass and coloured beads in a kaleidoscope assume mathe- 
 matical forms. By seven bells it was found that the prison was 
 divided into three parties — the desperate, the timid, and the 
 cautious. These three parties had arranged themselves in 
 natural sequence. The mutineers, headed by Gabbett, Vetch, 
 and the Moocher, were nearest to the door ; the timid — boys, 
 old men, innocent poor wretches condemned on circumstantial 
 evidence, or rustics condemned to be turned into thieves for 
 pulling a turnip — were at the farther end, huddling together in 
 alarm ; and the prudent — that is to say, all the rest, ready to 
 fight or fly, advance or retreat, assist the authorities or their 
 companions, as the fortune of the day might direct — occupied 
 the middle space. The mutineers proper numbered, perhaps, 
 some thirty men, and of these thirty only half a dozen knew 
 what was really about to be done. 
 
70 
 
 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 The ship's bell strikes the half-hour, and as the cries of the 
 three sentries passing the word to the quarter-deck die away, 
 Gabbett, who has been leaning with his back against the door, 
 nudges Jemmy Vetch. 
 
 " Now, Jemmy," says he in a whisper, " Tell 'em ! " 
 
 The whisper being heard by those nearest the giant, a silence 
 ensues, which gradually spreads like a ripple over the surface of 
 the crowd, reaching even the bunks at the further end. 
 
 " Gentlemen," says Mr. Vetch, politely sarcastic in his own 
 hang-dog fashion, ** myself and my friends here are going to take 
 the ship for you. Those who like to join us had better speak at 
 once, for in about half an hour they will not have the opportunity." 
 
 He pauses, and looks round with such an impertinently con- 
 fident air, that three waverers in the party amidships slip nearer 
 to hear him. 
 
 " You needn't be afraid," Mr. Vetch continues, " we have 
 arranged it all for you. There are friends waiting for us outside, 
 and the door will be open directly. All we want, gentlemen, is 
 your wote and interest — I mean your " 
 
 " Gaffing agin ! " interrupts the giant, angrily. " Come to 
 business, carn't yer.? Tell 'em they may like it or lump it, 
 but we mean to have the ship, and them as refuses to join us 
 we mean to chuck overboard. That's about the plain English 
 of it!" 
 
 This practical way of putting it produces a sensation, and the 
 conservative party at the other end look in each other's faces 
 with some alarm. A grim murmur runs round, and somebody 
 near Mr. Gabbett lau^dis a laugh of mingled ferocity and amuse- 
 ment, not reassuring to timid people. 
 
 "What about the sogers.?" asks a voice from out the ranks 
 of the cautious. 
 
 " ^ the sogers ! " cries the Moochcr, moved by a sudden 
 
 inspiration. " They can but shoot yer, and that's as good as 
 dyin' of typhus any way ! " 
 
 The right chord had been struck now, and with a stifled roar 
 the prison admitted the truth of the sentiment. " Go on, old 
 men ! '' cries Jemmy Vetch to the giant, rubbing his thin hands 
 with eldritch glee. " They're all right ! " And then, his quick 
 ears catching the jingle of arms, he adds, " Stand by now for 
 the door — one rush '11 do it." 
 
 !t was eight o'clock, and the reliei guaid was coming from 
 
EIGHT BELLS. yt 
 
 the after deck. The crowd of prisoners round the door held 
 their breath to listen. " It's all planned," says Gabbett, in a low 
 growl. " Wen the door hopens we rush, and we're in among 
 the guard afore they know where they are. Drag 'em back 
 into the prison, grab the h'arm rack, and it's all over." 
 
 " They're very quiet about it," says the Crow, suspiciously. 
 " I hope it's all right." 
 
 "Stand from the door. Miles," says Pine's voice outside, in 
 its usual calm accents. 
 
 The Crow was relieved. The tone was an ordinary one, and 
 Miles was the soldier whom Sarah Purfoy had bribed not to fire. 
 All had gone well. 
 
 The keys clashed and turned, and the bravest of the prudent 
 party, who had been turning in his mind the notion of risking 
 his life for a pardon, to be won by rushing forward at the right 
 moment and alarming the guard, checked the cry that was in 
 his throat as he saw the men round the door draw back a little 
 for their rush, and caught a glimpse of the giant's bristhng scalp 
 and bared gums. 
 
 " NOW !" cries Jemmy Vetch, as the iron-plated oak swung 
 back, and with the guttural snarl of a charging wild boar, Gab- 
 bett hurled himself out of the prison. 
 
 The red line of light which glowed for an instant through the 
 doorway was blotted out by a mass of figures. All the prison 
 surged forward, and before the eye could wink, five, ten, twenty, 
 of the most desperate were outside. It was as though a sea, 
 breaking against a stone wall, had found some breach through 
 which to pour its waters. The contagion of battle spread. 
 Caution was forgotten ; and those at the back, seeing Jemmy 
 Vetch raised up on the crest of that human billow which reared 
 its black outline against an indistinct perspective of struggling 
 figures, responded to his grin of encouragement by rushing 
 furiously forward. 
 
 Suddenly a horrible roar like that of a trapped wild beast was 
 heard. The rushing torrent choked in the doorway, and from 
 out the lantern glow into which the giant had rushed, a flash 
 broke, followed by a groan, as the perfidious sentry fell back shot 
 through the breast. The mass in the doorway hung irresolute, 
 and then by sheer weight of pressure from behind burst for- 
 wards, and as it so burst, the heavy door crashed into its jambs, 
 and the bolts were shot into their places. 
 
^2 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 All this took place by one of those simultaneous movements 
 •which are so rapid in execution, so tedious to describe in detail. 
 At one instant the prison door had opened, at the next it had 
 closed. The picture which had presented itself to the eyes of 
 the convicts was as momentary as are those of the thaumato- 
 scope. The period of time that had elapsed between the 
 opening and the shutting of the door could have been marked 
 by the musket shot. 
 
 The report of another shot, and then a noise of confused cries, 
 mingled with the clashing of arms, informed the imprisoned 
 men that the ship had been alarmed. How would it go with 
 their friends on deck ? Would they succeed in overcoming the 
 guards, or would they be beaten back ? They would soon know ; 
 and in the hot dusk, straining their eyes to see each other, they 
 waited for the issue. Suddenly the noises ceased, and a strange 
 rumbling sound fell upon the ears of the listeners. 
 
 What had taken place ? 
 
 This — the men pouring out of the darkness into the sudden 
 glare of the lanterns, rushed, bewildered, across the deck. Miles, 
 true to his promise, did not fire, but the next instant Vickers 
 had snatched the firelock from him, and leaping into the stream, 
 turned about and fired down towards the prison. The attack 
 was more sudden than he had expected, but he did not lose his 
 presence of mind. The shot would serve a double purpose. It 
 would warn the men in the barrack, and perhaps check the rush 
 by stopping up the doorway with a corpse. Beaten back, strug- 
 gling, and indignant, amid the storm of hideous faces, his 
 humanity vanished, and he aimed deliberately at the head oJ 
 Mr. James Vetch ; the shot, however, missed its mark, and 
 killed the unhappy Miles. 
 
 Gabbett and his companions had by this time reached the foot 
 of the companion ladder, there to encounter the cutlasses of the 
 doubled guard gleaming redly in the glow of the lanterns. A 
 glance up the hatchway showed the giant that the arms he had 
 planned to seize were defended by ten firelocks, and that, behind 
 the open doors of the partition which ran abaft the mizenmast, 
 the remainder of tlie flctachmcnt stood to their arms. Even 
 his dull intellect comprehended that the desperate project had 
 failed, and that he had been betrayed. With the roar of despair 
 
EIGHT BELLS. 73 
 
 which had penetrated into the prison, he turned to fight his way 
 back, just in time to see the crowd in the gangway recoil from 
 the flash of the musket fired by Vickers. The next instant, Pine 
 and two soldiers, taking advantage of the momentary cessation 
 of the press, shot the bolts, and secured the prison. 
 
 The mutineers were caught in a trap. 
 
 The narrow space between the barracks and the barricade was 
 choked with struggling figures. Some twenty convicts, and half 
 as many soldiers, struck and stabbed at each other in the crowd. 
 There was barely elbowroom, and attacked and attackers fought 
 almost without knowing whom they struck. Gabbett tore a 
 cutlass from a soldier, shook his huge head, and calling on the 
 Moocher to follow, bounded up the ladder, desperately deter- 
 mined to brave the fire of the watch. The Moocher, close at 
 the giant's heels, flung himself upon the nearest soldier, and 
 grasping his wrist, struggled for the cutlass. A brawny, bull- 
 necked fellow next him dashed his clenched fist in the 
 soldier's face, and the man, maddened by the blow, let go the 
 cutlass, and drawing his pistol, shot his new assailant through 
 the head. It was this second shot that had aroused Maurice 
 Frere. 
 
 As the young lieutenant sprang out upon the deck, he saw by 
 the position of the guard that others had been more mindful of 
 the safety of the ship than he. There was, however, no time for 
 explanation, for, as he reached the hatchway, he was met by the 
 ascending giant, who uttered a hideous oath at the sight of this 
 unexpected adversary, and, too close to strike him, locked him 
 in his arms. The two men went down together. The guard on 
 the quarter-deck dared not fire at the two bodies that, twined 
 about each other, rolled across the deck, and for a moment 
 Mr. Frere's cherished existence hung upon the slenderest thread 
 imaginable. 
 
 The Moocher, spattered with the blood and brains of his 
 unfortunate comrade, had already set his foot upon the lowest 
 step of the ladder, when the cutlass was dashed from his hand 
 by a blow from a clubbed firelock, and he was dragged roughly 
 backwards. As he fell upon the deck, he saw the Crow spring 
 out of the mass of prisoners who had been, an instant before, 
 struggling with the guard, and, gaining the cleared space at the 
 bottom of the ladder, hold up his hands, as though to shield 
 himself from a blow. The confusion had become suddenly 
 
74 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 stilled, and upon the group before the barricade had fallen 
 that mysterious silence which had perplexed the inmates of 
 the prison. 
 
 They were not perplexed for long. The two soldiers who, 
 with the assistance of Pine, had forced-to the door of the prison, 
 rapidly unbolted that trap door in the barricade, of which 
 mention has been made in a previous chapter, and, at a signal 
 from Vickers, three men ran the loaded howitzer from its sinister 
 shelter near the break of the barrack berths, and training the 
 deadly muzzle to a level with the opening in the barricade, stood 
 ready to fire. 
 
 "Surrender!" cried Vickers, in a voice from which all 
 "humanity" had vanished. "Surrender, and give up your 
 ringleaders, or I'll blow you to pieces !" 
 
 There was no tremor in his voice, and though he stood, with 
 Pine by his side, at the very mouth of the levelled cannon, the 
 mutineers perceived, with that acuteness which imminent danger 
 brings to the most stolid of brains, that, did they hesitate an 
 instant, he would keep his word. There was an awful moment 
 of silence, broken only by a skurrying noise in the prison, as 
 though a family of rats, disturbed at a flour cask, were scamper- 
 ing to the ship's side for shelter. 
 
 This skurrying noise was made by the convicts rushing to 
 their berths to escape the threatened shower of grape ; to the 
 twenty desperadoes cowering before the muzzle of the howitzer 
 it spoke more eloquently than words. The charm was broken ; 
 their comrades would refuse to join them. The position of 
 affairs at this crisis was a strange one. From the opened trap- 
 door c.ime a sort of subdued muiTnur, like that which sounds 
 within the folds of a sea-shell, but, in the oblong block of dark- 
 ness which it framed, nothing was visible. The trap-door might 
 have been a window looking into a tunnel. On each side of this 
 horrible window, almost pushed before it by the pressure of one 
 upon the other, stood Pine, Vickers, and the guard. In front of 
 tlie little group lay the corpse of the miserable boy whom Sarah 
 Purfoy had led to ruin ; and forced close upon, yet shrinking 
 back from, the trampled and bloody mass, crouched, in mingled 
 terror and rage, the twenty mutineers. Behind the mutineers, 
 withdrawn from the patch of light thrown by the open hatchway, 
 the mouth of the howitzer threatened destruction ; and behind 
 the howitzer, backed up by an array of brown musket barrels. 
 
EIGHT BELLS. 75 
 
 sullenly glowed the tiny fire of the burning match in the hand 
 of Vickers's trusty servant. 
 
 The entrapped men looked up the hatchway, but the guard 
 had already closed in upon it, and some of the ship's crew — 
 with that carelessness of danger characteristic of sailors — were 
 peering down upon them. Escape was hopeless. 
 
 " One minute ! " cried Vickers, confident that one second 
 would be enough — " one minute to go quietly, or " 
 
 " Surrender, mates, for God's sake ! " shrieked some unknown 
 wretch from out of the darkness of the prison. " Do you want 
 to be the death of us ? " 
 
 Jemmy Vetch, feeling, by that curious sympathy which ner- 
 vous natures possess, that his comrades wished him to act as 
 spokesman, raised his shrill tones. " We surrender," he said. 
 " It's no use getting our brains blown out." And raising his 
 hands, he obeyed the motion of Vickers's finger, and led the 
 way towards the barrack. 
 
 " Bring the irons forward, there ! " shouted Vickers, hastening 
 from his perilous position ; and before the last man had filed 
 past the still smoking match, the clink of hammers announced 
 that the Crow had resumed those fetters which had been knocked 
 off his dainty limbs a month previously in the Bay of Biscay. 
 
 In another moment the trap-door was closed, the howitzer 
 rumbled back to its cleatings, and the prison breathed again. 
 
 In the meantime, a scene almost as exciting had taken place 
 on the upper deck. Gabbett, with the blind fury which the 
 consciousness of failui-e briiigs to such brute-like natures, had 
 seized Frere by the throat, determined to put an end to at 
 least one of his enemies. But desperate though he was, and 
 with all the advantage of weight and strength upon his side, he 
 found the young lieutenant a more formidable adversary than 
 he had anticipated. 
 
 Maurice Frere was no coward. Brutal and selfish though he 
 might be, his bitterest enemies had never accused him of lack 
 of physical courage. Indeed, he had been — in the roUicking 
 days of old that were gone — celebrated for the display of very 
 opposite qualities. He was an amateur at manly sports. He 
 rejoiced in his muscular strength, and, in many a tavern brawl 
 and midnight riot of his own provoking, had proved the fallacy 
 
16 
 
 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 of the proverb which teaches that a bully is always a coward. 
 He had the tenacity of a bulldog,— once let him get his teeth 
 in his adversary, and he would hold on till he died. In fact he 
 was, as far as personal vigour went, a Gabbett with the education 
 of a prize-fighter ; and, in a personal encounter between two 
 men of equal courage, science tells more than strength. In the 
 sti-uggle, however, that was now taking place, science seemed to 
 be of little value. To the inexperienced eye, it would appear 
 that the frenzied giant, griping the throat of the man who had 
 fallen beneath him, must rise from the struggle an easy victor. 
 Brute force was all that was needed, — there was neither room 
 nor time for the display of cunning of fence. 
 
 But knowledge, though it cannot give strength, gives coolness. 
 Taken by surprise as he was, Maurice Frere did not lose his 
 presence of mind. The convict was so close upon him, that 
 there was no time to strike ; but, as he was forced backwards, 
 he succeeded in crooking his knee round the thigh of his assail- 
 ant, and thrust one hand into his collar. Over and over they 
 rolled, the bewildered sentry not daring to fire, until the ship's 
 side brought them up with a violent jerk, and Frere realized 
 that Gabbett was below him. Pressing with all the might of 
 his muscles, he strove to resist the leverage which the giant was 
 applying to turn him over, but he might as well have pushed 
 against a stone wall. With his eyes protruding, and every 
 sinew strained to its uttermost, he was slowly forced round, and 
 he felt Gabbett releasing his grasp, in order to draw back and 
 aim at him an effectual blow. Disengaging his left hand, Frere 
 suddenly allowed himself to sink, and then drawing up his right 
 knee, struck Gabbett beneath the jaw, and as the huge head was 
 forced backwards by the blow, dashed his fist into the brawny 
 throat. The giant reeled backwards, and falling on his hands 
 and knees, was in an instant surrounded by sailors. 
 
 Now began and ended, in less time than it takes to write it, 
 one of those Homeric struggles of one man against twenty, 
 wliich are none the less heroic because the Ajax is a convict* 
 and the Trojans merely ordinary sailors. Shaking his assail- 
 ants to the deck as easily as a wild boar shakes off the dogs 
 which clamber upon his bristly sides, the convict sprang to his 
 feet, and whirling the snatched-up cutlass round his head, kept 
 the circle at bay. Four times did the soldiers round the hatch- 
 way raise their muskets, and four times did the fear of wounding 
 
EIGHT BELLS. 77 
 
 the men who had flung themselves upon the enraged giant 
 compel them to restrain their fire. Gabbett, his stubbly hair on 
 end, his bloodshot eyes glaring with fury, his great hand opening 
 and shutting in air, as though it gasped for something to seize, 
 turned himself about from side to side — now here, now there, 
 bellowing like a wounded bull. His coarse shirt, rent from 
 shoulder to flank, exposed the play of his huge muscles. He 
 was bleeding from a cut on his forehead, and the blood, trickling 
 down his face, mingled with the foam on his lips, and dropped 
 sluggishly on his hairy breast. Each time that an assailant 
 came within reach of the swinging cutlass, the ruffian's form 
 dilated with a fresh access of passion. At one moment bunched 
 with clinging adversaries — his arms, legs, and shoulders a hang- 
 ing mass of human bodies — at the next, free, desperate, alone in 
 the midst of his foes, his hideous countenance contorted with 
 hate and rage, the giant seemed less a man than a demon, or 
 one of those monstrous and savage apes which haunt the soli- 
 tudes of the African forests. Spurning the mob who had rushed 
 in at him, he strode towards his risen adversary, and aimed at 
 him one final blow that should put an end to his tyranny for 
 ever. A notion that Sarah Purfoy had betrayed him, and that 
 the handsome soldier was the cause of the betrayal, had taken 
 possession of his mind, and his rage had concentrated itself 
 upon Maurice Frere. The aspect of the villain was so appalling, 
 that, despite his natural courage, Frere, seeing the backward 
 sweep of the cutlass, absolutely closed his eyes with terror, and 
 surrendered himself to his fate. 
 
 As Gabbett balanced himself for the blow, the ship, which 
 had been rocking gently on a dull and silent sea, suddenly 
 lurched — the convict lost his balance, swayed, and fell. Ere he 
 could rise he was pinioned by twenty hands. 
 
 Authority was almost instantaneously triumphant on the upper 
 and lower decks. The mutiny was over. 
 
j8 HIS NA TURAL LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 DISCOVERIES AND CONFESSIONS. 
 
 THE shock was felt all through the vessel, and Pine, who 
 had been watching the ironing of the last of the mutineers, 
 at once divined its cause. 
 
 " Thank God ! " he cried, " there's a breeze at last ! " and as 
 the overpowered Gabbett, bnaised, bleeding, and bound, was 
 dragged down the hatchway, the triumphant doctor hurried 
 upon deck to find the Malabar plunging through the whitening 
 water under the influence of a fifteen-knot breeze. 
 
 " Stand by to reef topsails ! Away aloft men and furl the 
 royals ! " cries Best from the quarter-deck ; and in the midst of 
 the cheery confusion Maurice Frere briefly recapitulated what 
 had taken place, taking care, however, to pass over his own de- 
 rehction of duty as rapidly as possible. 
 
 Pine knit his brows. " Do you think that she was in the 
 plot?" he asked. 
 
 " Not she ! " says Frere— eager to avert inquiry. " How 
 should she be ? Plot ! She's sickening of fever, or I'm much 
 mistaken." 
 
 Sure enough, on opening the door of the cabin, they found 
 Sarah Purfoy lying where she had fallen a quarter of an hour 
 before. The clashing of cutlasses and the firing of muskets had 
 not roused her. 
 
 " We must make a sick-bay somewhere," says Pine, looking 
 at the senseless figure with no kindly glance ; " though I don't 
 think she's likely to be very bad. Confound her ! I believe that 
 she's the cause of all this. I'll find out, too, before many hours 
 are over ; for I've told those fellows that unless they confess all 
 about it before to-morrow morning, I'll get them six dozen a- 
 picce the day after we anchor in Hobart Town. I've a great mind 
 to do it before we get there. Take her head, Frere, and we'll get 
 her out of this before Vickcrs comes up. What a fool you are, 
 to be sure ! I knew what it would be with women aboard ship. 
 I wonder Mrs. V. hasn't been out before now. There — steady 
 past the door. Why, man, one would think you never had your 
 
 arm round a girl's waist before ! Pooh ! don't look so scared 
 
 I won't tell. Make haste, now, before that little parson comes. 
 
DISCOVERIES AND CONFESSIONS. 79 
 
 Parsons are regular old women to chatter ; " and thus mutter- 
 ing Pine assisted to carry Mrs. Vickers's maid into her cabin. 
 
 " By George, but she's a fine girl ! " he said, viewing the in- 
 animate body with the professional eye of a surgeon. " I don't 
 wonder at you making a fool of yourself. Chances are, you've 
 caught the fever, though this breeze will help to blow it out of 
 us, please God. That old jackass, Blunt, too ! — he ought to be 
 ashamed of himself, at his age ! '' 
 
 " What do you mean 1 " asked Frere, hastily, as he heard a 
 step approach. " What has Blunt to say about her ? " 
 
 " Oh, I don't know," returned Pine. " He was smitten too, 
 that's all. Like a good many more, in fact." 
 
 " A good many more ! " repeated the other, with a pretence of 
 carelessness. 
 
 " Yes ! " laughed Pine. " Why, man, she was making eyes 
 at every man in the ship ! I caught her kissing a soldier 
 once." 
 
 Maurice Frere's cheeks grew hot. The experienced profligate 
 had been taken in, deceived, perhaps laughed at. All the time 
 he had flattered himself that he was fascinating the black-eyed 
 maid, the black-eyed maid had been twisting him round her 
 finger, and perhaps imitating his love-making for the gratifica- 
 tion of her soldier-lover. It was not a pleasant thought ; and 
 yet, strange to say, the idea of Sarah's treachery did not make 
 him dislike her. There is a sort of love — if love it can be called 
 — which thrives under ill-treatment. Nevertheless, he cursed 
 with some appearance of disgust. 
 
 Vickers met them at the door. " Pine, Blunt has the fever. 
 Mr. Best found him in his cabin groaning. Come and look at 
 him." 
 
 The commander of the Malabar was lying on his bunk in the 
 betwisted condition into which men who sleep in their clothes 
 contrive to get themselves. The doctor shook him, bent down 
 over him, and then loosened his collar. " He's not sick," he 
 said ; " he's drunk ! Blunt ! wake up ! Blunt ! " 
 
 But the mass refused to move. 
 
 " Hallo !" says Pine, smelling at the broken tumbler, " what's 
 this ? Smells queer. Rum ? No. Eh ! Laudanum I By 
 George, he's been hocussed ! " 
 
 " Nonsense ! " 
 
 " I see it," slapping his thigh. " It's that infernal woman ! 
 
go HIS NA TURAL LIFE. 
 
 She's drugged him, and meant to do the same for — " (Frere 
 jrave him an imploring look) — " for anybody else who would be 
 fool enough to let her do it. Dawes was right, sir. She's in it ; 
 I'll swear she's in it." 
 
 " What ! my wife's maid ? Nonsense ! " said Vickers. 
 
 " Nonsense ! " echoed Frere. 
 
 " It's no nonsense. That soldier who was shot — what's his 
 name ? — Miles, he — but, however, it doesn't matter. It's all 
 over now." 
 
 " The men will confess before morning," says Vickers, " and 
 well see." And he went off to his wife's cabin. 
 
 His wife opened the door for him. She had been sitting by 
 the child's bedside, listening to the firing, and waiting for her 
 husband's return without a murmur. Flirt, fribble, and shrew 
 as she was, Julia Vickers had displayed, in times of emergencj', 
 that glowing courage which women of her nature at times 
 possess. Though she would yawn over any book above the 
 level of a genteel love story ; attempt to fascinate, with ludi- 
 crous assumption of girlishness, boys young enough to be her 
 sons ; shudder at a frog, and scream" at a spider, she could sit 
 throughout a quarter of an hour of such suspense as she had 
 just undergone with as much courage as if she had been the 
 strongest-minded woman that ever denied her sex. " Is it all 
 over ? " she asked. 
 
 " Yes, thank God ! " said Vickers, pausing on the threshold. 
 "All is safe now, though we had a narrow escape, I believe. 
 How's Sylvia?" 
 
 The child was lying on the bed with her fair hair scattered 
 over the pillow, and her tiny hands moving restlessly to and 
 fro. 
 
 " A little better, I think, though she has been talking a good 
 deal." 
 
 The red lips parted, and the blue eyes, brighter than ever, 
 stared vacantly around. The sound of her father's voice seemed 
 to have roused her, for she began to speak a little prayer : 
 " God bless papa and mamma, and God bless all on board this 
 ship. God bless me, and make me good girl, for Jesus Christ's 
 sake, our Lord. Amen." 
 
 The sound of the unconscious child's simple prayer had some- 
 thing awesome in it, and John Vickers, who, not ten minutes 
 before, would have scaled his own death warrant unhesitatingly 
 
A NEWSPAPER PARAGRAPH. 8i 
 
 to preserve the safety of the vessel, felt his eyes fill with un- 
 wonted tears. The contrast was curious. From out the midst 
 of that desolate ocean — in a fever-smitten prison ship, leagues 
 from land, surrounded by ruffians, thieves, and murderers — the 
 baby voice of an innocent child called confidently on Heaven 
 
 Two hours afterwards — as the Malabar, escaped from the 
 peril which had menaced her, plunged cheerily through the 
 rippling water — the mutineers, by their spokesman, Mr. James 
 Vetch, confessed. 
 
 " They were very sorry, and hoped that their breach of dis- \ 
 cipline would be forgiven. It was the fear of the typhus which i 
 had driven them to it. They had no accomplices either in the ( 
 prison or out of it, but they felt it but right to say that the man \ 
 who had planned the mutiny was Rufus Dawes." ■ 
 
 The malignant cripple had guessed from whom the information 
 which had led to the failure of the plot had been derived, and 
 this was his characteristic revenge. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 A NEWSPAPER PARAGRAPH. 
 
 Extracted from the Hobart Town Courier of the 12th 
 November, 1827 : — 
 
 •' The examination of the prisoners who were concerned in the attempt 
 upon the Malabar was concluded on Tuesday last. The foiu- ringleaders, 
 Dawes, Gabbett, Vetch, and Sanders, were condemned to death ; but we 
 understand that, by the clemency of his Excellency the Governor, their 
 sentence has been commuted to six years at the penal settlement of Mac- 
 quarie Harbour," 
 
 End of Book I. 
 
BOOK II. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE TOPOGRAPHY OF VAN DIEMEN'S LAND. 
 
 THE south-east coast of Van Diemen's Land, from the 
 solitary Mewstone to the basaltic cliffs of Tasman's 
 Head, from Tasman's Head to Cape Pillar, and from 
 Cape Pillar to the rugged grandeur of Pirates' Bay, resembles 
 a biscuit at which rats have been nibbling. Eaten away by 
 the continual action of the ocean which, pouring round by 
 east and west, has divided the peninsula from the mainland 
 of the Australasian continent — and done for Van Diemen's 
 Land what it has done for the Isle of Wight — the shore line 
 is broken and ragged. 
 
 Viewed upon the map, the fantastic fragments of island and 
 promontory which lie scattered between the South-Wcst Cape 
 and the greater Swan Port, are like the curious forms assumed 
 by melted lead spilt into water. If the supposition were not 
 too extravagant, one might imagine that when the Australian 
 continent was fused, a careless giant upset the crucible, and 
 spilt Van Diemen's land in the ocean. The coast navigation 
 is as dangerous as that of the Mediterranean. Passing from 
 Cape Bougainville to the east of Maria Island, and between the 
 numerous rocks and shoals which lie beneath the triple hei"-ht 
 of the Three Thumbs, the mariner is suddenly checked by 
 Tasman's Peninsula, hanging, like a huge double-dropped ear- 
 ring, from the mainland. Getting round under the Pillar rock, 
 
THE TOPOGRAPHY OF VAN DIEMEN'S LAND. 83 
 
 through Storm Bay to Storing Island, we sight the Italy of 
 this miniature Adriatic. Between Hobart Town and Sorrell, 
 Pittwater and the Derwent, a strangely-shaped point of land — 
 tlie Italian boot with its toe bent upwards — projects into the 
 bay, and, separated from this projection by a narrow channel, 
 dotted with rocks, the long length of Bruny Island makes, 
 between its western side and the cliffs of Mount Royal, the 
 dangerous passage known as D'Entrecasteaux Channel. At 
 the southern entrance of D'Entrecasteaux Channel, a line of 
 sunken rocks, known by the generic name of the Actaeon reef, 
 attests that Bruny Head was once joined with the shores of 
 Recherche Bay ; while, from the South Cape to the jaws of 
 Macquarie Harbour, the white water caused by sunken reefs, 
 or the jagged peaks of single rocks abruptly rising in mid sea, 
 warn the mariner off shore. 
 
 It would seem as though nature, jealous of the beauties of her 
 silver Derwent, had made the approach to it as dangerous as 
 possible ; but once through the archipelago of D'Entrecasteaux 
 Channel, or the less dangerous eastern passage of Storm Bay, 
 the voyage up the river is delightful. From the sentinel soli- 
 tude of the Iron Pot to the smiling banks of New Norfolk, the 
 river winds in a succession of reaches, narrowing to a deep chan- 
 nel cleft between rugged and towering cliffs. A line drawn due 
 north from the source of the Derwent would strike another river 
 winding out from the northern part of the island, as the Derwent 
 winds out from the south. The force of the waves, expended, 
 perhaps, in destroying the isthmus which, two thousand years 
 ago, probably connected Van Diemen's Land with the continent 
 has been here less violent. The rounding currents of the 
 Southern Ocean, meeting at the mouth of the Tamar, have 
 rushed upwards over the isthmus they have devoured, and 
 pouring against the south coast of Victoria, have excavated 
 there that inland sea called Port Philip Bay. If the waves 
 have gnawed the south coast of Van Diemen's Land, they have 
 bitten a mouthful out of the south coast of Victoria. The Bay 
 is a millpool, having an area of nine hundred square miles, 
 with a race between the heads two miles across. 
 
 About a hundred and seventy miles to the south of this mill- 
 race lies Van Diemen's Land, fertile, fair, and rich, rained upon 
 by the genial showers from the clouds which, attracted by the 
 Frenchman's Cap, Wyld's Crag, or the lofty peaks of the Wei- 
 
84 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 lington and Dromedary range, pour down upon the sheltered 
 valleys their fertilizing streams. No parching hot wind— the 
 scavenger, if the torment, of the continent — blows upon her crops 
 and com. The cool south breeze ripples gently the blue waters 
 of the Derwent, and fans the curtains of the open windows of 
 the city which nestles in the broad shadow of Mount Welling- 
 ton. The hot wind, born amid the burning sand of the interior 
 of the vast Australian continent, sweeps over the scorched and 
 cracking plains, to lick up their streams and wither the herbage 
 in its path, until it meets the waters of the great south bay ; but 
 in its passage across the straits it is reft of its fire, and sinks, 
 exhausted with its journey, at the feet of the terraced slopes of 
 Launceston. 
 
 The climate of Van Diemen's Land is one of the loveliest in 
 the world. Launceston is warm, sheltered, and moist ; and 
 Hobart Town, protected by Bruny Island and its archipelago 
 of D'Entrecasteaux Channel and Storm Bay from the violence 
 of the southern breakers, preserves the mean temperature of 
 Smyrna ; whilst the district between these two towns spreads in 
 a succession of beautiful valleys, through which glide clear and 
 sparkling streams. But on the western coast, from the steeple- 
 rocks of Cape Grim to the scrub-encircled barrenness of Sandy 
 Cape, and the frowning entrance to Macquarie Harbour, the 
 nature of the country entirely changes. Along that iron-bound 
 shore, from Pyramid Island and the forest-backed solitude of 
 Rocky Point, to the great Ram Head, and the straggling har- 
 bour of Port Davcy, all is bleak and cheerless. Upon that 
 dreary beach the rollers of the southern sea complete their 
 circuit of the globe, and the storm that has devastated the Cape, 
 and united in its eastern course with the icy blasts which sweep 
 northward from the unknown terrors of the southern pole, 
 crashes unchecked upon the Huon pine forests, and lashes with 
 rain the grim front of Mount Direction. Furious gales and 
 sudden tempests affright the natives of the coast. Navigation 
 ii dangerous, and the entrance to the " Hell's Gates " of Mac- 
 quarie Harbour— at the time of which we are writing (1833), in 
 the height of its ill-fame as a convict settlement — is only to be 
 attempted in calm weather. The sea-line is marked with wrecks. 
 The sunken rocks are dismally named after the vessels they 
 have destroyed. The air is chill and moist, the soil prolific 
 only in prickly undergrowth and noxious weeds, while foetid 
 
THE SOLITARY OF ''HELLS GATES." 85 
 
 exhalations from swamp and fen oling close to the humid, 
 spongy ground. All around breathes desolation ; on the face of 
 nature is stamped a perpetual frown. The shipwrecked sailor, 
 crawling painfully to the summit of basalt cliffs, or the ironed 
 convict, dragging his tree trunk to the edge of some beetling 
 plateau, looks down upon a sea of fog, through which rise 
 mountain-tops like islands ; or sees through the biting sleet a 
 desert of scrub and crag rolling to the feet of Mount Heems- 
 kirk and Mount Zeehan — crouched like two sentinel lions 
 keeping watch over the seaboaid. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE SOLITARY OF " HELL'S GATES." 
 
 « TJ ELL'S GATES," formed by a rocky point, which runs 
 \l~\ abruptly northward, almost touches, on its eastern side, 
 a projecting arm of land which guards the entrance to 
 King's River. In the middle of the gates is a natural bolt — that 
 is to say, an island — which, lying on a sandy bar in the very 
 jaws of the current, creates a double whirlpool, impossible to 
 pass in the smoothest weather. Once through the gates, the con- 
 vict, chained on the deck of the inward-bound vessel, sees in 
 front of him the bald cone of the Frenchman's Cap, piercing the 
 moist air at a height of five thousand feet ; while, gloomed by 
 overhanging rocks, and shadowed by gigantic forests, the black 
 sides of the basin narrow to the mouth of the Gordon. The 
 turbulent stream is the colour of indigo, and, being fed by 
 numerous rivulets, which ooze through masses of decaying 
 vegetable matter, is of so poisonous a nature that it is not only 
 undrinkable, but absolutely kills the fish, which in stormy 
 weather are driven in from the sea. As may be imagined, the 
 furious tempests which beat upon this exposed coast create a 
 strong surf-line. After a few days of north-west wind, the 
 waters of the Gordon wiU be found salt for twelve miles up from 
 the bar. The head-quarters of the settlement were placed on 
 an island not far from the mouth of this inhospitable river, called 
 Sarah Island. 
 Though now the v/hole place is desolate, and a few rotting 
 
S6 fllS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 posts and logs alone remain— mute witnesses of scenes of agony 
 never to be revived — in the year 1833 the buildings were 
 numerous and extensive. On Philip's Island, on the north side 
 of the harbour, was a small farm, where vegetables were grown 
 for the use of the officers of the establishment ; and, on Sarah 
 Island, were sawpits, forges, dockyards, gaol, guard-house, 
 barracks, and jetty. The military force numbered about sixty 
 men, who, with convict-warders and constables, took charge of 
 more than three hundred and fifty prisoners. These miserable 
 wretches, deprived of every hope, were employed in the most 
 degrading labour. No beast of burden was allowed on the 
 settlement ; all the pulling and dragging was done by human 
 beings. About one hundred " good-conduct" men were allowed 
 the lighter toil of dragging timber to the wharf, to assist in 
 shipbuilding ; the others cut down the trees that fringed the 
 mainland, and carried them on their shoulders to the water's 
 edge. The denseness of the scrub and bush rendered it neces- 
 sary for a " roadway," perhaps a quarter of a mile in length, to 
 be first constructed ; and the trunks of trees, stripped of their 
 branches, were rolled together in this roadway, until a " slide " 
 was made, down which the heavier logs could be shunted to- 
 wards the harbour. The timber thus obtained was made into 
 rafts, and floated to the sheds, or arranged for transportation to 
 Hobart Town. The convicts were lodged on Sarah Island, in 
 barracks flanked by a two-storied prison, whose "cells" were 
 the terror of the most hardened. Each morning they received 
 their breakfast of porridge, water, and salt, and then rowed, 
 under the protection of their guard, to the wood-cutting stations, 
 where they worked without food, until night. The launching 
 and hewing of the timber compelled them to work up to their 
 waists in water. Many of them were heavily ironed. Those 
 who died were buried on a little plot of ground, called Halli- 
 day's Island (from the name of the first man buried there), and 
 a plank stuck into the earth, and carved with the initials of the 
 deceased, was the only monument vouchsafed him. 
 
 Surah Island, situated at the south-east corner of the har- 
 bour, is long and low. The commandant's house was built in the 
 centre, having the chaplain's house and barracks between it and 
 the gaol. The hospital was on the west shore, and in a line 
 with it lay the two penitentiaries. Lines of lofty palisades ran 
 round the settlement, giving it the appearance of a fortified 
 
THE SOLITARY OF ''HELL'S GATES." 87 
 
 town. These palisades were built for the purpose of warding off 
 the terrific blasts of wind, which, shrieking through the long 
 and narrow bay as through the keyhole of a door, had in former 
 times tore off roofs and levelled boat-sheds. The little town 
 was set, as it were, in defiance of Nature, at the very extreme 
 of civilization, and its inhabitants maintained perpetual warfare 
 with the winds and waves. 
 
 But the gaol of Sarah Island was not the only prison in this 
 desolate region. 
 
 At a little distance from the mainland is a rock, over the 
 rude side of which the waves dash in rough weather. On the 
 evening of the 3rd December, 1833, as the sun was sinking 
 behind the tree-tops on the left side of the harbour, the figure 
 of a man appeared on the top of this rock. He was clad in the 
 coarse garb of a convict, and wore round his ankles two iron 
 rings, connected by a short and heavy chain. To the middle 
 of this chain a leathern strap was attached, which, splitting in 
 the form of a T, buckled round his waist, mid pulled the chain 
 high enough to prevent him from stumbling over it as he walked. 
 His head was bare, and his coarse, blue-striped shirt, open 
 at the throat, displayed an embrowned and muscular neck. 
 Emerging from out a sort of cell, or den, contrived by nature or 
 art in the side of the cliff, he threw on a scanty fire, which 
 burned between two hollowed rocks, a small log of pine wood, 
 and then returning to his cave, and bringing from it an iron pot, 
 which contained water, he scooped with his toil-hardened hands 
 a resting-place for it in the ashes, and placed it on the embers. 
 It was evident that the cave was at once his storehouse and 
 larder, and that the two hollowed rocks formed his kitchen. 
 
 Having thus made preparations for supper, he ascended a. 
 pathway which led to the highest point of the rock. His fetters 
 compelled him to take short steps, and, as he walked, he winced 
 as though the iron bit him. A handkerchief or strip of cloth was 
 twisted round his left ankle, on which the circlet had chafed a 
 sore. Painfully and slowly, he gained his destination, and 
 flinging himself on the ground, gazed around him. The after- 
 noon had been stormy,'and the rays of the setting sun shone redly 
 on the turbid and rushing waters of the bay. On the right lay 
 Sarah Island ; on the left the bleak shore of the opposite coast, 
 and the tall peak of the Frenchman's Cap ; while the recent 
 storm hung sullenly over the barren hills to the eastward. 
 
88 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 Below him appeared the only sign of life. A brig was being 
 towed up the harbour by two convict-manned boats. 
 
 The sight of this brig seemed to rouse in the mind of the 
 solitary of the rock a strain of reflection, for, sinking his chin 
 upon his hand, he fixed his eyes on the incoming vessel, and 
 immersed himself in moody thought. More than an hour had 
 passed, yet he did not move. The ship anchored, the boats 
 detached themselves from her sides, the sun sank, and the bay 
 was plunged in gloom. Lights began to twinkle along the shore 
 of the settlement. The little fire died, and the water in the iron 
 pot grew cold ; yet the watcher on the rock did not stir. With 
 his eyes staring into the gloom, and fixed steadily on the vessel, 
 he lay along the barren cliff of his lonely prison as motionless 
 as the rock on which he had stretched himself. 
 
 This solitary man was Rufus Dawes. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A SOCIAL EVENING. 
 
 IN the house of Major Vickers, Commandant of Macquarie 
 Harbour, there was, on this evening of December 3rd, 
 unusual gaiety. 
 Lieutenant Maurice Frere, late in command at Maria Island, 
 had unexpectedly come down with news from head -quarters. 
 The Ladybird, Government schooner, visited the settlement on 
 ordinary occasions twice a year, and such visits were looked 
 forward to with no little eagerness by the settlers. To the 
 convicts the arrival of the Ladybird meant arrival of new faces, 
 intelligence of old comrades, news of how the world, from which 
 they were exiled, was progressing. When the Ladybird a.xn\Gd, 
 the chained and toil-worn felons felt that they were yet human, 
 that the universe was not bounded by the gloomy forests which 
 surrounded their prison, but that there was a world beyond, 
 where men, like themselves, smoked, and drank, and laughed, 
 and rested, and were Free. When the Ladybird arrived, they 
 heard such news as interested them — that is to say, not mere 
 foolish accounts of wars or ship arrivals, or city gossip, but 
 matters appertaining to their own world— how Tom was with 
 
A SOCIAL EVENING. S9 
 
 the road gangs, Dick on a ticket-of-leave, Harry taken to the 
 bush, and Jack hung at the Hobart Town Gaol. Such items 
 of intelligence were the only news they cared to hear, and the 
 new-comers were well posted up in such matters. To the 
 convicts the Ladybird was town talk, theatre, stock quotations, 
 and latest telegrams. She was their newspaper and post-office, 
 the one excitement of their dreary existence, the one link between 
 their own misery and the happiness of their fellow-creatures. To 
 the Commandant and the " free men " this messenger from the 
 outer life was scarcely less welcome. There was not a man on 
 the island who did not feel his heart grow heavier when her 
 white sails disappeared behind the shoulder of the hill. 
 
 On the present occasion business of more than ordinary 
 importance had procured for Major Vickers this pleasurable 
 excitement. It had been resolved by Governor Arthur that the 
 convict establishment should be broken up. A succession of 
 murders and attempted escapes had called public attention to 
 the place, and its distance from Hobart Town rendered it 
 inconvenient and expensive. Arthur had fixed upon Tasman's 
 Peninsula — the earring of which we have spoken — as a future 
 convict depot, and naming it Port Arthur, in honour of himself, 
 had sent down Lieutenant Maurice Frere with instructions 
 for Vickers to convey the prisoners of Macquarie Harbour 
 thither. 
 
 In order to understand the magnitude and meaning of such 
 an order as that with which Lieutenant Frere was entrusted, we 
 must glance at the social condition of the penal colony at this 
 period of its history. 
 
 Nine years before. Colonel Arthur, late Governor of Honduras, 
 had arrived at a most critical moment. The former Governor, 
 Colonel Sorrell, was a man of genial temperament, but little 
 strength of character. He was, moreover, profligate in his 
 private life ; and, encouraged by his example, his officers vio- 
 lated all rules of social decency. It was common for an officer 
 to openly keep a female convict as his mistress. Not only 
 would compliance purchase comforts, but strange stories were 
 afloat concerning the persecution of women who dared to choose 
 their own lovers. To put down this profligacy was the first care 
 of Arthur ; and in enforcing a severe attention to etiquette and 
 outward respectability, he perhaps erred on the side of virtue. 
 Honest, brave, and high-minded, he was also penurious and 
 
go HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 cold, and the ostentatious good humour of the colonists dashed 
 itself in vain against his polite indifference. In opposition to 
 this official society created by Governor Arthur was that of the 
 free settlers and the ticket-of-Ieave men. The latter were more 
 numerous than one would be apt to suppose. On the 2nd 
 November, 1829, thirty-eight free pardons and fifty-six con- 
 ditional pardons appeared on the books; and the number of 
 persons holding tickets-of-leave, on the 26th of September the 
 same year, was seven hundred and forty-five. 
 
 Of the social condition of these people at this time it is 
 impossible to speak without astonishment. According to the 
 recorded testimony of many respectable persons — Government 
 officials, military officers, and free settlers — the profligacy of the 
 settlers was notorious. Drunkenness was a prevailing vice. 
 Even children were to be seen in the streets intoxicated. On 
 Sundays, men and women might be observed standing round 
 the public-house doors, waiting for the expiration of the hours 
 of public worship, in order to continue their carousing. As 
 for the condition of the prisoner population, that, indeed, is 
 indescribable. Notwithstanding the severe punishment for sly 
 grog-selling, it was carried on to a large extent. Men and 
 women were found intoxicated together, and a bottle of brandy 
 was considered to be cheaply bought at the price of twenty 
 lashes. In the factory — a prison for females — the vilest abuses 
 were committed, while the infamies current, as matters of course, 
 in chain gangs and penal settlements, were of too horrible a 
 nature to be more than hinted at here. All that the vilest and 
 most bestial of human creatures could invent and practise, was 
 in this unhappy country invented and practised without restraint 
 and without shame. 
 
 Seven classes of criminals were established in 1826, when the 
 new barracks for jjrisoners at Hobart Town were finished. The 
 first class were allowed to sleep out of barracks, and to work 
 for themselves on Saturday ; the second had only the last- 
 named indulgence ; the third were only allowed Saturday after- 
 noon ; the fourth and fifth were " refractory and disorderly 
 characters— to work in irons ; " the sixth were " men of the 
 most degraded and incorrigible character— to be worked in irons 
 and kept entirely separate from the other prisoners j " while the 
 seventli were the refus- of this refuse— the murderers, bandits, 
 and villains, whom nei her chain nor lash could tame. They 
 
A SOCIAL EVENING. 91 
 
 were regarded as socially dead, and shipped to Hell's Gates, or 
 Maria Island. Hell's Gates was the most dreaded of all these 
 houses of bondage. The discipline at the place was so severe, 
 and the life so terrible, that prisoners would risk all to escape 
 from it. In one year, of eighty-five deaths there, only thirty 
 were from natural causes ; of the remaining dead, twenty-seven 
 were drowned, eight killed accidentally, three shot by the 
 soldiers, and twelve murdered by their comrades. In 1822, one 
 hundred and sixty-nine men out of one hundred and eighty-two 
 were punished to the extent of two thousand lashes. During 
 the ten years of its existence, one hundred and twelve men 
 escaped, out of whom sixty-two only were found — dead. The 
 prisoners killed themselves to avoid living any longer, and if 
 so fortunate as to penetrate the desert of scrub, heath, and 
 swamp, which lay between their prison and the settled dis- 
 tricts, preferred death to recapture. Successfully to transport 
 the remnant of this desperate band of doubly-convicted felons 
 to Arthur's new prison, was the mission of Maurice Frere. 
 
 He was sitting by the empty fire-place, with one leg carelessly 
 thrown over the other, entertaining the company with his usual 
 indifferent air. The six years that had passed since his de- 
 parture from England had given him a sturdier frame and a 
 fuller face. His hair was coarser, his face redder, and his eye 
 more hard, but in demeanour he was little changed. Sobered 
 he might be, and his voice had acquired that decisive, insured 
 tone which a voice exercised only in accents of command 
 invariably acquires, but his bad qualities were as prominent as 
 ever. His five years' residence at Maria Island had increased 
 that brutality of thought, and overbearing confidence in his own 
 importance, for which he had been always remarkable, but it 
 had also given him an assured air of authority, which covered 
 the more unpleasant features of his character. He was detested 
 by the prisoners — as he said, " it was a word and a blow with 
 him " — but, among his superiors, he passed for an officer, honest 
 and painstaking, though somewhat bluff and severe. 
 
 " Well, Mrs. Vickers," he said, as he took a cup of tea from 
 the hands of that lady, " I suppose you won't be sorry to get 
 away from this place, eh ? Trouble you for the toast, Vickers ! '' 
 
 " No indeed," says poor Mrs. Vickers, with the old girlish- 
 ness shadowed by six years ; " I shall be only too glad. A 
 dreadful place I John's duties, however, are imperative. But 
 
92 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 the wind ! My dear Mr. Frere, you've no idea of it ; I wanted 
 to send Sylvia to Hobart Town, but John would not let her 
 
 go-" 
 
 "By the way, how is Miss Sylvia ?" asked Frcre, with the 
 
 patronising air which men of his stamp adopt when they speak 
 
 of children. 
 
 " Not very well, I'm sorry to say," returned Vickers, " You 
 see, it's lonely for her here. There are no children of her own 
 age, with the exception of the pilot's little girl, and she cannot 
 associate with her. But 1 did not like to leave her behind, and 
 endeavoured to teach her myself." 
 
 "Hum! There was a — ha — governess, or something, w?j 
 there not?" said Frere, staring into his tea-cup. "That maic, 
 you know — what was her name ? " 
 
 "Miss Purfoy," said Mrs. Vickers, a little gravely. "Yes, 
 poor thing ! A sad story, Mr. Frere." 
 
 Frere's eye twinkled. 
 
 " Indeed ! I left, you know, shortly after the trial of the 
 mutineers, and never heard the full particulars." He spoke 
 carelessly, but he awaited the reply with keen curiosity. 
 
 " A sad story ! " repeated Mrs. Vickers. " She was the wife 
 of that wretched man. Rex, and came out as my maid in order 
 to be near him. She would never tell me her history, poor 
 thing, though all through the dreadful accusations made by that 
 horrid doctor — I always disliked that man — I begged her almost 
 on my knees. You know how she nursed Sylvia and poor John. 
 Really a most superior creature. I think she must have been a 
 governess." 
 
 Mr. Frere raised his eyebrows abruptly, as though he would 
 %^y, Governess . I Of course. Happy suj^i;;estion. Wonder it never 
 occurred to me before. " However, her conduct was most ex- 
 emplary — really most exemplary — and during the six months we 
 were in Hobart Town she taught little Sylvia a great deal. Of 
 course she could not help her wretched husband, you know. 
 Could she > " 
 
 " Certainly not ! " said Frere heartily. " I heard something 
 about him too. Got into some scrape, did he not ? Half a cup, 
 please." 
 
 " Miss Purfoy, or Mrs. Rex, as she really was, though I don't 
 suppose Rex is her real name either — sugar and milk, I think 
 you said — came into a little legacy from an old aunt in England." 
 
A SOCIAL EVENING. 93 
 
 Mr. Frere gave a little blufif nod, meaning thereby, Old aunt ! 
 Exactly. Just what might have been expected. " And left my 
 service. She took a little cottage on the New Town road, and 
 Rex was assigned to her as her servant." 
 
 "I see. The old dodge!" says Frere, flushing a httle. 
 "Well?" 
 
 "Well, the wretched man tried to escape, and she helped 
 him. He was to get to Launceston, and so on board a vessel to 
 Sydney ; but they took the unhappy creature, and he was sent 
 down here. She was only fined, but it ruined her." 
 
 "Ruined her.?" 
 
 " Well, you see, only a few people knew of her relationship to 
 Rex, and she was rather respected. Of course, when it became 
 known, what with that dreadful trial and the horrible assertions 
 of Dr. Pine — you will not believe me, I know, there was some- 
 thing about that man I never liked — she was quite left alone. 
 She wanted me to bring her down here to teach Sylvia ; but 
 John thought that it was only to be near her husband, and 
 wouldn't allow it." 
 
 " Of course it was," said Vickers, rising. " Frere, if you'd 
 like to smoke, we'll go on the verandah. — She will never be 
 satisfied until she gets that scoundrel free." 
 
 " He's a bad lot,then?" says Frere, opening the glass window, 
 and leading the way to the sandy garden. " You will excuse 
 my roughness, Mrs. Vickers, but I have become quite a slave 
 to my pipe. Ha, ha, it's wife and child to me ! " 
 
 " Oh, a very bad lot," returned Vickers ; " quiet and silent, 
 but ready for any villainy. I count him one of the worst men 
 we have. With the exception of one or two more, I think he is 
 the worst." 
 
 "Why don't you flog 'em.?" says Frere, lighting his pipe in 
 the gloom. " By George, sir, I cut the hides off my fellows if 
 they show any nonsense!" 
 
 " Well," says Vickers, " I don't care about too much cat 
 myself. Barton, who was here before me, flogged tremendously, 
 but I don't think it did any good. They tried to kill him several 
 times. You remember those twelve fellows who were hung.? 
 No ! Ah, of course, you were away." 
 
 " What do you do with 'em ? " 
 
 "Oh, flog the worst, you know ; but I don't flog more than a 
 man a week, as a rule, and never more than fifty lashes. They're 
 
94 
 
 ms NATURAL LIFM 
 
 getting quieter now. Then we iron, and dumb-cells, and maroon 
 them." 
 
 " Do what ? " 
 
 " Give them solitary confinement on Grummet Island. When 
 a man gets very bad, we clap him into a boat with a week's pro- 
 visions, and pull him over to Grummet. There are cells cut in 
 the rock, you see, and the fellow pulls up his commissariat after 
 him, and lives there by himself for a month or so. It tames 
 them wonderfully.' 
 
 " Does it ? " said Frere. " By Jove ! it's a capital notion. I 
 wish I had a place of that sort at Maria." 
 
 " I've a fellow there now," says Vickers ; " Dawes. You 
 remember him, of course — the ringleader of the mutiny in the 
 Malabar. A dreadful ruffian. He was most violent the first 
 year I was here. Barton used to flog a good deal, and Dawes 
 had a childish dread of the cat. When I came, in — when was 
 it ? — in '29, he'd made a sort of petition to be sent back to the 
 settlement. Said that he was innocent of the mutiny, and that 
 the accusation against him was false." 
 
 " The old dodge," said Frere again. " A match .? Thanks." 
 
 " Of course, I couldn't let him go ; but I took him out of the 
 chain-gang, and put him on the Osprey. You saw her in the 
 dock as you came in. He worked for some time very well, and 
 then tried to bolt again." 
 
 "The old trick. Ha ! ha ! don't I know it .?" says Mr. Frere, 
 emitting a streak of smoke in the air, expressive of preternatural 
 wisdom. 
 
 " Well, we caught him, and gave him fifty. Then he was sent 
 to the chain-gang, cutting timber. Then we put him into the 
 boats, but he quarrelled with the coxswain, and then we took 
 him back to the timber-rafts. About six weeks ago he made 
 another attempt— together with Gabbett, the man who nearly 
 killed you— but his leg was chafed with the irons, and we took 
 him. Gabbett and three more, however, got away." 
 
 " Haven't you found 'em ? " asked Frere, puffing at his pipe. 
 
 " No. But they'll come to the same fate as the rest," said 
 Vickers, with a sort of dismal pride. " No man ever escaped 
 from Macquarie Harbour." 
 
 Frere laughed. " By the Lord ! " said he, " it will be rather 
 hard for 'cm if they don't come back before the end of the 
 
 month, eh ? " 
 
A SOCIAL EVENING. 95 
 
 ** Oh," said Vickers, " they're sure to come — if they can come 
 at all ; but once lost in the scrub, a man hasn't much chance 
 for his life." 
 
 " When do you think you will be ready to move ? " asked 
 Frcre. 
 
 " As soon as you wish. I don't want to stop a moment longer 
 than I can help. It is a terrible life this." 
 
 " Do you think so?" asked his companion, in unafifected sur- 
 prise. " / like it. It's dull, certainly. When I first went to 
 Maria I was dreadfully bored, but one soon gets used to it. 
 There is a sort of satisfaction to me, by George, in keeping the 
 scoundrels in order. I like to see the fellows' eyes glint at you 
 as you walk past 'em. 'Gad, they'd tear me to pieces, if they 
 dared, some of 'em!" and he laughed grimly, as though the 
 hate he inspired was a thing to be proud of. 
 
 " How shall we go ? " asked Vickers. " Have you got any 
 instructions?" 
 
 " No," says Frere ; " it's all left to you. Get 'em up the best 
 way you can, Arthur said, and pack 'em off to the new penin- 
 sula. He thinks you too far off here, by George ! He wants to 
 have you within hail." 
 
 " It's a dangerous thing taking so many at once," suggested 
 Vickers. 
 
 " Not a bit. Batten 'em down and keep the sentries awake, 
 and they won't do any haiTn." 
 
 " But Mrs. Vickers and the child ? " 
 
 " I've thought of that. You take the Ladybird with the pri- 
 soners, and leave me to bring up Mrs. Vickers in the Osprey" 
 
 "We might do that. Indeed, it's the best way, I think. I 
 don't like the notion of having Sylvia among those wretches, 
 and yet I don't like to leave her." 
 
 "Well," says Frere, confident of his own ability to accomplish 
 anything he might undertake, " /'// take the Ladybird, and you 
 the Osprey. Bring up Mrs. Vickers yourself." 
 
 " No, no," said Vickers, with a touch of his old pomposity, 
 " that won't do. By the King's Regulations " 
 
 " All right," interjected Frere, " you needn't quote 'em. * The 
 officer conunattding is obliged to place himself in charge ' — all 
 right, my dear sir. I've no objection in life." 
 
 " It was Sylvia that I was thinking of," said Vickers. 
 
 " Well, then," cries the other, as the door of the room inside 
 
96 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 opened, and a little white figure came through into the, broad 
 verandah. " Here she is ! Ask her yourself. Well, Miss 
 Sylvia, will you come and shake hands with an old friend ?" 
 
 The bright-haired baby of the Malabar had become a bright- 
 haired child of some eleven years old, and as she stood in her 
 simple white dress in the glow of the lamplight, even the unaes- 
 thetic mind of Mr. Frere was struck by her extreme beauty. 
 Her bright blue eyes were as bright and as blue as ever. Her 
 little figure was as upright and as supple as a willow rod ; and 
 her innocent, delicate face was framed in a nimbus of that fine 
 golden hair — dry and electrical, each separate thread shining 
 with a lustre of its own — with which the dreaming painters of the 
 middle ages endowed and glorified their angels. 
 
 " Come and give me a kiss, Miss Sylvia !" cries Frere. " You 
 haven't forgotten me, have you ?" 
 
 But the child, resting one hand on her father's knee, surveyed 
 Mr. Frere from head to foot with the charming impertinence of 
 childhood, and then, shaking her lovely hair, inquired — " Who 
 is he, papa?" 
 
 " Mr. Frere, darling. Don't you remember Mr. Frere, who 
 used to play ball with you on board the ship, and who was so 
 kind to you when you were getting well 1 For shame, 
 Sylvia !" 
 
 There was in the chiding accents such an undertone of tender- 
 ness, that the reproof fell harmless. 
 
 " I remember you," said Sylvia, tossing her head ; " but you 
 ^ere nicer then than you are now. I don't like you at all." 
 
 " You don't remember me," said Frere, a little disconcerted, 
 and affecting to be intensely at his ease. " I am sure you don't. 
 What is my name ?" 
 
 "Lieutenant Frere. You knocked down a prisoner who 
 picked up my ball. I don't like you." 
 
 "You're a forward young lady, upon my word !" says Frere, 
 with a great laugh. " Ha ! ha ! so I did, begad, I recollect now. 
 What a memory you've got !" 
 
 "He's here now, isn't he, papa?" went on Sylvia, regardless 
 of interruption. " Rufus Dawes is his name, and he's always in 
 trouble. Poor fellow, I'm sorry for him. Danny says he's queer 
 in his mind." 
 
 " And who's Danny ?" asked Frere, with another laugh. 
 
 " The cook," replied Vickers. " An old man I took out of 
 
A SOCIAL EVENING 97 
 
 hospital. Sylvia, you talk too much with the prisoners. I have 
 forbidden you once or twice before." 
 
 "But Danny is not a prisoner, papa — he's a cook," says 
 Sylvia, nothing abashed, "and he's a clever man. He told me 
 all about London, where the Lord Mayor rides in a glass coach, 
 and all the work is done by free men. He says you never hear 
 chains there. I should like to see London, papa !" 
 
 " So would Mr. Danny, I have no doubt," said Frere. 
 
 " No — he didn't say that. But he wants to see his old mother, 
 he says. Fancy Danny's mother ! What an ugly old woman 
 she must be ! He says he'll see her in heaven. Will he, 
 papa.'"' 
 
 " I hope so, my dear." 
 
 "Papa!" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Will Danny wear his yellow jacket in heaven, or go as a free 
 man V 
 
 Frere burst into a roar at this, 
 
 "You're an impertinent fellow, sir?" cried Sylvia, her bright 
 eyes flashing. "How dare you laugh at me? If I was papa, 
 I'd give you half an hour at the triangles. Oh, you impertinent 
 man !" and, crimson with rage, the spoilt little beauty ran out 
 of the room. 
 
 Vickers looked grave, but Frere was constrained to get up to 
 laugh at his ease. 
 
 " Good ! 'Pon honour, that's good ! The little vixen !— Half 
 an hour at the triangles ! Ha-ha ! ha, ha, ha !" 
 
 " She is a strange child," said Vickers, " and talks strangely 
 for her age ; but you mustn't mind her. She is neither girl nor 
 woman, you see ; and her education has been neglected. More- 
 over, this gloomy place and its associations — what can you 
 expect from a child bred in a convict settlement ?" 
 
 "My dear sir," says the other, "she's delightful ! Her inno- 
 cence of the world is amazing !" 
 
 " She must have three or four years at a good finishing school 
 at Sydney. Please God, I will give them to her when we go 
 back — or send her to England if I can. She is a good-hearted 
 girl, but she wants polishing sadly, I'm afraid." 
 Just then some one came up the garden path and saluted. 
 
 " What is it, Troke ?" 
 
 " Prisoner given himself up, sir." 
 
 7 
 
98 HTS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 " Which of them ?" 
 
 " Gabbett. He came back to-night." 
 
 " Alone ?" 
 
 " Yes, sir. The rest have died — he says." 
 
 "What's that?" asked Frere, suddenly interested. 
 
 " The bolter I was telling you about — Gabbett, your old friend. 
 He's returned." 
 
 " How long has he been out ?" 
 
 " Nigh six weeks, sir," said the constable, touching his cap. 
 
 "Gad, he's had a narrow squeak for it, I'll be bound. I 
 should like to see him." 
 
 "He's down at the sheds," said the ready Troke — a " good 
 conduct" burglar. "You can see him at once, gentlemen, if 
 you like." 
 
 " What do you say, Vickers V 
 
 " Oh, by all means." 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 THE BOLTER. 
 
 IT was not ar to the sheds, and after a few minutes' walk 
 through the wooden palisades they reached a long stone 
 building, two stories high, from which issued a horrible 
 growling, pierced with shrilly screamed songs. At the sound 
 of the musket butts clashing on the pine wood flagging, the 
 noises ceased, and a silence more sinister than sound fell on 
 the place. 
 
 Passing between two rows of warders, the two officers reached 
 a sort of ante-room to the gaol, containing a pine-log stretcher, 
 on which a mass of something was lying. On a roughly-made 
 stool, by the side of this stretcher, sat a man, in the grey dress 
 (worn as a contrast to the yellow Uvery) of "good conduct" 
 prisoners. This man held between his knees a basin containing 
 gruel, and was apparently endeavouring to feed the mass on the 
 pine logs. 
 
 "Won't he eat, Steve?" asked Vickers. 
 
 And at the sound of the Commandant's voice, Steve arose. 
 
 " Dunno what's wrong wi' 'un, sir," he said, jerking up a finger 
 
THE BOLTER. 99 
 
 to his forehead. "He seems jest muggy-pated. I can't do 
 nothin' wi' 'un," 
 
 " Gabbett !" 
 
 The intelligent Troke, considerately alive to the wishes of his 
 superior officers, dragged the mass into a sitting posture, and 
 woke it. 
 
 Gabbett — for it was he — passed one great hand over his face, 
 and leaning exactly in the position in which Troke placed him, 
 scowled, bewildered, at his visitors. 
 
 " Well, Gabbett," says Vickers, " you've come back again, 
 you see. When will you learn sense, eh? Where are your 
 mates?" 
 
 The giant did not reply. 
 
 " Do you hear me ? Where are your mates V' 
 
 " Where are your mates?" repeated Troke. 
 
 " Dead," says Gabbett. 
 
 "All three of them?" 
 
 "Ay." 
 
 "And how did^fw get back?" 
 
 Gabbett, in eloquent silence, held out a bleeding foot. 
 
 " We found him on the point, sir," said Troke, jauntily ex- 
 plaining, "and brought him across in the boat. He had a basin 
 of gruel, but he didn't seem hungry." 
 
 " Are you hungry ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Why don't you eat your gruel ?" 
 
 Gabbett curled his great lips. 
 
 " I have eaten it. Ain't yer got nuffin better nor that to flog 
 a man on? Ugh ! yer a mean lot ! Wot's it to be this time, 
 Major? Fifty?" 
 
 And laughing, he rolled down again on the logs. 
 
 "A nice specimen!" said Vickers, with a hopeless smile. 
 "What ca7i one do with such a fellow?" 
 
 " I'd flog his soul out of his body," said Frere, "if he spoke 
 to me like that !" 
 
 Troke and the others, hearing the statement, conceived an 
 instant respect for the new comer. He looked as if he would 
 keep his word. 
 
 The giant raised his great head and looked at the speaker, but 
 did not recognize him. He saw only a. strange face — a visitor 
 perhaps. " You may flog, and welcome, master," said he, " if 
 
HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 you'll give me a fig o' tibbacky." Frere laughed The brutal 
 indifference of the rejoinder suited his humour, and, with a 
 glance at Vickers, he took a small piece of cavendish from the 
 pocket of his pea-jacket, and gave to the recaptured convict. 
 Gabbett snatched it as a cur snatches at a bone, and thrust it 
 whole into his mouth. 
 
 "How many mates had he?" asked Maurice, watching the 
 champing jaws as one looks at a strange animal, and asking the 
 question as though a " mate" was something a convict was born 
 with — like a mole, for instance. 
 
 " Three, sir." 
 
 " Three, eh ? Well, give him thirty lashes, Vickers." 
 
 " And if I ha' had three more," growled Gabbett, mumbUng at 
 his tobacco, " you wouldn't ha' had the chance." 
 
 " What does he say ? " 
 
 But Troke had not heard, and the " good-conduct " man, 
 shrinking, as it seemed, slightly from the prisoner, said he had 
 not heard either. The wretch himself, munching hard at his 
 tobacco, relapsed into his restless silence, and was as though 
 he had never spoken. 
 
 As he sat there gloomily chewing, he was a spectacle to 
 shudder at. Not so much on account of his natural hideous- 
 ness, increased a thousand-fold by the tattered and filthy rags 
 which barely covered him. Not so much on account of his 
 unshaven jaws, his hare-lip, his torn and bleeding feet, his 
 haggard cheeks, and his huge, wasted frame. Not only because, 
 looking at the animal, as he crouched, with one foot cuiJed 
 round the other, and one hairy arm pendant between his knees, 
 he was so horribly unhuman, that one shuddered to think that 
 tender women and fair children must, of necessity, confess to 
 fellowship of kind with such a monster. But also because, in 
 his slavering mouth, his slowly grinding jaws, his restless 
 fingers, and his bloodshot, wandering eyes, there lurked a hint 
 of some terror more awful than the terror of starvation — a 
 memory of a tragedy played out in the gloomy depths of that 
 forest which had vomited him forth again ; and the shadow of 
 this unknown horror, clinging to him, repelled and disgusted, as 
 though he bore about with him the reek of the shambles. 
 
 " Come," said Vickers, "let us go back. I shall have to flog 
 him again, I suppose. Oh, this place ! No wonder they call it 
 'Hell's Gates.'" 
 
THE BOLTER. 
 
 " You are too soft-hearted, my dear sir," said Frere, half way 
 up the paHsaded path. " We must treat brutes hke brutes." 
 
 Major Vickers, inured as he was to such sentiments, sighed. 
 " It is not for me to find fault with the system," he said, hesi- 
 tating, in his reverence for " discipline," to utter all the thought; 
 " but I have sometimes wondered if kindness would not succeed 
 better than the chain and the cat." 
 
 " Your old ideas ! " laughed his companion. " Remember, 
 they nearly cost us our lives on the Malabar. No, no. /'ve 
 seen something of convicts — though, to be sure, my fellows were 
 not so bad as yours — and there's only one way with 'em. Keep 
 'em down, sir. Make 'em /eel what they are. They're there to 
 work, sir. If they won't work, flog 'em until they will. If they 
 work well — why a taste of the cat now and then keeps 'em in 
 mind of what they may expect if they get lazy." 
 
 They had reached the verandah now. The rising moon shone 
 softly on the bay beneath them, and touched with her white 
 light the summit of the Grummet Rock. 
 
 "That is the general opinion, I know," returned Vickers. 
 " But consider the life they lead. Good God !" he added, with 
 sudden vehemence, as Frere paused to look at the bay. " I'm 
 not a cruel man, and never, I believe, inflicted an unmerited 
 punishment, but since I have been here ten prisoners have 
 drowned themselves from yonder rock, rather than live on in 
 their misery. Only three weeks ago, two men, with a wood- 
 cutting party in the hills, having had some words with the 
 overseer, shook hands with the gang, and then, hand in hand, 
 flung themselves over the cliff. It's horrible to think of 1" 
 
 " They shouldn't get sent here," said practical Frere. " They 
 knew what they had to expect. Serve 'em right." 
 
 " But imagine an innocent man condemned to this place !" 
 
 " I can't," said Frere, with a laugh. " Innocent man, be 
 hanged ! They're all innocent, if you'd believe their own stories. 
 Hallo ! what's that red light there ? " 
 
 " Dawes's fire, on Grummet Rock," says Vickers, going in ; 
 " the man I told you about. Come in and have some brandy, 
 and-water, and we'll shut the door on the place." 
 
I02 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 SYLVIA. 
 
 WELL," said Frere, as they went in, " you'll be out of it 
 soon. You can get all ready to start by the end of 
 the month, and I'll bring on Mrs. Vickers after- 
 wards." 
 
 " What is that you say about me ?" asked the sprightly Mrs. 
 Vickers from within. " You wicked men, leaving me alone all 
 this time ! " 
 
 " Mr. Frere has kindly offered to bring you and Sylvia after 
 us in the Osprey. I shall, of course, have to take the Lady- 
 birds 
 
 " You are most kind, Mr. Frere, really you are," says Mrs. 
 Vickers, a recollection of her flirtation with a certain young 
 lieutenant, six years before, tinging her cheeks. " It is really 
 most considerate of you. Won't it be nice, Sylvia, to go with 
 Mr. Frere and mamma to Hobart Town.?" 
 
 " Mr. Frere," says Sylvia, coming from out a corner of the 
 room, " I am very sorry for what I said just now. Will you 
 forgive me ? " 
 
 She asked the question in such a prim, old-fashioned way, 
 standing in front of him, with her golden locks streaming over 
 her shoulders, and her hands clasped on her black silk apron 
 (Julia Vickers had her own notions about dressing her daughter), 
 that Frere was again inclined to laugh. 
 
 " Of course I'll forgive you, my dear," he said. " You didn't 
 mean it, I know." 
 
 " Oh, but I did mean it, and that's why I'm sorry. I am a 
 very naughty girl sometimes, though you wouldn't think so" 
 (this with a charming consciousness of her own beauty), " es- 
 pecially with Roman history. I don't think the Romans were 
 half as brave as the Carthaginians; do you, Mr. Frere ?" 
 
 Maurice, somewhat staggered by this question, could only 
 ask, "Why not?" 
 
 " Well, I don't like them hall so well myself," says Sylvia, 
 wvth feminine disdain of reasons. " They always had so many 
 boldiers, though the others were so cruel when they conquered." 
 
 "Were they ? " says Frere. 
 
SYLVIA. ro3 
 
 " Were they ! Goodness gracious, yes ! Didn't they cut 
 poor Regulus's eyeUds off, and roll him down hill in a barrel 
 full of nails ? What do you call that, I should like to know ? " 
 and Mr. Frere, shaking his red head with vast assumption of 
 classical learning, could not but admit that that was not kind 
 on the part of the Carthaginians. 
 
 / " You are a great scholar, Miss Sylvia," he remarked, with a 
 /consciousness that this self-possessed girl was rapidly taking 
 him out of his depth. " Are you fond of reading ? " 
 
 " Very." 
 
 " And what books do you read ? " 
 
 " Oh, lots ! ' Paul and Virginia,' and * Paradise Lost,' and 
 — ^Shakspeare's Plays,' and 'Robinson Crusoe,' and ' Blair's Ser- 
 /mons,' and 'The Tasmanian Almanack,' and 'The Book of 
 -Beauty,' and 'Tom Jones.'" 
 
 "A somewhat miscellaneous collection, I fear," said Mrs. 
 Vickers, with a sickly smile — she, like Gallio, cared for none of 
 these things, — " but our little library is necessarily hmited, and 
 I am not a great reader. John, my dear, Mr. Frere would like 
 another glass of brandy-and-water. Oh, don't apologize ; I am 
 a soldier's wife, you know. Sylvia, my love, say good-night to 
 Mr. Frere, and retire." 
 
 " Good-night, Miss Sylvia, Will you give me a kiss ?" 
 
 "No !" 
 
 " Sylvia, don't be rude ! " 
 
 " I'm not rude," cries Sylvia, indignant at the way in which 
 her literary confidence had been received. " He's rude I I 
 won't kiss you. Kiss you indeed ! My goodness gracious ! " 
 
 " Won't you, you little beauty ? " cried Frere, suddenly leaning 
 forward, and putting his arm round the child. " Then I must 
 kiss you / " 
 
 To his astonishment, Sylvia, finding herself thus seized and 
 kissed despite herself, flushed scarlet, and, lifting up her tiny 
 fist, struck him on the cheek with all her force. 
 
 The blow was so sudden, and the momentary pain so sharp, 
 that Maurice nearly slipped into his native coarseness, and 
 rapped out an oath. 
 
 " My dear Sylvia ! " cried Vickers, in tones of grave re- 
 proof. 
 
 But Frere laughed, caught both the child's hands in one of 
 his own, and kissed her again and again, despite her struggles. 
 
I04 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 " There ! " he said, with a sort of triumph in his tone, " You 
 got nothing by that, you see." 
 
 Vickers rose, with annoyance visible on his face, to draw the 
 child away ; and as he did so, she, gasping for breath, and 
 sobbing with rage, wrenched her wrist free, and in a storm 
 of childish passion, struck her tormentor again and again. 
 " Man !" she cried, with flaming eyes, " Let me go ! I hate you ! 
 I hate you ! I hate you I" 
 
 " I am very sorry for this, Frere," said Vickers, when the door 
 was closed again. " I hope she did not hurt you." 
 
 " Not she ! I like her spirit. Ha, ha ! That's the way with 
 women all the world over. Nothing like showing them that 
 they've got a master." 
 
 Vickers hastened to turn the conversation, and, amid recol- 
 lections of old days, and speculations as to future prospects, the 
 little incident was forgotten. But when, an hour later, Mr. Frere 
 traversed the passage that led to his bedroom, he found himself 
 confronted by a little figure wrapped in a shawl. It was his 
 childish enemy. 
 
 " I've waited for you, Mr. Frere," said she, " to beg pardon. 
 I ought not to have struck you ; I am a wicked girl. Don't say 
 no, because I am ; and if I don't grow better I shall never go to 
 heaven." 
 
 Thus addressing him, the child produced a piece of paper, 
 folded like a letter, from beneath the shawl, and handed it to him. 
 
 " What's this ? " he asked. " Go back to bed, my dear ; you'll 
 catch cold." 
 
 " It's a written apology ; and I sha'n't catch cold, because I've 
 got my stockings on. If you don't accept it," she added, with 
 an arching of the brows, " it is not my fault. I have struck you, 
 but I apologize. Being a woman, I can't offer you satisfaction 
 in the usual way." 
 
 Mr. Frere stifled the impulse to laugh, and made his courteous 
 adversary a low bow. 
 
 " I accept your apology, Miss Sylvia," said he. 
 
 "Then," returned Miss Sylvia, in a lofty manner, " there is 
 nothing more to be said, and I have the honour to bid you good 
 night, sir." 
 
 The little maiden drew her shawl around her with immense 
 dignity, and marched down the passage as calmly as though she 
 had been Amadis of Gaul himself. 
 
A LEAP IN THE DARK. 105 
 
 Frere, gaining his room choking with laughter, opened the 
 folded paper by the light of the tallow candle, and read, in a 
 quaint, childish hand — 
 
 Sir, — I have strack you. I apologize in WTiting. 
 
 Your humble servant to command, 
 
 Sylvia Vickers. 
 
 "I wonder what book she took that out of?" he said. " 'Pon 
 my word she must be a little cracked. Gad, it's a queer life for 
 a child in this place, and no mistake." 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 A LEAP IN THE DARK. 
 
 TWO or three mornings after the arrival of the Ladybird^ 
 the solitary prisoner of the Grummet Rock noticed mys- 
 terious movements along the shore of the island settlement. 
 The prison boats, which had put off every morning at sunrise to 
 the foot of the timbered ranges on the other side of the harbour, 
 had not appeared for some days. The building of a pier, or 
 breakwater, running from the western point of the settlement, 
 was discontinued ; and all hands appeared to be occupied with 
 the newly-built Osprey, which was lying on the slips. Parties 
 of soldiers also daily left the Ladybird, and assisted at the mys- 
 terious work in progress. Rufus Dawes, walking his little round 
 each day, in vain wondered what this unusual commotion por- 
 tended. Unfortunately, no one came to enlighten his igno- 
 rance. 
 
 A fortnight after this, about the 1 5th of December, he observed 
 another curious fact. All the boats on the island put off one 
 morning to the opposite side of the harbour, and in the course 
 of the day a great smoke arose along the side of the hills. The 
 next day the same was repeated ; and on the fourth day the 
 boats returned, towing behind them a huge raft. This raft, 
 made fast to the side of the Ladybird, proved to be composed 
 of planks, beams, and joists, all of which were duly hoisted up, 
 and stowed in the hold of the brig. 
 
 This set Rufus Dawes thinking. Could it possibly be that 
 
loe HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 the timber-cutting was to be abandoned, and that the Govern- 
 ment had hit upon some other method of utihzing its convict 
 labour ? He had hewn timber and built boats, and tanned 
 hides and made shoes. Was it possible that some new trade 
 was to be initiated ? Before he had settled this point to his 
 satisfaction, he was startled by another boat expedition. Three 
 boats' crews went down the bay, and returned, after a day's 
 absence, with an addition to their number in the shape of four 
 strangers and a quantity of stores and farming implements, 
 Rufus Dawes, catching sight of these last, came to the con- 
 clusion that the boats had been to Philip Island, where the 
 " garden " was established, and had taken off the gardeners and 
 garden produce. Rufus Dawes decided that the Ladybird had 
 brought a new commandant — his sight, trained by his half- 
 savage life, had already distinguished Mr. Maurice Frere — and 
 that these mysteries were " improvements " under the new rule. 
 When he arrived at this point of reasoning, another conjecture, 
 assuming his first to have been correct, followed as a natural 
 consequence. Lieutenant Frere would be a more severe com- 
 mandant than Major Vickers. Now, severity had already reached 
 its height, so far as he was concerned ; so the unhappy man 
 took a final resolution — he would kill himself. Before we ex- 
 claim against the sin of such a determination, let us endeavour 
 to set before us what the sinner had suffered during the past six 
 years. 
 
 We have already a notion of what life on a convict ship 
 means ; and we have seen through what a furnace Rufus Dawes 
 had passed before he set foot on the barren shore of Hell's Gates. 
 But to appreciate in its intensity the agony he had suffered since 
 that time, we must multiply the infamy of the 'tween decks of 
 the Malabar an hundred fold. In that prison was at least some 
 ray of light. All were not abominable ; all were not utterly 
 lost to shame and manhood. Stifling though the prison, in- 
 famous the companionship, terrible the memory of past hap- 
 piness—there was yet ignorance of the future, there was yet 
 hope. But at Macquarie Harbour was poured out the very 
 dregs of this cup of desolation. The worst had come, and the 
 worst must for ever remain. The pit of torment was so deep 
 that one could not even see Heaven. There was no hope there 
 so long as life remained. Death alone kept the keys of that 
 island prison. 
 
A LEAF IN THE DARK. 107 
 
 Is it possible to imagine, even for a moment, what an in- 
 nocent man, gifted with ambition, endowed with power to love 
 and to respect, must have suffered during one week of such 
 punishment ? We ordinary men, leading ordinary lives — walk- 
 ing, riding, laughing, marrying and giving in marriage — can 
 form no notion of such misery as this. Some dim ide-^.s we may 
 have about the sweetness of liberty and the loathing that evil 
 company inspires ; but that is all. We know that were we chained 
 and degraded, fed like dogs, employed as beasts of burden, , 
 driven to our daily toil with threats and blows, and herded with 
 wretches among whom all that savours of decency and manli- 
 ness is held in an open scorn, we should die, perhaps, or go 
 mad. But we do not know, and can never know, how unutter- \ 
 ably loathsome life must become when shared with such beings / 
 as those who dragged the tree trunks to the banks of the Gor- 
 don, and toiled, blaspheming, in their irons, on the dismal I 
 sandpit of Sarah Island. No human creature could describe to 
 what depth of personal abasement and self-loathing one week of 
 such a life would plunge him. Even if he had the power to 
 write, he dared not. As one who, in a desert, seeking for a face, 
 should come to a pool of blood, and seeing his own reflection, fly 
 —so would such a one haster from the contemplation of his own 
 degrading agony. > Imagine such torment endured for six years I / 
 
 Ignorant that the sights and sounds about him were symp- 
 toms of the final abandonment of the settlement, and that the 
 Ladybird was sent down to bring away the prisoners, Rufus 
 Dawes decided upon getting rid of that burden of life which 
 pressed upon him so heavily. For six years he had hewn wood 
 and drawn water ; for six years he had hoped against hope ; for 
 six years he had lived in the valley of the shadow of Death. 
 He dared not recapitulate to himself what he had suffered. 
 Indeed, his senses were deadened and dulled by torture. He 
 cared to remember only one thing — that he was a Prisoner for 
 Life. In vain had been his first dream of freedom. He had 
 done his best, by good conduct, to win release ; but the villainy 
 of Vetch and Rex had deprived him of the fruit of his labour. 
 Instead of gaining credit by his exposure of the plot on board 
 the Malabar^ he was himself deemed guilty, and condemned, 
 despite his asseverations of innocence. The knowledge of his 
 " treachery " — for so it was deemed among his associates — while 
 it gained for huu no credit with the authorities, procured for him 
 
io8 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 the detestation and ill-will of the monsters among whom he 
 found himself. On his arrival at Hell's Gates he was a marked 
 man — a Pariah among those beings who were Pariahs to all the 
 world beside. 
 
 Thrice his life was attempted ; but he was not then quite tired 
 of living, and he defended it. This defence was construed by 
 an overseer into a brawl, and the irons from which he had been 
 relieved were replaced. His strength — brute attribute that 
 alone could avail him — made him respected after this, and he 
 was left at peace. At first this treatment was congenial to his 
 temperament ; but by-and-by it became annoying, then painful, 
 then almost unendurable. Tugging at his oar, digging up to his 
 waist in slime, or bending beneath his burden of pine-wood, he 
 looked greedily for some excuse to be addressed. He would take 
 double weight when forming part of the human caterpillar along 
 whose back lay a pine-tree, for a word of fellowship. He would 
 work double tides to gain a kindly sentence from a comrade. 
 In his utter desolation he agonized for the friendship of robbers 
 and murderers. Then the reaction came, and he hated the very 
 sound of their voices. He never spoke, and refused to answer 
 when spoken to. He would even take his scanty supper alone, 
 did his chain so permit him. He gained the reputation of a 
 sullen, dangerous, half-crazy ruffian. Captain Barton, the super- 
 intendent, took pity on him, and made him his gardener. He 
 accepted the pity for a week or so, and then Barton, coming 
 down one morning, found the few shrubs pulled up by the roots, 
 the flower-beds trampled into barrenness, and his gardener 
 sitting on the ground among the fragments of his gardening 
 tools. For this act of wanton mischief he was flogged. At the 
 triangles his behaviour was considered curious. He wept and 
 prayed to be released, fell on his knees to Barton, and implored 
 pardon. Barton would not listen, and at the first blow the 
 prisoner was silent. From that time he became more sullen 
 than ever, only at times he was observed, when alone, to fling 
 himself on the ground and cry like a child. It was generally 
 thought that his brain was affected. 
 
 When Vickcrs came, Dawes sought an interview, and begged 
 to be sent back to Hobart Town. This was refused, of course, 
 but he w%s put to work on the Osprey. After working there 
 for some time, and being released from his irons, he concealed 
 himself on the slip, and in the evening swam across the harbour. 
 
A LEAP IN THE DARK. I09 
 
 He was pursued, retaken, and flogged. Then he ran the dismal 
 round of punishment. He burnt lime, dragged timber, and 
 tugged at the oar. The heaviest and most degrading tasks were / 
 always his. Shunned and hated by his companions, feared by ' 
 the convict overseers, and regarded with unfriendly eyes by the 
 authorities, Rufus Dawes was at the very bottom of that abyss \ 
 of woe into which he had voluntarily cast himself. Goaded to 
 desperation by his own thoughts, he had joined with Gabbett 
 and the unlucky three in their desperate attempt to escape ; but, 
 as Vickers stated, he had been captured almost instantly. He 
 was lamed by the heavy irons he wore, and though Gabbett — 
 with a strange eagerness for which aff.er events accounted — in- 
 sisted that he could make good his flight, the unhappy man fell 
 in the first hundred yards of the terrible race, and was seized by 
 two volunteers before he could rise again. His capture helped 
 to secure the brief freedom of his comrades ; for Mr. Troke, 
 content with one prisoner, checked a pursuit which the nature 
 of the ground rendered dangerous, and triumphantly brought 
 Dawes back to the settlement as his peace-offering for the negli- 
 gence which had resulted in the loss of the other four. For this / 
 madness the refractory convict had been condemned to the j 
 solitude of the Grummet Rock. 
 
 In that dismal hermitage, his mind, preying on itself, had / 
 become disordered. He saw visions and dreamt dreams. He 
 would lie for hours motionless, staring at the sun or the sea. 
 He held converse with imaginary beings. He enacted the scene 
 with his mother over again. He harangued the rocks, and 
 called upon the stones about him to witness his innocence and 
 his sacrifice. He was visited by the phantoms of his early 
 friends, and sometimes thought his present life a dream. When- 
 ever he awoke, however, he was commanded by a voice within 
 himself to leap into the surges which washed the walls of his 
 prison, and to dream these sad dreams no more. 
 
 In the midst of this lethargy of body and brain, the unusual 
 occurrences along the shore of the settlement roused in him a 
 still fiercer hatred of life. He saw in them something incompre- 
 hensible and terrible, and read in them threats of an increase of 
 misery. Had he known that the Ladybird was preparing for 
 sea, and that it had been already decided to fetch him from this 
 rock and iron him with the rest for safe passage to Hobart 
 Town, he might have paused ; but he knew nothing, save that 
 
HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 the burden of life was insupportable, and that the time had 
 come for him to be rid of it. 
 
 In the meantime, the settlement was in a fever of excitement. 
 In less than three weeks from the announcement made by 
 Vickers, all had been got ready. The Commandant had finally 
 arranged with Frere as to his course of action. He himself 
 would accompany the Ladybird with the main body. His wife 
 and daughter were to remain until the sailing of the Osprey, 
 which Mr, Frere — charged with the task of final destruction — 
 was to bring up as soon as possible. " I will leave you a cor- 
 poral's guard, and ten prisoners as a crew," Vickers said. " You 
 can work her easily with that number." To which Frere, 
 smiling at Mrs. Vickers in a self-satisfied way, had replied 
 that he could do with five prisoners if necessary, for he knew 
 how to get double work out of the lazy dogs. 
 
 Among the incidents which took place during the breaking 
 up, was one which it is necessary to chronicle. Near Philip's 
 Island, on the north side of the harbour, is situated Coal Head, 
 where a party had been lately at work. This party, hastily with- 
 drawn by Vickers to assist in the business of devastation, had 
 left behind it some tools and timber, and at the eleventh hour a 
 boat's crew was sent to bring away the debii-s. The tools were 
 duly collected, and the pine logs — worth twenty-five shillings 
 apiece in Hobart Town — duly rafted and chained. The timber 
 was secured, and the convicts, towing it after them, pulled for 
 the ship just as the sun sank. In the general relaxation of dis- 
 cipline and haste, the raft had not beeii made with as much care 
 as usual, and the strong current against which the boat was 
 labouring assisted the negligence of the convicts. The logs 
 began to loosen, and though the onward motion of the boat kept 
 the chain taut, when the rowers slackened their exertions the 
 mass parted, and Mr. Troke, hooking himself on to the side of 
 the Ladybird, saw a huge log slip out from its fellows and 
 disappear into the darkness. Gazing after it with an indignant 
 and disgusted stare, as though it had been a refractory prisoner 
 who merited two days " solitary," he thought he heard a cry 
 from the direction in which it had been borne. He would have 
 paused to listen, but all his attention was needed to save the 
 timber, and to prevent the boat from being swamped by the 
 struggling mass at her stern. 
 
 The cry had proceeded from Rufus Dawes. From his solitar) 
 
A LEAP IN THE DARK. 
 
 rock he had watched the boat pass him and make for the Lady- 
 bird m channel, and he had decided — with that curious childish- 
 ness into which the mind relapses on such supreme occasions — 
 that the moment when the gathering gloom swallowed her up, 
 should be the moment when he would plunge into the surge 
 below him. The heavily-labouring boat grew dimmer and 
 dimmer, as each tug of the oars took her farther from him. 
 Presently, only the figure of Mr. Troke in the stern sheets was 
 visible ; then that also disappeared, and as the nose of the 
 timber raft rose on the swell of the next wave, Rufus Dawes 
 flung himself into the sea. 
 
 He was heavily ironed, and he sank like a stone. He had 
 resolved not to attempt to swim, and for the first moment kept 
 his arms raised above his head, in order to sink the quicker. 
 But, as the short, sharp agony of suffocation caught him, and 
 the shock of the icy water dispelled the mental intoxication 
 under which he was labouring, he desperately struck out, and, 
 despite the weight of his irons, gained the surface for an instant. 
 As he did so, all bewildered, and with the one savage instinct ot 
 self-preservation predominant over all other thoughts, he became 
 conscious of a huge black mass surging upon him out of the 
 darkness. An instant's buffet with the current, an ineffectual 
 attempt to dive beneath it, a horrible sense that the weight at 
 his feet was dragging him down, — and the huge log, loosened 
 from the raft, was upon him, crushing him beneath its rough 
 and ragged sides. All thoughts of self-murder vanished with 
 the presence of actual peril, and uttering that despairing cry 
 which had been faintly heard by Troke, he flung up his arms to 
 clutch the monster that was pushing him down to death. The 
 log passed completely over him, thrusting him beneath the water, 
 but his hand, scraping along the splintered side, came in contact 
 with the loop of hide rope that yet hung round the mass, and 
 clutched it with the tenacity of a death grip. In another instant 
 he got his head above water, and making good his hold, twisted 
 himself, by a violent effort, across the log. 
 
 For a moment he saw the lights from the stem windows of the 
 anchored vessels low in the distance, Grummet Rock disappeared 
 on his left, then, exhausted, breathless, and bruised, he closed 
 his eyes, and the drifting log bore him swiftly and silently away 
 into the darkness. 
 
HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 At daylight the next morning, Mr, Troke, landing on the prison 
 rock, found it deserted. The prisoner's cap was lying on the 
 edge of the little cliff, but the prisoner himself had disappeared. 
 Pulling back to the Ladybird, the intelligent Troke pondered on 
 the circumstance, and in delivering his report to Vickers men- 
 tioned the strange cry he had heard the night before. " It's my 
 belief, sir, that he was trying to swim the bay," he said. " He 
 must ha' gone to the bottom anyhow, for he couldn't swim five 
 yards with them irons." 
 
 Vickers, busily engaged in getting under weigh, accepted this 
 very natural supposition without question. The prisoner had 
 met his death either by his own act, or by accident. It was 
 either a suicide or an attempt to escape, and the former conduct 
 of Rufus Dawes rendered the latter explanation a more probable 
 one. In any case, he was dead. As Mr. Troke rightly surmised, 
 no man could swim the bay in irons ; and when the Ladybird, 
 an hour later, passed the Grummet Rock, all on board her 
 believed that the corpse of its late occupant was lying beneath 
 the waves that seethed at its base. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE LAST OF MACQUARIE HARBOUR. 
 
 RUFUS DAWES was beheved to be dead by the party on 
 board the Ladybird, and his strar;g" escape was unknown 
 to those still at Sarah Island. Maurice Frere, if he 
 bestowed a thought upon the refractory prisoner of the Rock, 
 believed him to be safely stowed in the hold of the schooner, 
 and already half way to Hobart Town ; while not one of the 
 eighteen persons on board the Osprey suspected that the boat 
 which had put off for the marooned man had returned without 
 him. Indeed the party had little leisure for thought ; Mr. Frere, 
 eager to prove his ability and energy, was making strenuous 
 exertions to get away, and kept his unlucky ten so hard at work 
 that within a week from the departure of the Ladybird the 
 Osprey was ready for sea. Mrs. Vickers and the child, having 
 watched with some excusable regret the process of demolishing 
 their old home, had settled down in their small cabin in the 
 
THE LAST OF MACQUARIE HARBOUR. 113 
 
 brig, and on the evening of the nth of January, Mr. Bates, the 
 pilot, who acted as master, informed the crew that Lieutenant 
 Frere had given orders to weigh anchor at daybreak. 
 
 At daybreak accordingly the brig set sail, with a light breeze 
 from the south-west, and by three o'clock in the afternoon 
 anchored safely outside the Gates. Unfortunately the wind 
 shifted to the north-west, which caused a heavy swell on the bnr 
 and prudent Mr. Bates, having consideration for Mrs. Vickers 
 and the child, ran back ten miles into Wellington Bay, and an- 
 chored there again at seven o'clock in the evening. The tide was 
 running strongly, and the brig rolled a good deal. Mrs. Vickers 
 kept her cabin, and sent Sylvia to entertain Lieutenant Frere. 
 Sylvia went, but was not entertaining. She had conceived for 
 Frere one of those violent antipathies which children sometimes 
 own without reason, and since the memorable night of the 
 apology had been barely civil to him. In vain did he pet her 
 and compliment her, she was not to be flattered into liking 
 him. " I do not like you, sir," she said in her stilted fashion, 
 " but that need make no difference to you. You occupy your- 
 self with your prisoners ; I can amuse myself without you, thank 
 you." "Oh, all right !" said Frere, " I don't want to interfere ;" 
 but he felt a little nettled nevertheless. On this particular even- 
 ing the young lady relaxed her severity of demeanour. Her 
 father away, and her mother sick, the little maiden felt lonely, 
 and as a last resource accepted her mother's commands and 
 went to Frere. He was walking up and down the deck, smoking. 
 
 "Mr. Frere, I am sent to talk to you," 
 
 "Are you? All right — go on." 
 
 " Oh dear no. It is the gentleman's place to entertain. Be 
 amusing!" 
 
 " Come and sit down then, and we'll talk," said Frere, who 
 was in good humour at the success of his arrangements. " What 
 shall we talk about?" 
 
 " You stupid man ! As if I knew ! It is your place to talk. 
 Fell me a fairy story." 
 
 "'Jack and the Beanstalk'?" suggested Frere. 
 
 " Jack and the grandmother ! Nonsense! Make one up out 
 of your head, you know." 
 
 Frere laughed. 
 
 " I can't," he said. " I never did such a thing in my life." 
 
 " Then why not begin ? I shall go away if you don't begin." 
 
114 t^I^ NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 Frere rubbed his brows. "Well, have you read — have you 
 read 'Robinson Crusoe'?" — as if the idea was the most brilliant 
 one in the world. 
 
 " Of course I have," returned Sylvia, pouting, *' Read it?— 
 yes. Everybody's read * Robinson Crusoe ' ! " 
 
 " Oh, have they ? Well, I didn't know ; let me see now." 
 And pulling hard at his pipe, he plunged into literary reflection. 
 
 Sylvia sitting beside him, eagerly watching for the happy 
 thought that never came, pouted and said, "What a stupid, 
 stupid man you are ! I shall be so glad to get back to papa 
 again. He knows all sorts of stories, nearly as many as old 
 Danny." 
 
 " Danny knows some, then ?" 
 
 " Danny ! " — with as much surprise as if she said " Walter 
 Scott ! " " Of course he does. I suppose now," putting her 
 head on one side, with an amusing expression of superiority, 
 "you never heard the story of the Banshee?" 
 
 " No, I never did." 
 
 " Nor the ' White Horse of the Peppers ' ?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 " No, I suppose not. Nor the * Changeling'? nor the ' Lepre- 
 chaun ' ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 Sylvia got ofT the skylight on which she had been sitting, 
 and surveyed the smoking animal beside her with profound 
 contempt. 
 
 " Mr. Frere, you are really a most ignorant person. Excuse 
 me if I hurt your feelings ; I have no wish to do that ; but really 
 you are a tnost ignorant person — for your age, of course." 
 
 Maurice Frere grew a little angry. " You are very imperti- 
 nent, Sylvia," said he. 
 
 " Miss Vickers is my name. Lieutenant Frere, and I shall go 
 and talk to Mr. Bates." 
 
 Which threat she carried out on the spot ; and Mr. Bates, 
 who had filled the dangerous office of pilot, told her about 
 divers and coral reefs, and some adventures of his — a little 
 apocryphal— in the China seas. Frere resumed his smoking, 
 half angry with himself, and half angry with the provoking 
 little fairy. This elfin creature had a fascination for him which 
 he could not account for. 
 
 However, he saw her no more that evening, and at breakfast 
 
THE LAST OF MACQUARIE HARBOUR. 115 
 
 the next morning she received him with quaint haughti- 
 ness. 
 
 "W'Tien shall we be ready to sail? Mr. Frere, I'll take some 
 marmalade. Thank you." 
 
 " I don't know, Missy," said Bates. " It's very rough on the 
 Bar ; me and Mr. Frere was a soundin' of it this marnin', and 
 it ain't safe yet." 
 
 " Well," said Sylvia, " I do hope and trust we sha'n't be ship- 
 wrecked, and have to swim miles and miles for our lives." 
 
 " Ho, ho !" laughed Frere; "don't be afraid. I'll take care 
 of you." 
 
 " Can you swim, Mr. Bates ? " asked Sylvia. 
 
 " Yes, Miss, I can." 
 
 " Well, then, you shall take me ; I like you. Mr. Frere can 
 take mamma. We'll go and live on a desert island, Mr. Bates, 
 won't we, and grow cocoa-nuts and bread-fruit, and — what nasty 
 hard biscuits ! — I'll be Robinson Crusoe and you shall be Man 
 Friday. I'd like to live on a desert island, if I was sure there 
 were no savages, and plenty to eat and drink." 
 
 " That would be right enough, my dear, but you don't find 
 them sort of islands every day." 
 
 " Then" said Sylvia, with a decided nod, " we won't be ship- 
 wrecked, will we ? " 
 
 " I hope not, my dear." 
 
 " Put a biscuit in your pocket, Sylvia, in case of accidents," 
 suggested Frere, with a grin. 
 
 " Oh ! you know my opinion of you, sir. Don't speak ; I 
 don't want any argument." 
 
 " Don't you ? — that's right." 
 
 " Mr. Frere," said Sylvia, gravely pausing at her mother's 
 cabin door, "if I were Richard the Third, do you know what 
 I'd do with you ?" 
 
 " No," says Frere, eating complacently ; " what would you do ?" 
 
 " Why, I'd make you stand at the door of St. Paul's Cathedral 
 in a white sheet, with a lighted candle in your hand, until you 
 gave up your wicked aggravating ways — you Man ! " 
 
 The picture of Mr. Frere in a white sheet, with a lighted 
 candle in his hand, at the door of St. Paul's Cathedral, was too 
 much for Mr. Bates's gravity, and he roared with laughter. 
 " She's a queer child, ain't she, sir ? A bom nateral, and yet a 
 good-natered little soul." 
 
1,6 mS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 " ^Vhen shall we be able to get away, Mr. Bates ? " asked 
 Frere, whose dignity was wounded by the mirth of the pilot. 
 Bates felt the change of tone, and hastened to accommodate 
 himself to his officer's humour, " I hopes by evening, sir," said 
 he ; " if the tide slackens then I'll risk it ; but it's no use trying 
 it now." 
 
 "The men were wanting to go ashore to wash their clothes," 
 said Frere. "If we are to stop here till evening, you had better 
 let them go after dinner." 
 " All right, sir," said Bates. 
 
 The afternoon passed off auspiciously. The ten prisoners 
 went ashore and washed their clothes. Their names were 
 James Barker, James Lesly, John Lyon, Benjamin Riley, 
 WiUiam Cheshire, Henry Shiers, William Russen, James 
 Porter, John Fair, and John Rex. 
 
 This last scoundrel had come on board latest of all. He had 
 behaved himself a little better recently, and during the work 
 attendant upon the departure of the Ladybi7-d, had been con- 
 spicuously useful. His intelligence and influence among his 
 fellow prisoners combined to make him a somewhat important 
 personage, and Vickers had allowed him privileges from which 
 he had been hitherto debarred. Mr. Frere, however, who super- 
 intended the shipment of some stores, seemed to be resolved 
 to take advantage of Rex's evident willingness to work. He 
 never ceased to hurry and find fault with him. He vowed that 
 he was lazy, sulky, or impertinent. It was " Rex, come here ! 
 Do this ! Do that ! " As the prisoners declared among them- 
 selves, it was evident that Mr. Frere had a "down" on the 
 Dandy. The day before the Ladybird sailed, Rex — rejoicing in 
 the hope of speedy departure — had suffered himself to reply to 
 some more than usually galling remark, and Mr. Frere had 
 complained to Vickers. " The fellow's too ready to get away," 
 said he. " Let him stop for the Osprey, it will be a lesson to 
 him." 
 
 Vickers assented, and John Rex was informed that he was 
 not to sail with the first party. His comrades vowed that this 
 order was an act of tyranny ; but he himself said nothing. He 
 only redoubled his activity, and — despite all his wish to the con- 
 trary — Frere was unable to find fault. He even took credit to 
 himself for " taming '' the convict's spirit, and pointed out Rex 
 — silent and obedient- -as a proof of the excellence of bevere 
 
THE POWER OF THE WILDERNESS. 117 
 
 measures. To the convicts, however, who knew John Rex 
 better, this silent activity was ominous. 
 
 He returned with the rest, however, on the evening of the 
 r3th, in apparently cheerful mood. Indeed Mr. Frere, who^ 
 wearied by the delay, had decided to take the whaleboat in 
 which the prisoners had returned, and catch a few fish before 
 dinner, observed him laughing with some of the others, and 
 again congratulated himself. 
 
 The time wore on. Darkness was closing in, and Mr. Bates, 
 walking the deck, kept a look-out for the boat, with the inten- 
 tion of weighing anchor and making for the bar. All was secure. 
 Mrs. Vickers and the child were safely below. The two remain- 
 ing soldiers (two had gone with Frere) were upon deck, and the 
 prisoners in the forecastle were singing. The wind was fair, 
 and the sea had gone down. In less than an hour the Osprey 
 would be safely outside the Harbour. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE POWER OF THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 THE drifting log that had so strangely served as a means of 
 saving Rufus Dawes swam with the current that was run- 
 ning out of the bay. For some time the burden that it 
 bore was an insensibl e one. Exhausted with his desperate struggle 
 for life, the convict lay along the rough back of this Heaven- 
 sent raft without motion, almost without breath. At length a 
 violent shock awoke him to consciousness, and he perceived 
 that the log had become stranded on a sandy point, the ex- 
 tremity of which was lost in darkness. Painfully raising him- 
 self from his uncomfortable posture, he staggered to his feet, 
 and crawling a fe vv paces up the beach, flung himself upon the 
 ground and slept. 
 
 When morning dawned, he recognised his position. The log 
 had, in passing under the lee of Philip Island, been cast upon 
 the southern point of Coal Head, and some three hundred yards 
 from him were the mutilated sheds of the coal-gang. For some 
 time he lay still, basking in the warm rays of the rising sun, 
 and scarcely caring to move his bruised and shattered limbs. 
 The sensation of rest was so exquisite, that it overpowered all 
 
Ii8 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 other considerations, and he did not even trouble himself to 
 conjecture the reason for the apparent desertion of the huts 
 close by him. If there was no one there — well and good. If 
 the coal party had not gone, he would be discovered in a few 
 moments, and brought back, to his island prison. In his exhaus- 
 tion and misery, he accepted the alternative and slept again. 
 
 As he laid down his aching head, Mr. Troke was reporting 
 his death to Vickers, and while he still slept, the Ladybird, on 
 her way out, passed him so closely, that any one on board her 
 might, with a good glass, have espied his slumbering figure as 
 it lay upon the sand. 
 
 When he woke it was past mid-day, and the sun poured its 
 full rays upon him. His clothes were dry in all places, save the 
 side on which he had been lying, and he rose to his feet re- 
 freshed by his long sleep. He scarcely comprehended, as yet, 
 his true position. He had escaped, it was true, but not for long. 
 He was versed in the history of escapes, and knew that a man 
 alone on that barren coast was face to face with starvation or 
 recapture. Glancing up at the sun, he wondered, indeed, how 
 it was that he had been free so long. Then the coal sheds 
 caught his eye, and he understood that they were untenanted. 
 This astonished him, and he began to tremble with vague 
 apprehension. Entering, he looked around, expecting every 
 moment to see some lurking constable, or armed soldier. Sud- 
 denly his glance fell upon the loaves which lay in the comer 
 where the departing convicts had flung them the night before. 
 At such a moment, this discovery seemed like a direct revelation 
 from Heaven. He would not have been surprised had they 
 disappeared. Had he lived in another age, he would have 
 looked round for the angel who had brought them. 
 
 By-and-by, having eaten of this miraculous provender, the 
 poor creature began— reckoning by his convict experience — to 
 understand what liad taken place. The coal workings were 
 abandoned ; the new Commandant had probably other work 
 for his beasts of burden to execute, and an absconder would be 
 safe here for a few hours at least. But he must not stay. For 
 him there was no rest. If he thought to escape, it behoved 
 him to commence his journey at once. As he contemplated 
 the meat and bread, something like a ray of hope entered his 
 gloomy soul. Here was provision for his needs. The food 
 before him represented the rations of six men. Was it not 
 
THE POWER OF THE WILDERNESS. 119 
 
 possible to cross the desert that lay between him and freedom 
 on such fare ? The very supposition made his heart beat faster. 
 It surely was possible. He must husband his resources ; walk 
 mu(?h and eat little ; spread out the food for one day into the 
 food for three. Here was six men's food for one day, or one 
 man's food for six days. He would live on a third of this, and 
 he would have rations for eighteen days. Eighteen days ! What 
 could he not do in eighteen days ? He could walk thirty miles a 
 day — forty miles a day — that would be six hundred miles and 
 more. Yet stay ; he must not be too sanguine ; the road was 
 difficult ; the scrub was in places impenetrable. He would have 
 to make ddtours, and turn upon his tracks, to waste precious 
 time. He would be moderate, and say twenty miles a day. 
 Twenty miles a day was very easy walking. Taking a piece of 
 stick from the ground, he made the calculation in the sand. 
 Eighteen days, and twenty miles a day — three hundred and 
 sixty miles. More than enough to take him to freedom. It 
 could be done ! With prudence, it could be done ! He must 
 be careful and abstemious. Abstemious ! He had already 
 eaten too much, and he hastily pulled a barely-tasted piece of 
 meat from his mouth, and replaced it with the rest. The action 
 which at any other time would have seemed disgusting, was, in 
 the case of this poor creature, merely pitiable. 
 
 Having come to this resolution, the next thing was to disen- 
 cumber himself of his irons. This was more easily done than he 
 expected. He found in the shed an iron gad, and with that and 
 a stone he drove out the rivets. The rings were too strong to be 
 "ovalled,"* or he would have been free long ago. He packed 
 the meat and bread together, and then pushing the gad into his 
 belt — it might be needed as a weapon of defence— he set out on 
 his journey. 
 
 His intention was to get round the settlement to the coast, 
 reach the settled districts, and, by some tale of shipwreck or of 
 wandering, procure assistance. As to what was particularly to 
 be done when he found himself among free men, he did not 
 pause to consider. At that point his difficulties seemed to him 
 to end. Let him but traverse the desert that was before him, 
 and he would trust to his own ingenuity, or the chance of for- 
 
 * Ovallcd — "To oval " is a term in use among convicts, and means to 
 so bend the round ring of the ankle fetter that the heel can be draw 1 up 
 through it. 
 
HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 tune, to avert suspicion. The peril of immediate detection was 
 so imminent, that, beside it, all other fears were dwarfed into 
 insignificance. 
 
 Before dawn next morning he had travelled ten miles, and by 
 husbanding his food, he succeeded by the night of the fourth 
 day in accomplishing forty more. Footsore and weary, he lay 
 in a thicket of the thorny melaleuca, and felt at last that he was 
 beyond pursuit. The next day he advanced more slowly. The 
 bush was unpropitious. Dense scrub and savage jungle im- 
 peded his path ; barren and stony mountain ranges arose before 
 him. He was lost in gullies, entangled in thickets, bewildered 
 in morasses. The sea that had hitherto gleamed, salt, glittering, 
 and hungT)^ upon his right hand, now shifted to his left. He had 
 mistaken his course, and he must turn again. For two days 
 did this bewilderment last, and on the third he came to a mighty 
 cliff that pierced with its blunt pinnacle the clustering bush. 
 He must go over or round this obstacle, and he decided to go 
 round it. A natural pathway wound about its foot. Here and 
 there branches were broken, and it seemed to the poor wretch, 
 fainting under the weight of his lessening burden, that his were 
 not the first footsteps which had trodden there. The path 
 terminated in a glade, and at the bottom of this glade was 
 something that fluttered. Rufus Dawes pressed forward, 
 and stumbled over a corpse ! 
 
 In the terrible stillness of that solitary place he felt suddenly 
 as though a voice had called to him. All the hideous fantastic 
 tales of murder which he had read or heard seemed to take 
 visible shape in the person of the loathly carcase before him, 
 clad in the yellow dress of a convict, and lying flung together 
 on the ground as though struck down. Stooping over it, im- 
 pelled by an irresistible impulse to know the worst, he found 
 the body was mangled. One arm was missing, and the skull 
 had been beaten in by some heavy instrument ! The first 
 thought — that this heap of rags and bones was a mute witness 
 to the folly of his own undertaking, the corpse of some starved 
 absconder — gave place to a second more horrible suspicion. 
 He recognised the number imprinted on the coarse cloth as that 
 which had designated the younger of the two men who had 
 escaped with Gabbett. He was standing on the place where a 
 murder had been committed! A murder! — and what else? 
 Thank God the food he carried was not yet exhausted ! He 
 
THE POWER OF THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 turned and fled, looking back fearfully as he went. He could 
 not breathe in the shadow of that awful mountain. 
 
 Crashing through scrub and brake, torn, bleeding, and wild 
 with terror, he reached a spur of the Range, and looked around 
 him. Above him rose the iron hills, below him lay the pano- 
 rama of the bush. The white cone of the Frenchman's Cap 
 was on his right hand, on his left a succession of ranges seemed 
 to bar further progress. A gleam, as of a lake, streaked the 
 eastward. Gigantic pine trees reared their graceful heads 
 against the opal of the evening sky, and at their feet the dense 
 scrub through which he had so painfully toiled, spread without 
 break and withojUt flaw. It seemed as though he could leap 
 from where he stood upon a solid mass of tree-tops. He raised 
 his eyes, and right against him, like a long dull sword, lay the 
 narrow steel-blue reach of the harbour from which he had 
 escaped. One darker speck moved on the dark water. It was 
 the Osprey making for the Gates. It seemed that he could 
 throw a stone upon her deck. A faint cry of rage escaped him. 
 During the last three days in the bush he must have retraced 
 his steps, and returned upon his own track to the settlement ! 
 More than half his allotted time had passed, and he was not 
 yet thirty miles from his prison. Death had waited to overtake 
 him in this barbarous wilderness. As a cat allows a mouse to 
 escape her for a while, so had he been permitted to trifle with 
 his fate, and lull himself into a false security. Escape was 
 hopeless now. He never could escape ; and as the unhappy 
 man raised his despairing eyes, he saw that the sun, redly 
 sinking behind a lofty pine which topped the opposite hill, shot 
 a ray of crimson light into the glade below him. It was as 
 though a bloody finger pointed at the corpse which lay there, 
 and Rufus Dawes, shuddering at the dismal omen, averting his 
 face, plunged again into the forest. 
 
 For four days he wandered aimlessly through the bush. He 
 had given up all hopes of making the overland journey, and yet, 
 as long as his scanty supply of food held out, he strove to keep 
 away from the settlement. Unable to resist the pangs of hunger, 
 he had increased his daily ration ; and though the salted meat, 
 exposed to rain and heat, had begun to turn putrid, he never 
 looked at it but he was seized with a desire to eat his fill. The 
 coarse lumps of carrion and the hard rye- loaves were to him 
 aelicious morsels fit for the table of an emperor. Once or twice 
 
,22 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 he was constrained to pluck and eat the tops of tea-trees and 
 peppermint shrubs. These had an aromatic taste, and sufficed 
 to stay the cravings of hunger for a while, but they induced a 
 raging thirst, which he slaked at the icy mountain springs. Had 
 it not been for the frequency of these streams, he must have 
 died in a few days. At last, on the twelfth day from his depar- 
 ture from the Coal Head, he found himself at the foot of Mount 
 Direction, at the head of the peninsula which makes the western 
 side of the harbour. His terrible wandering had but led him 
 to make a complete circuit of the settlement, and the next night 
 brought him round the shores of Birches Inlet to the landing- 
 place opposite to Sarah Island. His stock of provisions had 
 been exhausted for two days, and he was savage with hunger. 
 He no longer thought of suicide. His dominant idea was now 
 to get food. He would do as many others had done before him 
 — give himself up to be flogged and fed. When he reached the 
 landing-place, however, the guard-house was empty. He looked 
 across at the island prison, and saw no sign of life. The senle- 
 ment was deserted ! 
 
 The shock of this discovery almost deprived him of reason. 
 For days, that had seemed centuries, he had kept life in his 
 jaded and lacerated body solely by the strength of his fierce 
 determination to reach the settlement ; and now that he had 
 reached it, after a journey ol unparalleled horror, he found it 
 deserted. He struck himself to see if he was not dreaming. 
 He refused to believe his eyesight. He shouted, screamed, 
 and waved his tattered garments in the air. Exhausted by these 
 paroxysms, he said to himself, quite calmly, that the sun beating 
 on his unprotected head had dazed his brain, and that in a few 
 moments he should see well-remembered boats pulling towards 
 him. Then, when no boat came, he argued that he was mis- 
 taken in the place ; the island yonder was not Sarah Island, but 
 some other island lil<e it, and that in a second or so he would 
 be able to detect the difference. But the inexorable mountains, 
 so hideously familiar for six weary years, made mute reply, and 
 the sea, crawling at his feet, seemed to grin at him with a thin- 
 lipped, hungry mouth. Yet the fact of the desertion seemed so 
 inexplicable that he could not realize it. He felt as might have 
 felt that wanderer in the enchanted mountains, who, returning 
 in the morning to look for his companions, found them turned 
 to stone. 
 
THE SEIZURE OF THE " OS PREY." 123 
 
 At last the dreadful truth forced itself upon him ; he retired 
 a few paces, and then, with a horrible cry of furious despair, 
 stumbled forward towards the edge of the little reef that fringed 
 the shore. Just as he was about to fling himself for the second 
 time into the dark water, his eyes, sweeping in a last long 
 look around the bay, caught sight of a strange appearance on 
 the left horn of the sea beach. A thin, blue streak, uprising 
 from behind the western arm of the little inlet, hung in the still 
 air. It was the smoke of a fire ! 
 
 The dying wretch felt inspired with new hope. God had sent 
 him a direct sign from Heaven. The tiny column of bluish 
 vapour seemed to him as glorious as the Pillar of Fire that led 
 the Israelites. There were yet human beings near him ! — and 
 turning his face from the hungry sea, he tottered with the last 
 effort of his failing strength towards the blessed token of their 
 presence. 
 
 J- 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE SEIZURE OF THE " OSPREY." 
 
 1~^RERE'S fishing expedition had been unsuccessful, and in 
 consequence prolonged. The obstinacy of his character 
 appeared in the most trifling circumstances, and though 
 the fast deepening shades of an Australian evening urged him 
 to return, yet he lingered, unwilling to come back empty-handed. 
 At last a peremptory signal warned him. It was the sound of 
 a musket fired on board the brig : Mr. Bates was getting im- 
 patient ; and with a scowl, Frere drew up his lines, and ordered 
 the two soldiers to pull for the vessel. 
 
 The Osprey yet sat motionless on the water, and her bare 
 masts gave no sign of making sail. To the soldiers, pulling 
 with their backs to her, the musket shot seemed the most 
 ordinary occurrence in the world. Eager to quit the dismal 
 prison-bay, they had viewed Mr. Frere's persistent fishing with 
 disgust, and had for the previous half-hour longed to hear the 
 signal of recall which had just startled them. Suddenly, how- 
 ever, they noticed a change of expression in the sullen face of 
 Iheir commander. Frere, sitting in the stern sheets, with his 
 
,24 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 face to the Osprey, had observed a peculiar appearance on her 
 decks. The buhvarks were every now and then topped by 
 strange figures, who disappeared as suddenly as they came, and 
 a faint murmur of voices floated across the intervening sea. 
 Presently the report of another musket shot echoed among the 
 hills, and something dark fell from the side of the vessel into 
 the water. Frere, with an imprecation of mingled alarm and 
 indignation, sprang to his feet, and shading his eyes with his 
 hand, looked towards the brig. The soldiers, resting on their 
 oars, imitated his gesture, and the whale-boat, thus thrown out 
 of trim, rocked from side to side dangerously. A moment's 
 anxious pause, and then another musket shot, followed by a 
 woman's shrill scream, explained all. The prisoners had seized 
 the brig ! " Give way ! " cried Frere, pale with rage and appre- 
 hension, and the soldiers, realizing at once the full terror of their 
 position, forced the heavy whale-boat through the water as fast 
 as the one miserable pair of oars could take her. 
 
 Mr. Bates, affected by the insidious influence of the hour, and 
 lulled into a sense of false security, had gone below to tell his 
 little playmate that she would soon be on her way to the Hobart 
 Town of which she had heard so much ; and, taking advantage 
 of his absence, the soldier not on guard went to the forecastle 
 to hear the prisoners singing. He found the ten together, in 
 high good humour, listening to a " shanty " sung by three of 
 their number. The voices were melodious enough, and the 
 words of the ditty — chanted by many stout fellows in many a 
 forecastle before and since — of that character which pleases the 
 soldier nature. Private Grimes forgot all about the unprotected 
 state of the deck, and sat down to listen. 
 
 While he listened, absorbed in tender recollections, James 
 Lesly, William Cheshire, William Russcn, John Fair, and James 
 Barker slipped to the hatchway and got upon deck. Barker 
 reached the aft hatchway as the soldier who was on guard 
 turned to complete his walk, and passing his arm round his 
 neck, pulled him down before he could utter a cry. In the con- 
 fusion of the moment the man loosed his grasp of the musket 
 to grapple with his unseen antagonist, and Fair, snatching up 
 the weapon, swore to blow out his brains if he raised a finger. 
 Seeing the sentry thus secured, Cheshire, as if in pursuance of 
 
THE SEIZURE OF THE " OSPREY." 125 
 
 a preconcerted plan, leapt down the after-hatchway, and passed 
 up the muskets from the arm-racks to Lesly arid Russen. 
 There were three muskets in addition to the one taken from the 
 sentry, and Barker, leaving his prisoner in charge of Fair, seized 
 one of them, and ran to the companion ladder. Russen, left 
 unarmed by this manoeuvre, appeared to know his own duty. 
 He came back to the forecastle, and passing behind the listen- 
 ing soldier, touched the singer on the shoulder. This was the 
 appointed signal, and John Rex, suddenly terminating his song 
 with a laugh, presented his fist in the face of the gaping Grimes. 
 "No noise!" he cried. "The brig's ours;" and ere Grimes 
 could reply, he was seized by Lyon and Riley, and bound 
 securely. 
 
 " Come on, lads ! " says Rex, " and pass the prisoner down 
 here. We've got her this time, I'll go bail ! " In obedience to 
 this order, the now gagged sentry was flung down the fore hatch- 
 way, and the hatch secured. " Stand on the hatchway, Porter," 
 cries Rex again ; " and if those fellows come up knock 'em 
 ddwn with a handspike. Lesly and Russen, forward to the 
 companion ladder ! Lyon, keep a look-out for the boat, and if 
 she comes too near, fire ! " 
 
 As he spoke the report of the first musket rang out. Barker 
 had apparently fired up the companion hatchway. 
 
 When Mr. Bates had gone below, he found Sylvia curled 
 upon the cushions of the state-room, reading. " Well, Missy ! " 
 he said, " we'll soon be on our way to papa." 
 
 Sylvia answered by asking a question altogether foreign to 
 the subject. " Mr. Bates," said she, pushing the hair out of 
 her blue eyes, " what's a coracle ! " 
 
 " A which.?" asked Mr. Bates. 
 
 "A coracle. C-o-r-a-c-l-e," said she, spelling it slowly. '"' 1 
 want to know." 
 
 The bewildered Bates shook his head. " Never heard of one, 
 Missy," said he, bending over the book. " What does it say ? " 
 
 " ' The ancient Britons,' " said Sylvia, reading gravely, " ' were 
 little better than barbarians. They painted their bodies with 
 woad,' — that's blue stuff, you know, Mr. Bates — ' and, seated 
 in their hght coracles of skin stretched upon slender wooden 
 frames, must have presented a wild and savage appearance.' " 
 
126 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 "Hah," said Mr. Bates, when this remarkable passage was 
 read to him, " that's very mysterious, that is. A corricle, a 
 cory — ," a bright hght burst upon him. "A curricle, you mean, 
 Miss ! It's a carriage ! I've seen 'em in Hy' Park, with young 
 bloods a drivin' of 'em." 
 
 " What are young bloods ? " asked Sylvia, rushing at this 
 " new opening." 
 
 "Oh, nobs ! Swell coves, don't you know," returned poor 
 Bates, thus again attacked. " Young men o' fortune that is, 
 that's given to doing it grand." 
 
 " I see," said Sylvia, waving her little hand graciously, 
 — " Noblemen and Princes and that sort of people. Quite so. 
 But what about coracle ? " 
 
 " Well," said the humbled Bates, " / think it's a carriage, 
 Missy. A sort of Pheayton, as they call it." 
 
 Sylvia, hardly satisfied, returned to the book. It was a little 
 mean-looking volume — a " Child's History of England," — and 
 after perusing it awhile with knitted brows, she burst into a 
 childish laugh. 
 
 "Why, my dear Mr. Bates !" she cried, waving the History 
 above her head in triumph, " what a pair of geese we are ! A 
 carriage / Oh you silly man ! It's a boat !" 
 
 " Is it ? " said Mr. Bates, in admiration of the intelligence of 
 his companion. " Who'd ha' thought that now ? Why couldn't 
 they call it a boat at once, then, and ha' done with it .-" " and he 
 was about to laugh also, when, raising his eyes, he saw in the open 
 doorway the figure of James Barker, with a musket in his hand. 
 
 " Hallo ! What's this 1 What do you do here, sir ? " 
 
 " Sorry to disturb yer ," says the convict, with a grin, " but you 
 must come along o' me, Mr. Bates." 
 
 Bates, at once comprehending that some terrible misfortune 
 had occurred, did not lose his presence of mind. One of the 
 cushions of the couch was under his right hand, and snatching 
 it up, he flung it across the little cabin full in the face of the 
 escaped prisoner. The soft mass struck the man with force suf- 
 ficient to blind him for an instant. The musket exploded harm- 
 lessly in the air, and ere the astonished Barker could recover his 
 footing. Bates had hurled him out of the cabin, and crying 
 " Mutiny ! " locked the cabin door on the inside. 
 
 The noise brought out Mrs. Vickers from her berth, and the 
 poor little student of English history ran into her anns. 
 
THE SEIZURE OF THE "OSPREY." 127 
 
 " Good heavens, Mr. Bates, what is it ? " 
 
 Bates, furious with rage, so far forgot himself as to swear. 
 " It's a mutiny, ma'am," said he. " Go back to your cabin and 
 lock the door. Those bloody villains have risen on us ! " Julia 
 Vickers felt her heart grow sick. Was she never to escape out 
 of this dreadful life ? " Go into your cabin, ma'am," says Bates 
 again, and don't move a finger till I tell ye. Maybe it ain't so 
 bad as it looks ; I've got my pistols with me, thank God, and 
 Mr. Frere '11 hear the shot any way. Mutiny ! On deck there ! " 
 he cried at the full pitch of his voice, and his brow grew damp 
 with dismay when a mocking laugh from above was the only 
 response. 
 
 Thrusting the woman and child into the state berth, the be- 
 wildered pilot cocked a pistol, and snatching a cutlass from the 
 arm stand fixed to the butt of the mast which penetrated the 
 cabin, he burst open the door with his foot, and rushed to the 
 companion ladder. Barker had retreated to the deck, and for 
 an instant he thought the way was clear, but Lesly and Russen 
 thrust him back with the muzzles of the loaded muskets. He 
 struck at Russen with the cutlass, missed him, and seeing the 
 hopelessness of the attack, was fain to retreat. 
 
 In the meanwhile. Grimes and the other soldier had loosed 
 themselves from their bonds, and encouraged by the firing, 
 which seemed to them a sign that all was not yet lost, made shift 
 to force up the forehatch. Porter, whose courage was none of 
 the fiercest, and who had been for years given over to that terror 
 of discipline which servitude induces, made but a feeble attempt 
 at resistance, and forcing the handspike from him, the sentry, 
 Jones, rushed aft to help the pilot. As Jones reached the waist, 
 Cheshire, a cold-blooded blue-eyed man, shot him dead. Grimes 
 fell over the corpse, and Cheshire, clubbing the musket — had he 
 another barrel he would have fired, — coolly battered his head as 
 he lay, and then seizing the body of the unfortunate Jones in his 
 arms, tossed it into the sea. " Porter, you lubber ! " he cried, 
 exhausted with the effort to lift the body, " come and bear a 
 hand with this other one ! " Porter advanced aghast, but just 
 then another occurrence claimed the villain's attention, and 
 poor Grimes's life was spared for that time. 
 
 Rex, inwardly raging at this unexpected resistance on the 
 part of the pilot, flung himself on the skylight, and tore it up 
 bodily. As he did so, Barker, who had reloaded his musket, 
 
128 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 fired down into the cabin. The ball passed through the state- 
 room door, and splintering the wood, buried itself close to the 
 golden curls of poor little Sylvia. It was this hair's-breadth 
 escape which drew from the agonized mother that shriek which, 
 pealing through the open stern window, had roused the soldiers 
 in the boat. 
 
 Rex, who, by the virtue of his dandyism, yet possessed some 
 abhorrence of useless crime, imagined that the crj' was one of 
 pam, and that Barker's bullet had taken deadly effect. " You've 
 killed the child, you villain !" he cried. 
 
 ."What's the odds .?" asked Barker sulkily. "She must die 
 any way, sooner or later." 
 
 Rex put his head down the skylight, and called on Bates to 
 surrender ; but Bates only drew his other pistol. " Would you 
 commit murder?" he asked, looking round with desperation in 
 his glance. 
 
 " No, no," cried some of the men, willing to blink the death 
 of poor Jones. " It's no use making things worse than they 
 are. Bid him come up, and we'll do him no harm." 
 
 " Come up, Mr. Bates," says Rex, " and I give you my word 
 you sha'n't be injured." 
 
 "Will you set the major's lady and child ashore, then ?" asked 
 Bates, sturdily facing the scowling brows above him. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Without injury? " continued the other, bargaining, as it were, 
 at the very muzzles of the muskets. 
 
 " Ay, ay ! It's all right ! " returned Russen. " It's our Uberty 
 we want, that's all." 
 
 Bates, hoping against hope for the return of the boat, en- 
 deavoured to gain time. " Shut down the skylight, then," said 
 he, with the ghost of an authority in his voice, " until I ask the 
 lady." 
 
 This, however, John Rex refused to do. " You can ask well 
 enough where you are," he said. 
 
 But there was no need for Mr. Bates to put a question. The 
 door of the state-room opened, and Mrs. Vickers appeared, 
 trembling, with Sylvia by her side. " Accept, Mr. Bates," she 
 said, " since it must be so. We should gain nothing by refusing. 
 We are at their mercy — God help us ! " 
 
 "Amen to that," says Bates under his breath, and then aloud, 
 " We agree ! " 
 
JOHN REX'S REVENGE. izg 
 
 "Put your pistols on the table, and come up, then," says Rex, 
 covering the table with his musket as he spoke. " Nobody shall 
 hurt you." 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 JOHN rex's revenge. 
 
 MRS. VICKERS, pale and sick with terror, yet sustaine4> 
 by that strange courage of which we have before 
 spoken, passed rapidly under the open skylight, and 
 prepared to ascend. Sylvia — her romance crushed by too 
 dreadful reality — clung to her mother with one hand, and with 
 the other pressed close to her little bosom the '' English History." 
 In her all-absorbing fear she had forgotten to lay it down. 
 
 " Get a shawl, ma'am, or something," says Bates, " and a hat 
 for Missy." 
 
 Mrs. Vickers looked back across the space beneath the open 
 skylight, and shuddering, shook her head. The men above 
 impatiently swore at the delay, and the three hastened on 
 deck. 
 
 "Who's to command the brig now?" asked undaunted Bates, 
 as they came up. 
 
 " I am," says John Rex ; ** and, with these brave fellows, I'll 
 take her round the world." 
 
 The touch of bombast was not out of place. It jumped so 
 far with the humour of the convicts that they set up a feeble 
 cheer, at which Sylvia frowned. Frightened as she was, the 
 prison-bred child was as much astonished at hearing convicts 
 cheer as a fashionable lady would be to hear her footman quote 
 poetry. Bates, however — practical and calm — took quite another 
 view of the case. The bold project, so boldly avowed, seemed 
 to him a sheer absurdity. The " Dandy " and a crew of nine 
 convicts navigate a brig round the world ! Preposterous ; why, 
 not a man aboard could work a reckoning ! His nautical fancy 
 pictured the Osprey helplessly rolling on the swell of the Southern 
 Ocean, or hopelessly locked in the ice of the Antarctic Seas, 
 and he dimly guessed at the fate of the deluded ten. Even if 
 they got safe to port, the chances of final escape were all against 
 
 9 
 
I30 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 them, for what account could they give of themselves ? Over- 
 powered by these reflections, the honest fellow made one last 
 effort to charm his captors back to their pristine bondage. 
 
 "Fools!" he cried, "do you know what you are about to do? 
 You will never escape. Give up the brig, and I will declare, 
 before my God, upon the Bible, that I will say nothing, but give 
 all good characters." 
 
 Lesly and another burst into a laugh at this wild proposition, 
 but Rex, who had weighed his chances well beforehand, felt the 
 force of the pilot's speech, and answered seriously. 
 
 " It's no use talking," he said, shaking his still handsome head. 
 " We have got the brig, and we mean to keep her. I can navi- 
 gate her, though I am no seaman, so you needn't talk further 
 about it, Mr. Bates. It's liberty we require." 
 
 " What are you going to do with us ?" asked Bates. 
 
 " Leave you behind." 
 
 Bates's face blanched. " What, heref^* 
 
 " Yes. It don't look a picturesque spot, does it ? And yet 
 /'ve lived here for some years ;" and he grinned. 
 
 Bates was silent. The logic of that grin was unanswerable. 
 
 " Come ! " cried the Dandy, shaking off his momentary 
 melancholy, " look alive there ! Lower away the jolly-boat. 
 Mrs. Vickers, go down to your cabin and get anything you 
 want. I am compelled to put you ashore, but I have no wish 
 to leave you without clothes." Bates listened, in a sort of 
 dismal admiration, at this courtly convict. He could not have 
 spoken like that had life depended on it. " Now, my little 
 lady," continued Rex, "run dowTi with your mamma, and 
 don't be frightened." 
 
 Sylvia flashed burning red at this indignity. " Frightened ! 
 If there had been anybody else here but women, you never 
 would have taken the brig. Frightened ! Let me pass, 
 prisoner J" 
 
 The whole deck burst into a great laugh at this, and poor 
 Mrs. Vickers paused, trembling for the consequences of the 
 child's temerity. To thus taunt the desperate convict who held 
 their lives in his hands seemed sheer madness. In the boldness 
 of tlie speech, however, lay its safeguard. Rex— whose politeness 
 was mere bravado — was stung to the quick by the reflection 
 upon his cour.ige, and the bitter accent with which the child had 
 pronounced the word prisoner (the generic name of convicts) 
 
JOHN REX'S REVENGE, 131 
 
 made him bite his lips with rage. Had he had his will, he 
 would have struck the little creature to the deck, but the hoarse 
 laugh of his companions warned him to forbear. There is 
 " public opinion" even among convicts, and Rex dared not vent 
 his passion on so helpless an object. As men do in such cases, 
 he veiled his anger beneath an affectation of amusement. In 
 order to show that he was not moved by the taunt, he smiled 
 upon the taunter more graciously than ever. 
 
 " Your daughter has her father's spirit, madam," said he to 
 Mrs. Vickers, with a bow. 
 
 Bates opened his mouth to listen. His ears were not large 
 enough to take in the words of this complimentary convict. He 
 began to think that he was the victim of a nightmare. He 
 absolutely felt that John Rex was a greater man at that moment 
 than John Bates. 
 
 As Mrs. Vickers descended the hatchway, the boat with Frere 
 and the soldiers came within musket range, and Lesly, ac- 
 cording to orders, fired his musket over their heads, shouting 
 to them to lay to. But Frere, boiling with rage at the manner 
 in which the tables had been turned on him, had determined 
 not to resign his lost authority without a struggle. Disregarding 
 the summons, he came straight on, with his eyes fixed on the 
 vessel. It was now nearly dark, and the figures on the deck were 
 indistinguishable. The indignant lieutenant could but guess at 
 the condition of affairs. Suddenly, from out of the darkness a 
 voice hailed him — 
 
 " Hold water I back water ! " it cried, and was then seemingly 
 choked in its owner's throat. 
 
 The voice was the property of Mr. Bates. Standing near the 
 side, he had observed Rex and Fair bring up a great pig of iron, 
 erst used as part of the ballast of the brig, and poise it on the 
 rail. Their intention was but too evident ; and honest Bates, 
 like a faithful watch-dog, barked to warn his master. Blood- 
 thirsty Cheshire caught him by the throat, and Frere, unheeding, 
 ran the boat alongside, under the very nose of the revengeful 
 Rex. 
 
 The mass of iron fell half in-board upon the now stayed boat, 
 and gave her sternway, with a splintered plank. 
 
 "Villains !" cried Frere, "would you swamp us?" 
 
 " Aye," laughed Rex, " and a dozen such as ye ! The brig's 
 ours, can't ye see, and w ^re your masters now ! '" 
 
132 HIS NATURAL LIFE 
 
 Frere, stifling an exclamation of rage, cried to the bow to 
 hook on, but the blow had driven the boat backward, and she 
 was already beyond arm's length of the brig. Looking up, he 
 saw Cheshire's savage face, and heard the click of the lock as he 
 cocked his piece. The two soldiers, exhausted by their long 
 pull, made no effort to stay the progress of the boat, and almost 
 before the swell caused by the plunge of the mass of iron had 
 ceased to agitate the water, the deck of the Osprey had become 
 invisible in the darkness. 
 
 Frere struck his fist upon the thwart in sheer impotence of 
 rage. "The scoundrels !" he said, between his teeth, "they've 
 mastered us. What do they mean to do next ? " 
 
 The answer came pat to the question. From the dark hull of 
 the brig broke a flash and a report, and a musket ball cut the 
 water beside them with a chirping noise. Between the black 
 indistinct mass which represented the brig, and the glimmering 
 water, was visible a white speck, which gradually neared them. 
 
 " Come alongside with ye ! " hailed a voice, " or it will be 
 worse for ye ! " 
 
 " They want to murder us," says Frere. " Give way, men ! " 
 
 But the two soldiers, exchanging glances one with the other, 
 pulled the boat's head round, and made for the vessel. " It's no 
 use, Mr. Frere," said the man nearest him, " we can do no good 
 now, and they won't hurt us, I dare say." 
 
 " You dogs, you are in league with them," bursts out Frere, 
 purple with indignation. " Do you mutiny ? " 
 
 " Come, come, sir," returned the soldier, sulkily, " this ain't 
 the time to bully ; and, as for mutiny, why, one man's about a3 
 good as another just now." 
 
 This speech from the lips of a man who, but a few minutes 
 before, would have risked his life to obey the orders of his officer, 
 did more than an hour's reasoning to convince Maurice Frere of 
 the hopelessness of resistance. His authority — born of circum- 
 stance, and supported by adventitious aid — had left him. The 
 musket shot had reduced him to the ranks. He was now no 
 more than any one else ; indeed, he was less than many, for 
 those who held the firearms were the ruling powers. With a 
 groan he resigned himself to his fate, and looking at the sleeve 
 of the undress uniform he wore, it seemed to him that virtue 
 had gone out of it. 
 
 When they reached the brig, they found that the jolly-boat 
 
JOHN REX'S REVENGE. 133 
 
 had been lowered and laid alongside. In her were eleven 
 persons : Bates, with forehead gashed, and hands bound, the 
 stunned Grimes, Russen and Fair pulling, Lyon, Riley, Cheshire, 
 and Lesly with muskets, and John Rex in th3 stem sheets, with 
 Bates's pistols in his trousers' belt, and a loaded musket across 
 his knees. The white object which had been seen by the men 
 in the whale-boat was a large white shawl which wrapped 
 Mrs, Vickers and Sylvia. 
 
 Frere muttered an oath of relief when he sawthis white bundle. 
 He had feared that the child was injured. By the direction of 
 Rex, the whale-boat was brought alongside the jolly-boat, and 
 Cheshire and Lesly boarded her. Lesly then gave his musket 
 to Rex, and bound Frere's hands behind him, in the same 
 manner as had been done for Bates. Frere attempted to resist 
 this indignity, but Cheshire, clapping his musket to his ear, 
 swore he would blow out his brains if he uttered another syllable ; 
 and Frere, catchingthe malignant eye of John Rex, remembered 
 how easily a twitch of the finger would pay off old scores, and 
 was silent. " Step in here, sir, if you please," said Rex, with 
 polite irony. " I am sorry to be compelled to tie you, but I must 
 consult my own safety as well as your convenience." Frere 
 scowled, and, stepping awkwardly into the jolly-boat, fell. 
 Pinioned as he was, he could not rise without assistance, and 
 Russen pulled him roughly to his feet, with a coarse laugh. In 
 his present frame of mind, that laugh galled him worse than his 
 bonds. 
 
 Poor Mrs. Vickers, with a woman's quick instinct, saw this, 
 and, even amid her own trouble, foundleisuretoconsole. " The 
 wretches ! " she said, under her breath, as Frere was flung down 
 beside her, " to subject you to such indignity ! " Sylvia said 
 nothing, and seemed to shrink from the lieutenant. Perhaps in 
 her childish fancy, she had pictured him as coming to her rescue, 
 armed cap-a-pie, and clad in dazzling mail, or, at the very least, 
 as a muscular hero, who should settle affairs out of hand by 
 sheer personal prowess. If she had entertained any such notion, 
 the reality must have struck coldly upon her senses. Mr. Frere, 
 purple, clumsy, and bound, was not at all heroic. 
 
 " Now, my lads," says Rex — who seemed to have endued the 
 cast-off authority of Frere — " we give you your choice. Stay at 
 Hell's Gates, or come with us ! " 
 
 The soldiers paused, irresolute. To join the mutineers 
 
134 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 meant a certainty of hard work, with a chance of ultimate 
 hanging. Yet to stay with the prisoners was — as far as they 
 could see — to incur the inevitable fate of starvation on a barren 
 coast. As is often the case on such occasions, a trifle sufficed 
 to turn the scale. The wounded Grimes, who was slowly re- 
 covering from his stupor, dimly caught the meaning of the 
 sentence, and in his obfuscated condition of intellect, must needs 
 make comment upon it. " Go with him, ye beggars ! " said he, 
 "and leave us honest men ! Oh, ye'll get a tying-up for this !" 
 
 The phrase "tying-up" brought with it recollection of the 
 worst portion of military discipline, the cat, and revived in the 
 minds of the pair already disposed to break the yoke that sat so 
 heavily upon them, a train of dismal memories. The life of a 
 soldier on a convict station was at that time a hard one. He 
 was often stinted in rations, and of necessity deprived of all 
 rational recreation, while punishment for offences was prompt 
 and severe. The companies drafted to the penal settlements 
 were not composed of the best material, and the pair had good 
 precedent for the course they were about to take. 
 
 " Come," says Rex, " I can't wait here all night. The wind is 
 freshening, and we must make the Bar. Which is it to be ? " 
 
 " We'll go with you ! " says the man who had pulled the 
 stroke in the whale-boat, spitting into the water with averted 
 face. Upon which utterance the convicts burst into joyous 
 oaths, and the pair were received with much hand-shaking. 
 
 Then Rex, with Lyon and Riley as a guard, got into the 
 whale-boat, and having loosed the two prisoners from their 
 bonds, ordered them to take the places of Russen and Fair. 
 The whale-boat was manned by the seven mutineers. Rex steer- 
 ing, Fair, Russen, and the two recruits pulling, and the other 
 four standing up, with their muskets levelled at the jolly-boat. 
 Their long slavery had begotten such a dread of authority in 
 these men, that they feared it even when it was bound and 
 menaced by four muskets. "Keep your distance!" shouted 
 Cheshire, as Frere and Bates, in obedience to orders, began to 
 pull the jolly-boat towards the shore ; and in this fashion was 
 the dismal little party conveyed to the mainland. 
 
 It was night when they reached it, but the clear sky began to 
 tlirill with a late moon as yet unarisen, and the waves, breaking 
 gently upon the beach, glimmered with a radiance born of their 
 own motion. Frere and Bates, jumping ashore, helped out Mrs. 
 
LEFT AT ''HELL'S GATES." 135 
 
 Vickers, Sylvia, and the wounded Grimes. This being done 
 under the muzzles of the muskets, Rex commanded that Bates 
 and Frere should push the jolly-boat as far as they could from 
 the shore, and Riley catching her by a boot-hook as she came 
 towards them, she was taken in tow. 
 
 "Now, boys," says Cheshire, with a savage delight, "three 
 cheers for old England and Liberty !" 
 
 Upon which a great shout went up, echoed by the grim hills 
 which had witnessed so many miseries. 
 
 To the wretched five, this exultant mirth sounded like a knell 
 of death. " Great God ! " cried Bates, running up to his knees 
 in water after the departing boats, " would you leave us here to 
 starve ? '' 
 
 The only answer was the jerk and dip of the retreating oars. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 LEFT AT "hell's GATES." 
 
 THERE is no need to dwell upon the mental agonies of 
 that miserable night. Perhaps, of all the five, the one least 
 qualified to endure it realized the prospect of suffering most 
 acutely. Mrs. Vickers — lay-figure and noodle as she was — had 
 the keen instinct of approaching danger, which is in her sex a 
 sixth sense. She was a woman and a mother, and owned to a 
 double capacity for suffering. Her feminine imagination pic- 
 tured all the horrors of death by famine, and having realized 
 her own torments, her maternal love forced her to live them 
 over again in the person of her child. Rejecting Bates's offer of 
 a pea-jacket and Frere's vague tenders of assistance, the poor 
 woman withdrew behind a rock that faced the sea, and, with 
 her daughter in her arms, resigned herself to her torturing 
 thoughts. Sylvia, recovered from her terror, was almost con- 
 tent, and, curled in her mother's shawl, slept To her little soul, 
 this midnight mystery of boats and muskets had all the flavour 
 of a romance. With Bates, Frere, and her mother so close to 
 her, it was impossible to be afraid ; besides, it was obvious that 
 Papa — the Supreme Being of the settlement — must at once 
 letum and severely punish the impertinent prisoners who had 
 
136 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 dared to insult his wife and child, and as Sylvia dropped off to 
 sleep, she caught herself, with some indignation, pitying the 
 mutineers for the tremendous scrape they had got themselves 
 into. How they would be flogged when Papa came back ! In 
 the mean time this sleeping in the open air was rather pleasant. 
 
 Honest Bates produced a piece of biscuit, and, with all the 
 generosity of his nature, suggested that this should be set aside 
 for the sole use of the two females, but Mrs. Vickers would not 
 hear of it. " We must all share alike," said she, with something 
 of the spirit that she knew her husband would have displayed 
 under like circumstance ; and Frere wondered at her apparent 
 strength of mind. Had he been gifted with more acuteness, he 
 would not have wondered ; for when a crisis comes to one of 
 two persons who have lived much together, the influence of the 
 nobler spirit makes itself felt. Frere had a tinder-box in his 
 pocket, and he made a fire with some dry leaves and sticks. 
 Grimes fell asleep, and the two men sitting at their fire dis- 
 cussed the chances of escape. Neither liked to openly broach 
 the supposition that they were finally deserted. It was con- 
 cluded between them that, unless the brig sailed in the night — 
 and the now risen moon showed her yet lying at anchor — the 
 convicts would return and bring them food. This supposition 
 proved correct, for about an hour after daylight they saw the 
 whale-boat pulling towards them. 
 
 A discussion had arisen amongst the mutineers as to the pro- 
 priety of at once making sail, but Barker, who had been one of 
 the pilot-boat crew, and knew the dangers of the Bar, vowed 
 that he would not undertake to steer the brig through the Gates 
 until morning ; and so the boats being secured astern, a strict 
 watch was set, lest the helpless Bates should attempt to rescue 
 the vessel. During the evening — the excitement attendant upon 
 the outbreak having passed away, and the magnitude of the 
 task before them being more fully apparent to their minds — a 
 feeling of pity for the unfortunate party on the mainland took 
 possession of them. It was quite possible that the Ospreyn\\'^\. 
 be recaptured, in whicli case five useless murders would have 
 been committed ; and however callous to bloodshed were the 
 majority of the ten, not one among them could contemplate in 
 cold blood, without a twinge of remorse, the death of the harm- 
 less child of the Commandant. John Rex, seeing how matters 
 were going, made haste to take to himscll the credit of mercy. 
 
LEFT AT "HELL'S GATES." 137 
 
 He ruled, and had always ruled, his ruffians not so much by 
 suggesting to them the course they should take, as by leading 
 them on the way they had aheady chosen for themselves. 
 
 " I propose," said he, " that we divide the provisions. There 
 are five of them and ten of us. Then nobody can blame us." 
 
 " Ay," said Porter, mindful of a similar exploit, " and if we're 
 taken, they can tell what we have done. Don't let our affair be 
 like that of the Cypress, to leave them to starve." 
 
 "Ay, ay," says Barker, "you're right I When Fergusson was 
 topped at Hobart Town, I heard old Troke say that if he'd not 
 refused to set the tucker ashore, he might ha' got off with a 
 whole skin." 
 
 Thus urged, by self-interest, as well as sentiment, to mercy, 
 the provision was got upon deck by daylight, and a division 
 made. The soldiers, with generosity bom of remorse, were for 
 giving half to the marooned men, but Barker exclaimed against 
 this. "When the schooner finds they don't get to head- 
 quarters, she's bound to come back and look for 'em," said he ; 
 "and we'll want all the tucker we can get, maybe, afore we 
 sights land," 
 
 This reasoning was admitted and acted upon. There was in 
 the harness-cask about fifty pounds of salt meat, and a third of 
 this quantity, together vnth half a small sack of flour, some tea 
 and sugar mixed together in a bag, and an iron kettle and pan- 
 nikin, was placed in the whale-boat. Rex, fearful of excesses 
 among his crew, had also lowered down one of the two small 
 puncheons of rum which the store room contained. Cheshire 
 disputed this, and stumbling over a goat that had been taken 
 on board from Philip Island, caught the creature by the leg, and 
 threw it into the sea, bidding Rex take that with him also. Rex 
 dragged the poor beast into the boat, and with this miscellaneous 
 cargo pushed off to the shore. The poor goat, shivering, began 
 to bleat piteously, and the men laughed. To a stranger it would 
 have appeared that the boat contained a happy party of fisher- 
 men, or coast settlers, returning with the proceeds of a day's 
 marketing. 
 
 Laying off as the wrater shallowed, Rex called to Bates to 
 come for the cargo, and three men with muskets standing up as 
 before, ready to resist any attempt at capture, the provisions, 
 goat and all, were carried ashore. " There 1 " says Rex, " you 
 can't say we've used you badly, for we've divided the provisions." 
 
ijS HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 The sight of this almost unexpected succour revived the courage 
 of the five, and they feh grateful. After the horrible anxiety 
 they had endured all that night, they were prepared to look 
 with kindly eyes upon the men who had come to their assist- 
 ance. 
 
 " Men," said Bates, with something like a sob in his voice, " I 
 didn't expect this. You are good fellows, for there ain't much 
 tucker aboard, I know." 
 
 " Yes," affirmed Frere, " you're good fellows." 
 
 Rex burst into a savage laugh. " Shut your mouth, you tyrant," 
 said he, forgetting his Dandyism in the recollection of his former 
 suffering. "It ain't for your benefit. You may thank the lady 
 and child for it." 
 
 Julia Vickers hastened to propitiate the arbiter of her daugh- 
 ter's fate. " We are obhged to you," she said, with a touch of 
 quiet dignity resembling her husband's; "and if I ever get back 
 safely, I will take care that your kindness shall be known." 
 
 The swindler and forger took off his leather cap with quite an 
 air. It was five years since a lady had spoken to him, and the 
 old time when he was Mr. Lionel Crofton, a " gentleman sports- 
 man," came back again for an instant At that moment, with 
 liberty in his hand, and fortune all before him, he felt his self- 
 respect return, and he looked the lady in the face without 
 flinching. 
 
 "I sincerely trust, madam," said he, "that you will get back 
 safely. May I hope for your good wishes for myself and my 
 companions?" 
 
 Listening, Bates burst into a roar of astonished enthusiasm. 
 " What a dog it is !" he cried. "John Rex, John Rex, you were 
 never made to be a convict, man !" 
 
 Rex smiled. " Good-bye, Mr. Bates, and God preserve 
 you!" 
 
 " Good-bye," says Bates, rubbing his hat off his face, " and 
 I — I — damme, I hope you'll get safe off — there ! — for liberty's 
 sweet to every man." 
 
 "Good-bye, prisoners I" says Sylvia, waving her handkerchief ; 
 "and I hope they won't catch you, too." 
 
 So, with cheers and waving of handkerchiefs, the boat de- 
 parted. 
 
 In the emotion which the apparently disinterested conduct of 
 John Rex had occasioned the exiles, all earnest thought of their 
 
LEFT AT '' HELVS GATES." 139 
 
 own position had vanished, and, strange to say, the prevailing 
 feeling was that of anxiety for the ultimate fate of the mutineers 
 But as the boat grew smaller and smaller in the distance, so did 
 their consciousness of their own situation grow more and more 
 distinct; and when at last the boat had disappeared in the 
 shadow of the brig, all started, as if from a dream, to the wake- 
 ful contemplation of their own case. 
 
 A council of war was held, with Mr. Frere at the head of it, 
 and the possessions of the little party were thrown into common 
 stock. The salt meat, flour, and tea were placed in a hollow 
 rock at some distance from the beach, and Mr. Bates was 
 appointed purser, to apportion to each, without fear or favour, 
 his stated allowance. The goat was tethered with a piece of 
 fishing line sufficiently long to allow her to browse. The cask 
 of rum, by special agreement, was placed in the innermost 
 recess of the rock, and it was resolved that its contents should 
 not be touched except in case of sickness, or in last extremity. 
 There was no lack of water, for a spring ran bubbling from the 
 rocks within a hundred yards of the spot where the party had 
 landed. They calculated that, with prudence, their provision 
 would last them for nearly four weeks. 
 
 It was found, upon a review of their possessions, that they 
 had among them three pocket knives, a ball of string, two pipes 
 and a fig of tobacco, a portion of fishing line, with hooks, and a 
 big jack-knife which Frere had taken to gut the fish he had 
 expected to catch. But they saw with dismay that there was 
 nothing which could be used axe- wise among the party. Mrs. 
 Vickers had her shawl, and Bates a pea-jacket, but Frere and 
 Grimes were without extra clothing. It was agreed that each 
 should retain his own property, with the exception of the fishing 
 lines, which were confiscated to the commonwealth. 
 
 Having made these arrangements, the kettle, filled with water 
 from the spring, was slung from three green sticks over the fire, 
 and a pannikin of weak tea, together with a biscuit, served out 
 to each of the party, save Grimes, who declared himself unable 
 to eat Breakfast over. Bates made a dam.per, which was 
 cooked in the ashes, and then another council was held as to 
 future habitation. 
 
 It was clearly evident that they could not sleep in the open 
 air. It was the middle of summer, and though no annoyance 
 ftoiu rain was apprehended, the heat in tlie middle of the day 
 
140 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 was most oppressive. Moreover, it was absolutely necessary 
 that Mrs. Vickers and the child should have some place to 
 themselves. At a little distance from the beach was a sandy 
 rise, that led up to the face of the cliff, and on the eastern side 
 of this rise grew a forest of young trees. Frere proposed to cut 
 down these trees, and make a sort of hut with them. It was 
 soon discovared, however, that the pocket knives were insuffi- 
 cient for this purpose, but by dint of notching the young saplings 
 and then breaking them down, they succeeded, in a couple ot 
 hours, in collecting wood enough to roof over a space between 
 the hollow rock which contained the provisions and another 
 rock, in shape like a hammer, which jutted out within five yards 
 of it. Mrs. Vickers and Sylvia were to have this hut as a sleep- 
 ing place, and Frere and Bates, lying at the mouth of the 
 larder, would at once act as a guard to it and them. Grimes 
 was to make for himself another hut where the fire had been 
 lighted on the previous night. 
 
 " When they got back to dinner, inspirited by this resolution, 
 they found poor Mrs. Vickers in great alarm. Grimes, who, by 
 reason of the dint in his skull, had been left behind, was walk- 
 ing about the sea-beach, talking mysteriously, and shaking his 
 fist at an imaginary foe. On going up to him, they discovered 
 that the blow had affected his brain, for he was delirious. 
 Frere endeavoured to soothe him, without effect ; and at last, 
 by Bates's advice, the poor fellow was rolled in the sea. The 
 cold bath quelled his violence, and, being laid beneath the shade 
 of a rock hard by, he fell into a condition of great muscular 
 exhaustion, and slept. 
 
 The damper was then portioned out by Bates, and, together 
 with a small piece of meat, it formed the dinner of the party. 
 Mrs. Vickers reported that she had observed a great commo- 
 tion on board the brig, and thought that the prisoners were 
 throwing overboard such portions of the cargo as were not 
 absolutely necessary to them, in order to lighten her. This 
 notion Bates declared to be correct, and further pointed out 
 that tlie mutineers had got out a kedge-anchor, and by hauling 
 on the kcdge-line, were giadually warping the brig down the 
 harbour. Before dinner was over a light breeze sprang up, and 
 the Osprey, running up the union-jack reversed, fired a musket, 
 either in farewell or triumph, and spreading her sails, disap- 
 peared round tiic western horn of the harbour. 
 
LEFT AT " HELL'S GATES." 141 
 
 Mrs. Vickers, taking Sylvia with her, went away a few paces, 
 and leaning against the rugged wall of her future home, wept 
 bitterly. Bates and Frere affected cheerfulness, but each felt 
 that he had hitherto regarded the presence of the brig as a sort 
 of safeguard, and had never fully realized his own loneliness 
 until now. 
 
 The necessity for work, however, admitted of no indulgence 
 of vain sorrow, and Bates setting the example, the pair worked 
 so hard that by nightfall they had torn down and dragged to- 
 gether sufficient brushwood to complete Mrs. Vickers's hut. 
 During the progress of this work they were often interrupted by 
 Grimes, who persisted in vague rushes at them, exclaiming 
 loudly against their supposed treachery in leaving him at the 
 mercy of the mutineers. Bates also complained of the pain 
 caused by the wound in his forehead, and that he was afflicted 
 with a giddiness which he knew not how to avert. By dint of 
 frequently bathing his head at the spring, however, he succeeded 
 in keeping on his legs, until the work of dragging together the 
 boughs was completed, when he threw himself on the ground, 
 and declared that he could rise no more. 
 
 Frere applied to him the remedy that had been so success- 
 fully tried upon Grimes, but the salt water inflamed his wound 
 and rendered his condition worse. Mrs. Vickers recommended 
 that a little spirit and water should be used to wash the cut, 
 and the cask was got out and broached for that purpose. Tea 
 and damper formed their evening meal ; and by the light of a 
 blazing fire, their condition looked less desperate. Mrs. Vickers 
 had set the pannikin on a flat stone, and dispensed the tea with 
 an affectation of dignity which would have been absurd, had it 
 not been heart-rending. She had smoothed her hair and pinned 
 the white shawl about her coquettishly ; she even ventured to 
 lament to Mr. Frere that she had not brought more clothes. 
 Sylvia was in high spirits, and scorned to confess hunger. 
 When the tea had been drunk, she fetched water from the 
 spring in the kettle, and bathed Bates's head with it. It was 
 resolved that, on the morrow, a search should be made for some 
 place from which to cast the fishing-line, and that one of the 
 number should fish daily. 
 
 The condition of the unfortunate Grimes now gave cause for 
 the greatest uneasiness. From maundering foolishly, he had 
 taken to absolute violence, and had to be watched by Frere. 
 
142 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 After much muttering and groaning, the poor IcUow at last 
 dropped off to sleep, and Frere, having assisted Bates to his 
 sleeping place in front of the rock, and laid him down on a heap 
 of green brushwood, prepared to snatch a few hours' slumber. 
 Wearied by excitement and the labours of the day, he slept 
 heavily, but, towards morning, was awakened by a strange 
 noise. 
 
 Grimes, whose delirium had apparently increased, had suc- 
 ceeded in forcing his way through the rude fence of brushwood, 
 and had thrown himself upon Bates with the ferocity of insanity. 
 Growling to himself, he had seized the unfortunate pilot by the 
 throat, and the pair were struggling together. Bates, weakened 
 by the sickness that had followed upon his wound in the head, 
 was quite unable to cope with his desperate assailant, but call- 
 ing feebly upon Frere for help, had made shift to lay hold upon 
 the jack-knife of which we have before spoken. Frere, starting 
 to his feet, rushed to the assistance of the pilot, but was too 
 late. Grimes, enraged by the sight of the knife, tore it from 
 Bates's grasp, and before Frere could catch his arm, plunged it 
 twice into the unfortunate man's breast. 
 
 " I'm a dead man ! " cried Bates faintly. 
 
 The sight of the blood, together with the exclamation of his 
 victim, recalled Grimes to consciousness. He looked in bewil- 
 derment at the bloody weapon, and then flinging it from him, 
 rushed away towards the sea, into which he plunged headlong. 
 
 Frere, aghast at this sudden and terrible tragedy, gazed after 
 him, and saw from out the placid water, sparkling in the bright 
 beams of morning, a pair of arms, with outstretched hands, 
 emerge ; a black spot, that was a head, uprose between these 
 stiffening arms, and then, with a horrible cry, the whole disap- 
 peared, and the bright water sparkled as placidly as before. 
 The eyes of the terrified Frere travelling back to the wounded 
 man, saw, midway between this sparkling water and the knife 
 that lay on the sand, an object that went far to explain the 
 maniac's sudden hurst of fury. The rum cask lay upon its side 
 by the remnants of last night's fire, and close to it was a clout, 
 with which the head of the wounded man had been bound. It 
 was evident that the poor creature, wandering in his delirium, 
 had come across the rum cask, drank a quantity of its contents, 
 and been maddened by the fiery spirit. 
 
 l-'rere hurried to the side of Bates, and lifting him up, strove 
 
LEFT AT '* HELLS GA TES." 143 
 
 to Staunch the blood that flowed from his chest. It would seem 
 that he had been resting himself on his left elbow, and that 
 Grimes, snatching the knife from his right hand, had stabbed 
 him twice in the right breast. He was pale and senseless, and 
 Frere feared that the wound was mortal. Tearing off his neck- 
 handkerchief, he endeavoured to bandage the wound, but found 
 that the strip of silk was insufficient for the purpose. The noise 
 had roused Mrs. Vickers, who, stifling her terror, made haste to 
 tear ofi" a portion of her dress, and with this a bandage of 
 sufficient width was made. Frere went to the cask to see if, 
 haply, he could obtain from it a litde spirit with which to moisten 
 the lips of the dying man, but it was empty. Grimes, after 
 drinking his fill, had overturned the unheaded puncheon, and 
 the greedy sand had absorbed every drop of liquor. Sylvia 
 brought some water from the spring, and Mrs. Vickers bathing 
 Bates's head with this, he revived a little. By-and-by Mrs. 
 Vickers milked the goat — she had never done such a thing before 
 in all her life — and the milk being given to Bates in a pannikin, 
 he drank it eagerly, but vomited it almost instantly. It was 
 evident that he was sinking from some internal injury. 
 
 None of the party had much appetite for breakfast, but Frere, 
 whose sensibilities were less acute than those of the others, ate 
 a piece of salt meat and damper. It struck him, with a curious 
 feeling of pleasant selfishness, that now Grimes had gone, the 
 allowance of provisions would be increased, and that if Bates 
 went also, it would be increased still further. He did not give 
 utterance to his thoughts, however, but sat with the woun.led 
 man's head on his knees, and brushed the settling flies from his 
 face. He hoped, after all, that the pilot would not die, for he 
 should then be left alone to look after the women. Perhaps 
 some such thought was agitating Mrs. Vickers also. As for 
 Sylvia, she made no secret of her anxiety. 
 
 " Don't die, Mr. Bates — oh, don't die ! " she said, standing 
 piteously near, but afraid to touch him. " Don't leave mamma 
 and me alone in this dreadful place ! " 
 
 Poor Bates of course said nothing, but Frere frowned heavily, 
 and Mrs. Vickers said, reprovingly, " Sylvia ! " just as if they 
 had been in the old house on distant Sarah Island. 
 
 In the afternoon Frere went away to drag together some wood 
 for the fire, and when he returned, he found the pilot near his 
 end. Mrs. Vickers said that for an hour he had lain without 
 
144 ii^S NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 motion, and almost without breath. The major's wife had seen 
 more than one death-bed, and was calm enough ; but poor little 
 Sylvia, sitting on a stone hard by, shook with terror. She had 
 a dim notion that death must be accompanied by violence. As 
 the sun sank, Bates rallied ; but the two watchers knew that it 
 was but the final flicker of the expiring candle. " He's going ! " 
 said Frere at length, under his breath, as though fearful of 
 awaking his half-slumbering soul. Mrs. Vickers, her eyes 
 streaming with silent tears, lifted the honest head, and moistened 
 the parched lips with her soaked handkerchief. A tremor shook 
 the once stalwart limbs, and the dying man opened his eyes. 
 For an instant he seemed bewildered, and then, looking from 
 one to the other, intelligence returned to his glance, and it was 
 evident that he remembered all. His gaze rested upon the pale 
 face of the affrighted Sylvia, and then turned to Frere. There 
 could be no mistaking the mute appeal of those eloquent eyes. 
 
 " Yes, I'll take care of her," said Frere. 
 
 Bates smiled, and then observing that the blood from his 
 wound had stained the white shawl of Mrs. Vickers, he made an 
 effort to move his head. It was not fitting that a lady's shawl 
 should be stained with the blood of a poor fellow like himself 
 The fashionable fribble, with quick instinct, understood the 
 gesture, and gently drew the head back upon her bosom. In 
 the presence of death the woman was womanly. For a moment 
 all was silent, and they thought he had gone ; but all at once he 
 opened his eyes, and looked round for the sea. 
 
 " Turn my face to it once more," he whispered : and as they 
 raised him, he inclined his ear to listen. " It's calm enough 
 here, God bless it," he said; "but I can hear the waves 
 a-breaking hard upon the Bar ! " 
 
 And so his head drooped, and he died. 
 
 As Frere relieved Mrs. Vickers from the weight of the corpse, 
 Sylvia ran to her mother. " Oh, mamma, mamma," she cried, 
 " why did God let him die when we wanted him so much ?" 
 
 Before it grew dark, Frere made shift to carry the body to the 
 shelter of some rocks at a little distance, and spreading the 
 jacket over the face, he piled stones upon it to keep it steady. 
 The march of events had been so rapid, that he scarcely realized 
 that since the previous evening two of the five human creatures 
 left in this wilderness had escaped from it. As he did realize it, 
 he began to wonder whose turn it would be next. 
 
LEFT AT "liELVS GATES." 145 
 
 Mrs. Vickers, worn out by the fatigue and excitement of the 
 day, retired to rest early ; and Sylvia, refusing to speak to Frere, 
 followed her mother. This manifestation of unaccountable 
 dislike on the part of the child hurt Maurice more than he cared 
 to own . He felt angry with her for not loving him, and yet he took 
 no pains to conciliate her. It was with a curious pleasure that 
 he remembered how she must soon look up to him as her chief 
 protector. Had Sylvia been a few years older, the young man 
 would have thought himself in love with her. 
 
 The following day passed gloomily. It was hot and sultry, 
 and a dull haze hung over the mountains. Frere spent the 
 morning in scooping a grave in the sand, in which to inter poor 
 Bates. Practically awake to his own necessities, he removed 
 such portions of clothing from the body as would be useful to 
 him, but hid them under a stone, not liking to let Mrs. Vickers 
 see what he had done. Having completed the grave by mid- 
 day, he placed the corpse therein, and rolled as many stones as 
 possible to the sides of the mound. In the afternoon he cast 
 the fishing-line from the point of a rock he had marked the day 
 before, but caught nothing. Passing by the grave, on his 
 return, he noticed that Mrs. Vickers had placed at the head 
 of it a rude cross, formed by tying two pieces of stick together. 
 
 After supper — the usual salt meat and damper — he lit an 
 economical pipe, and tried to talk to Sylvia. " Why won't you 
 be friends with me, Missy .? " he asked. 
 
 " I don't like you," said Sylvia. "You frighten me.'* 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " You are not kind. I don't mean that you do cruel things, 
 but you are — oh, I wish Papa was here 1 " 
 
 " Wishing won't bring him ! " says Frere, pressing his hoarded 
 tobacco together with prudent forefinger. 
 
 " There ! That's what I mean ! Is that kind ? ' Wishing 
 won't bring him ! ' Oh, if it only would ! " 
 
 " I didn't mean it unkindly," says Frere. " What a strange 
 child you are." 
 
 "There are persons," says Sylvia, "who have no Affinity for 
 each other. I read about it in a book Papa had, and I suppose 
 that's what it is. I have no Affinity for you. I can't help it, 
 can I?" 
 
 " Rubbish I " Frere returned. " Come here, and I'll tell you a 
 story.'' 
 
 10 
 
546 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 Mrs, Vickers had gone back to her cave, and the two were 
 alone by the fire, near which stood the kettle and the newly- 
 made damper. The child, with some show of hesitation, came 
 to him, and he caught and placed her on his knee. The moon 
 had not yet risen, and the shadows cast by the flickering fire 
 seemed weird and monstrous. The wicked wish to frighten 
 this helpless creature came to Maurice Frere. 
 
 " There was once," said he, " a Castle in an old wood, and in 
 this Castle there lived an Ogre, with great goggle eyes." 
 
 "You silly man !" said Sylvia, struggling to be free, "You 
 are trying to frighten me ! " 
 
 " And this Ogre lived on the bones of little girls. One day a 
 little girl was travelling the wood, and she heard the Ogre 
 coming. ' Haw ! haw ! Haw ! haw ! '" 
 " Mr. Frere, let me down ! " 
 " She was terribly frightened, and she ran, and ran, and r&.n, 
 
 until all of a sudden she saw " 
 
 A piercing scream burst from his companion. " Oh ! oh ! 
 What's that?" she cried, and clung to her persecutor. 
 
 On the other side of the fire stood the figure of a man. He 
 staggered forward, and then, falling on his knees, stretched out 
 his hands, and hoarsely articulated one word — " Food." It was 
 Rufus Dawes. 
 
 The sound of a human voice broke the spell of terror that was 
 on the child, and as the glow from the fire fell upon the tattered 
 yellow garments, she guessed at once the whole story. Not so 
 Maurice Frere. He saw before him a new danger, a new mouth 
 to share the scanty provision, and snatching a brand from 
 the fire he kept the convict at bay. But Rufus Dawes, glaring 
 round with wolfish eyes, caught sight of the damper resting 
 against the iron kettle, and made a clutch at it. Frere dashed 
 the brand in his face. " Stand back ! " he cried. "We have no 
 food to spare ! " 
 
 The convict uttered a savage cry, and raising the iron gad, 
 plunged forward desperately to attack this new enemy : but, 
 quick, as thought, the child glided past Frere, and snatching the 
 loaf, placed it in the hands of the starving man, with " Here, 
 poor prisoner, eat ! " and then, turning to Frere, she cast upon 
 him a glance so full of horror, indignation, and surprise, that 
 the man blushed and threw down the brand. 
 
 As for Rufus Dawes, the sudden apparition of this golden- 
 
MRr DAWES. 147 
 
 haired girl seemed to have transformed him. Allowing the loaf 
 to slip through his fingers, he gazed with haggard eyes at the 
 retreating figure of the child, and as it vanished into the dark- 
 ness outside the circle of firelight, the unhappy man sank his 
 face upon his blackened, homy hands, and burst into tears. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 "MR." DAWES. 
 
 THE coarse tones of Maurice Frere roused him. " What 
 do you want ? " he asked. 
 Rufus Dawes, raising his head, contemplated the figure 
 before him, and recognized it. " Is it/^« .?" he said, slowly. 
 
 "What do you mean? Do you know me?" asked Frere, 
 drawing back. But the convict did not reply. His momen- 
 tary emotion passed away, the pangs of hunger returned, and 
 greedily seizing upon the piece of damper, he began to eat in 
 silence. 
 
 "Do you hear, man?" repeated Frere, at length. "What 
 are you ? " 
 
 " An escaped prisoner. You can give me up in the morning. 
 I've done my best, and I'm beat." 
 
 This sentence struck Frere with dismay. The man did not 
 know that the settlement had been abandoned ! 
 
 " I cannot give you up. There is no one but myself and a 
 woman and child on the settlement." Rufus Dawes, pausing in 
 his eating, stared at him in amazement. " The prisoners have 
 gone away in the schooner. If you choose to remain free, you 
 can do so as far as I am concerned. I am as helpless as you 
 are." 
 
 " But how do you come here ? " 
 
 Frere laughed bitterly. To give explanations to convicts was 
 foreign to his experience, and he did not relish the task. In 
 this case, however, there was no help for it. " The prisoners 
 mutinied and seized the brig." 
 
 "What brig?" 
 
 " The Osprey." 
 
 A terrible light broke upon Rufus Dawes, and he began to 
 
HIS NATVKAL LIFE. 
 
 understand how he had again missed his chance. " Who took 
 her?" 
 
 "That double-dyed villain, John Rex," says Frere, giving 
 vent to his passion. " M-^ she sink, and bum, and " 
 
 "Have they gone, then ?" cried the miserable man, clutching 
 at his hair with a gesture of hopeless rage. 
 
 "Yes ; two days ago, and left us here to starve." 
 
 Rufus Dawes burst into a laugh so discordant that it made 
 the other shudder. " We'll starve together, Maurice Frere," 
 said he ; " for while you've a crust, I'll share it. If I don't get 
 liberty, at least I'll have revenge 1 " 
 
 The sinister aspect of this famished savage, sitting with his chin 
 on his ragged knees, rocking himself to and fro in the light of the 
 fire, gave Mr. Maurice Frere a new sensation. He felt as might 
 have felt that African hunter who, returning to his camp fire, 
 found a lion there. " Wretch ! " said he, shrinking from him, 
 " why should you wish to be revenged on me ? " 
 
 The convict turned upon him with a snarl. " Take care what 
 you say I I'll have no hard words. Wretch I If I am a wretch, 
 who made me one ? If I hate you and myself and the world, 
 who made me hate it? I was born free — as free as you are. 
 Why should I be sent to herd with beasts, and condemned to 
 this slavery, worse than death ? Tell me that, Maurice Frere — 
 tell me that I " 
 
 " I didn't make the laws," says Frere ; " why do you attack me ? '' 
 
 " Because you are what I was. You are free ! You can do 
 as you please. You can love, you can work, you can think. I 
 can only hate!" He paused as if astonished at himself, and 
 then continued, with a low laugh, " Fine words for a convict, 
 eh 1 Kut, never mind, it's all right, Mr. Frere ; we're equal now, 
 and I sha'n't die an hour sooner than you, though you are a ' free 
 man 'I " 
 
 Frere began to think that he was dealing with another mad- 
 man. " Die I There's no need to talk of dying," he said, as 
 soothingly as it was possible for him to say it. " Time enough 
 for that by-and by." 
 
 "Tlie-re sjioke W\c free man. We convicts have an advantage 
 over you gentlejnen. You are afraid of death ; we pray for it. 
 It is the best thing that can happen to us — Die I They were 
 going to hang me ouce. I wish they had. My God, I wish 
 they hafl 1 " 
 
•'^VA'." DAWES. 149 
 
 There was such a depth of agony in this terrible utterance 
 that Maurice Frere was appalled at it. "There, go and sleep, 
 my man," he said. "You are knocked up. We'll talk in the 
 morning." 
 
 " Hold on a bit ! " cried Rufus Dawes, with a coarseness of 
 manner altogether foreign to that he had just assumed. " Who's 
 with ye ? " 
 
 " The wife and daughter of the Commandant," replied Frere, 
 half afraid to refuse an answer to a question so fiercely put 
 
 " No one else ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Poor souls ! " said the convict, " I pity them." And then 
 he stretched himself, like a dog, before the blaze, and went to 
 sleep instantly. 
 
 Maurice Frere, looking at the gaunt figure of this addition to 
 the party, was completely puzzled how to act. Such a character 
 had never before come within the range of his experience. He 
 knew not what to make of the fierce, ragged, desperate man, 
 who wept and threatened by turns — who was now snarling in 
 the most repulsive bass of the convict gamut, and now calling 
 upon heaven in tones which were little less than eloquent. At 
 first he thought of precipitating himself upon the sleeping wretch 
 and pinioning him, but a second glance at the sinewy, though 
 wasted, limbs forbade him to follow out the rash suggestion of 
 his own fears. Then a horrible prompting — arising out of this 
 former cowardice — made him feel for the jack-knife with which 
 one murder had already been committed. The stock of pro- 
 visions was so scanty, and, after all, the lives of the woman and 
 child were worth more than that of this unknown desperado ! 
 But, to do him justice, the thought no sooner shaped itself than 
 he crushed it out. " We'll wait till morning, and see how he 
 shapes," said Frere to himself; and pausing at the brushwood 
 barricade, behind which the mother and daughter were clinging 
 to each other, he whispered that he was on guard outside, and 
 that the absconder slept. But when morning dawned, he found 
 that there was no need for alarm. The convict was lying in 
 ahnost the same position as that in which he had left him. ard 
 his eyes were closed. His threatening outbreak of the previous 
 night had been produced by the excitement of his sudden rescue, 
 and he was now incapable of violence. Frere advanced, and 
 shook him bv the shoulder. 
 
I50 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 " Not alive ! " cried the poor wretch, waking with a stait, and 
 raising his arm to strike. " Keep off ! " 
 
 " It's all right," said Frere. " No one is going to harm you, 
 Wake up." 
 
 Rufus Dawes glanced around him stupidly, and then remem- 
 bering what had happened, with a great effort, he staggered to 
 his feet. " I thought they'd got me ! " he said ; " but it's the 
 other way, I see. Come, let's have breakfast, Mr. Frere. I'm 
 hungry." 
 
 " You must wait," said Frere. " Do you think there is no 
 one here but yourself.?" 
 
 Rufus Dawes, swaying to and fro from weakness, passed his 
 shred of a cuff over his eyes. " I don't know anything about 
 it. I only know I'm hungry." 
 
 Frere stopped short. Now or never \/as the time to settle 
 future relations. Lying awake in the night, with the jack-knife 
 ready to his hand, he had decided on the course of action that 
 must be adopted. The convict should share with the rest, but 
 no more. If he rebelled at that, there must be a trial of strength 
 between them. "Look you here,'' he said. "We have but 
 barely enough food to serve us until help comes — if it does 
 come. I have the care of that poor woman and child, and I 
 will see fair play for their sakes. You shall share with us to our 
 last bit and drop ; but, by Heaven, you shall get no more." 
 
 The convict, stretching out his wasted arms, looked down 
 upon them with the uncertain gaze of a drunken man. " I am 
 weak now," he said. "You have the best of me ; " and then he 
 sank suddenly down upon the ground, exhausted. " Give me 
 drink," he moaned, feebly motioning with his hand. 
 
 Frere got him water in the pannikin, and having drunk it, he 
 smiled, and lay down to sleep again. Mrs. Vickers and Sylvia 
 coming out while he still slept, recognized him as the desperado 
 of the settlement. 
 
 " He was the most desperate man we had," said Mrs. Vickers, 
 identifying herself with her husband. "Oh, what shall we 
 do?" 
 
 "He won't do much harm," returned Frere, looking down at 
 the notorious ruffian with curiosity, " He's as near dead as can 
 be." 
 
 Sylvia looked up at him with her clear child's glance. " We 
 ronstn't let liim die," said she. " That would be murder." 
 
"7»//?." DAWES. 151 
 
 " No, no," returned Frere, hastily ; " no one wants him to die. 
 But what can we do ?" 
 
 "I'll nurse him !" cried Sylvia. 
 
 Frere broke into one of his coarse laughs, the first one that 
 he had indulged in since the mutiny. " You nurse him ! By 
 George, that's a good one !" The poor little child, weak and 
 excitable, felt the contempt in the tone, and burst into a passion 
 of sobs. "Why do you insult me, you wicked man.'' The 
 poor fellow's ill, and he'll — he'll die, like Mr. Bates. Oh, 
 mamma, mamma, let's go away by ourselves." 
 
 Frere swore a great oath, and walked away. He went into 
 the little wood under the cliff, and sat down. He was full of 
 strange thoughts, which he could not express, and which he 
 had never owned before. The dislike the child bore to him 
 made him miserable, and yet he took delight in torment- 
 ing her. He was conscious that he had acted the part of a 
 coward the night before in endeavouring to frighten her, and 
 that the detestation she bore him was well earned ; but he 
 had fully determined to stake his life in her defence, should the 
 savage who had thus come upon them out of the desert attempt 
 violence, and he was unreasonably angry at the pity she had 
 shown. It was not fair to be thus misinterpreted. But he had 
 done wrong to swear, and more so in quitting them so abruptly. 
 The consciousness of his wrong-doing, however, only made him 
 more confirmed in it. His native obstinacy would not allow 
 him to retract what he had said — even to himself. Walking 
 along, he came to Bates's grave, and the cross upon it. Here 
 was another evidence of ill-treatment. She had always preferred 
 Bates. Now that Bates was gone, she must needs transfer her 
 childish affections to a convict. " Oh," said Frere to himself, 
 with pleasant recollections of many coarse triumphs in love- 
 making, " if you were a woman, you little vixen, I'd make you 
 love me ! " When he had said this, he laughed at himself for 
 his folly — " He was turning romantic ! " 
 
 When he got back, he found Dawes stretched upon the brush- 
 wood, with Sylvia sitting near him. 
 
 " He is better," said Mrs. Vickers, disdaining to refer to the 
 scene of the morning. " Sit down and have something to eat, 
 Mr. Frere." 
 
 " Are you better ? " asked Frere, abruptly. 
 
 To his surprise, the convict answered quite civilly, "I shall 
 
152 
 
 HTS NATURAL LIFF. 
 
 be strong again in a day or two, and then I can help you, 
 sir." 
 
 "Help me? How?" 
 
 " To build a hut here for the ladies. And well live here all 
 our lives, and never go back to the sheds any more." 
 
 " He has been wandering a little," said Mrs Vickers. " Poor 
 fellow, he seems quite well behaved." 
 
 The convict began to sing a little German song, and to beat 
 tliC refrain with his hand. Frere looked at him with curiosity. 
 " I wonder what the story of that man's life has been," he said. 
 " A queer one, I'll be bound." 
 
 Sylvia looked up at him with a forgiving smile. 'I'll ask 
 him when he gets weU," she said, "and if you are good, I'll teU 
 you, Mr. Frere." 
 
 Frere accepted the proffered friendship. " I am a great brute, 
 Sylvia, sometimes, ain't I ? " he said, " but I don't mean it." 
 
 "You are," returned Sylvia, frankly, "but let's shake hands, 
 and be friends. It's no use quarrelling v/hen there are only 
 four of us, is it ? 
 
 And in this way was Rufus Dawes admitted a member of the 
 family circle. 
 
 Within a week from the night on which he had seen the smoke 
 of Frere's fire, the convict had recovered his strength, and had 
 become an important personage. The distrust with which he had 
 been at first viewed had worn off, and he was no longer an outcast, 
 to be shunned and pointed at, or to be referred to in whispers. 
 He had abandoned his rough manner, and no longer threatened 
 or complained, and though at times a profound melancholy 
 would oppress him, his spirits were more even than those of 
 Frere, who was often moody, sullen, and overbearing. Rufus 
 Dawes was no longer the brutalized wretch who had plunged 
 into the dark waters of the bay to escape a life he loathed, and 
 , had alternately cursed and wept in the solitudes of the forests. 
 He was an active member of society — a society of four — and he 
 began to regain an air of independence and authority. This 
 change had been wrought by the influence of little Sylvia. 
 Recovered from the weakness consequent upon this terrible 
 journey, Rufus Dawes had experienced for the first time in six 
 years the soothing power of kindness. He had now an object 
 to live for beyond himself. He was of use to somebody, and 
 had he died, he would have been regretted. To us this means 
 
"iWe." DAWES. 153 
 
 little, to this unhappy man it meant everything. He found, to 
 his astonishment, that he was not despised, and that, by the 
 strange concurrence of circumstances, he had been brought 
 into a position in which his convict experiences gave him 
 authority. He was skilled in all the mysteries of the prison 
 sheds. He knew how to sustain life on as little food as possible. 
 He could fell trees without an axe, bake bread without an oven, 
 build a weather-proof hut without bricks or mortar. From the 
 patient he became the adviser ; and from the adviser, the com- 
 mander. In the semi-savage state to which these four human 
 beings had been brought, he found that savage accomplishments 
 were of most value. Might was Right, and Maurice Frere's 
 authority of gentility soon succumbed to Rufus Dawes's autho- 
 rity of knowledge. 
 
 As the time wore on, and the scanty stock of provisions de- 
 creased, he found that his authority grew more and more power- 
 '"ul. Did a question arise as to the qualities of a strange plant, 
 it was Rufus Dawes who could pronounce upon it. Were fish 
 to be caught, it was Rufus Dawes who caught them. Did Mrs, 
 Vickers complain of the instability of her brushwood hut, it 
 was Rufus Dawes who worked a wicker shield, and plastering 
 it with cfay, produced a wall that defied the keenest wind. He 
 made cups out of pine-knots, and plates out of bark-strips. He 
 worked harder than any three, men. Nothing daunted him, 
 nothing discouraged him. When Mrs. Vickers fell sick, from 
 anxiety and insufficient food, it was Rufus Dawes who gathered 
 fresh leaves for her couch, who cheered her by hopeful words, 
 who voluntarily gave up half his own allowance of meat that 
 she might grow the stronger on it. The poor woman and her 
 child called him "Mr." Dawes. 
 
 Frere watched all this with dissatisfaction that amounted at 
 times to positive hatred. Yet he could say nothing, for he 
 could not but aclmowledge that, beside Dawes, he was incap- 
 able. He even submitted to take orders from this escaped 
 convict — it was so evident that the escaped convict knew better 
 than he. Sylvia began to look upon Dawes as a second Bates. 
 He was, moreover, all her own. She had an interest in him, for 
 she had nursed and protected him. If it had not been for her, 
 this prodigy would not have lived. He felt for her an absorbing 
 affection that v/as almost a passion. She was his good angel, 
 his protectress, his glimpse of heaven. She had given him food 
 
E54 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 when he was starving, and had believed in him when the 
 world — the world of four — had looked coldly on him. He 
 would have died for her, and, for love of her, hoped for the 
 vessel which should take her back to freedom and give him 
 again to bondage. 
 
 But the days stole on, and no vessel appeared. Each day 
 they eagerly scanned the watery horizon ; each day they longed 
 to behold the bowsprit of the returning Ladybird glide past the 
 jutting rock that shut out the view of the harbour — but in vain. 
 Mrs. Vickers's illness increased, and the stock of provisions 
 began to run short. Dawes talked of putting himself and Frere 
 on half allowance. It was evident that, unless succour came in 
 a few days, they must starve. 
 
 Frere mooted all sorts of wild plans for obtaining food. He 
 would make a journey to the settlement, and, swimming the 
 estuary, search if haply any casks of biscuit had been left be- 
 hind in the hurry of departure. He would set spnnges for the 
 seagulls, and snare the pigeons at Liberty Point. But al these 
 proved impracticable, and with blank faces they watched their 
 bag of flour grow smaller and smaller daily. Then the notion 
 of escape was broached. Could they construct a raft? Im- 
 possible without nails or ropes. Could they build a boat? 
 Equally impossible for the same reason. Could they raise a 
 fire sufficient to signal a ship ? Easily ; but what ship would 
 come within reach of that doubly-desolate spot? Nothing 
 could be done but wait for a vessel, which was sure to come 
 for them sooner or later j and, growing weaker day by day 
 they waited. 
 
 One day Sylvia was sitting in the sun reading the " English 
 History," which, by the accident of fright, she had brought 
 with her on the night of the mutiny. " Mr. Frere," said she, 
 suddenly, "what is an alchemist?" 
 
 "A man who makes gold/' was Frere's not very accurate 
 definition. 
 
 "Do you know one ?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Do you, Mr. Dawes ?" 
 
 " I knew a man once who thought himself one." 
 
 " Wiiat ! A man who made gold ?" 
 
 " After a fashion." 
 
 " But did he w/rt/'^gold ?" persisted Sylvia. 
 
WHAT THE SEAWEED SUGGESTED. 155 
 
 " No, not absolutely make it. But he was, in his worship of 
 money, an alchemist for all that." 
 
 "What became of him ?" 
 
 "I don't know," said Dawes, with so much constraint in his 
 tone that the child instinctively turned the subject. 
 
 "Then, alchemy is a very old art?" 
 
 "Oh, yes." 
 
 "Did the Ancient Britons know it ?" 
 
 " No, not so old as that." 
 
 Sylvia suddenly gave a little scream. The remembrance of 
 the evening when she read about the Ancient Britons to poor 
 Bates came vividly into her mind, and though she had since re- 
 read the passage that had then attracted her attention a hundred 
 times, it had never before presented itself to her in its full signi- 
 ficance. Hurriedly turning the well-thumbed leaves, she read 
 aloud the passage which had provoked remark : — 
 
 "The Ancient Britons were little better than Barbarians. 
 "They painted their bodies with Woad, and, seated in their 
 "light coracles of skin stretched upon slender wooden frames, 
 "must have presented a wild and savage appearance." 
 
 "A coracle ! That's a boat ! Can't we make a coracle, Mr. 
 Dawes ?" 
 
 CHAPTER Xni. 
 
 WHAT THE SEAWEED SUGGESTED. 
 
 THE question gave the marooned party new hopes. 
 Maurice Frere, with his usual impetuosity, declared 
 that the project was a most feasible one, and wondered — 
 as such men will wonder — that it had never occurred to him 
 before. "It's tne simplest thing "in the world!" he cried. 
 " Sylvia, you have saved us ! " But upon taking the matter 
 into more earnest consideration, it became apparent that they 
 were as yet a long way from the realization of their hopes. To 
 make a coracle of skins seemed sufficiently easy, but how to 
 obtain the skins ! The one miserable hide of the unlucky she- 
 goat was utterly inadequate for the purpose. Sylvia — her face 
 beaming with hope of escape, and with delight at having been 
 the means of suggesting it — watched narrowly the countenance 
 
158 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 of Rufus Dawes, but she marked no answering gleam of joy in 
 those downcast eyes. " Can't it be done, Mr. Dawes ? " she 
 asked, trembling for the reply. 
 The convict knitted his brows gloomily. 
 " Come, Dawes !" cried Frere, forgetting his enmity for an 
 instant, in the flash of new hope, " can't you suggest some- 
 thing?" 
 
 Rufus Dawes, thus appealed to as the acknowledged Head 
 of the little society, felt a pleasant thrill of self-satisfaction. " I 
 don't know," he said, " I must think of it. It looks easy, and 
 
 yet " He paused as something in the water caught his eye 
 
 It was a mass of bladdery seaweed that the returning tide was 
 wafting slowly to the shore. This object, which would have 
 passed unnoticed at any other time, suggested to Rufus Dawes 
 a new idea. " Yes," he added slowly, with a change of tone, 
 " it may be done. I think I see my way." 
 
 The others preserved a respectful silence until he should 
 speak again. " How far do you think it is across the bay ? " 
 he asked of Frere. 
 
 "What, to Sarah Island?" 
 " No, to the Pilot Station." 
 " About four miles." 
 
 The convict sighed. " Too far to swim now, though I might 
 have done it once. But this sort of life weakens a man. It 
 must be done after all." 
 " What are you going to do ? " asked Frere. 
 "To kill the goat." 
 
 Sylvia uttered a little cry ; she had become fond of her dumb 
 companion. " Kill Nanny ! Oh, Mr. Dawes ! What for ? " 
 
 " I am going to make a boat for you," he said ; " and I want 
 hides, and thread, and tallow." 
 
 A few weeks back Maurice Frere would have laughed at such 
 a sentence, but he had begun now to comprehend that this 
 escaped convict was not a man to be laughed at, and though 
 he detested him for his superiority, he could not but admit that 
 he was superior. 
 
 " You can't get more than one hide off a goat, man ? " he 
 sn.id, with an inquiring tone in his voice — as though it was just 
 possible that such a marvellous being as Dawes could get a 
 second hide, by virtue of some secret process known only to 
 himself. 
 
WHAT THE SEAWEED SUGGESTED. 157 
 
 " I am going to catch other goats." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 "At the Pilot Station." 
 
 " But how are you going to get there ? " 
 
 " Float across. Come, there is no time for questioning I Go 
 and cut down some saplings, and let us begin ! " 
 
 The lieutenant-master looked at the convict prisoner with 
 astonishment, and then gave way to the power of knowledge, 
 and did as he was ordered. Before isundown that evening, the 
 carcase of poor Nanny, broken into various most unbutcherly 
 fragments, was hanging on the nearest tree ; and Frere, return- 
 ing with as many young saplings as he could drag together, 
 found Rufus Dawes engaged in a curious occupation. He had 
 killed the goat, and having cut oflEits head close under the jaws, 
 and its legs at the knee-joint, had extracted the carcase through 
 a slit made in the lower portion of the belly, which slit he had 
 now sewn together with string. This proceeding gave him a 
 rough bag, and he was busily engaged in filling this bag with 
 such coarse grass as he could collect. Frere observed, also, 
 that the fat of the animal was carefully preserved, and the in- 
 testines had been placed in a pool of water to soak. 
 
 The convict, however, declined to give information as to 
 what he intended to do. "It's my own notion," he said. "Let 
 me alone. I may make a failure of it." Frere, on being 
 pressed by Sylvia, affected to know all about the scheme, but 
 to impose silence on himself. He was galled to think that a 
 convict brain should contain a mystery which he might not 
 share. 
 
 On the next day, by Rufus Dawes's directions, Frere cut 
 down some rushes that grew about a mile from the camping 
 ground, and brought them in on his back. This took him 
 nearly half a day to accomplish. Short rations were beginning 
 to tell upon his physical powers. The convict, on the other 
 hand, trained by a woeful experience in the Boats, to endurance 
 of hardship, was slowly recovering his original strength. 
 
 " What are they for ? " asked Frere, as he flung the bundles 
 down. 
 
 His master condescended to reply. " To make a float." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 The other shrugged his broad shoulders. "You are very 
 dull, Mr. Frere. I am going to swim over to the Pilot Station, 
 
IS8 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 and catch some of those goats. / can get across on the stuffed 
 skin, but I must float them back on the reeds." 
 
 " How the doose do you mean to catch 'em?" asked Frere, 
 wiping the sweat from his brow. 
 
 The convict motioned to him to s,pproach. He did so, and 
 saw that his companion was cleaning the intestines of the goat. 
 The outer membrane having been peeled off, Rufus Dawes was 
 turning the gut inside out. This he did by turning up a short 
 piece of it, as though it were a coat-sleeve, and dipping the 
 tumed-up cuff into a pool of water. The weight of the water 
 pressing between the cuff and the rest of the gut, bore down a 
 further portion ; and so, by repeated dippings, the whole length 
 was turned inside out. The inner membrane having been 
 scraped away, there remained a fine transparent tube, which 
 was tightly twisted, and set to dry in the sun. 
 
 " There is the catgut for the noose," said Dawes. " I learnt 
 that trick at the settlement Now come here." 
 
 Frere, following, saw that a fire had been made between two 
 stones, and that the kettle was partly sunk in the ground near 
 it. On approaching the kettle, he found it full of smooth 
 pebbles. 
 
 "Take out those stones," said Dawes. 
 
 Frere obeyed, and saw at the bottom of the kettle a quantity 
 of sparkhng white powder, and the sides of the vessel crusted 
 with the same material. 
 
 " What's that ?" he asked. 
 
 « Salt" 
 
 " How did you get it ? " 
 
 " I filled the kettle with seawater, and then heating those 
 pebbles red-hot in the fire, dropped them into it. We could 
 have caught the steam in a cloth and wrung out fresh water had 
 we wished to do so. But, thank God, we have plenty." 
 
 Frere started. " Did you learn that at the settlement, too ? " 
 he asked. 
 
 Rufus Dawes laughed, with a sort of bitterness in his tones. 
 
 "Do you think I have been at the 'settlement' all my life? 
 The thing is very simple ; it is merely evaporation." 
 
 Frere burst out in sudden, fretful admiration : " What a 
 fellow you are, Dawes ! What are you — I mean, what have you 
 been ? " 
 
 A triumphant light came into the other's face, and for the 
 
A WONDERFUL DAY'S WORK. 
 
 159 
 
 instant he seemed about to make some startling revelation. 
 But the light faded, and he checked himself with a gesture of 
 pain. 
 
 " I am a convict. Never mind what I have been. A sailor, 
 shipbuilder, prodigal, vagabond — what does it matter ? It won't 
 alter my fate, will it ? " 
 
 " If we get safely back," says Frere, " I'll ask for a free pardon 
 for you. You deserve it." 
 
 " Come," returned Dawes, with a discordant laugh. " Let us 
 wait until we do get back." 
 
 " You don't believe me ? " 
 
 " I don't want favour at _y(3;^r hands," he said, with a return of 
 the old fierceness. " Let us get to work. Bring up the rushes 
 here, and tie them with a fishing-line." 
 
 At this instant Sylvia came up. 
 
 " Good afternoon, Mr. Dawes. Hard at work ? Oh ! what's 
 this in the kettle?" 
 
 The voice of the child acted like a charm upon Rufiis Dawes. 
 He smiled quite cheerfully. 
 
 " Salt, miss. I am going to catch the goats with that." 
 
 " Catch the goats ! How ? Put it on their tails .? " she cried, 
 merrily. 
 
 "Goats are fond of salt, and when I get over to the Pilot 
 Station, I shall set traps for them baited with this salt. When 
 they come to lick it, I shall have a noose of catgut ready to 
 catch them — do you understand ? ' 
 
 " But how will you get across ? 
 
 " You will see to-morrow." 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 A V/ONDERFUL DAY'S WORIC 
 
 THE next morning Rufus Dawes was stirring by daylight. 
 He first got his catgut wound upon a piece of stick, and 
 then, having moved his frail floats alongside the little rock 
 that served as a pier, he took a fishing-line and a larger piece 
 of stick, and proceeded to draw a diagram on the sand. This 
 diagram when completed represented a rude outline of a punt, 
 
i6o mS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 eight feet long and three broad. At certain distances were eight 
 points — four on each side — into which small willow rods were 
 driven. He then awoke Frere, and showed the diagram to 
 him. 
 
 "Get eight stakes of celery-top pine," he said. "You can 
 burn them where you cannot cut them, and drive a stake into 
 the place of each of these willow wands. When you have done 
 that, collect as many willows as you can get. I shall not be 
 back until to-night. Now give me a hand with the floats." 
 
 Frere, coming to the pier, saw Dawes strip himself, and piling 
 his clothes upon the stuffed goat- skin, stretch himself upon the 
 reed bundles, and, paddling with his hands, push off from the 
 shore. The clothes floated high and dry, but the reeds, de- 
 pressed by the weight of the body, sank so that the head of the 
 convict alone appeared above water. In this fashion he gained 
 the middle of the current, and the out-going tide swept him 
 down towards the mouth of the harbour. 
 
 Frere, sulkily admiring, went back to prepare the breakfast — 
 they were on half rations now, Dawes having forbidden the 
 slaughtered goat to be eaten, lest his expedition should prove 
 unsuccessful — wondering at the chance which had thrown this 
 convict in his way. "Parsons would call it 'a special provi- 
 dence,' " he said to himself. " For if it hadn't been for him, we 
 should never have got thus far. If his ' boat ' succeeds, we're all 
 right, I suppose. He's a clever dog. I wonder who he is." 
 His training as a master of convicts made him think how 
 dangerous such a man would be on a convict station. It would 
 be difficult to keep a fellow of such resources. "They'll have 
 to look pretty sharp after him if they ever get him back," he 
 thought. " I'll have a fine tale to tell of his ingenuity." The 
 conversation of the previous day occurred to him. " I pro- 
 mised to ask for a free pardon. He wouldn't have it though. 
 Too proud to accept it at my hands ! How confoundedly 
 impudent a little liberty makes these beggars ! Wait until we 
 get back. I'll teach him his place ; for, after all, it is his own 
 liberty that he is working for as well as mine — I mean, ours." 
 Then a thought came into his head that was in every way 
 worthy of him. "Suppose we took the boat, and left him 
 behind !" The notion seemed so ludicrously wicked, that he 
 laughed involuntarily. 
 " \ATiat is it, Mr. Frere ? " 
 
A WONDERFUL DAYS WORK. i6i 
 
 " Oh, it's you, Sylvia, is it ? Ha, ha, ha ! I was thinking of 
 something — something- funny." 
 
 " Indeed," said Sylvia, " I am glad of that. Where's Mr. 
 Dawes ? " 
 
 Frere was displeased at the interest with which she asked the 
 question. 
 
 "You are always thinking of that fellow. It's Dawes, Dawes, 
 Dawes, all day long. He has gone." 
 
 " Oh ! " with a sorrowful accent. " Mamma wants to see 
 him." 
 
 " What about ? " says Frere roughly. 
 
 " Mamma is ill, Mr. Frere." 
 
 " Dawes isn't a doctor. What's the matter with her ? " 
 
 " She is worse than she was yesterday. I don't know what is 
 the matter." 
 
 Frere, somewhat alarmed, strode over to the little cavern. 
 
 The "lady of the Commandant" was in a strange plight. 
 The cavern was lofty, but narrow. In shape it was three 
 cornered, having two sides open to the wind. The ingenuity 
 of Rufus Dawes had closed these sides with wicker-work and 
 clay, and a sort of door of interlaced brushwood hung at one of 
 them. Frere pushed open this door and entered. The poor 
 woman was lying on a bed of rushes strewn over young brush- 
 wood, and was moaning feebly. From the first she had felt the 
 privation to which she was subjected most keenly, and the 
 mental anxiety from which she suffered increased her physical 
 debility. The exhaustion and lassitude to which she had 
 partially succumbed soon after Dawes's arrival, had now com- 
 pletely overcome her^ and she was unable to rise. 
 
 " Cheer up, ma'am," said Maurice, with an assumpticm of 
 heartiness. " It will be all right in a day or two." 
 
 " Is it you ? I sent for Mr. Dawes." 
 
 " He is away just now. I am making a boat. Did not 
 Sylvia tell you ? " 
 
 " She told me that he was making one." 
 
 " Well I — that is we — are making it. He will be back again 
 to-night. Can I do anything for you ? " 
 
 " No, thank you. I only wanted to know how he was getting 
 on. I must go soon — if I am to go. Thank you, Mr. Frere, 
 I am much obliged to you. This is a — he-e — dreadful place to 
 have visitors, isn't it ? " 
 
l62 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 " Never mind," said Frere, again, " you vviii be back in 
 Hobart Town in a few days now. We are sure to get picked 
 up by a ship. But you must cheer up. Have some tea or 
 something." 
 
 " No, thank you — I don't feel well enough to eat. I am 
 tired." 
 
 Sylvia began to cry. 
 
 " Don't cry, dear. I shall be better by-and-by. Oh, I wish 
 Mr. Dawes was back." 
 
 Maurice Frere went out indignant. This " Mr." Dawes was 
 everybody, it seemed, and he was nobody. Let them wait a 
 little. All that day, working hard to carry out the convict's 
 directions, he meditated a thousand plans by which he could 
 turn the tables. He would accuse Dawes of violence. He 
 would demand that he should be taken back as an "absconder." 
 He would insist that the law should take its course, and that 
 the " death " which was the doom of all who were caught in the 
 act of escape from a penal settlement, should be enforced. Yet 
 if they got safe to land, the marvellous courage and ingenuity 
 of the prisoner would tell strongly in his favour. The woman 
 and child would bear witness to his tenderness and skill, and 
 plead for him. As he had said, the convict deserved a pardon. 
 The mean, bad man, burning with wounded vanity and unde- 
 fined jealousy, waited for some method to suggest itself, by 
 which he might claim the credit of the escape, and snatch from 
 the prisoner, who had dared to rival him, the last hope of 
 freedom. 
 
 Rufus Dawes, drifting with the current, had allowed himself 
 to coast along the eastern side of the harbour until the Pilot 
 Station appeared in view on the opposite shore. By this time 
 it was nearly seven o'clock. He landed at a sandy cove, and 
 drawing up his raft, proceeded to unpack from among his 
 garments a piece of damper. Having eaten sparingly, and 
 dried himself in the sun, he replaced the remains of his break- 
 fast, and pushed his floats again into the water. The Pilot 
 Station lay some distance below him, on the opposite shore. 
 He had purposely made his second start from a point which 
 would give him this advantage of position ; for had he attempted 
 to paddle across at right angles, the strength of the current 
 would have swept him out to sea. Weak as he was, he several 
 times nearly lost his hold of the reeds. The clumsy bundle 
 
A WONDERFUL DATS WORA'. 163 
 
 presenting too great a broadside to the stream, whirled round 
 and round, and was once or twice nearly sucked under. At 
 length, however, breathless and exhausted, he gained the op- 
 posite bank, half a mile below the point he had attempted to 
 make, and carr>'ing his floats out of reach of the tide, made off 
 across the hill to the Pilot Station. 
 
 Arrived there about mid-day, he set to work to lay his snares. 
 The goats, with whose hides he hoped to cover the coracle, 
 were sufficiently numerous and tame, to encourage him to use 
 every exertion. He carefully examined the tracks of the 
 animals, and found that they converged to one point — the 
 track to the nearest water. With much la,bour, he cut down 
 bushes, so as to mask the approach to the waterhjle on all 
 sides save where these tracks immediately conjoined. Close 
 to the water, and at unequal distances along the various tracks, 
 he scattered the salt he had obtained by his rude distillation 
 of sea-water. Between this scattered salt and the points where 
 he judged the animals would be likely to approach, he set his 
 traps, made after the following manner. He took several pliant 
 branches of young trees, and having stripped them of leaves and 
 twigs, dug with his knife and the end of the rude paddle he had 
 made for the voyage across the inlet, a succession of holes, 
 about a foot deep. At the thicker end of these saplings he 
 fastened, by a piece of fishing-line, a small cross-bar, which 
 s^vimg loosely, like the stick handle which a schoolboy fastens 
 to the string of his pegtop. Forcing the ends of the saplings 
 thus prepared into the holes, he filled in and stamped down 
 the earth all around them. The saplings, thus anchored as it 
 were by the cross-pieces of stick, not only stood firm, but re- 
 sisted all his efforts to withdraw them. To the thin ends of 
 these saplings he bound tightly, into notches cut in the wood, 
 and secured by a multiplicity of twisting, the catgut springes 
 he had brought from the camping ground. The saplings were 
 then bent double, and the gutted ends secured in the ground 
 by the same means as that employed to fix the butts. This was 
 the most difficult part of the business, for it was necessary to 
 discover precisely the amount of pressure that would hold the 
 bent rod without allowing it to escape by reason of this elasticity, 
 and which would yet " give " to a slight pull on the g^t. After 
 many failures, however, this happy medium was discovered ; 
 and Rufiis Dawes, concealing his springes by means of twigs, 
 
i64 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 smoothed the disturbed sand with a branch, and retired to 
 watch the effect of his Labours. 
 
 About two hours after he had gone, the goats came to drink. 
 There were five goats and two kids, and they trotted calmly 
 along the path to the water. The watcher soon saw that his 
 precautions had been in a manner wasted. The leading goat 
 marched gravely into the springe, which, catching him round 
 the neck, released the bent rod, and sprang him off his legs into 
 the air. He uttered a comical bleat, and then hung kicking. 
 Rufus Dawes, though the success of the scheme was a matter 
 of life and death, burst out laughing at the antics of the beast. 
 The other goats bounded off at this sudden elevation of their 
 leader, and three more were entrapped at a little distance. 
 Rufus Dawes now thought it time to secure his prize, though 
 three of the springes were as yet unsprung. He ran down to 
 the old goat, knife in hand, but before he could reach him, the 
 barely-dried cat-gut gave way, and the old fellow, shaking his 
 head with grotesque dismay, made off at full speed. The 
 others, however, were secured and killed. The loss of the 
 springe was not a serious one, for three traps remained un- 
 sprung, and before sundown Rufus Dawes had caught four 
 more goats. Removing with care the cat-gut that had done 
 such good service, he dragged the carcases to the shore, and 
 proceeded to pack them upon his floats. He discovered, how- 
 ever, that the weight was too great, and that the water, entering 
 through the loops of the stitching in the hide, had so soaked 
 the rush-grass as to render the floats no longer buoyant He 
 was compelled, therefore, to spend two hours in re-stuffing the 
 skin with such material as he could find. Some liglit and 
 flock-like seaweed, which the action of the water had swathed 
 after the fashion of haybands along the shore, formed an 
 excellent substitute for grass, and having bound his bundle of 
 rushes lengthwise, with the goat-skin as a centre-piece, he 
 succeeded in forming a sort of rude canoe, upon which the 
 carcases floated securely. 
 
 He had eaten nothing since the morning, and the violence of 
 his exertions had exhausted him. Still, sustained by the excite- 
 ment of the task he had set himself, he dismissed with fierce 
 impatience the thought of rest, and dragged his weaiy limbs 
 along the sand, endeavouring to kill fatigue by further exertion. 
 The tide was now running in, and he knew it was imperative 
 
A WONDERFUL DAY'S WORK. 165 
 
 that he should regain the further shore while the current was in 
 his favour. To cross from the Pilot Station at low water was 
 impossible. If he waited until the ebD, he must spend another 
 day on the shore, and he could not afford to lose an hour. 
 Cutting a long sapling, he fastened to one end of it the floating 
 bundle, and thus guided it to a spot where the beach shelved 
 abruptly into deep water. It was a clear night, and the risen 
 moon, large and low, flung a rippling streak of silver across the 
 sea. On the other side of the bay all was bathed in a violent 
 haze, which veiled the inlet from which he had started in the 
 morning. The fire of the exiles, hidden behind a point of rock, 
 cast a red glow into the air. The ocean breakers rolled in 
 upon the cliffs outside the bar, with a hoarse and threatening 
 murmur ; and the rising tide rippled and lapped with treacherous 
 melody along the sand. He t6uched the chill water and drew 
 back. For an instant he determined to wait until the beams of 
 morning should illumine that beautiful but treacherous sea, and 
 then the thought of the helpless child, who was, without doubt, 
 waiting and watching for him on the shore, gave new strength 
 to his wearied frame; and fixing his eyes on the glow that, 
 hovering above the dark tree line, marked her presence, he 
 pushed the raft before him into the sea. 
 
 The reeds sustained him bravely, but the strength of the 
 current sucked him underneath the water, and for several 
 seconds he feared that he should be compelled to let go his 
 hold. But his muscles, steeled in the slow fire of convict-labour, 
 withstood this last strain upon them, and, half-suffocated, with 
 bursting chest and paralyzed fingers, he preserved his position, 
 until the mass, getting out of the eddies along the shore-line, 
 drifted steadily down the silvery track that led to the settle- 
 ment. After a few moments' rest, he set his teeth, and urged 
 his strange canoe towards the shore. Paddling and pushing, 
 he gradually edged it towards the fire-light ; and at last, just 
 when his stiffened limbs refused to obey the impulse of his will, 
 and he began to drift onwards with the onward tide, he felt 
 his feet strike firm ground. Opening his eyes — closed in the 
 desperation of his last efforts — he found himself safe under the 
 lee of the rugged promontory which hid the fire. It seemed 
 that the waves, tired of persecuting him, had, with disdainful 
 pity, cast him ashore at the goal of his hopes. Looking back, 
 he for the first time realized the frightful peril he had escaped, 
 
J 66 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 and shuddered. To this shudder succeeded a thrill of triumph. 
 ** Why had he stayed so long, when escape was so easy ? " 
 Dragging the carcases above high-water mark he rounded the 
 little promontory and made for the fire. The recollection of 
 the night when he had first approached it came upon him, and 
 increased his exultation. How different a man was he now 
 from then ! Passing up the sand, he saw the stakes which he 
 had directed Frereto cut, whiten in the moonshine. His officer 
 worked for him ! In his own brain alone lay the secret of 
 escape ! He — Rufus Dawes — the scarred, degraded "prisoner," 
 could alone get these three beings back to civilization. Did he 
 refuse to aid them, they would for ever remain in that prison, 
 where he had so long suffered. The tables were turned — he 
 had become a gaoler ! He had gained the fire before the 
 solitary watcher there heard his footsteps, and spread his hands 
 to the blaze in silence. He felt as Frere would have felt, had 
 their positions been reversed, disdainful of the man who had 
 stopped at home. 
 
 Frere, starting, cried, " It is you ! Have you succeeded?" 
 
 Rufus Dawes nodded. 
 
 " What ! Did you catch them ? " 
 
 " There are six carcases down by the rocks. You can have 
 meat for breakfast to-morrow !" 
 
 The child, at the sound of the voice, came running down 
 from the hut. " Oh, Mr. Dawes ! I am so glad ! We were 
 beginning to despair — mamma and I." 
 
 Dawes snatched her from the ground, and bursting into a 
 joyous laugh, swung her into the air. "Tell me," he cried, 
 holding up the child with two dripping arms above him, "what 
 you will do for me if I bring you and mamma safe home 
 again?" 
 
 "Give you a free pardon," says Sylvia, "and papa shall 
 make you his servant!" Frere burst out laughing at this 
 reply; and Dawes, with a choking sensation in his throat, put 
 the child upon the ground, and walked away. 
 
 This was in truth all he could hope for. AU his scheming, 
 all his courage, all his peril, would but result in the patronage 
 of a great man like Major Vickers. His heart, big with love, 
 with self-denial, and with hopes of a fair future, would have 
 this flattering unction laid to it. He had performed a prodigy 
 of skill and daring, and for his reward he was to be made'^a 
 
THE CORACLE. 167 
 
 servant to the creatures he had protected. Yet what more could 
 a convict expect ? Sylvia saw how deeply her unconscious 
 hand had driven the iron, and ran up to the man she had 
 wounded. " And, Mr. Dawes, remember that I shall love you 
 always." The convict, however, his momentary excitement 
 over, motioned her away ; and she saw him stretch himself 
 wearily under the shadow of a rock. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE CORACLE. 
 
 IN the morning, however, Rufus Dawes was first at work, 
 and made no allusion to the scene of the previous evening. 
 He had already skinned one of the goats, and he directed 
 Frere to set to work upon another. " Cut down the rump to 
 the hock, and down the brisket to the knee," he said. " I 
 want the hides as square as possible." By dint of hard work 
 they got the four goats skinned, and the entrails cleaned ready 
 for twisting, by breakfast time ; and having broiled some of 
 the flesh, made a hearty meal. Mrs. Vickers being no better, 
 Dawes went to see her, and seemed to have made friends again 
 with Sylvia, for he came out of the hut with the child's hand in 
 his. Frere, who was cutting the meat in long strips to dry in 
 the sun, saw this, and it added fresh fuel to the fire of his 
 unreasonable envy and jealousy. However, he said nothing, 
 for his enemy had not yet shown him how the boat was to be 
 made. Before mid-day, however, he was a partner in the secret, 
 which, after all, was a very simple one. 
 
 Rufus Dawes took two of the straightest and most taper of 
 the celery-top pines which Frere had cut on the previous day, 
 and lashed them tightly together, with the butts outwards. He 
 thus produced a spliced stick about twelve feet long. About 
 two feet from either end he notched the young tree until he 
 could bend the extremities upwards ; and having so bent them, 
 he secured the bent portions in their places by means of 
 lashings of raw hide. The spliced trees now presented a rude 
 outline of the section of a boat, having the stem, keel, and stern 
 all in one piece. This having been placed lengthwise between 
 
168 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 the stakes, four other poles, notched in two places, were lashed 
 from stake to stake, running crosswise to the keel, and forming 
 the knees. Four saplings were now bent from end to end of 
 the upturned portions of the keel that represented stem and 
 stem. Two of these four were placed above, as gunwales ; 
 two below as bottom rails. At each intersection the sticks 
 were lashed firmly with fishing-line. The whole framework 
 being complete, the stakes were drawn out, and there lay 
 upon the ground the skeleton of a boat eight feet long by three 
 broad. 
 
 Frere, whose hands were blistered and sore, would fain have 
 rested ; but the convict would not hear of it, " Let us finish," 
 he said, regardless of his own fatigue ; " the skins will be dry if 
 we stop." 
 
 " I can work no more," says Frere, sulkily ; " I can't stand. 
 You've got muscles of iron, I suppose. I haven't." 
 
 " They made me work when I couldn't stand, Maurice Frere. 
 It is wonderful what spirit the cat gives a man. There's 
 nothing like work to get rid of aching muscles — so they used 
 to tell me." 
 
 " Well, what's to be done now ? " 
 
 " Cover the boat. There, you can set the fat to melt, and 
 sew these hides together. Two and two, do you see ? and 
 then sew the pair at the necks. There is plenty of catgut 
 yonder." 
 
 " Don't talk to me as if I was a dog 1" says Frere suddenly. 
 " Be civil, can't you." 
 
 But the other, busily trimming and cutting at the project- 
 ing pieces of sapling, made no reply. It is possible that he 
 thought the fatigued lieutenant beneath his notice. About an 
 hour before sundown the hides were ready, and Rufus Dawes, 
 having in the meantime interlaced the ribs of the skeleton with 
 wattles, stretched the skins over it, with the hairy side inwards. 
 Along the edges of this covering he bored holes at intervals, 
 and passing through these holes thongs of twisted skin, he 
 drew the whole to the top rail of the boat. One last precau- 
 tion remained. Dipping the pannikin into the melted tallow, 
 he plentifully anointed the seams of the sewn skins. The 
 boat, thus turned topsy-turvey, looked like a huge walnut shell 
 covered with red and reeking hide, or the skull of some Titan 
 who had been scalped. " There ! " cried Rufus Dawes 
 
THE CORACLE. 169 
 
 triumphant " Twelve hours in the sun to tighten the hides, and 
 she'll swim like a duck. 
 
 The next day was spent in minor preparations. The jerked 
 goat-meat was packed securely into as small a compass as 
 possible. The rum barrel was filled with water, and water-bags 
 were improvised out of portions of the intestines 01" the goats. 
 Rufus Dawes, having filled these last with water, ran a wooden 
 skewer through their mouths, and twisted it tight, tourniquet 
 fashion. He also stripped cylindrical pieces of bark, and 
 having sewn each cylinder at the side, fitted to it a bottom of 
 the same material, and caulked the seams with gum and pine- 
 tree resin. Thus four tolerable buckets were obtained. One 
 goatskin yet remained, and out of that it was determined to 
 make a sail. " The currents are strong," said Rufus Dawes, 
 "and we shall not be able to row far with such oars as we 
 have got. If we get a breeze it may save our lives." It was 
 impossible to " step " a mast in the frail basket structure, but 
 this difficulty was overcome by a simple contrivance. From 
 thwart to thwart two poles were bound, and the mast, lashed 
 between these poles with thongs of raw hide, was secured by 
 shrouds of twisted fishing-line running fore and aft. Sheets of 
 bark were placed at the bottom of the craft, and made a safe 
 flooring. It was late in the afternoon of the fourth day when 
 these preparations were completed, and it was decided that on 
 the morrow they should adventure the journey. "We will 
 coast down to the Bar," said Rufus Dawes, " and wait for the 
 slack of the tide. I can do no more now." 
 
 Sylvia, who had seated herself on a rock at a httle distance, 
 called to them. Her strength was restored by the fresh meat, 
 and her childish spirits had risen with the hope of safety. The 
 mercurial little creature had wreathed seaweed about her head, 
 and holding in her hand a long twig decorated with a tuft of 
 leaves to represent a wand, she personified one of the heroines 
 of her books. 
 
 " I am the Queen of the Island," she said merrily, " and you 
 are my obedient subjects. Pray, Sir Eglamour, is the boat 
 ready ? " 
 
 " It is, your Majesty," said poor Dawes. 
 
 " Then we will see it. Come, walk in front of me. I won't 
 ask you to rub your nose upon the ground, like Man Friday, be- 
 cause that would be uncomfortable. Mr. Frere, you don't play ?" 
 
I70 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 " Oh, yes ! " says Frcre, unable to withstand the charminfj 
 pout that accompanied the words. " I'll play. What am I to 
 do?" 
 
 " You must walk on ifh's side, and be respectful. Of course 
 it is only Pretend, you know," she added, with a quick con- 
 sciousness of Frere's conceit. " Now then, the Queen goes to 
 the Seashore surrounded by her Nymphs ! There is no occa- 
 sion to laugh, Mr. Frere. Of course. Nymphs are very different 
 from you, but then we can't help that." 
 
 Marching in this pathetically ridiculous fashion across the 
 sand, they halted at the coracle. " So that is the boat ! " says 
 the Queen, fairly surprised out of her assumption of dignity. 
 "You are a Wonderful Man, Mr. Dawes ! " 
 
 Rufus Dawes smiled sadly. " It is very simple." 
 
 " Do you call this simple ? " says Frere, who in the general 
 joy had shaken off a portion of his sulkiness. " By George, I 
 don't ! This is ship-building with a vengeance, this is. There's 
 no scheming about this — it's all sheer hard work." 
 
 " Yes ! " echoed Sylvia^ " sheer hard work — sheer hard work 
 by good Mr. Dawes !" And she began to sing a childish chant 
 of triumph, drawing lines and letters in the sand the while, with 
 the sceptre of the Queen. 
 
 " Good Mr. Dawes I 
 Good Mr. Dawes I 
 This is the work of Good Mr. Dawes ! " 
 
 Maurice could not resist a sneer. 
 
 " See-saw, Margery Daw, 
 Sold her bed, aiid lay upon straw 1 " 
 
 said he. 
 
 " Good Mr. Dawes ! " repeated Sylvia, " Good Mr. Dawes ! 
 Why shouldn't I say it ? You are disagreeable, sir. I won't 
 play with you any more," and she went off along the sand. 
 
 " Poor little child," said Rufus Dawes. " You speak too 
 harshly to her." 
 
 Frere— now that the boat was made— had regained his self- 
 confidence. Civilization seemed now brought suflciently close 
 to him to warrant his assuming the position of authority to 
 which his social position entitled him. " One would think that 
 a boat had never been built before to hear her talk," he said 
 
THE CORACLE. 171 
 
 " If this washing-basket had been one of my old uncle's three- 
 deckers, she couldn't have said much more. By the Lord ! " he 
 added, with a coarse laugh, " I ought to have a natural talent 
 for ship-building ; for if the old villain hadn't died when he did, 
 I should have been a ship-builder myself." 
 
 Rufus Dawes turned his back at the word " died," and busied 
 himself with the fastenings of the hides. Could the other have 
 seen his face, he would have been struck by its sudden pallor, 
 
 " Ah ! " continued Frere, half to himself, and half to his com- 
 panion, " that's a sum of money to lose, isn't it ? " 
 
 " What do you mean ? " asked the convict, without turning 
 his face. 
 
 " Mean ! Why, my good fellow, I should have been left a 
 quarter of a million of money, but the old hunks who was going 
 to give it me died before he could alter his will, and every 
 shilling went to a scapegrace son, who hadn't been near the 
 old man for years. That's the way of the world, isn't it ? " 
 
 Rufus Dawes, stiU keeping his face away, caught his breath 
 as if in astonishment, and then, recovering himself, he said, in 
 a harsh voice, " A fortunate fellow — that son ! " 
 
 " Fortunate ! " cries Frere, with another oath. " Yes, he was 
 fortunate ! He was burnt to death in the Hydaspes, and never 
 heard of his luck. His mother has got the money, though. I 
 never saw a shilling of it." And then, seemingly displeased 
 with himself for having allowed his tongue to get the better of 
 his dignity, he walked away to the fire, musing, doubtless, 
 on the difference between Maurice Frere, with a quarter of a 
 million, disporting himself in the best society that could be 
 procured, with command of dog-carts, prize-fighters, and game- 
 cocks galore ; and Maurice Frere, a penniless lieutenant, ma- 
 rooned on the barren coast of Macquarie Harbour, and acting 
 as boatbuilder to a runaway convict. 
 
 Rufus Dawes was also lost in reverie. He leant upon the 
 gunwale of the much-vaunted boat, and his eyes were fixed upon 
 the sea, weltering golden in the sunset, but it was evident that 
 he saw nothing of the scene before him. Struck dumb by the 
 sudden intelligence of his fortune, his imagination escaped from 
 his control, and fled away to those scenes which he had striven 
 so vainly to forget He was looking far away — across the 
 glittering harbour and the wide sea beyond it — looking at the 
 old house at Hampstead, with its well-remembered gloomy 
 
172 HIS NATURAL LIFR. 
 
 garden. He pictured himself escaped from this present peril, 
 and freed from the sordid thraldom which so long had held 
 him. He saw himself returning, with some plausible story of 
 his wanderings, to take possession of the wealth which was his 
 — saw himself living once more, rich, free, and respected, in the 
 world from which he had been so long an exile. He saw his 
 mother's sweet pale face, the light of a happy home circle. He 
 saw himself— received with tears of joy and marvelling affection 
 — entering into this home circle as one risen from the dead. A 
 new life opened radiant before him, and he was lost in the con- 
 templation of his own happiness. 
 
 So absorbed was he, that he did not hear the light footstep 
 of the child across the sand. Mrs. Vickers, having been told of 
 the success which had crowned the convict's efforts, had over- 
 come her weakness so far as to hobble down the beach to the 
 boat, and now, heralded by Sylvia, approached, leaning on the 
 arm of Maurice Frere. 
 
 " Mamma has come to see the boat, Mr. Dawes ! " cries 
 Sylvia, but Dawes did not hear. 
 
 The child reiterated her words, but still the silent figure did 
 not reply. 
 
 " Mr. Dawes I " she cried again, and pulled him by the coat- 
 sleeve. 
 
 The touch aroused him, and looking down, he saw the pretty, 
 thin face upturned to his. Scarcely conscious of what he did, 
 and still following out the imagining which made him free, 
 wealthy, and respected, he caught the little creature in his arms 
 — as he might have caught his own daughter — and kissed her. 
 Sylvia said nothing ; but Mr. Frere — arrived, by his chain of 
 reasoning, at quite another conclusion as to the state of affairs 
 — was astonished at the presumption of the man. The lieu- 
 tenant regarded himself as already reinstated in his old position, 
 and with Mrs. Vickers on his arm, reproved the apparent in- 
 solence of the convict as freely as he would have done had they 
 both been at his own little kingdom of Maria Island. " You 
 insolent beggar ! " he cried. " Do you dare ! Keep your place, 
 sir ! " 
 
 The sentence recalled Rufus Dawes to reality. His place 
 was that of a convict. What business had he with tenderness 
 for the daughter of his master ? Yet, after all he had done, and 
 proposed to do, this harsh jurlgment upon him seemed cruel. 
 
THE CORACLE. 173 
 
 He saw the two looking at the boat he had built. He marked 
 the flush of hope on the cheek of the poor lady, and the full- 
 blown authority that already hardened the eye of Maurice 
 Frere, and all at once he understood the result of what he had 
 done. He had, by his own act, given himself again to bondage. 
 As long as escape was impracticable, he had been useful, and 
 even powerful. Now he had pointed out the way of escape, he 
 had sunk into the beast of burden once again. In the desert 
 he was " Mr." Dawes, the saviour ; in civilized life he would 
 become once more Rufus Dawes, the ruffian, the prisoner, the 
 absconder. He stood mute, and let Frere point out the excel- 
 lences of the craft in silence ; and then, feeling that the few 
 words of thanks uttered by the lady were chilled by her con- 
 sciousness of the ill-advised freedom he had taken with the 
 child, he turned on his heel, and strode up into the bush. 
 
 "A queer fellow," said Frere, as Mrs. Vickers followed the 
 retreating figure with her eyes. " Always in an ill temper." 
 
 " Poor man ! he has behaved very kindly to us," said Mrs. 
 Vickers. Yet even she felt the change of circumstance, and 
 knew that, without any reason she could name, her blind trust 
 and hope in the convict who had saved their lives had been 
 transformed into a patronizing kindliness which was quite 
 foreign to esteem or affection. 
 
 " Come, let us have some supper," says Frere. " The last we 
 shall eat here, I hope. He will come back when his fit of sulks 
 is over." 
 
 But he did not come back, and, after a few expressions of 
 wonder at his absence, Mrs. Vickers and her daughter, rapt in 
 the hopes and fears of the morrow, almost forgot that he had 
 left them. With marvellous credulity they looked upon the 
 terrible stake they were about to play for as already won. The 
 possession of the boat seemed to them so wonderful, that the 
 perils of the voyage they were to make in it were altogether lost 
 sight of. As for Maurice Frere, he was rejoiced that the con- 
 vict was out of the way. He wished that he was out of the way 
 altogether. 
 
174 f^IS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE WRITING ON THE SAND. 
 
 HAVING got out of eye-shot of the ungrateful creatures 
 he had befriended, Rufus Dawes threw himself upon the 
 ground in an agony of mingled rage and regret. For the 
 first time for six years he had tasted the happiness of doing good, 
 the delight of self-abnegation. For the first time for six years he 
 had broken through the selfish misanthropy he had taught him- 
 self. And this was his reward ! He had held his temper in 
 check, in order that it might not offend others. He had banished 
 the galling memory of his degradation, lest haply some shadow 
 of it might seem to fall upon the fair child whose lot had been so 
 strangely cast with his. He had stifled the agony he suffered, 
 lest its expression should give pain to those who seemed to feel 
 for him. He had forborne retaliation, when retaliation would 
 have been most sweet. Having all these years waited and 
 watched for a chance to strike his persecutors, he had held his 
 hand now that an unlooked-for accident had placed the weapon 
 of destruction in his grasp. He had risked his life, foregone 
 his enmities, almost changed his nature, — and his reward was 
 cold looks and harsh words, so soon as his skill had paved the 
 way to freedom. This knowledge coming upon him while the 
 thrill of exultation at the astounding news of his riches yet 
 vibrated in his brain, made him grind his teeth with rage at his 
 own hard fate. Bound by the purest and holiest of ties, — the 
 affection of a son to his mother — he had condemned himself to 
 social death, ralher than buy his liberty and life by a revelation 
 which would shame the gentle creature whom he loved. By a 
 strange series of accidents, fortune had assisted him to maintain 
 the deception he had practised. His cousin had not recognized 
 him. The very ship in which he was believed to have sailed, 
 had been lost with every soul on board. His identity had been 
 completely destroyed — no link remained which could connect 
 Rufus Dawes, the convict, with Richard Devine, the vanished 
 heir to the wealth of the dead shipbuilder. 
 
 Oh, if he had only known ! If, while in the gloomy prison, 
 distracted by a thousand fears, and weighed down by crushing 
 evidence of circumstance, he had but guessed that death had 
 
THE WRITING ON THE SAND. 175 
 
 stepped between Sir Richard and his vengeance, he might have 
 spared himself the sacrifice he had made. He had been tried 
 and condemned as a nameless sailor, who could call no wit- 
 nesses in his defence, and give no particulars as to his previous 
 history. It was clear to him now that he might have adhered 
 to his statement of ignorance concerning the murder, locked in 
 his breast the name of the murderer, and have yet been free. 
 Judges are just, but popular opinion is powerful, and it was not 
 impossible that Richard Devine, the millionaire, would have 
 escaped the fate which had overtaken Rufus Dawes, the sailor. 
 Into his calculations in the prison — when, half-crazed with love, 
 with terror, and despair, he had counted up his chances of life — 
 the wild supposition that he had even then inherited the wealth 
 of the father who had disowned him, had never entered. The 
 knowledge of that fact would have altered the whole current of 
 his life, and he learnt it for the first time now — too late. 
 
 Now, lying prone upon the sand ; now, wandering aimlessly 
 up and down among the stunted trees that bristled white be- 
 neath the mist-barred moon ; now, sitting — as he had sat in the 
 prison long ago — with his head gripped hard between his hands, 
 swaying his body to and fro, he thought out the frightful problem 
 of his bitter life. Of little use was the heritage that he had 
 gained. A convict-absconder, whose hands were hard with 
 menial service, and -whose back was scarred with the lash, could 
 never be received among the gently nurtured. Let him lay 
 claim to his name and rights, what then ? He was a convicted 
 felon, and his name and rights had been taken from him by the 
 law. Let him go and tell Maurice Frere that he was his lost 
 cousin. He would be laughed at. Let him proclaim aloud his 
 birth and innocence, and the convict-sheds would grin, and the 
 convict overseer set him to harder labour. Let him even, by 
 dint of reiteration, get his wild story believed, what would 
 happen } If it was heard in England — after the lapse ol years, 
 perhaps — that a convict in the chain-gang in Macquarie Har- 
 bour — a man held to be a murderer, and whose convict career 
 was one long record of mutiny and punishment — claimed to be 
 the heir to an English fortune, and to own the right to dispossess 
 staid and worthy English folk of their rank and station, with 
 what feeling would the announcement be received ? Certainly 
 not with a desire to redeem this ruffian from his bonds and 
 place him in the honoured seat of his dead father. Such in- 
 
176 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 telligence would be regarded as a calamity, an unhappy blot 
 upon a fair reputation, a disgrace to an honoured and unsullied 
 name. Let him succeed, let him return again to the mother 
 who had by this time become reconciled, in a measure, to his 
 loss ; he would, at the best, be to her a living shame, scarcely 
 less degrading than that which she had dreaded. 
 
 But success was almost impossible. He did not dare to 
 retrace his steps through the hideous labyrinth into which he 
 had plunged. Was he to show his scarred shoulders as a proof 
 that he was a gentleman and an innocent man ? Was he to 
 relate the nameless infamies of Macquarie Harbour as a proof 
 that he was entitled to receive the hospitalities of the generous, 
 and to sit, a respected guest, at the tables of men of refinement ? 
 Was he to quote the horrible slang of the prison-ship, and 
 retail the filthy jests of the chain-gang and the hulks, as a 
 proof that he was a fit companion for pure-minded women and 
 innocent children ? Suppose even that he could conceal the 
 name of the real criminal, and show himself guiltless of the 
 crime for which he had been condemned, all the wealth in the 
 world could not buy back that blissful ignorance of evil which 
 had once been his. All the wealth in the world could not 
 purchase the self-respect which had been cut out of him by 
 the lash, or banish from his brain the memory of his degra- 
 dation. 
 
 For hours this agony of thought racked him. He cried out 
 as though with physical pain, and then lay in a stupor, 
 exhausted with actual physical suffering. It was hopeless to 
 think of freedom and of honour. Let him keep silence, and 
 pursue the life fate had marked out for him. He would return 
 to bondage. The law would claim him as an absconder, and 
 would mete out to him such punishment as was fitting. Per- 
 haps he might escape severest punishment, as a reward for 
 his exertions in saving the child. He might consider himself 
 fortunate if such was permitted to him. Fortunate ! Suppose 
 he did not go back at all, but wandered away into the 
 wilderness and died ? Better death than such a doom as his. 
 Yet need he die ? He had caught goats, he could catch fish. 
 He could build a hut. There was, perchance, at the deserted 
 settlement some remnant of seed corn that, planted, would 
 give him bread. He had built a boat, he had made an oven, 
 he had fenced in a hut. Surely he could contrive to live alone, 
 
THE WRITING ON THE WALL. 177 
 
 savage and free. Alone ! He had contrived all these marvels 
 alone ! Was not the boat he himself had built below upon the 
 shore ? Why not escape in her, and leave to their fate the 
 miserable creatures who had treated him with such ingrati- 
 tude? 
 
 The idea flashed into his brain, as though some one had 
 spoken the words into his ear. Twenty strides would place 
 him in possession of the boat, and half an hour's drifting with 
 the current would take him beyond pursuit. Once outside the 
 Bar, he would make for the westward, in the hopes of falling 
 in with some whaler. He would doubtless meet with one 
 before many days, and he was well supplied with provision 
 and water in the mean time. A tale of shipwreck would 
 satisfy the sailors, and — he paused — he had forgotten that 
 the rags which he wore would betray him. With an ex- 
 clamation of despair, he started from the posture in which he 
 was lying. He thrust out his hands to raise himself, and his 
 fingers came in contact with something soft. He had been 
 lying at the foot of some loose stones that were piled cairn- 
 wise beside a low-growing bush ; and the object that he had 
 touched was protruding from beneath these stones. He caught 
 it and dragged it forth. It was the shirt of poor Bates. With 
 trembling hands he tore away the stones, and pulled forth the 
 rest of the garments. They seemed as though they had been 
 left purposely for him. Heaven had sent him the very disguise 
 he needed. 
 
 The night had passed during his reverie, and the first faint 
 streaks of dawn began to lighten in the sky. Haggard and 
 pale, he rose to his feet, and scarcely daring to «:hink about 
 what he proposed to do, ran towards the boat. As he ran, 
 however, the voice that he had heard encouraged him. " Your 
 life is of more importance than theirs. They will die, but they 
 have been ungrpteful and deserve death. You will escape out 
 of this Hell, and return to the loving heart who mourns you. 
 You can do more good to mankind than by saving the lives 
 of these people who despise you. Moreover they may not die- 
 They are sure to be sent for. Think of what awaits you when 
 you return — an absconded convict ! " 
 
 He was within three feet of the boat, when he suddenly 
 checked himself, and stood motionless, staring at the sand with 
 as much horror as though he saw there the Writing which 
 
 12 
 
178 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 foretold the doom of Belshazzar. He had come upon the 
 sentence traced by Sylvia the evening before, and glittering in 
 the low light of the red sun suddenly risen from out the sea, 
 it seemed to him that the letters had shaped themselves at his 
 very feet. 
 
 GOOD MR. DAWES. 
 
 " Good Mr. Dawes ! " What a frightful reproach there was to 
 him in that simple sentence ! What a world of cowardice, 
 baseness, and cruelty, had not those eleven letters opened to 
 him ! He heard the voice of the child who had nursed him, 
 calling on him to save her. He saw her at that instant stand- 
 ing between him and the boat, as she had stood when she held 
 out to him the loaf, on the night of his return to the settle- 
 ment. 
 
 He staggered to the cavern, and seizing the sleeping Frere 
 by the arm, shook him violently. " Awake ! awake ! " he 
 cried, " and let us leave this place ! " 
 
 Frere, starting to his feet, looked at the white face and 
 bloodshot eyes of the wretched man before him with blunt 
 astonishment. 
 
 " What's the matter with you, man ? " he said. " You look 
 as if you'd seen a ghost ! " 
 
 At the sound of his voice Rufus Dawes gave a long sigh, 
 and drew his hand across his eyes. 
 
 " Come, Sylvia ! " shouted Frere, " it's time to get up. I am 
 ready to go ! " 
 
 The sacrifice was complete. The convict turned away, and 
 two great glittering tears rolled down his rugged face, and fell 
 .upon the sand- 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 AT SEA. 
 
 AN hour after sunrise, the frail boat, which was the last 
 hope of these four human beings, drifted with the out- 
 going current towards the mouth of the Harbour. When 
 first launched she had come nigh swamping, being overloaded. 
 
AT SEA. 179 
 
 and it was found necessary to leave behind a great portion of 
 the dried meat. With what pangs this was done can be easily 
 imagined, for each atom of food seemed to represent an hour 
 of Ufe. Yet there was no help for it. As Frere said, it was 
 "neck or nothing with them.'' They must get away at all 
 hazards. 
 
 That evening they camped at the mouth of the Gates, Dawes 
 being afraid to risk a passage until the slack of the tide, and 
 about ten o'clock at night adventured to cross the bar. The 
 night was lovely, and the sea calm. It seemed as though 
 Providence had taken pity on them ; for, notwithstanding the 
 insecurity of the craft and the violence of the breakers, the 
 dreaded passage was made with safety. Once indeed, when 
 they had just entered the surf, a mighty wave, curling high 
 above them, seemed about to overwhelm the frail structure of 
 skins and wickerwork ; but, Rufus Dawes keeping the nose of 
 the boat to the sea, and Frere baling with his hat, they suc- 
 ceeded in reaching deep water. A great misfortune, however, 
 occurred. Two of the bark buckets, left by some unpardonable 
 oversight uncleated, were washed overboard, and with them 
 nearly a fifth of their scanty store of water. In the face of the 
 greater peril, the accident seemed trifling ; and as, drenched 
 and chilled, they gained the open sea, they could not but admit 
 that fortune had almost miraculously befriended them. 
 
 They made tedious way with their rude oars ; a light breeze 
 from the north-west sprung up with the dawn, and, hoisting the 
 goatskin sail, they crept along the coast. It was resolved that 
 the two men should keep watch and watch ; and Frere for the 
 second time enforced his authority by giving the first watch to 
 Rufus Dawes. " I am tired," he said, " and shall sleep for 
 a httle while." 
 
 Rufus Dawes, who had not slept for two nights, and who had 
 done all the harder work, said nothing. He had suffered so 
 much during the last two days that his senses were becoming 
 dulled to pain. 
 
 Frere slept until late in the afternoon, and, when he woke, 
 found the boat stiU tossing on the sea, and Sylvia and her 
 mother both sea-sick. This seemed strange to him. Sea-sick- 
 ness appeared to be a malady which belonged exclusively to^ 
 civilization. Moodily watching the great green waves which 
 curled incessantly between him and the horizon, he marvelled 
 
i8o HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 to think how curiously events had come about. A leaf had, as 
 it were, been torn out of his autobiography. It seemed a life- 
 time since he had done anything but moodily scan the sea or 
 shore. Yet, on the morning of leaving the settlement, he had 
 counted the notches on a calendar-stick he carried, and had 
 been astonished to find them but twenty-two in number. 
 Taking out his knife, he cut two nicks in the wicker gunwale 
 of the coracle. That brought him to twenty-four days. The 
 mutiny had taken place on the 13th of January ; it was now 
 the 6th of February. "Surely," thought he, "the Ladybird 
 might have returned by this time." There was no one to tell 
 him that the Ladybird had been driven into Port Davey by 
 stress of weather, and detained there for seventeen days. 
 
 That night the wind fell, and they had to take to their oars. 
 Rowing all night, they made but little progress, and Rufus 
 Dawes suggested that they should put in to the shore and wait 
 until the breeze sprang up. But, upon getting under the lee of 
 a long line of basaltic rocks which rose abruptly out of the 
 sea, they found the waves breaking furiously upon a horse- 
 shoe reef, six or seven miles in length. There was nothing for 
 it but to coast again. 
 
 They coasted for two days, without a sign of a sail, and on the 
 third day a great wind broke upon them from the south-east, 
 and drove them back thirty miles. The coracle began to leak, 
 and required constant baling. What was almost as bad, the 
 rum-cask, that held the best part of their water, had leaked 
 also, and was now half empty. They caulked it, by cutting out 
 the leak, and plugging the hole with hnen. 
 
 " It's lucky we ain't in the tropics," said Frere. 
 
 Poor Mrs. Vickers, lying at the bottom of the boat, wrapped 
 in her wet shawl, and chilled to the bone with the bitter wind, 
 had not the heart to speak. Surely the stifling calm of the 
 tropics could not be worse than this bleak and barren sea. 
 
 The position of the four poor creatures was now almost 
 desperate. Mrs. Vickers, indeed, seemed completely pros- 
 trated ; and it was evident that, unless some help came, she 
 could not long survive the continued exposure to the weather. 
 The child was in somewhat better case. Rufus Dawes had 
 wrapped her in his woollen shirt, and, unknown to Frere, had 
 divided with her daily his allowance of meat. She lay in his 
 arms at night, and in the day crept by his side for shelter and 
 
AT SEA. iSl 
 
 protection. As long as she was near him she felt safe. They 
 spoke little to each other, but when Rufus Dawes felt the 
 pressure of her tiny hand in his, or sustained the weight of 
 her head upon his shoulder, he almost forgot the cold that 
 froze him, and the hunger that gnawed him. 
 
 So two more days passed, and yet no sail ! On the tenth 
 day after their departure from Macquarie Harbour, they came 
 to the end of their provisions. The salt water had spoiled the 
 goat-meat, and soaked the bread into a nauseous paste. The 
 sea was still running high, and the wind, having veered to the 
 north, was blowing with increased violence. The long low line 
 of coast that stretched upon their left hand was at times 
 obscured by a blue mist. The water was the colour of mud, 
 and the sky threatened rain. The wretched craft to which 
 they had entrusted themselves was leaking in four places. If 
 caught in one of the frequent storms which ravaged that iron- 
 bound coast, she could not live an hour. The two men, wearied, 
 hungry, and cold, almost hoped for the end to come quickly. 
 To add to their distress, the child was seized with fever. She 
 was hot and cold by turns, and in the intervals of moaning 
 talked deliriously. Rufus Dawes, holding her in his arms, 
 watched the suffering he was unable to alleviate, with a savage 
 despair at his heart. Was she to die after all } 
 
 So another day and night passed, and the eleventh morning 
 saw the boat yet alive, rolling in the trough of the same deserted 
 sea. The four exiles lay in her almost without breath. 
 
 All at once Dawes uttered a cry, and seizing the sheet, put 
 the clumsy craft about. " A sail ! a sail ! " he cried. " Do 
 you not see her?" 
 
 Frere's hungry eyes ranged the duU water in vain. 
 
 " There is no sail, fool ! " he said. " You mock us ! " 
 
 The boat, no longer following the line of coast, was running 
 nearly due south, straight into the great Southern Ocean. 
 Frere tried to wrest the thong from the hand of the convict, 
 and bring the boat back to her course. " Are you mad," he 
 asked, in fretful terror, " to run us out to sea ? " 
 
 " Sit down ! " returned the other, with a menacing gesture, 
 and staring across the grey water. " I tell you I see a 
 sail ! " 
 
 Frere, overawed by the strange light which gleamed in the 
 eyes of his companion, shifted sulkily back to his place. " Have 
 
i82 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 your own way," he said, "madman ! It serves me right for 
 putting off to sea in such a devil's craft as this ! " 
 
 After all, what did it matter ? As well be drowned in mid- 
 ocean as in sight of land. 
 
 The long day wore out, and no sail appeared. The wind 
 freshened towaids evening, and the boat, plunging clumsily on 
 the long brown waves, staggered as though drunk with the 
 water she had swallowed, for at one place near the bows the 
 water ran in and out as through a slit in a wine-skin. The 
 coast had altogether disappeared, and the huge ocean — vast, 
 stormy, and threatening — heaved and hissed all around them. 
 It seemed impossible that they should live until morning. But 
 Rufus Dawes, with his eyes fixed on some object visible alone 
 to him, hugged the child in his arms, and drove the quivering 
 coracle into the black waste of night and sea. To Frere, sitting 
 sullenly in the bows, the aspect of this grim immovable figure, 
 with its back-blown hair and staring eyes, had in it something 
 supernatural and horrible. He began to think that privation 
 and anxiety had driven the unhappy convict mad. 
 
 Thinking and shuddering over his fate, he fell — as it seemed 
 to him — into a momentary sleep, in the midst of which some 
 one called to him. He started up, with shaking knees and 
 bristling hair. The day had broken, and the dawn, in one 
 long pale streak of sickly saffron, lay low on the left hand. 
 Between this streak of saffron-coloured light and the bows of 
 the boat gleamed for an instant a white speck. 
 
 " A sail ! a sail ! " cried Rufus Dawes, a wild light gleaming 
 in his eyes, and a strange tone vibrating in his voice. " Did I 
 not tell you that I saw a sail?" 
 
 Frere, utterly confounded, looked again, with his heart in his 
 mouth, and again did the white speck glimmer. For an instant 
 he felt almost safe, and then a blanker despair than before fell 
 upon him. From the distance at which she was, it was im- 
 possible for the ship to sight the boat. 
 
 "They will never see us!" he cried. "Dawes — Dawes! 
 Do you hear? They will never see us ! " 
 
 Rufus Dawes started as if from a trance. Lashing the sheet 
 t<> the pole which served as a gunwale, he laid the sleeping 
 child by her mother, and tearing up the strip of bark on which 
 he had been sitting, moved to the bows of the boat. " They 
 Vt'ill see this I Tear \\\> that board ! So! Now, place it thus 
 
A T SEA. 183 
 
 across the bows. Hack off that sapling end ! Now that dry 
 twist of osier ! Never mind the boat, man ; we can afford to 
 leave her now. Tear off that outer strip of hide ! See the 
 wood beneath is dry ! Quick — you are so slow." 
 
 " What are you going to do ? " cried Frere, aghast, as the 
 convict tore up all the dry wood he could find, and heaped it 
 on the sheet of bark placed on the bows. 
 
 " To make a fire ! See ! " 
 
 Frere began to comprehend. " I have three matches left," 
 he said, fumbling, with trembling fingers, in his pocket. " I 
 wrapped them in one of the leaves of the book to keep them dry." 
 
 The word "book" was a new inspiration. Rufus Dawes 
 seized upon the " English History," which had already done 
 such service, tore out the drier leaves in the middle of the 
 volume, and carefully added them to the little heap of 
 touchwood. 
 
 " Now, steady ! " 
 
 The match was struck and lighted. The paper, after a few 
 obstinate curlings, caught fire, and Frere blowing the young 
 flame with his breath, the bark began to burn. He piled upon 
 the fire all that was combustible, the hides began to shrivel, and 
 a great column of black smoke rose up over the sea. 
 
 " Sylvia 1 " cried Rufus Dawes, " Sylvia ! My darling I You 
 are saved ! " 
 
 She opened her blue eyes and looked at him, but gave no 
 sign of recognition. Delirium had hold of her, and in the hour 
 of safety the child had forgotten her preserver. Rufus Dawes, 
 overcome by this last cruel stroke of fortune, sat down in the 
 stem of the boat, with the child in his arms, speechless. Frere, 
 feeding the fire, thought that the chance he had so longed for 
 had come. With the mother at the point of death, and the 
 child delirious, who could testify to this hated convict's skilful- 
 ness ? No one but Mr. Maurice Frere, and Mr. Maurice Frere, 
 as commandant of convicts, could not but give up an "absconder" 
 to justice. 
 
 The ship changed her course, and came towards this strange 
 fire in the middle of the ocean. The boat, the fore part of her 
 blazing like a pine torch, could not float above an hour. The 
 little group of the convict and the child remained motionless. 
 Mrs. Vickers was Ipng senseless, ignorant even of the approacli- 
 ing succour. 
 
i84 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 The ship — a brig, with American colours flying — came within 
 hail of them. Frere could ahnost distinguish figures on her 
 deck. He made his way aft to where Dawes was sitting, un- 
 conscious, with the child in his arms, and stirred him roughly 
 with his foot. 
 
 " Go forward," he said, in tones of command, " and give the 
 child to me." 
 
 Rufus Dawes raised his head, and seeing the approaching 
 vessel, awoke to the consciousness of his duty. With a low 
 laugh, full of unutterable bitterness, he placed the burden he 
 had borne so tenderly in the arms of the lieutenant, and moved 
 to the blazing bows. 
 
 ***** 
 
 The brig was close upon them. Her canvas loomed large 
 and dusky, shadowing the sea. Her wet decks shone in the 
 morning sunlight. From her bulwarks peered bearded and 
 eager faces, looking with astonishment at this burning boat 
 and its haggard company, alone on that barren and stormy 
 ocean. 
 
 Frere, with Sylvia in his arms, wailed for hor. 
 
 END OF BOOK II. 
 
BOOK III. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 A LABOURER IN THE VINEYARD. 
 
 " O OCIETY in Hobart Town, in this year of grace 1838, is, 
 j^ my dear lord, composed of very curious elements." So 
 ran a passage in the sparkling letter which the Rev. 
 Mr. Meekin, newly-appointed chaplain, and seven-days' resident 
 in Van Diemen's Land, was carrying to the post-office, for the 
 delectation of his patron in England. As the reverend gentle- 
 man tripped daintily down the summer street that lay between 
 the blue river and the purple mountain, he cast his mild eyes 
 hither and thither upon human nature, and the sentence he 
 had just penned recurred to him with pleasurable appositeness. 
 Elbowed by well-dressed officers of garrison, bowing sweetly 
 to well-dressed ladies, shrinking from ill-dressed, ill-odoured 
 ticket-of-leave men, or hastening across a street to avoid being 
 run down by the hand-carts that, driven by little gangs of grey- 
 clothed convicts, '"attled and jangled at him unexpectedly from 
 behind corners, he certainly felt that the society through which 
 he moved was composed of curious elements. Now passed, 
 with haughty nose in the air, a newly-imported government 
 official, relaxing for an instant his rigidity of demeanour to 
 smile languidly at the chaplain whom Governor Sir John 
 Franklin delighted to honour ; now swaggered, with coarse 
 defiance of gentility and patronage, a wealthy ex-j.iisoner, 
 grown fat on the profits of rum. The population that was 
 
i86 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 abroad on that sunny December afternoon had certainly an 
 incongruous appearance to a dapper clergyman lately arrived 
 from London, and missing, for the first time in his sleek, easy- 
 going life, those social screens which in London civilization 
 decorously conceal the frailties and vices of human nature. 
 Clad in glossy black, of the most fashionable clerical cut, with 
 dandy boots, and gloves of lightest lavender, — a white silk 
 overcoat hinting that its wearer was not wholly free from 
 sensitiveness to sun and heat, — the Reverend Meekin tripped 
 daintily to the post-office, and deposited his letter. Two 
 ladies met him as he turned. 
 
 "Mr. Meekin !" 
 
 Mr. Meekin's elegant hat was raised from his intellectual 
 brow and hovered in the air, like some courteous black-bird, for 
 an instant "Mrs. Jellicoe ! Mrs. Protherick! My dear 
 leddies, this is an unexpected pleasure ! And where, pray, are 
 you going on this lovely afternoon ? To stay in the house is 
 positively sinful. Ah ! what a climate, — but the Trail of the 
 serpent, my dear Mrs. Protherick — the Trail of the serpent — " 
 and he sighed. 
 
 " It must be a great trial to you to come to the colony," said 
 Mrs. Jellicoe, sjTnpathizing with the sigh. 
 
 Meekin smiled, as a gentlemanly martyr might have smiled. 
 " The Lord's work, dear leddies — the Lord's work. I am but 
 a poor labourer in the vineyard, toiling through the heat and 
 burden of the day." The aspect of him, with his faultless tie, 
 his airy coat, his natty boots, and his self-satisfied Christian 
 smile, was so unlike a poor labourer toiling through the heat 
 and burden of the day, that good Mrs. Jellicoe, the wife of an 
 orthodox Comptroller of Convicts' Stores, felt a horrible thrill 
 of momentary heresy. " I would rather have remained in 
 England," continued Mr. Meekin, smoothing one lavender 
 finger with the tip of another, and arching his elegant eyebrows 
 in mild deprecation of any praise of his self-denial, " but I felt 
 it my duty not to refuse the offer made me through the kind- 
 ness of his lordship. Here is a field, leddies — a field for the 
 Christian pastor. They appeal to me, leddies, these lambs 
 of our Church — these lost and outcast lambs of our Church." 
 
 Mrs. Jellicoe shook her gay bonnet ribbons at Mr. Meekin, 
 with a hearty smile. " You don't know our convicts," she 
 said (from the tone of her jolly voice, it might have been " our 
 
A LABOURER IN THE VINEYARD. 187 
 
 cattle "). " They are horrible creatures. And as for servants — 
 my goo^'ness, I have a fresh one every week. When you have 
 been here a little longer, you will know them better, Mr. 
 Meekin." 
 
 " They are quite unbearable at times," said Mrs. Protherick, 
 the widow of a Superintendent of Convicts' Barracks, with 
 a stately indignation mantling in her sallow cheeks. " I am 
 ordinarily the most patient creature breathing, but I do confess 
 that the stupid, vicious wretches that one gets are enough to 
 put a saint out of temper." 
 
 " We have all our crosses, dear leddies — all our crosses," said 
 Mr. Meekin piously. " Heaven send us strength to bear them ! 
 G^tf£'</-morning." 
 
 " Why, you are going our way," said Mrs. Jellicoe. " We 
 can walk together." 
 
 " Delighted ! I am going to call on Major Vickers." 
 
 " And I live within a stone's throw," returned Mrs. Protherick. 
 ** What a charming little creature she is, isn't she ? " 
 
 " Who ? " asked Mr. Meekin, as they walked. 
 
 " Sylvia. You don't know her ! Oh, a dear little thing." 
 
 " I have only met Major Vickers at Government House," 
 said Meekin. " I haven't yet had the pleasure of seeing his 
 daughter." 
 
 " A sad thing," said Mrs. Jellicoe. " Quite a romance, if it 
 was not so sad, you know. His wife, poor Mrs. Vickers." 
 
 "Indeed! What of her?" asked Meekin, bestowing a 
 condescending bow on a passer-by. " Is she an invalid ? " 
 
 " She is dead, poor soul," returned jolly Mrs. Jellicoe, with 
 a fat sigh. "You don't mean to say you haven't heard the 
 story, Mr. Meekin ? " 
 
 " My dear leddies, I have only been in Hobart Town a week, 
 and I have not heard the story." 
 
 " It's about the mutiny, you know, the mutiny at Macquarie 
 Harbour. The prisoners took the ship, and put Mrs. Vickers 
 and Sylvia ashore somewhere. Captain Frere was with them, 
 too. The poor things had a dreadful time, and nearly died. 
 Captain Frere made a boat at last, and they were picked 
 up by a ship. Poor Mrs. Vickers only lived a few hours, and 
 little Sylvia — she was only twelve years old then — was quite 
 light-headed. They thought she wouldn't recover." 
 
 " How dreadful ! And has she recovered? " 
 
1 88 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 " Oh yes, she's quite strong now, but her memory^s gone." 
 
 " Her memory ?" 
 
 " Yes," struck in Mrs. Protherick, eager to have a share in 
 the story-telling. " She doesn't remember anything about the 
 three or four weeks they were ashore — at least, not distinctly." 
 
 '' It's a great mercy ! " interrupted Mrs. Jellicoe, determined 
 to keep the post of honour. " Who wants her to remember 
 these horrors ? From Captain Frere's account, it was posi- 
 tively awful i " 
 
 " You don't say so ! " said Mr. Meekin, dabbing his nose 
 with a dainty handkerchief. 
 
 " A ' bolter ' — that's what we call an escaped prisoner, Mr. 
 Meekin — happened to be left behind, and he found them out, 
 and insisted on sharing the provisions — the wretch ! Captain 
 Frere was obliged to watch him constantly for fear he should 
 murder them. Even in the boat he tried to run them out to 
 sea and escape. He was one of the worst men in the Harbour, 
 they say ; but you should hear Captain Frere tell the story." 
 
 "And where is he now ? " asked Mr. Meekin, with interest. 
 
 " Captain Frere ? " 
 
 " No, the prisoner." 
 
 " Oh, goodness, I don't know — at Port Arthur, I think. I 
 Know that he was tried for bolting, and would have been hanged 
 but for Captain Frere's exertions." 
 
 " Dear, dear ! a strange story, indeed," said Mr. Meekin. 
 "And so the young lady doesn't know anything about it? " 
 
 " Only what she has been told, of course, poor dear. She's 
 engaged to Captain Frere." 
 
 " Really ! To the man who saved her. How charming — 
 quite a romance ! " 
 
 " Isn't it ? Everybody says so. And Captain Frere's so 
 much older than she is." 
 
 " But her girlish love clings to her heroic protector," said 
 Meekin, mildly poetical. " Remarkable and beautiful. Quite 
 the — hem ! — the ivy and the oak, dear leddies. Ah, in our 
 fallen nature, what sweet spots — I think this is the gate." 
 
 A smart convict-servant — he had been a pickpocket of note 
 in days gone by— left the clergyman to repose in a handsomely 
 furnished drawing-room, whose sun-blinds revealed a wealth of 
 brigiu garden llccked with shadows, while he wont in search ol 
 
A LABOURER IN THE VINEYARD. 189 
 
 Miss Vickers. The Major was out, it seemed, his duties as 
 Superintendent of Convicts rendering such absences necessary ; 
 but Miss Vickers was in the garden, and could be called in at 
 once. The Reverend Meekin, wiping his heated brow, and 
 pulling down his spotless wristbands, laid himself back on the 
 soft sofa, soothed by the elegant surroundings no less than by 
 the coolness of the atmosphere. Hiiving no better comparison 
 at hand, he compared this luxurious room, with its soft couches, 
 brilliant flowers, and opened piano, to the chamber in the house 
 of a West India planter, where all was glare and heat and 
 barbarism without, and all soft and cool and luxurious within. 
 He was so charmed with this comparison — he had a knack of 
 being easily pleased with his own thoughts — that he commenced 
 to turn a fresh sentence for the Bishop, and to sketch out an 
 elegant description of the oasis in his desert of a vineyard. 
 While at this occupation, he was disturbed by the sound of 
 voices in the garden ; and it appeared to him that some one 
 near at hand was sobbing and crj'ing. Softly stepping on the 
 broad verandah, he saw, on the grass-plot, two persons, an old 
 man and a young girl. The sobbing proceeded from the old man, 
 
 " 'Deed, Miss, it's the truth, on my sowl. I've but jest come 
 back to yez this morning. O my ! but it's a cruel thrick to 
 play an ould man." 
 
 He was a white-haired old fellow, in a grey suit of convict 
 frieze, and stood leaning with one veiny hand upon the pedestal 
 of a vase of roses. 
 
 " But it is your own fault, Danny ; we all warned you against 
 her," said the young girl, softly. 
 
 " Sure ye did. But oh ! how did I think it, Miss ? 'Tis the 
 second time she served me so," 
 
 " How long was it this time, Danny?" 
 
 " Six months, miss. She said I was a drunkard, and beat 
 her. Beat her, God help me ! " stretching forth two trembling 
 hands, " And they believed her, o' coorse. Now, when I kem 
 back, there's me little place all thrampled by the boys, and 
 she's away wid a ship's captain, saving your presence, miss, 
 dhrinking in the George the Fourth, O my, but it's hard on 
 an ould man ! " and he fell to sobbing again. 
 
 The girl sighed. " I can do nothing for you, Danny. I dare 
 say you can work about the garden as you did before, I'U 
 speak to the Major when he comes home," 
 
I90 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 Danny, lifting his bleared eyes to thank her, caught sight of 
 Mr. Meekin, and saluted abruptly. Miss Vickers turned, and 
 Mr. Meekin, bowing his apologies, became conscious that the 
 young lady was about seventeen years of age, that her eyes 
 were large and soft, her hair plentiful and bright, and that the 
 hand which held the little book she had been reading was white 
 and small. 
 
 " Miss Vickers, I think. My name is Meekin — the Reverend 
 Arthur Meekin." 
 
 " How do you do, Mr. Meekin ?" said Sylvia, putting out one 
 of her small hands, and looking straight at him. " Papa will 
 be in directly." 
 
 " His daughter more than compensates for his absence, my 
 dear Miss Vickers." 
 
 " I don't like flattery, Mr. Meekin, so don't use it. At least," 
 she added, with a delicious frankness, that seemed born of her 
 very brightness and beauty, " not that sort of flattery. Young 
 girls do like flattery, of course. Don't you think so?" 
 
 This rapid attack quite disconcerted Mr. Meekin, and he 
 could only bow and smile at the self-possessed young lady. 
 " Go into the kitchen, Danny, and tell them to give you some 
 tobacco. Say /sent you. Mr. Meekin, won't you come in ?" 
 
 " A strange old gentleman that. Miss Vickers. A faithful 
 retainer, I presume ? " 
 
 " An old convict servant of ours," said Sylvia. " He was 
 with papa many years ago. He has got into trouble lately, 
 though, poor old man." 
 
 "Into trouble?" asked Mr. Meekin, as Sylvia took off" her 
 hat. 
 
 "On the roads, you know. That's what they call it here. 
 He married a free woman much younger than himself, and she 
 makes him drink, and then gives him in charge for insubordina- 
 tion." 
 
 " For insubordination ! Pardon me, my dear young lady, 
 did I understand you rightly ? '' 
 
 "Yes, insubordination. He is her assigned servant, you 
 know," said Sylvia, as if such a condition of things was the 
 most ordinary in the world ; " and if he misbehaves himself, 
 she sends him back to the road-gang." 
 
 The Reverend Mr. Meekin opened his mild eyes very wide 
 indeed. " What an extraordinary anomaly ! I am beginning, 
 
A LABOURER IN THE VINEYARD. igi 
 
 my dear Miss Vickers, to find myself indeed at the anti- 
 podes." 
 
 " Society here is different from society in England, I believe. 
 Most new arrivals say so," returned Sylvia, quietly. 
 
 " But for a wife to imprison her husband, my dear young 
 lady ! " 
 
 " She can have him flogged if she likes. Danny has been 
 flogged. But then his wife is a bad woman. He was very silly 
 to marry her ; but you can't reason with an old man in love, 
 Mr. Meekin." 
 
 Mr. Meekin's Christian brow had grown crimson, and his 
 decorous blood tingled to his finger-tips. To hear a young lady 
 talk in such an open way, was terrible. Why, in reading the 
 Decalogue from the altar, Mr. Meekin was accustomed to 
 soften one indecent prohibition, lest its uncompromising plain- 
 ness of speech might offend the delicate sensibilities of his 
 female souls ! He turned from the dangerous theme without an 
 instant's pause, for wonder at the strange power accorded to 
 Hobart Town "free" wives. 
 
 " You have been reading ? " 
 
 "'Paul et Virginie.' I have read it before in English." 
 
 " Ah, you read French, then, my dear young lady ? " 
 
 " Not very well. I had a master for some months, but papa 
 had to send him back to the gaol again. He stole a silver 
 tankard out of the dining-room." 
 
 " A French master ! Stole ! " 
 
 " He was a prisoner, you know. A clever man. He wrote 
 for the ' London Magazine.' I have read his writings. Some 
 of them are quite above the average." 
 
 " And how did he come to be transported ? " asked Mr. 
 Meekin, feeling that his vineyard was getting larger than he 
 had anticipated. 
 
 " Poisoning his niece, I think, but I forget the particulars. 
 He was a gentlemanly man, but, oh, such a drunkard ! " 
 
 Mr. Meekin, more astonished than ever at this strange 
 country, where beautiful young ladies talked of poisoning and 
 flogging as matters of little moment, where wives imprisoned 
 their husbands, and murderers taught French, perfumed the air 
 with his cambric handkerchief in silence. 
 
 " You have not been here long, Mr. Meekin," said Sylvia, 
 after a pause. 
 
192 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 " No, only a week ; and I confess I am surprised. A lovely 
 climate, but, as I said just now to Mrs. Jellicoe, the Trail of the 
 Serpent — the Trail of the Serpent— my dear young lady." 
 
 " If you send all the wretches in England, here, you must 
 expect the trail of the serpent," said Sylvia. " It isn't the fault 
 of the colony." 
 
 " Oh, no ; certainly not," returned Meekin, hastening tn 
 apologize. " But it is very shocking." 
 
 "Well, you gentlemen should make it better. I don't know 
 what the penal settlements are like, but the prisoners in the 
 town have not much inducement to become good men." 
 
 " They have the beautiful Liturgy of our Holy Church read 
 to them twice every week, my dear young lady," said Mr. 
 Meekin, as though he should solemnly say, " if that doesn't 
 reform them, what will ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes," returned Sylvia, " they have that, certainly ; but 
 that is only on Sundays, But don't let us talk about this, Mr. 
 Meekin," she added, pushing back a stray curl of golden hair. 
 " Papa says that I am not to talk about these things, because 
 they are all done according to the Rules of the Service, as he 
 calls it." 
 
 " An admirable notion of papa's," said Meekin, much relieved 
 as the door opened, and Vickers and Frere entered. 
 
 Vickers's hair had grown white, but Frere carried his thirty 
 years as easily as some men carry two-and-twenty. 
 
 " My dear Sylvia," began Vickers, " here's an extraordinary 
 thing !" and then, becoming conscious of the presence of the 
 agitated Meekin, he paused. 
 
 " You know Mr. Meekin, papa?" said Sylvia. " Mr. Meekin, 
 Captain Frere." 
 
 " I have that pleasure," said Vickers. " Glad to see you, sir. 
 Pray sit down." Upon which, Mr. Meekin beheld Sylvia un- 
 affectedly kiss both gentlemen ; but became strangely aware 
 that the kiss bestowed upon her father was warmer than that 
 which greeted her affianced husband. 
 
 " Warm weather, Mr. Meekin," said Frere. " Sylvia, my 
 darling, I hope you have not been out in the heat. You have ! 
 My dear, Pve begged you " 
 
 " It's not hot at all," said Sylvia, pettishly. " Nonsense ! 
 I'm not made of butter— I sha'n't melt Thank you, dear, you 
 needn't pull the blind down." And then, as though angry with 
 
A LABOURER IN THE VINEYARD. 193 
 
 herself for her anger, she added, " You are always thinking of 
 me, Maurice," and gave him her hand affectionately. 
 
 " It's very oppressive, Captain Frere," said Meekin ; " and to 
 a stranger, quite enervating." 
 
 " Have a glass of wine," said Frere, as if the house was his 
 own. " One wants bucking up a bit a day like this." 
 
 " Ay, to be sure," repeated Vickers. " A glass of wine. 
 Sylvia dear, some sherry. I hope she has not been attacking 
 you with her strange theories, Mr. Meekin ? " 
 
 " Oh, dear no ; not at all," returned Meekin, feeling that this 
 charming young lady was regarded as a creature who was not 
 to be judged by ordinary rules. " We got on famously, my 
 dear Major — quite famously." 
 
 " That's right," said Vickers. " She is very plain-spoken, is 
 my little girl, and strangers can't understand her sometimes. 
 Can they. Poppet ? " 
 
 Poppet tossed her head saucily. " I don't know," she said. 
 " Why shouldn't they ? But you were going to say something 
 extraordinary when you came in. What is it, dear ? " 
 
 " Ah," said Vickers with grave face. " Yes, a most extra- 
 ordinary thing. They've caught those villains." 
 
 "What, you don't mean ? No, papa!" said Sylvia, 
 
 turning round with alarmed face. 
 
 In that little family there were, for conversational purposes, 
 but one set of villains in the world — the mutineers of the 
 Osprey. 
 
 " They've got four of them in the bay at this moment — Rex, 
 Barker, Shiers, and Lesly. They are on board the Lady Jane. 
 The most extraordinar}' story I ever heard in my hfe. The 
 fellows got to China and passed themselves off as shipwrecked 
 sailors. The merchants in Canton got up a subscription, and 
 sent them to London. They were recognized there by old 
 Pine, who had been surgeon on board the ship they came 
 out in." 
 
 Sylvia sat down on the nearest chair, with heightened colour. 
 " And where are the others ? " 
 
 " Two were executed in England ; the other six have not 
 been taken. These fellows have been sent out for trial." 
 
 " To what are you alluding, dear sir ? " asked Meekin, eyeing 
 the sherry with the gaze of a fasting saint. 
 
 " The piracy of a convict brig five years ago," replied Vickers. 
 
 13 
 
194 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 " The scoundrels put my poor wife and child ashore, and left 
 them to starve. If it hadn't been for Frere — God bless him ! — 
 they would have died. They shot the pilot and ;; soldier — and 
 — but it's a long story to tell now." 
 
 " I have heard of it already," said Meekin, sipping the sherry, 
 which another convict servant had brought for him ; "and of 
 your gallant conduct. Captain Frere." 
 
 " Oh, that's nothing," said Frere, reddening. " We were all 
 in the same boat. Poppet, have a glass of wine ? " 
 
 " No," said Sylvia, " I don't want any." 
 
 She was staring at the strip of sunshine between the verandah 
 and the blind, as though the bright Hght might enable her to 
 remember something. " What's the matter ? " asked Frere, 
 bending over her. 
 
 " I was trying to recollect, but I can't, Maurice. It is all 
 confused. I only remember a great shore and a great sea, and 
 two men, one of whom — that's you, dear — carried me in his 
 arms." 
 
 " Dear, dear," said Mr. Meekin. 
 
 "She was quite a baby," said Vickers, hastily, as though un- 
 willing to admit that her illness had been the cause of her 
 forgetfulness. 
 
 " Oh, no ; I was twelve years old," said Sylvia ; "that's not 
 a baby, you know. But I think the fever made me stupid." 
 
 Frere, looking at her uneasily, shifted in his seat. " There, 
 don't think about it now," he said. 
 
 " Maurice," asked she suddenly, " what became of the other 
 man ? " 
 
 "Which other man?" 
 
 " The man who was with us ; the other one, you know." 
 
 " Poor Bates ? " 
 
 " No, not Bates. The prisoner. What was his name ?" 
 
 " Oh, ah— the prisoner," said Frere, as if he, too, had for- 
 gotten. "Why, you know, darling, he was sent to Port 
 Arthur." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Sylvia, with a shudder. " And is he there 
 still ? " 
 
 " I believe so," said Frere, with a frown. 
 
 " By-the-bye," said Vickers, " I suppose we shall have to get 
 \hat fellow up for the trial. We have to identify the villains." 
 
 " Can't you and I do that ? " asked Frere. uneasily. 
 
A LABOURER IN THE VINEYARD. 195 
 
 " I am afraid not. I wouldn't like to swear to a man after 
 five years." 
 
 "By George," said Frere, " I\i swear to him ! When once 
 I see a man's face — that's enough for me." 
 
 " We had better get up a few prisoners who were at the 
 Harbour at the time," said Vickers, as if wishing to terminate 
 the discussion. " I wouldn't let the villains slip through my 
 fingers for anything." 
 
 "And are the men at Port Arthur old men ?'' asked Meekin. 
 
 " Old convicts," returned Vickers. " It's our place for 
 'colonial sentence' men. The worst we have are there. It 
 has taken the place of Macquarie Harbour. What excitement 
 there will be among them when the schooner goes down on 
 Monday ! " 
 
 "Excitement! Indeed? How charming! Why.?" asked 
 Meekin. 
 
 " To bring up the witnesses, my dear sir. Most of the 
 prisoners are Lifers, you see, and a trip to Hobart Town is 
 like a holiday for them." 
 
 "And do they never leave the place when sentenced for 
 life ? " said Meekin, nibbling a biscuit. " How distressing ! " 
 
 " Never, except when they die," answered Frere, with a 
 laugh ; " and then they are buried on an island. Oh, it's a 
 fine place ! You should come down with me and have a look 
 at it, Mr. Meekin. Picturesque, I can assure you." 
 
 " My dear Maurice," says Sylvia, going to the piano, as if in 
 protest to the turn the conversation was taking, " how can you 
 talk like that ? " 
 
 " I should much like to see it," said Meekin, still nibbling, 
 "for Sir John was saying something about a chaplaincy there, 
 and I undei'Stand that the climate is quite endurable." 
 
 The convict servant, who had entered with some official paper 
 for the Major, stared at the dainty clergyman, and rough 
 Maurice laughed again. " Oh, it's a stunning climate," h 
 said ; " and nothing to do. Just the place for you. There's a 
 regular little colony there. All the scandals in Van Diemen's 
 Land are hatched at Port Arthur." 
 
 This agreeable chatter about scandal and climate seemed a 
 strange contrast to the grave-yard island and the men who 
 were prisoners for life. Perhaps Sylvia thought so, for she 
 struck a few chords, which, compelling the party, out of sheer 
 
196 mS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 politeness, to cease talking for the moment, caused the con- 
 versation to flag, and hinted to Mr. Meekin that it was time 
 for him to depart. 
 
 " Good afternoon, dear Miss Vickers," he said, rising with 
 his sweetest smile. " Thank you for your delightful music. 
 That piece is an old, old favourite of mine. It was quite a 
 favourite of dear Lady Jane's, and the Bishop's. Pray excuse 
 me, my dear Captain Frere, but this strange occurrence — of 
 the capture of the wreckers, you know — must be my apology 
 for touching on a delicate subject. How charming to contem- 
 plate ! Yourself and your dear young lady ! The preserved 
 and preserver, dear Major. ' None but the brave, you know, 
 none but the brave, none but the brave, deserve the fair ! ' 
 You remember glorious John, of course. Well, good after- 
 noon." 
 
 " It's rather a long invitation," said Vickers, always well 
 disposed to anyone who praised his daughter, "but if you've 
 nothing better to do, come and dine with us on Christmas Day, 
 Mr. Meekin. We usually have a little gathering then." 
 
 " Charmed," said Meekin — " charmed, I am sure. It is so 
 refreshing to meet with persons of one's own tastes in this 
 delightful colony. ' Kindred souls together knit,' you know, 
 dear Miss Vickers. Indeed yes. Once more — good after- 
 noon." 
 
 Sylvia burst into laughter as the door closed. " What a 
 ridiculous creature!" said she. "Bless the man, with his 
 gloves and his umbrella, and his hair and his scent ! Fancy 
 that mincing noodle showing me the way to Heaven ! I'd 
 rather have old Mr. Bowes, papa, though he is as blind as a 
 beetle, and makes you so angry by bottling up his trumps as 
 you call it." 
 
 " My dear Sylvia," said Vickers, seriously, " Mr. Meekin is a 
 clergyman, you know." 
 
 " Oh, I know," said Sylvia, " but then, a clergyman can talk 
 like a man, can't he ? Why do they send such people here ? 
 I am sure they could do much better at home. Oh, by the 
 way, papa dear, poor old Danny's come back again. I told 
 him he might go into the kitchen. May he, dear.?" 
 
 "You'll have the house full of these vagabonds, you little 
 puss," said Vickers, kissing her. " I suppose I must let him 
 stay. What has he been doing now?" 
 
SARAH PURFOY'S REQUEST. 197 
 
 " His wife," said Sylvia, " locked him up, you know, for 
 being drunk. Wife ! What do people want with wives, I 
 wonder." 
 
 " Ask Maurice ! " said her father, smiling. 
 
 Sylvia moved away, and tossed her head. 
 
 " What does he know about it ? Maurice, you are a great 
 bear ; and if you hadn't saved my life, you know, I shouldn't 
 love you a bit. There, you may kiss me " (her voice grew 
 softer). " This convict business has brought it all back ; and 
 I should be ungrateful if I didn't love you, dear." 
 
 Maurice Frere, with suddenly crimsoned face, accepted 
 the proffered caress, and then turned away to the window. A 
 grey-clothed man was working in the garden, and whistling as 
 he worked. " They're not so badly off," said Frere, under his 
 breath. 
 
 " What's that, sir ? " asked Sylvia. 
 
 " That I am not half good enough for you," cried Frere, with 
 sudden vehemence. " I — I " 
 
 " It's OTj/ happiness you've got to think of. Captain Bruin," said 
 the girl. " You've saved my life, haven't you, and I should be 
 wicked if I didn't love you ! No, no more kisses," she added, 
 putting out her hand. " Come, papa, it's cool now, let's walk 
 in the garden, and leave Maurice to think of his own 
 unworthiness." 
 
 Maurice watched the retreating pair with a puzzled expres- 
 sion. " She always leaves me for her father," he said to him- 
 self. " I wonder if she really loves me, or if it's only gratitude, 
 after all .? " 
 
 He had often asked himself the same question during the five 
 years of his wooing, but he had never satisfactorily answered it. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 SARAH PURFOY'S REQUEST. 
 
 THE evening passed as it had passed a hundred times be- 
 fore ; and having smoked a pipe at the barracks, Captain 
 Frere returned home. His home was a cottage on the New 
 Town road — a cottage which he had occupied since his appoint- 
 
198 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 ment as Assistant Police Magistrate, an appointment given to 
 him as a reward for his exertions in connection with the Osprey 
 mutiny. Captain Maurice Frere had risen in hfe. Quartered 
 in Hobart Town, he had assumed a position in society, and had 
 held several of those excellent appointments which in the year 
 1834 were bestowed upon officers of garrison. He had been 
 Superintendent of Works at Bridgewater, and when he got his 
 captaincy, Assistant Police Magistrate at Bothwell. The affair 
 of the Osprey made a noise ; and it was tacitly resolved that the 
 first " good thing " that fell vacant should be given to the gallant 
 preserver of Major Vickers's child. 
 
 Major Vickers also prospered. He had always been a care- 
 ful man, and having saved some money, had purchased land on 
 favourable terms. The "assignment system " enabled him to 
 cultivate portions of it at a small expense, and, following the 
 usual custom, he stocked his run with cattle and sheep. He 
 had sold his commission, and was now a comparatively wealthy 
 man. He owned a fine estate ; the house he lived in was pur- 
 chased property. He was in good odour at Government House, 
 and his office of Superintendent of Convicts caused him to take 
 an active part in that local government which keeps a man 
 constantly before the public. Major Vickers, a colonist against 
 his will, had become, by force of circumstances, one of the lead- 
 ing men in Van Diemen's Land. His daughter was a good 
 match for any man ; and many ensigns and lieutenants, cursing 
 their hard lot in " country quarters," many sons of settlers living 
 on their fathers' station among the mountains, and many dapper 
 clerks on the civil establishment, envied Maurice Frere his good 
 fortune. Some went so far as to say that the beautiful daughter 
 of " Regulation Vickers " was too good for the coarse red-faced 
 Frere, who was noted for his fondness for low society, and over- 
 bearing, almost brutal demeanour. No one denied, however, 
 that Captain Frere was a valuable officer. It was said that, in 
 consequence of his tastes, he knew more about the tricks of con- 
 victs than any man on the island. It was said, even, that he 
 was wont to disguise himself, and mix with the pass-holders and 
 convict servants, in order to learn their signs and mysteries. 
 When in charge at Bridgewater it had been his delight to rate 
 the chain-ganos in their own hiJeous jargon, and to astound a 
 new comer by his knowledge of his previous history. The con- 
 vict population hated and cringed to him, for, with his brutality 
 
SARAH PURFOTS REQUEST. 199 
 
 and violence, he mingled a ferocious good humour, that resulted 
 sometimes in tacit permission to go without the letter of the law. 
 Yet, as the convicts themselves said, " a man was never safe 
 with the Captain ; " for, after drinking and joking with them, as 
 the Sir Oracle of some public-house whose hostess he delighted 
 to honour, he would disappear through a side door just as the 
 constables burst in at the back, and show himself as remorse- 
 less, in his next morning's sentence of the captured, as if he had 
 never entered a tap-room in aU his life. His superiors called 
 this " zeal ; " his inferiors " treachery." For himself, he laughed. 
 " Everything is fair to those wretches," he was accustomed to 
 say. 
 
 As the time for his marriage approached, however, he had in 
 a measure given up these exploits, and strove, by his demeanour, 
 to make his acquaintances forget several remarkable scandals 
 concerning his private life, for the promulgation of which he 
 once cared little. When Commandant at the IVIaria Island, 
 and for the first two years after his return from the unlucky ex- 
 pedition to Macquarie Harbour, he had not suffered any fear of 
 society's opinion to restrain his vices, but, as the affection for 
 the pure young girl, who looked upon him. as her saviour from 
 a dreadful death, increased in honest strength, he had resolved 
 to shut up those dark pages in his colonial experience, and to 
 read therein no more. He was not remorseful, he was not 
 even disgusted. He merely came to the conclusion that, when 
 a man married, he was to consider certain extravagances com- 
 mon to all bachelors as at an end. He had " had his fling, like 
 all young men ; " perhaps he had been foolish like most young 
 men, but no reproachful ghost of past misdeeds haunted him. 
 His nature was too prosaic to admit the existence of such phan- 
 toms. Sylvia, in her purity and excellence, was so far above 
 him, that in raising his eyes to her, he lost sight of all the sordid 1 )u^J 
 creatures to whose level he had once debased himself, and had/ 
 come in part to regard the sins he had committed, before his' 
 redemption by the love of this bright young creature, as evil 
 done by him under a past condition of existence, and for the 
 consequences of which he was not responsible. One of the 
 consequences, however, was very close to him at this moment. 
 His convict servant had, according to his instructions, sat up 
 for him, and as he entered, tlie man handed him a letter, bear- 
 ing a superscription in a female hand. 
 
HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 " Who brought this ? " asked Frere, hastily tearing it open to 
 read. 
 
 " The groom, sir. He said that there was a gentleman at the 
 * George the Fourth ' who wished to see you." 
 
 Frere smiled, in admiration of the intelligence which had 
 dictated such a message, and then frowned, in anger at the 
 contents of the letter. " You needn't wait," he said to the man. 
 " I shall have to go back again, I suppose." Changing his 
 forage cap for a soft hat, and selecting a stick from a mis- 
 cellaneous collection in a corner, he prepared to retrace his 
 steps. " What does she want now ? " he asked himself fiercely, 
 as he strode down the moonlit road ; but beneath the fierceness 
 there was an under current of petulance, which implied that, 
 whatever " she " did want, she had a right to expect. 
 
 The " George the Fourth " was a long, low house, situated in 
 Elizabeth-street. Its front was painted a dull red, and the 
 narrow panes of glass in its windows, and the ostentatious 
 affectation of red curtains and homely comfort, gave to it a 
 spurious appearance of old English jollity. A knot of men 
 round the door melted into air as Captain Frere approached, 
 for it was now past eleven o'clock, and all persons found in 
 the streets after eight could be compelled to " show their pass " 
 or explain their business. The convict constables were not 
 scrupulous in the exercise of their duty, and the bluff figure of 
 Frere, clad in the blue serge which he affected as a summer 
 costume, looked not unlike that of a convict constable. 
 
 Pushing open the side-door with the confident manner of one 
 well acquainted with the house, Frere entered, and made his 
 way along a narrow passage, to a glass door at the further end. 
 A tap upon this door brought a white-faced, pock-pitted Irish 
 girl, who curtsied with servile recognition of the visitor, and 
 ushered him upstairs. The room into which he was shown 
 was a large one. It had three windows looking into the street, 
 and was handsomely furnished. The carpet was soft, the 
 candles were bright, and the supper tray gleamed invitingly 
 from a table between the windows. As Frere entered, a little 
 terrier ran barking to his feet. It was evident that he was not 
 a constant visitor. The rustle of a silk dress behind the terrier 
 betrayed the presence of a woman ; and Frere, rounding the 
 promontory of an ottoman, found himself face to face with 
 Sarali Purfoy. 
 
SARAH PURFOY'S REQUEST. 
 
 " Thank you for coming," she said. " Pray, sit down." 
 
 This was the only greeting that passed between them, and 
 Frere sat down, in obedience to a motion of a plump hand that 
 twinkled with rings. 
 
 The eleven years that had passed since we last saw this 
 woman had dealt gently with her. Her foot was as small and 
 her hand as white as of yore. Her hair, bound close about her 
 head, was plentiful and glossy, and her eyes had lost none of 
 their dangerous brightness. Her figure was coarser, and the 
 white arm that gleamed through a muslin sleeve showed an 
 outline that a fastidious artist might wish to modify. The 
 most noticeable change was in her face. The cheeks owned 
 no longer that delicate purity which they once boasted, but 
 had become thicker, while here and there showed those faint 
 red streaks — as though the rich blood throbbed too painfully 
 in the veins — which are the first signs of the decay of " fine " 
 women. With middle age and the fulness of figure to which 
 most women of her temperament are prone, had come also that 
 indescribable vulgarity of speech and manner which habitual 
 absence of moral restraint never fails to produce. 
 
 Maurice Frere spoke first ; he was anxious to bring his visit 
 to as speedy a termination as possible. " What do you want 
 of me ? " he asked. 
 
 Sarah Purfoy laughed ; a forced laugh, that sounded so 
 unnatural, that Frere turned to look at her. " I want you to 
 do me a favour — a very great favour ; that is if it will not 
 put you out of the way." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " asked Frere roughly, pursing his lips 
 with a sullen air. " Favour ! What do you call this ? " striking 
 the sofa on which he sat. " Isn't t/n's a favour ? What do you 
 call your precious house and all that's in it ? Isn't t/iat a favour ? 
 What do you mean ? " 
 
 To his utter astonishment the woman replied by shedding 
 tears. For some time he regarded her in silence, as if unwilling 
 to be softened by such shallow device, but eventually felt con- 
 strained to say something. " Have you been drinking again ?" 
 he asked, " or what's the matter with you ? Tell me what it is 
 you want, and have done with it. I don't know what possessed 
 me to come here at all." 
 
 Sarah sat upright, and dashed away her tears with one 
 passionate hand. 
 
HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 " I am ill, can't you see, you fool ! " said she. " The news 
 has unnerved me. If I have been drinking, what then.'' It's 
 nothing to you, is it .'' " 
 
 " Oh, no," returned the other, " it's nothing to me. You are 
 the principal party concerned. If you choose to blnat yourself 
 with brandy, do it by all means." 
 
 " You don't pay for it, at any rate ! " said she, with quicknes 
 of retaliation which showed that this was not the only occasion 
 on which they had quarrelled. 
 
 " Come," said Frere, impatiently brutal, " get on. I can't 
 stop here all night." 
 
 She suddenly rose, and crossed to where he was standing. 
 
 " Maurice, you were very fond of me once." 
 
 " Once," said Maurice. 
 
 "Not so very many years ago." 
 
 " Hang it ! " said he, shifting his arm from beneath her hand, 
 "don't let us have all that stuff over again. It was before you 
 took to drinking and swearing, and going raving mad with 
 passion, any way." 
 
 " Well, dear," said she, with her great glittering eyes belying 
 the soft tones of her voice, " I suffered for it, didn't 1 1 Didn't 
 you turn me out into the streets .? Didn't you lash me with your 
 whip like a dog.? Didn't you put me in gaol for it, eh? It's 
 hard to struggle against you, Maurice." 
 
 The compliment to his obstinacy seemed to please him^ 
 perhaps the crafty woman intended that it should — and he 
 smiled. 
 
 " Well, there ; let old times be old times, Sarah. You haven't 
 done badly, after all," and he looked round the well-furnished 
 room. " What do you want ? " 
 
 " There was a transport came in this morning." 
 
 " Well 1 " 
 
 " You know who was on board her, Maurice ! " 
 
 Maurice brougiit one hand into the palm of the other with a 
 rough laugh. 
 
 " Oh, that's it, is it ! 'Gad, what a flat I was not to think of 
 it before ! You want to see him, I suppose ? " 
 
 She came close to him, and, in her earnestness, took his hand. 
 " I want to save his life ! " 
 
 "Oh, that be hanged, you know! S ive his life! It can't 
 be done." 
 
SARAH PURFOTS REQUEST. 203 
 
 " You can do it, Maurice." 
 
 "I save John Rex's life?" cried Frere. "Why, you must 
 be mad ! " 
 
 " He is the only creature that loves me, Maurice — the only 
 man who cares for me. He has done no harm. He only 
 wanted to be free — was it not natural .-' You can save him if 
 you like. I only ask for his life. What does it matter to you ? 
 A miserable prisoner — his death would be of no use. Let him 
 live, Maurice." 
 
 Maurice laughed. " What have I to do with it ? " 
 
 " You are the principal witness against him. If you say that 
 he behaved well — and he did behave well, you know : many 
 men would have left you to starve — they won't hang him." 
 
 " Oh, won't they ! That won't make much difference." 
 
 " Ah, Maurice, be merciful ! " 
 
 She bent towards him, and tried to retain his hand, but he 
 withdrew it. 
 
 "You're a nice sort of woman to ask me to help your lover 
 — a man who left me on that cursed coast to die, for all he 
 cared," he said, with a galling recollection of his humiliation 
 of five years back. " Save him ! Confound him, not I ! " 
 
 " Ah, Maurice, you wiU." She spoke with a suppressed sob 
 in her voice. " What is it to you ? You don't care for me now. 
 You beat me, and turned me out of doors, though I never did 
 you wrong. This man was a husband to me — long, long before 
 I met you. He never did you any harm ; he never wiU. He 
 will bless you if you save him, Maurice." 
 
 Frere jerked his head impatiently. " Bless me ! " he said. 
 " I don't want his blessings. Let him swing. Who cares ? " 
 
 Still she persisted, with tears streaming from her eyes, with 
 white arms upraised, on her knees even, catching at his coat, 
 and beseeching him in broken accents. In her wild, fierce 
 beauty and passionate abandonment she might have been a 
 deserted Ariadne — a suppliant Medea. Anything rather than 
 what she was — a dissolute, half-maddened woman, praying for 
 the pardon of her convict husband. 
 
 Maurice Frere flung her off with an oath. "Get up !" he 
 cried brutally, " and stop that nonsense. I tell you the man's 
 as good as dead for all I shall do to save him." 
 
 At this repulse, her pent-up passion broke forth. She sprang 
 to her feet, and, pushing back the hair that in her frenzied 
 
204 niS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 pleading had fallen about her face, poured out upon him a 
 torrent of abuse. " You I Who are you, that you dare to 
 speak to me like that ? His little finger is worth your whole 
 body. He is a man, a brave man, not a coward, like you. A 
 coward ! Yes, a coward ! a coward 1 a coward ! You are 
 very brave with defenceless men and weak women. You have 
 beaten me until I was bruised black, you cur ; but who ever 
 saw you attack a man unless he was chained or bound? Do 
 not I know you ? I have seen you taunt a man at the triangles, 
 until I wished the screaming wretch could get loose, and murder 
 you as you deserve ! You will be murdered one of these days, 
 Maurice Frere — take my word for it. Men are flesh and blood, 
 and flesh and blood won't endure the torments you lay on it ! " 
 
 " There, that'll do," says Frere, growing paler. " Don't excite 
 yourself" 
 
 " I know you, you brutal coward. I have not been your 
 mistress — God forgive me ! — without learning you by heart. 
 I've seen your ignorance and your conceit. I've seen the men 
 who ate your food and drank your wine laugh at you. I've 
 heard what your friends say ; I've heard the comparisons they 
 uiake. One of your dogs has more brain than you, and twice 
 as much heart. And these are the men they send to rule us ! 
 Oh, Heaven ! And such an animal as this has life and death 
 in his hands ! He may hang, may he? I'll hang with him 
 then, and God will forgive me for murder, for I will kill 
 you/" 
 
 Frere had cowered before this frightful torrent of rage, but, 
 at the scream which accompanied the last words, he stepped 
 forward as though to seize her. In her desperate courage, she 
 flung herself before him. " Strike me I You daren't ! I defy 
 you ! Bring up the wretched creatures who learn the way to 
 Hell in this cursed house, and let them see you do it. Call 
 them ! They are old friends of yours. They all know Captain 
 Maurice Frere." 
 
 " Sarah ! " 
 
 " You remember Lucy Barnes — poor little Lucy Barnes that 
 stole sixpennyworth of calico. She is downstairs now. Would 
 you know her if you saw her ? She isn't the bright-faced baby 
 she was when they sent her here to ' reform,' and when Lieu- 
 tenant Frere wanted a new housemaid from the Factory ! Call 
 for her 1 — call ! do you hear ? Ask any one of those beasts 
 
SARAH PURFOY'S REQUEST. 205 
 
 whom you lash and chain for Lucy Barnes. He'll tell you all 
 about her — ay, and about many moie — many more poor souls 
 that are at the bidding of any drunken brute that has stolen 
 a pound note to fee the Devil with ! Oh, you good God 
 in Heaven, will you not judge this man ? " 
 
 Frere trembled. He had often witnessed this creature's 
 whirlwinds of passion, but never had he seen her so violent as 
 this. Her frenzy frightened him. " For Heaven's sake, Sarah, 
 be quiet. What is it you want ? What would you do ? " 
 
 " I'll go to this girl you want to marry, and tell her all I 
 know of you. I have seen her in the streets — have seen her 
 look the other way when I passed her — have seen her gather 
 up her muslin skirts when my silks touched her — I that nursed 
 her, that heard her say her baby-prayers (O Jesus, pity me !) — 
 and I know what she thinks of women like me. She is good 
 — and virtuous — and cold. She would shudder at you if she 
 knew what I know. Shudder ! She would hate you ! And 
 I will tell her ! Ay, I will ! You will be respectable, will you ? 
 A model husband ! Wait till I tell her my story, — till I send 
 some of these poor women to tell theirs. You kill my love ; 
 I'll blight and ruin yours ! " 
 
 Frere caught her by both wrists, and with all his strength 
 forced her to her knees. " Don't speak her name," he said in 
 a hoarse voice, " or I'll do you a mischief. I know all you 
 mean to do. I'm not such a fool as not to see that. Be quiet ! 
 Men have murdered women like you, and now I know how 
 they came to do it." 
 
 For a few minutes a silence fell upon the pair, and at last, 
 Frere, releasing her hands, fell back from her. 
 
 " I'll do what you want, on one condition." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " That you leave this place." 
 
 "Where for?" 
 
 " Anywhere — the farther the better. Ill pay your passage to 
 Sydney, and you go or stay there as you please." 
 
 She had grown calmer, hearing him thus relenting. " But 
 this house, Maurice ? " 
 
 " You are not in debt ? " 
 
 « No." 
 
 "Well, leave it. It's your own affair, not mine. If I help, 
 you must go." 
 
2o6 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 "May I see himf 
 
 " No." 
 
 "Ah, Maurice!" 
 
 " You can see him in the dock if you like," says Frere, with 
 a laugh, cut short by a flash of her eyes. "There, I didn't 
 mean to offend you." 
 
 " Offend me ! Go on." 
 
 " Listen here," said he doggedly. " If you wHIll go away, and 
 promise never to interfere with me or mine by word or deed, 
 I'll do what you want." 
 
 " What will you do ? '' she asked, unable to suppress a smile 
 at the victory she had won. 
 
 " I will not say all I know about this man. I will say he 
 befriended me. I will do my best to save his life." 
 
 " You call save it if you like." 
 
 "Well, I will try. On my honour, I will try." 
 
 " I must believe you, I suppose ? " said she, doubtfully ; and 
 then, with a sudden pitiful pleading, in strange contrast to her 
 former violence, " You are not deceiving me, Maurice ? " 
 
 " No. Why should I ? You keep your promise, and I'll 
 keep mine. Is it a bargain ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 He eyed her steadfastly for some seconds, and then turned 
 on his heel. As he reached the door she called him back. 
 Knowing him as she did, she felt that he would keep his word, 
 and her feminine nature could not resist a parting sneer. 
 
 " There is nothing in the bargain to prevent me helping him 
 to escape ! " she said with a smile. 
 
 " Escape ! He won't escape again, I'll go bail. Once get 
 him in double irons at Port Arthur, and he's safe enough." 
 
 The smile on her face seemed infectious, for his own sullen 
 features relaxed. " Good night, Sarah," he said. 
 
 She put out her hand, as if nothing had happened. " Good 
 night. Captain Frere. It's a bargain, then ? " 
 
 " A bargain." 
 
 "You have a long walk home. Will you have some 
 brandy?" 
 
 " I don't care if I do," he said, advancing to the table^ and 
 filling his glass. " Here's a good voyage to you !" 
 
 Sarah Purfoy, watching him, burst into a laugh. " Human 
 beings are queer creatures," she said. "Who would have 
 
THE STORY OF TWO BIRDS OF PREY. 207 
 
 thought that we had been calling each other names just 
 now ? I say, I'm a vixen when I'm roused, ain't I, Maurice ? " 
 
 " Remember what you've promised," said he, with a threat in 
 his voice, as he moved to the door. " You must be out of this 
 by the next ship that leaves." 
 
 "Never fear, I'll go." 
 
 Getting into the cool street directly, and seeing the calm 
 stars shining, and the placid water sleeping with a peace in 
 which he had no share, he strove to cast off the nervous fear 
 that was on him. The interview had frightened him, for it had 
 made him think. It was hard that, just as he had turned over 
 a new leaf, this old blot should come through to the clean page. 
 It was cruel that, having comfortably forgotten the past, he 
 should be thus rudely reminded of it. 
 
 CHAPTER III, 
 
 THE STORY OF TWO BIRDS OF PREY. 
 
 THE reader of the foregoing pages has doubtless asked 
 himself, '' What is the link which binds together John 
 Rex and Sarah Purfoy ? " 
 In the year 1825 there lived, at St. Heliers, Jersey, a watch- 
 maker, named Urban Purfoy. He was a hard-working man, 
 and had amassed a little money — sufficient to give his grand- 
 daughter an education above the common in those days. At 
 sixteen, Sarah Purfoy was an empty-headed, strong-willed, 
 precocious girl, with big brown eyes. She had a bad opinion 
 of her own sex, and an immense admiration for the young and 
 handsome members of the other. The neighbours said that 
 she was too high and mighty for her rank in life. Her grand- 
 father said she was a " beauty," and like her poor dear mother. 
 She herself thought rather meanly of her personal attractions, 
 and rather highly of her mental ones. She was brimful of 
 vitality, with strong passions, and little religious sentiment. 
 She had not much respect for moral courage, for she did not 
 understand it ; but she was a profound admirer of personal 
 prowess. Her distaste for the humdrum life she was leading 
 
2oS HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 found expression in a rebellion against social usages. She 
 courted notoriety by eccentricities of dress, and was never so 
 happy as when she was misunderstood. She was the sort of 
 girl of whom women say — " It is a pity she has no mother ; " 
 and men, " It is a pity she does not get a husband ; " and who 
 say to themselves, " When shall I have a lover ? " 
 
 There was no lack of beings of this latter class among the 
 officers quartered in Fort Royal and Fort Henry ; but the 
 female population of the island was free and numerous, and in 
 the embarrassment of riches, Sarah was overlooked. Though 
 she adored the soldiery, her first lover was a civilian. Walking 
 one day on the cliff, she met a young man. He was tall, weU- 
 looking, and well-dressed. His name was Lemoine, he was the 
 son of a somewhat wealthy resident of the island, and had 
 come down from London to recruit his health and to see his 
 friends. Sarah was struck by his appearance, and looked back 
 at him. He had been struck by hers, and looked back also. 
 He followed her, and spoke to her, — some remark about the 
 wind or the weather, and she thought his voice divine. They 
 got into conversation — about scenery, lonely walks, and the 
 dulness of St. Heliers. " Did she often walk there ?" " Some- 
 times." "Would she be there to-morrow?" "She might." 
 Mr. Lemoine lifted his hat, and went back to dinner, rather 
 pleased with himself. 
 
 They met the next day, and the day after that. Lemoine 
 was not a gentleman, but he had lived among gentlemen, and 
 had caught something of their manner. He said that, after all, 
 virtue was a mere name, and that when people were powerful 
 and rich, the world respected them more than if they had been 
 honest and poor. Sarah agreed with this sentiment. Her 
 grandfather was honest and poor, and yet nobody respected him 
 — at least, not with such respect as she cai'ed to acknowledge. 
 In addition to his talent for argument, Lemoine was handsome 
 and had money — he showed her quite a handful of bank-notes 
 one day. He told her of London and the great ladies there, 
 and hinting that they were not always virtuous, drew himself up 
 with a moody air, as though he had been unhappily the cause of 
 their fatal lapse into wickedness. Sarah did not wonder at this 
 in the least. Had she been a great lady, she would have done 
 the same. She began to coquet with this seductive fellow, and 
 to hint to him that she had too much knowledge of the world to 
 
THE STORY OF TWO BIRDS OF PREY. 209 
 
 set a fictitious value upon virtue. He mistook her artfulness 
 for innocence, and thought he had made a conquest. More- 
 over, the girl was pretty, and when dressed properly, would 
 look well. Only one obstacle stood in the way of their loves — 
 the dashing profligate was poor. He had been living in 
 London above his means, and his father was not inclined to 
 increase his allowance. 
 
 Sarah liked him better than anybody else she had seen, but 
 there are two sides to every bargain. Sarah Purfoy must go to 
 London. In vain her lover sighed and swore. Unless he would 
 promise to take her away with him, Diana was not more chaste. 
 The more virtuous she grew, the more vicious did Lemoine feel. 
 His desire to possess her increased in proportionate ratio to her 
 resistance, and at last he borrowed two hundred pounds from 
 his father's confidential clerk [the Lemoines were merchants by 
 profession], and acceded to her wishes. There was no love on 
 either side — vanity was the mainspring of the whole transaction. 
 Lemoine did not like to be beaten ; Sarah sold herself for a 
 passage to England and an introduction into the " great world." 
 
 We need not describe her career at this epoch. Suffice it to 
 say that she discovered that vice is not always conducive to 
 happiness, and is not, even in this world, so well rewarded as 
 its earnest practice might merit. Sated, and disappointed, she 
 soon grew tired of her fife, and longed to escape from its weary- 
 ing dissipations. At this juncture she fell in love. 
 
 The object of her affections was one Mr. Lionel Crofton. 
 Crofton was tall, well made, and with an insinuating address. 
 His features were too strongly marked for beauty. His eyes 
 were the best part of his face, and, like his hair, they were jet 
 black. He had broad shoulders, sinewy limbs, and small hands 
 and feet. His head was round, and well-shaped, but it bulged 
 a little over the ears, which were singularly small, and lay close 
 to his head. With this man, barely four years older than 
 herself, Sarah, at seventeen, fell violently in love. This was 
 the more strange, as though fond of her, he would tolerate no 
 caprices, and possessed an ungovernable temper, which found 
 vent in curses, and even blows. He seemed to have no pro- 
 fession or business, and though he owned a good address, he 
 was even less of a gentleman than Lemoine. Yet Sarah, at- 
 tracted by one of the strange sympathies which constitute the 
 romance of such women's lives, was devoted to him. Touched 
 
 14 
 
210 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 by her affection, and rating her intelligence and unscrupulous- 
 ness at their true value, he told her who he was. He was a 
 swindler, a forger, and a thief, and his name was John Rex. 
 When she heard this she experienced a sinister delight. He 
 told her of his plots, his tricks, his escapes, his villanies ; and 
 seeing how for years this young man had preyed upon the world 
 which had deceived and disowned her, her heart went out to 
 him. " I am glad you found me," she said. " Two heads are 
 better than one. We will work together," 
 
 John Rex, known among his intimate associates as Dandy 
 Jack, was the putative son of a man who had been for many 
 years valet to Lord Bellasis, and who retired from the service 
 of that profligate nobleman with a sum of money and a wife. 
 John Rex was sent to as good a school as could be procured for 
 him, and at sixteen was given, by the interest of his mother with 
 his father's former master, a clerkship in an old-established 
 banking-house. Rex senior was accustomed to talk largely of 
 " gentlemen," and " high society." Mrs. Rex was intensely fond 
 of her son, and imbued him with a desire to shine in aristocratic 
 circles. He was a clever lad, without any principle ; he would 
 lie unblushingly, and steal deliberately, if he thought he could 
 do so with impunity. He was cautious, acquisitive, imagina- 
 tive, self-conceited, and destructive. He had strong perceptive 
 faculties, and much invention and versatility, but his " moral 
 sense" was almost entirely wanting. He found that his fellow 
 clerks were not of that "gentlemanly" stamp which his mother 
 thought so admirable, and, therefore, he despised them. He 
 thought he should like to go into the army, for he was athletic, 
 and rejoiced in feats of muscular strength. To be tied all da> 
 to a "desk was beyond endurance. But John Rex, senior, told 
 him to " wait and see what came of it." He did so, and in the 
 mean lime kept late hours, got into bad company, and forged the 
 name of a customer of the bank to a cheque for twenty pounds. 
 Tiie fraud was a clumsy one, and was detected in twenty-four 
 hours. Forgeries by clerks, however easily detected, are unfor- 
 tunately not considered to add to the attractions of a banking- 
 house, and the old-cstabhshed lirm decided not to prosecute, 
 but dismissed Mr. John Rex from their service. The ex-valet, 
 who never liked his legalized son, was at first for turning him 
 out of doors, but by the entreaties of his wife, was at last induced 
 to place the promising boy in a draper's shop, in the City Road. 
 
THE STORY OF TWO BIRDS OF PREY. 211 
 
 This employment was not a congenial one, and John Rex 
 planned to leave it. He lived at home, and had his salary — 
 about thirty shillings a week — for pocket money. Though he dis- 
 played considerable skill with the cue, and not unfrequently won 
 considerable sums for one in his position, his expenses averaged 
 more than his income ; and having borrowed all he could, he 
 found himself again in difficulties. His narrow escape, how- 
 ever, had taught him a lesson, and he resolved to confess all to 
 his indulgent mother, and be more economical for the future. 
 Just then one of those "lucky chances" which blight so many 
 lives occurred. The "shop-walker" died, and Messrs. Baffaty 
 & Co. made the gentlemanly Rex act as his substitute for a few 
 days. Shop-walkers have opportunities not accorded to other 
 folks, and on the evening of the third day Mr. Rex went home 
 with a bundle of lace in his pocket. Unfortunately, he owed 
 more than the worth of this petty theft, and was compelled to 
 steal again. This time he was detected. One of his fellow- 
 shopmen caught him in the very act of concealing a roll of silk, 
 ready for future abstraction, and, to his astonishment, cried 
 ** Halves ! " Rex pretended to be virtuously indignant, but 
 soon saw that such pretence was useless ; his companion was 
 too wily to be fooled with such affectation of innocence. " I 
 saw you take it," said he, " and if you won't share I'll tell old 
 Baffaty." This argument was irresistible, and they shared. 
 Having become good friends, the self-made partner lent Rex 
 a helping hand in the disposal of the booty, and introduced him 
 to a purchaser. The purchaser violated all rules of romance by 
 being — not a Jew, but a very orthodox Christian. He kept a 
 second-hand clothes warehouse in the City Road, and was sup- 
 posed to have branch establishments all over London. 
 
 Mr. Blicks purchased the stolen goods for about a third of 
 their value, and seemed struck by Mr. Rex's appearance. " I 
 thort you was a swell mobsman," said he. This, from one so 
 experienced, was a high compliment. Encouraged by success, 
 Rex and his companion took more articles of value. John Rex 
 paid off his debts, and began to feel himself quite a "gentle- 
 man" again. Just as Rex had arrived at this pleasing state of 
 mind, Baffaty discovered the robbery. Not having heard about 
 the bank business, he did not suspect Rex— he was such- a 
 gentlemanly young man — but having had his eye for some time 
 upon Rex's partner, who was vulgar, and squinted, he sent for 
 
HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 him. Rex's partner stoutly denied the accusation, and old 
 Baffaty, who was a man of merciful tendencies, and could well 
 afford to lose fifty pounds, gave him until the next morning to 
 confess, and state where the goods had gone, hinting at the 
 persuasive powers of a constable at the end of that time. The 
 shopman, with tears in his eyes, came in a hurry to Rex, and 
 informed him that all was lost. He did not want to confess, 
 because he must implicate his friend Rex, but if he did not 
 confess, he would be given in charge. Flight was impossible, 
 for neither had money. In this dilemma John Rex remembered 
 Blicks's compliment, and burned to deserve it. If he must 
 retreat, he would lay waste the enemy's country. His exodus 
 should be like that of the Israelites — he would spoil the 
 Egyptians. The shopwalker was allowed half an hour in the 
 middle of the day for lunch. John Rex took advantage of this 
 half-hour to hire a cab and drive to Blicks. That worthy man 
 yeceived him cordially, for he saw that he was bent upon great 
 deeds. John Rex rapidly unfolded his plan of operations. The 
 warehouse doors fastened with a spring. He would remain 
 behind after they were locked, and open them at a given signal. 
 A li.qht cart or cab could be stationed in the lane at the back, 
 three men could fill it with valuables in as many hours. Did 
 Blicks know of three such men? Blicks's one eye glistened. 
 He thought he did know. At half-past eleven they should be 
 there. Was that all ? No. Mr. John Rex was not going to 
 " put up " such a splendid thing for nothing. The booty was 
 worth at least ^5,000 if it was worth a shilling — he must have 
 ^100 cash when the cart stopped at Blicks's door. Blicks at 
 last refused point blank. Let there be a division, but he would 
 not buy a pig in a poke. Rex was firm, however ; it was his 
 only chance, and at last he got a promise of ;^8o. That night 
 the glorious achievement known in the annals of Bow Street as 
 " The Great Silk Robbery" took place, and two days afterwards, 
 John Rex and his partner, dining comfortably at Birmingham, 
 read an account of the transaction — not in the least like it — in 
 a London paper. 
 
 John Rfx, who had now fairly broken with dull respectability, 
 bid adieu to his home, and began to realize his mother's wishes. 
 He was, after his fashion, a " gentleman." As long as the ^So 
 lasted, he lived in luxury, and by the time it was spent, he had 
 established himself in his profession. This profession was a 
 
THE STORY OF TWO BIRDS OF PREY. 213 
 
 lucrative one. It was that of a swindler. Gifted with a hand- 
 some person, facile manner, and ready wit, he had added to 
 these natural advantages some skill at billiards, some know- 
 ledge of gamblers' legerdemain, and the useful consciousness 
 that he must prey or be preyed on. John Rex was no common 
 swindler ; his natural as well as his acquired abilities saved him 
 from vulgar errors. He saw that to successfully swindle man- 
 kind, one must not aim at comparative, but superlative, in- 
 genuity. He who is contented with being only cleverer than 
 the majority must infallibly be outwitted at last, and to be once 
 outwitted is — for a swindler — to be ruined. Examining, more- 
 over, into the history of detected crime, John Rex discovered 
 one thing. At the bottom of all these robberies, deceptions, 
 and swindles, was some lucky fellow who profited by the folly 
 of his confederates. This gave him an idea. Suppose he 
 could not only make use of his own talents to rob mankind, but 
 utilize those of others also ? Crime runs through infinite grades. 
 He proposed to himself to be at the top ; but why should he 
 despise those good fellows beneath him ? His specialty was 
 swindling, billiard-playing, card-playing, borrowing money, ob- 
 taining goods, never risking more than two or three cottps in a 
 year. But others plundered houses, stole bracelets, watches, 
 diamonds, — made as much in a night as he did in six months — 
 only their occupation was more dangerous. Now came the 
 question — why more dangerous ? Because these men were 
 mere clods, bold enough and clever enough in their own rude 
 way, but no match for the law, with its Argus eyes and its 
 Briarean hands. They did the rougher business well enough ; 
 they broke locks, and burst doors, and "neddied" constables, 
 but in the finer arts of plan, attack, and escape, they were sadly 
 deficient. Good. These men should be the hands ; he would 
 be the head. He would plan the robberies ; they should execute 
 them. 
 
 Working through many channels, and' never omitting to assist 
 a fellow-worker when in distress, John Rex, in a few years, and 
 in a most prosaic, business way, became the head of a society 
 of ruffians. Mixing with fast clerks and unsuspecting middle- 
 class profligates, he found out particulars of houses ill guarded, 
 and shops insecurely fastened, and " put up " Blicks's ready 
 ruffians to the more dangerous work. In his various disguises, 
 and under his many names, he found his way into those upper 
 
214 ^^I^ NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 circles of "fast" society, where animals tun into birds, where 
 a wolf becomes a rook, and a lamb a pigeon. Rich spendthrifts 
 who affected male society asked him to their houses, and 
 Mr. Anthony Croftonbury, Captain James Craven, and Mr. Lionel 
 Crofton were names remembered, sometimes with pleasure, 
 oftener with regret, by many a broken man of fortune. He had 
 one quality which, to a man of his profession, was invaluable — 
 he was cautious, and master of himself. Having made a suc- 
 cess, wrung commission from Blicks, rooked a gambling ninny 
 like Lemoine, or secured an assortment of jewellery sent down 
 to his " wife " in Gloucestershire, he would disappear for a time. 
 He liked comfort, and revelled in the sense of security and 
 respectability. Thus he had lived for three years when he met 
 Sarah Purfoy, and thus he proposed to live for many more. 
 With this woman as a coadjutor, he thought he could defy the 
 law. She was the net spread to catch his " pigeons ; " she was 
 the well-dressed lady who ordered goods in London for her 
 husband at Canterbury, and paid half the price down, " which 
 was all this letter authorized her to do," and where a less 
 beautiful or clever woman might have failed, she succeeded. 
 Her husband saw fortune before him, and believed that, with 
 common prudence, he might carry on his lucrative employment 
 of "gentleman" until he chose to relinquish it. Alas for 
 human weakness ! He one day did a foolish thing, and the 
 law he had so successfully defied got him in the simplest 
 way imaginable. 
 
 Under the names of Mr. and Mrs. Skinner, John Rex and 
 Sarah Purfoy were living in quiet lodgings in the neighbourhood 
 of Bloomsbury. Their landlady was a respectable poor woman, 
 and had a son who was a constable. This son was given to 
 talking, and, coming in to supper one night, he told his mother 
 that on the following evening an attack was to be made on a 
 gang of coiners in the Old Street Road. The mother, dream- 
 ing all sorts of horrors during the night, came the next day to 
 Mrs. Skinner, in the parlour, and, under a pledge of profound 
 secrecy, told her of the dreadful expedition in which her son 
 was engaged. John Rex was out at a pigeon-match with Lord 
 Bellasis, and when he returned, at nine o'clock, Sarah told him 
 what she had heard. 
 
 Now, 4, Bank-place, Old Street Road, was the residence of a 
 man named Green, who had for some time carried on the 
 
"THE NOTORIOUS DAWES." 215 
 
 lucrative but dangerous trade of "counterfeiting." This man 
 was one of the most daring of that army of ruffians whose 
 treasure chest and master of the mint was Blicks, and his 
 liberty was valuable. John Rex, eating his dinner more 
 nervously than usual, ruminated on the intelligence, and 
 thought it would be but wise to warn Green of liis danger. 
 Not that he cared much for Green personally, but it was bad 
 policy to miss doing a good turn to a comrade, and, moreover, 
 Green, if captured, might wag his tongue too freely. But how 
 to do it ? If he went to Blicks, it might be too late ; he would 
 go himself. He went out — and was captured. When Sarah 
 heard of the calamity she set to work to help him. She 
 collected all her money and jewels, paid Mrs. Skinner's rent, 
 went to see Rex, and arranged his defence. Blicks was hope- 
 ful, but Green — who came very near hanging — admitted that 
 the man was an associate of his, and the Recorder, being in a 
 severe mood, transported him for seven years. 
 
 Sarah Purfoy vowed that she would follow him. She was 
 going as passenger, as emigrant, anything, when she saw Mrs. 
 Vickers's advertisement for a "lady's-maid," and answered it. 
 It chanced that Rex was shipped in the Malabar, and Sarah, 
 discovering this before the vessel had been a week at sea, con- 
 ceived the bold project of inciting a mutiny for the rescue of 
 her lover. We know the result of that scheme, and the story of 
 the scoundrers subsequent escape from Macquarie Harbour. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 "the notorious DAWES." 
 
 THE mutineers of the Osprey had been long since given 
 up as dead, and the story of their desperate escape had 
 become indistinct to the general public mind. Now that 
 they had been recaptured in a remarkable manner, popular 
 belief iijvested them with all sorts of strange surroundings. 
 They had been — according to report — kings over savage 
 islanders, chiefs of lawless and ferocious pirates, respectable 
 married men in Java, merchants in Singapore, and swindlers 
 in Hong Kong. Their adventures had been dramatized at a 
 
2i6 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 London theatre, and the popular novelist of that day was 
 engaged in a work descriptive of their wondrous fortunes. 
 
 John Rex, the ringleader, was related, it was said, to a noble 
 family, and a special message had come out to Sir John 
 Franklin concerning him. He had every prospect of being 
 satisfactorily hung, however, for even the most outspoken 
 admirers of his skill and courage could not but admit that he 
 had committed an offence which was death by the law. The 
 Crown would leave nothing undone to convict him, and the 
 already crowded prison was re-crammed with half a dozen life 
 sentence men, brought up from Port Arthur to identify the 
 prisoners. Amongst this number was stated to be "the 
 notorious Dawes." 
 
 This statement gave fresh food for recollection and invention. 
 It was remembered that " the notorious Dawes " was the 
 absconder who had been brought away by Captain Frere, and 
 who owed such fettered life as he possessed to the fact that 
 he had assisted Captain Frere to make the wonderful boat in 
 which the marooned party escaped. It was remembered, also, 
 how sullen and morose he had been on his trial five years 
 before, and how he had laughed when the commutation of his 
 death sentence was announced to him. The Hobart Town 
 Gazette published a short biography of this horrible villain — 
 a biography setting forth how he had been engaged in a mutiny 
 on board the convict ship, how he had twice escaped from the 
 Macquarie Harbour, how he had been repeatedly flogged for 
 violence and insubordination, and how he was now double- 
 ironed at Port Ai-thur, after two more ineffectual attempts to 
 regain his freedom. Indeed, the Gazette, discovering that the 
 wretch had been originally transported for highway robbery, 
 argued very ably it would be far better to hang such wild beasts 
 in the first instance, than suffer them to cumber the ground, 
 and grow confirmed in villainy. "Of what use to society," 
 asked the Gazette, quite pathetically, " has this scoundrel been 
 during the last eleven years?" And everybody agreed that 
 he had been of no use whatever. 
 
 Miss Sylvia Vickers also received an additional share of 
 public attention. Her romantic rescue by the heroic Frere, 
 who was shortly to reap the reward of his devotion in the good 
 old fashion, made her almost as famous as the villain Dawes, 
 or his confederate monster John Rex. It was reported that 
 
^'TIIE NOTORIOUS DAWES:' 217 
 
 she was to give evidence on the trial, together with her 
 affianced husband, they being the only two living witnesses 
 who could speak to the facts of the mutiny. It was reported 
 also that her lover was naturally most anxious that she should 
 not give evidence, as she was — an additional point of romantic 
 interest — affected deeply by the illness consequent on the suffer- 
 ing she had undergone, and in a state of pitiable mental con- 
 fusion as to the whole business. These reports caused the 
 Court, on the day of the trial, to be crowded with spectators ; and 
 as the various particulars of the marvellous history of this 
 double escape were detailed, the excitement grew more intense. 
 The aspect of the four heavily-ironed prisoners caused a sen- 
 sation which, in that city of the ironed, was quite novel, and 
 bets were offered and taken as to the line of defence which they 
 would adopt. At first it was thought that they would throw 
 themselves on the mercy of the Crown, seeking, in the very 
 extravagance of their story, to excite public sympathy ; but a 
 little study of the demeanour of the chief prisoner, John Rex, 
 dispelled that conjecture. Calm, placid, and defiant, he seemed 
 prepared to accept his fate, or to meet his accusers with some 
 plea which should be sufficient to secure his acquittal on the 
 capital charge. Only when he heard the indictment, setting 
 forth that he had " feloniously pirated the brig Osprey," he 
 smiled a little. 
 
 Mr. Meekin, sitting in the body of the Court, felt his 
 religious prejudices sadly shocked by that smile. " A perfect 
 wild beast, my dear Miss Vickers," he said, returning, in a 
 pause during the examination of the convicts who had been 
 brought to identify the prisoner, to the little room where Sylvia 
 and her father were waiting. " He has quite a tigerish look 
 about him." 
 
 " Poor man ! " said Sylvia, v/ith a shudder. 
 
 " Poor ! My dear young lady, you do not pity him ? " 
 
 " I do," said Sylvia, twisting her hands together as if in pain. 
 " I pity them all, poor creatures." 
 
 " Charming sensibility 1 " says Meekin, with a glance at 
 Vickers. " The true woman's heart, my dear Major." 
 
 The Major tapped his fingers impatiently at this ill-timed 
 twaddle. Sylvia was too nervous just then for sentiment. 
 " Come here. Poppet," he said, " and look through this door. 
 You can see them from here, and if you do not recognize any 
 
2i8 HJS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 of them, I can't see what is the use of putting you in the Lv.x ; 
 though, of course, if it is necessary, you must go." 
 
 The raised dock was just opposite to the door of the room in 
 which they were sitting, and the four manacled men, each with 
 an armed warder behind him, were visible above the heads of 
 the crowd. The girl had never before seen the ceremony of 
 trying a man for his life, and the silent and antique solemnities 
 of the business affected her, as it affects all who see it for the 
 first time. The atmosphere was heavy and distressing. The 
 chains of the prisoners clanked ominously. The crushing force 
 of judge, jailers, warders, and constables assembled to punish 
 the four men, appeared cruel. The familiar faces, that in her 
 momentary glance, she recognized, seemed to her evilly trans- 
 figured. Even the countenance of her promised husband, bent 
 eagerly forward towards the witness-box, showed tyrannous 
 and bloodthirsty. Her eyes hastily followed the pointing finger 
 of her father, and sought the men in the dock. Two of them 
 lounged, sullen and inattentive ; one nervously chewed a straw, 
 or piece of twig, pawing the dock with restless hand ; the fourth 
 scowled across the Court at the witness-box, which she could 
 not see. The four faces were all strange to her. 
 
 " No, papa," she said, with a sigh of relief, " I can't recognize 
 them at all." 
 
 As she was turning from the door, a voice from the witness- 
 box behind her made her suddenly pale and pause to look 
 again. The Court itself appeared, at that moment, affected, 
 for a murmur ran through it, and some official cried, 
 " Silence ! " 
 
 The notorious criminal, Rufus Dawes, the desperado of Port 
 Arthur, the wild beast whom the Gazette had judged not fit to 
 live, had just entered the witness-box. He was a man of thirty, 
 in the prime of life, with a torso whose muscular grandeur not 
 even the ill-fitting yellow jacket could altogether conceal, with 
 strong, embrowned, and nervous hands, an upright carriage, 
 and a pair of fierce, black eyes that roamed over the Court 
 hungrily. 
 
 Not all the weight of the double irons swaying fi-om the 
 leathern thong around his massive loins, could mar that ele- 
 gance of attitude which comes only from perfect muscular 
 development. Not all the frowning faces bent upon him could 
 frown an accent of respect into the contemptuous tones in 
 
''THE NOTORIOUS DAIV£S." 219 
 
 which he answered to his name, " Rufus Dawes, prisoner of 
 the Crown." 
 
 " Come away, my darhng," said Vickers, alarmed at his 
 daughter's blanched face and eager eyes. 
 
 " Wait," she said, impatiently, listening for the voice whose 
 owner she could not see. " Rufus Dawes ! Oh, I have heard 
 that name before ! " 
 
 " You are a prisoner of the Crown at the penal settlement of 
 Port Arthur?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " For life ? " 
 
 " For life." 
 
 Sylvia turned to her father with breathless inquiry in her 
 eyes. " Oh, papa ! who is that speaking ? I know the name ! 
 I know the voice ! " 
 
 ' ' That is the man who was with you in the boat, dear," says 
 Vickers, gravely. " The prisoner." 
 
 The eager light died out of her eyes, and in its place came 
 a look of disappointment and pain. " I thought it was a good 
 man," she said, holding by the edge of the doorway. " It 
 sounded hke a good voice." 
 
 And then she pressed her hands over her eyes and shuddered. 
 "There, there," says Vickers, soothingly, "don't be afraid, 
 Poppet ; he can't hurt you now." 
 
 " No, ha ! ha ! " says Meekin, with great display of off-hand 
 courage, " the villain's safe enough now." 
 
 The colloquy in the Court went on. "Do you know the 
 piisoners in the dock?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Who are they ? " 
 
 "John Rex, Henry Shiers, James Lesly, and, and — I'm not 
 sure about the last man." 
 
 "You are not sure about the last man. Will you swear to 
 the three others ? " 
 " Yes." 
 
 " You remember them well ? " 
 
 " I was in the chain-gang at Macquarie Harbour with them 
 for three years." Sylvia, hearing this hideous reason for ac- 
 quaintance, gave a low cry, and fell into her father's arms. 
 
 " Oh, papa, take me away ! I feel as if I was gomg to 
 remember something terrible ! " 
 
HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 Amid the deep silence that prevailed, the cry of the poor 
 girl was distinctly audible in the Court, and all heads turned 
 to the door. In the general wonder no one noticed the change 
 that passed over Rufus Dawes. His face flushed scarlet, great 
 drops of sweat stood on his forehead, and his black eyes glared 
 in the direction from whence the sound came, as though they 
 would pierce the envious wood that separated him from the 
 woman whose voice he had heard. Maurice Frere sprang up 
 and pushed his way through the crowd under the bench. 
 " What's this ? " he said to Vickers, almost brutally. " What 
 did you bring her here for ? She is not wanted. I told you 
 that." 
 
 " I considered it my duty, sir," says Vickers, with stately 
 rebuke. 
 
 " What has frightened her ? What has she heard ? What 
 has she seen ? " asked Frere, with a strangely white face. 
 " Sylvia, Sylvia ! " 
 
 She opened her eyes at the sound of his voice. " Take me 
 home, papa ; I'm ill. Oh, what thoughts I " 
 
 " What does she mean ? " cried Frere, looking in alarm from 
 one to the other. 
 
 " That ruffian Dawes frightened her," said Meekin. " A 
 gush of recollection, poor child. There, there, calm yourself. 
 Miss Vickers. He is quite safe." 
 
 " Frightened her, eh ? " 
 
 "Yes," said Sylvia, faintly, "he frightened me, Maurice. 1 
 needn't stop any longer, dear, need I ? " 
 
 " No," says Frere, the cloud passing from his face. " Major, 
 I beg your pardon, but I was hasty. Take her home at once. 
 This sort of thing is too much for her." And so he went back 
 to his place, wiping his brow, and breathing hard, as one who 
 had just escaped from some near peril. 
 
 Rufus Dawes had remained in the same attitude until the 
 figure of Frere, passing through the doorway, roused him. 
 " Who is she ? " he said, in a low, hoarse voice, to the constable 
 behind him. 
 
 " Miss Vickers," said the man, shortly, flinging the informa- 
 tion at him as one might fling a bone to a dangerous dog. 
 
 " Miss Vickers I " repeated the convict, still staring in a sort 
 of bewildered agony. " They told me she was dead 1 " 
 
 The constable sniffed contemptuously at this preposterous 
 
''THE NOTORIOUS DAWES." 
 
 conclusion, as who should say, " If you know all about it, 
 animal, why did you ask?" and then feeling that the tixed gaze 
 of his interrogator demanded some reply, added, "You thort 
 she was, I've no doubt. You did your best to make her so, 
 I've heard." 
 
 The convict raised both his hands with sudden action of 
 wrathful despair, as though he would seize the other, despite 
 the loaded muskets ; but checking himself with sudden impulse, 
 wheeled round to the Court. " Your Honour ! — Gentlemen ! 
 I want to speak." 
 
 The change in the tone of his voice, no less than the sudden 
 loudness of the exclamation, made the faces, hitherto bent upon 
 the door through which Mr. Frere had passed, turn round 
 again. To many there it seemed that the "notorious Dawes" 
 was no longer in the box, for, in place of the upright and 
 defiant villain who stood there an instant back, was a white- 
 faced, nervous, agitated creature, bending forward in an attitude 
 almost of supplication, one hand grasping the rail, as though to 
 save himself from falling, the other outstretched towards the 
 bench. "Your Honour, there has been some dreadful mistake 
 made. I want to explain about myself. I explained before, 
 when first I was sent to Port Arthur, but the letters were never 
 forv/arded by the Commandant ; of course that's the rule, and 
 I can't complain. I've been sent there unjustly, your Honour. 
 / made that boat, your Honour. / saved the Major's wife and 
 daughter. / was the man ; I did it aU myself, and my liberty 
 was sworn away by a villain who hated me. I thought, until 
 now, that no one knew the truth, for they told me that she was 
 dead." His rapid utterance took the Court so much by sur- 
 prise that no one interrupted him. " I was sentenced to death 
 for bolting, sir, and they reprieved me because I helped them 
 in the boat. Helped them ! Why, I made it ! She will tell 
 you so. I nursea her ! I carried her in my arms ! I starved 
 myself for her ! She was fond of me, sir. She was, indeed. 
 She called me 'Good Mr. Dawes.'" 
 
 At this, a coarse laugh broke out, which was instantly 
 checked. The judge bent over to ask, " Does he mean Miss 
 Vickers?" and in this interval, Rufus Dawes, looking down 
 into the Court, saw Maurice Frere staring up at him with terror 
 in his eyes. 
 
 " I see you. Captain Frere, coward and liar ! Put hith in tht 
 
HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 box, gentlemen, and make him tell his story. •S>^i?'ll contradict 
 him, never fear. Oh, and I thought she was dead all this 
 while ! " 
 
 The judge had got his answer from the clerk by this time. 
 ** Miss Vickers had been seriously ill, had fainted just now in 
 the Court. Her only memories of the convict who had been 
 with her in the boat were those of terror and disgust. The 
 sight of him just now had most seriously affected her. The 
 convict himself was an inveterate liar and schemer, and his 
 story had been already disproved by Captain Frere." 
 
 The judge, a man inclining by nature to humanity, but forced 
 by experience to receive all statements of prisoners with caution, 
 said all he could say, and the tragedy of five years was dis- 
 posed of in the following dialogue : — 
 
 Judge : This is not the place for an accusation against 
 Captain Frere, nor the place to argue upon your alleged wrongs. 
 If you have suffered injustice, the authorities will hear your 
 complaint, and redress it. 
 
 RUFUS Dawes : I have complained, your Honour. I wrote 
 letter after letter to the Government, but they were never sent. 
 Then I heard she was dead, and they sent me to the coal mines 
 after that, and we never hear anything there. 
 
 Judge : I can't listen to you, Mr. Mangles, have you any 
 more questions to ask the witness ? 
 
 But Mr. Mangles not having any more, some one called 
 " Matthew Gabbett," and Rufus Dawes, still endeavouring to 
 speak, was clanked away with, amid a buzz of remark and 
 surmise. 
 
 The trial progressed without further incident. Sylvia was 
 not called, and, to the astonishment of many of his enemies, 
 Captain Frere went into the witness-box and generously spoke 
 in favour of John Rex. " He might have left us to starve," 
 Frere said — " he might have murdered us ; we were completely 
 in his power. The stock of provisions on board the brig was 
 not a large one, and I consider that, in dividing it with us, he 
 showed great generosity for one in his situation." This piece 
 of evidence told strongly in favour of the prisoners, for Captain 
 Frere was known to be such an uncompromising foe to all 
 rebellious convicts, that it was understood that only the sternest 
 
MAURICE FRERE'S GOOD ANGEL. 223 
 
 sense of justice and truth could lead him to speak in such terms. 
 The defence set up by Rex, moreover, was most ingenious. 
 He was guilty of absconding, but his moderation might plead 
 an excuse for that. His only object was his freedom, and 
 having gained it, he had lived honestly for nearly three years, 
 as he could prove. He was charged with piratically seizing the 
 brig Osprey, and he urged that the brig Osprey, having been 
 built by convicts at Macquarie Harbour, and never entered in 
 any shipping list, could not be said to be " piratically seized," 
 in the strict meaning of the term. The Court admitted the 
 force of this objection, and, influenced doubtless by Captain 
 Frere's evidence, the fact that five years had passed since the 
 mutiny, and that the two men most guilty (Cheshire and Barker) 
 had been executed in England, sentenced Rex and his three 
 companions to transportation for life to the penal settlements 
 of the colony. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MAURICE frere's GOOD ANGEL. 
 
 AT this happy conclusion to his labours, Frere went down 
 to comfort the girl for whose sake he had suffered Rex to 
 escape the gallows. On his way he was met by a man 
 who touched his hat, and asked to speak with him an instant. 
 This man was past middle age, owned a red brandy-beaten face, 
 and had in his gait and manner that nameless something that 
 denotes the seaman. 
 
 " Well, Blunt," says Frere, pausing with the impatient air of 
 a man who expects to hear bad news, " what is it now ? " 
 
 " Only to tell you that it is all right, sir," says Blunt. " She's 
 come aboard again this morning." 
 
 " Come aboard again ! " ejaculated Frere. " Why, I didn't 
 know that she had been ashore. Where did she go ? " He spoke 
 with an air of confident authority, and Blunt — no longer the 
 bluff tyrant of old — seemed to quail before him. The trial of 
 the mutineers of the Malabar had ruined Phineas Blunt. Make 
 what excuses he might, there was no concealing the fact that 
 Pine found him drunk in his cabin when he ought to have been 
 
224 ^^S NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 attending to his duties on deck, and the " authorities " could not, 
 or would not, pass over such a heinous breach of discipline. 
 Captain Blunt— who, of course, had his own version of the story 
 — thus deprived of the honour of bringing His Majest/s prisoners 
 to His Majesty's colonies of New South Wales and Van Die- 
 men's Land, went on a whaling cruise to the South Seas. The 
 influence which Sarah Purfoy had acquired over him had, 
 however, irretrievably injured him. It was as though she had 
 poisoned his moral nature by the influence of a clever and wicked 
 woman over a sensual and dull-witted man. Blunt gradually 
 sank lower and lower. He became a drunkard, and was known 
 as a man with a " grievance against the Government." Captain 
 Frere, having had occasion for him in some capacity, had become 
 in a manner his patron, and had got him the command of a 
 schooner trading from Sydney. On getting this command — 
 not without some wry faces on the part of the owner resident in 
 Hobart Town — Blunt had taken the temperance pledge for the 
 space of twelve months, and was a miserable dog in consequence. 
 He was, however, a faithful henchman, for he hoped by Frere's 
 means to get some " Government billet" — the grand object of 
 all colonial sea captains of that epoch. 
 
 " Well, sir, she went ashore to see a friend," says Blunt, look- 
 ing at the sky and then at the earth. 
 
 "What friend.?" 
 
 " The — the prisoner, sir." 
 
 " And she saw him, I suppose?" 
 
 " Yes, but I thought I'd better tell you, sir," says Blunt. 
 
 " Of course ; quite right," returned the other ; " you had 
 better start at once. It's no use waiting." 
 
 " As you wish, sir. I can sail to-morrow morning — or this 
 evening, if you like." 
 
 " This evening," says Frere, turning away ; " as soon as 
 possible." 
 
 " There's a situation in Sydney I've been looking afier," said 
 the other, uneasily, " if you could help me to it," 
 
 " What is it ? " 
 
 " The command of one of the Government vessels, sir." 
 
 " Well, keep sober, then," says Frere, " and I'll see what I 
 can do. And keep that woman's tongue still if you can." 
 
 The pair looked at each other, and Blunt grinned slavishly. 
 
 " I'll do my best." 
 
MAURICE FRERE'S GOOD ANGEL. 225 
 
 "Take care you do," returned his patron, leaving him without 
 further ceremony. 
 
 Frere found Vickers in the garden, and at once begged him 
 not to talk about the " business" to his daughter. 
 
 " You saw how bad she was to-day, Vickers. For goodness'' 
 sake don't make her ill again." 
 
 "My dear sir," says poor Vickers, "/won't refer to the sub- 
 ject. She's been very unwell ever since. Nervous and unstrung. 
 Go in and see her." 
 
 So Frere went in and soothed the excited girl, with real sorrow 
 at her suffering. 
 
 " It's all right now, Poppet," he said to her. " Don't think of 
 it any more. Put it out of your mind, dear." 
 
 " It was foolish of me, Maurice, I know, but I could not help 
 it. The sound of — of — that man's voice seemed to bring back 
 to me some great pity for something or some one. I don't 
 explain what I mean, I know, but I felt that I was just on the 
 verge of remembering a story of some great wrong, just about 
 to hear some dreadful revelation that should make me turn 
 from all the people whom I ought most to love. Do you 
 understand?" 
 
 " I think I know what you mean," says Frere, with averted 
 face. " But that's all nonsense, you know." 
 
 " Of course," returned she, with a touch of her old childish 
 manner of disposing of questions out of hand. " Everybody 
 knows it's all nonsense. But then we do think such things. It 
 seems to me that I am double, that I have lived somewhere 
 before, and have had another life — a dream-life." 
 
 " What a romantic girl you are," said the other, dimly com- 
 prehending her meaning. " How could you have a dream- 
 life?" 
 
 " Of course not, really, stupid. But in thought, you know. 
 I dream such strange things now and then. I am always fall- 
 ing down precipices and into cataracts, and being pushed into 
 great caverns in enormous rocks. Horrible dreams ! " 
 
 " Indigestion," returned Frere. " You don't take exercise 
 enough. You shouldn't read so much. Have a good five-mile 
 walk." 
 
 "And in these dreams," continued Sylvia, not heeding his 
 interruption, " there is one strange thing. You are always there 
 Maurice." 
 
 15 
 
226 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 " Come, that's all right," says Maurice. 
 
 "Ah, but not kind and good as you are, Captain Bruin, but 
 scowling, and threatening, and angry, so that I am afraid of 
 you." 
 
 " But that is only a dream, darling." 
 
 "Yes, but " playing with the button of his coat. 
 
 "But what?" 
 
 " But you looked just so to-day in the Court, Maurice, and I 
 think that's what made me so silly." 
 
 " My darling ! There I Hush— don't cry ! " 
 
 But she had burst into a passion of sobs and tears, that shook 
 her slight figure in his arms. 
 
 " Oh, Maurice, I am a wicked girl ! I don't know my own 
 mind. I think sometimes I don't love you as I ought — you who 
 have saved me and nursed me." 
 
 " There, never mind about that," muttered Maurice Frere, 
 with a sort of choking in his throat. 
 
 She giew more composed presently, and said, after a while, 
 lifting her face — "Tell me, Maurice, did you ever, in those 
 days of which you have spoken to me — when you nursed me 
 as a little child in your arms, and fed me, and starved for me 
 — did you ever think we should be married ? " 
 
 " I don't know," says Maurice. " Why ? " 
 
 " I think you must have thought so, because — it's not vanity, 
 dear — you would not else have been so kind, and gentle, and 
 devoted." 
 
 " Nonsense, Poppet," he said, with his eyes resolutely 
 averted. 
 
 " No, but you have been, and I am veiy pettish, sometimes. 
 Papa has spoiled me. You are always affectionate, and those 
 worrying ways of yours, which I get angry at, all come from 
 love for me, don't they ? " 
 
 " I hope so," said Maurice, with an unwonted moisture in 
 his eyes. 
 
 "Well, you see, that is the reason why I am angry with 
 myself for not loving you as I ought. I want you to like the 
 things I like, and to love the books and the music and the 
 pictures and the— the World / love ; and I forget that you are 
 a man, you know, and I am only a girl ; and I forget how nobly 
 you behaved, Maurice, and how unselfishly you risked your life 
 for mine. Why, what is the matter, dear ? " 
 
MAURICE FRERUyS GOOD ANGEL. 227 
 
 He had put her away from him suddenly, and gone to the 
 window, gazing across the sloping garden at the bay below, 
 sleeping in the soft evening light. The schooner which had 
 brought the witnesses from Port Arthur lay off the shore, and 
 the yellow flag at her mast fluttered gently in the cool evening 
 breeze. The sight of this flag appeared to anger him, for, as 
 his eyes fell on it, he uttered an impatient exclamation, and 
 turned round again. 
 
 " Maurice ! " she cried, " I have wounded you ! " 
 
 " No, no. It is nothing," said he, with the air of a man 
 surprised in a moment of weakness. " I — I did not like to hear 
 you talk in this way — about not loving me." 
 
 " Ah, forgive me, dear ; I did not mean to hurt you. It is 
 my silly way of saying more than I mean. How could I do 
 otherwise than love you — after all you have done ? " 
 
 Some sudden desperate whim caused him to exclaim, "But 
 suppose I had not done all you think, would you not love me 
 still?" 
 
 Her eyes, raised to his face with anxious tenderness for the 
 pain she had beUeved herself to have inflicted, fell at this 
 speech. 
 
 " What a question ! I don't know. I suppose I should ; 
 yet — but what is the use, Maurice, of supposing f I know 
 you have done it, and that is enough. How can I say what 
 I might have done if something else had happened ? Why, 
 you might not have loved 7ne." 
 
 If there had been for a moment any sentiment of remorse 
 in his selfish heart, the hesitation of her answer went far to 
 dispel it. 
 
 " To be sure, that's true," and he placed his arm round her. 
 
 She lifted her face again with a bright laugh. 
 
 " We are a pair of geese — supposing ! How can we help 
 what has past .'' We have the Future, darling — the Future, in 
 which I am to be your little wife, and we are to love each otlter 
 all our lives, like the people in the story-books." 
 
 Temptation to evil had often come to Maurice Frere, and his 
 selfish nature had succumbed to it when in far less witching 
 shape than this fair and innocent child luring him with wistful 
 eyes to win her. What hopes had he not built upon her love ; 
 what good resolutions had he not made by reason of the purity 
 and goodness she was to bring to him ? As she said, the past 
 
22S HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 was beyond recall ; the future — in which she was to love him 
 all her life — was before them. With the hypocrisy of selfishness 
 which deceives even itself, he laid the little head upon his heart 
 with a sensible glow of virtue. 
 
 " God bless you, darling ! You are my good angel." 
 The girl sighed. " I will be your good angel, dear, if you 
 will let me." 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 MR. MEEKIN ADMINISTERS CONSOLATION. 
 
 REX told Mr. Meekin, who, the next day, did him the 
 honour to visit him, that, " under Providence, he owed 
 his escape from death to the kind manner in which 
 Captain Frere had spoken of him." 
 
 " 1 hope your escape will be a warning to you, my man," 
 said Mr. Meekin, "and that you will endeavour to make the 
 rest of your life, thus spared by the mercy of Providence, an 
 atonement for your early errors." 
 
 " Indeed I will, sir," said John Rex, who had taken Mr. 
 Meekin's measure very accurately, " and it is very kind of you 
 to condescend to speak so to a wretch like me." 
 
 "Not at all," said Meekin, with affability; "it is my duty. 
 I am a Minister of the Gospel." 
 
 " Ah ! sir, I wish I had attended to the Gospel's teachings 
 when I was younger. I might have been saved from all this." 
 
 " You might, indeed, poor man ; but the Divine Mercy is 
 infinite — quite infinite, and will be extended to all of us — to 
 you as well as to me." (This with the air of saying, " What 
 do you think of thai!") " Remember the penitent thief, Rex, 
 — the penitent thief." 
 
 " Indeed I do, sir." 
 
 "And read your Bible, Rex, and pray for strength to bear 
 your punishment." 
 
 " 1 will, Mr. Meekin. I need it sorely, sir— physical as well 
 as spiritual strength, sir— for the Government allowance is sadly 
 insufficient." 
 
 "1 will speak to the authorities about a change in your 
 
MR. MEEKIN ADMINISTERS CONSOLATION. 229 
 
 dietary scale," returned Meekin, patronizingly, " In the mean 
 time, just collect together in your mind those particulars of 
 your adventures of which you spoke, and have them ready for 
 me when next I call. Such a remarkable history ought not to 
 be lost." 
 
 " Thank you kindly, sir. I will, sir. Ah ! I little thought 
 when I occupied the position of a gentleman, Mr. Meekin" — 
 the cunning scoundrel had been piously grandiloquent con- 
 cerning his past career — "that I should be reduced to this. 
 But it is only just, sir." 
 
 " The mysterious workings of Providence are always just, 
 Rex," returned Meekin, who preferred to speak of the Almighty 
 with well-bred vagueness. " I am glad to see you so conscious 
 of your errors. Good morning." 
 
 " Good morning, and Heaven bless you, sir," said Rex, with 
 his tongue in his cheek for the benefit of his yard mates ; and 
 so Mr. Meekin tripped gracefully away, convinced that he was 
 labouring most successfully in the Vineyard, and that the 
 convict Rex was really a superior person. 
 
 " I will send his narrative to the Bishop," said he to himself. 
 " It will amuse him. There m^ust be many strange histories 
 here, if one could but find them out." 
 
 As the thought passed through his brain, his eye fell upon 
 the " notorious Dawes," who, while waiting for the schooner to 
 take him back to Port Arthur, had been permitted to amuse 
 himself by breaking stones. The prison-shed which Mr. 
 Meekin was visiting was long and low, roofed with iron, and 
 terminating at each end in the stone wall of the gaol. At one 
 side rose the cells, at the other the outer wall of the prison. 
 From the outer wall projected a weatherboard under-roof, and 
 beneath this were seated forty heavily-ironed convicts. Two 
 constables, with loaded carbines, walked up and down the clear 
 space in the middle, and another watched from a sort of sentry- 
 box built against the main wall. Every half-hour a third 
 constable went down the hne and examined the irons. The 
 admirable system of solitary confinement — which in average 
 cases produces insanity in the space of twelve months — was as 
 yet unknown in Hobart Town, and the forty heavily-ironed 
 men had the pleasure of seeing each other's faces every day for 
 six hours. 
 
 The other inmates of the prison were at work on the roads, 
 
230 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 or otherwise bestowed in the day time, but the forty were 
 judged too desperate to be let loose. They sat, three feet 
 apart, in two long hnes, each man with a heap of stones 
 between his outstretched legs, and cracked the pebbles in 
 leisurely fashion. The double row of dismal woodpeckers 
 tapping at this terribly hollow beech-tree of penal discipline 
 had a semi-ludicrous appearance. It seemed so painfully 
 absurd that forty muscular men should be ironed and guarded 
 for no better purpose than the cracking of a cart-load of quartz- 
 pebbles. In the mean time the air was heavy with angry 
 glances shot from one to the other, and the passage of the 
 parson was hailed by a grumbling undertone of blasphemy. 
 It was considered fasliionable to grunt when the hammer came 
 in contact with the stone, and under cover of this mock ex- 
 clamation of fatigue, it was convenient to launch an oath. A 
 fanciful visitor, seeing the irregularly rising hammers along the 
 line, might have likened the shed to the interior of some vast 
 piano, whose notes an unseen hand was erratically fingering. 
 Rufus Dawes was seated last of the line — his back to the cells, 
 his face to the gaol wall. This was the place nearest the 
 watching constable, and was allotted on that account to the 
 most ill-favoured. Some of his companions envied him that 
 melancholy distinction. 
 
 " Well, Dawes," says Mr. Meekin, measuring with his eye 
 the distance between the prisoner and himself, as one might 
 measure the chain of some ferocious dog. " How are you this 
 morning, Dawes ? " 
 
 Dawes, scowling in a parenthesis between the cracking of 
 two stones, was understood to say that he was very well. 
 
 " I am afraid, Dawes," said Mr. Meekin reproachfully, " that 
 you have done yourself no good by your outburst in court on 
 Monday. I understand that public opinion is quite incensed 
 against you." 
 
 Dawes, slowly arranging one large fraginent of bluestone in a 
 comfortable basin of smaller fragments, made no reply. 
 
 " I am afraid you lack patience, Dawes. You do not repent 
 Df your offences against the law, I fear." 
 
 The only answer vouchsafed by the ironed man — if answer 
 it could be called— was a savage blow, which split the stone 
 into sudden fragments, and made the clergyman skip a step 
 backward 
 
MR. ME E KIN ADMINISTERS CONSOLATION. 231 
 
 " You are a hardened ruffian, sir ! Do you not hear me 
 speak to you ? " 
 
 " I hear you," said Dawes, picking up another stone. 
 
 "Then listen respectfully, sir," said Meekin, roseate u^ith 
 celestial anger. "You have all day to break those stones." 
 
 " Yes, I have all day," returned Rufus Dawes, with a dogged 
 look upward, " and all next day, for that matter. Ugh 1 " 
 and again the hammer descended. 
 
 " I came to console you, man — to console you," says Meekin, 
 indignant at the contempt writh which his well-meant overtures 
 had been received. "I wanted to give you some good advice!" 
 
 The self-important annoyance of the tone seemed to appeal 
 to whatever vestige of appreciation for the humorous, chains 
 and degradation had suffered to linger in the convict's brain, 
 for a faint smile crossed his features. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, sir," he said. " Pray go on." 
 
 " I was going to say, my good fellow, that you have done 
 yourself a great deal of injury by your ill-advised accusation of 
 Captain Frere, and the use you made of Miss Vickei's's name." 
 
 A frown, as of pain, contracted the prisoner's brows, and he 
 seemed with difficulty to put a restraint upon his speech. " Is 
 there to be no inquiry, Mr. Meekin?" he asked, at length. 
 " What I stated was the truth — the truth, so help me God ! " 
 
 "No blasphemy, sir," said Meekin, solemnly. "No blas- 
 phemy, wretched man. Do not add to the sin of lying the 
 greater sin of taking the name of the Lord thy God in vain. 
 He will not hold him guiltless, Dawes. He will not hold him 
 guiltless, remember. No, there is to be no inquiry." 
 
 "Ar-^ they not going to ask her for her story? " asked Dawes, 
 with a pitiful change of manner. " They told me that she was 
 to be asked. Surely they will ask her." 
 
 " I am not, perhaps, at liberty," says Meekin, placidly un- 
 conscious of the agony of despair and rage that made the 
 voice of the strong man before him quiver, " to state the 
 intentions of the authorities, but I can tell you that Miss 
 Vickers will not be asked anything about you. You are to 
 go back to Port Arthur on the 24th, and to remain there." 
 
 A groan burst from Rufus Dawes ; a groan so full of torture, 
 that even the comfortable Meekin was thrilled by it. 
 
 " It is the Law, you know, my good man. I can't help it," 
 he said. " You shouldn't break the Law, you know." 
 
232 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 "Curse the Law !" cries Dawes. "It's a Bloody Law ; it's 
 
 there, I beg your pardon," and he fell to cracking his 
 
 stones again, with a laugh that was more terrible in its bitter 
 hopelessness of winning attention or sympathy, than any out- 
 burst of passion could have been. 
 
 " Come," says Meekin, feeling uneasily constrained to bring 
 forth some of his London-learnt platitudes. " You can't com- 
 plain. You have broken the Law, and you must suffer. 
 Civilized Society says you sha'n't do certain things, and if you 
 do them you must suffer the penalty Civilized Society imposes. 
 You are not wanting in intelligence, Dawes, more's the pity — 
 and you can't deny the justice of that." 
 
 Rufus Dawes, as if disdaining to answer in words, cast his 
 eyes round the yard with a glance that seemed to ask grimly 
 if Civilized Society was progressing quite in accordance with 
 justice, when its civihzation created such places as that stone- 
 walled, carbine-guarded prison-shed, and filled it with such 
 creatures as those forty human beasts, doomed to spend the 
 best years of their manhood cracking pebbles in it. 
 
 "You don't deny that?" asked the smug parson, "do you, 
 Dawes?" 
 
 "It's not my place to argue with you, sir," said Dawes, in 
 a tone of indifference, born of lengthened suffering, so nicely 
 balanced between contempt and respect, that the inexperienced 
 Meekin could not tell whether he had made a convert, or sub- 
 jected himself to an impertinence ; "but I'm a prisoner for life, 
 and don't look at it in the same way that you do." 
 
 This view of the question did not seem to have occurred to 
 Mr. Meekin, for his mild cheek flushed. Certainly, the fact of 
 being a prisoner for life did make some diffeience. The sound 
 of the noonday bell, however, warned him to cease argument, 
 and to take his consolations out of the way of the mustering 
 prisoners. 
 
 With a great clanking and clashing oi irons, the forty rose 
 and stood each by his stone-heap. The third constable came 
 round, rapping the leg-irons of each man with easy nonchalance, 
 and roughly pulling up the coarse trousers (made with buttoned 
 flaps at the sides, like Mexican cahoncros, in order to give free 
 play to the ankle fetters), so tliat he might assure himself that 
 no tricks had been played since his last visit. As each man 
 passed this ordeal he saluted, and clanked, with wide-spread 
 
RUFUS DAWES'S IDYLL. 
 
 legs, to his place in the double line. Mr. Meekin, though not 
 a patron of field sports, found something in the scene that 
 reminded him of a blacksmith picking up horses' feet to examine 
 the soundness of their shoes. 
 
 " Upon my word," he said to himself, with a momentary pang 
 of genuine compassion, " it is a dreadful way to treat human 
 beings. I don't wonder at that wretched creature groaning 
 under it. But, bless me, it is near one o'clock, and I promised to 
 lunch with Major Vickers at two. How time flies, to besure!" 
 
 CHAPTER Vll. 
 
 RUFUS DAWES'S IDYLL. 
 
 THAT afternoon, while Mr. Meekin was digesting his 
 lunch, and chatting airily with Sylvia, Rufus Dawes 
 began to brood over a desperate scheme. The intelli- 
 gence that the investigation he had hoped for was not to be 
 granted to him had rendered doubly bitter those galling fetters 
 of self-restraint which he had laid upon himself. For five years 
 of desolation he had waited and hoped for a chance which 
 might bring him to Hobart Town, and enable him to denounce 
 the treachery of IMaurice Frere. He had, by an almost miracu- 
 lous accident, obtained that chance of open speech, and, having 
 obtained it, he found that he was not allowed to speak. All the 
 hopes he had formed were dashed to earth. All the calmness 
 with which he had forced himself to bear his fate was now 
 turned into bitterest rage and fury. Instead of one enemy he 
 had twenty. All — judge, jury, gaoler, and parson — were banded 
 together to work him evil and deny him right. The whole 
 world was his foe : there was no honesty or truth in any living 
 creature — save one. 
 
 During the dull misery of his convict life at Port Arthur one 
 bright memory shone upon him like a star. In the depth of 
 his degradation, at the height of his despair, he cherished one 
 pure and ennobling thought — the thought of the child whom he 
 had saved, and who loved him. When, on board the whaler 
 that had rescued him from the burning boat, he had felt that 
 the sailors, believing in Frere's bluff lies, shrunk from the 
 
234 ^^S NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 moody felon, he had gained strength to be silent, by thinking 
 t)f the suffering child. When poor Mrs. Vickers died, making 
 no sign, and thus the chief witness to his heroism perished 
 before his eyes, the thought that the child was left had restrained 
 his selfish regrets. When Frere, handing him over to the 
 Authorities as an absconder, ingeniously twisted the details of 
 the boat-building to his own glorification, the knowledge that 
 Sylvia would assign to these pretensions their true value had 
 given him courage to keep silence. So strong was his belief in 
 her gratitude, that he scorned to beg for the pardon he had 
 taught himself to believe that she would ask for him. So utter 
 was his contempt for the coward and boaster who, dressed in 
 brief authority, bore insidious false witness against him, that, 
 when he heard his sentence of life banishment, he disdained to 
 make known the true part he had played in the matter, pre- 
 ferring to wait for the more exquisite revenge, the more complete 
 justification which would follow upon the recovery of the child 
 from her illness. But when, at Port Arthur, day after day 
 passed over, and brought no word of pity or justification, he 
 began, with a sickening feeling of despair, to comprehend that 
 something strange had happened. He was told by new comers 
 that the child of the Commandant lay still sick and near to 
 death. Then he heard that she and her father had left the 
 colony, and that all prospect of her righting him by her evidence 
 was at an end. This news gave him a terrible pang ; and at 
 first he was inclined to break out into upbraidings of her selfish- 
 ness. But, with that depth of love which was in him, albeit 
 crusted over and concealed by the sullenness of speech and 
 manner which his sufferings had produced, he found excuses 
 for her even then. She was iU. She was in the hands of 
 friends who loved her, and disregarded ht/n; perhaps, even her 
 entreaties and explanations were put aside as childish babblings. 
 She would free him if she had the power. Then he wrote 
 "statements," agonized to see the Commandant, pestered the 
 gaolers and warders with the story of his wrongs, and inundated 
 the Government with letters, which, containing, as they ditl 
 always, denunciations of Maurice Frere, were never suffered to 
 reach their destination. The authorities, willing at the first to 
 ook kindly upon him in consideration of his strange experience, 
 grew weary of this perpetual iteration of what they believed to 
 be malicious falsehoods, and ordered him heavier tasks and 
 
RUFUS DAWES'S IDYLL. 235 
 
 more continuous labour. They mistook his gloom for treachery, 
 his impatient outbursts of passion at his fate for ferocity, his 
 silent endurance for dangerous cunning. As he had been at 
 Macquarie Harbour, so did he become at Port Arthur — a marked 
 man. Despairing of winning his coveted liberty by fair means, 
 and horrified at the hideous prospect of a life in chains, he 
 twice attempted to escape, but escape was even more hopeless 
 than it had been at Hell's Gates. The Peninsula of Port 
 Arthur was admirably guarded, signal stations drew a chain 
 round the prison, an armed boat's crew watched each bay, and 
 across the narrow isthmus which connected it with the main- 
 land was a cordon of watch-dogs, in addition to the soldier 
 guard. He was retaken, of course, flogged, and weighted with 
 heavier irons. The second time, they sent him to the Coal 
 Mines, where the prisoners lived underground, worked half 
 naked, and dragged their inspecting gaolers in waggons upon 
 iron tramways, when such great people condescended to visit 
 them. The day on which he started for this place he heard 
 that Sylvia was dead, and his last hope went from him. 
 
 Then began with him a new religion. He worshipped the 
 dead. For the living, he had but hatred and evil words ; for 
 the dead, he had love and tender thoughts. Instead of the 
 phantoms of his vanished youth which were once wont to visit 
 him, he saw now but one vision — the vision of the child who 
 bad loved him. Instead of conjuring up for himself pictures of 
 that home circle in which he had once moved, and those crea- 
 tures who in the past years had thought him worthy of esteem 
 and affection, he placed before himself but one idea, one 
 embodiment of happiness, one being who was without sin 
 and without stain, among all the monsters of that pit into 
 which he had fallen. Around the figure of the innocent child 
 who had lain in his breast, and laughed at him with her red 
 young mouth, ht grouped every image of happiness and love. 
 Having banished from his thoughts all hope of resuming his 
 name and place, he pictured to himself some quiet nook at the 
 world's end — a deep-gardened house in a German country 
 town, or remote cottage by the English seashore, where he 
 and his dream-child might have lived together, happier in a 
 purer aftection than the love of man for woman. He bethought 
 him how he could have taught her out of the strange store of 
 learning uliich hie roving ufc iiad won for him, how he could 
 
236 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 have confided to her his real name, and perhaps purchase for 
 her wealth and honour by reason of it. Yet, — he thought, she 
 would not care for wealth and honour, she would prefer a quiet 
 life, — a life of unassuming usefulness, a life devoted to good 
 deeds, to charity and love. He could see her — in his visions 
 — reading by a cheery fireside, wandering in summer woods, 
 or lingering by the marge of the slumbering mid-day sea. He 
 could feel — in his dreams — her soft arms about his neck, her 
 innocent kisses on his lips, he could hear her light laugh, and 
 see her sunny ringlets float, back-blown, as she ran to meet 
 him. Conscious that she was dead, and that he did to hei 
 gentle memory no disrespect by linking her fortunes to those 
 of a wretch who had seen so much of evil as himself, he loved 
 to think of her as still living, and to plot out for her and for 
 himself impossible plans of future happiness. In the noisome 
 darkness of the mine, in the glaring light of the noonday — 
 dragging at his loaded waggon, he could see her ever with him, 
 her calm eyes gazing lovingly on his, as they had gazed in the 
 boat so long ago. She never seemed to grow older, she never 
 seemed to wish to leave him. It was only when his misery 
 became too great for him to bear, and he cursed and blas- 
 phemed, mingling for a time in the hideous mirth of his 
 companions, that the httle figure fled away. Thus dreaming, 
 he had shaped out for himself a sorrowful comfort, and in his 
 dream-world found a compensation for the terrible affliction of 
 living. Indifference to his present sufferings took possession 
 of him ; only at the bottom of this indifference lurked a fixed 
 hatred of the man who had brought these sufferings upon him, 
 and a determination to demand at the first opportunity a recon- 
 sideration of that man's claims to be esteemed a hero. It was 
 in this mood that he had intended to make the revelation which 
 he had made in court, but the intelligence that Sylvia lived 
 unmanned him, and his prepared speech had been usurped by 
 a passionate torrent of complaint and invective, which convinced 
 no one, and gave Frere the very argument he needed. It was 
 decided that the prisoner Dawes was a malicious and artful 
 scoundrel, whose only object was to gain a brief respite of the 
 punishment which he had so justly earned. Against this in- 
 justice he had rc-^oiveu to rebel. It was monstrous, he thought, 
 that they should refuse to hear the witness who was so ready 
 to speak in his favour, infamous that they should send him 
 
AN ESCAPE. 237 
 
 back to his doom without allowing her to say a word in his 
 defence. But he would defeat that scheme. He had planned 
 a method of escape, and he would break from his bonds, fling 
 himself at her feet, and pray her to speak the truth for him, and 
 so save him. Strong in his faith in her, and with his love for 
 her brightened by the love he had borne to her dream-image, 
 he felt sure of her power to rescue him now, as he had rescued 
 her before. " If she knew I was alive, she would come to me," 
 he said. " I am sure she would. Perhaps they told her that I 
 was dead." 
 
 Meditating that night in the solitude of his cell — his evil 
 character had gained him the poor luxury of loneliness — he 
 almost wept to think of the cruel deception that had doubtless 
 been practised on her. " They have told her that I was dead, 
 in order that she might learn to forget me ; but she could not 
 do that. I have thought of her so often during these weary 
 years, that she must sometimes have thought of me. Five 
 years ! She must be a woman now. My little child a woman ! 
 Yet she is sure to be childlike, sweet, and gentle. How she 
 will grieve when she hears of my sufferings. Oh ! my darling, 
 my darling, you are not dead ! " And then, looking hastily 
 about him in the darkness, as though fearful even there of 
 being seen, he pulled from out his breast a little packet, and 
 felt it lovingly with his coarse, toil-worn fingers, reverently 
 raising it to his lips, and dreaming over it, with a smile on 
 his face, as though it were a sacred talisman that should open 
 to him the doors of freedom. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 AN ESCAPE. 
 
 A FEW days after this — on the 23rd of December — Maurice 
 Frere was alarmed by a piece of startling intelligence. 
 The notorious Dawes had escaped from gaol ! 
 Captain Frere had inspected the prison that very afternoon, 
 and it had seemed to him that the hammers had never fallen 
 so briskly, nor the chains clanked so gaily, as on the occasion 
 of his visit. " Thinking of their Christmas holiday, the dogs ! " 
 
238 If IS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 he had said to the patrolling warder. " Thinking of their 
 Christmas pudding, the luxurious scoundrels ! " and the con- 
 vict nearest him had laughed appreciatively, as convicts and 
 schoolboys do laugh at the jests of the man in authority. All 
 seemed contentment. Moreover, he had — by way of a pleasant 
 stroke of wit — tormented Rufus Dawes with his ill-fortune. 
 " The schooner sails to-morrow, my man," he had said ; " you'll 
 spend your Christmas at the mines." And congratulated him- 
 self upon the fact that Rufus Dawes merely touched his cap, 
 and went on with his stone-cracking in silence. Certainly 
 double irons and hard labour were fine things to break a man's 
 spirit. So that, when in the afternoon of the same day he 
 heard the astounding news that Rufus Dawes had freed him- 
 self from his fetters, climbed the gaol wall in broad daylight, 
 run the gauntlet of Macquarie-street, and was now supposed to 
 be safely hidden in the mountains, he was dumbfounded. 
 
 " How the deuce did he do it, Jenkins ?" he asked, as soon 
 as he reached the yard. 
 
 " Well, I'm blessed if I rightly know, your honour," says 
 Jenkins. " He was over the wall before you could say 'knife.' 
 Scott fired and missed him, and then I heard the sentry's 
 musket, but he missed him, too." 
 
 " Missed him ! " cries Frere. " Pretty fellows you are, all of 
 you! I suppose you couldn't hit a haystack at twenty yards? 
 Why, the man wasn't three feet from the end of your carbine ! " 
 
 The unlucky Scott, standing in melancholy attitude by the 
 empty irons, muttered something about the sun having been 
 in his eyes. " I don't know how it was, sir. I ought to have 
 hit him, for certain. I think I did touch him, too, as he went 
 up the wall." 
 
 A stranger to the customs of the place might have imagined 
 that he was listening to a conversation about a pigeon match. 
 
 " Tell me all about it," says Frere, with an angry curse. 
 
 " I was just turning, your honour, when I hears Scott sing 
 out ' Hullo ! " and when I turned round, I saw Dawes's irons 
 on the ground, and him a-scrambling up the heap o' stones 
 yonder. The two men on my right jumped up, and I thought 
 it was a made-up thing among 'em, so I covered 'em with my 
 carbine, according to instructions, and called out that I'd shoot 
 the first that stepped out. Then I heard Scott's piece, and the 
 men gave a shout like. When I looked round, he was gone." 
 
Ay ESCAPE. 239 
 
 " Nobody else moved ? '' 
 
 ** No, sir. I was confused at first, and thought they were all 
 in it, but Parton and Haines they runs in and gets between me 
 and the wall, and then Mr. Short he come, and we examined 
 their irons." 
 
 "All right?" 
 
 " All right, your honour ; and they all swore they knowed 
 nothing of it. I know Dawes's irons was all right when he went 
 to dinner." 
 
 Frere stooped and examined the empty fetters. ** All right 
 be hanged," he said. "If you don't know your duty better 
 than this, the sooner you go somewhere else the better, my 
 man. Look here ! " 
 
 The two ankle fetters were severed. One had been evidently 
 filed through, and the other broken transversely. The latter 
 was bent, as from a violent blow. 
 
 " Don't know where he got the file from, " said Warder 
 Short. 
 
 " Know ! Of course you don't know. You men never do 
 know anything until the mischief's done. You want me here 
 for a month or so. I'd teach you your duty ! Don't know — 
 with things like this lying about ? I wonder the whole yard 
 isn't loose and dining with the Governor." 
 
 " This" was a fragment of delft which Frere's quick eye had 
 detected among the broken metal, 
 
 " I'd cut the biggest iron you've got with this ; and so would 
 he and plenty more, I'll go bail. You ought to have lived with 
 me at Sarah Island, Mr. Short. Don't know ! " 
 
 " Well, Captain Frere, it's an accident," says Short, " and 
 can't be helped now." 
 
 " An accident ! " roared Frere. " What business have you 
 with accidents f How, in the devil's name, you let the man get 
 over the wall, I don't know." 
 
 "He ran up that stone heap," says Scott, "and seemed to 
 me to jump at the roof of the shed. I fired at him, and he 
 swung his legs over the top of the wall and dropped." 
 
 Frere measured the distance from his eye, and an irrepressible 
 feeling of admiration, arising out of his own skill in athletics, 
 took possession of him for the instant. 
 
 " By the Lord Harry, but it's a big jump !" he said ; and then 
 the instinctive fear with which the consciousness of the hideous 
 
240 ins NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 wrong he had done the now escaped convict inspired him, 
 made him add — "A desperate villain Uke that wouldn't stick 
 at a murder if you pressed him hard. Which way did he 
 go? 
 
 " Right up Macquarie-street, and then made for the Moun- 
 tain. There were few people about, but Mr. Mays, of the Star 
 Hotel, tried to stop him, and was knocked head over heels. 
 He says the fellow runs like a deer." 
 
 " We'll have the reward out if we don't get him to-night," 
 says Frere, turning away ; " and you'd better put on an extra 
 warder. This sort of game is catching ;" and he strode away 
 to the Barracks. 
 
 From right to left, from east to west, through the prison city 
 flew the signal of alarm, and the patrol, clattering out along the 
 road to New Norfolk, made hot haste to strike the trail of the 
 fugitive. But night came and found him yet at large, and the 
 patrol returning, weary and disheartened, protested that he 
 must be lying hid in some gorge of the purple mountain that 
 overshadowed the town, and would have to be starved into 
 submission. Meanwhile the usual message ran through the 
 island, and so admirable were the arrangements which Arthur 
 the reformer had initiated, that, before noon of the next day, not 
 a signal station on the coast but knew that No. 8942, etc., etc., 
 prisoner for life, was illegally at large. This intelligencej 
 further aided by a paragraph in the Gazette anent the " Daring 
 Escape," noised abroad, the world cared little that the Mary 
 Jane, Government schooner, had sailed for Port Arthur with- 
 out Rufus Dawes. 
 
 But two or three persons cared a good deal. Major Vickers, 
 for one, was indignant that his boasted jecurity of bolts and 
 bars should have been so easily defied, and in proportion to his 
 indignation was the grief of Messieurs Jenkins, Scott, and Co., 
 suspended from office, and threatened with absolute dismissal. 
 Mr. Meekin was terribly frightened at the fact that so danger- 
 ous a monster should be roaming at large within reach of his 
 own saintly person. Sylvia had shown symptoms of nervous 
 terror, none the less injurious because carefully repressed ; and 
 Captain Maurice Frere was a prey to the most cruel anxiety. 
 He had ridden off at a hand-gallop within ten minutes after 
 he had reached the barracks, and had spent ihe few hours of 
 remaining daylight in scouring the country along the road to 
 
JOHN REX'S LETTER HOME. 241 
 
 the North. At dawn the next day he was away to the Moun- 
 tain, and with a black-tracker at his heels, explored as much 
 of that wilderness of gully and chasm as nature permitted to 
 him. He had offered to double the reward, and had examined 
 a number of suspicious persons. It was known that he had 
 been inspecting the prison a few hours before the escape took 
 place, and his efforts were therefore attributed to zeal, not un- 
 mixed with chagrin. " Our dear friend feels his reputation at 
 stake," the future chaplain of Port Arthur said to Sylvia at the 
 Christmas dinner. " He is so proud of his knowledge of these 
 unhappy men that he dislikes to be outwitted by any of them." 
 
 Notwithstanding all this, however, Dawes had disappeared. 
 The fat landlord of the Star Hotel was the last person who 
 saw him, and the flying yellow figure seemed to have been as 
 completely swallowed up by the warm summer's afternoon as 
 if it liad run headlong into the blackest night that ever hung 
 above the earth. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 JOHN rex's letter home. 
 
 THE " little gathering " of which Major Vickers had spoken 
 to Mr. Meekin, had grown into something larger than he 
 had anticipated. Instead of a quiet dinner at which his 
 own housheold, his daughter's betrothed, and the stranger 
 clergyman only should be present, the Major found himself 
 entangled with Mesdames Protherick and Jellicoe, Mr. McNab 
 of the garrison, and Mr. Pounce of the civil list. His quiet 
 Christmas dinner had grown into an evening party. 
 The conversation was on the usual topic. 
 
 " Heard anything about that fellow Dawes ? " asked Mr. 
 Pounce. 
 
 " Not yet," says Frere, sulkily ; " but he won't be out long. 
 I've got a dozen men up the mountain." 
 
 " I suppose it is not easy for a prisoner to make good his 
 escape ? " says Meekin. 
 
 " Oh, he needn't be caught," says Frere, " if that's what you 
 mean, but he'll staa"ve instead. The bushranging days are over 
 
 16 
 
242 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 now, and it's a precious poor look-out for any man to live upon 
 luck in the bush." 
 
 " Indeed, yes," says Mr. Pounce, lapping his soup. " This 
 island seems specially adapted by Providence for a convict 
 settlement ; for with an admirable climate, it carries little indi- 
 genous vegetation which will support human life." 
 
 " Wull," said McNab to Sylvia, " I don't think Prauvidence 
 had any thocht o' caunveect deeciplin whun He created the 
 cauleny o' Van Deemen's Lan'." 
 
 " Neither do I," said Sylvia. 
 
 " I don't know," says Mrs. Protherick. " Poor Protherick 
 used often to say that it seemed as if some Almighty Hand had 
 planned the Penal Settlements round the coast, the country is 
 so delightfully barren." 
 
 " Ay, Port Arthur couldn't have been better if it had been 
 made on purpose," says Frere ; " and all up the coast from 
 Tenby to St. Helen's there isn't a scrap for human being to 
 make a meal on. The West Coast is worse. By George, sir, 
 in the old days, I remember " 
 
 " By the way," says Meekin, " I've got something to show 
 you. Rex's confession. I brought it down on purpose." 
 
 " Rex's confession 1 " 
 
 " His account of his adventures after he left Macquarie Har- 
 bour. I am going to send it to the Bishop." 
 
 " Oh, I should like to see it," said Sylvia, with heightened 
 colour. " The story of these unhappy men has a personal in- 
 terest for me, you know." 
 
 "A forbidden sul^jcct. Poppet." 
 
 " No, papa, not altogether forbidden ; for it does not affect 
 me now as it used to do. You must let me read it, Mr. Meekin." 
 
 " A pack of lies, I expect," said Frere, with a scowl. " That 
 scoundrel Rex couldn't tell the truth to save his life." 
 
 " You misjudge him. Captain Frere," said Meekin. " All the 
 prisoners are not hardened in iniquity like Rufus Dawes. Rex 
 is, I believe, truly penitent, and has written a most touching 
 letter to his father." 
 
 " A letter ! " said Vickers. " You know that, by the King's— 
 no, the Queen's regulations, no letters are allowed to be sent 
 to the friends of prisoners without first passing through the 
 hands of the authorities." 
 
 •* I am aware of that. Major, and for that reason have brought 
 
JOHN REX'S LETTER HOME. 243 
 
 it with me, that you may read it for yourself. It seems to me 
 to breathe a spirit of true piety." 
 
 " Let's have a look at it," said Frere. 
 
 " Here it is," returned Meekin, producing a packet : " and 
 when the cloth is removed, I will ask permission of the ladies 
 to read it aloud. It is most interesting." 
 
 A glance of surprise passed between the ladies Protherick 
 and Jellicoe. The idea of a convict's letter proving interest- 
 ing ! Mr. Meekin was new to the ways of the place. 
 
 Frere, turning the packet between his fingers, read the 
 address : 
 
 John Rex, sen., 
 
 Care of Mr. Blick, 
 38, Bishopsgate Street Within, 
 
 Ix)nrlon. 
 
 " Why can't he w^rite to his father direct ? " said he. " Who's 
 Blick ? " 
 
 " A worthy merchant, I am told, iu whose counting-house the 
 unfortunate Rex passed his younger days. He had a tolerable 
 education, as you are aware." 
 
 " Educated prisoners are always the worst," said Vickers. 
 " James, some more wine. We don't drink toasts here, but as 
 this is Christmas Eve — ' Her Majesty the Oi'cen 1 ' " 
 
 " Hear, hear, hear ! " says Maurice. " ' Her Majesty the 
 Queen ! ' " 
 
 Having drunk this loyal toast with due fervour, Vickers pro- 
 posed, " His Excellency Sir John Franklin," which toast was 
 likewise duly honoured. 
 
 " Here's a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you, 
 sir," said Frere, with the letter still in his hand. " God bless us 
 all." 
 
 "Amen ! " says Meekin piously. "Let us hope He will ; and 
 now, leddies, the letter. I will read you the Confession after- 
 wards." Opening the packet with the satisfaction of a Gospel 
 vineyard labourer who sees his first vine sprouting, the good 
 creature began : 
 
 " • Hobart Town, Dec. 27th, 1838. 
 
 "My Dear Father, — Through all the chances, changes, and vicissitudes 
 of my chequered Ufe, I never had a task so painful to my mangled feelings 
 
244 ^^^ NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 as the present one, of addressing you from this doleful spot — my sea-girt 
 prison, on the beach of which I stand a monument of destruction ; driven 
 by the adverse winds of fate to the confines of black despair, and into the 
 vortex of galling misery." 
 
 " Poetical ! " said Frere. 
 
 " ' I am just like a gigantic tree of the forest which has stood many a wintry 
 blast and stormy tempest, but now, alas ! I am become a withered trunk, 
 with all my greenest and tenderest branches lopped off. Though fast at- 
 taining middle age, I am not filling an envied and honoured post with 
 credit and respect. No — I shall be soon wearing the garb of degradation, 
 and the badge and brand of infamy at P. A., which is, being interpreted, 
 Port Arthur, the ''Villain's Home.'"" 
 
 " Poor fellow ! " said Sylvia. 
 
 "Touching, is it not.-"' assented Meekin, continuing, — 
 
 " ' I am, \vith heartrending sorrow and anguish of soul, ranged and mingled 
 with the Outcasts of Society. My present circumstances and picture you 
 will find well and truly drawn in the 102nd Psalm, commencing %vith the 
 4th verse to the 12th inclusive, which, my dear father, I request you will 
 read attentively before you proceed any further." " 
 
 " Hullo ! " said Frere, pulling out his pocket-book, " what's 
 that? Read those numbers again." 
 
 Mr. Meekin complied, and Frere grinned. 
 
 " Go on," he said. " I'll show you something in that letter 
 directly." 
 
 " 'Oh, my dear father, avoid, I beg of you, the reading of profane books. 
 Let your mind dwell upon holy things, and assiduously study to grow in 
 grace. Psalm Ixxiii. 2. Yet I have hope even in this my desolate condition. 
 Psalm XXXV. 18. " For the Lord our God is merciful, and inclineth His ear 
 unto pity." ' " 
 
 * 'Blasphemous dog ! " said Vickers. " You don't believe all 
 that, Meekin, do you ? " 
 
 The parson reproved him gently. 
 
 " Wait a moment, sir, until I have finished." 
 
 " ' Party spirit runs very hij;h, even in prison in Van Diemen's Land. I am 
 sorry to say that a licentious press invariably evinces a very great degree of 
 contumely, while the authorities are held in respect by all well-disposed 
 persons, tliough it is often endeavoured by some to bring on them the 
 b-itred and contempt of prisoners. But I am glad to tell you that all their 
 
JOHN REX'S LETTER HOME. 245 
 
 efforts are without avail ; but, nevertheless, do not read in any colonial 
 newspaper. I'here is so much scurrility and vituperation in their produc- 
 tions,' " 
 
 " That's for your benefit, Frere," said Vickers, with a smile, 
 " You remeniber what was said about your presence at the race 
 meetings ? " 
 
 " Of course," said Frere. " Artful scoundrel ! Go on, .Mr. 
 Meekin, pray." 
 
 " ' I am aware that you will hear accounts of cruelty and tyranny, said, by 
 the malicious and the evil-minded haters of the Government and Govern- 
 ment officials, to have been inflicted by gaolers on convicts. To be candid, 
 this is not the dreadful place it has been represented to be by vindictive 
 writers. Severe flogging and heavy chaining is sometimes used, no doubt, 
 but only in rare cases ; and nominal punishments are marked out by law 
 for slight breaches of discipline. So far as I have an opportunity of judg- 
 ing, the lash is never bestowed unless merited.' " 
 
 " As far as he is concerned, I don't doubt it ! " said Frere, 
 cracking a walnut. 
 
 " ■ The texts of Scripture quoted by our chaplair. have comforted me much, 
 and I have much to be grateful for ; for after the rash attempt I made to 
 secure my freedom, I have reason to be thankful for the mercy shown to 
 me. Death — dreadful death of soul and body — would have been my por- 
 tion ; but, by the mercy of Omnipotence, I have been spared to repentance 
 —John iii. I have now come to bitterness. The chaplain, a pious gentle- 
 man, says it never really pays to steal. ' ' Lay up for yourselves treasures 
 in Heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt.'' Honesty is the best 
 policy, I am convinced, and I would not for ^^1,000 repeat my evil courses 
 — Psalm xxxviii. 14. When I think of the happy days I once passed with 
 good Mr. Bhck, in the old house in Blue Anchor Yard, and reflect that since 
 that happy time I have recklessly plunged in sin, and stolen goods and 
 watches, studs, rings, and jewellery, become, indeed, a common thief, I 
 tremble with remorse, and fly to prayer — Psalm v. Oh what sinners we are ! 
 Let me hope that no./ I, by God's blessing placed beyond temptation, wiU. live 
 safely, and that some day I even may, by :he will of the Lord Jesus, find 
 mercy for my sins. Some kind of madness has method in it, but madness 
 of sin holds us without escape. Such is, dear father, then, my hope and 
 trust for my remaining life here — Psalm c. 74. I owe my bodily well-being 
 to Captain Maurice Frere, who was good enough to speak of my conduct in 
 reference to the Osprey, when, with Shires, Barker, and others, we capturc-d 
 that vessel. Pray for Capiain Frere, my dear father. He is a good man, 
 and though his public duty is painful and trying to his feehngs, yet, as a 
 public functionary, he could not allow his private feelings, whether of mercy 
 or revenge, to step between him and his duty.' " 
 
246 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 " Confound the rascal 1 " said Frere, growing crimson. 
 
 " ' Remember me most affectionately to Sarah and little William, and all 
 friends who yet cherish the recollection of me, and bid them take warning 
 by my fate, and keep from evil courses. A good conscience is better than 
 gold, and no amount can compensate for the misery incident to a return to 
 crime. Whether I shall ever see you again, dear father, is more than im- 
 certain ; for my doom is life, unless the Government alter their plans con- 
 cerning me, and allow me an opportunity to earn my freedom by hard 
 work. 
 
 " 'The blessing of God rest with you, my dear father ; and that you may 
 be washed white in the blood of the Lamb is the prayer of your 
 
 "' Unfortunate Son, 
 
 " 'John Rex 
 
 '"P.S. — Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be whiter than snow." 
 
 " Is that all .?" said Frere. 
 
 '• That is all, sir, and a very touching letter it is." 
 
 " So it is," said Frere. " Now let me have it a moment, 
 Mr. Meekin." 
 
 He took the paper, and referring to the numbers of the texts 
 vhich he had written in his pocket-book, began to knit his 
 brows over Mr. John Rex's impious and hypocritical production. 
 " I thought so," he said, at length. " Those texts were never 
 written for nothing. It's an old trick, but cleverly done." 
 
 "What do you mean?" said Meekin. 
 
 " Mean ! " cries Frere, with a smile at his own acuteness. 
 "This precious composition contains a very gratifying piece of 
 intelligence for Mr. Blick, whoever he is. Some receiver, I've 
 no doubt. Look here, Mr. Meekin. Take the letter and this 
 pencil, and begin at the first text. The 102nd Psalm, from the 
 4th verse to the 12th inclusive, doesn't he say? Very good; 
 that's nine verses, isn't it ? Well, now, underscore nine consecu- 
 tive words from tlie second word immediately following the next 
 text quoted, ' / ha re hope^ etc. Have you got it ? " 
 
 " Yes," says Meekin, astonished, while all heads bent over the 
 table. 
 
 " Well, now, his text is the eighteenth verse of the thirtyyf/"//! 
 Psalm, isn't it ? Count eighteen words on, then underscoreyfz/^ 
 consecutive ones. You've done that ? " 
 
 "A moment — sixteen — seventeen — eighteen, ' authorities?^ 
 
 " Count ard score in the same way until you come to the 
 
JOHN REX'S LETTER HOME. 247 
 
 word 'Texts' somewhere. Vickers, I'll trouble you for the 
 claret." 
 
 " Yes," said Meekin after a pause. " Here it is — ' the texts of 
 Scripture quoted by our chaplain.' But surely Mr. Frere " 
 
 " Hold on a bit now," cries Frere. "What's the next quota- 
 tion ? — ^John iii. That's every third word. Score every third 
 word beginning with ' I ' immediately following the text, now, 
 until you come to a quotation. Got it ? How many words in it ? " 
 
 " ' Lay up for yourselves treasures in Heaven, where neither 
 moth nor rust doth corrupt,'" said Meekin, a little scandalized. 
 " Fourteen words." 
 
 " Count fourteen words on, then, and score the fourteenth. 
 I'm up to this text-quoting business." 
 
 " The word '^1,000,' " said Meekin, " Yes." 
 
 "Then there's another text. Thirty-eighth — isn't it? — Psalm 
 and the fourteenth verse. Do that the same way as the other — 
 count fourteen words, and then score eight in succession. 
 Where does that bring you?" 
 
 "The fifth Psalm." 
 
 " Every fifth word then. Go on, my dear sir — goon, 'Method' 
 of 'escape,' yes. The hundredth Psalm means a full stop. 
 What verse? Seventy-four. Count seventy-four words and 
 score." 
 
 There was a pause for a few minutes while Mr. Meekin counted. 
 The letter had really turned out interesting. 
 
 " Read out your marked words now, Meekin. Let's see if I'm 
 right." 
 
 Mr. Meekin read with gradually crimsoning face : — 
 
 "'I have hopes even in this my desolate condition . . c in 
 prison Van Diemen's Land . , . the authorities are held in . . , 
 hatred and contempt of prisoners , . . read in any colonial 
 newspaper , . . accounts of cruelty and tyranny . , , inflicted 
 by gaolers on convicts . . , severe flogging and heavy chaining 
 . . , for slight breaches of discipline . . . I . . . come , , . 
 the pious , , , it . . . pays , . . ;i^i,ooo , . , in the old house in 
 Blue Anchor Yard , . . stolen goods and watches studs rings 
 and jewellery , . . are . . , now , , . placed . . . safely , , • 
 I . . . will . . . find . , . some , , . method of . . . escape 
 . , , then . . . for . . . revenge." 
 
 " Well," said Maurice, looking round with a grin, " what do 
 you think of that ? " 
 
248 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 " Most remarkable I " said Mr. Pounce. 
 
 " How did you find it out, Frere ? " 
 
 " Oh, it's nothing," says Frere ; meaning that it was a great 
 deal. " I've studied a good many of these things, and this one is 
 clumsy to some I've seen. But it's pious, isn't it, Meekin ? '' 
 
 Mr. Meekin arose in wrath. 
 
 " It's very ungracious on your part, Captain Frere. A capital 
 joke, I have no doubt ; but permit me to say I do not like jest- 
 ing on such matters. This poor fellow's letter to his aged father 
 to be made the subject of heartless merriment, I confess I do 
 not understand. It was confided to me in my sacred character 
 as a Christian pastor." 
 
 " That's just it. The fellows play upon the parsons, excuse 
 me, don't you know, and under cover of your 'sacred character,' 
 play all kinds of pranks. How the dog must have chuckled 
 when he gave you that 1 " 
 
 "Captain Frere," said Mr. Meekin, changing colour like a 
 chameleon with indignation and rage, "your interpretation is, I 
 am convinced, an incorrect one. How could the poor man 
 compose such an ingenious piece of cryptography ? " 
 
 " If you mean, fake up that paper," returned Frere, uncon- 
 sciously dropping into prison slang, "in tell you. He had a 
 Bible, I suppose, while he was writing ? " 
 
 " I certainly permitted him the use of the Sacred Volume, 
 Captain Frere. I should have judged it inconsistent with the 
 character of my Office to have refused it to him." 
 
 " Of course. And that's just where you parsons are always 
 putting your foot into it. If you'd put your ' Office ' into your 
 pocket and open your eyes a bit ■" 
 
 " Maurice 1 My dear Maurice ! " 
 
 "I beg your pardon, Meekin," says Maurice, with clumsy 
 apology ; " but / know these fellows. I've lived among 'em, I 
 came out in a ship with 'em, I've talked with 'em, and drank with 
 'em, and I'm down to all their moves, don't you see. The Bible 
 is the only book they get hold of, and texts are the only bits 
 of learning ever taught 'm, and being chockfuU of villainy and 
 plots and conspiracies, what other book should they make use 
 of to aid their infernal schemes dui the one that the chaplain has 
 made a text-book of for 'em ? " And Maurice rose in disgust, 
 not unmi.xed with self-laudation. 
 
 " Dear me, it is really very terrible," said Meekin, who was 
 
JOH^ REX'S LETTER HOME. 249 
 
 not ill-meaning, but only self-complacent — "very terrible in- 
 deed." 
 
 " But unhappily true," said Mr. Pounce. " An olive? Thanks." 
 
 "Upon me soull" burst out honest McNab, "the hail see- 
 stem seems to be maist ill-calculated tae advance the wark c' 
 reeformation." 
 
 " Mr. McNab, I'll trouble you for the port," said equally 
 honest Vickers, bound hand and foot in the chains of the rules 
 of the service. And so, what seemed likely to become a 
 dangerous discussion upon convict discipline, was stifled judi- 
 ciously at the birth. But Sylvia, prompted, perhaps by curiosity, 
 perhaps by a desire to modify the parson's chagrin, in passing 
 Mr. Meekin, took up the " confession," that lay unopened beside 
 his wine glass, and bore it off. 
 
 " Come, Mr. Meekin," said Vickers, when the door closed 
 behind the ladies, " help yourself. I am sorry the letter turned 
 out so strangely, but you may rely on Frere, I assure you. He 
 knows more about convicts than any man on the island." 
 
 " I see. Captain Frere, that you have made a study of the 
 criminal classes." 
 
 " So I have, my dear sir, and know every turn and twist 
 among 'em. I tell you my maxim. It's some French fellow's 
 too, I believe, but that don't matter — divide to conquer. Set 
 all the dogs spying on each other." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Meekin. 
 
 " It's the only way. Why, my dear sir, if the prisoners were 
 as faithful to each other as we are, we couldn't hold the island 
 a week. It's just because no man can trust his neii^hbour that 
 every mutiny falls to the ground." 
 
 " I suppose it must be so," said poor Meekin. 
 
 " It is so ; and, by George, sir, if I had my way, I'd have it 
 so that no prisoner should say a word to his right hand man, 
 but his left hand man should tell me of it. I'd promote the 
 men that peached, and make the beggars their own warders. 
 Ka, ha ! " 
 
 " But such a course, Captain Frere, though perhaps useful in 
 a certain way, would surely produce harm. It would excite the 
 worst passions of our fallen nature, and lead to endless lying 
 and tyranny. I'm sure it would." 
 
 " Wait a bit," cries Frere. " Perhaps, one of these days, I'll 
 get a chance, and then I'll trj' it. Convicts 1 By the Lord 
 
250 
 
 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 Harry, sir, there's only one way to treat 'em ; give 'em tobacco 
 when they behave 'emselves, and flog 'em when they don't." 
 
 " Terrible ! " says the clergyman with a shudder. " You 
 speak of them as if they were wild beasts." 
 
 " So they are," said Maurice Frere, calmly. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 WHAT BECAME OF THE MUTINEERS OF THE " OSPREY." 
 
 AT the bottom of the long luxuriant garden-ground was a 
 rustic seat abutting upon the low wall that topped the 
 lane. The branches of the English trees (planted long 
 ago) hung above it, and between their rustling boughs one could 
 see the reach of the silver river. Sitting with her face to the 
 bay and her back to the house, Sylvia opened the manuscript she 
 had carried off from Meekin, and began to read. It was written 
 in a firm, large hand, and headed— 
 
 "A NARRATIVE 
 " Of the sufferings and adventures of certain of 
 
 THE TEN CONVICTS WHO SEIZED THE BRIG " OsPREY," 
 
 AT Macquarie Harbour, in Van Diemen's Land, 
 
 RELATED BY ONE OF THE SAID CONVICTS WHILE LYING 
 UNDER SENTENCE FOR THIS OFFENCE IN THE GAOL AT 
 
 HoBART Town." 
 
 Sylvia, having read this grandiloquent sentence, paused for a 
 moment. The story of the mutiny, which had been the chief 
 event of her childhood, lay before her, and it seemed to her 
 that, were it related truly, she should comprehend something 
 strange and terrible, which had been for many years a shadow 
 upon her memory. Longing, and yet fearing, to proceed, she 
 held the paper, half unfolded, in her hand, as, in her childhood, 
 she had held ajar the door of some dark room, into which she 
 longed and yet feared to cuter. Her timidity lasted but aa 
 instant. 
 
IVHAT BECAME OF THE MUTINEERS. 251 
 
 " When orders arrived from head-quarters to break up the 
 penal settlement of Macquarie Harbour, the Commandant 
 (Major Vickers, — th Regiment) and most of the prisoners 
 embarked on board a colonial vessel, and set sail for Hobart 
 Town, leaving behind them a brig that had been built at Mac- 
 quarie Harbour, to be brought round after them, and placing 
 Captain Maurice Frere in command. Left aboard her was 
 Mr. Bates, who had acted as pilot at the settlement, also four 
 soldiers, and ten prisoners, as a crew to work the vessel. The 
 Commandant's wife and child were also aboard." 
 
 * % * % It 
 
 " How strangely it reads," thought the girl. 
 
 * it if ^ % 
 
 "On the 1 2th of January, 1834, we set sail, and in the after- 
 noon anchored safely outside the Gates ; but a breeze setting in 
 from the north-west, caused a swell on the Bar, and Mr. Bates 
 ran back to Wellington Bay. We remained there all next day ; 
 and in the afternoon Captain Frere took two soldiers and a 
 boat, and went a-fishing. There were then only Mr. Bates and 
 the other two soldiers aboard, and it was prof>osed by William 
 Cheshire to seize the vessel. I was at first unwilling, thinking 
 that loss of hfe might ensue ; but Cheshire and the others, 
 knov/ing that I was acquainted with navigation — having in 
 happier days lived much on the sea — threatened me if I refused 
 to join. A song was started in the folksle, and one of the 
 soldiers coming to listen to it, was seized, and Lyon and Riley 
 then made prisoner of the sentry. Forced thus into a project 
 with which I had at first but little sympathy, I felt my heart 
 leap at the prospect of freedom, and would have sacrificed all 
 to obtain it. Maddened by the desperate hopes that inspired 
 me, I from that moment assumed the command of my wretched 
 companions ; and honestly think, that however culpable I may 
 have been in the eyes of the law, I prevented them from the 
 display of a violence to which their savage life had unhappily 
 made them but too accustomed." 
 
 » * * • ♦ 
 
 " Poor fellow," said Sylvia, beguiled by Master Rex's specious 
 paragraphs, " I think he was not to blame." 
 
 » * * ♦ * 
 
 " Mr. Bates was below in the cabin, and on being summoned 
 by Cheshire to surrender, with great courage attempted * 
 
252 
 
 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 defence. Barker fired at him through the skylight, but fearful 
 of the lives of the Commandant's wife and child, I strucK up 
 his musket, and the ball passed through the mouldings of the 
 stern windows. At the same time, the soldiers whom we had 
 bound in the folksle forced up the hatch and came on deck. 
 Cheshire shot the first one, and struck the other with his clubbed 
 musket. The wounded man lost his footing, and the brig 
 lurching with the rising tide, he fell into the sea. This was — 
 by the blessing ut" God — the only life lost in the whole affair. 
 
 " Mr. Bates, seeing now that we had possession of the deck, 
 surrendered, upon promise that the Commandant's wife and 
 child should be put ashore in safety. I directed him to take 
 such matters as he needed, and prepared to lower the jolly- 
 boat. As she swung off the davits. Captain Frere came along- 
 side in the whale-boat, and gallantly endeavoured to board us, 
 but the boat drifted past the vessel. I was now determined to 
 be free — indeed, the minds of all on board were made up to 
 carry through the business — and hailing the whale-boat, swore 
 to fire into her unless she surrendered. Captain Frere refused, 
 and was for boarding us again, but the two soldiers joined with 
 us, and prevented his intention. Having now got the prisoners 
 into the jolly-boat, we transferred Captain Frere into her, and 
 being ourselves in the whale-boat, compelled Capluin Frere 
 and Mr. Bates to row ashore. We then took the jolly-boat in 
 tow, and returned to the brig, a strict watch being kept for fear 
 that they should rescue the vessel from us. 
 
 " At break of day every man was upon deck, and a consul- 
 tation took place concerning the parting of the provisions. 
 Cheshire was for leaving them to starve, but Lesly, Shires, and 
 I held out for an equal division. After a long and violent 
 controversy. Humanity gained the day, and the provisions were 
 put into the whale-boat, and taken ashore. Upon the receipt 
 of the provisions, Mr. Bates thus expressed himself: 'Men, I 
 did not for one moment expect such kind treatment from you, 
 regarding the provisions you liave now brought ashore for us, 
 out of so little which there was on board. When 1 consider 
 your present undertaking, without a competent navigator, and 
 in a leaky vessel, your situation seems most perilous ; therefore 
 I hope God will prove kind to you, and preserve you from the 
 manifold dangers you may have to encounter on the stormy 
 ocean.' Mrs. Vickers also was pleased to say that I had 
 
WHAT BECAME OF THE MUTINEERS. 253 
 
 behaved kindly to her, that she wished me well, and that when 
 she returned to Hobart Town she would speak in my lavour. 
 They then cheered us on our departure, wishing we might be 
 prosperous on account of our humanity in sharing the provi- 
 sions with them. 
 
 " Having had breakfast, we commenced throwing overboard 
 the light cargo which was in the hold, which employed us until 
 dinner-time. After dinner we ran out a small kedge-anchor 
 with about one hundred fathoms of line, and having weighed 
 anchor, and the tide being slack, we hauled on the kedge-line, 
 and succeeded in this manner by kedging along, and we came 
 to two islands, called the Cap and Bonnet. The whole of us 
 then commenced heaving the brig short, sending the whale-boat 
 to take her in tow, after we had nipped the anchor. By this 
 means we got her safe across the bar. Scarcely was this done 
 when a light breeze sprang up from the south-west, and firing a 
 musket to apprize the party we had ^eft of our safety, we made 
 sail and put out to sea. ' 
 
 Having read thus far, Sylvia paused in an agony of recollec- 
 tion. She remembered the firing of the musket, and that her 
 mother had wept over her. But beyond this all was uncer- 
 tainty. Memories slipped across her mind like shadows — she 
 caught at them, and they were gone. Yet the reading of this 
 strange story made her nerves thrill. Despite the hypocritical 
 grandiloquence and affected piety of the narrative, it was easy 
 to see that, save some warping of facts to make for himself 
 a better case, and to extol the courage of the gaolers who had 
 him at their mercy, the narrator had not attempted to better his 
 tale by the invention of perils. The history of the desperate 
 project that had been planned and carried out five years before, 
 was related with grim simplicity which, (because it at once 
 bears the stamp of truth, and forces the imagination of the 
 reader to supply the omitted details of horror), is more effective 
 to inspire sympathy than elaborate description. The very 
 barrenness of the narration was hideously suggestive, and the 
 girl felt her heart beat quicker as her poetic intellect rushed to 
 complete the terrible picture sketched by the convict. She saw 
 it all — the blue sea, the burning sun, the slowly moving ship, 
 
 the wretched company on the shore ; she heard Was that 
 
 a rustling in the bushes below her? A bird! How nervous 
 she was growing ! 
 
254 ^^^ NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 " Being thus fairly rid — as we thought — of our prison life, we 
 cheerfully held consultation as to our future course. It was my 
 intention to get among the islands in the South Seas, and 
 scuttling the brig, to pass ourselves off among the natives as 
 shipwrecked seamen, trusting to God's mercy that some home- 
 ward bound vessel might at length rescue us. With this view, 
 I made James Lesly first mate, he being an experienced 
 mariner, and prepared myself, with what few instruments we 
 had, to take our departure from Birches Rock. Having hauled 
 the whale-boat alongside, we stove her, together with the jolly- 
 boat, and cast her adrift. This done, I parted the landsmen 
 with the seamen, and, steering east south-east, at eight p.m. we 
 set our first watch. In little more than an hour after this, came 
 on a heavy gale from the south-west. I, and others of the 
 landsmen, were violently sea-sick, and Lesly had some diffi- 
 culty in handling the brig, as the boisterous weather called for 
 two men at the helm. In the morning, getting upon deck with 
 difficulty, I found that the wind had abated, but upon sounding 
 the well discovered much water in the hold. Lesly rigged the 
 pumps, but the starboard one only could be made to work. 
 From that time there were but two businesses aboard — from the 
 pump to the helm. The gale lasted two days and a night, the 
 brig running under close-reefed topsails, we being afraid to 
 shorten sail, lest we might be overtaken by some pursuing 
 vessel, so strong was the terror of our prison upon us. 
 
 " On the 1 6th, at noon, I again forced myself on deck, and 
 taking a meridian observation, altered the course of the brig to 
 east and by south, wishing to run to the southward of New 
 Zealand, out of the usual track of shipping ; and having a notion 
 that, should our provisions hold out, we might make the South 
 American coast, and fall into Christian hands. This done, I 
 was compelled to retire below, and for a week lay in my berth 
 as one at the last gasp. At times I repented of my resolution. 
 Fair urging me to bestir myself, as the men were not satisfied 
 with our course. On the 21st a mutiny occun-ed, led by Lyons, 
 who asserted we were heading into the Pacific, and must 
 infallibly perish. This disaffected man, though ignorant of 
 navigation, insisted upon steering to the south, believing that 
 we had run to the northward of the Friendly Islands, and was 
 for running the ship ashore and beseeching the protection of 
 the natives. Lesly in vain protested that a southward course 
 
WHA7' BECAME OF THE MUTINEERS. 255 
 
 would bring us into icefields. Barker, who had served on 
 board a whaler, strove to convince the mutineers that the 
 temperature of such latitudes was too warm for such an error 
 to escape us. After much noise, Lyons rushed to the helm, and 
 Russen, drawing one of the pistols taken from Mr. Bates, shot 
 him dead, upon which the others returned to their duty. This 
 dreadful deed was, I fear, necessary to the safety of the brig ; 
 and had it occurred on board a vessel manned by freemen, 
 would have been applauded as a stern but needful measure. 
 
 " Forced by these tumults upon deck, I made a short speech 
 to the crew, and convinced them that I was competent to per- 
 form what I had promised to do, though at the time my heart 
 inwardly failed me, and I longed for some sign of land. Sup- 
 ported at each arm by Lesly and Barker, I took an observation, 
 and altered our course to north by east, the brig running eleven 
 knots an hour under single-reefed topsails, and the pumps hard 
 at work. So we ran until the 31st of January, when a white 
 squall took us, and nearly proved fatal to all aboard. 
 
 " Lesly now committed a great error, for, upon the brig 
 righting, (she was thrown upon her beam ends, and her spanker 
 boom carried away,) he commanded to furl the fore-top sail, 
 strike top-gallant yards, furl the main course, and take a reef in 
 the maintopsail, leaving her to scud under single-reefed main- 
 topsail and fore-sail. This caused the vessel to leak to that 
 degree that I despaired of reaching land in her, and prayed to 
 the Almighty to send us speedy assistance. For nine days and 
 nights the storm continued, the men being utterly exhausted. 
 One of the two soldiers whom we had employed to fish the two 
 pieces of the spanker boom, with some quartering that we had, 
 was washed overboard and drowned. Our provision was now 
 nearly done, but the gale abating on the ninth day, we hastened 
 to put provisions on the launch. The sea was heavy, and we 
 were compelled to put a purchase on the fore and main yards, 
 with preventers to windward, to ease the launch in going over 
 the side. We got her fairly afloat at last, the others battening 
 doAvn the hatches in the brig. Having dressed ourselves in the 
 clothes of Captain Frere and the pilot, we left the brig at sun- 
 down, lying with her channel plates nearly under water. 
 
 " The wind freshening during the night, our launch, which 
 might, indeed, be termed a long-boat, having been fitted with 
 mast, bowsprit, and main boom, began to be very uneasy, ship- 
 
256 n/S NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 ping two seas one after the other. The plan we could devise 
 was to sit, four of us about, in the stern sheets, with our backs 
 to the sea, to prevent the water pooping us. This itself was 
 enough to exhaust the strongest men. The day, however, made 
 us some amends for the dreadful night. Land was not more 
 than ten miles from us ; approaching as nearly as we could with 
 safety, we hauled our wind, and ran along in, trusting to find 
 some harbour. At half-past two we sighted a bay of very 
 curious appearance, having two large rocks at the entrance, 
 resembling pyramids. Shires, Russen, and Fair landed, in 
 hopes of discovering fresh water, of which we stood much in 
 need. Before long they returned, stating that they had found 
 an Indian hut, inside of which were some rude earthenware 
 vessels. Fearful of surprise, we lay off the shore all that night, 
 and putting into the bay very early in the morning, killed a 
 seal. This was the first fresh meat I had tasted for four years. 
 It seemed strange to eat it under such circumstances. We 
 cooked the flippers, heart, and liver for breakfast, giving some 
 to a cat which we had taken with us out of the brig, for I would 
 not, willingly, allow even that animal to perish. After break- 
 fast, we got under weigh ; and we had scarcely been out half 
 an hour when we had a fresh breeze, which carried us along at 
 the rate of seven knots an hour, running from bay to bay to find 
 inhabitants. Steering along the shore, as the sun went down, 
 we suddenly heard the bellowing of a bullock, and James 
 Barker, whom, from his violent conduct, I thought incapable of 
 such sentiment, burst into tears, 
 
 " In about two hours we perceived great fires on the beach 
 and let go the anchor in nineteen fathoms of water. We lay 
 awake all that night. In the morning, we rowed further 
 inshore, and moored the boat to some sea ,<eed. As soon as the 
 inhabitants caught sight of us, they came down to the beach. 
 I distributed needles and thread among the Indians, and on 
 saying ' Valdivia,' a woman instantly pointed towards a tongue 
 of land to the southward, holding up three fingers, and crying 
 ' leai^hos I ' which I conjectured to be three leagues ; the dis- 
 tance we afterwards found it to be. 
 
 " About three o'clock in the afternoon, we weathered the 
 point pointed out by the woman, and perceived a flagstaff and 
 a twelve-gun battery under our lee. I now divided among the 
 men the s-.un of six pounds ten shillings that I had found in 
 
WHAT BECAME OF THE MUTINEERS^. 2?7 
 
 Captain Frere's cabin, and made another and more equal dis- 
 tribution of the clothing. There were also two watches, one of 
 which I gave to Lesly, and kept the other for myself. It was 
 resolved among us to say that we were part crew of the brig 
 Julia, bound for China and wrecked in the South Seas. Upon 
 landing at the battery, we were received with the greatest 
 civility by the Spaniards, and were heartily entertained, though 
 we did not understand one word of what they said. Next 
 morning, it was agreed that Lesly, Barker, Shires, and Russen 
 should pay for a canoe to convey them to the town, which was 
 nine miles up the river ; and on the morning of the 6th March 
 they took their departure. On the 9th March, a boat, com- 
 manded by a lieutenant, came down with orders that the rest of 
 us should be conveyed to town ; and we accordingly launched 
 the boat under convoy of the soldiers, and reached the town the 
 same evening, in some trepidation. I feared lest the Spaniards 
 had obtained a clue as to our real character, and was not 
 deceived — the surviving soldier having betrayed us. This 
 fellow was thus doubly a traitor — first, in deserting his officer, 
 and then in betraying his comrades. 
 
 " We were immediately escorted to prison, where we found 
 our four companions. Some of them were for brazening out the 
 story of shipwreck, but knowing how confused must necessarily 
 be our accounts, were we examined separately, I persuaded 
 them that open confession would be our best chance of safety. 
 On the 14th we were taken before the Intendente or Governor, 
 who informed us that we were free, on condition that we chose 
 to live within the limits of the town. At this intelligence I felt 
 my heart grow light, and only begged in the name of my com- 
 panions that we might not be given up to the British Govern- 
 ment ; 'rather than which,' said I, 'I would beg to be shot 
 dead in the palace square.' The Governor regarded us with 
 tears in his eyes, and spoke as follows : ' My poor men, do not 
 think that I would take that advantage over you. Do not make 
 an attempt to escape, and I will be your friend ; and should a 
 vessel come to-morrow to demand you, you shall find I will be 
 as good as my word. All I have to impress upon you is, to 
 beware of intemperance, which is very prevalent in this country, 
 and when you find it convenient, to pay Government the money 
 that was allowed you for subsistence while in prison.' 
 
 " The following day we all procured employment in launching 
 
 I? 
 
258 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 a vessel of three hundred tons burden, and my men showed 
 themselves so active that the owner said he would rather have 
 us than thirty of his own countrymen ; which saying pleased 
 the Governor, who was there with almost the whole of the 
 inhabitants and a whole band of music, this vessel having been 
 nearly three years on the stocks. After she was launched, the 
 seamen amcngst us helped to fit her out, being paid fifteen 
 dollars a month, with provisions on board. As for myself, I 
 speedily obtained employment in the shipbuilder's yard, and 
 subsisted by honest industry, almost forgetting, in the unwonted 
 pleasures of freedom, the sad reverse of fortune which had 
 befallen me. To think that I, who had mingled among gentle- 
 men and scholars, should be thankful to labour in a shipwright's 
 yard by day, and sleep on a bundle of hides by night ! But 
 this is personal matter, and need not be obtruded. 
 
 " In the same yard with me worked the soldier who had 
 betrayed us, and I could not but regard it as a special judg- 
 ment of Heaven, when he one day fell from a great height 
 and was taken up for dead, dying in much torment in a few 
 hours. The days thus passed on in comparative happiness 
 until the 20th of May, 1836, when the old Governor took his 
 departure, regretted by all the inhabitants of Valdivia, and the 
 Achilles, a one-and-twenty-gun brig of war, arrived with the 
 new Governor. One of the first acts of this gentleman was to 
 sell our boat, which was moored at the back of Government- 
 house. This proceeding looked to my mind indicative of ill- 
 will ; and, fearful lest the Governor should deliver us again into 
 bondage, I resolved to make my escape from the place. Hav- 
 ing communicated my plans to Barker, Lesly, Riley, Shiers, 
 and Russen, I offered the Governor to get built for him a hand- 
 some whale-boat, making the iron work myself. The Governor 
 consented, and in a little more than a fortnight we had completed 
 a four-oared whale-boat, capable of weathering either sea or 
 storm. We fitted her with sails and provisions in the Gover- 
 nor's name, and on the 4th of July, being a Saturday night, we 
 took our departure from Valdivia, dropping down the river 
 shortly after sunset. Whether the Governor, disgusted at the 
 trick we had played him, decided not to pursue us, or whether 
 — as I rather think — our absence was not discovered until the 
 Monday morning, when we were beyond reach of capture, I 
 know not, but we got out to sea without hazard, and, taking 
 
WHAT BECAME OF THE MUTINEERS. 259 
 
 accurate bearings, ran for the Friendly Islands, as had been 
 agreed upon amongst us. 
 
 " But it now seemed that the good fortune which had hitherto 
 attended us had deserted us, for after crawling for four days in 
 sultry weather, there fell a dead calm, and we lay like a log 
 upon the sea for forty-eight hours. For three days we remained 
 in the midst of the ocean, exposed to the burning rays of the 
 sun, in a boat without water or provisions. On the fourth day, 
 just as we had resolved to draw lots to determine who should 
 die for the sustenance of the others, we were picked up by an 
 opium clipper returning to Canton. The captain, an American, 
 was most kind to us, and on our arrival at Canton, a subscrip- 
 tion was got up for us by the British merchants of that city, and 
 a free passage to England obtained for us. Russen, however, 
 getting in drink, made statements which brought suspicion upon 
 us, I had imposed upon the Consul with a fictitious story of a 
 wreck, but had stated that my name was Wilson, forgetting that 
 the sextant which had been preserved in the boat had Captain 
 Bates's name engraved upon it. These circumstances together 
 caused sufficient doubts in the Consul's mind to cause him to 
 give directions that, on our arrival in London, we were to be 
 brought before the Thames Police Court. There being no 
 evidence against us, we should have escaped, had not a Dr. 
 Pine, who had been surgeon on board the Malabar transport, 
 being in the Court, recognized me and swore to my identity. 
 We were remanded, and, to complete the chain of evidence, 
 Mr. Capon, the Hobart Town gaoler, was, strangely enough, in 
 London at the time, and identified us all. Our story was then 
 made public, and Barker and Lesly, turning king's evidence 
 against Russen, he was convicted of the murder of Lyons, and 
 executed. We were then placed on board the Leviathan hulk, 
 and remained there until shipped in the Lady Jane, which was 
 chartered, with convicts, for Van Diemen's Land, in order to be 
 tried in the colony, where the offence was committed, for 
 piratically seizing the brig Osprey, and arrived here on the 15th 
 December, 1838." 
 
 * « * -x- * 
 
 Coming, breathless, to the conclusion of this wonderful rela- 
 tion, Sylvia suffered her hand to fall into her lap, and sat medi- 
 tative. The history of this desperate struggle for liberty was 
 to her full of a vague horror. She had never before realized 
 
26o HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 among what manner of men she had lived. The sullen crea- 
 tures who worked in the chain-gangs, or pulled in the boats — 
 their faces brutalized into a uniform blankness — must be very 
 different men from John Rex and his companions. Her 
 imagination pictured the voyage in the leaky brig, the South 
 American slavery, the midnight escape, the desperate rowing, 
 the long, slow agony of starvation, and the heart-sickness 
 that must have followed upon recapture and imprisonment 
 Surely the punishment of " penal servitude " must have been 
 made very terrible for men to dare such hideous perils to 
 escape from it. Surely John Rex, the convict, who, alone, and 
 prostrated by sickness, quelled a mutiny and navigated a vessel 
 through a storm-ravaged ocean, must possess qualities which 
 could be put to better use than stone-quarrying. Was the 
 opinion of Maurice Frere the correct one after all, and were 
 these convict monsters gifted with unnatural powers of endur- 
 ance, only to be subdued and tamed by unnatural and inhuman 
 punishments of lash and chain? Her fancies growing amid the 
 fast gathering gloom, she shuddered as she guessed to what 
 extremities of evil might such men proceed did an opportunity 
 ever come to them to retaliate upon their gaolers. Perhaps 
 beneath each mask of servility and sullen fear that was the 
 ordinary prison face, lay hid a courage and a despair as mighty 
 as that which sustained those ten poor wanderers over the 
 Pacific Sea. Maurice had told her that these people had their 
 secret signs, their secret language. She had just seen a speci- 
 men of the skill with which this very Rex — still bent upon 
 escape — could send a hidden message to his friends beneath 
 the eyes of his gaolers. What if the whole island was but one 
 smouldering volcano of revolt and murder — the whole convict 
 population but one incarnated conspiracy, engendered and 
 bound together by the hideous Freemasonry of crime and 
 suffering ! Terrible to think of — yet not impossible. 
 
 Oh, how strangely must the world have been civilised, that 
 this most lovely corner of it must needs be set apart as a place 
 of banishment for the monsters that civilization had brought 
 forth and bred ! She cast her eyes around, and all beauty 
 seemed blotted out from the scene before her. The graceful 
 foliage melting into indistinctness in the gathering twilight, 
 appeared to her horrible and treacherous. The river seemed 
 to flow sluggishly, as though thickened with blood and tears. 
 
WHAT BECAME OF THE MUTINEERS. 261 
 
 The shadow of the trees seemed to hold lurking shapes of 
 cruelty and danger. Even the whispering breeze bore with it 
 sighs, and threats, and mutterings of revenge. Oppressed by a 
 terror of loneliness, she hastily caught up the manuscript, and 
 turned to seek the house, when, as if summoned from the earth 
 by the power of her own fears, a ragged figure barred her 
 passage. 
 
 To the excited girl this apparition seemed the embodiment of 
 the unknown evil she had dreaded. She recognised the yellow 
 clothing, and marked the eager hands outstretched to seize her. 
 Instantly upon her flashed the story that three days since had 
 set the prison-town agog. The desperado of Port Arthur, the 
 escaped mutineer and murderer, was before her, with unchained 
 arms, free to wreak his will of her. 
 
 " Sylvia ! It is you ! Oh, at last ! I have escaped, and 
 come to ask What ? Do you not know me ? " 
 
 Pressing both hands to her bosom, she stepped back a pace, 
 speechless with terror. 
 
 " I am Rufus Dawes," he said, looking in her face for the 
 grateful smile of recognition that did not come — " Rufus 
 Dawes." 
 
 The party at the house had finished their wine, and, sitting 
 on the broad verandah, were listening to some gentle dulness 
 of the clergyman, when there broke upon their ears a cry. 
 
 " What's that ?" said Vickers. 
 
 Frere sprang up, and looked down the garden. He saw 
 two figures that seemed to struggle together. One glance was 
 enough, and, with a shout, he leapt the flower-beds, and made 
 straight at the escaped prisoner. 
 
 Rufus Dawes saw him coming, but, secure in the protection 
 of the girl who owed to him so much, he advanced a step 
 nearer, and, loosing his respectful clasp of her hand, caught 
 her dress. 
 
 " Oh, help, Maurice, help 1 " cried Sylvia again. 
 
 Into the face of Rufus Dawes came an expression of horror- 
 stricken bewilderment. For three days the unhappy man had 
 contrived to keep life and freedom, in order to get speech with 
 the one being who, he thought, cherished for him some affec- 
 tion. Having made an unparalleled escape from the midst of 
 his warders, he had crept to the place where lived the idol of 
 his dreams, braving recapture, that he might hear from her 
 
262 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 two words of justice and gratitude. Not only did she refuse to 
 listen to him, and shrink from him as from one accursed, but, 
 at the sound of his name, she summoned his deadliest foe to 
 capture him. Such monstrous ingratitude was almost beyond 
 belief. She., too — the child he had nursed and fed, the child 
 for whom he had given up his hard-eamed chance of freedom 
 and fortune, the child of whom he had dreamed, the child 
 whose image he had worshipped — she, too, against him ! 
 Then there was no justice, no heaven, no God ! He loosed 
 his hold of her dress, and regardless of the approaching foot- 
 steps, stood speechless, shaking from head to foot. In another 
 instant Frere and McNab flung themselves upon him, and he 
 was borne to the ground. Though weakened by starvation, he 
 shook them off with scarce an effort, and, despite the servants 
 who came hurrying from the alarmed house, might even then 
 have turned and made good his escape. But he seemed unable 
 to fly. His chest heaved convulsively, great drops of sweat 
 beaded his white face, and from his eyes tears seemed about to 
 break. For an instant his features worked convulsively, as if 
 he would fain invoke upon the girl, weeping on her father's 
 shoulder, some hideous curse. But no words came — only 
 thrusting his hand into his breast, with a supreme gesture of 
 horror and aversion, he flung something from him. Then a 
 profound sigh escaped him, and he held out his hands to be 
 bound. 
 
 There was something so pitiable about this silent grief, that 
 as they led him away, the little group instinctively averted 
 their faces, lest they should seem to triumph over him. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 A RELIC OF MACQUARIE HARBOUR. 
 
 " '\/'C>U must try and save him from further punishment," 
 \ said Sylvia next day to Frere. " I did not mean to 
 betray the poor creature, but 1 had made myself 
 nervous by rending that convict's story." 
 
 "You shouldn't read such rubbish," said Frere. "What's 
 the use ? I don't suppose a word of it's true." 
 
A RELIC OF MACQUARIE HARBOUR. 263 
 
 ■^ It must be true. I am sure it's true. Oh, Maurice, these 
 are dreadful men. I thought I knew all about convicts, but I 
 had no idea that such men as these were among them." 
 
 "Thank God, you know very little," said Maurice. "The 
 servants you have here are very different sort of fellows from 
 Rex and Company." 
 
 "Oh, Maurice, I am so tired of this place. It's vnrong, 
 perhaps, with poor papa and all, but I do wish I was some- 
 where out of the sight of chains and yellow cloth. I don't 
 know what has made me feel as I do." 
 
 " Come to Sydney," said Frere. " There are not so many 
 convicts there. It was arranged that we should go to Sydney, 
 you know." 
 
 " For our honeymoon .'' Yes," said Sylvia, simply. " I 
 know it was. But we are not married yet." 
 
 " That's easily done," said Maurice. 
 
 " Oh, nonsense, sir ! But I want to speak to you about this 
 poor Dawes. I don't think he meant any harm. It seems to 
 me now that he was rather going to ask for food or something, 
 only I was so nervous. They won't hang him, Maurice, will 
 they?" 
 
 " No,'' said Maurice. " I spoke to your father this morning. 
 If the fellow is tried for his life, you may have to give evidence, 
 and so we came to the conclusion that Port Arthur again, and 
 heavy irons, will meet the case. We gave him another life 
 sentence this morning. That will make the third he has had." 
 
 "What did he say.?" 
 
 " Nothing. I sent him down aboard the schooner at once. 
 He ought to be out of the river by this time." 
 
 " Maurice, I have a strange feeling about that man." 
 
 ** Eh ? " said Maurice. 
 
 " I seem to fear him, as if I knew some story about him, and 
 yet didn't know it." 
 
 " That's not very clear," said Maurice, forcing a laugh ; " but 
 don't let's talk about him any more. We'll soon be far from 
 Port Arthur and everybody in it." 
 
 " Maurice," said she, caressingly, " I love you, dear. You'll 
 always protect me against these men, won't you 1 " 
 
 Maurice kissed her. " You have not got over your fright, 
 Sylvia," he said. " I see I shall have to take a great deal of 
 care of my wife." 
 
264 HI^ NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 ** Of course," replied Sylvia. 
 
 And then the pair began to make love, or rather, Maurice 
 made it, and Sylvia suffered him. 
 
 Suddenly her eye caught something. " What's that — there, 
 on the ground by the fountain ? " They were near the spot 
 where Dawes had been seized the night before. A little stream 
 ran through the garden, and a Triton — of convict manufacture 
 — blew his horn in the middle of a — convict built — rockery. 
 Under the lip of the fountain lay a small packet. Frere picked 
 it up. It was made of soiled yellow cloth, and stitched 
 evidently by a man's fingers. " It looks like a needle-case," 
 said he. 
 
 " Let me see. What a strange-looking thing ! Yellow cloth, 
 too. Why, it must belong to a prisoner. Oh, Maurice, the 
 man who was here last night 1 " 
 
 "Ay," says Maurice, turning over the packet, " it might have 
 been his, sure enough.'' 
 
 " He seemed to fling something from him, I thought. Perhaps 
 this is it ? " said she, peering over his arm, in delicate curiosity. 
 Frere, with something of a scowl on his brow, tore off the outer 
 covering of the mysterious packet, and displayed a second 
 envelope, of grey cloth — the "good-conduct" uniform. Beneath 
 this was a piece, some three inches square, of stained and 
 discoloured merino, that had once been blue. 
 
 " Hullo I " says Frere. " Why, what's this ? " 
 
 " It is a piece of a dress," says Sylvia. 
 
 It was Rufus Dawes's talisman, — a portion of the frock she 
 had worn at Macquarie Harbour, and which the unhappy con- 
 vict had cherished as a sacred relic for five weary years. 
 
 Frere flung it into the water. The running stream whirled it 
 away. " Why did you do that ? " cried the girl, with a sudden 
 pang of remorse for which she could not account. The shred 
 of cloth, caught by a weed, lingered for an instant on the surface 
 of the water. Almost at the same moment, the pair, raising 
 their eyes, saw the schooner which bore Rufus Dawes back to 
 bondage glide past the opening of the trees and disappear. 
 When they looked again for the strange relic of the desperado 
 of Tort Arthur, it also had vanished. 
 
AT PORT ARTHUR. 265 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 AT PORT ARTHUR. 
 
 THE usual clanking and hammering was prevalent upon 
 the stone jetty of Port Arthur when the schooner bearing 
 the returned convict, Rufus Dawes, ran alongside. On the 
 heights above the esplanade rose the grim front of the soldiers' 
 barracks ; beneath the soldier's barracks was the long range of 
 prison buildings, with their workshops and tan-pits ; to the left 
 lay the Commandant's house, authoritative by reason of its 
 embrasured terrace and guardian sentry; while the jetty, that 
 faced the purple length of the " Island of the Dead," swarmed 
 with parti-coloured figures, clanking about their enforced busi 
 ness, under the muskets of their gaolers. 
 
 Rufus Dawes had seen this prospect before, had learnt by 
 heart each beauty of rising sun, sparkling water, and wooded 
 hill. From the hideously clean jetty at his feet, to the signal 
 station, that, embowered in bloom, reared its slender arms 
 upwards into the cloudless sky, he knew it all. There was no 
 charm for him in the exquisite blue of the sea, the soft shadows 
 of the hills, or the soothing ripple of the waves that crept 
 voluptuously to the white breast of the shining shore. He sat 
 with his head bowed down, and his hands clasped about his 
 knees, disdaining to look until they roused him. 
 
 " Hallo, Dawes 1 " says Warder Troke, halting his train of 
 ironed yellow-jackets. " So you've come back again ! Glad to 
 see yer, Dawes ! It seems an age since we had the pleasure of 
 your company, Dawes 1 " At this pleasantry the train laughed, 
 so that their irons clanked more than ever. They found it 
 o*ften inconvenient not to laugh at Mr. Troke's humour. " Step 
 down here, Dawes, and let me introduce you to your h'old 
 friends. They'll be glad to see yer, won't yer, boys ? Why, 
 bless me, Dawes, we thort we'd lost yer 1 We thort yer'd given 
 us the slip altogether, Dawes. They didn't take care of yer in 
 Hobart Town, I expect, eh, boys ? We'll look after yer here, 
 Dawes, though. You won't bolt any more." 
 
 " Take care, Mr. Troke," said a warning voice, " you're at it 
 again ! Let the man alone 1 " 
 
 By virtue of an order transmitted from Hobart Town, they 
 
z66 fllS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 had begun to attach the dangerous prisoner to the last man of 
 the gang, riveting the leg-irons of the pair by means of an 
 extra link, which could be removed when necessary, but Dawes 
 had given no sign of consciousness. At the sound of the 
 friendly tones, however, he looked up, and saw a tall, gaunt 
 man, dressed in a shabby pepper-and-salt raiment, and wearing 
 a black handkerchief knotted round his throat. He was a 
 stranger to him. 
 
 " I beg yer pardon, Mr. North," said Troke, sinking at once 
 the bully in the sneak. " I didn't see yer reverencf." 
 
 " A parson ! " thought Dawes with disappointment, and 
 dropped his eyes. 
 
 " I know that," returned Mr. North, coolly. " If you had, 
 you would have been all butter and honey. Don't trouble 
 yourself to tell a lie ; it's quite unnecessary." 
 
 Dawes looked up again. This was a strange parson. 
 
 "What's your name, my man?" said Mr. North, suddenly, 
 catching his eye. 
 
 Rufus Dawes had intended to scowl, but the tone, sharplj 
 authoritative, roused his automatic convict second nature, and 
 he answered, almost despite himself, " Rufus Dawes." 
 
 " Oh," said Mr. North, eyeing him with a curious air of 
 expectation that had something pitying in it. " This is the 
 man, is it? I thought he was to go to the Coal Mines." 
 
 " So he is," said Troke, " but we hain't a goin' to send there 
 for a fortnit, and in the mean time I'm to work him on the 
 chain." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Mr. North again. " Lend me your knife, 
 Troke." 
 
 And then, before them all, this curious parson took a piece 
 of tobacco out of his ragged pocket, and cut off a " chaw " with 
 Mr. Troke's knife. Rufus Dawes felt what he had not felt for 
 three days — an interest in something. He stared at the parson 
 in unaffected astonishment. Mr. North perhaps mistook the 
 meaning of his fixed stare, for he held out the remnant of 
 tobacco to him. 
 
 The chain line vibrated at this, and bent forward to enjoy 
 the vicarious delight of seeing another man chew tobacco. 
 Troke grinned with a silent mirth that betokened retribution 
 for the favoured convict. " Here," said Mr. North, holding 
 out the dainty morsel upon which so many eyes were fixed. 
 
AT PORT ARTHUR. 267 
 
 Rufus Dawes took the tobacco ; looked at it hungrily for an 
 instant, and then — to the astonishment of everybody — flung it 
 away with a curse. 
 
 " I don't want your tobacco," he said ; " keep it." 
 
 From convict mouths went out a respectful roar of amaze- 
 ment, and Mr. Troke's eyes snapped with pride of outraged 
 janitorship. " You ungrateful dog ! " he cried, raising his 
 stick. 
 
 Mr. North put up a hand. " That will do, Troke," he said ; 
 " I know your respect for the cloth. Move the men on 
 again." 
 
 " Get on ! " said Troke, rumbling oaths beneath his breath, 
 and Dawes felt his newly-riveted chain tug. It was some time 
 since he had been in a chain gang, and the sudden jerk nearly 
 overbalanced him. He caught at his neighbour, and looking 
 up, met a pair of black eyes whidh gleamed recognition. His 
 neighbour was John Rex. Mr. North, watching them, was 
 struck by the resemblance the two men bore to each other. 
 Their height, eyes, hair, and complexion were similar. Despite 
 the difference in name they might be related. " They might be 
 brothers," thought he. "Poor devils ! I never knew a prisoner 
 refuse tobacco before." And he looked on the ground for the 
 despised portion. But in vain. John Rex, oppressed by no 
 foolish sentiment, had picked it up and put it in his mouth. 
 
 So Rufus Dawes was relegated to his old life again, and 
 came back to his prison with the hatred of his kind, that his 
 prison had bred in him, increased a hundred-fold. It seemed 
 to him that the sudden awakening had dazed him, that the 
 flood of light so suddenly let in upon his slumbering soul had 
 blinded his eyes, used so long to the sweetly-cheating twilight. 
 He was at first unable to apprehend the details of his misery. 
 He knew only that his dream-child was alive and shuddered at 
 him, that the only thing he loved and trusted had betrayed him, 
 that all hope of justice and mercy had gone from him for ever, 
 that the beauty had gone from earth, the brightness from 
 heaven, and that he was doomed still to live. He went about 
 his work, unheedful of the jests of Troke, ungalled by his irons, 
 unmindful of the groans and laughter about him. His magni- 
 ficent muscles saved him from the lash ; for the amiable Troke 
 tried to break him down in vain. He did not complain, he did 
 not laugh, he did not weep. His " mate " Rex tried to con- 
 
26S HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 verse with him, but did not succeed. In the midst of one of 
 Rex's excellent tales of London dissipation, Rufus Dawes would 
 sigh wearily. " There's something on that fello\v's mind,' 
 thought Rex, prone to watch the signs by which the soul is 
 read. " He has some secret which weighs upon him." 
 
 It was in vain that Rex attempted to discover what this 
 secret might be. To all questions concerning his past life — 
 however artfully put — Rufus Dawes was dumb. In vain Rex 
 practised all his arts, called up all his graces of manner and 
 speech — and these were not few — to fascinate the silent man 
 and win his confidence. Rufus Dawes met his advances with a 
 cynical carelessness that revealed nothing ; and, when not 
 addressed, held a gloomy silence. Galled by this indifference, 
 John Rex had attempted to practise those ingenious arts of 
 torment by which Gabbett, Vetch, or other leading spirits of the 
 gang asserted their superiority over their quieter comrades. 
 But he soon ceased. " I have been longer in this hell than 
 you," said Rufus Dawes, " and I know more of the devil's tricks 
 than you can show me. You had best be quiet." Rex neg- 
 lected the warning, and Rufus Dawes took him by the throat 
 one day, and would have strangled him, but that Troke beat ofl 
 the angered man with a favourite bludgeon. Rex had a whole- 
 some respect for personal prowess, and had the grace to admit 
 the provocation to Troke. Even this instance of self-denial did 
 not move the stubborn Dawes. He only laughed. 
 
 Then Rex came to a conclusion. His mate was plotting an 
 escape. He himself cherished a notion of the kind, as did 
 Gabbett and Vetch, but by common distrust no one ever 
 gave utterance to thoughts of this nature. It would be too dan- 
 gerous. " He would be a good comrade for a rush," thought 
 kex, and resolved more firmly than ever to ally himself to this 
 dangerous and silent companion. 
 
 One question Dawes had asked which Rex had been able to 
 answer : " Who is that North ? " 
 
 "A chaplain. He is only here for a week or so. There is a 
 new one coming. North goes to Sydney. He is not in favour 
 with the Bishop." 
 
 " How do you know ? " 
 
 " By deduction," says Rex, with a smile peculiar to him. 
 "He wears coloured clothes, and smokes, and doesn't patter 
 Scripture. The Bishop dresses in black, detests tobacco, and 
 
THE COMMANDANT'S BUTLER. 269 
 
 quotes the Bible like a concordance. North is sent here for 
 a month, as a warming-pan for that ass Meekin. Er^o, the 
 Bishop don't care about North." 
 
 Jemmy Vetch, who was next to Rex, let the full weight of his 
 portion of tree-trunk rest upon Gabbett, in order to express his 
 unrestrained admiration of Mr. Rex's sarcasm. " Ain't Dandy 
 a one'er ? " said he. 
 
 " Are you thinking of coming the pious? " asked Rex. " It's 
 no good with North. Wait until the highly-intelligent Meekin 
 comes. You can twist that worthy successor of the Apostles 
 round your httle finger ! " 
 
 " Silence there ! " cries the overseer. " Do you want me to 
 report yer ? " 
 
 Amid such diversions the days rolled on, and Rufus Dawes 
 almost longed for the Coal Mines. To be sent from the settle- 
 ment to the Coal Mines, and from the Coal Mines to the settle- 
 ment, was to these unhappy men a " trip." At Port Arthur one 
 went to an out station, as more fortunate people go to Queens- 
 cliff or the Ocean Beach now-a-days for " change of air." 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE COMMANDANT'S BUTLER. 
 
 RUFUS DAWES had been a fortnight at the settlement 
 when a new-comer appeared on the chain-gang. This 
 was a young man of about twenty years of age, thin, fair, 
 and delicate. His name was Kirkland, and he belonged to what 
 were known as the " educated" prisoners. He had been a clerk 
 in a banking house, and was transported for embezzlement, 
 though, by some, grave doubts as to his guilt were entertained. 
 The commandant, Captain Burgess, had employed him as butler 
 in his own house, and his fate was considered a " lucky " one. 
 So, doubtless, it was, and might have been, had not an untoward 
 accident occui'red. Captain Burgess, who was a bachelor of the 
 " old school," confessed to an amiable weakness for blasphemy, 
 and was given to condemning the convicts' eyes and limbs with 
 indiscriminate violence. Kirkland belonged to a Methodist 
 family and owned a piety utterly out of place in that region. 
 
270 HIS NATURAL LIIE. 
 
 The language of Burgess made him shudder, and one day, he 
 so far forgot himself and his place as to raise his hands to 
 his ears. " My blank ! " cried Burgess. " You blank blank, is 
 that your blank game ? I'll blank soon cure you of that ! " and 
 forthwith ordered him to the chain-gang for " insubordination." 
 
 He was received with suspicion by the gang, who did not hke 
 white-handed prisoners, Troke, by way of experiment in human 
 nature, perhaps, placed him next to Gabbett. The day was got 
 through in the usual way, and Kirkland felt his heart revive. 
 
 The toil was severe, and the companionship uncouth, but 
 despite his blistered hands and aching back, he had not ex- 
 perienced anything so very terrible after all. When the muster 
 bell rang, and the gang broke up, Rufus Dawes, on his silent 
 way to his separate cell, observed a notable change of custom 
 in the disposition of the new convict. Instead of placing him 
 in a cell by himself, Troke was turning him into the yard with 
 the others. 
 
 "I'm not to go in there?" says the ex-bank clerk, drawing 
 back in dismay from the cloud of foul faces which lowered upon 
 him. 
 
 "By the Lord, but you are, then!" says Troke. "The 
 Governor says a night in there'll take the starch out of yer. 
 Come, in yer go." 
 
 " But, Mr. Troke » 
 
 " Stow your gaff," says Troke, with another oath, and im- 
 patiently striking the lad with his thong — " I can't argue here 
 all night. Get in." So Kirkland, aged twenty-two, and the son 
 of Methodist parents, went in. 
 
 Rufus Dawes, among whose sinister memories this yard was 
 numbered, sighed. So fierce was the glamour of the place, 
 however, that when locked into his cell, he felt ashamed of that 
 sigh, and strove to erase the memory of it. " What is he more 
 than anybody else ? " said the wretched man to himself, as he 
 hugged his misery close. 
 
 About dawn the next morning, Mr. North — who, amongst 
 other vagaries not approved of by his bishop, had a habit of 
 prowling about the prison at unofficial hours — was attracted 
 by a dispute at the door of the dormitory, 
 
 " What's the matter here ? " he asked. 
 
 " A prisoner refractory, your reverence," said the watchman. 
 " Wants to come out" 
 
THE COMMANDANTS BUTLER. 271 
 
 " Mr. North ! Mr. North ! " cried a voice, " for the love of 
 God, let me out of this place ! " 
 
 Kirkland, ghastly pale, bleeding, with his woollen shirt torn, 
 and his blue eyes wide open with terror, was clinging to the 
 bars. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. North ! Mr. North ! Oh, Mr. North ! Oh ! for 
 God's sake, Mr. North ! " 
 
 " What, Kirkland ! " cried North, who was ignorant of the 
 vengeance of the Commandant. " What ^o you do here ? " 
 
 But Kirkland could do nothing but cry, — " Oh, Mr. North ! 
 For God's sake, Mr. North 1 " and beat on the bars with white 
 and sweating hands. 
 
 " Let him out, watchman !" said North. 
 
 " Can't, sir, without an order from the Commandant." 
 
 " I order you, sir ! " North cried, indignant. 
 
 " Very sorry, your reverence ; but your reverence knows that 
 I daren't do such a thing." 
 
 " Mr. North ! " screamed Kirkland. " Would you see me 
 perish, body and soul, in this place ? Mr. North 1 Oh, you 
 ministers of Christ — wolves in sheep's clothing — you shall be 
 judged for this ! Mr. North, I say ! " 
 
 " Let him out ! " cried North again, stamping his foot. 
 
 " It's no good," returned the gaoler. " I canH. If he was 
 dying, I can't." 
 
 North rushed away to the Commandant, and the instant his 
 back was turned, Hailes, the watchman, flung open the door, 
 and darted into the dormitory. 
 
 " Take that ! " he cried, dealing Kirkland a blow on the head 
 with his keys, that stretched him senseless. " There's more 
 trouble with you bloody aristocrats than enough. Lie quiet ! " 
 
 The Commandant, roused from slumber, told Mr. North that 
 Kirkland might stop where he was, and that he'd thank the 
 chaplain not to wake him up in the middle of the night because 
 a blank prisoner set up a blank howling. 
 
 " But, my good sir," protested North, restraining his impulse 
 to overstep the bounds of modesty in his language to his 
 superior officer, "you know the character of the men in that 
 ward. You can guess what that unhappy boy has suffered." 
 
 " Impertinent young beggar ! " said Burgess. " Do him good, 
 curse him ! Mr. North, I'm sorry you should have had the 
 trouble to come here, but will you let me go to sleep ? " 
 
272 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 North returned to the prison disconsolately, found the dutiful 
 Hailes at his post, and all quiet, 
 
 " What's become of Kirkland ? " he asked. 
 
 "Fretted hisself to sleep, yer reverence," said Hailes, in 
 accents of parental concern. " Poor young chap ! It's hard for 
 such young 'uns as he, sir." 
 
 In the morning, Rufus Dawes, coming to his place on the 
 chain-gang, was struck by the altered appearance of Kirkland. 
 His face was of a greenish tint, and wore an expression of 
 bewildered horror. 
 
 " Cheer up, man ! " said Dawes, touched with momentary 
 pity. "It's no good being in the mopes, you know." 
 
 " What do they do if you try to bolt ? " whispered Kirkland. 
 " Kill you," returned Dawes, in a tone of surprise at so pre- 
 posterous a question. 
 
 " Thank God ! " said Kirkland. 
 
 " Now, then. Miss Nancy," said one of the men, " what's the 
 matter with you ! " 
 
 Kirkland shuddered, and his pale face grew crimson. 
 " Oh," he said, " that such a wretch as I should live ! " 
 " Silence ! " cried Troke. " No. 44, if you can't hold your 
 tongue I'll give you something to talk about. March ! " 
 
 The work of the gang that afternoon was the carrying of 
 some heavy logs to the water-side, and Rufus Dawes observed 
 that Kirkland was exhausted long before the task was accom- 
 phshcd. " They'll kill you, you little beggar ! " said he, not un- 
 kindly. " What have you been doing to get into this scrape ? " 
 " Have you ever been in that — that place I was in last night ? " 
 asked Kirkland. 
 
 Rufus Dawes nodded. 
 
 " Does the Commandant know what goes on there ? " 
 " I suppose so. What does he care ? " 
 " Care ! Man, do you believe in a God?" 
 "No," said Dawes, "not here. Hold up, my lad. If you 
 fall, we must fall over you, and then you're done for." 
 
 Me had hardly uttered the words, when the boy flung himselt 
 beneath the log. In another instant the train would have been 
 scrambling over his crushed body, had not Gabbett stretched 
 out an iron hand, and plucked the would-be suicide from 
 death. 
 
THE COMMANDANTS BUTLER. 273 
 
 " Hold on to me, Miss Nancy," said the giant, "I'm big 
 enough to carry double." 
 
 Something in the tone or manner of the speaker affected 
 Kirkland to disgust, for, spurning the offered hand, he uttered 
 a cr>% and then, holding up his irons with his hands, he started 
 to run for the water. 
 
 *' Halt ! you young fool," roared Troke, raising his carbine. 
 But Kirkland kept steadily on for the river. Just as he reached 
 it, however, the figure of Mr. North rose from behind a pile of 
 stones. Kirkland jumped for the jetty, missed his footing, and 
 fell into the arms of the chaplain. 
 
 " You young vermin — you shall pay for this," cries Troke. 
 " You'll see if you won't remember this day." 
 
 "Oh, Mr. North," says Kirkland. "why did you stop me? 
 I'd better be dead than stay another night in that place." 
 
 " You'll get it, my lad," said Gabbett, when the runaway was 
 brought back. " Your blessed hide'U feel for this, see if it 
 don't." 
 
 Kirkland only breathed harder, and looked round for Mr. 
 North, but Mr. North had gone. The new chaplain was to 
 arrive that afternoon, and it was incumbent on the old one to 
 be present at the reception. 
 
 Troke reported the ex-bank clerk that night to Burgess, and 
 Burgess, who was about to go to dinner with the new chaplain, 
 disposed of his case out of hand. " Tried to bolt, eh ! Must 
 stop that. Fifty lashes, Troke. Tell Macklevvain to be ready 
 — or stay, I'll tell him myself — I'll break the young devil's spirit, 
 blank him." 
 
 " Yes, sir," said Troke. " Good evening, sir." 
 
 " Troke — pick out some likely man, will you ? That last 
 fellow you had ought to have been tied up himself. His flogging 
 wouldn't have killed a flea." 
 
 " You can't get 'em to warm one another, your honour," says 
 Troke. " They wonH do it." 
 
 " Oh, yes, they will, though," says Burgess, " or I'll know the 
 reason why. I won't have my men knocked up with flogging 
 these rascals. If the scourger won't do his duty, tie him up, 
 and give him five-and-twenty for himself. I'll be down in the 
 morning myself if I can." 
 
 " Very good, your honour," says Troke. 
 
 Kirkland was put into a separate cell that night ; and Troke, 
 
 18 
 
274 I^IS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 by way of assuring him a good night's rest, told him that he 
 was to have " fifty " in the morning. " And Dawes '11 lay it on," 
 he added. "He's one of the smartest men I've got, and he 
 won't spare yer, yer may take your oath of that." 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 MR. north's indisposition. 
 
 ««1C rOU will find this a terrible place, Mr. Meekin," said 
 Y North to his supplanter, as they walked across to the 
 Commandant's to dinner, " It has made me heart- 
 sick." 
 
 " I thought it was a little paradise," said Meekin. *' Captain 
 Frere says that the scenery is delightful." 
 
 " So it is," returned North, looking askance ; " but the 
 prisoners are not delightful." 
 
 " Poor, abandoned wretches," says Meekin, " I suppose not. 
 How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon that bank ! Eh ! " 
 
 " Abandoned, indeed, by God and man — almost." 
 
 " Mr. North, Providence never abandons the most unworthy 
 of His servants. Never have I seen the righteous forsaken, 
 nor his seed begging tlieir bread. In the valley of the shadow 
 of death He is with us. His staff, you know, Mr. North 
 Really, the Commandant's house is charmingly situated I " 
 
 Mr. North sighed again. "You have not been long in the 
 colony, Mr. Meekin. I doubt— forgive me for expressing myself 
 so freely — if you quite know our convict system." 
 
 " An admirable one I A most admirable one ! " said Meekin. 
 " There were a few matters I noticed in Hobart Town that did 
 not quite please me — the frequent use of profane language for 
 instance— but on the whole I was delighted with the scheme. 
 It is so complete." 
 
 North pursed up his lips. "Yes, it is very complete," he 
 said ; " almost too complete. But I am always in a minority 
 when I discuss the question, so we will drop it, if you please." 
 
 " If you jjlease," said Meekin, gravely. He had heard from 
 tne IMshop that Mr. North was an ill-conditioned sort of person, 
 who smoked clay pipes, had been detected in drinking beer out 
 
MI?. NORTirS INDISPOSITION. ^^r^ 
 
 of a pewter pot, and had been heard to state that white neck- 
 cloths were of no consequence. 
 
 The dinner went off successfully. Burgess — desirous, per- 
 haps, of favourably impressing the chaplain whom the Bishop 
 delighted to honour — shut off his blasphemy for a while, and 
 was urbane enough. " You'll find us rough, Mr. Meekin," he 
 said, " but you'll find us 'all there ' when we're wanted. This 
 is a httle kingdom in itself" 
 
 "Like Bdranger's?" asked Meekin, with a smile. Captain 
 Burgess had never heard of Bdranger, but he smiled as if he 
 had learnt his words by heart. 
 
 " Or like Sancho Panza's island," said North. " You re- 
 member how justice was administered there 1 " 
 
 " Not at this moment, sir," said Burgess, with dignity. He 
 had been often oppressed by the notion that the Reverend 
 Mr. North "chaffed" him. " Pray, help yourself to wine." 
 
 " Thank you, none," said North, filling a tumbler with water. 
 " I have a headache." 
 
 His manner of speech and action was so awkward that a 
 silence fell upon the party, caused by each one wondering why 
 Mr. North should grow confused, and drum his fingers on the 
 table, and stare everywhere but at the decanter. Meekin — 
 ever softly at his ease — was the first to speak. " Have you 
 many visitors, Captain Burgess ? " 
 
 " Very few. Sometimes a party comes over with a recom- 
 mendation from the Governor, and I show them over the place ; 
 but, as a rule, we see no one but ourselves." 
 
 " I asked," said Meekin, " because some friends of mine 
 were thinking of coming." 
 
 " And who may they be ? " 
 
 " Do you know Captain Frere ? " 
 
 " Frere 1 I should say so 1 " returned Burgess, with a 
 laugh, modelled upon Maurice Frere's own. " I was quartered 
 with him at Sarah Island. So he's a friend of yours, eh .? " 
 
 " I had the pleasure of meeting him in society. He is just 
 married, you know.'' 
 
 "Is he?" said Burgess. "The devil he is I I heard some- 
 thing about it, too." 
 
 " Miss Vickers, a charming young person. They are going 
 to Sydney, where Captain Frere has some interest, and Frere 
 thinks of taking Port Arthur on his way down. 
 
276 
 
 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 " A strange fancy for a honyemoon trip," said North. 
 " Captain Frere takes a deep interest in all relating to convict 
 discipline," went on Meekin, unheeding the interruption, " and 
 is anxious that Mrs. Frere should see this place." 
 
 " Yes one oughtn't to leave the colony without seeing it," 
 says Burgess ; "it's worth seeing." 
 
 "So Captain Frere thinks. A romantic story, Captain 
 Burgess, He saved her life, you know." 
 
 " Ah ! that was a queer thing, that mutiny," said Burgess. 
 "We've got the fellows here, you know." 
 
 " I saw them tried at Hobart Town," said Meekin. " In fact, 
 the ringleader, John Rex, gave me his confession, and I sent 
 it to the Bishop." 
 
 " A great rascal," put in North. " A dangerous, scheming, 
 cold-blooded villain." 
 
 " Well now ! " said Meekin, with asperity, " I don't agree 
 with you. Everybody seems to be against that poor fellow — 
 Captain Frere tried to make me think his letters contained a 
 hidden meaning, but I don't believe they did. He seems to me 
 to be truly penitent for his offences— a misguided, but not a 
 hypocritical man, if my knowledge of human nature goes for 
 anything." 
 
 " I hope he is," said North. " I wouldn't trust him." 
 " Oh ! there's no fear of him," said Burgess, cheerily ; " if 
 he grows uproarious, we'll soon give him a touch of the cat." 
 
 " I suppose severity is necessary," returned Meekin; "though 
 to my cars a flogging sounds a little distasteful. It is a brutal 
 punishment." 
 
 " It's a punishment for brutes," said Burgess, and laughed, 
 pleased with the nearest approach to an epigram he ever made 
 in his life. 
 
 Here attention was called by the strange behaviour of Mr, 
 North. He had risen, and, without apology, flung wide the 
 window, as though he gasped for air. " Hullo, North ! what's 
 the matter?" 
 
 "Nothing," said North, recovering himself with an effort. 
 "A spasm. I have those attacks at times." 
 " Have some brandy," said Burgess. 
 
 •' No, no, it will pass. No, I say. Well, if you insist." 
 And seizing the tumbler offered to him, he half-fdled it with 
 raw spirit, and swallowed the fiery draught at a gulp. 
 
MR. NORTirS INDISPOSITION. 277 
 
 The Reverend IMeekin eyed his clerical brother with horror. 
 The Reverend Meekin was not accustomed to clergymen who 
 v/ore black neckties, smoked clay pipes, chewed tobacco, and 
 drank neat brandy out of tumblers. 
 
 " Ha ! " said North, looking wildly round upon them. 
 "That's better." 
 
 " Let us go on to the verandah," said Burgess. " It's cooler 
 than in the house." 
 
 So they went on to the verandah, and looked down upon the 
 lights of the prison, and listened to the sea lapping the shore. 
 The Reverend Mr. North, in this cool atmosphere, seemed to 
 recover himself, and conversation progressed with some spright- 
 liness. 
 
 By-and-by, a short figure, smoking a cheroot, came up out 
 of the dark, and proved to be Dr. Macklewain, who had been 
 prevented from attending the dinner by reason of an accident to 
 a constable at Norfolk Bay, which had claimed his professional 
 attention. 
 
 "Well, how's Forrest.?" cried Burgess. "Mr. Meekin — 
 Dr. Macklewain." 
 
 " Dead," said Dr. Macklewain. " Delighted to see you, Mr. 
 Meekin." 
 
 " Confound it — another of my best men," grumbled Burgess. 
 " Macklewain, have a glass of wine." But Macklewain was 
 tired, and wanted to get home. 
 
 " I must also be thinking of repose," said Meekin ; " the 
 journey — though most enjoyable — has fatigued me." 
 
 " Come on, then," said North. " Our roads lie together, 
 doctor." 
 
 " You won^t have a nip of brandy before you start ? " asked 
 Burgess. " No ? Then I shall send round for you in the 
 morning, Mr. Meekin. Good night. Macklewain, I want to 
 speak with you a moment." 
 
 Before the two clergymen had got half-way down the steep 
 path that led from the Commandant's house to the flat on 
 which the cottages of the doctor and chaplain were built, 
 Macklewain rejoined them. " Another flogging to-mor- 
 row," said he, grumblingly. "Up at daylight, I suppose, 
 again." 
 
 "Whom is he going to flog now ?" 
 
 " That voung butler-fellov/ of his." 
 
278 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 " What, Kirkland ? " cried North. " You don't mean to say 
 he's going to flog Kirkland ? " 
 
 " Insubordination," says Macklewain. " Fifty lashes." 
 
 "Oh, this must be stopped," cries North, in great alarm. 
 "He can't stand it. I tell you he'll die, Macklewain." 
 
 " Perhaps you'll have the goodness to allow me to be the 
 best judge of that," returned Macklewain, drawing up his little 
 body to its least insignificant stature. 
 
 " My dear sir," replied North, alive to the importance of 
 conciliating the surgeon, "you haven't seen him lately. He 
 tried to drown himself this morning." 
 
 Mr. Meekin expressed some alarm ; but Dr. Macklewain 
 re-assured him. " That sort of nonsense must be stopped," 
 said he. " A nice example to set. I wonder Burgess didn't 
 give him a hundred." 
 
 "He was put into the long dormitory," said North; "you 
 know what sort of a place that is. I declare to Heaven his 
 agony and shame terrified me." 
 
 "Well, he'll be put into the hospital for a week or so 
 to-morrow," said Macklewain, " and that'll give him a 
 spell." 
 
 " If Burgess flogs him I'll report it to the Governor," cries 
 North, in great heat. " The condition of those dormitories is 
 infamous." 
 
 " If the boy has anything to complain of, why don't he com- 
 plain ? We can't do anything without evidence." 
 
 " Complain ! Would his life be safe if he did ? Besides, he's 
 not the sort of creature to complain. He'd rather kill himself 
 than say anything about the matter." 
 
 " Thai's all nonsense," says Macklewain. " We can't flog 
 a whole dormitory on suspicion. / can't help it. The boy's 
 made his bed, and he must lie on it." 
 
 " I'll go back and see Bur^jess," said North. " Mr. Meekin, 
 here's the gate, and your room is on the right hand. I'll be 
 back shortly." 
 
 " Pray don't hurry," said Meekin politely. " You are on an 
 errand of mercy, you know. Everything must give way to that. 
 I shall find my portmanteau in my room, you said." 
 
 " Yes, yes. Call the servant if you want anything. He sleeps 
 at the back," and North hurried off. 
 
 "An impulsive gentleman," said Meekin to Macklewain, as 
 
MR. NORTH'S INDISPOSITION. 279 
 
 the sound of Mr. North's footsteps died away in the distance. 
 Macldewain shook his head seriously. 
 
 " There is something wrong about him, but I can't make out 
 what it is. He has the strangest fits at times. Unless it's a 
 cancer in the stomach, I don't know what it can be." 
 
 " Cancer in the stomach ! dear me, how dreadful ! " says 
 Meekin. " Ah ! Doctor, we all have our crosses, have we 
 not.? How delightful the grass smells .'' This seems a very 
 pleasant place, and I think I shall enjoy myself very much. 
 Good-night." 
 
 '* Good-night, sir. I hope you will be comfortable." 
 
 " And let us hope poor Mr. North will succeed in his labour 
 of love," said Meekin, shutting the little gate, " and save the 
 unfortunate Kirkland. Good-night, once more." 
 
 Captain Burgess was shutting his verandah-window when 
 North hurried up. " Captain Burgess, Macklewain tells me 
 you are going to flog young Kirkland." 
 
 " Well, sir, what of that ? " said Burgess. 
 
 " I have come to beg you not to do so, sir. The lad has 
 been cruelly punished already. He attempted suicide to-day — 
 unhappy creature." 
 
 " Well, that's just what I'm flogging him for. I'll teach my 
 prisoners to attempt suicide ! " 
 
 " But he can't stand it, sir. He's too weak." 
 
 " That's Macklewain's business." 
 
 " Captain Burgess," protested North, " I assure you that he 
 does not deserve punishment. I have seen him, and his con- 
 dition of mind is pitiable." 
 
 " Look here, Mr. North, I don't interfere with what you do to 
 the prisoners' souls, don't you interfere with what I do to their 
 bodies." 
 
 " Captain Burgess, you have no right to mock at my office." 
 
 "Then don't you interfere with me, sir." 
 
 " Do you persist in having this boy flogged ? " 
 
 ** I've given my orders, sir." 
 
 "Then, Captain Burgess," cried North, his pale face flushing, 
 " I tell you the boy's blood will be on your head. I am a 
 minister of God, sir, and I forbid you to commit this crime." 
 
 "Damn your impertinence, sir !" burst out Burgess. "You're 
 a dismissed officer of the Government, sir. You've no authority 
 
28o HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 here in any way ; and, by God, sir, if you interfere with my 
 discipline, sir, FU have you put in irons until you're shipped 
 out of the island." 
 
 This, of course, was mere bravado on the part of the Com- 
 mandant. North knew well that he would never dare to attempt 
 any such act of violence, but the insult stung him like the cut 
 of a whip. He made a stride towards the Commandant, as 
 though to seize him by the throat, but, checking himself in 
 time, stood still, with clenched hands, flashing eyes, and beard 
 that bristled. 
 
 The two men looked at each other, and presently Burgess's 
 eyes fell before those of the chaplain. 
 
 " Miserable blasphemer," says North, '* I tell you that you 
 shall not flog the boy." 
 
 Burgess, white with rage, rang the bell that summoned his 
 convict servant. 
 
 "Show Mr. North out," he said, "and go down to the 
 barracks, and tell Troke that Kirkland is to have a hundred 
 lashes to-morrow. I'll show you who's master here, my good 
 sir." 
 
 "I'll report this to the Government," said North, aghast. 
 " This is murderous." 
 
 " The Government may go to , and you, too ! " roared 
 
 Burgess. "Get out !" 
 
 And God's vicegerent at Port Arthur slammed the door. 
 
 North returned home in great agitation. "They shall not 
 flog that boy," he said. " I'll shield him with my own body if 
 necessary. I'll report this to the Government. I'll see Sir 
 John Franklin myself. I'll have the light of day let into this 
 den of liorrors." He reached his cottage, and lighted the lamp 
 in the little sitting-room. All was silent, save that from the 
 adjoining chamber came the sound of Meekin's gentlemanly 
 snore. North took down a book from the shelf and tried to 
 read, but the letters ran together. " I wish I hadn't taken that 
 brandy," he said. «' Fool that I am." 
 
 Then he began to walk up and down, to fling himself on the 
 sofa, to read, to pray. " O God, give me strength ! Aid me I 
 Help me ! I struggle, but I am weak ! O Lord, look down 
 upon me ! " 
 
 To see him rolling on the sofa in agony, to see his white face, 
 his parched lips, and his contracted brow, to hear his moans 
 
MR. NORTirS INDISPOSITION. 281 
 
 and muttered prayers, one would have thought him suffering 
 from the pangs of some terrible disease. He opened the book 
 again, and forced himself to read, but his eyes wandered to the 
 cupboard. There lurked something that fascinated him. He 
 got up at length, went into the kitchen, and found a packet of 
 red pepper. He mixed a teaspoonful of this in a pannikin of 
 water and drank it. It relieved him for a while. 
 
 " I tmist keep my wits for to-morrow. The life of that 
 lad depends upon it. Meekin, too, will suspect, I will lie 
 down." 
 
 He went into his bedroom and flung himself on the bed, but 
 only to toss from side to side. In vain he repeated texts ot 
 Scripture and scraps of verse ; in vain counted imaginary sheep, 
 or listened to imaginary clock-tickings. Sleep would not come 
 to him. It was as though he had reached the crisis of a disease 
 which had been for days gathering force. " I must have a tea- 
 spoonful," he said, " to allay the craving." 
 
 Twice he paused on his way to the sitting-room, and twice 
 was he driven on by a power stronger than his will. He 
 reached it at length, and opening the cupboard, pulled out 
 what he sought. A bottle of brandy. 
 
 With this in his hand, all moderation vanished. He raised 
 it to his lips and eagerly drank. Then, ashamed of what he 
 had done, he thrust the bottle back, and made for his room. 
 Still he could not sleep. The taste of the liquor maddened 
 him for more. He saw in the darkness the brandy bottle, — 
 \ailgar and terrible apparition ! He saw its amber fluid sparkle. 
 He heard it gurgle as he poured it out. He smelt the nutty 
 aroma of the spirit. He pictured it standing in the corner of 
 the cupboard, and imagined himself seizing it and quenching 
 the fire that burned within him. He wept, he prayed, he 
 fought with his desire as with a madness. He told himselt 
 that another's life depended on his exertions, that to give way 
 to his fatal passion was unworthy of an educated man and a 
 reasoning being, that it was degrading, disgusting, and bestial. 
 That, at all times debasing, at this particular time it was 
 infamous ; that a vice, unworthy of any man, was doubly sinful 
 in a man of education and a minister of God. In vain. In 
 the midst of his arguments he found himself at the cupboard, 
 with the bottle at bis Ups, in an attitude that was at once 
 ludicrous and horrible. 
 
282 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 He had no cancer. His disease was a more terrible one. 
 The Reverend James North — gentleman, scholar, and Christian 
 priest— -was what the world calls " a confirmed drunkard." 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 ONE HUNDRED LASHES. 
 
 THE morning sun, bright and fierce, looked down upon a 
 curious sight. In a stone-yard was a little group of 
 persons — Troke, Burgess, Macklewain, Kirkland, and 
 Rufus Dawes. 
 
 Three wooden staves, seven feet high, were fastened together 
 in the form of a triangle. The structure looked not unlike that 
 made by gipsies to boil their kettles. To this structure Kirk- 
 land was bound. His feet were fastened with thongs to the 
 base of the triangle ; his wrists, bound above his head, at the 
 apex. His body was then extended to its fullest length, and his 
 white back shone in the sunlight. During his tying up he had 
 said nothing — only when Troke roughly pulled off his shirt he 
 shivered. 
 
 " Now, prisoner," said Troke to Dawes, " do your duty." 
 
 Rufus Dawes looked from the three stern faces to Kirkland's 
 white back, and his face grew purple. In all his experience he 
 had never been asked to flog before. He had been flogged 
 often enough. 
 
 " You don't want me to flog him, sir ? " he said to the 
 Commandant. 
 
 " Pick up the cat, sir ! " said Burgess, astonished ; " what is 
 the meaning of this } " 
 
 Rufus Dawes picked up the heavy cat, and drew its knotted 
 lashes between his fingers. 
 
 " Go on, Dawes, whispered Kirkland, without turning his 
 head. " You are no more than another man." 
 
 " What does he say ? " asked Burgess. 
 
 "Telling him to cut light, sir," said Troke, eagerly lying; 
 "they all do it." 
 
 " Cut light, eh ! Well see about that. Get on, my man, and 
 
ONE HUNDRED LASHES. 283 
 
 look sharp, or I'll tie you up and give you fifty for yourself, as 
 sure as God made little apples." 
 
 " Go on, Dawes," whispered Kirkland again, " I don't mind." 
 
 Rufus Dawes lifted the cat, swung it round his head, and 
 brought its knotted cords down upon the white back. 
 
 " Wonn ! " cried Troke. 
 
 The white back was instantly striped with six crimson bars, 
 Kirkland stifled a cry. It seemed to him that he had been cut 
 in half. 
 
 " Now, then, you scoundrel ! " roared Burgess ; " separate 
 your cats ! What do you mean by flogging a man that 
 fashion ? " 
 
 Rufus Dawes drew his crooked fingers through the entangled 
 cords, and struck again. This time the blow was more effective, 
 and the blood beaded on the skin. 
 
 The boy did not cry ; but Macklewain saw his hands clutch 
 the staves tightly, and the muscles of his naked arms quiver. 
 
 " Tew ! " 
 
 " That's better," said Burgess. 
 
 The third blow sounded as though it had been struck upon a 
 piece of raw beef, and the crimson turned purple. 
 
 " My God ! " said Kirkland, faintly, and bit his lips. 
 
 The flogging proceeded in silence for ten strokes, and then 
 Kirkland gave a screech like a wounded horse. 
 
 " Oh ! . . . Captain Burgess ! . . . Dawes ! . . . Mr. Troke! 
 ... Oh, my God ! , , . Oh ! oh ! . . . Mercy ! ... Oh, 
 Doctor ! . . . Mr. North ! . . . Oh ! Oh ! Oh ! " 
 
 " Ten ! " cried Troke, impassibly counting to the end of the 
 first twenty. 
 
 The lad's back, swollen into a hump, now presented the 
 appearance of a ripe peach which a wilful child has scored with 
 a pin. Dawes, turning away from his bloody handiwork, drew 
 the cats through his fingers twice. They were beginning to 
 get clogged a little. 
 
 " Go on," said Burgess, with a nod ; and Troke cried 
 " Wonn ! " again. 
 
 Roused by the morning sun streaming in upon him, Mr. 
 North opened his bloodshot eyes, rubbed his forehead with 
 hands that trembled, and suddenly awakening to a conscious- 
 ness of his pror.iised errand, rolled off the bed and rose to his 
 
284 ^j:s natural life. 
 
 feet. He saw the empty brandy-bottle on his wooden dressing- 
 table, and remembered what had passed. With shaking hands 
 he dashed water over his aching head, and smoothed his 
 garments. The debauch of the previous night had left the 
 usual effects behind it. His brain seemed on fire, his hands 
 were hot and dr)', his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth. He 
 shuddered as he viewed his pale face and red eyes in the little 
 looking-glass, and hastily tried the door. He had retained 
 sufficient sense in his madness to lock it, and his condition had 
 been unobserved. Stealing into the sitting-room, he saw that 
 the clock pointed to half-past six. The flogging was to have 
 taken place at half-past five. Unless accident had favoured 
 him he was already too late. Fevered with remorse and 
 anxiety, he hurried past the room where Meekin yet slumbered, 
 and made his way to the prison. As he entered the yard, 
 Troke called " Ten ! " Kirkland had just got his fiftieth lash. 
 
 " Stop ! " cried North. " Captain Burgess, I call upon you 
 to stop." 
 
 " You're rather late, Mr. North," retorted Burgess. " The 
 punishment is nearly over." 
 
 " Wonn ! " cried Troke again ; and North stood by, biting 
 his nails and grinding his teeth, during six more lashes. 
 
 Kirkland had ceased to yell now, and merely moaned. His 
 back was like a 'bloody sponge, while, in the interval between 
 the lashes, the swollen flesh twitched like that of a new-killed 
 bullock. Suddenly, Macklewain saw his head droop on his 
 shoulder. " Throw him off ! Throw him off ! " he cried, and 
 Troke hurried to loosen the thongs. 
 
 " Fling some water over him ! " said Burgess, " he's sham- 
 ming." 
 
 A bucket of water made Kirkland open his eyes. " I thought 
 so," said Burgess. " Tie him up again. " 
 
 " No. Not if you are Christians ! " cried North. 
 
 He met with an ally where he least expected one. Rufus 
 Dawes flung down the dripping cat. " I'U flog no more," said 
 he. 
 
 1^' What ? " roared Burgess, furious at this gross insolence. 
 
 " I'll flog no more. Get some one else to do your bloody 
 work for you. I won't." 
 
 " Tie him up I " cried Burgess, foaming. " Tie him up. 
 Here, constable, fetch a man here with a fresh cat. Ill give 
 
ONE HUNDRED LASHES. 285 
 
 you that beggar's fifty, and fifty more on the top of 'em ; and he 
 shall look on while his back cools." 
 
 Rufus Dawes, with a glance at North, pulled off his shirt 
 without a word, and stretched himself at the triangles. His 
 back was not white and smooth, like Kirkland's had been, but 
 hard and seamed. He had been flogged before. Troke ap- 
 peared with Gabbett — grinning. Gabbett liked flogging. It 
 was his boast that he could flog a man to death on a place no 
 bigger than the palm of his hand. He could use his left hand 
 equally with his right, and if he got hold of a " favourite," would 
 " cross the cuts." 
 
 Rufus Dawes planted his feet firmly on the ground, took 
 fierce grasp of the staves, and drew in his breath. 
 
 Macklewain spread the gannents of the two men upon the 
 ground, and, placing Kirkland upon them, turned to watch this 
 new phase in the morning's amusement. He grumbled a little 
 below his breath, for he wanted his breakfast, and when the 
 Commandant once began to flog, there was no telling where he 
 would stop. Rufus Dawes took five-and twenty lashes without 
 a murmur, and then Gabbett " crossed the cuts." This went on 
 up to fifty lashes, and North felt himself stricken with admira- 
 tion at the courage of the man. " If it had not been for that 
 cursed brandy," thought he, with bitterness of self-reproach, " I 
 might have saved all this." At the hundredth lash, the giant 
 paused, expecting the order to throw off, but Burgess was deter- 
 mined to " break the man's spirit." 
 
 " I'll make you speak, you dog, if I cut your heart out ! " he 
 cried. " Go on, prisoner." 
 
 For twenty lashes more Dawes was mute, and then the 
 agony forced from his labouring breast a hideous cry. But it 
 was not a cry for mercy, as that of Kirkland's had been. Having 
 found his tongue, the wretched man gave vent to his boiling 
 passion in a torrent of curses. He shrieked imprecations upon 
 Burgess, Troke, and North. He cursed all soldiers for tyrants, 
 all parsons for hypocrites. He blasphemed his God and his 
 Saviour. With a frightful outpouring of obscenity and blas- 
 phemy, he called on the earth to gape and swallow his persecu- 
 tors, for heaven to open and rain fire upon them, for hell to 
 yawn and engulf them quick. It was as though each blow of 
 the cat forced out of him a fresh burst of beast-like rage. He 
 seemed to have abandoned his humanity. He foamed, he 
 
286 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 raved, he tugged at his bonds until the strong staves shook 
 again ; he writhed himself round upon the triangles and spit 
 impotcntly at Burgess, who jeered at his torments. North, 
 with his hands to his ears, crouched against the corner of the 
 wall, palsied with horror. It seemed to him that the passions of 
 hell raged around him. He would fain have fled, but a horrible 
 fascination held him back. 
 
 In the midst of this — when the cat was hissing its loudest — 
 Burgess laughing his hardest, and the wretch on the triangles 
 filling the air with his cries. North saw Kirkland look at him 
 with what he thought a smile. Was it a smile ? He leapt for- 
 ward, and uttered a cry of dismay so loud that all turned. 
 
 " Huilo !" says Troke, running to the heap of clothes, "the 
 young 'un's slipped his wind ! " 
 
 Kirkland was dead. 
 
 " Throw him off ! " says Burgess, aghast at the unfortunate 
 accident ; and Gabbett reluctantly untied the thongs that bound 
 Rufus Dawes. Two constables were alongside him in an in- 
 stant, for sometimes newly tortured men grew desperate. This 
 one, however, was silent with the last lash, only in taking his 
 shirt from under the body of the boy, he muttered " Dead ! " 
 and in his tone there seemed to be a touch of envy. Then 
 flinging his shirt over his bleeding shoulders, he walked out — 
 defiant to the last. 
 
 "Game, ain't he?" said one constable to the other, as they 
 pushed him, not ungently, into an empty cell, there to wait for 
 the hospital guard. The body of Kirkland was taken away in 
 silence, and Burgess turned rather pale when he saw North's 
 threatening face. 
 
 " It isn't my fault, Mr. North," he said. " I didn't know that 
 the lad was chicken-hearted." But North turned away in dis- 
 gust, and Macklcwain and Burgess pursued their homeward 
 route together. 
 
 " Strange that he should drop like that," said the Commandant. 
 
 " Yes, unless lie had any internal disease," said the surgeon. 
 
 " Disease of the heart, for instance," said Burgess. 
 
 " I'll pflst-Diortcm him and see." 
 
 "Come in and have a nip, Macklewain. I feel quite 
 qualmish," said Burgess. And the two went into the house 
 amid respectful salutes from either side. Mr. North, in agony 
 of mind at what he considered the consequence of his neglect, 
 
ONE HUNDRED LASHES. 287 
 
 slowly, and with head bowed down, as one bent on a painful 
 eiTand, went to see the prisoner who had survived. He found 
 him kneeling on the ground, prostrated. 
 
 " Rufus Dawes." 
 
 At the low tone Rufus Dawes looked up, and seeing who it 
 was, waved him off. 
 
 " Don't speak to me," he said, with an imprecation that made 
 North's flesh creep. " I've told you what I think of you — a 
 hypocrite, who stands by while a man is cut to pieces, and then 
 comes and whines religion to him." 
 
 North stood in the centre of the cell, with his arms hanging 
 down, and his head bent. 
 
 " You are right," he said, in a low tone. " I must seem to 
 you a hypocrite. / a servant of Christ ? A besotted beast 
 rather 1 I am not come to whine religion to you. I am come to 
 — to ask your pardon. I might have saved you from punishment, 
 — saved that poor boy from death. I wanted to save him, God 
 knows ! But I have a vice ; I am a drunkard, I yielded to my 
 temptation, and — I was too late, I come to you as one sinful 
 man to another, to ask you to forgive me." And North sud- 
 denly flung himself down beside the convict, and catching his 
 blood-bespotted hands in his own, cried, " Forgive me, brother !" 
 
 Rufus Dawes, too much astonished to speak, bent his black 
 eyes upon the man who crouched at his feet, and a ray of divine 
 pity penetrated his gloomy soul. He seemed to catch a glimpse 
 of misery more profound than his own, and his stubborn heart 
 felt human sympathy with this erring brother. " Then in this 
 hell there is yet a man," said he ; and a hand-grasp passed 
 between these two unhappy beings. North arose, and, with 
 avei'ted face, passed quickly from the cell. Rufus Dawes looked 
 at the hand which his strange visitor had taken, and something 
 glittered there. It was a tear. He broke down at the sight of 
 it, and when the guard came to fetch the tameless convict, they 
 found him on his knees in a corner, sobbing like a child. 
 
288 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 KICKING AGAINST THE PRICKS, 
 
 THE morning after this, the Rev. Mr. North departed in 
 the schooner for Hobart Town. Between the officious 
 chaplain and the Commandant, the events of the pre- 
 vious day had fixed a great gulf. Burgess knew that North 
 meant to report the death of Kirldand, and guessed that he 
 would not be backward in relating the story to such persons in 
 Hobart Town as would most readily repeat it. " Blank awk- 
 ward the fellow's dying," he confessed to himself. "If he hadn't 
 died, nobody would have bothered about him." A sinister 
 truth. North, on the other hand, comforted himself with the 
 belief that the fact of the convict's death under the lash would 
 cause indignation and subsequent inquiry. " The truth must 
 come out if they only ask^^ thought he. Self-deceiving North I 
 Four years a Government chaplain, and not yet attained to a 
 knowledge of a Government's method of " asking " about such 
 matters ! Kirkland's mangled flesh would have fed the worms 
 before the ink on the last " minute" from deliberating Authority 
 was dry. 
 
 Burgess, however, touched with selfish regrets, determined to 
 baulk the parson at the outset. He would send down an official 
 " return " of the unfortunate occurrence by the same vessel that 
 carried his enemy, and thus get the ear of the Office. Meekin, 
 walking on the evening of the flogging past the wooden shed 
 where the body lay, saw Troke bearing buckets filled with dark 
 coloured water, and heard a great splashing and sluicing going 
 on inside the hut. " What is the matter ? " he asked. 
 
 " Doctor's bin post morticing the prisoner what was flogged 
 this morning, sir," said Troke, "and we're cleanin' up." 
 
 Mcckin sickened, and walked on. He had heard that un- 
 happy Kirkland possessed unknown disease of the heart, and 
 had unhappily died before receiving his allotted punishment. 
 His duty was to comfort Kirkland's soul, he had nothing to do 
 with Kirkland's slovenly unhandsome body, and so he went for 
 a walk on the pier, that the breeze might blow his momentary 
 sickness away irom him. On the pier he saw North talking to 
 Father Flaherty, the Roman Catholic chaplain. Meekin had 
 
KICKING AGAINST THE PRICKS. 
 
 been taught to look upon a priest as a shepherd might look 
 upon a wolf, and passed with a distant bow. The pair were 
 apparently talking of the occurrence of the morning, for he 
 heard Father Flaherty say, with a shrug of his round shoulders, 
 " He woas not one of moi people, Mr. North, and the Gover- 
 mint would not suffer me to interfere with mathers relating to 
 Prhotestint prisoners." " The wretched creature was a Pro- 
 testant," thought Meekin. " At least then his immortal soul 
 was not endangered by belief in the damnable heresies of the 
 Church of Rome." So he passed on, giving good-humoured 
 Denis Flaherty, the son of the butter-merchant of Kildrum, a 
 wide berth and sea-room, lest he should pounce down upon 
 him unawares, and with Jesuitical argument and silken softness 
 of speech, convert him by force to his own state of error, — as 
 was the well-known custom of those intellectual gladiators, the 
 Priests of the Catholic Faith. North, on his side, left Flaherty 
 with regret. He had spent many a pleasant hour with him, and 
 knew him for a narrow-minded, conscientious, yet laughter- 
 loving creature, whose God was neither his belly nor his 
 breviary, but sometimes in one place and sometimes in the 
 other, according to the hour of the day, and the fasts appointed 
 for due mortification of the flesh. "A man who would do 
 Christian work in a jog-trot parish, or where men lived too 
 easily to sin harshly, but utterly unfit to cope with Satan, as the 
 British Government had transported him," was North's sadly 
 satirical reflection upon Father Flaherty, as Port Arthur faded 
 into indistinct beauty behind the swift-sailing schooner. " God 
 help those poor villains, for neither parson nor priest can," 
 
 He was right. North, the drunkard and self-tormented, had 
 a power for good, of which Meekin and the other knew nothing. 
 Not merely were the men incompetent and self-indulgent, but 
 they understood nothing of that frightful capacity for agony 
 which is deep in the soul of every evil-doer. They might strike 
 the rock as they chose with sharpest-pointed machine-made 
 pick of warranted Gospel manufacture, stamped with the 
 approval of eminent divines of all ages, but the water of re- 
 pentance and remorse would not gush for them. They possessed 
 not the frail rod which alone was powerful to charm. They had 
 no sympathy, no knowledge, no experience. He who would 
 touch the hearts of men must have had his own heart seared. 
 
 '9 
 
290 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 The missionaries of mankind have ever been great sinners 
 before they earned the divine right to heal and bless. Their 
 weakness was made their strength, and out of their own agony 
 of repentance came the knowledge which made them masters 
 and saviours of their kind. It was the agony of the Garden 
 and the Cross that gave to the world's Preacher His kingdom 
 in the hearts of men. The crown of divinity is a crown of 
 thorns. 
 
 North, on his arrival, went straight to the house of Major 
 Vickers. " I have a complaint to make, sir," he said. " I wish 
 to lodge it formally with you. A prisoner has been flogged to 
 death at Port Arthur. I saw it done." 
 
 Vickers bent his brow. " A serious accusation, Mr. North. 
 I must, of course, receive it with respect, coming from you, but 
 I trust that you have fully considered the circumstances of the 
 case. I always understood Captain Burgess was a most humane 
 man." 
 
 North shook his head. He would not accuse Burgess. He 
 would let events speak for themselves. " I only ask for an 
 inquiry," said he. 
 
 " Yes, my dear sir, I know. Very proper indeed on your 
 part, if you think any injustice has been done ; but have you 
 considered the expense, the delay, the immense trouble and 
 dissatisfaction all this will give ? " 
 
 "No trouble, no expense, no dissatisfaction, should stand in 
 the way of humanity and justice," cried North. 
 
 " Of course not. But will justice be done ? Are you sure 
 you can prove your case ? Mind, I admit nothing against 
 Captain Burgess, whom I have always considered a most worthy 
 and zealous officer ; but, supposing your charge to be true, can 
 you prove it ? " 
 
 " Yes. If the witnesses speak the truth." 
 
 " Who are they ? " 
 
 " Myself, Dr. Macklewain, the constable, and two prisoners, 
 one of whom was flogged himself He will speak the truth, I 
 believe. The other man I have not much faith in." 
 
 " Very well ; then there is only a prisoner and Dr. Mackle- 
 wain ; for if there has been foul play the convict-constable will 
 not accuse the authorities. Moreover, the doctor does not agree 
 with you." 
 
KICKING AGAINST THE PRICKS. 
 
 " No ! " cried North, amazed. 
 
 " No. You see, then, my dear sir, how necessary it is not to 
 be hasty in matters of this kind. I really think — pardon me 
 for my plainness — that your goodness of heart has misled you. 
 Captain Burgess sends a report of the case. He says the man 
 v/as sentenced to a hundred lashes for gross insolence and dis- 
 obedience of orders, that the doctor was present during the 
 punishment, and that the man was thrown off by his directions 
 after he had received fifty-six lashes. That, after a short 
 interval, he was found to be dead, and that the doctor made a 
 post-mortem examination of the body and found disease of the 
 heart." 
 
 North started. '^^ h. post-mortem ? I never knew there had 
 been one held." 
 
 "Here is the medical certificate," said Vickers, holding it 
 out, " accompanied by the copies of the evidence of the con- 
 stable and a letter from the Commandant." 
 
 Poor North took the papers and read them slowly. They 
 were apparently straightforward enough. Aneurism of the 
 ascending aorta was given as the cause of death ; and the 
 doctor frankly admitted that had he known the deceased to be 
 suffering from that complaint he would not have permitted him 
 to receive more than twenty-five lashes. 
 
 " I think Macklewain is an honest man," said North, doubt- 
 fully. " He would not dare to return a false certificate. Yet 
 the circumstances of the case — the horrible condition of the 
 prisoners — the frightful story of that boy " 
 
 " I cannot enter into these questions, Mr. North. My posi- 
 tion here is to administer the law to the best of my ability, not 
 to question it." 
 
 North bowed his head to the reproof. In some sort of justly 
 unjust way, he felt that he deserved it. " I can say no more, 
 sir. I am afraid I am helpless in this matter — as I have been 
 in others. I see that the evidence is against me ; but it is 
 my duty to carry my efforts as far as I can, and I will do so.'' 
 Vickers bowed stiffly, and wished him good morning. Authority, 
 however well-meaning in private life, has in its official capacity 
 a natural dislike to those dissatisfied persons who persist in 
 pushing inquiries to extremities. 
 
 North, going out with saddened spirits, met in the passage a 
 beautifiil young girl. It was Sylvia, coming to visit her father. 
 
292 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 He lifted his hat and looked after her. He guessed that she 
 was the daughter of the man he had left — the wife of the 
 Captain Frere concerning whom he had heard so much. North 
 was a man whose morbidly excited brain was prone to strange 
 ancies ; and it seemed to him that beneath the clear blue eyes 
 that flashed upon him for a moment, lay a hint of future sad- 
 ness, in which, in some strange way, he himself was to bear 
 part. He stared after her figure until it disappeared ; and long 
 after the dainty presence of the young bride — trimly-booted, 
 tight-waisted, and neatly-gloved — had faded, with all its sunshine 
 of gaiety and health, from out of his mental vision, he still saw 
 those blue eyes and that cloud of golden hair. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 CAPTAIN AND MRS. FRERE. 
 
 SYLVIA had become the wife of Maurice Frere. The 
 wedding created excitement in the convict settlement, for 
 Maurice Frere, though oppressed by the secret shame at 
 open matrimony which affects men of his character, could not 
 in decency — seeing how "good a thing for him" was this 
 wealthy alliance — demand unceremonious nuptials. So, after 
 the fashion of the town — there being no "Continent" or 
 " Scotland " adjacent as a hiding place for bridal blushes — 
 the alliance was entered into with due pomp of ball and supper; 
 bride and bridegroom departing through the golden afternoon 
 to the nearest of Major Vickers's stations. Thence it had 
 been arranged they should return after a fortnight, and take 
 ship for Sydney. 
 
 Major Vickcrs, affectionate though he was to the man whom 
 he believed to be the saviour of his child, had no notion of 
 allowing him to live on Sylvia's fortune. He had settled his 
 daughter's portion— ten thousand pounds — upon herself and 
 children, and had informed Frere that he expected him to live 
 upon an income of his own earning. After many consultations 
 between the pair, it had been arranged that a civil appointment 
 in Sydney would suit the bridegroom, who was to sell out of 
 the service. This notion was Frere's own. He never cared 
 
CAPTAIN AND MRS. FRERE. 293 
 
 for military duty, and had, moreover, private debts to no in- 
 considerable amount. By selling his commission he would 
 be enabled at once to pay these debts, and render himself 
 eligible for any well-paid post under the Colonial Government 
 that the interest of his father-in-law, and his own reputation 
 as a convict disciplinarian, might procure. 
 
 Vickers would fain have kept his daughter with him, but he 
 unselfishly acquiesced in the scheme, admitting that Frere's 
 plea as to the comforts she would derive from the society to be 
 found in Sydney was a valid one. 
 
 " You can come over and see us when we get settled. Papa," 
 said Sylvia, with all a young matron's pride of place, " and we 
 can come and see you. Hobart Town is very pretty, but I 
 want to see the World." 
 
 "You should go to London, Poppet," said Maurice, "that's 
 the place. Isn't it, sir ? " 
 
 " Oh, London ! " cries Sylvia, clapping her hands. " And 
 Westminster Abbey, and the Tower, and St. James's Palace, 
 and Hyde Park, and Fleet-street ! ' Sir,' said Dr. Johnson, 
 Met us take a walk down Fleet-street.' Do you remember, in 
 Mr. Croker's book, Maurice t No, you don't, I know, because 
 you only looked at the pictures, and then read Pierce Egan's 
 account of the Topping Fight between Bob Gaynor and Ned 
 Neal, or some such person." 
 
 "Little girls should be seen and not heard," said Maurice, 
 between a laugh and^a blush. " You have no business to read 
 my books." 
 
 " Why not ? " she asked, with a gaiety which already seemed 
 a little strained ; " husband and wife should have no secrets 
 from each other, sir. Besides, I want you to read my books. 
 I am going to read Shelley to you." 
 
 " Don't, my dear," said Maurice simply, " I can't understand 
 him." 
 
 This little scene took place at the dinner-table of Frere's 
 cottage, in New Town, to which Major Vickers had been 
 invited, in order that future plans might be discussed. 
 
 " I don't want to go to Port Arthur," said the bride, later in 
 the evening. " Maurice, there can be no necessity to go there." 
 
 " Well," said Maurice, " I want to have a look at the place. 
 I ought to be famihar with all phases of convict discipline, you 
 know." 
 
294 ^^^ NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 "There is likely to be a report ordered upon the death of a 
 prisoner," said Vickers. " The chaplain, a fussy but well- 
 meaning person, has been memorializing about it. You may 
 as well do it as anybody else, Maurice." 
 
 " Ay. And save the expenses of the trip," said Maurice. 
 
 " But it is so melancholy," cried Sylvia. 
 
 " The most delightful place in the island, my dear. I was 
 there for a few days once, and I really was charmed." 
 
 It was remarkable — so Vickers thought — how each of these 
 newly-mated ones had caught something of the other's manner 
 of speech. Sylvia was less choice in her mode of utterance, 
 Frere more so. He caught himself wondering which of the 
 two methods both would finally adopt. 
 
 "But those dogs, and sharks, and things. Oh, Maurice, 
 haven't we had enough of convicts 1 " 
 
 " Enough ! Why, I'm going to make my living out of 'em," 
 said Maurice, with his most natural manner. 
 
 Sylvia sighed. 
 
 " Play something, darling," said her father ; and so the 
 girl, sitting down to the piano, trilled and warbled in her pure 
 young voice, until the Port Arthur question floated itself away 
 upon waves of melody, and was heard of no more for that time. 
 But upon pursuing the subject, Sylvia found her husband firm. 
 He wanted to go, and he would go. Having once assured 
 himself that it was advantageous to him to do a certain thing, 
 the native obstinacy of the animal urged him to do it despite 
 all opposition from others, and Sylvia, having had her first 
 " cry " over the question of the visit, gave up the point. This 
 was the first difference of their short married life, and she 
 hastened to condone it. In the sunshine of Love and Marriage 
 — for Maurice at first really loved her ; and love, curbing the 
 worst part of him, brought to him, as it brings to all of us, that 
 gentleness and abnegation of self which is the only token and 
 assurance of a love aught but animal— Sylvia's fears and doubts 
 melted away, as the mists melt in the beams of morning. A 
 young girl, with passionate fancy, with honest and noble aspira- 
 tions, but with the dark shadow of her early mental sickness 
 brooding upon her childlike nature. Marriage made her a 
 woman, by developing in her a woman's trust and pride in the 
 man to whom she had voluntarily given herself. Yet by-and-by 
 cut of this very sentiment arose a new and strange source of 
 
CAPTAIN AND MRS. FRERE, 295 
 
 anxiety. Having accepted her position as a wife, and put away 
 from her all doubts as to her own capacity for loving the man 
 to whom she had allied herself, she began to be haunted by 
 a dread lest he might do something which would lessen the 
 affection she bore him. On one or two occasions she had 
 been forced to confess that her husband was more of an egotist 
 than she cared to think. He demanded of her no great sacri- 
 fices — had he done so she would have found, in making them, 
 the pleasure that women of her nature always find in such 
 self-mortification — but he now and then intruded on her that 
 disregard for the feelings of others which was part of his 
 character. He was fond of her — almost too passionately fond, 
 for her staider liking — but he was unused to thwart his own 
 ■will in anything, least of all in those seeming trifles, for the 
 consideration of which true unselfishness bethinks itself Did 
 she want to read when he wanted to walk, he good-humouredly 
 put aside her book, with an assumption that a walk with him 
 must, of necessity, be the most pleasant thing in the world. 
 Did she want to walk when he wanted to rest, he laughingly 
 set up his laziness as an all-sufficient plea for her remaining 
 within doors. He was at no pains to conceal his weariness 
 when she read her favourite books to him. If he felt sleepy 
 when she sang or played, he slept without apology. If she 
 talked about a subject in which he took no interest, he turned 
 the conversation remorselessly. He would not have wittingly 
 offended her ; but it seemed to him natural to yawn when he 
 was weary, to sleep when he was fatigued, and to talk only 
 about those subjects which interested him. Had anybody told 
 him that he was selfish, he would have been astonished. Thus 
 it came about that Sylvia one day discovered that she led two 
 lives — one in the body, and one in the spirit — and that with 
 her spiritual existence her husband had no share. This 
 discovery alarmed her, but then she smiled at it. "As if 
 Maurice could be expected to take interest in all my silly 
 fancies," said she ; and, despite a harassing thought that these 
 same fancies were not foolish, but were the best and brightest 
 portion of her, she succeeded in overcoming her uneasiness. 
 *' A man's thoughts are different from a woman's," she said ; 
 " he has his business and his worldly cares, of which a woman 
 knows nothing. I must comfort him, and not worry him witii 
 my folUes." 
 
296 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 As for Maurice, he grew sometimes rather troubled in his 
 mind. He could not understand his wife. Her nature was an 
 enigma to him ; her mind was a puzzle which would not be 
 pieced together with the rectangular correctness of ordinary life. 
 He had known her from a child, had loved her from a child, 
 and had committed a mean and cruel crime to obtain her ; but 
 having got her, he was no nearer to the mystery of her than 
 before. She was all his own, he thought. Her golden hair was 
 for his fingers, her lips were for his caress, her eyes looked love 
 upon him alone. Yet there were times when her lips were cold 
 to his kisses, and her eyes looked disdainfully upon his coarser 
 passion. He would catch her musing when he spoke to her, 
 much as she would catch him sleeping when she read to him, — 
 but she awoke with a start and a blush at her forgetfulness, 
 which he never did. He was not a man to brood over these 
 things ; and, after some reflective pipes and ineffectual rubbings 
 of his head, he "gave it up." How was it possible, indeed, for 
 him to solve the mental enigma when the woman herself was to 
 him a physical riddle ? It was extraordinary that the child he 
 had seen growing up by his side day by day should be a young 
 woman with little secrets, now to be revealed to him for the 
 first time. He found that she had a mole on her neck, and 
 remembered that he had noticed it when she was a child. Then 
 it was a thing of no moment, now it was a marvellous discovery. 
 He was in daily wonderment at the treasure he had obtained. 
 He marvelled at her feminine devices of dress and adornment. 
 Her dainty garments seemed to him perfumed with the odour 
 of sanctity. 
 
 The fact was, that the patron of Sarah Purfoy had not met 
 with many virtuous women, and had but just discovered what 
 a dainty morsel modesty was. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 IN THE HOSPITAL. 
 
 THE hospital of Port Arthur was not a cheerful place, but 
 to the tortured and unnerved Rufus Dawes it seemed a 
 paradise. There at least — despite the roughness and 
 contempt with which his gaolers ministered to him — he felt that 
 
IN THE HOSPITAL. 297 
 
 he was considered. There at least he was free from the enforced 
 companionship of the men whom he loathed, and to whose level 
 he felt, with mental agony unspeakable, that he was daily 
 sinking. Throughout his long term of degradation he had, as 
 yet, aided by the memory of his sacrifice and his love, pre- 
 served something of his self-respect, but he felt that he could 
 not preserve it long. Little by little he had come to regard 
 himself as one out of the pale of love and mercy, as one 
 tormented of fortune, plunged into a deep into which the eye of 
 Heaven did not penetrate. Since his capture in the garden at 
 Hobart Town, he kad given loose rein to his rage and his despair. 
 " I am forgotten or despised ; I have no name in the world ; 
 what matter if 1 become like one of these ? " It was under the 
 influence of this feeling that he had picked up the cat at the 
 command of Captain Burgess. As the unhappy Kirkland had 
 said, " As well you as another ; " and truly, what was he that he 
 should cherish sentiments of honour or humanity? But he had 
 miscalculated his own capacity for evil. As he flogged, he 
 blushed ; and when he flung down the cat and stripped his own 
 back for punishment, he felt a fierce joy in the thought that his 
 baseness would be atoned for in his own blood. Even when, 
 unnerved and faint from the hideous ordeal, he flung himself 
 upon his knees in the cell, he regretted only the impotent 
 ravings that the torture had forced from him. He could have 
 bitten out his tongue for his blasphemous utterings — not because 
 they were blasphemous, but because their utterance, by reveal- 
 ing his agony, gave their triumph to his tormentors. When North 
 found him, he was in the very depth of this abasement, and he 
 repulsed his comforter — not so much because he had seen him 
 flogged, as because he had heard him cry. The self-reliance 
 and force of will which had hitherto sustained him through his 
 self-imposed trial had failed him — he felt — at the moment when 
 he needed it most ; and the man who had with unflinched front 
 faced the gallows, the desert, and the sea, confessed his debased 
 humanity beneath the physical torture of the lash. He had 
 been flogged before, and had wept in secret at his degradation, 
 but he now for the first time comprehended how terrible that 
 degradation might be made, for he realized how the agony of 
 the wretched body can force the soul to quit its last poor refuge 
 of assumed indifference, and confess itself conquered. 
 
 Not many months before, one of the companions of the 
 
298 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 chain, suffering under Burgess's tender mercies, had killed 
 his mate when at work with him, and, carrying the body on his 
 back to the nearest gang, had surrendered himself— going to his 
 death thanking God he had at last found a way of escape from 
 his miseries, which no one would envy him — save his comrades. 
 The heart of Dawes had been filled with horror at a deed so 
 bloody, and he had, with others, commented on the cowardice 
 of the man that would thus shirk the responsibility of that state 
 of life in which it had pleased man and the devil to place him. 
 Now he understood how and why the crime had been com- 
 mitted, and felt only pity. Lying awake with back that burned 
 beneath its lotioned rags, when lights were low, in the breathful 
 silence of the hospital, he registered in his heart a terrible oath 
 that he would die ere he would again be made such hideous 
 sport for his enemies. In this frame of mind, with such shreds 
 of honour and worth as had formerly clung to him blown away 
 in the whirlwind of his passion, he bethought him of the 
 strange man who had deigned to clasp his hand and call him 
 "brother." He had wept no unmanly tears at this sudden flow 
 of tenderness in one whom he had thought callous as the rest. 
 He had been touched with wondrous sympathy at the confession 
 of weakness made to him, in a moment when his own weakness 
 had overcome him to his shame. Soothed by the brief rest that 
 his fortnight of hospital seclusion had afforded him, he had 
 begun, in a languid and speculative way, to turn his thoughts 
 to religion. He had read of martyrs who had borne agonies 
 unspeakable, upheld by their confidence in Heaven and God. 
 In his old wild youth he had scoffed at prayers and priests ; in 
 the hate to his kind that had grown upon him with his later 
 years he had despised a creed that told men to love one 
 another. " God is love, my brethren," said the chaplain on 
 Sundays, and all the week the thongs of the overseer cracked, 
 and the cat hissed and swung. Of what practical value was 
 a piety that preached but did not practise ? It was admirable 
 for the " religious instructor " to tell a prisoner that he must not 
 give way to evil passions, but must bear his punishment with 
 meekness. It was only right that he should advise him to " put 
 his trust in God." But as a hardened prisoner, convicted of 
 getting drunk in an unHcensed house of entertainment, had 
 said, " God's terrible far from Port Arthur." 
 
 Rufus Dawes had smiled at the spectacle of priests admonish- 
 
THE CONSOLATIONS OF RELIGION. 299 
 
 ing men, who knew what he knew and had seen what he had 
 seen, for the triviahties of lying and stealing. He had believed 
 all priests impostors or fools, all religion a mockery and a lie . 
 But now, finding how utterly his o%vn strength had failed him 
 when tried by the rude test of physical pain, he began to think 
 that this Religion which was talked of so largely was not a mere 
 bundle of legends and formulae, but must have in it something 
 vital and sustaining. Broken in spirit and weakened in body, 
 with faith in his own will shaken, he longed for something to 
 lean upon, and turned — as all men turn when in such case — to 
 the Unknown. Had now there been at hand some Christian 
 priest, some Christian-spirited man even, no matter of what 
 faith, to pour into the ears of this poor wretch words of comfort 
 and grace ; to rend away from him the garment of sullenness and 
 despair in which he had wrapped himself ; to drag from him a 
 confession of his unworthiness, his obstinacy, and his hasty 
 judgment, and to cheer his fainting soul with promise of immor- 
 tality and justice, he might have been saved from his after fate ; 
 but there was no such man. He asked for the Chaplain. 
 North was fighting the Convict Department, seeking vengeance 
 for Kirkland, and (victim of " clerks v/ith the cold spurt of the 
 pen ") was pushed hither and thither, referred here, snubbed 
 there, bowed out in another place. Rufus Dawes, half ashamed 
 of himself for his request, waited a long morning, and then saw, 
 respectfully ushered into his cell as his soul's physician — 
 Meekin. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE CONSOLATIONS OF RELIGION. 
 
 ♦' T T TELL, my good man," said Meekin, soothingly, "so 
 Y y you wanted to see me." 
 
 " I asked for the chaplain," said Rufus Dawes, his 
 anger with himself growing apace. 
 
 "/ am the chaplain," returned Meekin, with dignity, as who 
 should say, — " none of your brandy-drinking, pea-jacketed 
 Norths, bu! a Respectable chaplain who is the friend of a 
 Bishop I " 
 
300 . HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 " I thought that Mr. North was " 
 
 "Mr. North has left, sir," said Meekin, dryly, "but I will 
 hear what you have to say. There is no occasion to go, con- 
 stable ; wait outside the door." 
 
 Rufus Dawes shifted himself on the wooden bench, and 
 resting his scarcely-healed back against the wall, smiled 
 bitterly. " Don't be afraid, sir ; I am not going to harm you," 
 he said. " I only wanted to talk a little." 
 
 " Do you read your Bible, Dawes ? " asked Meekin, by way 
 of reply. " It would be better to read your Bible than to talk, 
 I think. You must humble yourself in prayer, Daw^s." 
 
 " I have read it," said Dawes, still lying back and watching 
 him. 
 
 " But is your mind softened by its teachings ? Do you realize 
 the Infinite Mercy of God, who has compassion, Dawes, upon 
 the greatest sinners ? " The convict made a move of im- 
 patience. The old sickening, barren cant of piety was to be 
 recommenced then. He came asking for bread, and they gave 
 him the usual stone. 
 
 " Do you believe that there is a God, Mr. Meekin ? " 
 
 " Abandoned sinner ! Do you insult a clergyman by such a 
 question 1 " 
 
 " Because I think sometimes that if there is, He must often 
 be dissatisfied at the way things are done here," said Dawes, 
 half to himself. 
 
 " I can listen to no mutinous observations, prisoner," said 
 Meekin. " Do not add blasphemy to your other crimes. I fear 
 that all conversation with you, in your present frame of mind, 
 would be worse than useless. I will mark a few passages in 
 your Bible, that seem to me appropriate to your condition, and 
 beg you to commit them to memory. Hailes, the door, if you 
 please." 
 
 So, with a bow, the " consoler " departed. 
 
 Rufus Dawes felt his heart grow sick. North had gone, then. 
 The only man who had seemed to have a heart in his bosom 
 had gone. The only man who had dared to clasp his horny 
 and blood-stained hand, and call him "brother," had gone. 
 Turning his head, he saw through the window — wide open and 
 unbarred, for Nature, at Port Arthur, had no need of bars — the 
 lovely bay, smooth as glass, glittering in the afternoon sun, the 
 long quay, spotted with groups of parti-coloured chain-gangs, 
 
THE CONSOLA TIONS OF RELIGION. 301 
 
 and heard, mingling with the soft murmur of the waves, and the 
 gentle rustling of the trees, the never-ceasing clashing of irons, 
 and the eternal click of hammers. Was he to be for ever buried 
 in this whitened sepulchre, shut out from the face of Heaven 
 and mankind ? 
 
 The appearance of Hailes broke his reverie. " Here's a book 
 for you," said he, with a grin. " Parson sent it." 
 
 Rufus Dawes took the Bible, and, placing it on his knee, 
 turned to the places indicated by slips of paper. There were 
 some three or four of these slips of paper, embracing some 
 twenty marked texts. 
 
 " Parson says he'll come and hear you to-morrer, and you're 
 to keep the book clean." 
 
 " Keep the book clean ! " and '' hear him ! " Did Meekin 
 think that he was a charity school boy ? The utter incapacity of 
 the chaplain to understand his wants was so sublime that it was 
 nearly ridiculous enough to make him laugh. He turned his 
 eyes downwards to the texts. Good Meekin, in the fulness of 
 his stupidity, had selected the fiercest denunciations of bard 
 and priest. The most notable of the Psalmist's curses upon his 
 enemies, the most furious of Isaiah's ravings anent the forget- 
 fulness of the national worship, the most terrible thunderings 
 of apostle and evangelist against idolatry and unbelief, were 
 grouped together and presented to Dawes to soothe him. All 
 the material horrors of Meekin's faith — stripped, by force of 
 dissociation from the context, of all poetic feeling and local 
 colouring — were launched at the suffering sinner by Meekin's 
 ignorant hand. The miserable man, seeking for consolation 
 and peace, turned over the leaves of the Bible only to find him- 
 self threatened with "the pains of Hell," "the never-dying 
 worm," " the unquenchable fire," " the bubbling brimstone," the 
 " bottomless pit," from out of which the " smoke of his torment " 
 should ascend for ever and ever. Before his eyes was held no 
 image of a tender Saviour (with hands soft to soothe, and eyes 
 brimming with ineffable pity) dying crucified that he and other 
 malefactors might have hope, by thinking on such marvellous 
 humanity. The worthy Pharisee who was sent to him to teach 
 him how mankind is to be redeemed with Love, preached only 
 that harsh Law whose barbarous power died with the gentle 
 Nazarene on Calvary. 
 
 Repelled by this unlooked-for ending to his hopes, he let the 
 
302 
 
 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 book fall to the ground. "Is there, then, nothing but torment 
 for me in this world or the next ? " he groaned, shuddering. 
 Presently his eyes sought his right hand, resting upon it as 
 though it were not his own, or had some secret virtue which 
 made it different from the other. " He would not have done 
 this ? He would not have thrust upon me these savage judg- 
 ments, these dreadful threats of Hell and Death. He called 
 me * Brother ! ' " And filled with a strange wild pity for himself, 
 and yearning love towards the man who befriended him, he fell 
 to nursing the hand on which North's tears had fallen, moaning 
 and rocking himself to and fro. 
 
 Meekin, coming in the morning, found his pupil more sullen 
 than ever. 
 
 " Have you learned these texts, my man ?" said he, cheerfully, 
 willing not to be angered with his uncouth and unpromising 
 convert. 
 
 Rufus Dawes pointed with his foot to the Bible, which still 
 lay on the floor as he had left it the night before. " No ! " 
 
 "No! Why not?" 
 
 " I would learn no such words as those. I would rather 
 forget them." 
 
 " Forget them ! My good man, I ^" 
 
 Rufus Dawes sprang up in sudden wrath, and pointing to his 
 cell door with a gesture that — chained and degraded as he was 
 — had something of dignity in it, cried, " What do you know 
 about the feelings of such as I ? Take your book and yourself 
 away. When I asked for a priest, I had no thought oi you. 
 Begone ! " 
 
 Meekin, despite the halo of sanctity which he felt should 
 surround him, found his gentility melt all of a sudden. Adven- 
 titious distinctions had disappeared for the instant. The pair 
 had become simply man and man, and the sleek priest-master 
 quailing before the outraged manhood of the convict-penitent, 
 picked up his Bible and backed out. 
 
 " That man Dawes is very insolent," said the insulted chaplain 
 to Burgess. " He was brutal to me to-day — quite brutal." 
 
 " Was he ? " said Burgess. " Had too long a spell, I expect. 
 I'll send him back to work to-morrow." 
 
 " It would be well," said Meekin, " if he had some employment." 
 
'A NATURAL PENITENTIARY." 303 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 " A NATURAL PENITENTIARY." 
 
 THE "employment" at Port Arthur consisted chiefly of 
 agriculture, ship-building, and tanning. Dawes, who was 
 in the chain-gang, was put to chain-gang labour ; that 
 is to say, bringing down logs from the forest, or " lumbering " 
 timber on the wharf. This work was not light. An ingenious 
 calculator has discovered that the pressure of the log upon the 
 shoulder was wont to average 125 lbs. Members of the chain- 
 gang were dressed in yellow, and — by way of encouraging the 
 others — had the word " Felon " stamped upon conspicuous parts 
 of their raiment. 
 
 This was the sort of life Rufiis Dawes led. In the summer 
 time he rose at half-past five in the morning, and worked until 
 six in the evening, getting three-quarters of an hour for break- 
 fast, and one hour for dinner. Once a week he had a clean 
 shirt, and once a fortnight clean socks. If he felt sick, he 
 was permitted to " report his case to the medical officer." 
 If he wanted to write a letter he could ask permission of the 
 Commandant, and send the letter, open, through that Almighty 
 Officer, who could stop it if he thought necessary. If he felt 
 himself aggrieved by any order, he was "to obey it instantly, but 
 might complain afterwards, if he thought fit, to the Commandant." 
 In making any complaint against an officer or constable, it was 
 strictly ordered that a prisoner " must be most respectful in his 
 manner and language, when speaking of or to such officer or 
 constable." He was held responsible only for the safety of his 
 chains, and for the rest was at the mercy of his gaoler. These 
 gaolers — owning right of search, entry into cells at all hours, and 
 other droits of seigneury — were responsible only to the Com- 
 mandant, who was responsible only to the Governor, that is to 
 say, to nobody but God and his own conscience. The jurisdic- 
 tion of the Commandant included the whole of Tasman's Penin- 
 sula, with the islands and waters within three miles thereof ; and 
 save the making of certain returns to head-quarters, his power 
 was unlimited. 
 
 A word as to the position and appearance of this place of 
 punishment. Tasman's Peninsula is, as we liave said before, 
 
304 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 in the form of an earring with a double drop. The lower drop 
 is the larger, and is ornamented, so to speak, with bays. At its 
 southern extremity, is a deep indentation called Maingon Bay, 
 bounded east and west by the organ-pipe rocks of Cape Raoul, 
 and the giant form of Cape Pillar. From Maingon Bay an arm 
 of the ocean cleaves the rocky walls in a northerly direction. 
 On the Western coast of this sea-arm was the settlement ; 
 in front of it was a little island where the dead were buried, 
 called The Island of the Dead. Ere the in-coming convict 
 passed the purple beauty of this convict Golgotha, his eyes 
 were attracted by a point of grey rock covered with white 
 buildings, and swarming with life. This was Point Puer, the 
 place of confinement for boys from eight to twenty years of 
 age. It was astonishing — many honest folks averred — how 
 ungrateful were these juvenile convicts for the goods the Govern- 
 ment had provided for them. From the extremity of Long 
 Bay, as the extension of the sea-arm was named, a convict- 
 made tramroad ran due north, through the nearly impenetrable 
 thicket to Norfolk Bay. In the mouth of Norfolk Bay was 
 Woody Island. This was used as a signal station, and an armed 
 boat's crew was stationed there. To the north of Woody 
 Island lay One-tree Point — the southernmost projection of the 
 drop of the earring ; and the sea that ran between narrowed to 
 the eastward, until it struck on the sandy bar of Eaglehawk- 
 Neck. Eaglehawk-Neck was the link that connected the two 
 drops of the earring. It was a strip of sand four hundred and 
 fifty yards across. On its eastern side the blue waters of Pirates 
 Bay, that is to say, of the Southern Ocean, poured their un- 
 checked force. The isthmus emerged from a wild and terrible 
 coast-line, into whose bowels the ravenous sea had bored strange 
 caverns, resonant with perpetual roar of tortured billows. At 
 one spot in this wilderness the ocean had penetrated the wall of 
 rock for two hundred feet, and in stormy weather the salt spray 
 rose through a perpendicular shaft more than five hundred feet 
 deep. This place was called the Devil's Blow-hole. The 
 upper drop of the earring was named Forrestier's Peninsula, 
 and was joined to the mainland by another isthmus called East 
 Bay Neck. Forrestier's Peninsula was an almost impenetrable 
 thicket, growing to the brink of a perpendicular cliff of basalt. 
 
 Eaglehawk-Neck was the door to the prison, and it was kept 
 bolted. On the narrow strip of land was built a guard-house, 
 
"A NATURAL PENITENTIARY." 305 
 
 where soldiers from the barrack on the mainland relieved each 
 other night and day ; and on stages, set out in the water in 
 either side, watch-dogs were chained. The station officer was 
 charged " to pay especial attention to the feeding and care " of 
 these useful beasts, being ordered " to report to the Commandant 
 whenever any one of them became useless." It may be added 
 that the Bay was not innocent of sharks. Westward from 
 Eaglehawk-Neck and Woody Island, lay the dreaded Coal 
 Mines. Sixty of the " marked men " were stationed here under 
 a strong guard. At the Coal Mines was the northernmost cf 
 that ingenious series of semaphores which rendered escape 
 almost impossible. The wild and mountainous character of the 
 peninsula offered peculiar advantages to the signalmen. On the 
 summit of the hill which overlooked the guard tower of the 
 settlement was a gigantic gum-tree stump, upon the top of which 
 was placed a semaphore. This semaphore communicated with 
 the two wings of the prison — Eaglehawk-Neck and the Coal 
 Mines — by sending a line of signals right across the peninsula. 
 Thus, the settlement communicated with Mount Arthur, Mount 
 Arthur with One-tree Hill, One-tree Hill with Mount Com- 
 munication, and Mount Communication with the Coal Mines. 
 On the other side, the signals would run thus — the settlement to 
 Signal Hill, Signal Hill to Woody Island, Woody Island to 
 Eaglehawk. Did a prisoner escape from the Coal Mines, the 
 guard at Eaglehawk-Neck could be aroused, and the whole 
 island informed of the "bolt" in less than twenty minutes. 
 With these advantages of nature and art, the prison was held 
 to be the most secure in the world. Colonel Arthur reported to 
 the Home Government that the spot which bore his name was 
 a " natural penitentiary." The worthy disciplinarian probably 
 took as a personal compliment the polite forethought of the 
 Almighty, in thus considerately providing for the carrying out 
 of ilie celebrated "Regulations for Convict Discipline.'' 
 
3o6 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 A VISIT OF INSPECTION. 
 
 ONE afternoon the ever-active semaphores transmitted a 
 piece of inteUigence which set the peninsula agog. 
 Captain Frere, having arrived from head-quarters, with 
 orders to hold an inquiry into the death of Kirkland, was not 
 unlikely to make a progress through the stations, and it behoved 
 the keepers of the Natural Penitentiary to produce their Peni- 
 tents in good case. Burgess was in high spirits at finding so 
 congenial a soul selected for the task of reporting upon him. 
 
 " It's only a nominal thing, old man," Frere said to his former 
 comrade, when they met. " That parson has made meddling, 
 and they want to close his mouth." 
 
 " I am glad to have the opportunity of showing you and 
 Mrs. Frere the place," returned Burgess. " I must try and 
 make your stay as pleasant as I can, though I'm afraid that 
 Mrs. Frere will not find much to amuse her." 
 
 " Frankly, Captain Burgess," said Sylvia, " I would rather 
 have gone straight to Sydney. My husband, however, was 
 obliged to come, and of course I accompanied him." 
 
 " You will not have much society," said Meekin, who was of 
 the welcoming party. " Mrs. Datchett, the wife of one of our 
 stipendiaries, is the only lady here, and I hope to have the 
 pleasure of making you acquainted with her this evening 
 at the Commandant's. Mr. McNab, whom you know, is in 
 command at the Neck, and cannot leave, or you would have 
 seen him." 
 
 " I have planned a little party," said Burgess, " but I fear that 
 it will not be so successful as I could wish." 
 
 " You wretched old bachelor," said Frere, " you should get 
 married, like me." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Burgess, with a bow, " that would be difficult." 
 
 Sylvia was compelled to smile at the compliment, made in 
 the presence of some twenty prisoners, who were carrying the 
 various trunks and packages up the hill, and she remarked that 
 the said prisoners grinned at the Commandant's clumsy 
 courtesy. 
 
 " I don't like Captain Burgess, Maurice," she said, in the 
 
A VISIT OF INSPECTION. 307 
 
 interval before dinner. " I dare say he did flog that poor fellow 
 to death. He looks as if he could do it." 
 
 "Nonsense I" said Maurice, pettishly; "he's a good fellow 
 enough. Besides, I've seen the doctor's certificate. It's a 
 trumped-up story. I can't understand your absurd sympathy 
 with prisoners." 
 
 " Don't they sometimes deserve sympathy .^ " 
 
 " No, certainly not — a set of lying scoundrels. You are 
 always whining over them, Sylvia. I don't like it, and I've 
 told you before about it." 
 
 Sylvia said nothing. Maurice was often guilty of these small 
 brutalities, and she had learnt that the best way to meet them 
 was by silence. Unfortunately, silence did not mean indiffer- 
 ence, for the reproof was unjust, and nothing stings a woman's 
 fine sense like an injustice. 
 
 Burgess had prepared a feast, and the "Society" of Port 
 Arthur was present. Father Flaherty, Meekin, Doctor Mackle- 
 wain, and Mr. and Mrs. Datchett had been invited, and the 
 dining-room was resplendent with glass and flowers. 
 
 " I've a fellow who was a professional gardener," said 
 Burgess to Sylvia during the dinner, " and I make use of 
 his talents." 
 
 " We have a professional artist also," said Macklewain, with 
 a sort of pride. " That picture of the ' Prisoner of Chillon ' 
 yonder was painted by him. A very meritorious production, is 
 it not ? " 
 
 " I've got the place full of curiosities," said Burgess ; " quite 
 a collection. I'll show them to you to-morrow. Those napkin 
 rings were made by a prisoner." 
 
 " Ah !" cried Frere, taking up the daintily-carved bone, "very 
 neat!" 
 
 " That is some of Rex's handiwork," said Meekin. " He is 
 very clever at these trifles. He made me a paper-cutter that 
 was really a work of art." 
 
 "We will go down to the Neck to-morrow or next day 
 Mrs. Frere," said Burgess, " and you shall see the Blow-hole. I 
 is a curious place. " 
 
 " Is it far ?" asked Sylvia. 
 
 " Oh no ! We shall go in the train." 
 
 « The train ! " 
 
 " Yes — don't look so astonished. You'll see it to-morrow 
 
3o8 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 Oh, you Hobart Town ladies don't know what we can do 
 here." 
 
 " What about this Kirkland business ? " Frere asked. " I 
 suppose I can have half an hour with you in the morning, and 
 take the depositions ? " 
 
 '* Any time you like, my dear fellow," said Burgess. " It's all 
 the same to me." 
 
 " / don't want to make more fuss than I can help," Frere said 
 apologetically — the dinner had been good— "but I must send 
 these people up a 'full, true, and particular,' don't you 
 know." 
 
 "Of course," cried Burgess, with friendly nonchalance. 
 "That's all right. I want Mrs. Frere to see Point Puer." 
 
 " Where the boys are ? " asked Sylvia. 
 
 " Exactly. Nearly three hundred of 'em. We'll go down to- 
 morrow, and you shall be my witness, Mrs. Frere, as to the way 
 they are treated." 
 
 " Indeed," said Sylvia, protesting, " I would rather not. I — 
 I don't take the interest in these things that I ought, perhaps. 
 They are very dreadful to me." 
 
 " Nonsense ! " said Frere, with a scowl. " We'll come. 
 Burgess, of course." 
 
 The next two days were devoted to sight-seeing. Sylvia was 
 taken through the Hospital and the Workshops, shown the 
 semaphores, and shut up by Maurice in a " dark cell." Her 
 husband and Burgess seemed to treat the prison like a tame 
 animal, whom they could handle at their leisure, and whose 
 natural ferocity was kept in check by their superior intelligence. 
 This bringing of a young and pretty woman into immediate 
 contact with bolts and bars had about it an incongruity which 
 pleased them. Maurice penetrated everywhere, questioned the 
 prisoners, jested with the jailers, even, in the munificence of his 
 heart, bestowed tobacco on the sick. 
 
 With such graceful rattlings of dry bones, they got by-and-by 
 to Point Puer, where a luncheon had been provided. 
 ] An unlucky accident had occurred at Point Puer that morning, 
 powever, and the place was in a suppressed ferment. A refrac- 
 jtory little thief named Peter Brown, aged twelve years, had 
 pumped off the high rock and drowned himself in full view 
 of the constables. These "jumpings off" had become rather 
 frequt-nt lately, and Burgess was cnraf^ed at one happening Dn 
 
A VISIT OF INSPECTION. 309 
 
 this particular day. If he could by any possibility have brought 
 the corpse of poor little Peter Brown to life again, he would 
 have soundly whipped it for its impertinence. 
 
 " It is most unfortunate," he said to Frere, as they stood in 
 the cell where the little body was laid, " that it should have 
 happened to-day." 
 
 " Oh," says Frere, frowning down upon the young face that 
 seemed to smile up at him. " It can't be helped. I know those 
 young devils. They'd do it out of spite. What sort of a 
 character had he ? " 
 
 " Very bad — Johnson, the book." 
 
 Johnson bringing it, the two saw Peter Brown's iniquities set 
 down in the neatest of running hand, and the record of his 
 punishments ornamented in quite an artistic way with flourishes 
 of red ink. 
 
 "20th November, disorderly conduct, 12 lashes. 24th No- 
 vember, insolence to hospital attendant, diet reduced. 4th 
 December, stealing cap from another prisoner, 12 lashes. 15th 
 December, absenting himself at roll call, two days' cells. 23rd 
 December, insolence and insubordination, two days' cells. 8th 
 January, insolence and insubordination, 12 lashes. 20th Janu- 
 ary, insolence and insubordination, 12 lashes. 22nd February, 
 insolence and insubordination, 12 lashes and one week's solitary. 
 6th March, insolence and insubordination, 20 lashes." 
 
 " That was the last ? " asked Frere. 
 
 " Yes, sir," says Johnson. 
 
 " And then he— hum— did it ? " 
 
 " Just so, sir. That was the way of it." 
 
 Just so ! The magnificent system starved and tortured a 
 child of twelve until he killed himself. That was the way of it. 
 
 After luncheon the party made a progress. Everything was 
 most admirable. There was a long schoolroom, where such 
 men as Meekin taught how Christ loved little children ; and 
 behind the schoolroom were the cells and the constables and 
 the little yard where they gave their " twenty lashes." Sylvia 
 shuddered at the array of faces. From the stolid nineteen 
 years old booby of the Kentish hop-fields, to the wizened, 
 shrewd, ten years old Bohemian of the London streets, all 
 degrees and grades of juvenile vice grinned, in untamable 
 wickedness, or snuffled in affected piety. " Suffer Httle children 
 to come unto Me, and forbid them not, for of such is the King- 
 
3IO HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 dom of Heaven," said, or is reported to have said, the Founder 
 of our Established Rehgion. Of such it seemed that a large 
 number of Honourable Gentlemen, together with Her Majesty's 
 faithful Commons in Parliament assembled, had done their best 
 to create a Kingdom of Hell. 
 
 After the farce had been played again, and the children had 
 stood up and sat down, and sung a hymn, and told how many 
 twice five were, and repeated their belief in " One God the 
 Father Almighty, maker of Heaven and Earth," the party 
 reviewed the workshops, and saw the church, and went every- 
 where but into the room where the body of Peter Brown, aged 
 twelve, lay starkly on its wooden bench, staring at the gaol roof 
 which was between it and Heaven. 
 
 Just outside this room, Sylvia met with a little adventure. 
 Meekin had stopped behind, and Burgess, being suddenly sum- 
 moned for some official duty, Frere had gone with him, leaving 
 his wife to rest on a bench that, placed at the summit of the 
 cliff, overlooked the sea. While resting thus, she became aware 
 of another presence, and, turning her head, beheld a small boy, 
 with his cap in one hand and a hammer in the other. The 
 appearance of the little creature, clad in a uniform of grey cloth 
 that was too large for him, and holding in his withered little 
 hand a hammer that was too heavy for him, had something 
 pathetic about it. 
 
 " What is it, you mite ? " asked Sylvia. 
 
 " We thought you might have seen him, mum," said the little 
 figure, opening its blue eyes with wonder at the kindness of the 
 tone. 
 
 "Him! Whom?" 
 
 " Cranky Brown, mum," returned the child ; " him as did it 
 this morning. Me and Billy knowed him, mum ; he was a 
 mate of ours, and we wanted to know if he looked happy." 
 
 " What do you mean, child 1 " said she, with a strange terror 
 at her heart ; and then, filled with pity at the aspect of the little 
 being, she drew him to her, with sudden womanly instinct, and 
 kissed him. 
 
 He looked up at her with joyful surprise. 
 
 " Oh ! " he said. 
 
 Sylvia kissed him again. 
 
 " Does nobody ever kiss you, poor little man?" said she. 
 
 "Mother used to," was the reply, "but she's at home. Oh, 
 
A VISIT OF INSPECTION. 311 
 
 mum," with a sudden crimsoning of the little face, " may I fetch 
 Billy ? " 
 
 And taking courage from the bright young face, he gravely 
 marched to an angle of the rock, and brought out another little 
 creature, with another grey uniform and another hammer. 
 
 *' This is Billy, mum," he said. " Billy never had no mother. 
 Kiss Billy." 
 
 The young wife felt the tears rush to her eyes. " You two 
 poor babies ! " she cried. And then, forgetting that she was a 
 lady, dressed in silk and lace, she fell on her knees in the dust, 
 and, folding the friendless pair in her arms, wept over them. 
 
 " What is the matter, Sylvia ? " said Frere, when he came 
 up. " You've been crying." 
 
 " Nothing, Maurice ; at least, I will tell you by-and-by." 
 
 When they were alone that evening, she told him of the two 
 little boys, and he laughed. 
 
 "Artful little humbugs," he said, and supported his argument 
 by so many illustrations of the precocious wickedness of juvenile 
 felons, that his wife was half convinced against her will. 
 ***** 
 
 Unfortunately, when Sylvia went away. Tommy and Billy put 
 into execution a plan which they had carried in their poor little 
 heads for some weeks. 
 
 " I can do it now," said Tommy. " I feel strong." 
 
 "Will it hurt much. Tommy?" said Billy, who was not so 
 courageous. 
 
 " Not so much as a whipping." 
 
 " I'm afraid ! Oh, Tom, it's so deep ! Don't leave me 
 Tom ! " 
 
 The bigger boy took his little handkerchief from his neck, 
 and with it bound his own left hand to his companion's right. 
 
 "Now I can^t leave you." 
 
 " What was it the lady that kissed us said, Tommy ? " 
 
 " Lord, have pity of them two fatherless children ! " repeated 
 Tommy. 
 
 " Let's say it, Tom." 
 
 And so the two babies knelt on the brink of the cliff, and 
 raising the bound hands together, looked up at the sky, and 
 ungrammatically said, " Lord, have pity on we two fath^fi^ss 
 children ! " And then they kissed each other, and " did it." 
 •»♦*»» 
 
312 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 The intelligence, transmitted by the ever-active semaphore, 
 reached the Commandant in the midst of dinner, and in his 
 agitation he blurted it out. 
 
 " These are the two poor things I saw in the morning," cried 
 Sylvia. " Oh, Maurice, these two poor babies driven to suicide !" 
 
 " Condemning their young souls to everlasting fire," said 
 Meekin, piously. 
 
 " Mr. Meekin ! How can you talk like that ! Poor little 
 creatures ! Oh, it's horrible ! Maurice, take me away." And 
 she burst into a passion of weeping. 
 
 " / can't help it, ma'am," says Burgess, rudely, ashamed. 
 " It ain't my fault." 
 
 " She's nervous," says Frere, leading her away. "You must 
 excuse her. Come and lie down, dearest." 
 
 " I will not stay here longer," said she. " Let us go to- 
 morrow." 
 
 " We can't," said Frere. 
 
 " Oh, yes, we can. I insist. Maurice, if you love me, take 
 me away." 
 
 " Well," said Maurice, moved by her evident grief, " I'll try." 
 
 He spoke to Burgess. " Burgess, this matter has unsettled 
 my wife, so that she wants to leave at once. I must visit the 
 Neck, you know. How can we do it?" 
 
 " Well," says Burgess, " if the wind only holds, the brig could 
 go round to Pirates' Bay and pick you up. You'll only be a 
 night at the barracks." 
 
 " I think that would be best," said Frere. " We'll start to- 
 morrow, please, and if you'll give me a pen and ink I'll be 
 obliged." 
 
 " I hope you are satisfied," said Burgess. 
 
 " Oh, quite," said Frere. " I must recommend more careful 
 supervision at Point Puer, though. It will never do to have 
 these young blackguards slipping through our fingers in this way." 
 
 So a neatly written statement of the occurrence was appended 
 to the ledgers in which the names of William Tomkins and 
 Thomas Grove were entered. Macklewain held an inquest, 
 and nobody troubled about them any more. Why should they ? 
 The prisons of London were full of such Tommys and Billys. 
 ***** 
 
 Sylvia passed through the rest of her journey in a dream of 
 terror. The incident of the children had shaken her nerves, 
 
A VISIT OF INSPECTION. 313 
 
 and she longed to be away from the place and its associations. 
 Even Eaglehawk-Neck, with its curious dog stages and its 
 " natural pavement," did not interest her. McNab's blandish- 
 ments were wearisome. She shuddered as she gazed into 
 the boiling abyss of the Blow-hole, and shook with fear as the 
 Commandant's "train" rattled over the dangerous tramway 
 that wound across the precipice to Long Bay. The " train " 
 was composed of a number of low waggons pushed and dragged 
 up the steep inclines by convicts, who drew themselves up in 
 the waggons when the trucks dashed down the slope, and acted 
 as drags. Sylvia felt degraded at being thus drawn by human 
 beings, and trembled when the lash cracked, and the convicts 
 answered to the sting — like cattle. Moreover, there was among 
 the foremost of these beasts of burden a face that had dimly 
 haunted her girlhood, and only lately vanished from her dreams. 
 This face looked on her — she thought — with bitterest loathing 
 and scorn, and she felt relieved when at the mid-day halt its 
 owner was ordered to fall out from the rest, and was with four 
 others re-chained for the homeward journey. Frere, struck 
 with the appearance of the five, said, " By Jove, Poppet, there 
 are our old friends Rex and Dawes, and the others. They 
 won't let 'em come all the way, because they are such a despe- 
 rate lot, they might make a rush for it." Sylvia comprehended 
 now : the face was the face of Dawes ; and as she looked after 
 him, she saw him suddenly raise his hands above his head with 
 a motion that terrified her. She felt for an instant a great 
 shock of pitiful recollection. Staring at the group, she strove 
 to recall when and how Rufus Dawes, the wretch from whose 
 clutches her husband had saved her, had ever merited her pity, 
 but her clouded memory could not complete the picture, and as 
 the waggons swept round a curve, and the group disappeared, 
 she awoke from her reverie with a sigh. 
 
 " Maurice," she whispered, " how is it that the sight of that 
 man always makes me sad ? " 
 
 Her husband frowned, and then caressing her, bade her 
 forget the man and the place and her fears. " I was wrong to 
 have insisted on your coming," he said. They stood on the 
 deck of the Sydney-bound vessel the next morning, and watched 
 the " Natural Penitentiary" grow dim in the distance. "You 
 were not strong enough." 
 
314 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 " Dawes," said John Rex, " you love that girl I Now that 
 you've seen her another man's wife, and have been harnessed 
 like a beast to drag him along the road, while he held her in 
 his arms ! — now that you've seen and suffered that, perhaps 
 you'll join us," 
 
 Rufus Dawes made a movement of agonized impatience. 
 
 " You'd better. You'll never get out of this place any other 
 way. Come, be a man ; join us ! " 
 
 " No ! " 
 
 " It is your only chance. Why refuse it ? Do you want to 
 live here all your life ? " 
 
 " I want no sympathy from you or any other. I will not join 
 you. " 
 
 Rex shrugged his shoulders and walked away. " If you 
 think to get any good out of that ' inquiry,' you are mightily 
 mistaken," said he, as he went. " Frere has put a stopper upon 
 that you'll find." 
 
 He spoke truly. Nothing more was heard of it, only that, 
 some six months afterwards, Mr. North, when at Paramatta, 
 received an official letter (in which the expenditure of wax and 
 printing and paper was as large as it could be made) which 
 informed him that the "Comptroller-General of the convict 
 department had decided that further inquiry concerning the 
 death of the prisoner named in the margin was unnecessary," 
 and that some gentleman with an utterly illegible signature 
 "had the honour to be his most obedient servant.'- 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 GATHERING IN THE THREADS. 
 
 MAURICE found his favourable expectations of Sydney 
 fully realized. His notable escape from death at 
 Macquarie Harbour, his alliance with the daughter ot 
 so respected a colonist as Major Vickers, and his reputation as 
 a convict disciplinarian, rendered him a man of note. He 
 received a vacant magistracy, and became even more noted for 
 hardness of heart and artfulness of prison knowledge than 
 before. The convict population spoke of him as " that 
 
GATHERING IN THE THREADS. 315 
 
 Frere," and registered vows of vengeance against him, which 
 he laughed — in his blufifness — to scorn. 
 
 One anecdote concerning the method by which he shepherded 
 his flock will suffice to show his character and his value. It 
 was his custom to visit the prison-yard at Hyde Park Barracks 
 twice a week. Visitors to convicts were, of course, armed, and 
 the two pistol-butts that peeped from Frere's waistcoat attracted 
 many a longing eye. How easy would it be for some fellow to 
 pluck one forth and shatter the smiling, hateful face of the noted 
 disciplinarian ! Frere, however, brave to rashness, never would 
 bestow his weapons more safely, but lounged through the yards 
 with his hands in the pockets of his shooting-coat, and the 
 deadly butts ready to the hand of any one bold enough to take 
 them. 
 
 One day a man named Kavanagh, a captured absconder, who 
 had openly sworn in the dock the death of the magistrate, 
 walked quickly up to him as he was passing through the yard, 
 and snatched a pistol from his belt. The yard caught its breath, 
 and the attendant warder, hearing the click of the lock, instinct- 
 ively turned his head away, so that he might not be blinded by 
 the flash. But Kavanagh did not fire. At the instant when his 
 hand was on the pistol, he looked up and met the magnetic 
 glance of Frere's imperious eyes. An effort, and the spell would 
 have been broken. A twitch of the finger, and his enemy would 
 have fallen dead. There was an instant when that twitch of 
 . the. finger could have been given, but Kavanagh let that instant 
 ■f^fess;. 'THu; dauntless eye fascinated him. He played with the 
 pistol "iiervously, while all remained stupefied. Frere stood, 
 without with draw'mg'tiii? -hands from the pockets into which 
 they were plunged. **^' • :'— = -i.. .- 
 
 " That's a fine pistol. Jack," he said at last. 
 
 Kavanagh, down whose white face the sweat was pouring, 
 burst into a hideous laugh of relieved terror, and thrust the 
 weapon, cocked as it was, back again into the magistrate's belt. 
 
 Frere slowly drew one hand from his pocket, took the cocked 
 pistol and levelled it at his recent assailant. " That's the best 
 chance _>'(7«'// ever get. Jack," said he. 
 
 Kavanagh fell on his knees. " For God's sake. Captain 
 Frere ! " 
 
 Frere looked down on the trembling wretch, and then un- 
 cocked the pistol, with a laugh of ferocious contempt. " Get 
 
3i6 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 up, you dog," he said. " It takes a better man than you to best 
 me. Bring him up in the morning, Hawkins, and we'll give him 
 five-and-twenty." 
 
 As he went out — so great is the admiration for Power — the 
 poor devils in the yard cheered him. 
 
 One of the first things., that this useful officer did upon his 
 arrival in Sydney was to inquire for Sarah Purfoy. To his 
 astonishment, he discovered that sue was the proprietor of large 
 export warehouses in Pitt-street, owned a neat cottage on one 
 of the points of land which jutted into the bay, and was reputed 
 to possess a banking account of no inconsiderable magnitude. 
 He in vain applied his brains to solve this mystery. His cast- 
 off mistress had not been rich when she left Van Diemen's 
 Land — at least, so she had assured him, and appearances bore 
 out her assurance. How had she accumulated this sudden 
 wealth ? Above all, why had she thus invested it ? He made 
 inquiries at the banks, but was snubbed for his pains. Sydney 
 banks in those days did some queer business. 
 
 " Mrs. Purfoy had come to them fully accredited," said the 
 manager with a smile. 
 
 " But where did she get the money ? " asked the magistrate. 
 " I am suspicious of these sudden fortunes. The woman was a 
 notorious character in Hobart Town, and when she left hadn't 
 a penny." 
 
 " My dear Captain Frere," said the acute banker — his father 
 had been one of the builders of the " Rum Hospital " — " it is not 
 the custom of our bank to make inquiries into the previous 
 history of its customers. The bills were good, you may depend, 
 or we should not have honoured them. Good morning ! " 
 
 " The bills ! " Frere saw but one explanation. Sarah had 
 received the proceeds of some of Rex's rogueries. Rex's letter 
 to his father, and the mention of the sum of money " in the 
 old house in Blue Anchor Yard," flashed across his memory. 
 Perhaps Sarah had got the money from the receiver and 
 appropriated it. But why invest it in an oil and tallow ware- 
 house ? He had always been suspicious of the woman, because 
 he had never understood her, and his suspicions redoubled. 
 Convinced that there was some plot hatching, he determined to 
 use all the advantages that his position gave him to discover 
 the secret and bring it to light. The name of the man to 
 
GATHERING IN THE THREADS. 317 
 
 whom Rex's letter had been addressed was " Blick." He wovld 
 find out if any of the convicts under his care had heard of 
 Blick. Prosecuting his inquiries in the proper direction, he 
 soon obtained a reply. Blick was a London receiver of stolen 
 goods, known to at least a dozen of the black sheep of the 
 Sydney fold. He was reputed to be enormously wealthy, had 
 often been tried, but never convicted. Frere was thus not much 
 nearer enlightenment than before, and an incident occurred a 
 few months afterwards which increased his bewilderment. He 
 had not been long established in his magistracy, when Blunt 
 came to claim payment for the voyage of Sarah Purfoy. 
 "There's that schooner going begging, one may say, sir," said 
 Blunt, when the office door was shut. 
 
 "What schooner?" 
 
 " The Franklin." 
 
 Now the Frajiklin was a vessel of three hundred and twenty 
 tons, which plied between Norfolk and Sydney, as the Osprey 
 had plied in the old days between Macquarie Harbour and 
 Hobart Town. " I am afraid that is rather stiff, Blunt," said 
 Frere. "That's one of the best billets going, you know. I 
 doubt if I have enough interest to get it for you. Besides," he 
 added, eyeing the sailor critically, "you are getting oldish for 
 that sort of thing, ain't you ? " 
 
 Phineas Blunt stretched his arms wide, and opened his 
 mouth, full of sound white teeth. " I am good for twenty years 
 more yet, sir," he said. " My father was trading to the Indies 
 at seventy five years of age. Pm hearty enough, thank God ; 
 for, barring a drop of rum now and then, I've no vices to speak 
 of. However, I ain't in a hurry. Captain, for a month or so ; 
 only I thought I'd jog your memory a bit, d'ye see." 
 
 " Oh, you're not in a hurry ; where are you going then 1 " 
 
 " Well," said Blunt, shifting on his seat, uneasy under Frere's 
 convict disciplined eye, " I've got a job on hand." 
 
 " Glad of it, I'm sure. What sort of a job .?" 
 
 " A job of whaling," said Blunt, more uneasy than before. 
 
 " Oh, that's it, is it ? Your old line of business. And who 
 employs you now ? " There was no suspicion in the tone, and 
 had Blunt chosen to evade the question, he might have done so 
 without difficulty, but he replied as one who had anticipated 
 such questioning, and had been advised how to answer it. 
 
 " Mrs. Purfoy." 
 
3i8 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 " What ! " cried Frere, scarcely able to believe his ears. 
 
 " She's got a couple of ships now, Captain, and she made me 
 skipper of one of 'em. We look for beshdellamare,* and take 
 a turn at harpooning sometimes." 
 
 Frere stared at Blunt, who stared at the window. There was 
 — so the instinct of the magistrate told him — some strange 
 project afoot. Yet that common sense which so often misleads 
 us, urged that it was quite natural Sarah should employ whaling 
 vessels to increase her trade. Granted that there was nothing 
 wrong about her obtaining the business, there was nothing 
 strange about her owning a couple of whaling vessels. There 
 were people in Sydney, of no better origin, who owned half-a- 
 dozen. " Oh," said he. " And when do you start ? " 
 
 " I'm expecting to get the word every day," returned Blunt, 
 apparently relieved, " and I thought I'd just come and see you 
 first, in case of anything falling in." Frere played with a pen- 
 knife on the table in silence for a while, allowing it to fall 
 through his fingers with a series of sharp clicks, and then he 
 said, " Where does she get the money from "^ " 
 
 " Blest if I know ! " said Blunt, in unaffected simplicity. 
 " That's beyond me. She says she saved it. But that's all my 
 eye, you know." 
 
 " Vou don't know anything about it, then," cried Frere, 
 suddenly fierce. 
 
 " No, not I." 
 
 " Because, if there's any game on, she'd better take care," he 
 cried, relapsing, in his excitement, into the convict vernacular. 
 " She knows me. Tell her that I've got my eyes on her. Let 
 her remember her bargain. If she runs any rigs on me, let her 
 take care." In his suspicious wrath he so savagely and un- 
 warily struck downwards with the open penknife that it shut 
 upon his fingers, and cut him to the bone. 
 
 " I'll tell her," said Blunt, wiping his brow. ** I'm sure she 
 wouldn't go to sell you. But I'll look in when I come back, 
 sir." When he got outside he drew a long breath. "By the 
 Lord Harry, but it's a ticklish game to play," he said to himself, 
 with a lively recollection of the dreaded Frere's vehemence ; 
 " and there's only one woman in the world I'd be fool enough 
 to play it for.'-' 
 
 • Bfiche-de-la-mer. 
 
GATHERING IN THE THREADS. 319 
 
 Maurice Frere, oppressed with suspicions, ordered his horse 
 that afternoon, and rode down to see the cottage which the 
 owner of " Purfoy Stores " had purchased. He found it a low 
 white building, situated four miles from the city, at the extreme 
 end of a tongue of land which ran into the deep waters of the 
 harbour. A garden, carefully cultivated, stood between the 
 roadway and the house, and in this garden he saw a man 
 digging. 
 
 " Does Mrs. Purfoy live here ? " he asked, pushing open one 
 of the iron gates. 
 
 The man replied in the affirmative, staring at the visitor with 
 some suspicion. 
 
 "Is she at home ?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 " You are sure ? " 
 
 " If you don't believe me, ask at the house," was the reply, 
 given in the uncourteous tor.? of a free man. 
 
 Frere pushed his horse through the gate, and walked up the 
 broad and well-kept carriage drive. A man-servant in livery, 
 answering his ring, told him that Mrs. Purfoy had gone to town, 
 and then shut the door in his face. Frere, more astonished 
 than ever at these outward and visible signs of independence, 
 paused indignant, feeling half inclined to enter despite opposi- 
 tion. As he looked through the break of the trees, he saw the 
 masts of a brig lying at anchor off the extremity of the point 
 on which the house was built, and understood that the cottage 
 commanded communication by water as well as by land. Could 
 there be a special motive in choosing such a situation, or was it 
 mere chance ? He was uneasy, but strove to dismiss his alarm. 
 
 Sarah had kept faith with him so far. She had entered upon 
 a new and more reputable life, and why should he seek to 
 imagine evil where perhaps no evil was ? Blunt was evidently 
 honest. Women like Sarah Purfoy often emerged into a condi- 
 tion of comparative riches and apparent domestic virtue. It 
 was liicely that, after all, some wealthy merchant was the real 
 owner of house and garden, pleasure yacht, and tallow ware- 
 house, and that he had no cause for fear. 
 
 The experienced convict disciplinarian did not rate the ability 
 of John Rex high enough. 
 
 From the instant the convict had heard his sentence of life 
 banishment, he had determined upon escaping, and had brought 
 
320 
 
 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 all the powers of his acute and unscrupulous intellect to the 
 consideration of the best method of achieving his purpose. 
 His first care was to procure inoney. This he thought to do by 
 writing to Blick, but when informed by Meekin of the fate of 
 his letter, he adopted the — to him — less pleasant alternative of 
 procuring it through Sarah Purfoy. 
 
 It was peculiar to the man's hard and ungi-ateful nature that, 
 despite the attachment of the woman who had followed him to 
 his place of durance, and had made it the object of her life to 
 set him free, he had cherished for her no affection. It was her 
 beauty that had attracted him, when, as Mr. Lionel Crofton, he 
 swaggered in the night-society of London. Her talents and her 
 devotion were secondary considerations — useful to him as attri- 
 butes of a creature he owned, but not to be thought of when 
 his fancy wearied of its choice. During the twelve years which 
 had passed since his rashness had delivered him into the hands 
 of the law at the house of Green, the coiner, he had been 
 oppressed with no regrets for her fate. He had, indeed, seen 
 and suffered so much, that the old life had been put away from 
 him. When, on his return, he heard that Sarah Purfoy was 
 still in Hobart Town, he was glad, for he knew that he had an 
 ally who would do her utmost to help him — she had shown that 
 on board the Malabar. But he was also sorry, for he remem- 
 bered that the price she would demand for her services was his 
 affection, and that had cooled long ago. However, he would 
 make use of her. There might be a way to discard her if she 
 proved troublesome. 
 
 His pretended piety had accomplished the end he had 
 assumed it for. Despite Frere's exposure of his cryptograph, 
 he had won the confidence of Meekin ; and into that worthy 
 creature's ear he poured a strange and sad history. He was 
 the son, he said, of a clergyman of the Church of England, 
 whose real name, such was his reverence for the cloth, should 
 never pass his lips. He was transported for a forgery which 
 he did not commit. Sarah Purfoy was his wife — his ening, 
 lost, and yet loved wife. She, an innocent and trusting girl, 
 had determined — strong in the remembrance of that promise 
 she had made at the altar — to follow her husband to his place 
 .af doom, and had hired herself as lady's-maid to Mrs. Vickers. 
 Alas ! fever prostrated that husband on a bed of sickness, and 
 Maurice Frere, the profligate and the villain, had taken 
 
GATHERING IN THE THREADS. 321 
 
 advantage of the wife's, unprotected state to ruin her ! Rex 
 darkly hinted how the seducer made his power over the sick 
 and helpless husband a weapon against the virtue of the wife 
 and so terrified poor Meekin, that, had it not " happened so 
 long ago," he would have thought it necessary to look with 
 some disfavour upon the boisterous son-in-law of Major 
 Vickers. 
 
 " I bear him no ill-will, sir," said Rex. " I did at first. 
 There was a time when I could have killed him, but when I 
 had him in my power, I — as you know — forbore to strike. 
 No, sir, I could not commit murder ! " 
 
 " Very proper," says Meekin, " very proper indeed." 
 
 "God will punish him in His own way, and His own time," 
 continued Rex. " My great sorrow is for the poor woman. 
 She is in Sydney, I have heard, living respectably, sir ; and 
 my heart bleeds for her." Here Rex heaved a sigh that would 
 have made his fortune on the boards. 
 
 " My poor fellow," said Meekin. " Do you know where she 
 is?" 
 
 " I do, sir." 
 
 "You might write to her." 
 
 John Rex appeared to hesitate, to struggle with himself, and 
 finally to take a deep resolve. "No, Mr. Meekin, I will not 
 write." 
 
 "Why not?'' 
 
 "You know the orders, sir — the Commandant reads all the 
 letters sent. Could I write to my poor Sarah what other eyes 
 were to read ?" and he watched the parson slyly. 
 
 " N — no, you could not," said Meekin, at last. 
 
 " It is true, sir," said Rex, letting his head sink on his 
 breast. 
 
 The next day, Meekin,. blushing with the consciousness that 
 what he was about to do was wrong, said to his penitent, " If 
 you will promise to write nothing that the Commandant might 
 not see, Rex, I will send your letter to your wife." 
 
 " Heaven bless you, sir," said Rex, and took two days to 
 compose an epistle which should tell Sarah Purfoy how to act. 
 The letter was a model of composition in one way. It stated 
 everything clearly and succinctly. Not a detail that could 
 assist was omitted — not a line that could embarrass ITfls 
 suffered to remain. John Rex's scheme of six months' de- 
 
 21 
 
BIS KATCRAL LIFE. 
 
 Myeraxsoo; was set down in the dearest possible manner. He 
 Hsrouglit Ms letter unsealed to Meekin. ^^eekin looked at it 
 ■wnlii an interest tliat was half suspicion. " Have I your word 
 i4at ctere is nothing in this that might not be read by the 
 ComTnanriant ? " 
 
 Joha Rex was a bold maru bxit at the sight of the deadly 
 thing flattering open in the clergy-man's hand, his knees 
 Icoocked together. Strong in his knowledge of human nature, 
 Iwwrever, he pursued his desperate plan. " Read it, sir," he 
 saxd, tncming away his face reproachfully. " You are a gentle- 
 man. I can trust jri^af." 
 
 " No, Rex," said Meekin, walking loftily into the pitfall ; " I 
 do not read private letters.'"' It was sealed, and John Rex felt 
 as if somiebody had withdrawn a match from a powder barrel. 
 
 In a month, Mr. Meekin received a letter, beautifully 
 written, from " Sarah Rex," stating briefly that she had heard 
 of his goodness, that the enclosed letter was for her husband, 
 and that if it was against the rules to give it him, she begged it 
 might be returned to her unread. Of course Meekin gave it to 
 Rex, who next morning handed to Meekin a most touching 
 and pious production, begging him to read it. Meekin did so, 
 and any suspicions he may have had were at once disarmed. 
 He was ignorant of the fact that the pious letter contained a 
 private one intended for John Rex only, which letter John Rex 
 thought so highly of, that, ha^.-ing read it twice through most 
 attentively, he a^ it. 
 
 The plan of escape was after all a simple one. Sarah Purfoy 
 was to obtain from Blick the moneys he held in trust, and to 
 embark the sum thus obtained in any business which would 
 va^ex her to keep a vessel hovering round the southern coast 
 of Van Diemens Land without exciting suspicion. The escape 
 was to be made in the winter months, if possible, in June or 
 Jafy. The watchful vessel was to be commanded by some 
 trtrstwortby person, who was to frequently land on the south- 
 eastern side, and keep a look-out for any extraordinary appear- 
 ance akng the coast. Rex himself must be left to run the 
 gaomtlct erf the do5js and guards unaided. "This seems a 
 desperate ' wrote Rex, "but it is not so wild as it 
 
 I'^^k'i T . ht over a dozen others, and rejected them 
 
 i the Oiily way. Consider it well. I have my own 
 ^ -ape, which is easy if rescue be at hand. All depends 
 
i-cii^- nam m ^nurriff; /n' zta ^e^sii. 
 
 u_ r'.sn =au3i. I wit whd jiurnHsr. n- : 
 
 r "" tnn zaiE xr -tnace .all ar-miegmgTns" TI3k s'^dtRSE. 
 KixciVi. iracfl iniw -nsHnr tje^esc msx. sasL -^as. Tims -nir :riffi 
 
 jasi mm rr us sai^^annn. 
 
 ri.' ;.:.;•£ OTiras. wste >.-^sr:. nstx. wtm. wc3i mt*- 
 
 i:Ti^ :-i^'.',''".2nra. :»sm£SHsi riffi ' i... — xxi jnm^ .}«im SfiSi, 
 
 i-^iL at nrst ^gittsgd. imt J?»- . ^, K!g gs allowsc iranaeti »> 
 
 -.. Same szrmi^^ msn. wija. h nrssser. 
 .„ i^^san riffi pmsasis at Iwox, ^/Him be ,: .. 
 -u; ani iftts issxmskcs-tissssai tie so^it int ibattfi 
 
 ,a£ ^we iosw ^ffin. iMmi :a intr^ ^ei£^ inssi«^ 3» 
 
 (jfaodhp 'iiwiijl HiiM i wM" M) ut iM i j iB& attta stfuns&m;^ 4S% dttissiSfiii^K 
 
 lAiiwui iB£ :^ :-:■.- \usm ^Efld^^ 43. £ti8»^ .and 
 \ im i lhwiiimaL - ^ 452ii]>cs&t£<d. There tu^s. 
 
 mc ' 
 ""^^l^Uft, jA?*'aeiB8iidK<«linr.. '^ Iftssi shbi ^ai«(« Jv'mt .?«« 
 
324 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 Rufus Dawes laughed a slow, heavy laugh. " I am better 
 here." 
 
 " Then, are you content to live this dog's life .?" 
 
 " Enough, enough," said Dawes, " I am resolved." 
 
 " Pooh ! Pluck up a spirit," cried Rex. " It can't fail. 
 I've been thinking of it for eighteen months, and it cmCt fail." 
 
 "Who are going?" asked the other, his eyes fixed on the 
 ground. 
 
 John Rex enumerated the eight, and Dawes raised his head. 
 " I won't go. I have had two trials at it ; I don't want another. 
 I would advise you not to attempt it either." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " Gabbett bolted twice before," said Rufus Dawes, shuddering 
 at the remembrance of the ghastly object he had seen in the 
 sunlit glen at Hell's Gates. " Others went with him, but each 
 time he returned alone." 
 
 " What do you mean ! " asked Rex, struck by the tone of his 
 companion. 
 
 " What became of the others ? " 
 
 " Died, I suppose," said the Dandy, with a forced laugh. 
 
 " Yes ; but how ? They were all without food. How came 
 the surviving monster to live six weeks ? " 
 
 John Rex grew a shade paler, and did not reply. He 
 recollected the sanguinary legend that pertained to Gabbett's 
 rescue. But he did not intend to make the journey in his 
 company, so, after all, he had no cause for fear. " Come with 
 me then," he said, at length. " We will try our luck together.'' 
 
 " No. I have resolved. I stay here." 
 
 *' And leave your innocence unproved." 
 
 "How can I prove it?" cried Rufus Dawes, roughly 
 impatient. "There are crimes committed which are never 
 brought to light, and this is one of them." 
 
 "Well," said Rex, rising, as if weary of the discussion, 
 " have it your own way, then. You know best. The private 
 detective game is hard work. I, myself, have gone on a wild- 
 goose chase before now. There's a mystery about a certain 
 shipbuilder's son which took me four months to unravel, and 
 then I lost the thread." 
 
 "^ shipbuilder's son ! Who was he ? " 
 
 John Rex paused in wonderment at the eager interest with 
 which the question was put, and then hastened to take 
 
GATHERING IN THE THREADS. 325 
 
 advantage of this new opening for conversation. "A queer 
 story. A well-known character in my time — Sir Richard 
 Devine. A miserly old curmudgeon, with a scapegrace son." 
 
 Rufus Dawes bit his lips to avoid showing his emotion. This 
 was the second time that the name of his dead father had been 
 spoken in his hearing. " I think I remember something of 
 him," he said, with a voice that sounded strangely calm in his 
 own ears. 
 
 "A curious story," said Rex, plunging into past memoriea. 
 " Amongst other matters, I dabbled a little in the Private 
 Inquiry line of business, and the old man came to me. He had 
 a son who had gone abroad — a wild young dog, by all accounts 
 — and he wanted particulars of him." 
 
 " Did you get them ? " 
 
 " To a certain extent. I hunted him through Paris into 
 Brussels, from Brussels to Antwerp, from Antwerp back to 
 Paris. I lost him there. A miserable end to a long and 
 expensive search. I got nothing but a portmanteau with a lot 
 of letters from his rsother. I sent the particulars to the ship- 
 builder, and by all accounts the news killed him, for he died 
 not long after." 
 
 "And the son?" 
 
 " Came to the queerest end of all. The old man had left him 
 his fortune — a large one, I believe — but he'd left Europe, it 
 seems, for India, and was lost in the Hydaspes. Frere was his 
 cousin." 
 
 " Ah ! " 
 
 " By Gad, it annoys me when I think of it," continued Rex, 
 feeling, by force of memory, once more the adventurer of 
 fashion. " With the resources I had too ! Oh, a miserable 
 failure ! The days and nights I've spent walking about locking 
 for Richard Devine, and never catching a glimpse of him. 
 The old man gave me his son's portrait, with full particulars of 
 his early life, and I suppose I carried that ivory gimcrack in my 
 breast for nearly three months, pulling it out to refresh my 
 memory every half-hour. By Gad, if the young gentleman was 
 anything like his picture, I could have sworn to him if I'd met 
 him in Timbuctoo." 
 
 " Do you think you'd know him again?" asked Rufus Dawes 
 in a low voice, turning away his head. 
 
 There may have been sometliing in the attitude in which the 
 
326 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 speaker had put himself that awakened memory, or perhaps the 
 subdued eagerness of the tone, contrasting so strangely with the 
 comparative inconsequence of the theme, that caused John Rex's 
 brain to perform one of those feats of automatic synthesis at 
 which we afterwards wonder. The profligate son — the likeness 
 to the portrait — the mystery of Dawes's life ! These were the 
 links of a galvanic chain. He closed the circuit, and a vivid 
 flash revealed to him— The Man. 
 
 Warder Troke coming up, put his hand on Rex's shoulder. 
 " Dawes," he said, " you're wanted at the yard ; " and then, 
 seeing his mistake, added with a grin, " Curse you two ; you're 
 so much alike one can't tell t'other from which." 
 
 Rufus Dawes walked off moodily ; but John Rex's evil face 
 turned pale, and a strange hope made his heart leap. 
 
 " Gad, Troke's right, we are alike. /'// not press hi::i to 
 escape any more'^ 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 RUNNING THE GAUNTLET. 
 
 THE Pretty Mary — as ugly and evil-smelling a tub as 
 ever pitched under a southerly burster — had been lying 
 on and off Cape Surville for nearly three weeks. Captain 
 Blunt was getting wearied. He made strenuous efforts to find 
 the Oyster-beds of which he was ostensibly in search, but no 
 success attended his efforts. In vain did he take boat and pull 
 into every cove and nook between the Hippolyte Reef and 
 Schouten's Island. In vain did he run the Pi-etty Mary as 
 near to the rugged cliffs as he dared to take her, and make 
 perpetual expeditions to the shore. In vain did he— in his 
 eagerness for the interests of Mrs. Purfoy — clamber up the 
 rocks, and spend hours in solitary soundings in lilackman's 
 Bay. He never found an oyster. " If I don't find something 
 in three or four days more," said he to his mate, " I shall go 
 back again. It's too dangerous cruising here." 
 
 • * * * ♦ 
 
 On the same evening that Captain Blunt made this resolution, 
 the watchman at Signal Hill saw the arms of the semaphore at 
 the settlement make three motions, thus : 
 
RUNNING THE GAUNTLET. 327 
 
 The semaphore was furnished with three revolving arms, 
 fixed one above the other. The upper one denoted units, and 
 had six motions, indicating ONE to Six. The middle one 
 denoted tens, ten to sixty. The lower one marked hundreds, 
 
 from ONE HUNDRED tO SIX HUNDRED. 
 
 The lower and upper arms whirled out. That meant THREE 
 
 HUNDRED AND SIX. 
 
 A ball ran up to the top of the post. That meant ONE 
 
 THOUSAND. 
 
 Number 1306, or, being interpreted, " Prisoners Ab- 
 sconded." 
 
 "By George, Harry," said Jones, the signalman, "there's a 
 bolt ! " 
 
 The semaphore signalled again : " Number 1411." 
 
 " With arms ! " Jones said, translating as he read. " Come 
 here, Harry ! here's a go ! " 
 
 But Harry did not reply, and looking down, the watchman 
 saw a dark figure suddenly fill the doorway. The boasted 
 semaphore had failed this time at all events. The " bolters " 
 had arrived as soon as the signal ! 
 
 The man sprang at his carbine, but the intruder had already 
 possessed himself of it. " It's no use making a fuss, Jones ! 
 There are eight of us. Oblige me by attending to your 
 signals." 
 
 Jones knew the voice. It was that of John Rex. " Reply, 
 can't you ? " said Rex, coolly. " Captain Burgess is in a hurry." 
 The arms of the semaphore at the settlement were, in fact, 
 gesticulating with comical vehemence. 
 
 Jones took the strings in his hands, and, with his signal-book 
 open before him, was about to acknowledge the message, when 
 Rex stopped him. " Send this message," he said. " NOT SEEN ! 
 Signal sent to Eaglehawk ! " 
 
 Jones paused irresolutely. He was himself a convict, and 
 dreaded the inevitable cat, that he knew would follow this false 
 
 message. " If they finds me out " he said. Rex cocked the 
 
 carbine with so decided a meaning in his black eyes, that Jones 
 — who could be brave enough on occasions — banished his 
 hesitation at once, and began to signal eagerly. There came 
 up a clinking of metal, and a murmur from below. " What's 
 keeping yer, Dandy ? " 
 
 " All right. Get those irons off, and then we'll talk, boys. 
 
328 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 I'm putting salt on old Burgess's tail." The rough jest was 
 received with a roar, and Jones, looking momentarily down 
 from his window on the staging, saw, in the waning light, a 
 group of men freeing themselves from their irons with a hammer 
 taken from the guard-house ; while two, already freed, were 
 casting buckets of water on the beacon wood-pile. The sentry 
 was lying bound at a little distance. 
 
 " Now," said the leader of this surprise party, " signal to 
 Woody Island." Jones perforce obeyed. "Say, 'An Escape 
 AT THE Mines ! Watch One-tree Point 1 Send on to 
 Eaglehawk ! ' Quick, now." 
 
 Jones — comprehending at once the force of this manoeuvre, 
 which would have the effect of distracting attention from the 
 Neck — executed the order with a grin. "You're a knowing one, 
 Dandy Jack," said he, 
 
 John Rex acknowledged the compliment by uncocking the 
 carbine. " Hold out your hands ! — Jemmy Vetch ! " " Ay, 
 ay," replied the Crow, from beneath. " Come up and tie our 
 friend Jones. Gabbett, have you got the axes ? " " There's 
 only one,'' said Gabbett, with an oath. " Then bring that, and 
 any tucker you can lay your hands on. Have you tied him? 
 On we go then." And in the space of five minutes from the 
 time when unsuspecting Harry had been silently clutched by 
 two forms, who rushed upon him out of the shadow of the huts, 
 the Signal Hill Station was deserted. 
 
 At the settlement Burgess was foaming. Nine men to seize 
 the Long Bay boat, and get half-an-hour's start of the alarm- 
 signal, was an unprecedented achievement ! What could 
 Warder Troke have been about ! Warder Troke, however, 
 found eight hours afterwards, disarmed, gagged, and bound in 
 the scrub, had been guilty of no negligence. How could he 
 tell, that at a certain signal from Dandy Jack, the nine men he 
 had taken to Stewart's Bay would " rush " him ; and, before he 
 could draw a pistol, truss him like a chicken ? The worst of 
 the gang, Rufus Dawes, had volunteered for the hated duties 
 of pile-driving, and Troke had felt himself secure. How could 
 he possibly guess that there was a plot, in which Rufus Dawes, 
 of all men, had refused to join ? 
 
 Constables, mounted and on foot, were despatched to scour 
 the bush round the settlement. Burgess, confident from the 
 reply of the Signal Hill semaphore, that the alarm had been 
 
RUNNING THE GAUNTLET. 329 
 
 given at Eaglehawk Isthmus, promised himself the re-capture 
 of the gang before many hours ; and giving orders to keep the 
 communications going, retired to dinner. His convict-servants 
 had barely removed the soup when the result of John Rex's 
 ingenuity became manifest. 
 
 The semaphore at Signal Hill had stopped working. 
 
 " Perhaps the fools can't see," said Burgess. " Fire the 
 beacon — and saddle my horse." The beacon was fired. All 
 right at Mount Arthur, Mount Communication, and the Coal 
 Mines. To the westward, the line was clear. But at Signal 
 Hill was no answering light. Burgess stamped with rage. 
 " Get me my boat's crew ready ; and tell the Mines to signal to 
 Woody Island." As he stood on the jetty, a breathless mes- 
 senger brought the reply. "A boat's crew gone to One- 
 Tree Point! Five men sent from Eaglehawk in 
 obedience to orders ! " Burgess understood it at once. 
 The fellows had decoyed the Eaglehawk guard. " Give way, 
 men ! " And the boat, shooting into the darkness, made for 
 Long Bay. " I won't be far behind 'em," said the Command- 
 ant, "at any rate." 
 
 Between Eaglehawk and Signal Hill were, for the absconders, 
 other dangers. Along the indented coast of Port Bunche were 
 four constables' stations. These stations — mere huts within 
 signalling distance of each other — fringed the shore, and to 
 avoid them, it would be necessarj' to make a circuit into the 
 scrub. Unwilling as he was to lose time, John Rex saw that to 
 attempt to run the gauntlet of these four stations would be 
 destruction. The safety of the party depended upon the reach- 
 ing of the Neck while the guard was weakened by the absence 
 of some of the men along the southern shore, and before the 
 alarm could be given from the eastern arm of the peninsula. 
 With this view, he ranged his men in single file ; and quitting 
 the road near Norfolk Bay, made straight for the Neck. The 
 night had set in with a high westerly wind, and threatened rain. 
 It was pitch dark ; and the fugitives were guided only by the 
 dull roar of the sea as it beat upon Descent Beach. Had it not 
 been for the accident of a westerly gale, they would not have 
 had even so much assistance. 
 
 The Crow walked first, as guide, carrying a musket taken 
 f) om Harry. Then came Gabbett, with the axe ; followed by 
 
330 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 the other six, sharing between them such provisions as they had 
 obtained at Signal Hill. John Rex, with the carbine, and 
 Troke's pistols, walked last. It had been agreed that if 
 attacked they were to run each one his own way. In their 
 desperate case, disunion was strength. At intervals, on their 
 left, gleamed the lights of the constables' stations, and as they 
 stumbled onward they heard plainer and more plainly the hoarse 
 murmur of the sea, beyond which was liberty or death. 
 
 After nearly two hours of painful progress, Jemmy Vetch 
 stopped, and whispered them to approach. They were on a 
 sandy rise. To the left was a black object ; — a constable's hut ; 
 to the right was a dim white line ; — the ocean ; in front was a 
 row of lamps, and between every two lamps leapt and ran a 
 dusky indistinct body. Jemmy Vetch pointed with his lean 
 forefinger. 
 
 " The dogs ! " 
 
 Instinctively they crouched down, lest even at that distance 
 the two sentries, so plainly visible in the red light of the guard- 
 house fire, should see them. 
 
 " Well bo's," said Gabbett, "what's to be done now ? " 
 
 As he spoke, a long low howl broke from one of the chained 
 hounds, and the whole kennel burst into hideous outcry. 
 
 John Rex, who perhaps was the bravest of the party, shud- 
 dered. They have smelt us," he said. " We must go on." 
 
 Gabbett spat in his palm, and took firmer hold of the axe- 
 handle. " Right you are," he said. " I'll leave my mark on 
 some of them before this night's out ! " 
 
 On the opposite shore lights began to move, and the fugitives 
 could hear the hurrying tramp of feet. 
 
 " Make for the right-hand side of the jetty," said Rex in a 
 fierce whisper. " I think I see a boat there. It is our only 
 chance now. We can never break through the station. Are 
 we ready ? Now! All together!" 
 
 Gabbett was fast outstripping the others by some three feet of 
 distance. There were eleven dogs, two of whom were placed 
 on stages set out in the water, and they were so chained that 
 their muzzles nearly touched. The giant leapt into the line, and 
 with a blow of his axe split the skull of the beast on his right 
 hand. This action unluckily took him within reach of the other 
 dog, who seized him by the thigh. 
 
 ♦'Fire I" cried McNab from the other side of the lamps. 
 
RUNNING THE GArrNTLET. 331 
 
 The giant uttered a cry of rage and pain, and fell with the 
 dog under him. It was, however, the dog who had pulled him 
 down, and the musket-ball intended for him struck Travers in 
 the jaw. The unhappy villain fell — like Virgil's Dares — 
 " spitting blood, teeth, and curses." 
 
 Gabbett clutched the mastiff's throat with iron hand, and 
 forced him to loose his hold ; then, bellowing with fury, seized 
 his axe and sprang forward, mangled as he was, upon the nearest 
 soldier. Jemmy Vetch had been beforehand with him. Uttering 
 a low snarl of hate, he fired, and shot the sentry through the 
 breast. The others rushed through the now broken cordon, 
 and made headlong for the boat. 
 
 " Fools ! " cried Rex behind them. " You have wasted a 
 shot ! Look to your left ! " 
 
 Burgess, hurried down the tram-road by his men, had tarried 
 at Signal Hill only long enough to loose the surprised guard 
 from their bonds, and taking the Woody Island boat was pull- 
 ing with a fresh crew to the Neck. The reinforcement was not 
 ten yards from the jetty. 
 
 The Crow saw the danger, and flinging himself into the water, 
 desperately seized McNab's boat. 
 
 " In with you for your lives ! " he cried. 
 
 Another volley from the guard spattered the water around 
 the fugitives, but in the darkness the ill-aimed bullets fell harm- 
 less. Gabbett swung himself over the sheets, and seized an 
 oar. 
 
 " Cox, Bodenham, Greenhill ! Now, push her oft ! Jump, 
 Tom, jump ! " and as Burgess leapt to land, Cornelius was 
 dragged over the stern, and the whale-boat floated into deep 
 water. 
 
 McNab, seeing this, ran down to the water side to aid the 
 Commandant. 
 
 " Lift her over the Bar, men ! " he shouted. " With a will — 
 So ! " And raised in twelve strong arms, the pursuing craft 
 slid across the isthmus. 
 
 " We've five minutes' start," said Vetch, coolly, as he saw the 
 Commandant take his place in the stern sheets. " Pull away, 
 my jolly boys, and we'll best 'em yet." 
 
 The soldiers on the Neck fired again almost at random, but 
 the blaze of their pieces only served to show the Commandant's 
 
332 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 boat a hundred yards astern of that of the mutineers, which 
 had already gained the deep water of Pirates Bay. 
 
 Then, for the first time, the six prisoners became aware tliat 
 John Rex was not among them. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 IN THE NIGHT. 
 
 JOHN REX had put into execution the first part of his 
 scheme. 
 At the moment when, seeing Burgess's boat near the 
 sand-pit, he had uttered the warning cry heard by Vetch, he 
 turned baclc into the darlcness, and made for the water's edge 
 at a point some distance from the Neck. His desperate hope 
 was that, the attention of the guard being concentrated on the 
 escaping boat, he might, favoured by the darkness and the 
 confusion — swim to the peninsula. It was not a very mar- 
 vellous feat to accomplish, and he had confidence in his own 
 powers. Once safe on the peninsula, his plans were formed. 
 But, owing to the strong westerly wind, which caused an in- 
 coming tide upon the isthmus, it was necessary for him to 
 attain some point sufBciently far to the southward to enable 
 him, on taking the water, to be assisted, not impeded, by the 
 current. With this view, he hurried over the sandy hammocks 
 at the entrance to the Neck, and ran backwards towards the 
 sea. In a few strides he had gained the hard and sandy shore, 
 and, pausing to listen, heard behind him the sound of footsteps. 
 He was pursued. The footsteps stopped, and then a voice 
 cried — 
 
 " Surrender ! " 
 
 It was McNab, who, seeing Rex's retreat, had daringly 
 followed him. John Rex drew from his breast Troke's pistol 
 and waited. 
 
 " Surrender ! " cried the voice again, and the footsteps ad- 
 vanced two paces. 
 
 At the instant that Rex raised the weapon to fire, a vivid 
 flash of lightning showed him, on his right hand, on the ghastly 
 and pallid ocean, two boats, the hindermost one apparently 
 
IN THE NIGHT. 333 
 
 within a few yards of him. The men looked like corpses. In 
 the distance rose Cape Surville, and beneath Cape Surville was 
 the hungry sea. The scene vanished in an instant — swallowed 
 up almost before he had realised it. But the shock it gave him 
 made him miss his aim, and flinging away the pistol with a 
 curse, he turned down the path and fled. McNab followed. 
 
 The path had been made by frequent passage from the 
 Station, and Rex found it tolerably easy running. He had 
 acquired — like most men who live much in the dark — that 
 cat-like perception of obstacles, which is due rather to in- 
 creased sensitiveness of touch than increased acuteness of 
 vision. His feet accommodated themselves to the inequalities 
 of the ground ; his hands instinctively outstretched themselves 
 towards the overhanging boughs ; his head ducked of its own 
 accord to any obtrusive sapling which bent to obstruct his 
 progress. His pursuer was not so fortunate. Twice did 
 John Rex laugh mentally, at a crash and scramble that told 
 of a fall, and once — in a valley where trickled a little stream that 
 he had cleared almost without an effort — he heard a splash 
 that made him laugh outright. The track now began to go 
 uphill, and Rex redoubled his efforts, trusting to his superior 
 muscular energy to shake off his pursuer. He breasted the 
 rise, and paused to listen. The crashing of branches behind 
 him had ceased, and it seemed that he was alone. 
 
 He had gained the summit of the cliff. The lights of the 
 Neck were invisible. Below him lay the sea. Out of the 
 black emptiness came puffs of sharp salt wind. The tops of 
 the rollers that broke below were blown off and whirled away 
 into the night — white patches, swallowed up immediately in the 
 increasing darkness. From the north side of the bay was 
 borne the hoarse roar of the breakers as they dashed against 
 the perpendicular cliffs which guarded Forestier's Peninsula. 
 At his feet arose a frightful shrieking and whistling, broken at 
 intervals by reports like claps of thunder. Where was he ? 
 Exhausted and breathless, he sank down into the rough scrub 
 and listened. All at once, on the track over which he had 
 passed, he heard a sound that made him bound to his feet in 
 deadly fear — the bay of a dog ! 
 
 He thrust his hand to his breast for the remaining pistol, and 
 uttered a cry of alarm. He had dropped it. He felt round 
 about him in the darkness for some stick or stone that might 
 
334 
 
 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 serve as a weapon. In vain. His fingers clutched nothing but 
 prickly scrub and coarse grass. The sweat ran down his face. 
 With staring eyeballs, and bristling hair, he stared into the 
 darkness, as if he would dissipate it by the very intensity of his 
 gaze. The noise was repeated, and, piercing through the roar 
 of wind and water, above and below him, seemed to be close 
 at hand. He heard a man's voice cheering the dog in accents 
 that the gale blew away from him before he could recognize 
 them. It was probable that some of the soldiers had been sent 
 to the assistance of McNab. Capture, then, was certain. In 
 his agony, the wretched man almost promised himself repent- 
 ance, should he escape this peril. The dog, crashing through 
 the underwood, gave one short, sharp howl, and then ran 
 mute. 
 
 The darkness had increased with the gale. The wind, 
 ravaging the hollow heaven, had spread between the lightnings 
 and the sea an impenetrable curtain of black cloud. It seemed 
 possible to seize upon this curtain and draw its edge yet closer, 
 so dense was it. The white and raging waters were blotted 
 out, and even the lightning seemed unable to penetrate that 
 intense blackness. A large, warm drop of rain fell upon Rex's 
 outstretched hand, and far overhead rumbled a wrathful peal 
 of thunder. The shrieking which he had heard a few moments 
 ago had ceased, but every now and then dull but immense 
 shocks, as of some mighty bird flapping the cliff with monstrous 
 wings, reverberated around him, and shook the ground where 
 he stood. He looked towards the ocean, and a tall misty 
 Form — white against the all-pervading blackness — beckoned 
 and bowed to him. He saw it distinctly for an instant, and 
 then, with an awful shriek, as of wrathful despair, it sank and 
 vanished. Maddened with a terror he could not define, the 
 hunted man turned to meet the material peril that was so close 
 at hand. 
 
 With a ferocious gasp, the dog flung himself upon him. John 
 Rex was borne backwards, but, in his desperation, he clutched 
 the beast by the throat and belly, and exerting all his strength, 
 flung him off. The brute uttered one howl, and seemed to lie 
 where he had fallen ; while above his carcase again hovered 
 that white and vaporous column. It was strange that McNab 
 and the soldier did not follow up the advantage they had 
 gained. Courage— perhaps he should defeat them yet ! He 
 
IN THE NIGHT. 335 
 
 had been lucky to dispose of the dog so easily. With' a fierce 
 thrill of renewed hope, he ran forward ; when at his feet, in his 
 face, arose that misty Form, breathing chill warning, as though 
 to wave him back. The terror at his heels drove him on. A 
 few steps more, and he should gain the summit of the cliff. 
 He covXdifeel the sea roaring in front of him in the gloom. 
 The column disappeared ; and in a lull of wind, uprose from 
 the place where it had been, such a hideous medley of shrieks, 
 laughter, and exultant wrath, that John Rex paused in horror. 
 Too late. The ground gave way — it seemed — beneath his 
 feet. He was falling — ^clutching, in vain, at rocks, shrubs, and 
 grass. The cloud-curtain lifted, and by the lightning that 
 leaped and played about the ocean, John Rex found an explana- 
 tion of his terrors, more terrible than they themselves had 
 been. The track he had followed led to that portion of the 
 cliff in which the sea had excavated the tunnel-spout known 
 as the Devil's Blow-Hole. 
 
 Clinging to a tree that, growing half way down the precipice, 
 had arrested his course, he stared into the abyss. Before him 
 — already high above his head — was a gigantic arch of cliff. 
 Through this arch he saw, at an immense distance below him, 
 the raging and pallid ocean. Beneath him was an abyss 
 splintered with black rocks, turbid and raucous with tortured 
 water. Suddenly the bottom of this abyss seemed to advance to 
 meet him ; or, rather, the black throat of the chasm belched a 
 volume of leaping, curling water, which mounted to drown him. 
 Was it fancy that showed him, on the surface of the rising 
 column, the mangled carcase of the dog ? 
 
 The chasm into which John Rex had fallen was shaped like a 
 huge funnel set up on its narrow end. The sides of this funnel 
 were rugged rock, and in the banks of earth lodged here and 
 there upon projections, a scrubby vegetation grew. The scanty 
 growth paused abruptly half way down the gulf, and the rock 
 below was perpetually damp from the upthrown spray. Acci- 
 dent — had the convict been a Meekin, we might term it Provi- 
 dence — had lodged him on the lowest of these banks of earth. 
 In calm weather he would have been out of danger, but the 
 lightning-flash revealed to his terror-sharpened senses a black 
 patch of dripping rock on the side of the chasm some ten feet 
 above his head. It was evident that r:pon the next rising of the 
 water-spout the place where he stood would be covered with water. 
 
336 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 The roaring column mounted with hideous swiftness. Rex 
 felt it rush at him and swing him upward. With both arms 
 round the tree, he clutched the sleeves of his jacket with either 
 hand. Perhaps if he could maintain his hold, he might out- 
 live the shock of that suffocating torrent. He felt his feet rudely 
 seized, as though by the hand of a giant, and plucked upwards. 
 Water gurgled in his ears. His arms seemed about to be torn 
 from their sockets. Had the strain lasted another instant, he 
 must have loosed his hold ; but, with a wild hoarse shriek, as 
 though it was some sea-monster baffled of its prey, the column 
 sank, and left him gasping, bleeding, half drowned, but alive. 
 It was impossible that he could survive another shock, and in 
 his agony he unclasped his stiffened fingers, determined to 
 resign himself to his fate. At that instant, however, he saw on 
 the wall of rock that hollowed on his right hand, a red and 
 lurid light, in the midst of which fantastically bobbed hither 
 and thither the gigantic shadow of a man. He cast his eyes 
 upwards and saw, slowly descending into the gulf, a blazing 
 bush tied to a rope. McNab was taking advantage of the pause 
 in the spouting to examine the sides of the Elow-hole. 
 
 A despairing hope seized John Rex. In another instant the 
 light would reveal his figure, clinging like a limpet to the rock, 
 to those above. He must be detected in any case ; but if they 
 could lower the rope sufficiently quickly, he might clutch it and 
 be saved. His dread of the horrible death that was beneath him 
 overcame his resolution to avoid recapture. The long-drawn 
 agony of the retreating water as it was sucked back again into 
 the throat of the chasm had ceased, and he knew that the next 
 tremendous pulsation of the sea below would hurl the spuming 
 destruction up upon him. The gigantic torch slowly descended 
 and he had already drawn in his breath for a shout which 
 should make itself heard above the roar of the wind and water, 
 when a strange appearance on the face of the cliff made him 
 pause. About six feet from him — glowing like molten gold in 
 the gusty glow of the burning tree — a round, sleek stream of 
 water slipped from the rock into the darkness, like a serpent 
 from its hole. Above this stream a dark spot defied the torch- 
 light, and John Rex felt his heart leap with one last desperate 
 hope as he comprehended that close to him was one of those 
 tortuous drives which the worm-like action of the sea bores in 
 such caverns as that in which be found himself. The drive, 
 
IN THE I-JIGHT. 337 
 
 opened first to the light of the day by the natural convulsion 
 which had raised the mountain itself above ocean level, 
 probably extended into the bowels of the cliff. The stream 
 ceased to let itself out of the crevice ; it was then likely that 
 the rising column of water did not penetrate far into this 
 wonderful hiding-place. 
 
 Endowed with a wisdom, which in one placed in less 
 desperate position would have been madness, John Rex shouted 
 to his pursuers, " The rope ! the rope ! " The words, projected 
 against the sides of the enormous funnel, were pitched high 
 above the blast, and, reduplicated by a thousand echoes, reached 
 the ears of those above. 
 
 " He's alive ! " cried McNab, peering into the abyss. " I see 
 him. Look ! " 
 
 The soldier whipped the end of the bullock-hide lariat round 
 the tree to which he held, and began to oscillate it, so that the 
 blazing bush might reach the ledge on which the daring convict 
 sustained himself. The groan which preceded the fierce belch- 
 ing forth of the torrent was cast up to them from below. 
 
 "God be gude to the puir felly!" said the pious young 
 Scotchman, catching his breath. 
 
 A white spume was visible at the bottom of the gulf, and the 
 groan changed into a rapidly increasing bellow. John Rex, 
 eyeing the blazing pendulum, that with longer and longer swing 
 momentarily neared him, looked up to the black heaven for the 
 last time, with a muttered prayer. The bush — the flame fanned 
 by the motion — flung a crimson glow upon his frowning features 
 which as he caught the rope had a sneer of triumph on them. 
 " Slack out ! slack out ! " he cried ; and then, drawing the 
 burning bush towards him, attempted to stamp out the fire with 
 his feet. 
 
 The soldier set his body against the tree trunk, and gripped 
 the rope hard, turning his head away from the fiery pit below 
 him. " Hold tight, your honour," he muttered to McNab. 
 " She's coming ! " 
 
 The bellow changed into a roar, the roar into a shriek, and 
 with a gust of wind and spray, the seething sea leapt up out of 
 the gulf. 
 
 John Rex, unable to extinguish the flame, twisted his arm 
 about the rope, and the instant before the surface of the rising 
 water made a momentary floor to the mouth of the cavern, he 
 
338 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 spurned the cliff desperately with his feet, and flung himself 
 across the chasm. He had already clutched the rock, and 
 thrust himself forward, when the tremendous volume of water 
 struck him. McNab and the soldier felt the sudden pluck of 
 the rope and saw the light swing across the abyss. Then the 
 fury of the waterspout burst with a triumphant scream, the 
 tension ceased, the light was blotted out, and when the column 
 sank, there dangled at the end of the lariat nothing but the 
 drenched and blackened skeleton of the she-oak bough. Amid 
 a terrific peal of thunder, the long pent-up rain descended, and 
 a sudden ghastly rending asunder of the clouds showed far 
 below them the heaving ocean, high above them the jagged 
 and glistening rocks, and at their feet the black and murder- 
 ous abyss of the Blow-hole — empty. 
 
 They pulled up the useless rope in silence ; and another dead 
 tree lighted and lowered showed them nothing. 
 
 " God rest his puir soul,'' said McNab, shuddering. " He's 
 oot o' our ban's." 
 
 Lt 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 THE FLIGHT. 
 
 C^ ABBETT, guided by the Crow, had determined to beach 
 the captured boat on the southern point of Cape Surville. 
 It will be seen by those who have followed the descrip- 
 tion of the topography of Colonel Arthur's Penitentiary, that 
 nothing but the desperate nature of the attempt could have 
 justified so desperate a measure. The perpendicular cliffs 
 seemed to render such an attempt certain destruction ; but 
 Vetch, who had been employed in building the pier at the Neck, 
 knew that on the southern point of the promontory was a strip 
 of beach, upon which the company might, by good fortune, land 
 in safety. With something of the decision of his leader, Rex, 
 the Crow determined at once that in their desperate plight this 
 was the only measure, and setting his teeth as he seized the oar 
 that served as a rudder, he put the boat's head straight for the 
 huge rock that formed the northern horn of Pirates' Bay. 
 
 Save for the faint phosphorescent radiance of the foaming 
 
THE FLIGHT. 
 
 waves, the darkness was intense, and Burgess for some minut'Cs 
 pulled almost at random in pursuit. The same tremendous 
 flash of lightning which had saved the life of McNab, by caus- 
 ing Rex to miss his aim, showed to the Commandant the whale- 
 boat balanced on the summit of an enormous wave, and 
 apparently about to be flung against the wall of rock which — 
 magnified in the sudden flash — seemed frightfully near to them. 
 The next instant Burgess himself — his boat lifted by the swiftly 
 advancing billow — saw a wild waste of raging sea scooped into 
 abysmal troughs, in which the bulk of a leviathan might wallow. 
 At the bottom of one of these valleys of water lay the mutineers' 
 boat, looking, with its outspread oars, like some six-legged 
 insect floating in a pool of ink. The great clifl", whose every 
 scar and crag was as distinct as though its huge bulk was but 
 a yard distant, seemed to shoot out from its base towards the 
 struggling insect, a broad, flat straw, that was a strip of dry 
 land. The next instant the rushing water, carrying the six- 
 legged atom with it, creamed up over this strip of beach; the 
 giant crag, amid the thunder-crash which followed upon the 
 lightning, appeared to stoop down over the ocean, and as it 
 stooped, the billow rolled onwards, the boat glided down into 
 the depths, and the whole phantasmagoria was swallowed up 
 in the tumultuous darkness of the tempest. 
 
 Burgess — his hair bristling with terror — shouted to put the 
 boat about, but he might with as much reason have shouted at 
 an avalanche. The wind blew his voice away, and emptied it 
 violently into the air. A snarling billow jerked the oar from his 
 hand. Despite the desperate efforts of the soldiers, the boat 
 was whirled up the mountain of water like a leaf on a water- 
 spout, and a second flash of lightning showed them what seemed 
 a group of dolls struggling in the surf, and a walnut-shell bottom 
 upwards was driven by the recoil of the waves towards them. 
 For an instant all thought that they must share the fate which 
 had overtaken the unlucky convicts ; but Burgess succeeded in 
 trimming the boat, and, awed by the peril he had so narrowly 
 escaped, gave the order to return. As the men set the boat's 
 head to the welcome line of lights that marked the Neck, a 
 black spot balanced upon a black line was swept under their 
 stern and carried out to the sea. As it swooped past them, this 
 black spot emitted a cry, and they knew that it was one of the 
 shattered boat's crew clinging to an oar. 
 
340 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 " He was the only one of 'em alive," said Burgess, bandaging 
 his sprained wrist two hours afterwards at the Neck, "and he's 
 food for the fishes by this time ! " 
 
 He was mistaken, however. Fate had in reserve for the crew 
 of villains a less merciful death than that of drowning. Aided 
 by the lightning, and that wonderful " good luck " which urges 
 villainy to its destruction, Vetch beached the boat, and the 
 party, bruised and bleeding, reached the upper portion of the 
 shore in safety. Of all this number only Cox was lost. He 
 was pulling stroke-oar, and being something of a laggard, stood 
 in the way of the Crow, who, seeing the importance of haste in 
 preserving his own skin, plucked the man backwards by the 
 collar, and passed over his sprawling body to the shore. Cox, 
 grasping at anything to save himself, clutched an oar, and the 
 next moment found himself borne out with the overturned 
 whale-boat by the under-tow. He was drifted past his only 
 hope of rescue — the guard-boat — with a velocity that forbade 
 all attempts at rescue, and almost before the poor scoundrel had 
 time to realize his condition, he was in the best possible way of 
 escaping the hanging that his comrades had so often humor- 
 ously prophesied for him. Being a strong and vigorous villain, 
 however, he clung tenaciously to his oar, and even unbuckling 
 his leather belt, passed it round the slip of wood that was his 
 salvation, girding himself to it as firmly as he was able. In 
 this condition, ^ius a swoon from exhaustion, he was descried 
 by the helmsman of the Pretty Mary, a few miles from Cape 
 Surville, at daylight next morning. Blunt, with a wild hope that 
 this waif and stray might be the lover of Sarah Purfoy, dead, 
 lowered a boat and picked him up. Nearly bisected by the 
 belt, gorged with salt water, frozen with cold, and having two 
 ribs broken, the victim of Vetch's murderous quickness retained 
 sufficient life to survive Blunt's remedies for nearly two hours. 
 During that time he stated that his name was Cox, that he had 
 escaped from Port Arthur with eight others, that John Rex was 
 the leader of the expedition, that the others were all drowned, 
 and that he believed John Rex had been retaken. Having 
 placed Blunt in possession of these particulars, he further said 
 that it pricked him to breathe, cursed Jemmy Vetch, the settle- 
 ment, and the sea, and so impenitently died. 
 
 Blunt smoked three pipes, and then altered the course of the 
 
THE FLIGHT. 341 
 
 Pretty Mary two points to the eastward, and ran for the coast. 
 It was possible that the man for whom he was searching had 
 not been retaken, and was now awaiting his arrival. It was clearly 
 his duty — hearing of the planned escape having been actually 
 attempted — not to give up the expedition while hope remained. 
 
 " I'll take one more look along," said he to himself. 
 
 The Pretty Mary, hugging the coast as closely as she dared, 
 crawled in the thin breeze all day, and saw nothing. It would 
 be madness to land at Cape Surville, for the whole station 
 would be on the alert ; so Blunt, as night was falling, stood off 
 a little across the mouth of Pirates' Bay. He was walking the 
 deck, groaning at the folly of the expedition, when a strange 
 appearance on the southern horn of the bay made him come to 
 a sudden halt. There was a furnace blazing in the bowels of 
 the mountain ! Blunt rubbed his eyes and stared. He looked 
 at the man at the helm. 
 
 " Do you see anything yonder, Jem .^'* 
 
 Jem — a Sydney man, who had never been round that coast 
 before — briefly remarked, " Lighthouse." 
 
 Blunt stumped into the cabin and got out his charts. No 
 lighthouse was laid down there, only a mark like an anchor, 
 and a note, " Remarkable Hole at this Point.'' A remarkable 
 hole indeed ; a remarkable " lime kiln " would have been more 
 to the purpose ! 
 
 Blunt called up his mate, William Staples, a fellow whom 
 Sarah Purfoy's gold had bought body and soul. William 
 Staples looked at the waxing and waning glow for a while, and 
 then said, in tones trembling with greed, " It's a fire. Lie to, 
 and lower away the joUy-boal. Old man, that's our bird for a 
 thousand pounds ! " 
 
 The Pretty Mary shortened sail, and Blunt and Staples got 
 into the jolly-bo<.t. 
 
 " Coin' a hoysterin', sir ? " said one of the crew, with a grinj 
 as Blunt threw a bundle into the stern-sheets. 
 
 Staples thrust his tongue into his cheek. The object of the 
 voyage was now pretty well understood among the carefully 
 picked crew. Blunt had not chosen men who were likely to 
 betray him, though, for that matter. Rex had suggested a pre- 
 caution which rendered betrayal almost impossible. 
 
 " What's in the bundle, old man ? " asked Will Staples, after 
 they had got clear of the ship. 
 
342 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 " Clothes," returned Blunt. " We can't bring him off, if it is 
 him, in his canaries. He puts on these duds, d'ye see, sinks 
 Her Majesty's livery, and comes aboard, a * shipwrecked 
 mariner.'" 
 
 " That's well thought of. Whose notion's that ? The 
 Madam's, I'll be bound." 
 
 "Ay." 
 
 " She's a knowing one." 
 
 And the sinister laughter of the pair floated across the 
 violet water, 
 
 " Go easy, man," said Blunt, as they neared the shore. 
 " They're all awake at Eaglehawk : and if those cursed dogs 
 give tongue, there'll be a boat out in a twinkling. It's lucky the 
 wind's offshore." 
 
 Staples lay on his oar and listened. The night was moonless, 
 and the ship had already disappeared from view. They were 
 approaching the promontory from the south-east, and the 
 isthmus of the guarded Neck was hidden by the outlying cliff. 
 In the south-western angle of this cliff, about midway between 
 the summit and the sea, was an arch, which vomited a red and 
 flickering light, that faintly shone upon the sea in the track of 
 the boat. The light was lambent and uncertain, now sinking 
 almost into insignificance, and now leaping up with a fierceness 
 that caused a deep glow to throb in the very heart of the 
 mountain. Sometimes a black figure would pass across this 
 gigantic furnace-mouth, stooping and rising, as though feeding 
 the fire. One might have imagined that a door in Vulcan's 
 Smithy had been left inadvertently open, and that the old hero 
 was forging arms for a demigod. 
 
 Blunt turned pale. "It's no mortal," he whispered. " Let's 
 go back." 
 
 "And what will Madam say?" returned dare-devil Will 
 Staples, who would have plunged into Mount Erebus had he 
 been paid for it. Thus appealed to in the name of his ruling 
 passion, Blunt turned his head, and the boat sped onward. 
 
THE WORK OF THE SEA. 343 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 THE WORK OF THE SEA. 
 
 THE lift of the water-spout had saved John Rex's life. At 
 the moment when it struck him he was on his hands and 
 knees at the entrance of the cavern. The wave, gushing 
 upwards, at the same time expanded, laterally, and this lateral 
 force drove the convict into the mouth of the subterlapian 
 passage. The passage trended downwards, and for some 
 seconds he was rolled over and over, the rush of water wedging 
 him at length into a crevice between two enormous stones, 
 which overhung a still more formidable abyss. Fortunately for 
 the preservation of his hard-fought-for life, this very fury of 
 incoming water prevented him from being washed out again 
 with the recoil of the wave. He could hear the water dashing 
 with frightful echoes far down into the depths beyond him, but 
 it was evident that the two stones against which he had been 
 thrust acted as breakwaters to the torrent poured in from the 
 outside, and repelled the main body of the stream in the fashion 
 he had observed, from his position on the ledge. In a few 
 seconds the cavern was empty. 
 
 Painfully extricating himself, and feeling as yet doubtful of 
 his safety, John Rex essayed to climb the twin-blocks that 
 barred the unknown depths below him. The first movement he 
 made caused him to shriek aloud. His left arm — with which he 
 clung to the rope — hung powerless. Ground against the ragged 
 entrance, it was momentarily paralyzed. For an instant the 
 unfortunate wretch sank despairingly on the wet and rugged 
 floor of the cave ; then a terrible gurgling beneath his feet 
 warned him of the approaching torrent, and collecting all his 
 energies, he scrambled up the incline. Though nigh fainting 
 with pain and exhaustion, he pressed desperately higher and 
 higher. He heard the hideous shriek of the whirlpool which 
 was beneath him grow louder and louder. He saw the 
 darkness grow darker as the rising water-spout covered the 
 mouth of the cave. He felt the salt spray sting his face, and the 
 wrathful tide lick the hand that hung over the shelf on which 
 he fell. But that was all. He was out of danger at last ! And 
 as the thought blessed his senses, his eyes closed, and the 
 
344 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 wonderful courage and strength which had sustained the villain 
 so long exhaled in stupor. 
 
 When he awoke the cavern was filled with the soft light of 
 dawn. Raising his eyes, he beheld, high above his head, a roof 
 of rock, on which the reflection of the sunbeams, playing 
 upwards through a pool of water, cast flickering colours. On 
 his right hand was the mouth of the cave, on his left a terrific 
 abyss, at the bottom of w^hich he could hear the sea faintly 
 lapping and washing. He raised himself and stretched his 
 stiffened limbs. Despite his injured shoulder, it was imperative 
 that he should bestir himself. He knew not if his escape had 
 been noticed, or if the cavern had another inlet, by which 
 McNab returning might penetrate. Moreover, he was wet and 
 famished. To preserve the life which he had torn from the sea, 
 he must have fire and food. First he examined the crevice by 
 which he had entered. It was shaped like an irregular triangle, 
 hollowed at the base by the action of the water which in such 
 storms as that of the preceding night was forced into it by the 
 rising of the sea. John Rex dared not crawl too near the edge, 
 lest he should slide out of the damp and slippery orifice, and be 
 dashed upon the rocks at the bottom of the Blow-hole. Craning 
 his neck, he could see, a hundred feet below him, the sullenly 
 frothing water, gurgling, spouting, and creaming, in huge turbid 
 eddies, occasionally leaping upwards as though it longed for 
 another storm to send it raging up to the man who had escaped 
 its fury. It was impossible to get down that way. He turned 
 back into the cavern, and began to explore in that direction. 
 
 The twin-rocks against which he had been hurled were, in 
 fact, pillars which supported the roof of the water-drive. 
 Beyond them lay a great grey shadow which was emptiness, 
 faintly illumined by the sea-light cast up through the bottom of 
 the gulf. Midway across the grey shadow fell a strange beam 
 of dusky brilliance, which cast its flickering light upon a 
 wilderness of waving sea-weeds. Even in the desperate posi- 
 tion in which he found himself, there sur\'ived in the vagabond's 
 nature sufflcient poetry to make him value the natural marvel 
 upon which he had so strangely stumbled. The immense 
 promontory, which, viewed from the outside, seemed as solid as 
 a mountain, was in reality but a hollow cone, reft and split into 
 a thousand fissures by the unsuspected action of the sea foi- 
 
 i 
 
THE WORK OF THE SEA. 345 
 
 centuries. The Blow-hole was but an insignificant cranny com- 
 pared with this enormous chasm. Descending with difficulty the 
 steep incline, he found himself on the brink of a gallery of rock, 
 which, jutting out over the pool, bore on its moist and weed- 
 bearded edges signs of frequent submersion. It must be low tide 
 without the rock. Clinging to the rough and root-like alg£e that 
 fringed the ever-moist walls, John Rex crept round the projec- 
 tion of the gallery, and passed at once from dimness to daylight. 
 There was a broad loop-hole in the side of the honey-combed 
 and wave-perforated cliff. The cloudless heaven expanded 
 above him ; a fresh breeze kissed his cheek, and, sixty feet 
 below him, the sea wrinkled all its lazy length, sparkling in 
 myriad wavelets beneath the bright beams of morning. Not 
 a sign of the recent tempest marred the exquisite harmony of 
 the picture. Not a sign of human life gave evidence of the 
 grim neighbourhood of the prison. From the recess out of 
 which he peered nothing was visible but a, sky of turquoise 
 smiling upon a sea of sapphire. 
 
 This placidity of Nature was, however, to the hunted convict 
 a new source of alarm. It was a reason why the Blow-hole and 
 its neighbourhood should be thoroughly searched. He guessed 
 that the favourable weather would be an additional inducement 
 to McNab and Burgess to satisfy themselves as to the fate of 
 their late prisoner. He turned from the opening, and prepared 
 to descend still farther into the rocky pathway. The sunshine 
 had revived and cheered him, and a sort of instinct told hixn 
 that the cliff so honey-combed above, could not be without some 
 gully or chink at its base, which at low tide would give upon 
 the rocky shore. It grew darker as he descended, and twice he 
 almost turned back in dread of the gulfs on either side of him. 
 It seemed to hin., also, that the gullet of weed-clad rock through 
 which he was crawling doubled upon itself, and led only into 
 the bowels of the mountain. Gnawed by hunger, and conscious 
 that in a few hours at most the rising tide would fill the sub- 
 terranean passage and cut off his retreat, he pushed desperately 
 onwards. He had descended some ninety feet, and had lost, in 
 the devious windings of his downward path, all but the reflec- 
 tion of the light from the gallery, when he was rewarded by a 
 glimpse of sunshine striking upwards. He parted two enor- 
 mous masses of seaweed, whose bubble-beaded fronds hung 
 curiainv.rise across his path, and found himself in the very 
 
346 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 middle of the narrow cleft of rock through which the sea was 
 driven to the Blow-hole. 
 
 At an immense distance above him was the arch of cliff. 
 Beyond that arch appeared a segment of the ragged edge of the 
 circular opening, down which he had fallen. He looked in vain 
 for the funnel-mouth whose friendly shelter had received him. 
 It was now indistinguishable. At his feet was a long reft in the 
 solid rock, so narrow that he could almost have leapt across it. 
 This reft was the channel of a swift black current which ran 
 from the sea for fifty yards under an arch eight feet high, until 
 it broke upon the jagged rocks that lay blistering in the sun- 
 shine at the bottom of the circular opening in the upper cliff. 
 A shudder shook the limbs of the adventurous convict. He 
 comprehended that at high tide the place where he stood was 
 under water, and that the narrow cavern became a subaqueous 
 pipe of solid rock forty feet long, through which were spouted 
 the league-long rollers of the Southern Sea. 
 
 The narrow strip of rock at the base of the cliff was as flat as 
 a table. Here and there were enormous hollows like pans, 
 which the retreating tide had left full of clear, still water. The 
 crannies of the rock were inhabited by small white crabs, and 
 John Rex found to his delight that there was on this little shelf 
 abundance of mussels, which, though lean and acrid, were 
 sufficiently grateful to his famished stomach. Attached to the 
 flat surfaces of the numerous stones, moreover, were coarse 
 limpets. These, however, John Rex found too salt to be palat- 
 able, and was compelled to reject them. A larger variety, 
 however, having a succulent body as thick as a man's thumb, 
 contained in long razor-shaped shells, were in some degree free 
 from this objection, and he soon collected the materials for a 
 meal. Having eaten and sunned himself, he began to examine 
 the enormous rock, to the base of which he had so strangely 
 penetrated. Rugged and worn, it raised its huge breast against 
 wind and wave, secure upon a broad pedestal, which probably 
 extended as far beneath the sea as the massive column itself 
 rose above it. Rising thus, with its shaggy drapery of sea-weed 
 clinging about its knees, it seemed to be a motionless but 
 sentient being— some monster of the deep, a Titan of the ocean 
 condemned ever to front in silence the fury of that illimitable 
 and rarely-travelled sea. Yet — silent and motionless as he was 
 — the hoary ancient gave hint of the mysteries of his revenge. 
 
THE WORK OF THE SEA. 347 
 
 Standing upon the broad and sea-girt platform wiiere surely 
 no human foot but his had ever stood in life, the convict saw, 
 many feet above him, pitched into a cavity of the huge sun- 
 blistered boulders, an object which his sailor eye told him at 
 once was part of the top hamper of some large ship. Crusted 
 with shells, and its ruin so overrun with the ivy of the ocean, 
 that its ropes could barely be distinguished from the weeds with 
 which they were encumbered, this relic of human labour 
 at'tested the triumph of nature over human ingenuity. Per- 
 forated below by the relentless sea, exposed above to the full 
 fur>' of the tempest ; set in solitary defiance to the waves, that 
 rolling from, the ice-volcano of the Southern pole, hurled their 
 gathered might unchecked upon its iron front, the great rock 
 drew from its lonely warfare the materials of its own silent 
 vengeance. Clasped in iron arms, it held its prey, snatched 
 from the jaws of the all-devouring sea. One might imagine 
 that, when the doomed ship, with her crew of shrieking souls, 
 had splintered and gone down, the deaf, blind giant had 
 clutched this fragment, upheaved from the seething waters, 
 with a thrill of savage and terrible joy. 
 
 John Rex, gazing up at this memento of a forgotten agony, 
 felt a sensation of the most vulgar pleasure. " There's wood 
 for my fire ! " thought he; .and mounting to the spot, he essayed 
 to fling down the splinters of timber upon the platform. Long 
 exposed to the sun, and flung high above the water-mark of 
 recent storms, the timber had dried to the condition of touch- 
 wood, and would burn fiercely. It was precisely what he 
 required. Strange accident that had for years stored, upon a 
 desolate rock, this fragment of a vanished and long- forgotten 
 vessel, that it might aid at last to warm the limbs of a villain 
 escaping from justice ! 
 
 Striking the disintegrated mass with his iron-shod heel, John 
 Rex broke off convenient portions ; and making a bag of his 
 shirt, by tying the sleeves and neck, he was speedily stagger- 
 ing into the cavern with a supply of fuel He made two trips, 
 flinging down the wood in the floor of the gallery that over- 
 looked the sea, and was returning for a third, when his quick 
 ear caught the dip of oars. He had barely time to lift the sea- 
 v.ced curtain that veiled the entrance to the chasm, when the 
 Eaglehawk boat rounded the promontory. Burgess was in the 
 stem-sheets, and seemed to be making signals to some one on 
 
348 ins NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 the top of the cliff. Rex, grinning behind his veil, divined the 
 manoeuvre. McNab and his party were to search above, while 
 the Commandant examined the gulf below. The boat headed 
 direct for the passage, and, for an instant, John Rex's undaunted 
 soul shivered at the thought that, perhaps after all, his pursuers 
 might be aware of the existence of the cavern. Yet that was 
 unlikely. He kept his ground, and the boat passed within a 
 foot of him, gliding silently into the gulf. He observed that 
 Burgess's usually florid face was pale, and that his left sleeve 
 was cut open, showing a bandage on the arm. There had been 
 some fighting, then, and it was not unlikely that his fellow- 
 desperadoes had been captured ! He chuckled at his own 
 ingenuity and good sense. The boat, emerging from the arch- 
 way, entered the pool of the Blow-hole, and, held with the full 
 strength of the party, remained stationary. John Rex watched 
 Burgess scan the rocks and eddies, saw him signal to McNab, 
 and then, with much relief, beheld the boat's head brought 
 round to the sea-board. 
 
 He was so intent upon watching this dangerous and difficult 
 operation, that he was oblivious of an extraordinary change 
 which had taken place in the interior of the cavern. The 
 water, which, an hour ago, had left exposed a long reef of black 
 hummock-rocks, was now spread in one foam-flecked sheet 
 over the ragged bottom of the rude staircase by which he had 
 descended. The tide had turned, and the sea, apparently 
 sucked in through some deeper tunnel in the portion of the cliff 
 which was below water, was being forced into the vault with a 
 rapidity which bid fair to shortly submerge the mouth of the cave. 
 The convict's feet were already wetted by the incoming waves, 
 and as he turned for one last look at the boat, he saw a green 
 billow heave up against the entrance to the chasm, and, almost 
 blotting out the daylight, roll majestically through the arch. It 
 was high time for Burgess to take his departure if he did not 
 wish his whale-boat to be cracked like a nut against the roof of 
 the tunnel. Alive to his danger, the Commandant abandoned 
 the search after his late prisoner's corpse, and hastened to gain 
 the open sea. The boat, carried backwards and upwards on 
 the bosom of a monstrous wave, narrowly escaped destruction, 
 and John Rex, climbing to the gallery, saw with much satisfac- 
 tion the broad back of his outwitted gaoler disappear round the 
 sheltering promontory. The last efforts of his pursuers hati 
 
THE WORK OF THE SEA. 349 
 
 failed, and in another hour the only accessible entrance to the 
 convict's retreat was hidden under three feet of furious sea- 
 water. 
 
 His gaolers were convinced of his death, and would search 
 for him no more. So far, so good. Now for the last desperate ' 
 venture — the escape from the wonderful cavern which was at 
 once his shelter and his prison. Piling his wood together, and 
 succeeding after many efforts, by aid of a flint and the ring 
 which yet clung to his ankle, in lighting a fire, and warming 
 his chilled limbs in its cheering blaze, he set himself to meditate 
 upon his course of action. He was safe for the present, and 
 the supply of food that the rock afforded was amply sufficient 
 to sustain life in him for many days, but it was impossible that 
 he could remain for many days concealed. He had no fresh 
 water, and though, by reason of the soaking he had received, 
 he had hitherto felt little inconvenience from this cause, the 
 salt and acrid mussels speedily induced a raging thirst, which 
 he could not alleviate. It was imperative that within forty- 
 eight hours at farthest he should be on his way to the peninsula. 
 He remembered the little stream into which — in his flight of 
 the previous night — he had so nearly fallen, and hoped to be 
 able, under cover of the darkness, to steal round the reef and 
 reach it unobserved. His desperate scheme was then to 
 commence. He had to run the gauntlet of the dogs and 
 guards, gain the peninsula, and await the rescuing vessel. He 
 confessed to himself that the chances were terribly against him. 
 If Gabbett and the others had been recaptured — as he d&voutly 
 trusted — the coast would be comparatively clear ; but if they 
 had escaped, he knew Burgess too well to think that he would 
 give up the chase while hope of re-taking the absconders re- 
 mained to him. If indeed all fell out as he had wished, he 
 had still to sustain life until Blunt found him — if haply Blunt 
 had not returned, wearied with useless and dangerous waiting. 
 
 As night came on, and the firelight showed strange shadows 
 waving from the corners of the enormous vault, while the 
 dismal abysses beneath him mumiured and muttered with 
 uncouth and ghastly utterances, there fell upon the lonely man 
 the terror of Solitude. Was this marvellous hiding place that 
 he had discovered to be his sepulchre ? Was he — a monster 
 amongst his fellow-men — to die some monstrous death, en- 
 tombed in this mysterious and terrible cavern of the sea ? He 
 
350 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 tried to drive away these gloomy thoughts by sketching out 
 for himself a plan of action— but in vain. In vain he strove to 
 picture in its completeness that — as yet vague — design by which 
 he promised himself to wrest from the vanished son of the 
 wealthy shipbuilder his name and heritage. His mind, filled 
 with forebodings of shadowy horror, could not give to the 
 subject the calm consideration which it needed. In the midst 
 of his schemes for the baffling of the jealous love of the woman 
 who was to save him, and the getting to England, in ship- 
 wrecked and foreign guise, as the long-lost heir to the fortune 
 of Sir Richard Devine, there arose ghastly and awesome shapes 
 of death and horror, with whose terrible unsubstantiality he 
 must grapple in the lonely recesses of that dismal cavern. He 
 heaped fresh wood upon his fire, that the bright light might 
 drive out the gruesome things that lurked above, below, and 
 around him. He became afraid to look behind him, lest some 
 shapeless mass of mid-sea birth — some voracious polype, with 
 far-reaching arms and jellied mouth ever open to devour — 
 might slide up over the edge of the dripping caves below, and 
 fasten upon him in the darkness. His imagination — always 
 sufficiently vivid, and spurred to unnatural effect by the 
 exciting scenes of the previous night — painted each patch of 
 shadow, clinging bat-like to the humid wall, as some globular 
 sea-spider ready to drop upon him with its viscid and clay-cold 
 body, and drain out his chilled blood, enfolding him in rough 
 and hairy arms. Each splash in the water beneath him, each 
 sigh of the multitudinous and melancholy sea, seemed to pre- 
 lude the laborious advent of some mis-shapen and ungainly 
 abortion of the ooze. All the sensations induced by lapping 
 water and regurgitating waves took material shape and sur- 
 rounded him. All creatures that could be engendered by slime 
 and salt crept forth into the firelight to stare at him. Red dabs 
 and splashes that were living beings, having a strange phos- 
 phoric light of their own, glowed upon the floor. The livid 
 encrustations of a hundred years of humidity slipped from off" 
 the walls and painfully heaved their mushroom surfaces to the 
 blaze. The red glow of the unwonted fire, crimsoning the wet 
 sides of the cavern, seemed to attract countless blisterous and 
 transparent shapelessnesses, which elongated themselves to- 
 wards him. Bloodless and bladdery things ran hither and 
 thither noiselessly. Strange carnpaces crawled from out of the 
 
THE WORK OF THE SEA. 351 
 
 rocks. All the horrible unseen life of the ocean seemed to be 
 rising up and surrounding him. He retreated to the brink of 
 the gulf, and the glare of the upheld brand fell upon a rounded 
 hummock, whose coronal of silky weed out-floating in the 
 water looked like the head of a drowned man. He rushed 
 to the entrance of the gallery, and his shadow, thrown into 
 the opening, took the shape of an avenging phantom, with 
 arms upraised to warn him back. 
 
 The naturalist, the explorer, or the ship-wrecked seaman 
 would have found nothing frightful in this exhibition of the 
 harmless life of the Australian ocean. But the convict's guilty 
 conscience, long suppressed and derided, asserted itself in this 
 hour when it was alone with Nature and Night. The bitter 
 intellectual power which had so long supported him succumbed 
 beneath imagination — the unconscious religion of the soul. If 
 ever he was nigh repentance it was then. Phantoms of his 
 past crimes gibbered at him, and covering his eyes with his 
 hands, he fell shuddering upon his knees. The brand, loosen- 
 ing from his grasp, dropped into the gulf, and was extinguished 
 with a hissing noise. As if the sound had called up some 
 spirit that lurked below, a whisper ran through the cavern. 
 
 "John Rex!" 
 
 The hair of the convict's flesh stood up, and he cowered to 
 the earth. 
 
 " John Rex ! » 
 
 It was a hu7nan voice ! Whether of friend or enemy he did 
 not pause to think. His terror over-mastered all other con- 
 siderations. 
 
 " Here ! here ! " he cried, and sprang to the opening of the 
 vault. 
 
 Arrived at the foot of the cliff, Blunt and Staples found them- 
 selves in almost complete darkness, for the light of the 
 mysterious fire, which had hitherto guided them, had neces- 
 sarily disappeared. Calm as was the night, and still as was 
 the ocean, the sea yet ran with silent but dangerous strength 
 through the channel which led to the Blow-hole ; and Blunt, 
 instinctively feeling the boat drawn towards some unknown 
 peril, held oflf the shelf of rocks out of reach of the current. A 
 sudden flash of fire, as from a flourished brand, burst out above 
 them, and floating downwards through the darkness, in erratic 
 
352 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 circles, came an atom of burning wood. Surely no one but a 
 hunted man would lurk in such a savage retreat. 
 
 Blunt, in desperate anxiety, determined to risk all upon one 
 venture. "John Rex!" he shouted up through his rounded 
 hands. The light flashed again at the eye-hole of the moun- 
 tain, and on the point above them appeared a wild figure, 
 holding in its hands a burning log, whose fierce glow illumined 
 a face so contorted by deadly fear and agony of expectation, 
 that it was scarce human. 
 " Here ! here ! " 
 
 " The poor devil seems half-crazy," said Will Staples, under 
 his breath ; and then aloud, " We're FRIENDS ! " 
 
 A few moments sufficed to explain matters. The terrors 
 which had oppressed John Rex disappeared in human pre- 
 sence, and the villain's coolness returned. Kneeling on the 
 rock platform, he held parley. 
 
 " It is impossible for me to come down now," he said. "The 
 tide covers the only way out of the cavern." 
 
 " Can't you dive through it ? " said Will Staples. 
 "No, nor you neither," said Rex, shuddering at the thought 
 of trusting himself to that horrible whirlpool. 
 
 "What's to be done ? You can't come down that wall." 
 " Wait until morning," returned Rex, coolly. " It will be 
 dead low tide at seven o'clock. You must send a boat at six, 
 or thereabouts. It will be low enough for me to get out, I dare 
 say, by that time." 
 " But the Guard .? " 
 
 " Won't come here, my man. They've got their work to 
 
 do in watching the Neck and exploring after my mates. They 
 won't come here. Besides, I'm dead." 
 " Dead ! " 
 
 " Thought to be so, which is as well — better for me, perhaps. 
 If they don't see your ship, or your boat, you're safe enough." 
 
 " I don't like to risk it," said Blunt, " It's Life if we're 
 caught, remember." 
 
 "It's Death if /'w caught!" returned the other, with a 
 sinister laugh. " But there's no danger if you are cautious. 
 No one looks for rats in a terrier's kennel, and there's not a 
 station along the beach from here to Cape Pillar. Take your 
 vessel out of eye-shot of the Neck, bring the boat up Descent 
 Beach, and the thing's done." 
 
THE WORK OF THE SEA. 353 
 
 '' Well," says Blunt, " I'll try it." 
 
 "You wouldn't like to stop here till morning ? It is rather 
 lonely," suggested Rex, absolutely making a jest of his late 
 terrors. 
 
 Will Staples laughed. " You're a bold boy ! " said he. 
 " We'll come at daybreak. " 
 
 '■' Have you got the clothes as I directed } " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "Then good-night. I'll put my fire out, in case somebody 
 else might see it, who wouldn't be as kind as you are." 
 
 " Good-night." 
 
 " Not a word for the Madam," said Staples, when they 
 reached the vessel. 
 
 " Not a word, the ungrateful dog," assented Blunt ; adding, 
 with some heat, " That's the way with women. They'll go 
 through fire and water for a man that doesn't care a snap of his 
 fingers for 'em ; but for any poor fellow who risks his neck to 
 pleasure 'em they've nothing but sneers ! I wish I'd never 
 meddled in the business." 
 
 "There are no fools like old fools," thought Will Staples, 
 looking back through the darkness at the place where the fire 
 had been, but he did not utter his thoughts aloud. 
 
 At eight o'clock the next morning the Pretty Mary stood out 
 to sea with every stitch of canvas set, alow and aloft. The 
 skipper's fishing had come to an end. He had caught a ship- 
 wrecked seaman, who had been brought on board at daylight, 
 and was then at breakfast in the cabin. The crew winked at 
 each other when the haggard mariner, attired in garments that 
 seemed remarkably well preserved, mounted the side. But 
 they, none of them, were in a position to controvert the skipper's 
 statement. 
 
 " Where are we bound for ? " asked John Rex, smoking 
 Staples' pipe in lingering puffs of delight. " I'm entirely in 
 your hands, my worthy Blunt." 
 
 " My orders are to cruise about the whaling grounds until 
 I meet my consort," returned Blunt, sullenly, " and put you 
 aboard her. She'll take you back to Sydney. I'm victualled 
 for a twelvemonth's trip." 
 
 " Right ! " cried Rex, clapping his preserver on the back. 
 " I'm bound to get to Sydney somehow ; but, as the Philistines 
 
 23 
 
354 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 are abroad, I may as well tarry in Jericho till my beard be 
 grown. Don't stare at my scriptural quotation, Mr. Staples," 
 he added, inspirited by creature comforts, and secure amid his 
 purchased friends. " I assure you that I've had the very best 
 religious instruction. Indeed, it is chiefly owing to my worthy 
 spiritual pastor and master that I am enabled to smoke this 
 very villainous tobacco of yours at the present moment 1 " 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 
 
 IT was not until they had scrambled up the beach to safety 
 that the absconders became fully aware of the loss of 
 another of their companions. As they stood on the break 
 of the beach, wringing the water from their clothes, Gabbett's 
 small eye, counting their number, missed the stroke oar. 
 
 " Where's Cox ? " 
 
 ** The fool fell overboard," said Jemmy Vetch, shortly. " He 
 never had as much sense in that skull of his as would keep it 
 sound on his shoulders." 
 
 Gabbett scowled. " That's three of us gone," he said, in the 
 tones of a man suffering some personal injury. 
 
 They summed up their means of defence against attack. 
 Sanders and Greenhill had knives. Gabbett still retained the 
 axe in his belt. Vetch had dropped his musket at the Neck ; 
 and Bodenham and Cornelius were unarmed. 
 
 " Let's have a look at the tucker," said Vetch. 
 
 There was but one bag of provisions. It contained a piece 
 of salt pork, two loaves, and some uncooked potatoes. Signal 
 Hill station was not rich in edibles. 
 
 " That ain't much," said the Crow, with rueful face. " Is it, 
 Gabbett ? " 
 
 " It must do, any way," returned the giant carelessly. 
 
 The inspection over, the six proceeded up the shore, and 
 encamped under the lee of a rock. Bodenham was for lighting 
 a fire, but Vetch, who by tacit consent had been chosen leader 
 of the expedition, forbade it, saying that the light might betray 
 them. "They'll think we're drowned, and won't pursue us," 
 
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 355 
 
 he said. So all that night the miserable wretches crouched 
 fireless together. 
 
 Morning breaks clear and bright, and — free for the first time 
 in ten years — they comprehend that their terrible journey has 
 begun. " Where are we to go ? — How are we to live ? " asks 
 Bodenham, scanning the barren bush that stretches to the 
 barren sea. *' Gabbett, you've been out before — how's it 
 done ? " 
 
 " We'll make the shepherds' huts, and live on their tucker till 
 we get a change 0' clothes," said Gabbett, evading the main 
 question. "We can follow the coast line." 
 
 " Steady, lads," said prudent Vetch ; " we must sneak round 
 yon sandhills, and so creep into the scrub. If they've a good 
 glass at the Neck, they can see us." 
 
 " It does seem close," said Bodenham ; " I could pitch a 
 stone on to the guard-house. Good-bye, you Bloody Spot ! " he 
 adds, with sudden rage, shaking his fist vindictively at the 
 Penitentiary ; " I don't want to see you no more till the Day o' 
 Judgment." 
 
 Vetch divides the provisions, and they travel all that day 
 until dark night. The scrub is prickly and dense. Their 
 clothes are torn, their hands and feet bleeding. Already they 
 feel out-wearied. No one pursuing, they light a fire, and sleep. 
 The second day they come to a sandy spit that runs out into 
 the sea, and find that they have got too far to the eastward, and 
 must follow the shore line to East Bay Neck. Back through 
 the scrub they drag their heavy feet. That night they eat the 
 last crumb of the loaf. The third day at high noon — after some 
 toilsome walking they reach a big hill, now called Collins* 
 Mount, and see the upper link of the earring, the isthmus of 
 East Bay Neck at their feet. A few rocks are on their right 
 hand, and blue in the lovely distance lies hated Maria Island. 
 " We must keep well to the eastward," said Greenhill, " or we 
 shall fall in with the settlers and get taken." So, passing the 
 isthmus, they strike into the bush along the shore, and tighten- 
 ing their belts over their gnawing bellies, camp under some low- 
 lying hills. 
 
 The fourth day is notable for the indisposition of Bodenham, 
 who is a bad walker, and falling behind, delays the par«y by 
 frequent cooeys. Gabbett threatens him with a worse fate than 
 
356 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 sore feet if he lingers. Luckily, that evening GreenhiU espies a 
 hut, but not trusting to the friendship of the occupant, they wait 
 until he quits it in the morning, and then send Vetch to forage. 
 Vetch, secretly congratulating himself on having by his counsel 
 prevented violence, returns bending under half a bag of flour. 
 " You'd better carry the flour," said he to Gabbett, " and give 
 me the axe." Gabbett eyes him for a while, as if struck by his 
 puny form, but finally gives the axe to his mate Sanders. That 
 day they creep along cautiously between the sea and the hills, 
 camping at a creek. Vetch, after much search, finds a handful 
 of berries, and adds them to the main stock. Half of this 
 handful is eaten at once, the other half reserved for " to- 
 morrow." The next day they come to an arm of the sea, and 
 as they struggle northward, Maria Island disappears, and with 
 it all danger from telescopes. That evening they reach the 
 camping ground by twos and threes ; and each wonders — 
 between the paroxysms of hunger — if his face is as haggard, 
 and his eyes as bloodshot, as those of his neighbour. 
 
 On the seventh day, Bodenham says his feet are so bad he 
 can't walk, and Greenhill, with a greedy look at the berries, bids 
 him stay behind. Being in a very weak condition he takes his 
 companion at his word, and drops off about noon the next day. 
 Gabbett, discovering this defection, however, goes back, and in 
 an hour or so appears, driving the wretched creature before him 
 with blows, as a sheep is driven to the shambles. Greenhill 
 remonstrates at another mouth being thus forced upon the party, 
 but the giant silences him with a hideous glance. Jemmy Vetch 
 remembers that Greenhill accompanied Gabbett once before, 
 and feels uncomfortable. He gives hint of his suspicions to 
 Sanders, but Sanders only laughs. It is horribly evident that 
 there is an understanding among the three. 
 
 The ninth sun of their freedom, rising upon sandy and barren 
 hillocks, bristling thick with cruel scrub, sees the six famine- 
 stricken wretches cursing their God, and yet afraid to die. All 
 around is the fruitless, shadeless, shelterless bush. Above, the 
 pitiless heaven. In the distance, the remorseless sea. Some- 
 thing terrible must happen. That grey wilderness, arched by 
 grey heaven stooping to grey sea, is a fitting keeper of hideous 
 secrets. Vetch suggests that Oyster Bay cannot be far to the 
 eastward — the line of ocean is deceitfully close— and though 
 such a proceeding will take them out of their course, they 
 
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 357 
 
 resolve to make for it. After hobbling five miles, they seem no 
 nearer than before, and, nigh dead with fatigue and starvation, 
 sink despairingly upon the ground. Vetch thinks Gabbetfs 
 eyes have a wolfish glare in them, and instinctively draws off 
 from him. Said Greenhill, in the course of a dismal conver- 
 sation, " I am so weak that I could eat a piece of a man." 
 
 On the tenth day Bodenham refuses to stir, and the others, 
 being scarce able to drag along their limbs, sit on the ground 
 about him. Greenhill, eyeing the prostrate man, said, slowly, 
 " I have seen the same done before, boys, and it tasted like 
 pork." 
 
 Vetch, hearing his savage comrade give utterance to a 
 thought all had secretly cherished, speaks out, crying, " It 
 would be murder to do it, and then, perhaps we couldn't eat 
 it." 
 
 " Oh," said Gabbett, with a grin, " I'll warrant you that, but 
 you must all have a hand in it." 
 
 Gabbett, Sanders, and Greenhill then go aside, and presently 
 Sanders, coming to the Crow, said, " He consented to act as 
 flogger. He deserves it." 
 
 " So did Gabbett, for that matter," shudders Vetch. 
 
 " Ay, but Bodenham's feet are sore," said Sanders, " and 'tis 
 a pity to leave him." 
 
 Having no fire, they made a little breakwind ; and Vetch, 
 half-dozing behind this at about three in the morning, hears 
 some one cry out " Christ ! " and awakes, sweating ice. 
 
 No one but Gabbett and Greenhill would eat that night. 
 That savage pair, however, make a fire, fling ghastly fragments 
 on the embers, and eat the broil before it is right warm. In 
 the morning the frightful carcase is divided. 
 
 That day's march takes place in silence, and at the mid-day 
 halt Cornelius volunteers to carry the billy, affecting great 
 restoration from the food. Vetch gives it to him, and in half 
 an hour afterwards Cornelius is missing. Gabbett and Green- 
 hill pursue him in vain, and return with curses. " He'll die 
 like a dog," said Greenhill, " alone in the bush." Jemmy Vetch, 
 with his intellect acute as ever, thinks that Cornelius prefers 
 such a death to the one in store for him, but says nothing. 
 
 The twelfth morning dawns wet and misty, but Vetch, seeing 
 the provision running short, strives to be cheerful, telling stories 
 of men who have escaped greater peril. Vetch feels with 
 
358 BIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 dismay that he is the weakest of the party, but has some sort 
 of ludicro-horrible consolation in remembering that he is also 
 the leanest. They come to a creek that afternoon, and look, 
 until nightfall, in vain for a crossing-place. The next day 
 Gabbett and Vetch swim across, and Vetch directs Gabbett to 
 cut a long sapling, which, being stretched across the water, is 
 seized by Greenhill and the Moocher, who are dragged over. 
 
 " What would you do without me ? " said the Crow with a 
 ghastly grin. 
 
 They cannot kindle a fire, for Greenhill, who carries the 
 tinder, has allowed it to get wet. The giant swings his axe in 
 savage anger at enforced cold, and Vetch takes an opportunity 
 to remark privately to him, what a big man Greenhill is. 
 
 On the fourteenth day they can scarcely crawl, and their 
 limbs pain them. Greenhill, who is the weakest, sees Gabbett 
 and the Moocher go aside to consult, and crawling to the Crow, 
 whimpers : " For God's sake, Jemmy, don't let 'em murder 
 me!" 
 
 " I can't help you," says Vetch, looking about in terror. 
 " Think of poor Tom Bodenham." 
 
 "But he was no murderer. If they kill me, I shall go to 
 hell with Tom's blood on my soul." 
 
 He writhes on the ground in sickening terror, and Gabbett 
 arriving, bids Vetch bring wood for the fire. Vetch, going, 
 sees Greenhill clinging to wolfish Gabbett's knees, and Sanders 
 calls after him, "You will hear it presently, Jem." 
 
 The nei-vous Crow puts his hands to his ears, but is conscious, 
 nevertheless, of a dull crash and a groan. When he comes 
 back, Gabbett is putting on the dead man's shoes, which are 
 better than his own. 
 
 " We'll stop here a day or so and rest," said he, " now we've 
 got provisions." 
 
 Two more days pass, and the three, eyeing each other sus- 
 piciously, resume their march. The third day— the sixteenth 
 of their awful journey — such portions of the carcase as they 
 have with them prove unfit to eat. They look into each other's 
 famine -sharpened faces, and wonder "who next?" 
 
 "We must all die together," said Sanders quickly, "before 
 anything else must happen." 
 
 Vetch marks the terror concealed in the words, and when 
 
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 359 
 
 the dreaded giant is out of earshot, says, " For God's sake, 
 let's go on alone, Alick. You see what sort of a cove that 
 Gabbett is — he'd kill his father before he'd fast one day." 
 
 They made for the bush, but the giant turned and strode 
 towards them. Vetch skipped nimbly on one side, but Gabbett 
 struck the Moocher on the forehead with the axe. "Help ! 
 Jem, help ! " cried the victim, cut, but not fatally, and in the 
 strength of his desperation tore the axe from the monster who 
 bore it, and flung it to Vetch. " Keep it, Jemmy," he cried, 
 " let's have no more murder done ! " 
 
 They fare again through the horrible bush until nightfall, 
 when Vetch, in a strange voice, called the giant to him. 
 
 '•' He must die." 
 
 " Either you or he," laughs Gabbett. " Give me the axe. 
 
 " No, no," said the Crow, his thin, malignant face distorted 
 by a horrible resolution. " /'U keep the axe. Stand back ! 
 You shall hold him, and I'll do the job." 
 
 Sanders, seeing them approach, knew his end was come, 
 and submitted, crying, " Give me half an hour to pray for 
 myself." They consent, and the bewildered wretch knelt down 
 and folded his hands Hke a child. His big, stupid face worked 
 with emotion. His great cracked lips moved in desperate 
 agony. He wagged his head from side to side, in pitiful con- 
 fusion of his brutalized senses. " I can't think o' the words, 
 Jem ! " 
 
 " Pah," snarled the cripple, swinging the axe, " we can't 
 btarve here all night." 
 
 Four days had passed, and the two survivors of this awful 
 journey sat watching each other. The gaunt giant, his eyes 
 gleaming with hate and hunger, sat sentinel over the dwarf. 
 The dwarf, chuckling at his superior sagacity, clutched the 
 fatal axe. For two days they had not spoken to each other. 
 For two days each had promised himself that on the next his 
 companion must sleep — and die. Vetch comprehended the 
 devilish scheme of the monster who had entrapped five of his 
 fellow-beings to aid him by their deaths to his own safety, and 
 held aloof. Gabbett watched to snatch the weapon from his 
 companion, and make the odds even for once and for ever. 
 In the day-time they travelled on, seeking each a pretext to 
 creep behind the other. In the night-time when they feigned 
 slumber, each stealthily raising a head caught the wakeful 
 
36o HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 glance of his companion. Vetch felt his strength deserting 
 him, and his brain overpowered by fatigue. Surely the giant, 
 muttering, gesticulating, and slavering at the mouth, was on the 
 road to madness. Would the monster find opportunity to rush 
 at him, and, braving the blood-stained axe, kill him by main 
 force.? or would he sleep, and be himself a victim ? Unhappy 
 Vetch ! It is the terrible privilege of insanity to be sleepless. 
 
 On the fifth day, Vetch, creeping behind a tree, takes off his 
 belt, and makes a noose. He will hang himself. He gets one 
 end of the belt over a bough, and then his cowardice bids him 
 pause. Gabbett approaches : he tries to evade him, and steal 
 away into the bush. In vain. The insatiable giant, ravenous 
 with famine, and sustained by madness, is not to be shaken 
 off. Vetch tries to run, but his legs bend under him. The 
 axe that has tried to drink so much blood feels heavy as lead. 
 He will fling it away. No — he dares not. Night falls again. 
 He must rest, or go mad. His limbs are powerless. His 
 eyelids are glued together. He sleeps as he stands. This 
 horrible thing must be a dream. He is at Port Arthur, or 
 will wake on his pallet in the penny lodging-house he slept at 
 when a boy. Is that the Deputy come to wake him to the 
 torment of living ? It is not time — surely not time yet. He 
 sleeps — and the giant, grinning with ferocious joy, approaches 
 on clumsy tiptoe and seizes the coveted axe. 
 
 On the north-east coast of Van Diemen's Land is a place 
 called St. Helen's Point, and a certain skipper, being in want 
 of fresh water, landing there with a boat's crew, found on the 
 banks of the creek a gaunt and blood-stained man, clad in 
 tattered yellow, who carried on his back an axe and a bundle. 
 When the sailors came within sight of him, he made signs to 
 them to approach, and opening his bundle with much ceremony 
 offered them some of its contents. Filled with horror at what 
 the maniac displayed, they seized and bound him. At Hobart 
 Town he was recognized as the only survivor of the nine 
 desperadoes who had escaped from Colonel Arthur's " Natural 
 Penitentiary." 
 
 END OF BOOK THE THIRD. 
 
BOOK IV. 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 XJ 
 
 EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF THE REV. JAMES NORTH. 
 
 Bathurst, February ixth, 1846. 
 
 IN turning over the pages of my journal, to note the good 
 fortune that has just happened to me, I am struck by the 
 utter desolation of my life for the last seven years. 
 
 Can it be possible that I, James North, the college-hero, 
 the poet, the prizeman, the heaven knows what else, have been 
 content to live on at this dreary spot — an animal, eating and 
 drinking, for to-morrow I die .^ Yet it has been so. My world, 
 that world of which I once dreamt so much, has been — here. 
 My fame — which was to reach the ends of the earth- —has pene- 
 trated to the neighbouring stations. I am considered a " good 
 preacher " by my sheep-feeding friends. It is kind of them. 
 
 Yet, on the eve of leaving it, I confess that this solitary life 
 has not been without its charms. I have had my books and my 
 thoughts — though at times the latter were but grim companions. 
 I have striven with my familiar sin, and have not always been 
 worsted. Melancholy reflection. " Not always ! " ^'■Butyti" 
 is as a jailer to bring forth some monstrous malefactor. I 
 vowed, however, that I would not cheat myself in this diar)- ol 
 mine, and I will not. No evasions, no glossings over of my 
 own sins. This journal is my confessor, and I bare my heart 
 to it. 
 
 It is curious the pleasure I feel in setting down here in black 
 
362 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 and white these agonies and secret cravings of which I dare not 
 speak. It is for the same reason, I suppose, that murderers 
 make confession to dogs and cats, that people with something 
 " on their mind " are given to thinking aloud, that the queen of 
 Midas must needs whisper to the sedges the secret of her hus- 
 band's infirmity. Outwardly I am a man of God, pious and grave 
 and softly spoken. Inwardly — what? The mean, cowardly, 
 weak sinner that this book knows me. . . . Imp 1 I 
 could tear you in pieces ! . . . One of these days I will. 
 In the mean time, I will keep you under lock and key, and you 
 shall hug my secrets close. No, old friend, with whom I have 
 communed so long, forgive me, forgive me. You are to me 
 instead of wife or priest. I tell to your cold blue pages — how 
 much was it I bought you for in Paramatta, rascal ? — these 
 stories, longings, remorses, which I would fain tell to human ear 
 could I find a human being as discreet as thou. It has been 
 said that a man dare not write all his thoughts and deeds ; the 
 words would blister the paper. Yet your sheets are smooth 
 enough, you fat rogue ! Our neighbours of Rome know humr'n 
 nature. A man must confess. One reads of wretches who have 
 carried secrets in their bosoms for years, and blurted them forth 
 at last I, shut up here without companionship, without sym- 
 pathy, without letters, cannot lock up my soul, and feed on my 
 own thoughts. They will out, and so I whisper them to thee. 
 
 What art thou, thou tremendous power 
 Who dost inhabit us without our leave. 
 And art, within ourselves, another self, 
 A master self that loves to domineer ? 
 
 What ? Conscience ? That is a word to frighten children. 
 The conscience of each man is of his own making. My friend 
 the shark-toothed cannibal whom Staples brought in his whaler 
 to Sydney would have found his conscience reproach him sorely 
 did he refuse to partake of the feasts made sacred by the 
 customs of his ancestors. A spark of divinity? The divinity 
 that, according to received doctrine, sits apart, enthroned amid 
 sweet music, and leaves poor humanity to earn its condemnation 
 as it may ? I'll have none of that — though I preach it. One 
 must soothe the vulgar senses of the people. Priesthood has its 
 " pious frauds." The Master spoke in parables. Wit ? The wit 
 that sees how ill-balanced are our actions and our aspirations ? 
 
DIARY OF THE REV. JAMES NORTH. 363 
 
 The devilish wit born of our own brain, that sneers at us for 
 our own faihngs ? Perhaps madness ? More likely, for there 
 are few men who are not mad one hour of the waking twelve. 
 If differing from the judgment of the majority of mankind in 
 regard to familiar things be madness, I suppose / am mad — or 
 too wise. The speculation draws near to hair-splitting. James 
 North, recall your early recklessness, your ruin, and your redemp- 
 tion ; bring your mind back to earth. Circumstances have made 
 you what you are, and will shape your destiny for you without 
 your interference. That's comfortably settled ! 
 
 Now supposing — to take another canter on my night-mare — 
 that man is the slave of circumstance (a doctrine which I am 
 inclined to believe, though unwilling to confess); what circum- 
 stance can have brought about the sudden awakening of the 
 powers that be to James North's fitness for duty.'' 
 
 "HOBART Town, Jan. 12th. 
 " Dear North, — I have much pleasure in informing you that you can 
 be appointed Protestant chaplain at Norfolk Island, if you like. It seems 
 that they did not get on well with the last man, and when my advice was 
 asked, I at once recommended you for the office. The pay is small, but 
 you have a house and so on. It is certainly better than Bathurst, and 
 indeed is considered rather a prize in the clerical lottery. 
 
 ' ' There is to be an investigation into affairs do\vn there. Poor old Pratt — 
 who went down, as you know, at the earnest solicitation of the Govern- 
 ment — seems to have become absurdly lenient with the prisoners, and it is 
 reported that the island is in a frightful state. Sir Eardley is looking out 
 for some disciplinarian to take the place in hand. 
 
 " In the mean time, the chaplaincy is vacant, and I thought of you." 
 
 I must consider this seeming good fortune further, 
 
 February 19th. — I accept. There is work to be done among 
 those unhappy men that may be my purgation. The authorities 
 shall hear me yet — though inquiry was stifled at Port Arthur. 
 By the way, a Pharaoh has arisen who knows not Joseph. It is 
 evident that the meddlesome parson, who complained of men 
 being flogged to death, is forgotten, as the men are ! How 
 many ghosts must haunt the dismal loneliness of that prison 
 shore ! Poor Burgess is gone the way of all flesh. I wonder if 
 his spirit revisits the scenes of its violences ? I have written 
 " poor " Burgess. 
 
 It is strange how we pity a man gone out of this life. Enmity 
 is extinguished when one can but remember injuries. If a man 
 
364 ^^-S" NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 had injured me, the fact of his living at all would be sufficient 
 grounds for me to hate him ; if I had injured him, I should hate 
 him still more. Is that the reason I hate myself at times— my 
 greatest enemy, and one whom I have injured beyond forgive- 
 ness? There are offences against one's own nature that are not 
 to be forgiven. Isn't it Tacitus who says "the hatred of those 
 most nearly related is most inveterate"? But — I am taking 
 flight again. 
 
 February 27th, 11.30 p.m. — Nine Creeks Station. I like to 
 be accurate in names, dates, etc. Accuracy is a virtue. To 
 exercise it, then. Station ninety miles from Bathurst. I should 
 say about 4,000 head of cattle. Luxury without refinement. 
 Plenty to eat, drink, and read. Hostess' name — Carr. She is a 
 well-preserved creature, about thirty-four years of age, and a 
 clever woman — not in a poetical sense, but in the widest worldly 
 acceptation of the term. At the same time, I should be sorry 
 to be her husband. Women have no business with a brain like 
 hers — that is, if they wish to be women and not sexual monsters. 
 Mrs. Carr is not a lady, though she might have been one. I 
 don't think she is a good woman either. It is possible, indeed, 
 that she has known the factory before now. There is a mystery 
 about her, for I was informed that she was a Mrs. Purfoy, the 
 widow of a whaling captain, and had married one of her assigned 
 servants, who had deserted her five years ago, as soon as he 
 obtained his freedom. A word or two at dinner set me thinking. 
 She had received some English papers, and, accounting for her 
 pre-occupied manner, grimly said, " I think I have news of my 
 husband." I should not like to be in Carr's shoes if she has 
 news of him 1 I don't think she would suffer indignity calmly. 
 After all, what business is it of mine ? I was beguiled into 
 taking more wine at dinner than I needed. Confessor, do you 
 hear me? But I will not allow myself to be carried away. You 
 grin, you fat familiar ! So may I, but I shall be eaten with 
 remorse to-morrow. 
 
 March 3rd. — A place called Jerrilang, where I have a head 
 and heartache. " One that hath let go himself from the hold 
 and stay of reason, and lies open to the mercy of all temptations." 
 
 March 20th. — Sydney. At Captain Frere's. — Seventeen days 
 since I have opened you, beloved and detested companion of 
 
DIARY OF THE REV. JAMES NORTH. 365 
 
 mine. I have more than half a mind to never open you again ! 
 To read you is to recall to myself all I would most willingly 
 forget ; yet not to read you would be to forget all that which I 
 should for my sins remember. 
 
 The last week has made a new man of me. I am no longer 
 morose, despairing, and bitter, but genial, and on good terms 
 with fortune. It is strange that accident should have induced 
 me to stay a week under the same roof with that vision of 
 brightness which has haunted me so long. A meeting in the 
 street, an introduction, an invitation — the thing is done. 
 
 The circumstances which form our fortunes are certainly 
 curious things. I had thought never again to meet the bright 
 young face to which I felt so strange an attraction— and lo ! 
 here it is smiling on me daily. Captain Frere should be a 
 happy man. Yet there is a skeleton is this house also. That 
 young wife, by nature so lovable and so mirthful, ought not to 
 have the sadness on her face that twice to-day has clouded it. 
 He seems a passionate and boorish creature, this wonderful 
 convict disciplinarian. His convicts — poor devils — are doubtless 
 disciplined enough. Charming little Sylvia, with your quaint 
 wit and weird beauty, he is not good enough for you — and yet it 
 was a love match. 
 
 March 21st. — I have read family prayers every night since I 
 have been here — my black coat and white tie gave me the 
 natural pre-eminence in such matters — and I feel guilty every 
 time I read. I wonder what the little lady of the devotional 
 eyes would say if she knew that I am a miserable hypocrite, 
 preaching that which I do not practise, exhorting others to 
 believe those marvels which I do not believe ? I am a coward 
 not to throw off the saintly mask, and appear as a Freethinker. 
 Yet, am I a coward ? I urge upon myself that it is for the glory 
 of God I hold my peace. The scandal of a priest turned infidel 
 would do more harm than the reign of reason would do good. 
 Imagine this trustful woman for instance — she would suffer 
 anguish at the thoughts of such a sin, though another were the 
 sinner. " If any one offend one of these little ones it were 
 better for him that a millstone be hanged about his neck and 
 that he be cast into the sea." Yet truth is truth, and should be 
 spoken— should it not, malignant monitor, who remindest me 
 how often I fail to speak it? Surely among all his army of 
 
366 HIS NA TURAL LIFE. 
 
 black-coats our worthy bishop must have some men like me, 
 who cannot bring their reason to believe in things contrary to the 
 experience of mankind and the laws of nature and physics. 
 
 March 22nd. — This unromantic Captain Frere has had some 
 romantic incidents in his life, and he is fond of dilating upon 
 them. It seems that in early life he expected to have been left 
 a large fortune by an uncle who had quarrelled with his heir. 
 But the uncle dies on the day fixed for the altering of the will, 
 the son disappears, and is thought to be drowned. The widow, 
 however, steadfastly refuses to believe in any report of the young 
 man's death, and having a life-interest in the property, holds it 
 against all comers. My poor host in consequence comes out 
 here on his pay, and, three years ago, just as he is hoping that 
 the death of his aunt may give him opportunity to enforce a 
 claim as next of kin to some portion of the property, the long- 
 lost son returns, is recognized by his mother and the trustees, 
 and installed in due heirship ! The other romantic story is 
 connected with Frere's marriage. He told me after dinner to- 
 night, how his wife had been wrecked when a child, and how 
 he had saved her life, and defended her from the rude hands of 
 an escaped convict — one of the monsters that our monstrous 
 system breeds. " That was how we fell in love," said he, tossing 
 off his wine complacently. 
 
 "An auspicious opportunity," said I. To which he nodded. 
 He is not overburdened with brains, I fancy. 
 
 Let me see if I can set down some account of this lovely place 
 and its people. 
 
 A long low white house, surrounded by a blooming garden. 
 Wide windows opening on a lawn. The ever glorious, ever 
 changing sea beneath. It is evening. I am talking with 
 Mrs. Frere, of theories of social reform, of picture galleries, 
 of sunsets, and new books. There comes a sound of wheels 
 on the gravel. It is the magistrate returned from his convict- 
 discipline. We hear him come briskly up the steps, but we 
 go on talking. ( I fancy there was a time when the lady 
 would have run to meet him. ) He enters, coldly kisses his 
 wife, and disturbs at once the current of our thoughts. "It 
 has been hot to-day. What, still no letter from Head-quarters, 
 Mr. North ! I saw Mrs. Golightly in town, Sylvia, and she 
 asked for you. There is to be a ball at Government House. 
 
DIARY OF THE REV. JAMES NORTH. 367 
 
 We must ^^0." Then he departs, and is heard in the distance 
 indistinctly cursing because the water is not hot enough, or 
 because Dawkins, his convict servant, has not brushed his 
 trousers sufficiently. We resume our chat, but he returns 
 all hungry, and bluff, and whisker-brushed. " Dinner. Ha-ha ! 
 I'm ready for it. North, take Mrs. Frere," By-and-by it is, 
 " North, some sherry? Sylvia, the soup is spoilt again. Did 
 you go out to-day.-* No?" His eyebrows contract here, and 
 I know he says inwardly, "Reading some trashy novel, I 
 suppose." However, he grins, and obligingly relates how the 
 police have captured Cockatoo Bill, the noted bushranger. 
 
 After dinner the disciplinarian and I converse — of dogs and 
 horses, gamecocks, convicts, and moving accidents by flood 
 and field. I remember old college feats, and strive to keep 
 pace with him in the relation of athletics. What hypocrites 
 we are ! — for all the time I am longing to get to the drawing- 
 room, and finish my criticism of the new poet, Mr. Tennyson, 
 to Mrs. Frere. Frere does not read Tennyson — nor anybody 
 else. Adjourned to the drawing-room, we chat — Mrs. Frere 
 and I — until supper. (He eats supper.) She is a charming 
 companion, and when I talk my best — I can talk, you must 
 admit, O Familiar — her face lightens up with an interest I 
 rarely see upon it at other times. I feel cooled and soothed 
 by this companionship. The quiet refinement of this house, 
 after bullocks and Bathurst, is like the shadow of a great 
 rock in a weary land. 
 
 Mrs. Frere is about five-and-twenty. She is rather beneath 
 the middle height, with a slight, girlish figure. This girlish 
 appearance is enhanced by the fact that she has bright fair 
 hair and blue eyes. Upon conversation with her, however, 
 one sees that her face has lost much of the delicate plumpness 
 which it probably owned in youth. She has had one child, 
 born only to die. Her cheeks are thin, and her eyes have 
 a tinge of sadness, which speak of physical pain or mental 
 grief This thinness of face makes the eyes appear larger 
 and the brow broader than they really are. Her hands are 
 white and painfully thin. They must have been plump and 
 pretty once. Her lips are red with perpetual fever. 
 
 Captain Frere seems to have absorbed all his wife's vitality. 
 (Who quotes the story of Lucius Claudius Hermippus, who 
 lived to a great age by being constantly breathed on by young 
 
368 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 girls? I suppose Burton — who quotes everything.) In pro- 
 portion as she has lost her vigour and youth, he has gained 
 strength and heartiness. Though he is at least forty years of 
 age, he does not look more than thirty. His face is ruddy, 
 his eyes bright, his voice firm and ringing. He must be a 
 man of considerable strength and — I should say — of more than 
 ordinary animal courage and animal appetite. There is not 
 a nerve in his body which does not twang like a piano wire. 
 In appearance, he is tall, broad, and bluff, with red whiskers 
 and reddish hair slightly touched with grey. His manner is 
 loud, coarse, and imperious ; his talk of dogs, horses, cocks, 
 and convicts. What a strangely-mated pair ! 
 
 March 30th. — A letter from Van Diemen's Land. " There 
 is a row in the pantry," said Frere, with his accustomed slang. 
 It seems that the Comptroller- General of Convicts has ap- 
 pointed a Mr. Pounce to go down and make a report on 
 the state of Norfolk Island. I am to go down with him, 
 and shall receive instructions to that effect from the Comp- 
 troller-General. I have informed Frere of this, and he has 
 written to Pounce to come and stay on his way down. There 
 has been nothing but convict discipline talked since. Frere 
 is great upon this point, and wearies me with his explanations 
 of convict tricks and wickedness. He is celebrated for his 
 knowledge of such matters. Detestable wisdom ! His servants 
 hate him, but they obey him without a murmur. I have ob- 
 served that habitual criminals — like all savage beasts — cower 
 before the man who has once mastered them. I should not 
 be surprised if the Van Diemen's Land Government selected 
 Frere as their " disciplinarian." I hope they won't, and yet I 
 hope they will. 
 
 April 4th. — Nothing worth recording until to-day. Eating, 
 drinking, and sleeping. Despite my forty-seven years, I begin 
 to feel almost like the James North who fought the bargee and 
 took the gold medal. \Vhat a drink water is ! 'Y\itfons Ban- 
 dusice splendidior vitreo was better than all the Massic, Master 
 Horace ! I doubt if your celebrated liquor, bottled when Man- 
 lius was consul, could compare with it. 
 
 But to my notable facts. I have found out to-night two things 
 which surprise me. One is that the convict who attempted the 
 
DIARY OF THE REV. JAMES NORTH. 369 
 
 life of Mrs. Frere is none other than the unhappy man whom my 
 fatal weakness caused to be flogged at Port Arthur, and whose 
 face comes before me to reproach me even now. The other that 
 Mrs. Carr is an old acquaintance ov" Frere's, The latter piece 
 of information I obtained in a curious way. One night, after 
 Mrs. Frere had retired, we were talking of clever women. I 
 broached my theory, that strong intellect in women went far to 
 destroy their womanly nature. 
 
 " Desire in man," said I, " should be Volition in women : 
 Reason, Intuition ; Reverence, Devotion ; Passion, Love. The 
 woman should strike a lower key-note, but a sharper sound. 
 Man has vigour of reason, woman quickness of feeling. The 
 woman who possesses masculine force of intellect is abnormal.'' 
 He did not half comprehend me, I could see, but he agreed with 
 the broad view of the case. " I only knew one woman who was 
 really ' strong-minded,' as they call it," he said, " and she was a 
 regular bad one." 
 
 " It does not follow that she should be bad^' said I. 
 
 "This one was, though — stock, lock, and barrel. But as 
 sharp as a needle, sir, and as immovable as a rock. A fine 
 woman, too." 
 
 I saw by the expression of the man's face that he owned ugly 
 memories, and pressed him further. " She's up country some- 
 where," he said. "Married her assigned servant, I was told, a 
 fellow named Carr. I haven't seen her for years, and don't 
 know what she may be like now, but in the days when I knew 
 her she was just what you describe." (Let it be noted that I 
 had described nothing.) " She came out in the ship with me 
 as maid to my wife's mother." 
 
 It was on the tip of my tongue to say that I had met her, but 
 I don't know what induced me to be silent. There are passages 
 in the lives of men of Captain Frere's complexion which don't 
 bear descanting on. I expect there has been in this case, for he 
 changed the subject abruptly, as his wife came in. Is it possible 
 that these two creatures — the notable disciplinarian and the wife 
 of the assigned servant — could have been more than friends in 
 youth? Quite possible. He is the sort of man for gross 
 amours. (A pretty way I am abusing my host !) And the 
 supple woman with the dark eyes would have been just the 
 creature to enthral him. Perhaps some such story as this may 
 account in part for Mrs. Frere's sad looks. UTiy do I speculate 
 
370 
 
 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 on such things ? I seem to do violence to myself and to insult 
 her by writing such suspicions. If I was a Flagellant now, I 
 would don hair-shirt and up flail. " For this sort cometh not 
 out but by prayer and fasting.'' 
 
 April 7th. — Mr. Pounce has arrived — full of the importance of 
 his mission. He walks with the air of a minister of state on the 
 eve of a vacant garter, hoping, wondering, fearing, and dignified 
 even in his dubitancy. I am as flippant as a school-girl con- 
 cerning this fatuous official, and yet — Heaven knows — I feel 
 deeply enough the importance of the task he has before him. 
 One relieves one's brain by these whirlings of one's mental 
 limbs. I remember that a prisoner at Hobart Town, twice con- 
 demned and twice reprieved, jumped and shouted with frenzied 
 vehemence when he heard his sentence of death finally pro- 
 nounced. He told me, if he had not so shouted, he believed 
 he would have gone mad. 
 
 April loth. — We had a state dinner last night. The conver- 
 sation was about nothing in the world but convicts. I never 
 saw Mrs. Frere to less advantage. Silent, distraite, and sad. 
 She told me after dinner that she disliked the very name of 
 " convict " from early associations. " I have lived among them 
 all my life," she said, " but that does not make it the better for 
 me. I have terrible fancies at times, Mr. North, that seem 
 half-memories. I dread to be brought in contact with prisoners 
 again. I am sure that some evil awaits me at their hands." 
 
 I laughed, of course, but it would not do. She holds to her 
 own opinion, and looks at me with horror in her eyes. This 
 terror in her face is perplexing. 
 
 " You are nervous," I said. "You want rest." 
 
 " I arn nervous," she replied, with that candour of voice and 
 manner I have before remarked in her, " and I have presenti- 
 ments of evil." 
 
 We sat silent for a while, and then she suddenly turned her 
 large eyes on me, and said calmly, " Mr. North, what death 
 shall I die ?" The question was an echo of my own thoughts — I 
 have some foolish (.'') fancies as to physiognomy — and it made 
 me start. What death, indeed 1 What sort of death would one 
 meet with widely-opened eyes, parted lips, and brows bent as 
 though to rally fast-flying courage ? Not a peaceful death surely. 
 
DIARY OF THE REV. JAMES NORTH. 371 
 
 I brought my black coat to my aid. " My dear lady, you must 
 not think of such things. Death is but a sleep, you know. 
 Why anticipate a nightmare ?" 
 
 She sighed, slowly awaking as though from some momentary 
 trance. Checking herself on the verge of tears, she rallied, 
 turned the conversation, and finding an excuse for going to 
 the piano, dashed into a waltz. This unnatural gaiety ended, 
 I fancy, in an hysterical fit. I heard her husband afterwards 
 recommending sal volatile. He is the sort of man who would 
 recommend sal volatile to the Pythoness if she consulted him. 
 
 April 26th. — All has been arranged, and we start to-morrow. 
 Mr. Pounce is in a condition of painful dignity. He seems 
 afraid to move lest motion should thaw his official ice. Having 
 found out that I am the " chaplain," he has refrained from 
 familiarity. My self-love is wounded, but my patience relieved. 
 Query : Would not the majority of mankind rather be bored by 
 people in authority than not noticed by them? James North 
 declines to answer for his part. 
 
 I have made my farewells to my friends, and on looking back 
 on the pleasant hours I have spent, felt saddened. It is not 
 likely that I shall have many such pleasant hours. I feel like a 
 vagabond who, having been allowed to sit by a cheerful fireside 
 for a while, is turned out into the wet and windy streets, and 
 finds them colder than ever. What were the lines I wrote in 
 her album ? 
 
 " As some poor tavern-haunter drenched in wine 
 With staggering footsteps through the streets returning, 
 
 — Seeing through blinding rain a beacon shine 
 
 From liousehold lamp in happy window burning, — 
 
 " Pauses an instant at the reddened pane 
 To gaze on that sweet scene of love and duty, 
 
 Then turns into the wild wet night again, 
 
 Lest his sad presence mar its homely beauty." 
 
 Yes, those were the lines. With more of truth in them than 
 she expected ; and yet what business have I sentimentalizing. 
 Ivly socius think "what a puling fool this North is !" 
 
 So that's over! Now for Norfolk Island and my purgation. 
 
372 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 THE LOST HEIR. 
 
 THE lost son of Sir Richard Devine had returned to Eng- 
 land, and made claim to his name and fortvme. In other 
 words, John Rex had successfully carried out the scheme 
 by which he had usurped the rights of his old convict-comrade. 
 
 Smoking his cigar in his bachelor lodgings, or pausing in a 
 calculation concerning a race, John Rex often wondered at the 
 strange ease with which he had carried out so monstrous and 
 seemingly difficult an imposture. After he was landed in Sydney 
 by the vessel which Sarah Purfoy had sent to save him, he found 
 himself a slave to a bondage scarcely less galling than that from 
 which he had escaped — the bondage of enforced companionship 
 with an unloved woman. The opportune death of one of her 
 assigned servants enabled Sarah Purfoy to instal the escaped 
 convict in his room. In the strange state of society which 
 prevailed of necessity in New South Wales at that period, it was 
 not unusual for assigned servants to marry among the free 
 settlers, and when it was heard that Mrs. Purfoy, the widow of 
 a whaling captain, had married John Carr, her storekeeper, 
 transported for embezzlement, and with two years of his 
 sentence yet to run, no one expressed surprise. Indeed, when, 
 the year after, John Carr blossomed as an " expiree," master of a 
 fine wife and a fine fortune, there were many about him who would 
 have made his existence in Australia pleasant enough. But 
 John Rex had no notion of remaining longer than he could help, 
 and ceaselessly sought means of escape from this second prison- 
 house. For a long time his search was unsuccessful. Much as 
 she loved the scoundrel, Sarah Purfoy did not scruple to tell him 
 that she had bought him, and regarded him as her property. 
 He knew that if he made any attempt to escape from his 
 marriage-bonds, the woman who had risked so much to save 
 him would not hesitate to deliver him over to the authorities, 
 and state how the opportune death of John Carr had enabled 
 her to give name and employment to John Rex, the absconder. 
 He had thought once that the fact of her being his wife would 
 prevent her from giving evidence against him, and that he could 
 
THE LOST HEIR. 373 
 
 thus defy her. But she reminded him that a word to Blunt 
 would be all sufficient. 
 
 " I know you don't care for me now, John," she said, with 
 grim complacency ; " but your life is in my hands, and if you 
 desert me I will bring you to the gallows." 
 
 In vain, in his secret eagerness to be rid of her, he raged and 
 chafed. He was tied hand and foot She held his money, and her 
 shrewd wit had more than doubled it. She was all-powerful, 
 and he could but wait until her death or some lucky accident 
 should rid him of her, and leave him free to follow out the 
 scheme he had matured. " Once rid of her," he thought, in his 
 solitary rides over the station of which he v/as the nominal 
 owner, " the rest is easy. I shall return to England with a 
 plausible story of shipwreck, and shall doubtless be received 
 with open arms by the dear mother from whom I have been so 
 long parted. Richard Devine shall have his own again." 
 
 To be rid of her was not so easy. Twice he tried to escape 
 from his thraldom, and was twice brought back. " I have 
 bought you, John," his partner had laughed, "and you don't 
 get away from me. Surely you can be content with these com- 
 forts. You were content with less once. I am not so ugly and 
 repulsive, am I ? " 
 
 "1 am home-sick," John Carr retorted. "Let us go to 
 England, Sarah." 
 
 She tapped her strong white fingers sharply on the table. 
 " Go to England ? No, no. That is what you would like to do. 
 You would be master there. You would take my money, and 
 leave me to starve. I know you, Jack. We stop here, dear. 
 Here, where I can hand you over to the first trooper as an 
 escaped convict if you are not kind to me." 
 
 " She-devil ! " 
 
 "Oh, I don't mind your abuse. Abuse me if you like, Jack. 
 Beat me if you will, but don't leave me, or it will be worse for 
 you." 
 
 "You are a strange woman!" he cried, in sudden petulant 
 admiration. 
 
 " To love such a villain? I don't know that. I love you be- 
 cause you are a villain. A better man would be wearisome to 
 such as I am." 
 
 " I wish to Heaven I'd never left Port Arthur. Better tliere 
 
 than this dog's life." 
 
374 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 " Go back, then. You have only to say the word !" 
 
 And so tliey would wrangle, she glorying in her power over 
 the man who had so long triumphed over her, and he consoling 
 himself with the hope that the day was not far distant which 
 should bring him at once freedom and fortune. One day the 
 chance came to him. His wife was ill, and the ungrateful scoun- 
 drel stole five hundred pounds, and taking two horses reached 
 Sydney, and obtained passage in a vessel bound for Rio. 
 
 Having escaped thraldom, John Rex proceeded to play for 
 the great stake of his life with the utmost caution. He went to 
 the Continent, and lived for weeks together in the towns where 
 Richard Devine might possibly have resided, familiarizing him- 
 self with streets, making the acquaintance of old inhabitants, 
 drawing into his own hands all loose ends of information which 
 could help to knit the meshes of his net the closer. Such loose 
 ends were not numerous ; the prodigal had been too poor, too 
 insignificant, to leave strong memories behind him. Yet Rex 
 knew well by what strange accidents the deceit of an assumed 
 identity is often penetrated. Some old comrade or companion 
 of the lost heir might suddenly appear with keen questions as to 
 trifles which could cut his flimsy web to shreds, as easily as the 
 sword of Saladin divided the floating silk. He could not afford 
 to ignore the most insignificant circumstances. With consum- 
 mate skill, piece by piece he built up the story which was to 
 deceive the poor mother, and to make him possessor of one of 
 the largest private fortunes in England. 
 
 This was the tale he hit upon. He had been saved from the 
 burning Hydaspes by a vessel bound for Rio. Ignorant of the 
 death of Sir Richard, and prompted by the pride which was 
 known to be a leading feature of his character, he had deter- 
 mined not to return, until fortune should have bestowed upon 
 him wealth at least equal to the inheritance from which he had 
 been ousted. In Spanish America he had striven to accumulate 
 that wealth in vain. As veqtiero, traveller, speculator, sailor, he 
 had toiled for fourteen years, and had failed. Worn out and peni- 
 tent he had returned home to find a corner of English earth in 
 which to lay his weary bones. The tale was plausible enough, 
 and in the telling of it he was armed at all points. There was little 
 fear that the navigator of the captured Osprey, the man who had 
 lived in Chili and " cut out" cattle on the Carrura Plains, would 
 prove lacking in knowledge of riding, seamanship, or Spanish 
 
THE LOST HEIR. 
 
 375 
 
 customs. Moreover, he had determined upon a course of action 
 which showed his knowledge of human nature. 
 
 The will under which Richard Devine inherited was dated in 
 1807, and had been made when the testator was in the first 
 hopeful glow of paternity. By its terms Lady Devine was to 
 receive a life interest of three thousand a year in her husband's 
 property — which was placed in the hands of two trustees, — until 
 her eldest son died or attained the age of twenty-five years. 
 When either of these events should occur, the property was to 
 be realized. Lady Devine receiving a sum of a hundred thousand 
 pounds, which, invested in Consols for her benefit, would, ac- 
 cording to Sir Richard's prudent calculation, exactly compensate 
 for her loss of interest, the remainder going absolutely to the 
 son, if living, to his children or next of kin if dead. The trust- 
 tees appointed were Lady Devine's father, Colonel Wotton 
 Wade, and Mr. Silas Quaid, of the firm of Purkiss and Quaid, 
 Thavies Inn, Sir Richard's solicitors. Colonel Wade, before his 
 death, had appointed, with Quaid's consent, his own son, Mr. 
 Francis Wade, to act in his stead. When Mr. Quaid died, the 
 firm of Purkiss and Quaid (represented in the Quaid branch of 
 it by a smart London-bred nephew) declined further respon- 
 sibility ; and, with the consent of Lady Devine, Francis Wade 
 continued alone in his trust. Sir Richard's sister and her hus- 
 band, Anthony Frere, of Bristol, were long ago dead, and, as we 
 know, their representative, Maurice Frere, content at last in the 
 lot that fortune had sent him, had given up all thought of 
 meddling with his uncle's business. John Rex, therefore, in 
 the person of the returned Richard, had but two persons to 
 satisfy, his putative uncle, Mr. Francis Wade, and his putative 
 mother. Lady Devine. 
 
 This he found to be the easiest task possible. Francis Wade 
 was an invalid virtuoso, who detested business, and whose 
 ambition was to be known as a man of taste. The possessor 
 of a small independent income, he had resided at North End 
 ever since his father's death, and had made the place a mini- 
 ature Strawberry Hill. When, at his sister's urgent wish, he 
 assumed the sole responsibility of the estate, he put all tl;ie- 
 floating capital into 3 per cents., and was content to see 
 the interest accumulate. Lady Devine had never recovered 
 the shock of the circumstances attending Sir Richard's death 
 and clinging to the belief in her son's existence, regarded 
 
376 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 herself as the mere guardian of his interests, to be displaced al 
 any moment by his sudden return. The retired pair lived thus 
 together, and spent in charity and bric-a-brac about a fourth of 
 their mutual income. By both of them the return of the wan- 
 derer was hailed with delight. To Lady Devine it meant the 
 realization of a lifelong hope, become part of her nature. To 
 Francis Wade it meant relief from a responsibility which his 
 simplicity always secretly loathed, the responsibility of looking 
 after another person's money. 
 
 " I shall not think of interfering with the arrangements which 
 you have made, vny dear uncle," said Mr. John Rex, on the 
 first night of his reception. " It would be most ungrateful of 
 me to do so. My wants are very few, and can easily be sup- 
 plied. I will see your lawyers some day, and settle it." 
 
 " See them at once, Richard, see them at once. I am no 
 man of business, you know, but I think you will find all right. 
 Richard, however, put off the visit from day to day. He de- 
 sired to have as little to do with lawyers as possible. He had 
 resolved upon his course of action. He would get money from 
 his mother for immediate needs, and when that mother died, he 
 would assert his rights. " My rough life has unfitted me for 
 drawing-rooms, dear mother," he said. " Do not let there be a 
 display about my return. Give me a comer to smoke my pipe, 
 and I am happy." Lady Devine, with a loving tender pit>', for 
 which John Rex could not altogether account, consented, and 
 *' Mr. Richard " soon came to be regarded as a martyr to cir- 
 cumstances, a man conscious of his own imperfections, and one 
 whose imperfections were therefore to be lightly dwelt upon. 
 So the returned prodigal had his own suite of rooms, his own 
 servants, his own bank account, drank, smoked, and was merry. 
 For five or six months he thought himself in Paradise. Then 
 he began to find his life insuilerably weary. The burden of 
 hypocrisy is very heavy to bear, and Rex was compelled per- 
 petually to bear it. His mother demanded all his time. She 
 hung upon his lips ; she made him repeat fifty times the story 
 of his wanderings. She was never tired of kissing him, of 
 weeping over him, of thanking him for the " sacrifice " he had 
 made for her. 
 
 " We promised never to speak of it more, Richard,'" the poor 
 lady said one day, " but if my lifelong love can make atonement 
 lor the wrong I have done you '" 
 
THE LOST HEIR. 377 
 
 " Hush, dearest mother," said John Rex, who did not in the 
 least comprehend what it was all about. " Let us say no 
 more." 
 
 Lady Devine wept quietly for a while, and then went away, 
 leaving the man who pretended to be her son much bewildered 
 anfl a little frightened. There was a secret which he had not 
 fathomed between Lady Devine and her son. The mother did 
 not again refer to it, and gaining courage as the days went on, 
 Rex grew bold enough to forget his fears. 
 
 In the first stages of his deception, he had been timid and 
 cautious. Then the soothing influence of comfort, respect, and 
 security came upon him, and almost refined him. He began to 
 feel as he had felt when Mr. Lionel Crofton was alive. The 
 sensation of being ministered to by a loving woman, who kissed 
 him night and morning, calling him " son," — of being regarded 
 with admiration by rustics, with envy by respectable folk — of 
 being deferred to in all things — was novel and pleasing. They 
 were so good to him that he felt at times inclined to confess all, 
 and leave his case in the hands of the folk he had injured. Yet 
 — he thought — such a course would be absurd. It would result 
 in no benefit to any one, simply in misery to himself. The true 
 Richard Devine was buried fathoms deep in the greedy ocean 
 of convict-discipline, and the waves of innumerable punish- 
 ments washed over him. John Rex flattered himself that ho had 
 usurped the name of one who was in fact no living man, and 
 that, unless one should rise from the dead, Richard Devine could 
 never return to accuse him. So flattering himself, he gradually 
 became bolder, and by slow degrees suffered his true nature 
 to appear. He was violent to the servants, cruel to dogs and 
 horses, often wantonly coarse in speech, and brutally regardless 
 of the.feelings of others. Governed, like most women, solely by 
 her feelings, Lady Devine had at first been prodigal of her affec- 
 tion to the man she believed to be her injured son. But his rash 
 acts of selfishness, his habits of grossness and self-indulgence, 
 gradually disgusted her. For some time she — poor woman — 
 fought against this feeling, endeavouring to overcome her in- 
 stincts of distaste, and arguing with herself that to permit a 
 detestation of her unfortunate son to arise in her heart was 
 almost criminal; but she was at length forced to succumb. 
 
 For the first year Mr. Richard conducted himself with great 
 propriety, but as his circle of acquaintance and his confidence 
 
378 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 in himself increased, he now and then forgot the part he was 
 playing. One day Mr. Richard went to pass the day with a 
 sporting friend, only too proud to see at his table so wealthy 
 and wonderful a man. Mr. Richard drank a good deal more 
 than was good for him, and came home in a condition of 
 disgusting drunkenness. I say disgusting, because some folk 
 have the art of getting drunk after a humorous fashion, that 
 robs intoxication of half its grossness. For John Rex to be 
 drunk was to be himself — coarse and cruel. Francis Wade was 
 away, and Lady Devine had retired for the night, when the dog- 
 cart brought home "Mr. Richard." The virtuous butler-porter, 
 who opened the door, received a blow in the chest and a demand 
 for " Brandy ! " The groom was cursed, and ordered to instant 
 oblivion. Mr. Richard stumbled into the dining-room — veiled 
 in dim light as a dining-room which was " sitting up " for its 
 master ought to be — and ordered " more candles ! " The candles 
 were brought, after some delay, and Mr. Richard amused himself 
 by spilling their meltings upon the carpet. " Let's have 'lumi- 
 nashon ! " he cried ; and climbing with muddy boots upon the 
 costly chairs, scraping with his feet the polished table, attempted 
 to fix the wax in the silver sconces, with which the antiquarian 
 tastes of Mr. Francis Wade had adorned the room. 
 
 " You'll break the table, sir," said the servant. 
 
 " Damn the table ! " said Rex. " Buy 'nother table. What's 
 table t'you ? " 
 
 " Oh, certainly, sir," replied the man. 
 
 " Oh, c'ert'nly ! Why c'ert'nly ? What do you know/ about 
 it?" 
 
 " Oh, certainly not, sir," replied the man. 
 
 " If I had — stockwhip here — I make you — hie — skip ! Whar's 
 brandy ? " 
 
 " Here, Mr. Richard." 
 
 " Have some ! Good brandy ! Send for servantsh and have 
 dance. D' you dance, Tomkins ? " 
 
 " No, Mr. Richard." 
 
 "Then you shall dance now, Tomkins. You'll dance upon 
 nothing one day, Tomkins ! Here! Halloo! Mary! Susan! 
 Janet ! William ! Hey ! Halloo ! " And he began to shout and 
 blaspheme. 
 
 " Don't you think it's time for bed, Mr. Richard?"' one of the 
 men ventured to suggest 
 
THE LOST HEIR. 379 
 
 " No ! " roared the ex-convict, emphatically, " I donH ! I've 
 gone to bed at daylight far too long. We'll have luminashon ! 
 I'm master here. Master everything. Richard 'Vine's my 
 name. Isn't it, Tomkins, you villain ?" 
 
 " Oh-h-h ! Ye-yes, Mr. Richard." 
 
 " Course it is, and make you know it, too ! I'm no painter- 
 picture, crockery chap. I'm genelman ! Genelman seen the 
 world ! Knows what what. There ain't much I ain't fly to. 
 Wait till the old woman's dead, Tomkins, and you shall see ! " 
 More swearing, and awful threats of what the inebriate would do 
 when he was in possession. " Bring up some brandy ! " Crash 
 goes the bottle in the fire-place. " Light up the droring-rooms ; 
 we'll have dance ! I'm drunk ! what's that ? If you'd gone 
 through what I have, you'd be glad to be drunk. I look a 
 fool " — this to his image in another glass. " I ain't though, or I 
 wouldn't be here. Curse you, you grinning idiot " — crash goes 
 his fist through the mirror — " don't grin at me. Play up there ! 
 Where's old woman I Fetch her out and let's dance ! " 
 
 " Lady Devine has gone to bed, Mr. Richard," cried Tomkins 
 aghast, attempting to bar the passage to the upper regions. 
 
 "Then let's have her out o' bed," cried John Rex, plunging to 
 the door, 
 
 Tomkins, attempting to restrain him, is instantly hurled into 
 a cabinet of rare china, and the drunken brute essays the stairs. 
 The other servants seize him. He curses and fights like a demon. 
 Doors bang open, lights gleam, maids hover, horrified, asking if 
 it's " fire ? " and begging to be " put out." The whole house is 
 in an uproar ; in the midst of which Lady Devine appears, and 
 looks down upon the scene. Rex catches sight of her, and 
 bursts into blasphemy. She withdraws, strangely terrified; 
 and the animal, torn, bloody, and blasphemous, is at last got 
 into his own apartments, the groom, whose face had been 
 seriously damaged in the encounter, bestowing a hearty kick 
 on the prostrate carcase at parting. 
 
 The next morning Lady Devine declined to see her son, 
 though he sent a special apology to her. 
 
 " I am afraid I was a little overcome by wine last night," said 
 he to Tomkins. 
 
 " Well, you was, sir," said Tomkins. 
 
 " A very little wine makes me quite ill, Tomkins. Did I do 
 anything very violent ? " 
 
38o HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 " You was rather obstropolous, Mr. Richard." 
 
 " Here's a sovereign for you, Tomkins. Did I say any- 
 thing ? " 
 
 " You cussed a good deal, Mr. Richard. Most gents do when 
 they've bin — hum — dining out, Mr. Richard." 
 
 "What a fool I am," thought John Rex, as he dressed. "I 
 shall spoil everything if I don't take care." He was right. He 
 was going the right way to spoil everything. However, for this 
 bout he made amends — money soothed the servants' hall, and 
 apologies and time won Lady Devine's forgiveness. 
 
 "I cannot yet conform to English habits, my dear mother," 
 said Rex, " and feel at times out of place in your quiet home. I 
 think that — if you can spare me a little money — I should like to 
 travel." 
 
 Lady Devine — with a sense of relief for which she blamed 
 herself — assented, and, supplied with letters of credit, John Rex 
 went to Paris. 
 
 Fairly started in the world of dissipation and excess, he began 
 to grow reckless. When a young man, he had been singularly 
 free from the vice of drunkenness ; turning his sobriety — as he 
 did all his virtues — to vicious account, but he had learnt to drink 
 deep in the loneliness of the bush. Master of a large sum of 
 money, he had intended to spend it as he would have spent it in 
 his younger days. He had forgotten that since his death and 
 burial the world had not g^own younger. It was possible that 
 Mr. Lionel Crofton might have discovered some of the old set of 
 fools and knaves with whom he had once mixed. Many of them 
 were alive and flourishing. Mr. Lemoine, for instance, was re- 
 spectably married in his native island of Jersey, and had already 
 threatened to disinherit a nephew who showed a tendency to 
 dissipation. 
 
 But Mr. Lemoine would not care to recognize Mr. Lionel 
 Crofton, the gambler and rake, in his proper person, and it was 
 not expedient that his acquaintance should be made in the per- 
 son of Richard Devine, lest by some unlucky chance he should 
 recognize the cheat. 
 
 Thus poor Lionel Crofton was compelled to lie still in his 
 grave, and Mr. Richard Devine, trusting to a big beard and 
 more burly figure, to keep his secret, was compelled to begin his 
 friendship with Mr. Lionel's whilom friends all over again. In 
 Paris and London there were plenty of people ready to become 
 
THE LOST HEIR. 381 
 
 hail-fellow-well-met with any gentleman possessing money, 
 Mr. Richard Devine's history was whispered in many a boudoir 
 and club-room. The history, however, was not always told in 
 the same way. It was generally known that Lady Devine had a 
 son, who, being supposed to be dead, had suddenly returned, to 
 the confusion of his family. But the manner of his return was 
 told in many ways. 
 
 In the first place, Mr. Francis Wade, well-known though he 
 was, did not move in that brilliant circle which had lately re- 
 ceived his nephew. There are in England many men of fortune 
 as large as that left by the old ship-builder, who are positively 
 unknown in that httle world which is supposed to contain all 
 the men worth knowing. Francis Wade was a man of mark in 
 his own coterie. Among artists, (JnV-^-i^rdif sellers, antiquarians 
 and men of letters, he was known as a patron and man of taste. 
 His bankers and his lawyers knew him to be of independent 
 fortune, but as he neither mixed in politics, "went into society," 
 betted, or speculated in merchandise, there were several large 
 sections of the community who had never heard his name. 
 Many respectable money-lenders would have required " further 
 information " before they would discount his bills; and "club- 
 men " in general — save, perhaps, those ancient quidnuncs who 
 know everybody, from Adam downwards — had but little acquaint- 
 ance with him. The advent of Mr. Richard Devine — a coarse 
 person of unlimited means — had therefore chief influence upon 
 that sinister circle of male and female rogues who form the 
 "half-world." They began to inquire concerning his antece- 
 dents, and, failing satisfactory information, to invent lies con- 
 cerning him. It was generally believed that he was a black 
 sheep, a man whose family kept him out of the way, but who 
 was, in a pecuniar/ sense, " good " for a considerable sum. 
 
 Thus taken upon trust, Mr. Richard Devine mixed in the 
 very best of bad society, and had no lack of agreeable friends to 
 help him to spend money. So admirably did he spend it, that 
 Francis Wade became at last alarmed at the frequent drafts, 
 and urged his nephew to bring his affairs to a final settlement. 
 Richard Devine — in Paris, or Homburg, or London, or else- 
 where — could never be got to attack business, and Mr. Francis 
 Wade grew more and more anxious. The poor gentleman 
 positively became ill through the anxiety consequent upon his 
 nephew's dissipations. " I wish, my dear Richard, that you 
 
382 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 would let me know what lo do," he wrote. " I wish, my dear 
 uncle, that you would do what you think best," was his nephew's 
 reply. 
 
 " Will you let Purkiss and Quaid look into the business ? " 
 said the badgered Francis. 
 
 " I hate lawyers," said Richard. " Do what you think right." 
 Mr. Wade began to repent of his too easy taking of matters in 
 the beginning. Not that he had a suspicion of Rex, but that 
 he remembered that Dick was always a loose fish. The even 
 current of the dilettante's life became disturbed. He grew pale 
 and hollow eyed. His digestion was impaired. He ceased to 
 take the interest in china which the importance of that article 
 demanded. In a word, he grew despondent as to his fitness for 
 his mission in life. Lady Ellinor saw a change in her brother. 
 He became morose, peevish, excitable. She went privately to 
 the family doctor, who shrugged his shoulders. " There is no 
 danger," said he, " if he is kept quiet ; keep him quiet, and he 
 will live for years, but his father died of heart disease, you 
 know." Lady Ellinor, upon this, wrote a long letter to Mr. 
 Richard, who was at Paris, repeated the doctor's opinions, and 
 begged him to come over at once. Mr. Richard replied that 
 some horse-racing matter of great importance occupied his at- 
 tention, but that he would be at his rooms in Clarges Street (he 
 had long ago established a town house) on the 14th, and would 
 "go into matters." " I have lost a good deal of money lately, 
 my dear mother," said Mr. Richard, " and the present will be a 
 good opportunity to make a final settlement." The fact was, 
 that John Rex, now three years in undisturbed possession, con- 
 sidered that the moment had arrived for the execution of his 
 grand coup — the carrying off at one swoop of the whole of the 
 fortune he had gambled for. 
 
 CHAPTER IIL 
 
 EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF THE REV. JAMES NORTH. 
 
 MAY 1 2th. — Landed to-day at Norfolk Island, and have 
 been introduced to my new abode, situated some 
 eleven hundred miles from Sydney. A solitary rock 
 in the tropical ocean, the island seems, indeed, a fit place of 
 
DIARY OF THE REV. JAMES NORTH. 383 
 
 banishment. It is about seven miles long- and four broad. The 
 most remarkable natural object is of course the Norfolk Island 
 pine, which rears its stately head a hundred feet above the sur- 
 rounding forest. The appearance of the place is very wild and 
 beautiful, bringing to my mind the description of the romantic 
 islands of the Pacific, which old geographers dwell upon so fondly. 
 Lemon, lime, and guava trees abound, also oranges, grapes, figs, 
 bananas, peaches, pomegranates, and pine-apples. The climate 
 just now is hot and muggy. The approach to Kingstown — as 
 the barracks and huts are called — is properly difficult. A long 
 low reef — probably originally a portion of the barren rocks of 
 Nepean and Philip Islands, which rise east and west of the 
 settlement — fronts the bay and obstructs the entrance of vessels. 
 We were landed in boats through an opening in this reef, and 
 our vessel stands on and off within signalling distance. The 
 surf washes almost against the walls of the military roadway 
 that leads to the barracks. The social aspect of the place fills 
 me with horror. There seems neither discipline nor order. On 
 our way to the Commandant's house we passed a low dilapidated 
 building, where the men were at work grinding maize, and at 
 the sight of us they commenced whistling, hooting, and shouting, 
 using the most disgusting language. Three warders were near, 
 but no attempt was made to chesk this unseemly exhibition. 
 
 May 14th. — I sit down to write with as much reluctance as 
 though I were about to relate my experience of a journey through 
 a sewer. 
 
 First, to the prisoners' barracks, which stand on an area of 
 about three acres, surrounded by a lofty wall. A road runs 
 between this wall and the sea. The barracks are three storeys 
 high, and hold seven hundred and ninety men (let me remark 
 here that there are more than two thousand men on the island). 
 There are twenty-two wards in this place. Each ward runs the 
 depth of the building, viz., eighteen feet, and in consequence is 
 simply a funnel for hot or cold air to blow through. When the 
 ward is filled, the men's heads lie under the windows. The 
 largest ward contains a hundred men, the smallest fifteen. 
 They sleep in hammocks, slung close to each other as on 
 board ship, in two lines, with a passage down the centre. There 
 is a wardsman to each ward. He is selected by the prisoners, 
 and is generally a man of the worst character. He is supposed 
 
384 //-^-S- NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 to keep order, but of course he never attempts to do so ; indeed 
 as he is locked up in the ward every night from six o'clock in 
 the evening until sunrise, without light, it is possible that he 
 might get maltreated did he make himself obnoxious. 
 
 The barracks look upon the Barrack Square, which is filled 
 with lounging prisoners. The windows of the hospital-ward 
 also look upon Barrack Square, and the prisoners are in 
 constant communication with the patients. The hospital is a low 
 stone building, capable of containing about twenty men, and 
 faces the beach. I placed my hands on the wall, and found it 
 damp. An ulcerous prisoner said the dampness was owing to 
 the heav>- surf constantly rolling so close beneath the building. 
 There are two gaols, the old and the new. The old gaol stands 
 near the sea, close to the landing-place. Outside it, at the door, 
 is the Gallows. I touched it as I passed in. This engine is 
 the first thing which greets the eyes of a newly-arrived prisoner. 
 The new gaol is barely completed, is of a pentagonal shape, 
 and has eighteen radiating cells of a pattern approved by some 
 wiseacre in England, who thinks that to prevent a man from 
 seeing his fellow-men is not the way to drive him mad. In the 
 eld gaol are twenty-four prisoners, all heavily ironed, awaiting 
 trial by the visiting Commission, from Hobart Town, Some of 
 these poor ruffians, having committed their offences just after 
 the last sitting of the Commission, have already been in gaol 
 upwards of eleven months ! 
 
 At six o'clock we saw the men mustered. I read prayers before 
 the muster, and was surprised to find that some of the prisoners 
 attended, while some strolled about tjie yard, whistling, singing, 
 and joking. The muster is a farce. The prisoners are not 
 mustered outside and then marched to their wards, but they 
 rush into the barracks indiscriminately, and placed themselves 
 dressed or undressed in their hammocks. A convict sub- 
 overseer then calls out the names, and somebody replies. If an 
 answer is returned to each name, all his considered right. The 
 lights are taken away, and save for a few minutes at eight 
 o'clock, when the good-conduct men are let in, the ruffians are 
 left to their own devices until morning. Knowing what I know 
 of the customs of convicts, my heart sickens when I in imagina- 
 tion put myself in the place of a newly-transported man, plunged 
 from six at night until daybreak into that foetid den of worse 
 than wild beasts. 
 
DIARY OF THE REV. JAMES NORTH. 385 
 
 May 15th. — There is a place enclosed between high walls 
 adjoining the convict barracks, called the Lumber Yard. This 
 is where the prisoners mess. It is roofed on two sides, and 
 contains tables and benches. Six hundred men can mess here 
 perhaps, but as seven hundred are always driven into it, it 
 follows that the weakest men are compelled to sit on the ground. 
 A more disorderly sight than this yard at meal times I never 
 beheld. The cook-houses are adjoining it, and the men bake 
 their meal-bread there. Outside the cook-house door the fire- 
 wood is piled, and fires are made in all directions on the ground, 
 round which sit the prisoners, frying their rations of fresh pork, 
 baking their hominy cakes, chatting, and even smoking. 
 
 The lumber yard is a sort of Alsatia, to which the hunted 
 prisoner retires. I don't think the boldest constable on the 
 island would venture into that place to pick out a man from the 
 seven hundred. If he did go in I don't think he would come 
 out again alive. 
 
 1 6th May. — A sub-overseer, a man named Hankey, has been 
 talking to me. He says that there are some forty of the oldest 
 and worst prisoners who form what he calls the " Ring," and 
 that the members of this Ring are bound by an oath to support 
 each other, and to avenge the punishment of any of their number. 
 In proof of his assertions he instanced two cases of English 
 prisoners who had refused to join in some crime, and had in- 
 formed the Commandant of the proceedings of the "Ring." 
 They were found in the morning strangled in their hammocks. 
 An inquiry was held, but not a man out of the ninety in the 
 ward would speak a word. 
 
 I dread the task that is before me. How can I attempt to 
 preach piety and morality to these men? How can I attempt 
 even to save the less villainous? 
 
 17th May. — Visited the wards to-day, and returned in despair. 
 The condition of things is worse than I expected. It is not to 
 be written. The newly-arrived English prisoners — and some of 
 their histories are most touching — are insulted by the language 
 and demeanour of the hardened miscreants who are the refuse 
 of Port Arthur and Cockatoo Island. The vilest crimes are 
 perpetrated as jests. There are creatures who openly defy autho- 
 rity, whose language and conduct is such as was never before 
 
 ^5 
 
.S6 HIS NATURAL LIFE 
 
 seen or heard out of Bedlam. There are men who are known 
 to have murdered their companions, and who boast of it. With 
 these the English farm labourer, the riotous and ignorant 
 mechanic, the victim of perjury or mistake, are indiscriminately 
 herded. With them are mixed Chinamen from Hong-Kong, 
 the aborigines of New Holland, West Indian blacks, Greeks, 
 Caffres, and Malays, soldiers for desertion, idiots, madmen, pig- 
 stealers, and pickpockets. The dreadful place seems set apart 
 for all that is hideous and vile in our common nature. In its 
 recklessness, its insubordination, its filth, and its despair, it 
 reahzes to my mind the popular notion of hell. 
 
 May 2 1 St. — Entered to-day officially upon my duties as Re- 
 ligious Instructor at the settlement. 
 
 An occurrence took place this morning which shows the 
 dangerous condition of the " Ring." I accompanied Mr. 
 Pounce to the Lumber Yard, and, on our entry, we observed 
 a man in the crowd round the cook-house deliberately smoking. 
 The Chief Constable of the Island — my old friend Troke, of Port 
 Arthur — seeing that this exhibition attracted Pounce's notice, 
 pointed out the man to an assistant. The assistant, Jacob 
 Gimblett, advanced and desired the prisoner to surrender the 
 pipe. The man plunged his hands into his pockets, and, with 
 a gesture of the most profound contempt, walked away to that 
 part of the mess-shed where the " Ring " congregate. 
 
 "Take the scoundrel to gaol !" cried Troke. 
 
 No one moved, but the man at the gate that leads through 
 the carpenter's shop into barracks, called to us to come out, 
 saying that the prisoners would never suffer the man to be 
 taken. Pounce, however, with more determination than I gave 
 him credit for, kept his ground, and insisted that so flagrant a 
 breach of discipline should not be suffered to pass unnoticed. 
 Thus urged, Mr. Troke pushed through the crowd, and made 
 for the spot whither the man had withdrawn himself. 
 
 The yard was buzzing like a disturbed hive, and I momentarily 
 expected that a rush would be made upon us. In a few moments 
 the prisoner appeared, attended by, rather than in the custody 
 of, the Chief Constable of the island. He advanced to the un- 
 lucky assistant constable, who was standing close to me, and 
 asked, "What have you ordered me to gaol for?" The man 
 made some reply, advising him to go quietly, when the convict 
 
DIARY OF THE REV. JAMES NORTH. 387 
 
 raised his fist, and deliberately felled the man to the ground. 
 "You had better retire, gentlemen," said Troke. "I see them 
 getting out their knives." 
 
 We made for the gate, and the crowd closed in like a sea upon 
 the two constables. I fully expected murder, but in a few mo- 
 ments Troke and Gimblett appeared, borne along by a mass ot 
 men, dusty, but unharmed, and having the convict between 
 them. He sulkily raised a hand as he passed me, either to 
 rectify the position of his straw hat, or to offer a tardy apology. 
 A more wanton, unprovoked, and flagrant outrage than that of 
 which this man was guilty I never witnessed. It is customary 
 for " the old dogs," as the experienced convicts are called, to 
 use the most opprobrious language to their officers, and to this 
 a deaf ear is usually turned, but I never before saw a man wan- 
 tonly strike a constable. I fancy that the act was done out of 
 bravado. Troke informed me that the man's name is Rufus 
 Dawes, and that he is the leader of the Ring, and considered 
 the worst man on the island ; that to secure him he (Troke) was 
 obliged to use the language of expostulation ; and that, but for 
 the presence of an officer accredited by his Excellency, he dared 
 not have acted as he had done. 
 
 This is the same man, then, whom I injured at Port Arthur. 
 Seven years of "discipline" don't seem to have done him much 
 good. His sentence is " life" — a lifetime in this place ! Troke 
 says that he was the terror of Port Arthur, and that they sent 
 him here when a " weeding " of the prisoners was made. He 
 has been here four years. Poor wretch ! 
 
 May 24th. — After prayers, I saw Dawes. He was confined 
 in the Old Gael, and seven others were in the cell with him. 
 He came out at my request, and stood leaning against the door- 
 post. He was much changed from the man I remember. 
 Seven years ago he was a stalwart, upright, handso7?ie man. He 
 has become a beetle-browed, sullen, slouching ruffian. His 
 hair is grey, though he cannot be more than forty years of age, 
 and his frame has lost that just proportion of parts which once 
 made him almost graceful. His face has also grown like other 
 convict faces — how hideously alike they all are ! — and, save for 
 his black eyes and a peculiar trick he has of compressing his 
 lips, I should not have recognized him. How habitual sin and 
 misery suffice to brutalize " the human face divine ! " I said but 
 
388 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 little, for the other prisoners were listening, eager, as it appeared 
 to me, to witness my discomfiture. It is evident that Rufus 
 Dawes had been accustomed to meet the ministrations of my 
 predecessor with insolence. I spoke to him for a few minutes, 
 only saying how foolish it was to rebel against an authority 
 superior in strength to himself. He did not answer, and the 
 only emotion he evinced during the interview was when I 
 reminded him that we had met before. He shrugged one 
 shoulder, as if in pain or anger, and seemed about to speak, 
 but casting his eyes upon the group in the cell, relapsed into 
 silence again. I must get speech with him alone. One can do 
 nothing with a man if seven other devils worse than himself are 
 locked up with him. 
 
 I sent for Hankey, and asked him about cells. He says that 
 the gaol is crowded to suffocation. " Solitary confinement" is 
 a mere name. There are six men, each sentenced to solitary 
 confinement, in a cell together. This cell is called the 
 "nunnery." It is small, and the six men were naked to the 
 waist when I entered, the perspiration pouring in streams off 
 their naked bodies ! It is disgusting to write of such things. 
 
 June 26th. — Pounce has departed in the Lady Franklin for 
 Hobart Town, and it is rumoured that we are to have a new 
 commandant. The Lady Franklin is commanded by an old 
 man named Blunt, a protegi of Frere's, and a fellow to whom 
 1 have taken one of my inexplicable and unreasoning dislikes. 
 
 Saw Rufus Dawes this morning. He continues sullen and 
 morose. His papers are very bad. He is perpetually up 
 for punishment. I am informed that he and a man named 
 Eastwood, nicknamed Jacky Jacky, glory in being the leaders of 
 the " Ring," and that they openly avow themselves weary of life. 
 Can it be that the unmerited flogging which the poor creature 
 got at Port Arthur has aided, with other sufferings, to bring him 
 to this horrible state of mind ? It is quite possible. Oh, James 
 North, remember your own crime, and pray Heaven to let you 
 redeem one soul at least, to plead for your own at the Judgment 
 Seat. 
 
 June 30th.— I took a holiday this afternoon, and walked in 
 the direction of Mount Pitt. The island lay at my feet like- 
 as sings Mrs. Frere's favourite poet— "a summer isle of Eden 
 
DIARY OF THE REV. JAMES NORTH. 389 
 
 lying in dark purple sphere of sea." Sophocles has the same 
 idea in the Philocietes, but I can't quote it. Note : I measured 
 a pine twenty-three feet in circumference. I followed a little 
 brook that runs from the hills, and winds through thick under- 
 growths of creeper and blossom, until it reaches a lovely valley 
 surrounded by lofty trees, whose branches, linked together by 
 the luxurious grape-vine, form an arching bower of verdure. 
 Here stands the ruin of an old hut, formerly inhabited by the 
 early settlers ; lemons, figs, and guaves are thick ; while amid 
 the shrub and cane a large convolvulus is intertwined, and stars 
 the green with its purple and crimson flowers. 
 
 I sat down here, and had a smoke. It seems that the 
 former occupant of my rooms at the settlement read French ; 
 for in searching for a book to bring with me — I never walk 
 without a book — I found and pocketed a volume of Balzac. 
 It proved to be a portion of the Vie Priv^e series, and I 
 stumbled upon a story called La Fausse Maitresse. With 
 calm belief in the Paris of his imagination — where Marcas 
 was a politician, Nucingen a banker, Gobseck a money-lender, 
 and Vautrin a candidate for some such place as this — Balzac 
 introduces me to a Pole by name Paz, who, loving the wife 
 of his friend, devotes himself to watch over her happiness 
 and her husband's interest. The husband gambles and is 
 profligate. Paz informs the wife that the leanness which 
 hazard and debauchery have caused to the domestic ex- 
 chequer is due to his extravagance, the husband having len , 
 him money. She does not beheve, and Paz feigns an intrigue 
 with a circus-rider in order to lull all suspicions. She says 
 to her adored spouse, " Get rid of this extravagant friend ! 
 Away with him ! He is a profligate, a gambler ! A drunkard ! " 
 Paz finally depaxts, and when he has gone, the lady finds out 
 the poor Pole's worth. The story does not end satisfactorily. 
 Balzac was too great a master of his art for that. In real life 
 the curtain never falls on a comfortably-finished drama. The 
 play goes on eternally. 
 
 I have been thinking of the story all the evening. A man 
 who loves his friend's wife, and devotes his energies to increase 
 her happiness by concealing from her her husband's follies ! 
 Surely none but Balzac would have hit upon such a notion. 
 "A man who loves his friend's wife." — Asmodeus, I write 
 no more ! I have ceased to converse with thee for so long 
 
390 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 that I blush to confess all that I have in my heart. — I will 
 not confess it, so that shall suffice. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF THE REV. JAMES NORTH. 
 
 AUGUST 24th. — There has been but one entry in my 
 journal since the 30th June^ that which records the 
 advent of our new Commandant, who, as I expected, 
 is Captain Maurice Frere. 
 
 So great have been the changes which have taken place, 
 that I scarcely know how to record them. Captain Frere 
 has realized my worst anticipations. He is brutal, vindictive, 
 and domineering. His knowledge of prisons and prisoners 
 gives him an advantage over Burgess, othewise he much re- 
 sembles that murderous animal. He has but one thought — 
 to keep the prisoners in subjection. So long as the island 
 is quiet,- he cares not whether the men live or die, " I was 
 sent down here to keep order," said he to me, a few days 
 after his arrival, "and by God, sir, I'll do it!" 
 
 He has done it, I must admit ; but at a cost of a legacy 
 of hatred to himself that he may some day regret to have 
 earned. He has organized three parties of police. One patrols 
 the fields, one is on guard at stores and public buildings, and 
 the third is employed as a detective force. There are two 
 hundred soldiers on the island. And the officer in charge. 
 Captain McNab, has been induced by Frere to increase their 
 duties in many ways. The cords of discipline are suddenly 
 drawn tight. For the disorder which prevailed when I landed, 
 Frere has substituted a sudden and excessive rigour. Any 
 officer found giving the smallest piece of tobacco to a prisoner 
 is liable to removal from the island. The tobacco which grows 
 wild has been rooted up and destroyed lest the men should 
 obtain a leaf of it. The privilege of having a pannikin of 
 hot water when the gangs came in from field labour in the 
 evening, has been withdrawn. The shepherds, hut-keepers, 
 and all other prisoners, whether at the stations of Longridge 
 or the Cascades (where the English convicts are stationed), 
 are forbidden to keep a panot or any other bird. The plaiting 
 
DIARY OF THE REV. JAMES NORTH. 391 
 
 of straw hats during the prisoners' leisure hours is also pro- 
 hibited. At the settlement where the " old hands " are located 
 railed boundaries have been erected, beyond which no prisoner 
 must pass unless to work. Two days ago Job Dodd, a negro, 
 let his jacket fall over the boundary rails, crossed them to 
 recover it, and was severely flogged. The floggings are hid- 
 eously frequent. On flogging mornings I have seen the ground 
 where the men stood at the triangles saturated with blood, as if 
 a bucket of blood had been spilled on it, covering a space three 
 feet in diameter, and running out in various directions, in little 
 streams two or three feet long. At the same time, let me say, 
 with that strict justice I force myself to mete out to those whom 
 I dislike, that the island is in a condition of abject submission. 
 There is not much chance of mutiny. The men go to their 
 work without a murmur, and slink to their dormitories like 
 whipped hounds to kennel. The gaols and solitary (!) cells are 
 crowded with prisoners, and each day sees fresh sentences 
 for fresh crimes. It is crime here to do anything but live. 
 
 The method by which Captain Frere has brought about this 
 repose of desolation is characteristic of him. He sets every man 
 as a spy upon his neighbour, awes the more daring into obedi- 
 ence by the display of a ruffianism more outrageous than their 
 own, and raising the worst scoundrels in the place to office, 
 compels them to find " cases " for punishment. Perfidy is 
 rewarded. It has been made part of a convict-policeman's 
 duty to search a fellow-prisoner anywhere and at any time. 
 This searching is often conducted in a wantonly rough and 
 disgusting manner ; and if resistance be offered, the man re- 
 sisting can be knocked down by a blow from the searcher's 
 bludgeon. Inquisitorial vigilance and indiscriminating harsh- 
 ness prevail everywhere, and the lives of hundreds of prisoners 
 are reduced to a continual agony of terror and self-loathing. 
 
 " It is impossible, Captain Frere," said I one day, during the 
 initiation of this system, " to think that these villains whom you 
 have made constables will do their duty." 
 
 He replied, " They must do their duty. If they are indulgent 
 to the prisoners, they know I shall flog 'em. If they do what I 
 tell 'em, they'll make themselves so hated that they'd have their 
 own father up to the triangles to save themselves being sent 
 back to the ranks." 
 
 " You treat them then like slave-keepers of a wild beast den. 
 
392 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 They must flog the animals to avoid being flogged them- 
 selves." 
 
 "Ay," said he, with his coarse laugh, "and having once 
 flogged 'em, they'd do anything rather than be put in the cage, 
 don't ye see ! " 
 
 It is horrible to think of this sort of logic being used by a man 
 who has a wife, and friends and enemies. It is the logic that 
 the Keeper of the Tormented would use, I should think. I am 
 sick unto death of the place. It makes me an unbeliever in the 
 social charities. It takes out of penal science anything it may 
 possess of nobility or worth. It is cruel, debasing, inhuman. 
 
 August 26th. — Saw Rufus Dawes again to-day. His usual 
 bearing is ostentatiously rough and brutal. He has sunk to a 
 depth of self-abasement in which he takes a delight in his de- 
 gradation. This condition is one familiar to me. 
 
 He is working in the chain-gang to which Hankey was made 
 sub-overseer. Blind Mooney, an ophthalmic prisoner, who was 
 removed from the gang to hospital, told me that there was a 
 plot to murder Hankey, but that Dawes, to whom he had shown 
 some kindness, had prevented it. I saw Hankey and told him 
 of this, asking him if he had been aware of the plot. He said 
 " No," falling into a great tremble. " Major Pratt promised me 
 a removal," said he. " I expected it would come to this." I 
 asked him why Dawes defended him ; and after some trouble 
 he told me, exacting from me a promise that I would not ac- 
 quaint the Commandannt. It seems that one morning last 
 week Hankey had gone up to Captain Frere's house with a 
 return from Troke, and coming back through the garden had 
 plucked a flower. Dawes had asked him for this flower, offering 
 two days' rations for it. Hankey, who is not a bad-hearted 
 man, gave him the sprig. " There were tears in his eyes as he 
 took it," said he. 
 
 There must be some way to get at this man's heart, bad as he 
 seems to be. 
 
 August 28th. — Hankej'was murdered yesterday. He applied 
 to be removed from the gaol-gang, but Frere refused. " I 
 never let my men 'funk,'" he said. "If they've threatened to 
 murder you, I'll keep you there another month in spite of 'em. 
 
 Some one who overheard this reported it to the gang and. 
 
DIARY OF THE REV. JAMES NORTH. 393 
 
 they set upon the unfortunate gaoler yesterday, and beat his 
 brains out with their shovels. Troke says that the wretch who 
 was foremost cried, " There's for you ; and if your master don't 
 take care, he'll get served the same one of these days ! " The 
 gang were employed at building a reef in the sea, and were 
 working up to their armpits in water. Hankey fell into the surf, 
 and never moved after the first blow. I saw the gang, and 
 Dawes said, — 
 
 " It was Frere's fault ; he should have let the man go !" 
 
 " I am surprised you did not interfere," said I. 
 
 " I did all I could," was the man's answer. " What's a life 
 more or less here.'" 
 
 This occurrence has spread consternation among the over- 
 seers, and they have addressed a "round robin" to the Com- 
 mandant, praying to be reHeved from their positions. 
 
 The way Frere has dealt with this petition is characteristic of 
 him, and fills me at once with admiration and disgust. He came 
 down with it in his hand to the gaol-gang, walked into the yard, 
 shut the gate, and said, " I've just got this from my overseers. 
 They say they're afraid you'll murder them as you murdered 
 Hankey. Now, if you want to murder, murder me. Here I am. 
 Step out, one of you." All this, said in a tone of the most galling 
 contempt, did not move them. I saw a dozen pair of eyes flash 
 hatred, but the bull-dog courage of the man overawed them here, 
 as, I am told, it had done in Sydney. It would have been easy 
 to kill him then and there, and his death, I am told, is sworn 
 among them ; but no one raised a finger. The only man who 
 moved was Rufus Dawes, and he checked himself instantly. 
 Frere, with a recklessness of which I did not think him capable, 
 stepped up to this terror of the prison, and ran his hands lightly 
 down his sides, as is the custom with constables when " search- 
 ing " a man. Dawes — who is of a fierce temper — turned crimson 
 at this bravado, and, I thought, would have struck him, but he 
 did not. Frere then — still unarmed and alone — proceeded to 
 the man, saying, " How are you, Dawes ? Do you think of bolt- 
 ing again, Dawes ? Have you made any more boats ? " 
 
 " You Devil ! " said the chained man, in a voice pregnant with 
 such weight of unborn murder, that the gang winced . 
 
 " You'll find me one," said Frere, with a laugh ; and, turning 
 to me, continued, in the same jesting tone, " There's a penitent 
 for you, Mr. North — try your hand on him." 
 
394 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 I was speechless at his audacity, and must have shown my 
 disgust in my face, for he coloured slightly, and as we were 
 leaving the yard, endeavoured to excuse himself, by saying that 
 it was no use preaching to stones, and such doubly-dyed villains 
 as this Dawes were past hope. " I know the ruffian of old," 
 said he. " He came out in the ship from England with me, and 
 tried to raise a mutiny on board. He was the man who nearly 
 murdered my wife. He has never been out of irons— except 
 then and when he escaped — for the last eighteen years ; and as 
 he's three life sentences, he's like to die in 'em. 
 
 A monstrous wretch and criminal, evidently, and yet I feel a 
 strange sympathy with this outcast. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MR. RICHARD DEVINE SURPRISED. 
 
 THE town house of Mr. Richard Devine was in Clarges 
 Street. Not that the very modest mansion there situated 
 was the only establishment of which Richard Devine 
 was master. Mr. John Rex had expensive tastes. He neither 
 shot nor hunted, so he had no capital invested in Scotch moors 
 or Leicestershire hunting-boxes. But his stables were the 
 wonder of London, he owned almost a racing village near Don- 
 caster, kept a yacht at Cowes, and, in addition to a house in 
 Paris, paid the rent of a villa at Brompton. He belonged to 
 several clubs of the faster sort, and might have lived like a 
 prince at any one of them had he been so minded ; but a 
 constant and haunting fear of discovery — which three years of 
 unquestioned ease and unbridled riot had not dispelled — led him 
 to prefer the privacy of his own house, where he could choose 
 his own society. The house in Clarges Street was decorated in 
 conformity with the tastes of its owner. The pictures were 
 pictures of horses, the books were records of races, or novels 
 purporting to describe sporting life. Mr. Francis Wade, waiting, 
 on the morning of the 20th April, 1846, for the coming of his 
 nephew, sighed as he thought of the cultured quiet of Northend 
 House. 
 
 Mr. Richard appeared in his dressing-gown. Three years of 
 good hving and hard drinking had deprived his figure of its 
 
MR. RICHARD DEVINE SURPRISED. 395 
 
 athletic beauty. He was past forty years of age, and the sudden 
 cessation from severe bodily toil to which in his active life as a 
 convict ?jid squatter he had been accustomed, had increased 
 Rex's natural proneness to fat, and instead of being portly he 
 had become gross. His cheeks were inflamed with the frequent 
 application of hot and rebellious liquors to his blood. His 
 hands were swollen, and not so steady as of yore. His whiskers 
 were streaked with unhealthy grey. His eyes, bright and black 
 as ever, lurked in a thicket of crow's feet. He had become 
 prematurely bald — a sure sign of mental or bodily excess, "^^e / 
 spoke with assumed heartiness, in a boisterous tone of affected 
 ease. 
 
 " Ha, ha ! My dear uncle, sit down. Delighted to sec you. 
 Have you breakfasted ? — of course you have, /was up rather 
 late last night. Quite sure you won't have anything. A 
 glass of wine ? No — then sit down and tell me all the news 
 of Hampstead." 
 
 " Thank you, Richard," said the old gentleman, a httle stiffly, 
 "but I want some serious talk with you. What do you intend 
 to do with the property 1 This indecision worries me. Either 
 relieve me of my trust, or be guided by my advice." 
 
 " Well, the fact is," said Richard, with a very ugly look on his 
 face, " the fact is — and you may as well know it at once — I am 
 much pushed for money." 
 
 " Pushed for money!" cried Mr. Wade, in horror. "Why, 
 Purkiss said the property was worth twenty thousand a year." 
 
 " So it might have been — five years ago — but my horse-racing, 
 and betting, and other amusements, concerning which you need 
 not too curiously inquire, have reduced its value considerably.'' 
 
 He spoke recklessly and roughly. It was evident that success 
 had but developed his ruffianism. His " dandyism" was only 
 comparative. The impulse of poverty and scheming which led 
 him to affect the " gentleman" having been removed, the natural 
 brutality of his nature showed itself freely. Mr. Francis Wade 
 took a pinch of snuff with a sharp motion of distaste. " I do 
 not want to hear of your debaucheries," he said ; " our name 
 has been sufficiently disgraced in my hearing." 
 
 " What is got over the devil's back goes under his belly," 
 replied Mr. Richard, coarsely. " My old father got his money 
 by dirtier ways than these in which I spend it. As villainous an 
 old scoundrel and skinflint as ever poisoned a seaman, I'll go bail.' 
 
396 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 Mr. Francis rose. " You need not revile your father, Richard 
 —he left you all." 
 
 " Ay, but by pure accident. He didn't mean it. If he hadn't 
 died in the nick of time, that unhung murderous villain, Maurice 
 Frere, would have come in for it. By the way," he added, with 
 a change of tone, " do you ever hear anything of Maurice?" 
 
 " I have not heard for some years," said Mr. Wade. " He is 
 something in the Convict Department at Sydney, I think." 
 
 " Is he.?" said Mr. Richard, with a shiver. " Hope he'll stop 
 there. Well, but about business. The fact is, that — that I am 
 thinking of selling everything." 
 
 " Selling everything!" 
 
 "Yes. 'Pon my soul I am. The Hampstead place and all." 
 
 "Sell Northend House!" cried poor Mr. Wade, in bewilder- 
 ment. " Why, the carvings by Grinling Gibbons are the finest 
 in England." 
 
 " I can't help that," laughed Mr. Richard, ringing the belL 
 " I want cash, and cash I must have. — Breakfast, Smithers. — 
 I'm going to travel." 
 
 Francis Wade was breathless with astonishment. Educated 
 and reared as he had been, he would as soon have thought of 
 proposing to sell St. Paul's Cathedral, as to sell the casket which 
 held his treasures of art, — his coins, his coffee-cups, his pictures, 
 and his " proofs before letters." 
 
 " Surely, Richard, you are not in earnest?" he gasped. 
 
 " I am, indeed." 
 
 " But— but who will buy it ?" 
 
 "Plenty of people. I shall cut it up into building allotments. 
 Besides, they are talking of a suburban line, with a terminus at 
 St. John's Wood, which will cut the garden in half. You are 
 quite sure you've breakfasted? Then pardon w^." 
 
 " Richard, you are jesting with me ! You will never let them 
 do such a thing ! " 
 
 " I'm thinking of a trip to America," said Mr. Richard, 
 cracking an egg. " I am sick of Europe. After all, what 
 is the good of a man like me pretending to belong to 'an 
 old family,' with 'a seat' and all that humbug? Money is 
 the thing now, my dear uncle. Hard cash ! That's the ticket 
 for soup, you may depend." 
 
 "Then what do you propose doing, sir?" 
 
 " To buy my mother's life interest as provided, realize upon 
 
MR. RICHARD BE VINE SURPRISED. 397 
 
 the property, and travel," said Mr. Richard, helping himself to 
 potted grouse. 
 
 " You amaze me, Richard. You confound me. Of course 
 you can do as you please. But so sudden a determination 
 The old house — scattered — vases — coins — pictures — I really — 
 Well, it is your property, of course, — and — and — I wish you a 
 very good morning ! " 
 
 " I mean to do as I please," soliloquized Rex, as he resumed 
 his breakfast, " Let him sell his rubbish by auction, and go 
 and live abroad, in Germany or Jerusalem if he likes, the 
 farther the better for me. Til sell off the property and make 
 myself scarce. A trip to America will benefit my health." 
 
 A knock at the door made him start. 
 
 " Come in ! Curse it, how nervous I'm getting. What's 
 that ? Letters ? Give them to me ; and why the devil don't 
 you put the brandy on the table, Smithers ? " 
 
 He drank some of the spirit greedily, and began to open his 
 correspondence. 
 
 " Cussed brute," said Mr. Smithers, outside the door. " He 
 couldn't use wuss langwidge if he was a dook, dam 'im ! — 
 Yessir," he added, suddenly, as a roar from his master recalled 
 him. 
 
 " When did this come ? " asked Mr. Richard, holding out a 
 letter more than usually disfigured with stampings. 
 
 " Lars night, sir. It's bin to 'Amstead, sir, and come down 
 directed with the h'others." The angry glare of the black 
 eyes induced him to add, " I 'ope there's nothink wrong, 
 sir." 
 
 " Nothing, you infernal ass and idiot," burst out Mr. Richard, 
 white with rage, " except that I should have had this instantly. 
 Can't you see it's marked urgent ? Can you read ? Can you 
 spell? There, that will do. No lies. Get out ! " 
 
 Left to himself again, Mr. Richard walked hurriedly up and 
 down the chamber, wiped his forehead, drank a tumbler of 
 brandy, and finally sat down and re-read the letter. It was 
 short, but terribly to the purpose. 
 
 "The George Hotel, Plymouth, 
 
 \^th April, 1846. 
 " My Dear Jack,— 
 
 " I have found you out, you see. Never mind how just at present. I 
 know all about your proceedings, and unless Mr. Richard Devine receives 
 
398 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 his wife with due propriety, hell find himself in the custody of the police. 
 Telegraph, dear, to Mrs. Richard Devine, at above address. 
 
 " Yours as ever, Jack, 
 
 " Sarah. 
 « To Richard Devine, Esq., 
 
 ' ' Northend House, 
 
 " Hampstead." 
 
 The blow was unexpected and severe. It was hard, in 
 the very hi?h tide and flush of assured success, to be thus 
 plucked back into the old bondage. Despite the affectionate 
 tone of the letter, he knew the woman with whom he had 
 to deal. For some furious minutes he sat motionless, gazing 
 at the letter. He did not speak — men seldom do under such 
 circumstances— but his thoughts ran in this fashion : " Here 
 is this cursed woman again ! Just as I was congratulating 
 myself on my freedom. How did she discover me ! Small 
 use asking that. What shall I do ? I can do nothing. It 
 is absurd to run away, for I shall be caught. Besides, I've 
 no money. My account at Mastermann's is overdrawn two 
 thousand pounds. If I bolt at all, I must bolt at once — 
 within twenty-four hours. Rich as I am, I don't suppose 
 I could raise more than five thousand pounds in that time. 
 These things take a day or two, say forty-eight hours. In 
 fort>'-eight hours I could raise twenty thousand pounds, but 
 forty-eight hours is too long. Curse the woman ! I know 
 her ! How in the fiend's name did she discover me ? It's 
 a bad job. — However, she's not inclined to be gratuitously 
 disagreeable. How lucky I never married again ! I had 
 better make terms and trust to fortune. After all, she's been 
 a good friend to me. — Poor Sally ! — I might have rotted on 
 that infernal Eaglehawk Neck, if it hadn't been for her. She 
 is not a bad sort. Handsome woman, too. I may make it 
 up with her. I shall have to sell off and go away after all. — 
 It might be worse. — I dare say the property's worth three 
 hundred thousand pounds. Not bad for a start in America, 
 And I may get rid of her yet. Yes. I must g^ve in. — Oh, 
 curse her \—\iingtng the bell] Smithers ! " \Smithers appears^ 
 " A telegraph form and a cab ! Stay. Pack me a dressing- 
 bag, I shall have to go away for a day or so. \Sotto voce] — 
 I'd better see her myself. — \_Aloud\ — Bring me a Bradshaw ! 
 \Sotlo voce] — Damn the woman." 
 
IN WHICH THE CHAPLAIN IS TAKEN ILL. 399 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 IN WHICH THE CHAPLAIN IS TAKEN ILL. 
 
 THOUGH the house of the Commandant of Norfolk Island 
 was comfortable and well furnished, and though, of 
 necessity, all that was most hideous in the " discipline" 
 of the place was hidden, the loathing with which Sylvia had 
 approached the last and most dreaded abiding place of the 
 elaborate convict system, under which it had been her misfortune 
 to live, had not decreased. The sights and sounds of pain and 
 punishment surrounded her. She could not look out of her 
 windows without a shudder. She dreaded each evening when 
 her husband returned, lest he should blurt out some new atrocity. 
 She feared to ask him in the morning whither he was going, lest 
 he should thrill her with the announcement of some fresh 
 punishment. 
 
 " I wishjMaurice, we had never come here," said she, piteously, 
 when he recounted to her the scene of the gaol-gang. " These 
 unhappy men will do you some frightful injury one of these 
 days." 
 
 "Stuff!" said her husband. "They've not the courage 
 I'd take the best man among them, and dare him to touch me." 
 
 " I cannot think how you like to witness so much misery and 
 villainy. It is horrible to me to think of." 
 
 " Our tastes differ, my dear. — Jenkins ! Confound you ! 
 Jenkins, I say." The convict-servant entered. " Where is the 
 chargebook? I've told you always to have it ready for me. 
 Why don't you do as you are told .'' You idle, lazy scoundrel ! 
 I suppose you were yarning in the cookhouse, or " 
 
 "If you please, sir " 
 
 " Don't answer me, sir. Give me the book." Taking it and 
 running his finger down the leaves, he commented on the list of 
 offences to which he would be called upon in the morning to 
 mete out judgment. 
 
 ^' Meer-a-seek, having a pipe — the rascally Hindoo scoundrel ! 
 — Benjamin Pellett, havifig fat iti his possession. Miles Byrne, 
 not walking fast enough — We must enliven Mr. Byrne. Thomas 
 Twisty haviftg a pipe and striking a light. W. Barnes, not in 
 f)lace at muster : says he was ^washing himselP — I'll wash him! 
 
400 \ HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 John Richards, inissing muster and insolence. John Gateby, 
 insoletice and insubordination. James Hopkitis, insolence and 
 Joiil language. Riifus Dawes, gross insolence, refusing to work. 
 — Ah ! we must look after you. You are a parson's man, are 
 you? I'll break your spirit, my man, or I'll Sylvia !" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Your friend Dawes is doing credit to his bringing up." 
 
 " What do you mean .?" 
 
 " That infernal villain and reprobate, Dawes. He is fitting 
 himself faster for " 
 
 She interrupted him. " Maurice, I wish you would not use 
 such language. You know I dislike it." She spoke coldly and 
 sadly, as one who knows that remonstrance is vain, and is yet 
 constrained to remonstrate. 
 
 "Oh, dear! My Lady Proper! can't bear to hear her husband 
 swear. How refined we're getting!" 
 
 " There, I did not mean to annoy you," said she, wearily. 
 "Don't let us quarrel, for goodness' sake." 
 
 He went away noisily, and she sat looking at the carpet 
 wearily. A noise roused her. She looked up and saw North. 
 Her face beamed instantly. "Ah ! Mr. North, I did not expect 
 you. What brings you here? You'll stay to dinner, of course." 
 (She rang the bell without waiting for a reply.) " Mr. North 
 dines here ; place a chair for him. And have you brought me 
 the book? I have been looking for it." 
 
 " Here it is," said North, producing a volume of ' Monte 
 Christo.' "I envy you." 
 
 She seized the book with avidity, and, after running her eyes 
 over the pages, turned inquiringly to the fly-leaf. 
 
 " It belongs to my predecessor," said North, as though in 
 answer to her thought. " He seems to have been a great reader 
 of French. I have found many French novels of his." 
 
 " I thought clergymen never read French novels," said Sylvia, 
 with a smile. 
 
 "There are French novels and French novels," said North. 
 " Stupid people confound the good with the bad. I remember 
 a worthy friend of mine in Sydney who soundly abused me for 
 reading 'Rabelais,' and when I asked him if he had read it, he 
 said that he would sooner cut his hand off than open it. 
 Admirable judge of its merits ! " 
 
 " But is this really good ? Papa told me it was rubbish." 
 
D 
 
 IN WHICH THE CHAPLAIN IS TAKEN ILL. 401 
 
 " It is a romance, but, in my opinion, a very fine one. The 
 notion of the sailor being taught in prison by the priest, and 
 sent back into the world, an accomplished gentleman, to work 
 out his vengeance, is superb." 
 
 " Now, now — you are telling me," laughed she ; and then, 
 with feminine perversity, "Go on, what is the story?" 
 
 " Only that of an unjustly imprisoned man, who, escaping by a 
 marvel, and becoming rich — as Dr. Johnson says, ' beyond the 
 dreams of avarice ' — devotes his life and fortune to revenge him- 
 self." 
 
 "And does he?" 
 
 " He does, upon all his enemies save one." 
 
 "And he ?" 
 
 " She — was the wife of his greatest enemy, and Dant^s spared 
 her because he loved her." 
 
 Sylvia turned away her head. " It seems interesting enough," 
 said she, coldly. 
 
 There was an awkward silence for a moment, which each 
 seemed afraid to break. North bit his lips, as though regretting 
 what he had said. Mrs. Frere beat her foot on the floor, and at 
 length raising her eyes, and meeting those of the clergyman fixed 
 upon her face, rose hurriedly, and went to meet her returning 
 husband. 
 
 " Come to dinner, of course 1" said Frere, who, though he dis- 
 liked the clergyman, yet was glad of anybody who would help 
 him to pass a cheerful evening. 
 
 " I came to bring Mrs. Frere a book." 
 
 " Ah ! She reads too many books ; she's always reading 
 books. It is not a good thing to be always poring over print, 
 is it, North ? You have some influence with her ; tell her so. 
 Come, I am hungry." 
 
 He spoke with that affectation of jollity with which husbands 
 of his calibre veil their bad temper. 
 
 Sylvia had her defensive armour on in a twinkling. 
 " Of course, you two men will be against me. When did two 
 men ever disagree upon the subject of wifely duties ? However, 
 I shall read in spite of you. Do you know, Mr. North, that 
 when I married I made a special agreement with Captain Frere 
 that I was not to be asked to sew on buttons for him ? ' 
 
 " Indeed ! " said North, not understanding this change of 
 humour. 
 
 26 
 
402 HIS NATURAL LIFE 
 
 " And she never has from that hour," said Frere, recovering 
 his suavity at the sight of food. " I never have a shirt fit to put 
 on. Upon my word, there are a dozen in the drawer now." 
 
 North perused his plate uncomfortably. A saying of omni- 
 scient Balzac occurred to him. " Le grand dcueil est le ridicule,' 
 and his mind began to sound all sorts of philosophical depths, 
 not of the most clerical character. 
 
 After dinner Maurice launched out into his usual topic — con- 
 vict discipline. It was pleasant for him to get a listener ; for 
 his wife, cold and unsympathetic, tacitly declined to enter into 
 his schemes for the subduing of the refractory villains. " You 
 insisted on coming here," she would say. " I did not wish to 
 come. I don't like to talk of these things. Let us talk of 
 something else." When she adopted this method of procedure, 
 he had no alternative but to submit, for he was afraid of her, 
 after a fashion. In this ill-assorted match he was only apparently 
 the master. He was a physical tyrant. For him, a creature 
 had but to be weak to be an object of contempt ; and his gross 
 nature triumphed over the finer one of his wife. Love had long 
 since died out of their hfe. The young, impulsive, delicate girl, 
 who had given herself to him seven years before, had been 
 changed into a weary, suffering woman. The wife is what her 
 husband makes her, and his rude animalism had made her the 
 nervous invalid she was. Instead of love, he had awakened in 
 her a distaste which at times amounted to disgust. We have 
 neither the skill nor the boldness of that profound philosopher 
 whose autopsy of the human heart awoke North's contemplation, 
 and we will not presume to set forth in bare English the story of 
 this marriage of the Minotaur. Let it suffice to say that Sylvia 
 liked her husband least when he loved her most. In this repul- 
 sion lay her power over him. When the animal and spiritual 
 natures cross each other, the nobler triumphs in fact if not in 
 appearance. Maurice Frere, though his wife obeyed him, knew 
 that he was inferior to her, and was afraid of the statue he had 
 created. She was ice, but it was the artificial ice that chemists 
 make in the midst of a furnace. Her coldness was at once her 
 strength and her weakness. When she chilled him, she com- 
 manded him. 
 
 Unwitting of the thoughts that possessed his guest, Frere 
 chatted amicably. North said little, but drank a good deal. 
 The wine, however, rendered him silent, instead of talkative. 
 
IN WHICH THE CHAPLAIN IS TAKEN ILL. 403 
 
 He drank that he might forget unpleasant memories, and drank 
 without accomplishing his object. When the pair proceeded to 
 the room where Mrs. Frere awaited them, Frere was boisterously- 
 good humoured. North silently misanthropic. 
 
 "Sing something, Sylvia!" said Frere, with the ease of posses- 
 sion, as one who should say to a living musical-box, " Play- 
 something." 
 
 " Oh, Mr. North doesn't care for music, and I'm not inclined 
 to sing. Singing seems out of place here." 
 
 " Nonsense," said Frere. " Why should it be more out of 
 place here than anywhere else.''" 
 
 " Mrs. Frere means that mirth is in a manner unsuited to 
 these melancholy surroundings," said North, out of his keener 
 sense. 
 
 " Melancholy surroundings !" cried Frere, staring in turn at 
 the piano, the ottomans, and the looking-glass. " Well, the 
 house isn't as good as the one in Sydney, but it's comfortable 
 enough." 
 
 " You don't understand me, Maurice," said Sylvia. " This 
 place is very gloomy to me. The thought of the unhappy men 
 who are ironed and chained all about us makes me miserable.' 
 
 " What stuff ! " said Frere, now thoroughly roused. " The 
 ruffians deserve all they get and more. Why should /<?« make 
 yourself wretched about them ? " 
 
 " Poor men ! How do we know the strength of their tempta- 
 tion, the bitterness of their repentance ? " 
 
 " Evil-doers earn their punishment," says North, in a hard 
 voice, and taking up a book suddenly. "They must learn to 
 bear it. No repentance can undo their sin." 
 
 " But surely there is mercy for the worst of evil-doers," urged 
 Sylvia, gently. 
 
 North seemed disinclined or unable to reply, and nodded 
 only. 
 
 " Mercy !" cried Frere. ** I am not here to be merciful ; I 
 am here to keep these scoundrels in order, and by the Lord 
 that made me, 111 do it!" 
 
 " Maurice, do not talk like that. Think how slight an accident 
 might have made any one of us like one of these men. What is 
 the matter, Mr. North ?" 
 
 Mr. North has suddenly turned pale. 
 
 "Nothing," returned the clergyman, gasping — "a sudden 
 
404 ffiS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 faintness !" The windows were thrown open, and the chaplain 
 gradually recovered, as he did in Burgess's parlour, at Port 
 Arthur, seven years ago. " I am liable to these attacks. A 
 touch of heart disease, I think. I shall have to rest for a day 
 or so." 
 
 "Ah, take a spell," said Frere ; "you overwork yourself." 
 
 North, sitting, gasping and pale, smiles in a ghastly manner. 
 * I — I will. If I do not appear for a week, Mrs. Frere, you will 
 know the reason." 
 
 " A week ! Surely it will not last so long as that," exclaims 
 Sylvia. 
 
 The ambiguous "it" appears to annoy him, for he flushes 
 painfully, replying, " Sometimes longer. It is, a — um — uncer- 
 tain," in a confused and shame-faced manner, and is luckily 
 relieved by the entry of Jenkins. 
 
 "A message from Mr. Troke, sir." 
 
 "Troke ! What's the matter now ?" 
 
 " Dawes, sir, 's been violent and assaulted Mr. Troke. Mr. 
 Troke said you'd left orders to be told at onst of the insub- 
 ordination of prisoners." 
 
 " Quite right, where is he ?" 
 
 " In the cells, I think, sir. They had a hard fight to get him 
 there, I am told, your honour. " 
 
 " Had they ? Give my compliments to Mr. Troke, and tell 
 him that I shall have the pleasure of breaking Mr. Dawes's 
 spirit to-morrow morning at nine sharp." 
 
 "Maurice," said Sylvia, who had been listening to the con- 
 versation in undisguised alarm, " do me a favour ? Do not 
 torment this man." 
 
 " What makes you take a fancy to him .?" asks her husband, 
 with sudden unnecessary fierceness. 
 
 " Because his is one of the names which have been from my 
 childhood synonymous with suffering and torture, because what- 
 ever wrong he may have done, his life-long punishment must 
 have in some degree atoned for it." 
 
 She spoke with an eager pity in her face that transfigured it. 
 North, devouring her with his glance, saw tears fn her eyes. 
 
 " Does this look as if he had made atonement?" said Frere 
 coarsely, slapping the letter. 
 
 "He is a bad man, I know, but " she passed her hand 
 
 over licr forehead with the old troubled gesture—" he cannot 
 
BREAKING A MAN'S SPIRIT. 405 
 
 have been always bad. I think I have heard some good of him 
 somewhere. " 
 
 " Nonsense," said Frere, rising decisively. " Your fancies 
 mislead you. Let me hear you no more. The man is rebellious, 
 and must be lashed back again to his duty. Come, North, we'll 
 have a nip before you start." 
 
 " Mr. North, wiU not you plead for me ?" suddenly cried poor 
 Sylvia, her self-possession overthrown. " You have a heart to 
 pity these suffering creatures." 
 
 But North, who seemed to have suddenly recalled his soul 
 from some place where it had been wandering, draws himself 
 aside, and with dry lips makes shift to say, " I cannot interfere 
 with your husband, madam," and goes out almost rudely. 
 
 " You've made old North quite ill," said Frere, when he by- 
 and-by returns, hoping by bluff ignoring of roughness on his 
 own part to avoid reproach from his wife. " He drank half a 
 bottle of brandy to steady his nerves before he went home, and 
 swung out of the house like one possessed." 
 
 But Sylvia, occupied by her own thoughts, did not reply. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 BREAKING A MAN'S SPIRIT. 
 
 THE insubordination of which Rufus Dawes had been guilty 
 was, in this instance, insignificant. It was the custom 
 of the newly-fledged constables of Captain Frere to enter 
 the wards at night, armed with cutlasses, tramping about, and 
 making a great noise. Mindful of the report of Pounce, they pulled 
 the men roughly from their hammocks, examined their persons for 
 concealed tobacco, and compelled them to open their mouths 
 to see if any was inside. The men in Dawes's gang— to which 
 Mr. Troke had an especial objection — were often searched more 
 than once in a night, searched going to work, searched at meals, 
 searched going to prayers, searched coming out, and this in the 
 roughest manner. Their sleep broken, and what little self-re- 
 spect they might yet presume to retain harried out of them, the 
 objects of this incessant persecution were ready to turn upon 
 and kill their tormentors. 
 The great aim of Troke was to catch Dawes tripping, but the 
 
4o6 HIS NA TURA L LIFE. 
 
 leader of the " Ring " was too wary. In vain had Troke, eager 
 to sustain his reputation for sharpness, burst in upon the convict 
 at all times and seasons. He had found nothing. In vain had 
 he laid traps for him ; in vain had he " planted " figs of tobacco, 
 and attaching long threads to them, waited in a bush hard by, 
 until the pluck at the end of his hne should give token that 
 the fish had bitten. The experienced " old hand " was too acute 
 for him. Filled with disgust and ambition, he determined upon 
 an ingenious little trick. He was certain that Dawes possessed 
 tobacco ; the thing was to find it upon him. Now, Rufus 
 Dawes, holding aloof, as was his custom, from the majority 
 of his companions, had made one friend — if so mindless and 
 battered an old wreck could be called a friend — Blind Mooney. 
 Perhaps this oddly-assorted friendship was brought about by 
 two causes — one, that Mooney was the only man on the island 
 who knew more of the horrors of convictism than the leader of 
 the Ring ; the other, that Mooney was blind, and, to a moody, 
 sullen man, subject to violent fits of passion and a constant 
 suspicion of all his fellow-creatures, a blind companion was more 
 congenial than a sharp-eyed one. 
 
 Mooney was one of the " First Fleeters." He had arrived in 
 Sydney fifty-seven years before, in the year 1789, and when 
 he was transported he was fourteen years old. He had been 
 through the whole round of servitude, had worked as a bonds- 
 man, had married, and been " up country," had been again 
 sentenced, and was a sort of dismal patriarch of Norfolk Island, 
 having been there at its former settlement. He had no friends. 
 His wife was long since dead, and he stated, without contra- 
 diction, that his master, having taken a fancy to her, had 
 despatched the uncomplaisant husband to imprisonment. 
 Such cases were not uncommon. 
 
 One of the many ways in which Rufus Dawes had obtained 
 the affection of the old blind man was the gift of such fragments 
 of tobacco as he had himself from time to time secured. Troke 
 knew this ; and on the evening in question hit upon an excellent 
 plan. Admitting himself noiselessly into the boat-shed, where 
 the gang slept, he crept close to the sleeping Dawes, and coun- 
 terfeiting Mooney's mumbling utterance, asked for " some 
 tobacco." Rufus Dawes was but half awake, and on repeating 
 his request, Troke felt something put into his hand. He grasped 
 Dawes's arm, and struck a light. He had got his man this time. 
 
BREAKING A MAN'S SPIRIT. 407 
 
 Dawes had conveyed to his fancied friend a piece of tobacco 
 almost as big as the top joint of his little finger. 
 
 One can understand the feelings of a man entrapped by such 
 base means. Rufus Dawes no sooner saw the hated face of 
 Warder Troke peering over his hammock, than he sprang out, 
 and exerting to the utmost his powerful muscles, knocked Mr 
 Troke fairly off his legs into the arms of the in-coming con- 
 stables. A desperate struggle took place, at the end of which, 
 the convict, overpov/ered by numbers, was borne senseless to 
 the cells, gagged, and chained to the ring-bolt on the bare flags. 
 While in this condition he was savagely beaten by five or six 
 constables. 
 
 To this maimed and manacled rebel was the Commandant 
 ushered by Troke the next morning. 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! my man," said the Commandant. " Here you are 
 a^ain, you see. How do you like this sort of thing ? " 
 Dawes, glaring, makes no answer. 
 
 " You shall have fifty lashes, my man," said Frere. " We'll 
 see. how you'll feel then ! " 
 
 The fifty were duly administered, and the Commandant called 
 the next day. The rebel was still mute. 
 
 " Give him fifty more, Mr. Troke. We'll see what he's made of." 
 One hundred and twenty lashes were inflicted in the course of 
 the morning, but still the sullen convict refused to speak. He 
 was then treated to fourteen days' solitary confinement in one of 
 the new cells. On being brought out and confronted with his 
 tormentor, he merely laughed. For this he was sent back for 
 another fourteen days ; and still remaining obdurate, was flogged 
 again, and got fourteen days more. Had the chaplain then 
 visited him, he might have found him open to consolation, but 
 the chaplain — 30 it was stated — was sick. When brought out 
 at the conclusion of his third confinement, he was found to be 
 in so exhausted a condition, that the doctor ordered him to 
 hospital. As soon as he was sufficiently recovered, Frere visited 
 him, and finding his " spirit " not yet " broken," ordered that he 
 should be put to grind maize. Dawes declined to work. So 
 they chained his hand to one arm of the grindstone, and placed 
 another prisoner at the other arm. As the second prisoner 
 turned, the hand of Dawes of course revolved. 
 
 " You're not such a pebble as folks seemed to think," grinned 
 Frere, pointing to the turning wheel. 
 
4o8 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 Upon which the indomitable poor devil straightened his 
 sorely-tried muscles, and prevented the wheel from turning 
 at all. Frere gave him fifty more lashes, and sent him the 
 next day to grind cayenne pepper. This was a punishment 
 more dreaded by the convicts than any other. The pungent 
 dust filled their eyes and lungs, causing them the most excru- 
 ciating torments. For a man with a raw back the work was 
 one continued agony. In four days, Rufus Dawes, emaciated 
 blistered, blinded, broke down. 
 
 " For God's sake, Captain Frere, kill me at once ! " he said. 
 
 " No fear," said the other, rejoiced at this proof of his power. 
 " You've given in ; that's all I wanted. Troke, tate him to 
 the hospital." 
 
 When he was in hospital. North visited him. 
 
 " I would have come to see you before," said the clergyman, 
 "but I have been very ill." 
 
 In truth he looked so. He had had a fever, it seemed, and 
 they had shaved his beard, and cropped his hair. Dawes could 
 see that the haggard, wasted man had passed through some 
 agony almost as great as his own. The next day Frere visited 
 him, complimented him on his courage, and offered to make him 
 a constable. Dawes turned his scarred back to his torturer, and 
 resolutely declined to answer. 
 
 " I am afraid you have made an enemy of the Commandant," 
 said North, the next day. "Why not accept his offer?" 
 
 Dawes cast on him a glance of quiet scorn. " And betray my 
 mates? I'm not one of that sort." 
 
 The clergyman spoke to him of hope, of release, of repentance, 
 and redemption. The prisoner laughed. "Who's to redeem 
 me ? " he said, expressing his thoughts in phraseology that to 
 ordinary folks might seem blasphemous. " It would take a 
 Christ to die again to save such as I." 
 
 North spoke to him of immortality. *' There is another life," 
 said he. " Do not risk your chance of happiness in it. You 
 have a future to live for, man." 
 
 " I hope not," said the victim of the "system.'' " I want to 
 rest — to rest, and never to be disturbed again." 
 
 His "spirit" was broken enough by this time. Yet he had 
 resolution enough to refuse Frere's repeated offers. " I'll never 
 ' jump ' it," he said to North, " if they cut me in half first." 
 
 North pityingly implored the stubborn mind to have mercy on 
 
DIARY OF THE REV. JAMES NORTH. 409 
 
 the lacerated body, but without effect. His own wayward heart 
 gave him the key to read the cipher of this man's Hfe. "A 
 noble nature ruined," said he to himself. " What is the secret of 
 his history?" 
 
 Dawes, on his part, seeing how different from other black 
 coats was this priest — at once so ardent and so gloomy, so stern 
 and so tender — began to speculate on the cause of his monitor's 
 sunken cheeks, fiery eyes, and pre-occupied manner, to wonder 
 what grief inspired those agonized prayerfe, those eloquent and 
 daring supplications, which were daily poured out over his rude 
 bed. So between these two — the priest and the sinner — was a 
 sort of sympathetic bond. 
 
 One day this bond was drawn so close as to tug at both their 
 heart-strings. The chaplain had a flower in his coat. Dawes 
 eyed it with hungry looks, and, as the clergyman was about to 
 quit the room, said, " Mr. North, will you give me that rosebud.?' 
 North paused irresolutely, and finally, as if after a struggle with 
 himself, took it carefully from his button-hole, and placed it in 
 the prisoner's brown, scarred hand. In another instant, Dawes, 
 believing himself alone, pressed the gift to his lips. North re- 
 turned abruptly, and the eyes of the pair met. Dawes flushed 
 crimson, but North turned white as death. Neither spoke, but 
 each was drawn closer to the other, since both had kissed the 
 rosebud plucked by Sylvia's fingers. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF THE REV. JAMES NORTH. 
 
 OCTOBER 2ist. — I am safe for another six months if I am 
 careful, for my last bout lasted longer than I expected. 
 I suppose one of these days I shall have a paroxysm 
 that will kill me. I shall not regret it. 
 
 I wonder if this familiar of mine — I begin to detest the 
 expression — will accuse me of endeavouring to make a case for 
 myself if I say that I believe my madness to be a disease ? J do 
 believe it. I honestly can no more help getting drunk, than a 
 lunatic can help screaming and gibbering. It would be different 
 with me, perhaps, were I a contented man, happily married, with 
 children about me, and family cares to distract me. But as I 
 
4TO HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 am — a lonely, gloomy being, debarred from love, devoured by 
 spleen, and tortured with repressed desires — I become a living 
 torment to myself. I think of happier men, with fair wives and 
 clinging children, of men who are loved and who love, of Frere 
 for instance — and a hideous wild beast seems to stir within me, 
 a monster, whose cravings cannot be satisfied, can only be 
 drowned in stupefying brandy. 
 
 Penitent and shattered, I vow to lead a new life ; to forswear 
 spirits, to drink nothing but water. Indeed, the sight and smell 
 of brandy make me ill. All goes well for some weeks, when I 
 grow nervous, discontented, moody. I smoke, and am soothed 
 But moderation is not to be thought of; Httle by little I increase 
 the dose of tobacco. Five pipes a day become six or seven. 
 Then I count up to ten and twelve, then drop to three or four, 
 then mount to eleven at a leap ; then lose count altogether. 
 Much smoking excites the brain. I feel clear, bright, gay. My 
 tongue is parched in the morning, however, and I use liquor to 
 literally " moisten my clay." I drink wine or beer in modera- 
 tion, and all goes well. My limbs regain their suppleness, my 
 hands their coolness, my brain its placidity. I begin to feel 
 that I have a will. I am confident, calm, and hopeful. To this 
 condition succeeds one of the most frightful melancholy. I 
 remain plunged, for an hour together, in a stupor of despair. 
 The earth, air, sea, all appear barren, colourless. Life is a 
 burden. I long to sleep, and sleeping struggle to awake, 
 because of the awful dreams which flap about me in the dark- 
 ness. At night I cry, " Would to God it were morning !" in the 
 morning, " Would to God it were evening !" I loathe myself, 
 and all around me. I am nerveless, passionless, bowed down 
 with a burden like the burden of Saul. I know well what will 
 restore me to life and ease — restore me, but to cast me back 
 again into a deeper fit of despair. I drink. Oiie glass — my 
 blood is warmed, — my heart leaps, my hand no longer shakes. 
 Three glasses, I rise with hope in my soul, — the evil spirit flies 
 fi-om me. I continue — pleasing images flock to my brain, the 
 fields break into flower, the birds into song, the sea gleams 
 sapphire, the warm heaven laughs. Great God ! what man 
 could withstand a temptation like this? 
 
 By an effort, I shake off" the desire to drink deeper, and fix 
 my thoughts on my duties, on my books, on the wretched 
 prisoners. I succeed perhaps for a time ; but my blood, heated 
 
DIARY OF THE REV. JAMES NORTH. 41 1 
 
 by the wine which is at once my poison and my life, boils in my 
 veins, I drink again, and dream. I feel all the animal within 
 me stirring. In the day my thoughts wander to all monstrous 
 imaginings. The most familiar objects suggest to me loathsome 
 thoughts. Obscene and filthy images surround me. My nature 
 seems changed. By day I feel myself a wolf in sheep's clothing ; 
 a man possessed by a devil, who is ready at any moment to 
 break out and tear him to pieces. At night I become a satyr. 
 While in this torment I at once hate and fear myself. One fair 
 face is ever before me, gleaming through my hot dreams like a 
 flying moon in the sultry midnight of a tropic storm. I dare not 
 trust myself in the presence of those whom I love and respect, 
 lest my wild thoughts should find vent in wilder words. I lose 
 my humanity, I am a beast. Out of this depth there is but one 
 way of escape. Downwards, I must drench the monster I 
 have awakened until he sleeps again, I drink and become 
 oblivious. In these last paroxysms there is nothing for me but 
 brandy, I shut myself up alone and pour down my gullet huge 
 draughts of spirit. It mounts to my brain. I am a man again ! 
 and as I regain my manhood, I topple over — dead drunk. 
 
 But the awakening ! Let me not paint it The delirium, the 
 fever, the self-loathing, the prostration, the despair. I view 
 in the looking-glass a haggard face, with red eyes. I look 
 down upon shaking hands, flaccid muscles, and shrunken Umbs. 
 I speculate if I shall ever be one of those grotesque and 
 melancholy beings, with bleared eyes and running noses, swollen 
 beUies and shrunken legs ! Ugh 1 — it is too likely. 
 
 October 22nd. — Have spent the day with Mrs. Frere. She is 
 evidently eager to leave the place — as eager as I am. Frere 
 rejoices in his murderous power, and laughs at her expostula- 
 tions. I suppose men get tired of their wives. In my present 
 frame of mind I am at a loss to understand how a man could 
 refuse a wife anything. 
 
 I do not think she can possibly care for him. I am not a 
 selfish sentimentalist, as are the majority of seducers. I would 
 take no woman away from a husband for mere liking. Yet I 
 think there are cases in which a man who loved would be 
 justified in making a woman happy at the risk of his own — 
 soul, I suppose. 
 
 Making her happy ! Ay, that's the point. Would she be 
 
412 
 
 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 happy? There are few men who can endure to be "cut," 
 slighted, pointed at, and women suffer more than men in these 
 regards. I, a grizzled man of forty, am not such an arrant ass 
 as to suppose that a year of guilty delirium can compensate to a 
 gently-nurtured woman for the loss of that social dignity which 
 constitutes her best happiness. I am not such an idiot as to 
 forget that there may come a time when the woman I love may 
 cease to love 7ne, and having no tie of self-respect, social position, 
 or family duty, to bind her, may inflict upon her seducer that 
 agony which he has taught her to inflict upon her husband. 
 Apart from the question of the sin of breaking the seventh 
 commandment, I doubt if the worst husband and the most un- 
 happy home are not better, in this social condition of ours, 
 than the most devoted lover. A strange subject this for a clergy- 
 man to speculate upon ! If this diary should ever fall into the 
 hands of a real God-fearing, honest booby, who never was 
 tempted to sin by finding that at middle-age he loved the wife 
 of another, how he would condemn me ! And rightly, of course, 
 
 November 4th. — In one of the turnkey's rooms in the new 
 gaol is to be seen an article of harness, which at first creates 
 surprise to the mind of the beholder, who considers what 
 animal of the brute creation exists of so diminutive a size as to 
 admit of its use. On inquiry, it will be found to be a bridle, 
 perfect in headband, throat-lash, etc., for a human being. 
 There is attached to this bridle a round piece of cross wood, of 
 almost four inches in length, and one and a half in diameter. 
 This, again, is secured to a broad strap of leather to cross the 
 mouth. In the wood there is a small hole, and, when used, the 
 wood is inserted in the mouth, the small hole being the only 
 breathing space. This being secured with the various straps and 
 buckles, a more complete bridle could not be well imagined. 
 
 I was in the gaol last evening at eight o'clock. I had been to 
 see Rufus Dawes, and returning, paused for a moment to speak 
 to Hailey. Gimblett, who robbed Mr. Vane of two hundred 
 pounds, was present ; he was at that time a turnkey, holding a 
 third-class pass, and in receipt of two shillings per diem. Every- 
 thing was quite still. I could not help remarking how quiet the 
 gaol was, when Gimblett said, " There's some one speaking. I 
 know who that is." And forthwith took from its pegs one of the 
 bridles just described, and a pair of handcuffs. 
 
THE LONGEST STRA W. 
 
 I followed him to one of the cells, which he opened, and 
 therein was a man lying on his straw mat, undressed, and to all 
 appearance fast asleep. Gimblett ordered him to get up and 
 dress himself He did so, and came into the yard, where 
 Gimblett inserted the iron-wood gag in his mouth. The sound 
 produced by his breathing through it (which appeared to be 
 done with great difficulty) resembled a low, indistinct whistle. 
 Gimblett led him to the lamp-post in the yard, and I saw that 
 the victim of his wanton tyranny was the poor blind wretch 
 Mooney. Gimblett placed him with his back against the lamp- 
 post, and his arms being taken round, were secured by hand- 
 cuffs round the post. I was told that the old man was to 
 remain in this condition for three hours. I went at once to the 
 Commandant. He invited me into his drawing-room — an invi- 
 tation which I had the good sense to refuse — but refused to 
 listen to any plea for mercy. " The old impostor is always 
 making his blindness an excuse for disobedience," said he. — 
 And this is her husband ! 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE LONGEST STRAW. 
 
 RUFUS DAWES hearing, when " on the chain" the nejct 
 day, of the wanton torture of his friend, uttered no threat 
 of vengeance, but groaned only. " I am not so strong as 
 I was," said he, as if in apology for his lack of spirit. " They 
 have unnerved me." And he looked sadly down at his gaunt 
 frame and trembling hands. 
 
 " I can't stand it no longer," said Mooney, grimly. " I've 
 spoken to Bland, and he's of my mind. You know what we 
 resolved to do. Let's do it." 
 
 Rufus Dawes stared at the sightless orbs turned inquiringly 
 to his own. The fingers of his hand, thrust into his bosom, felt 
 a token which lay there. A shudder thrilled him. " No, no. 
 Not now," he said. 
 
 "You're not afeard, man?" asked Mooney, stretching out 
 his hand in the direction of the voice. " You're not going to 
 shirk?" The other avoided the touch, and shrank away, still 
 
4J4 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 staring. " You ain't going to back out after you swored it, 
 Dawes ? You're not that sort. Dawes, speak, man ! " 
 
 "Is Bland willing?" asked Dawes, looking round, as if to 
 seek some method of escape from the glare of those unspecu- 
 lative eyes. 
 
 " Ay, and ready. They flogged him again yesterday." 
 
 " Leave it till to-morrow," said Dawes, at length. 
 
 " No ; let's have it over," urged the old man, with a strange 
 eagerness. " I'm tired o' this." 
 
 Rufus Dawes cast a wistful glance towards the wall behind 
 which lay the house of the Commandant. " Leave it till to- 
 morrow," he repeated, with his hand still in his breast. 
 
 They had been so occupied in their conversation that neither 
 had observed the approach of their common enemy. " What 
 are you hiding there?" cried Frere, seizing Dawes by the wrist. 
 " More tobacco, you dog ?" The hand of the convict, thus 
 suddenly plucked from his bosom, opened involuntarily, and a 
 withered rose feU to the earth. Frere at once, indignant and 
 astonished, picked it up. " Hallo ! What the devil's this ? 
 You've not been robbing my garden for a nosegay, Jack?" The 
 Commandant was wont to call all convicts "Jack" in his 
 moments of facetiousness. It was a little humorous way he had. 
 
 Rufus Dawes uttered one dismal cry, and then stood trembling 
 and cowed. His companions, hearing the exclamation of rage 
 and grief that burst from him, looked to see him snatch back 
 the flower or perform some act of violence. Perhaps such was 
 his intention, but he did not execute it One would have 
 thought that there was some charm about this rose so strangely 
 cherished, for he stood gazing at it, as it twirled between 
 Captain Frere's strong fingers, as though it fascinated him. 
 " You're a pretty man to want a rose for your button-hole ! 
 Are you going out with your sweetheart next Sunday, Mr. 
 Dawes?" The gang laughed. "How did you get this?" 
 Dawes was silent. "You'd better tell me." No answer. 
 " Troke, let us see if we can't find Mr. Dawes's tongue. Pull 
 off your shirt, my man. I expect that's the way to your heart — 
 eh, boys ? " 
 
 At this elegant allusion to the lash, the gang laughed again, 
 and looked at each other astonished. It seemed possible that 
 the leader of the Ring was going to turn milksop. Such, indeed, 
 appeared to be the case, for Dawes, trembling and pale, cried. 
 
THE L ONGEST STRA W. 415 
 
 " Don't flog me again, sir ! I picked it up in the yard. It fell 
 out of your coat one day." Frere smiled with an inward satis- 
 faction at the result of his spirit-breaking. The explanation 
 was probably the correct one. He was in the habit of wearing 
 flowers in his coat, and it was impossible that the convict should 
 have obtained one by any other means. Had it been a fig of 
 tobacco now, the astute Commandant knew plenty of men who 
 would have brought it into the prison. But who would risk a 
 flogging for so useless a thing as a flower? "You'd better not 
 pick up any more, Jack," he said. " We don't grow flowers 
 for your amusement." And contemptuously flinging the rose 
 over the wall, he strode away. 
 
 The gang, left to itself for a moment, bestowed their attention 
 upon Dawes. Large tears were silently rolling down his face, 
 and he stood staring at the wall as one in a dream. The gang 
 curled their lips. One fellow, more charitable than the rest, 
 tapped his forehead and winked. " He's going cranky," said 
 this good-natured man, who could not understand what a sane 
 prisoner had to do with flowers. Dawes recovered himself, and 
 the contemptuous glances of his companions seemed to bring 
 back the colour to his cheeks. 
 
 " We'll do it to-night," whispered he to Mooney, and Mooney 
 smiled with pleasure. 
 
 Since the "tobacco trick," Mooney and Dawes had been 
 placed in the new prison, together with a man named Bland, 
 who had already twice failed to kill himself. When old 
 Mooney, fresh from the torture of the gag-and-bridle, lamented 
 his hard case. Bland proposed that the three should put in 
 practice a scheme in which two at least must succeed. The 
 scheme was a desperate one, and attempted only in the last 
 extremity. It was the custom of the Ring, however, to swear 
 each of its members to carry out to the best of his ability 
 this last invention of the convict-disciplined mind, should two 
 other members crave his assistance. 
 
 The scheme — like all great ideas — was simplicity itself. 
 
 That evening, when the cell-door was securely locked, and 
 the absence of a visiting gaoler might be counted upon for an 
 hour at least, Bland produced a straw, and held it out to his 
 companions. Dawes took it, and tearing it into unequal 
 lengths, handed the fragments to Mooney. 
 
4i5 HIS NATURAL LIFE, 
 
 " The longest is the one," said the blind man. " Come on, 
 boys, and dip in the lucky-bag ! " 
 
 It was evident that lots were to be drawn to determine to 
 whom fortune would grant freedom. The men drew in silence, 
 and then Bland and Dawes looked at each other. The prize 
 had been left in the bag. Mooney — fortunate old fellow — re- 
 tained the longest straw. Bland's hand shook as he compared 
 notes with his companion. There was a moment's pause, during 
 which the blank eyeballs of the blind man fiercely searched the 
 gloom, as if in that awful moment they could penetrate it. 
 
 " I hold the shortest," said Dawes to Bland. "'Tis you that 
 must do it." 
 
 " I'm glad of that," said Mooney. 
 
 Bland, seemingly terrified at the danger which fate had 
 decreed that he should run, tore the fatal lot into fragments 
 with an oath, and sat gnawing his knuckles in excess of 
 abject terror. Mooney stretched himself out upon his plank- 
 bed. " Come on, mate," he said. 
 
 Bland extended a shaking hand, and caught Rufus Dawes by 
 the sleeve. 
 
 " You have more nerve than I. You do it." 
 
 " No, no," said Dawes, almost as pale as his companion. 
 " I've run my chance fairly. 'Twas your own proposal." 
 
 The coward who, confident in his own luck, would seem to 
 have fallen into the pit he had dug for others, sat rocking 
 himself to and fro, holding his head in his hands. 
 
 " By Heaven, I can't do it," he whispered, lifting a white, wet 
 face. 
 
 "What are you waiting for?" said fortunate Mooney. 
 " Come on, I'm ready." 
 
 " I — I — thought you might like to — to — pray a bit," said 
 Bland. 
 
 The notion seemed to sober the senses of the old man, exalted 
 too fiercely by his good fortune. 
 
 " Ay ! " he said. " Pray ! A good thought ! " and he knelt 
 down ; and shutting his blind eyes — 'twas as though he was 
 dazzled by some strong light — unseen by his comrades, moved 
 his lips silently. 
 
 The silence was at last broken by the footstep of the warder 
 in the corridor. Bland hailed it as a reprieve from whatever act 
 of daring he dreaded. 
 
THE LONGEST STRAW. 417 
 
 " We must wait until he goes," he whispered eagerly. " He 
 might look in.'' 
 
 Dawes nodded, and Mooney, whose quick ear apprised him 
 very exactly of the position of the approaching gaoler, rose from 
 his knees radiant. The sour face of Gimblett appeared at the 
 trap cell-door, 
 
 '•'All right ?" he asked, somewhat— so the three thought — less 
 sourly than usual. 
 
 " All right," was the reply, and Mooney added, " Good-night, 
 Mr. Gimblett." 
 
 " I wonder what makes the old man so cheerful," thought 
 Gimblett, as he got into the next corridor. 
 
 The sound of his echoing footsteps had scarcely died away, 
 when upon the ears of the two less fortunate casters of lots, fell 
 the dull sound of rending woollen. The lucky man was tearing 
 a strip from his blanket. " I think this will do," said he, pulling 
 it between his hands to test its strength. " I am an old man." 
 It was possible that he debated concerning the descent of some 
 abyss into which the strip of blanket was to lower him. " Here, 
 Bland, catch hold. Where are ye ? — don't be faint-hearted, man. 
 It won't take ye long." 
 
 It was quite dark now in the cell, but as Bland advanced, his 
 face was like a white mask floating upon the darkness, it was so 
 ghastly pale. Dawes pressed his lucky comrade's hand, and 
 withdrew to the farthest corner. Bland and Mooney were for a 
 few moments occupied with the rope — doubtless preparing for 
 escape by means of it. The silence was broken only by the 
 convulsive janghng of Bland's irons — he was shuddering vio- 
 lently. At last Mooney spoke again, in strangely soft and 
 subdued tones. 
 
 " Dawes, lad, do you think there is a Heaven ? " 
 
 " I know there is a Hell," said Dawes, without turning his 
 face. 
 
 " Ay, and a Heaven, lad. I think I shall go there. Yoii will, 
 old chap, for you've been good to me — God bless you, you've 
 been very good to me." 
 
 ***** 
 
 When Troke came in the morning, he saw what had occurred 
 at a glance, and hastened to remove the corpse of the strangled 
 Mooney. 
 
 " We drew lots," said Rufus Dawes, pointing to Bland, who 
 
 27 
 
4t8 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 crouched in the corner farthest from his victim, " and it fell upon 
 him to do it. I'm the witness." 
 
 " They'll hang you for all that," said Troke. 
 
 " I hope so," said Rufus Dawes. 
 
 The scheme of escape hit upon by the convict intellect was 
 simply this. Three men being together, lots were drawn to de- 
 termine whom should be murdered. The drawer of the longest 
 straw was the " lucky " man. He was killed. The drawer of 
 the next longest straw was the murderer. He was hanged. 
 The unlucky one was the witness. He had, of course, an ex- 
 cellent chance of being hung also, but his doom was not so 
 certain, and he therefore looked upon himself as unfortunate. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 A MEETING. 
 
 JOHN REX found the " George '' disagreeably prepared for 
 his august arrival. Obsequious waiters took his dressing- 
 bag and overcoat, the landlord himself welcomed him at 
 the door. Two naval gentlemen came out of the coffee-room 
 to stare at him. " Have you any more luggage, Mr. Devine ? " 
 asked the landlord, as he flung open the door of the best draw- 
 ing-room. It was awkwardly evident that his wife had no 
 notion of suffering him to hide his borrowed light under a 
 bushel. 
 
 A supper-table laid for two people gleamed bright from the 
 cheeriest corner. A fire crackled beneath the marble mantel- 
 shelf The latest evening paper lay upon a chair ; and, brushing 
 it carelessly with her costly dress, the woman he had so basely 
 deserted came smiling to meet him. 
 
 " Well, Mr. Richard Devine," said she, " you did not expect 
 to see me again, did you ? " 
 
 Although, on his journey down, he had composed an elaborate 
 speech wherewith to greet her, this unnatural civility dumb- 
 founded him. " Sarah ! I never meant to " 
 
 " Hush, my dear Richard— it must be Richard now, I sup- 
 pose — This is not the time for explanations. Besides, the waiter 
 might hear you. Let us have some supper, you must be hungry, 
 
A MEETING, 419 
 
 I am sure." He advanced to the table mechanically. " How 
 fat you are I " she continued. " Too good living, I suppose. 
 
 You were not so fat at Port Ar Oh, I forgot, my dear ! 
 
 Come and sit down. That's right. I have told them all that 
 I am your wife, for whom you have sent. They regard me 
 with some interest and respect in consequence. Don't spoil 
 their good opinion of me." 
 
 He was about to utter an imprecation, but she stopped him 
 by a glance. " No bad language, John, or I shall ring for a 
 constable. Let us understand one another, my dear. You may 
 be a very great man to other people, but to me you are merely 
 my runaway husband — an escaped convict. If you don't eat 
 your supper civilly, I shall send for the police." 
 
 " Sarah ! " he burst out, " I never meant to desert you. Upon 
 my word. It is all a mistake. Let me explain." 
 
 "There is no need for explanations yet. Jack — I mean Richard. 
 Have your supper. Ah ! I know what you want." 
 
 She poured out half a tumbler of brandy, and gave it to him. 
 He took the glass from her hand, drank the contents, and then, 
 as though warmed by the spirit, laughed. " What a woman 
 you are, Sarah. I have been a great brute, I confess." 
 
 " You have been an ungrateful villain," said she, with sudden 
 passion, " a hardened, selfish villain." 
 
 " But, Sarah " 
 
 " Don't touch me ! " 
 
 " 'Pon my word, you are a fine creature, and I was a fool to 
 leave you." 
 
 The compliment seemed to soothe her, for her tone changed 
 somewhat. " It was a wicked, cruel act. Jack. You whom I 
 saved from death — whom I nursed — whom I enriched. It was 
 the act of a coward." 
 " I admit it. It was." 
 
 " You admit it. Have you no shame then ? Have you no 
 pity for me for what I have suffered all these years?" 
 " I don't suppose you cared much." 
 
 "Don't you? You never thought about me at all. I have 
 cared this much, John Rex — bah ! the door is shut close enough 
 — that I have spent a fortune in hunting you down ; and now I 
 have found you, I will make you suffer in your turn." 
 
 He laughed again, but uneasily. " How did you discover 
 me?" 
 
420 HIS NATURAL LIFjl 
 
 With a readiness which showed that she had already prepared 
 an answer to the question, she unlocked a writing case which 
 was on the side table, and took from it a newspaper, " By one 
 of those accidents which are the ruin of men hke you. Among 
 the papers sent to the overseer from his English friends was 
 this one." 
 
 She held out an illustrated journal — a Sunday organ of sport- 
 ing opinion — and pointed to a portrait engraved on the centre 
 page. It represented a broad-shouldered, bearded man, dressed 
 in the fashion affected by turfites and lovers of horseflesh, 
 standing beside a pedestal on which were piled a variety of 
 racing cups and trophies. John Rex read underneath this work 
 of art the name 
 
 MR. RICHARD DEVINE, 
 
 THE LEVIATHAN OF THE TURF. 
 
 "And you recognized me ?" 
 
 " The portrait was sufficiently like you to induce me to make 
 inquiries, and when I found that Mr. Richard Devine had 
 suddenly returned from a mysterious absence of fourteen years, 
 I set to work in earnest. I have spent a deal of money. Jack, 
 but I've got you !" 
 
 " You have been clever in finding me out ; I give you credit 
 for that." 
 
 " There is not a single act of your life, John Rex, that I do not 
 know," she continued, with heat. " I have traced you from the 
 day you stole out of my house until now. I know your continental 
 trips, your journeyings here and there in search of a lost clue. 
 I pieced together the puzzle, as you have done, and I know that, 
 by some foul fortune, you have stolen the secret of a dead man 
 to ruin an innocent and virtuous family." 
 
 "Hullo! hullo!" said John Rex. "Since when have /tf« 
 learnt to talk of virtue?" 
 
 " It is well to taunt, but you have got to the end of your tether 
 now, Jack. I have communicated with the woman whose son's 
 fortune you have stolen. I expect to hear from Lady Deviae in 
 a day or so." 
 
 "Well — and when you hear?" 
 
 " I shall give back the fortune at the price of her silence!" 
 
 "Ho! ho! Will you?" 
 
A MEETING. 421 
 
 " Yes ; and if my husband does not come back and live witl 
 me quietly, I shall call in the police." 
 
 John Rex sprang up. "Who will believe you, idiot?" he 
 cried. " I'll have you sent to gaol as an imposter." 
 
 " You forget, my dear," she returned, playing coquettishly 
 with her rings, and glancing sideways as she spoke, " that you 
 have already acknowledged me as your wife before the landlord 
 and the servants. It is too late for that sort of thing. Oh, my 
 dear Jack, you think you are very clever, but I am as clever as 
 you." 
 
 Smothering a curse, he sat down beside her. " Listen, Sarah. 
 What is the use of fighting like a couple of children. I am 
 rich ." 
 
 " So am I." 
 
 " Well, so much the better. We will join our riches together. 
 I admit that I was a fool and a cur to leave you ; but I played 
 for a great stake. The name of Richard Devine was worth 
 nearly half a million of money. It is mine. I won it. Share 
 it with me ! Sarah, you and I defied the world years ago. 
 Don't let us quarrel now. I was^ ungrateful. Forget it. We 
 know by this time that we are not either of us angels. We 
 started \a life ti^gether — do you remember, Sally, when I met 
 you first? — determined to make money. We have succeeded. 
 Why then set to work to destroy each other ? You are hand- 
 some as ever, I have not lost my wits. Is there any need for 
 you to tell the world that I am a runaway convict, and that you 
 are — well no, of course, there is no need. Kiss, and be friends, 
 Sarah. I would have escaped you if I could, I admit. You 
 have found me out. I accept the position. You claim me as 
 your husband. You say you are Mrs. Richard Devine. Very 
 well, I admit it. You have all your life wanted to be a great 
 lady. Now is your chance !" 
 
 Much as she had cause to hate him, well as she knew his 
 treacherous and ungrateful character, little as she had reason to 
 trust him, her strange and distempered affection for the 
 scoundrel came upon her again with gathering strength. As 
 she sat beside him, listening to the familiar tones of the voice 
 she had learned to love, greedily drinking in the promise of a 
 future fidelity which she was well aware was made but to be 
 broken, her memory recalled the past days of trust and hap- 
 piness, and her woman's fancy once more invested the selfish 
 
422 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 villain she had reclaimed with those attributes which had 
 enchained her wilful and wayward affections. The unselfish 
 devotion which had marked her conduct to the swindler and 
 convict was, indeed, her one redeeming virtue ; and perhaps 
 she felt dimly — poor woman — that it were better for her to chng 
 to that, if she lost all the world beside. Her wish for vengeance 
 melted under the influence of these thoughts. The bitterness of 
 despised love, the shame and anger of desertion, ingratitude, 
 and betrayal, all vanished. The tears of a sweet forgiveness 
 trembled in her eyes, the unreasoning love of her sex — faithful 
 to nought but love, and faithful to love in death — shook in her 
 voice. She took his coward hand and kissed it, pardoning all 
 his baseness with the sole reproach, " Oh John, John, you 
 might have trusted me after all ?" 
 
 John Rex had conquered, and he smiled as he embraced her. 
 * I wish I had," said he ; " it would have saved me many 
 regrets ; but never mind. Sit down ; now we will have supper. ** 
 
 " Your preference has one drawback, Sarah," he said, when 
 the meal was concluded, and the two sat down to consider their 
 immediate course of action, " it doubles the chance of detection." 
 
 "How so?" 
 
 " People have accepted me without inquiry, but I am afraid 
 not without dislike. Mr. Francis Wade, my uncle, never liked 
 me ; and I fear I have not played my cards well with Lady 
 Devine. When they find I have a mysterious wife their dislike 
 will become suspicion. Is it likely that I should have been 
 married all these years and not have informed them?" 
 
 "Very unlikely," returned Sarah calmly, "and that is just 
 the reason why you have not been married all these years. 
 Really," she added, with a laugh, " the male intellect is very 
 dull. You have already told ten thousand lies about this affair, 
 and yet you don't see your way to tell one more." 
 
 " What do you mean?" 
 
 "Why, my dear Richard, you surely cannot have forgotten 
 that you married me last year on the Continent ? By the way, 
 it was last year that you were there, was it not ? I am the 
 daughter of a poor clergyman of the Church of England ; name 
 — anything you please — and you met me — where shall we say? 
 Baden, Aix, Brussels ? Cross the Alps, if you like, dear, and 
 say Rome." 
 
A MEETING. 423 
 
 John Rex put his hand to his head. "Of course — I am 
 stupid," said he. " I have not been well lately. Too much 
 brandy and racket, I suppose." 
 
 " Well, we will alter all that," she returned with a laugh, 
 which her anxious glance at him belied. " You are going to 
 be domestic now, Jack — I mean Dick." 
 
 " Go on," said he, impatiently. " What then?" 
 
 " Then, having settled these little preliminaries, you take me 
 up to London and introduce me to your relatives and friends." 
 
 He started. "A bold game." 
 
 " Bold ! Nonsense ! The only safe one. People don't, as a 
 rule, suspect, unless one is mysterious. You mitsi do it ; I have 
 arranged for your doing it. The waiters here all know me as 
 your wife. There is not the least danger — unless, indeed, you 
 are married already?" she added, with a quick and angry 
 suspicion. 
 
 " You need not be alarmed. I was not such a fool as to 
 marry another woman while yoii were alive — had I even seen 
 one I would have cared to marry. But what of Lady Devine ? 
 You say you have told her." 
 
 " I have told her to communicate with Mrs. Carr, Post-office, 
 Torquay, in order to hear something to her advantage. If you 
 had been rebellious, John, the ' something ' would have been a 
 letter from me telling her who you really are. Now you have 
 proved obedient, the ' something ' will be a begging letter of a 
 sort of which she has already received hundreds, and which in 
 all probability she will not even answer. What do you think of 
 that, Mr. Richard Devine?" 
 
 " You deserve success, Sarah," said the old schemer, in 
 genuine admiration. ** By Jove, this is something like the old 
 days, when we were Mr. and Mrs. Crofton." 
 
 "Or, Mr. and Mrs. Skinner, eh, John?" she said, with as 
 much tenderness in her voice as though she had been a virtuous 
 matron recalling her honeymoon. " That was an unlucky name, 
 wasn't it dear ? You should have taken my advice there." And, 
 immersed in grateful recollection of their past rogueries, the 
 worthy pair pensively smiled. Rex was the first to awake from 
 that pleasant reverie. 
 
 " I will be guided by you then," he said. " What next ?" 
 
 "Next — for, as you say, my presence doubles the danger — we 
 will contrive to withdraw quietly from England. The introduc- 
 
424 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 tion to your mother over, and Mr. Francis disposed of, we will 
 go to Hampstead, and live there for a while. During that time 
 you must turn into cash as much property as you dare. We 
 will then go abroad for the ' season ' — and stop there. After a 
 year or so on the Continent, you can write to our agent to sell 
 more property ; and, finally, when we are regarded as permanent 
 absentees — and three or four years will bring that about — we 
 will get rid of everything, and slip over to America. Then 
 you can endow a charity if you like, or build a church to the 
 memory of the man you have displaced." 
 
 John Rex burst into a laugh. " An excellent plan. I like the 
 idea of the charity — the Devine Hospital, eh?" 
 
 " By the way, how did you find out the particulars of this 
 man's life ? He was burned in the Hydaspes, wasn't he ?" 
 
 " No," said Rex, with an air of pride. " He was transported 
 in the Malabar under the name of Rufus Dawes. You remem- 
 ber him. It is a long story. The particulars weren't numerous, 
 and if the old lady had been half sharp she would have bowled 
 me out. But the fact was she wanted to find the fellow alive, 
 and was willing to take a good deal on trust. I'll tell you all 
 about it another time. I think I'll go to bed now ; I'm tired, 
 and my head aches as though it would split." 
 
 " Then it is decided that you follow my directions ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 She rose and placed her hand on the bell. "What are you 
 going to do?" he asked, uneasily. 
 
 "/am going to do nothing. You are going to telegraph to 
 your servants to have the house in London prepared for your 
 wife, who will return with you the day after to-morrow." 
 
 John Rex stayed her hand with a sudden angry gesture, 
 "This is all devilish fine," he said, "but suppose it fails?" 
 
 "That is your affair, John. You need not go on with this 
 business at all, unless you like. I had rather you didn't," 
 
 " What the deuce am I to do, then ? " 
 
 " I am not as rich as you are, but, with my station and so on, 
 I am worth seven thousand a year. Come back to Australia 
 with me, and let these poor people enjoy their own again. Ah, 
 John, it is the best thing to do, believe me. We can afford to 
 be honest now." 
 
 "A fine scheme!* cried he. "Give up half a million of 
 money, and go back to Australia ! You must be mad ! " 
 
DIARY OF THE REV. JAME.S NORTH. 425 
 
 " Then telegraph." 
 
 " But, my dear " 
 
 " Hush, here's the waiter." 
 
 As he wrote, John Rex felt gloomily that, though he had suc- 
 ceeded in recalling her afifection, that affection was as imperious 
 as of yore. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF THE REV. JAMES NORTH. 
 
 DECEMBER 7th. — I have made up my mind to leave this 
 place, to bury myself again in the bush, I suppose, and 
 await extinction. I try to think that the reason for this 
 determination is the frightful condition of misery existing among 
 the prisoners ; that because I am daily horrified and sickened 
 by scenes of torture and infamy, I decide to go away ; that, 
 feeling myself powerless to save others, I wish to spare myself. 
 But in this journal, in which I bind myself to write nothing but 
 truth, I am forced to confess that these are not the reasons. I 
 will write the reason plainly : " I covet my neighbour's wife." 
 It does not look well thus written. It looks hideous. In my 
 own breast I find numberless excuses for my passion. I said to 
 myself, " My neighbour does not love his wife, and her unloved 
 life is misery. She is forced to live in the frightful seclusion of 
 this accursed island, and she is dying for want of companionship. 
 She feels that I understand and appreciate her, that I could love 
 her as she deserves, that I could render her happy. I feel that I 
 have met the only woman who has power to touch my heart, to 
 hold me back from the ruin into which I am about to plunge, to 
 make me useful to my fellows — a man, and not a drunkard." 
 Whispering these conclusions to myself, I am urged to brave 
 public opinion, and make two lives happy. I say to myself, or 
 rather my desires say to me — " What sin is there in this ? Adul- 
 tery? No; for a marriage without love is the coarsest of all 
 adulteries. What tie binds a man and woman together — that 
 formula of license pronounced by the priest, which the law has 
 recognized as a 'legal bond' ? Surely not this only, for marriage 
 is but a partnership — a contract of mutual fidelity — and in all 
 contracts the violation of the terms of the agreement by one of 
 
426 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 the contracting persons absolves the other. Mrs. Frere is then 
 absolved, by her husband's act. I cannot but think so. But 
 is she willing to risk the shame of divorce or legal offence? 
 Perhaps. Is she fitted by temperament to bear such a burden 
 of contumely as must needs fall upon her ? Will she not feel 
 disgust at the man who entrapped her into shame .'' Do not the 
 comforts which surround her compensate for the lack of affec- 
 tion ? " And so the torturing catechism continues, until I am 
 driven mad with doubt, love, and despair. 
 
 Of course I am wrong ; of course I outrage my character as 
 a priest ; of course I endanger — according to the creed I teach 
 — my soul and hers. But priests, unluckily, have hearts and 
 passions as well as other men. Thank God, as yet, I have never 
 expressed my madness in words. What a fate is mine ! When I 
 am in her presence I am in torment ; when I am absent from 
 her my imagination pictures her surrounded by a thousand 
 graces that are not hers, but belong to all the women of my 
 dreams — to Helen, to Juliet, to Rosalind. Fools that we are of 
 our own senses ! When I think of her I blush ; when I hear 
 her name my heart leaps, and I grow pale. Love ! What is 
 the love of two pure souls, scarce conscious of the Paradise into 
 which they have fallen, to this maddening delirium ? I can 
 understand the poison of Circe's cup ; it is the sweet-torment of 
 a forbidden love like mine ! Away gross materialism, in which 
 I have so long schooled myself! I, who laughed at passion as 
 the outcome of temperament and easy living — I, who thought 
 in my intellect, to sound all the depths and shoals of human 
 feeling — I, who analysed my own soul — scoffed at my own yearn- 
 ings for an immortality — am forced to deify the senseless power of 
 my creed, and believe in God, that I may pray to Him. I know 
 now why men reject the cold impersonality that reason tells us 
 rules the world— it is because they love. To die, and be no 
 more ; to die, and rendered into dust, be blown about the earth; 
 to die, and leave our love defenceless and forlorn, till the bright 
 soul that smiled to ours is smothered in the earth that made it ! 
 No ! To love is life eternal. God, I believe in Thee ! Aid 
 me ! Pity me ! Sinful wretch that I am, to have denied Thee ! 
 See me on my knees before Thee ! Pity me, or let me die ! 
 
 December 9th. — I have been visiting the two condemned 
 prisoners, Dawes and Bland, and praying with them. O Lord, 
 let me save one soul that may plead with Thee for mine ! Let 
 
DIARY OF THE REV. JAMES NORTH. 427 
 
 me draw one being alive out of this pit ! I weep — I weary Thee 
 with my prayers, O Lord ! Look dov/n upon me. Grant me a 
 sign. Thou didst it in old times to men who were not more 
 fervent in their supplications than am I. So says Thy Book. 
 Thy Book which I believe — which I believe. Grant me a sign 
 — one little sign, O Lord ! — I will not see her. I have sworn it. 
 Thou knowest my grief — my agony — my despair. Thou know- 
 est why I love her. Thou knowest how I strive to make her 
 hate me. Is that not a sacrifice ? I am so lonely — a lonely man, 
 with but one creature that he loves — yet, what is mortal love to 
 Thee ? Cruel and implacable, Thou sittest in the heavens men 
 have built for Thee, and scornest them ! Will not all the 
 burnings and slaughters of the saints appease Thee ? Art Thou 
 not sated with blood and tears, O God of vengeance, of wrath, 
 and of despair ? Kind Christ, pity me. Thou wilt — for Thou 
 wast human ! Blessed Saviour, at whose feet knelt the Mag- 
 dalen ! Divinity, who, most divine in Thy despair, called on 
 Thy cruel God to save Thee — by the memory of that moment 
 when Thou didst deem Thyself forsaken — forsake not me ! 
 Sweet Christ, have mercy on Thy sinful servant. 
 
 I can write no more. I will pray to Thee with my lips. I 
 will shriek my supplications to Thee. I will call upon Thee so 
 loud that all the world shall hear me, and wonder at Thy silence 
 — unjust and unmerciful God ! 
 
 December 14th. — What blasphemies are these which I have 
 uttered in my despair? Horrible madness that has left me 
 prostrate, to what heights of frenzy didst thou not drive my 
 soul ! Like him of old time, who wandered among the tombs, 
 shrieking and tearing himself, I have been possessed by a devil. 
 For a week I have been unconscious of aught save torture. I 
 have gone about my daily duties as one who in his dreams 
 repeats the accustomed action of the day, and knows it not. 
 Men have looked at me strangely. They look at me strangely 
 now. Can it be that my disease of drunkenness has become 
 the disease of insanity ? Am I mad, or do I but verge on 
 madness ? O Lord, whom in my agonies I have confessed, 
 leave me my intellect — let me not become a drivelling spec- 
 tacle for the curious to point at or to pity ! At le.ist, in mercy, 
 spare me a little. Let not my punishment overtake me here. 
 
428 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 Let her memories of me be clouded with a sense of my rudeness 
 or my brutality ; let me for ever seem to her the ungrateful 
 ruffian I strive to show myself — but let her not behold me — 
 than 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE STRANGE BEHAVIOUR OF MR. NORTH. 
 
 ON or about the 8th of December, Mrs. Frere noticed a 
 sudden and unaccountable change in the manner of the 
 chaplain. He came to her one afternoon, and, after 
 talking for some time, in a vague and unconnected manner, 
 about the miseries of the prison and the wretched condition of 
 some of the prisoners, began to question her abruptly concerning 
 Rufus Dawes. 
 
 " I do not wish to think of him," said she, with a shudder. 
 " I have the strangest, the most horrible dreams about him. 
 He is a bad man. He tried to murder me when a child, and 
 had it not been for my husband, he would have done so. I 
 have only seen him once since then — at Hobart Town, when 
 he was taken.'' 
 
 '' He sometimes speaks to me of you," said North, eyeing her. 
 " He asked me once to give him a rose plucked in your garden," 
 
 Sylvia turned pale. " And you gave it him ?" 
 
 " Yes, I gave it him. Why not ?" 
 
 " It was valueless, of course, but still — to a convict ! " 
 
 "You are not angry?" 
 
 *' Oh, no ! Why should I be angry ? " she laughed con- 
 strainedly. " It was a strange fancy for the man to have, that's 
 all." 
 
 " I suppose you would not give me another rose, if I asked you." 
 
 " Why not ? " said she, turning away uneasily, " Yoii ? You 
 are a gentleman." 
 
 " Not I — you don't know me." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " I mean that it would be better for you if you had never seen 
 me." 
 
 " Mr. North 1 " Terrified at the wild gleam in his eyes, she 
 had risen hastily. " You are talking very strangely." 
 
THE STRANGE BEHAVIOUR OF MR. NORTH. 429 
 
 " Oh, don't be alarmed, Madam, I am not drunk ! " — he pro- 
 nounced the word with a fierce energy. " I had better leave 
 you. Indeed, I think the less we see of each other the better." 
 
 Deeply wounded and astonished at this extraordinary out- 
 burst, Sylvia allowed him to stride away without a word. She 
 saw him pass through the garden and slam the little gate, but 
 she did not see the agony on his face, or the passionate gesture 
 with which — when out of eyeshot — he lamented the voluntary 
 abasement of himself before her. She thought over his conduct 
 with growing fear. It was not possible that he was intoxicated 
 — such a vice was the last one of which she could have believed 
 him guilty. It was more probable that some effects of the fever, 
 which had recently confined him to his house, yet lingered. So 
 she thought ; and, thinking, was alarmed to realize of how 
 much importance the well-being of this man was to her. 
 
 The next day he met her, and, bowing, passed swiftly. This 
 pained her. Could she have offended him by some unlucky 
 word ? She made Maurice ask him to dinner, and, to her 
 astonishment, he pleaded illness as an excuse for not coming. 
 Her pride was hurt, and she sent him back his books and music. 
 A curiosity that was unworthy of her compelled her to ask the 
 servant who carried the parcel what the clergyman had said. 
 " He said nothing — only laughed." Laughed ! In scorn of her 
 foolishness ! His conduct was ungentlemanly and intemperate. 
 She would forget, as speedily as possible, that such a being had 
 ever existed. This resolution taken, she was unusually patient 
 with her husband. 
 
 So a week passed, and Mr. North did not return. Unluckily 
 for the poor wretch, the very self-sacrifice he had made 
 brought about the precise condition of things which he was 
 desirous to avoid. It is possible that had the acquaintance 
 between them continued on the same staid footing, it would 
 have followed the lot of most acquaintanceships of the kind — 
 other circumstances and other scenes might have wiped out 
 the memory of all but common civilities between them, and 
 Sylvia might never have discovered that she had for the 
 chaplain any other feeling but that of esteem. But the very 
 fact of the sudden wrenching away of her soul-companion, 
 showed her how barren was the solitary life to which she 
 had been fated. Her husband, she had long ago adinitted, 
 with bitter self-communings, was utterly unsuited to her. She 
 
43° 
 
 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 could find in his society no enjoyment, and for the sympathy 
 which she needed was compelled to turn elsewhere. She under- 
 stood that his love for her had burnt itself out — she confessed, 
 with intensity of self-degradation, that his apparent affection 
 had been born of sensuality, and had perished in the fires it 
 had itself kindled. Many women have, unhappily, made some 
 such discovery as this, but for most women there is some dis- 
 tracting occupation. Had it been Sylvia's fate to live in the 
 midst of fashion and society, she would have found relief in the 
 conversation of the witty, or the homage of the distinguished. 
 Had fortune cast her lot in a city, Mrs. Frere might have become 
 one of those charming women who collect around their supper- 
 tables whatever of male intellect is obtainable, and who find the 
 husband admirably useful to open his own champagne bottles. 
 The celebrated women who have stepped out of their domestic 
 circles to enchant or astonish the world, have almost invariably 
 been cursed with unhappy homes. But poor Sylvia was not 
 destined to this fortune. Cast back upon herself, she found no 
 surcease of pain in her own imaginings, and meeting with a 
 man sufficiently her elder to encourage her to talk, and sufifi- 
 ciently clever to induce her to seek his society and his advice, 
 she learnt, for the first time, to forget her own griefs ; for the 
 tirst time she suffered her nature to expand under the sun of 
 a congenial influence. This sun, suddenly withdrawn, her 
 soul, grown accustomed to the warmth and light, shivered 
 at the gloom, and she looked about her in dismay at the 
 dull and barren prospect of life which lay before her. In 
 a word, she found that the society of North had become so 
 far necessary to her, that to be deprived of it was a grief— 
 notwithstanding that her husband remained to console her. 
 
 After a week of such reflections, the barrenness of life grew 
 insupportable to her, and one day she came to Maurice and 
 begged to be sent back to Hobart Town. " I cannot live in 
 this horrible island," she said. " I am getting ill. Let me go 
 to my father for a few months, Maurice." Maurice consented. 
 His wife was looking ill, and Major Vickers was an old man — 
 a rich old man — who loved his only daughter. It was not 
 undesirable that Mrs. Frere should visit her father; indeed, 
 so little sympathy was there between the pair, that, the first 
 astonishment over, Maurice felt rather glad to get rid of her for 
 a while. " You can go back in the Lady Franklin, if you like. 
 
THE STRANGE BEHA VIOUR OF MR. NORTH. 431 
 
 my dear," he said. " I expect her every day." At this decision 
 — much to his surprise — she kissed him with more show of 
 affection than she had manifested since the death of her child. 
 
 The news of tlie approaching departure became known, but 
 still North did not make his appearance. Had it not been a 
 step beneath tlie dignity of a woman, Mrs. Frere would have gone 
 herself and asked him the meaning of his unaccountable rude- 
 ness, but there was just sufficient morbidity in the sympathy 
 she had for him to restrain her from an act which a young 
 girl — though not more innocent — would have dared without 
 hesitation. Calling one day upon the wife of the surgeon, 
 however, she met the chaplain face to face, and with the con- 
 summate art of acting which most women possess, rallied him 
 upon his absence from her house. The behaviour of the poor 
 devil, thus stabbed to the heart, was curious. He forgot gen- 
 tlemanly behaviour and the respect due to a woman, flung one 
 despairingly angry glance at her, and abruptly retired. Sylvia 
 flushed crimson, and endeavoured to excuse North on account 
 of his recent illness. The surgeon's wife looked askance, and 
 turned the conversation. The next time Sylvia bowed to this 
 lady, she got a chilling salute in return that made her blood 
 boil. " I wonder how I have offended Mrs. Field ? " she asked 
 Maurice. " She almost cut me to-day.'' "Oh, the old cat!" 
 returned Maurice. "What does it matter if she did?" How- 
 ever, a few days afterwards, it seemed that it did matter ; for 
 Maurice called upon Field and conversed seriously with him. 
 The issue of the conversation being reported to Mrs. Frere, 
 the lady wept indignant tears of wounded pride and shame. 
 It appeared that North had watched her out of the house 
 returned, and related — in a " stumbling, hesitating way," Mrs. 
 Field said — how he disliked Mrs. Frere, how he did not want 
 to visit her, and how flighty and reprehensible such conduct was 
 in a married woman of her rank and station. This act of base- 
 ness — or profound nobleness — achieved its purpose. Sylvia 
 noticed the unhappy priest no more. 
 
 Between the Commandant and the chaplain now arose a 
 coolness, and Frere set himself, by various petty tyrannies, to 
 disgust North, and compel him to a resignation of his office. 
 The convict-gaolers speedily marked the difference in the treat- 
 ment of the chaplain, and their demeanour changed. For respect 
 was substituted insolence ; for alacrity, sullenness ; for prompt 
 
432 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 obedience, impertinent intrusion. The men whom North fa- 
 voured were selected as special subjects for harshness, and for 
 a prisoner to be seen talking to the clergyman, was sufficient 
 to ensure for him a series of tyrannies. The result of this was, 
 that North saw the souls he laboured to save slipping back into 
 the gulf ; beheld the men he had half won to love him meet 
 him with averted faces ; discovered that to show interest in a 
 prisoner was to injure him, not to serve him. The unhappy 
 man grew thinner and paler under this ingenious torment. He 
 had deprived himself of that love which, guilty though it might 
 be, was, nevertheless, the only true love he had known ; and he 
 found that, having won this victory, he had gained the hatred of 
 all living creatures with whom he came in contact. The autho- 
 rity of the Commandant was so supreme that men lived but by 
 the breath of his nostrils. To offend him was to perish, and the 
 man whom the Commandant hated must be hated also by all 
 those who wished to exist in peace. There was but one being 
 who was not to be turned from his allegiance — the convict mur- 
 derer, Rufus Dawes, who awaited death. For many days he 
 had remained mute, broken down beneath his weight of sorrow 
 or of sullenness ; but North, bereft of other love and sympathy, 
 strove with that fighting soul, if haply he might win it back to 
 pc-ace. It seemed to the fancy of the priest — a fancy distempered, 
 perhaps, by excess, or superhumanly exalted by mental agony — 
 that this convict, over whom he had wept, was given to him as a 
 hostage for his own salvation. " I must save him or perish," he 
 said. " I must save him, though I redeem him with my own 
 blood." 
 
 Frere, unable to comprehend the reason of the calmness with 
 which the doomed felon met his taunts and torments, thought 
 that he was shamming piety to gain some indulgence of meat 
 and drink, and redoubled his severity. He ordered Dawes to 
 be taken out to work just before the hour at which the chaplain 
 was accustomed to visit him. He pretended that the man was 
 " dangerous," and directed a gaoler to be present at all inter- 
 views, " lest the chaplain might be murdered." He issued an 
 order that all civil officers should obey the challenges of convicts 
 acting as watchmen ; and North, coming to pray with his peni- 
 tent, would be stopped ten times by grinning felons, who, putting 
 their faces within a foot of his, would roar out, " Who goes 
 there ? " and burst out laughing at the reply. Under pretence 
 
MR. NORTH SPEAKS. 433 
 
 of watching more carefully over the property of the chaplain, he 
 directed that any convict, acting as constable, mii.Tht at any time 
 " search everywhere and anywhere," for property supposed to be 
 in the possession of a prisoner. The chaplain's servant was a 
 prisoner, of course ; and North's drawers were ransacked twice 
 in one week by Troke. North met these impertinences with 
 unruffled brow, and Frere could in no way account for his 
 obstinacy, until the arrival of the Lady Fra?ikliii explained the 
 chaplain's apparent coolness. He had sent in his resignation 
 two months before, and the saintly Meekin had been appointed 
 in his stead. Frere, unable to attack the clergyman, and 
 indignant at the manner in which he had been defeated, re- 
 venged himself upon Rufus Dawes. 
 
 CHAPTER Xlli. 
 
 MR. NORTH SPEAKS. 
 
 THE method and manner of Frere's revenge became a sub- 
 ject of whispered conversation on the island. It was 
 reported that North had been forbidden to visit the con- 
 vict, but that he had refused to accept the prohibition, and by a 
 threat of what he would do when the returning vessel had landed 
 him in Hobart Town, had compelled the Commandant to with- 
 draw his order. The Commandant, however, speedily discovered 
 in Rufus Dawes signs of insubordination, and set to work again 
 to reduce again still further the " spirit " he had so ingeniously 
 *' broken." The unhappy convict was deprived of food, was 
 kept awake at nights, was put to the hardest labour, was loaded 
 with the heaviest irons. Troke, with devilish malice, suggested 
 that, if the tortured wretch would decline to see the chaplain, 
 some amelioration of his condition might be effected ; but his 
 suggestions were in vain. Fully believing that his death was 
 certain, Dawes clung to North as the saviour of his agonized 
 soul, and rejected all such insidious overtures. Enraged at this 
 obstinacy, Frere sentenced his victim to the " spread eagle" and 
 the " stretcher." 
 
 Now the nimour of the obduracy of this undaunted convict 
 
 2g 
 
434 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 who had been recalled to her by the clergyman at their strange 
 interview, had reached Sylvia's ears. She had heard gloomy 
 hints of the punishments inflicted on him by her husband's 
 order ; and as — constantly revolving in her mind that last con- 
 versation with the chaplain — she wondered at the prisoner's 
 strange fancy for a flower, her brain began to thrill with those 
 undefined and dreadful memories which had haunted her child- 
 hood. What was the link between her and this murderous 
 villain? How came it that she felt at times so strange a 
 sympathy for his fate, and that he — who had attempted her 
 life — cherished so tender a remembrance of her as to beg for a 
 flower which her hand had touched ? 
 
 She questioned her husband concerning the convict's mis- 
 doings, but with the petulant brutality which he invariably 
 displayed when the name of Rufus Dawes intruded itself into 
 their conversation, Maurice Frere harshly refused to satisfy her. 
 This but raised her curiosity higher. She reflected how bitter 
 he had always seemed against this man^she remembered how, 
 in the garden at Port Arthur, the hunted wretch had caught her 
 dress with words of assured confidence — she recollected the 
 fragment of cloth he had passionately flung from him, and which 
 her affianced lover had contemptuously tossed into the stream. 
 The name of " Dawes," detested as it had become to her, bore 
 yet some strange association of comfort and hope. What secret 
 lurked behind the twilight that had fallen upon her childish 
 memories ? Deprived of the advice of North — to whom, a few 
 weeks back, she would have confided her misgivings — she re- 
 solved upon a project that, for her, was most distasteful. She 
 would herself visit the gaol and judge how far the rumours of her 
 husband's cruelty were worthy of credit. 
 
 One sultry afternoon, when the Commandant had gone 
 on a visit of inspection, Troke, lounging at the door of the New 
 Prison, beheld, with surprise, the figure of the Commandant's 
 lady. 
 
 " What is it, mam } " he asked, scarcely able to believe his eyes. 
 " I want to see the prisoner Dawes." 
 Troke's jaw fell. 
 " See Dawes ? " he repeated. 
 " Yes. Where is he ? " 
 
 Troke was preparing a lie. The imperious voice, and the 
 clear, steady gaze, confused him. 
 
MR. NORTH SPEAKS. 435 
 
 " He's here." 
 
 " Let me see him." 
 
 *' He's — he's under punishment, mam." 
 
 " What do you mean ? Are they flogging him ?" 
 
 " No ; but he's dangerous, mam. The Commandant " 
 
 "Do you mean to open the door or not, Mr. Troke?" 
 
 Troke grew more confused. It was evident that he was 
 most unwilling to open the door. " The Commandant gave 
 strict orders " 
 
 " Do you wish me to cojnplain to the Commandant ? '' cries 
 Sylvia, with a touch of her old spirit, and jumping hastily at the 
 conclusion that the gaolers were, perhaps, torturing the convict 
 for their own entertainment. " Open the door at once ! — at 
 once ! " 
 
 Thus commanded, Troke, with a hasty growl of its " being no 
 affair of his, and he hoped Mrs. Frere would tell the captain how 
 it happened," flung open the door of a cell on the right hand of 
 the doorway. It was so dark that, at first, Sylvia could dis- 
 tinguish nothing but the outline of a framework, with something 
 stretched upon it that resembled a human body. Her first 
 thought was that the man was dead, but this was not so — he 
 groaned. Her eyes, accustoming themselves to the gloom, 
 began to see what the "punishment" was. Upon the floor 
 was placed an iron frame about six feet long, and two and 
 a half feet wide, with round iron bars, placed transversely, 
 about twelve inches apart. The man she came to seek was 
 bound in a horizontal position upon this frame, wi«^h his neck 
 projecting over the end of it. If he allowed his head to hang, 
 the blood rushed to his brain, and suffocated him, while the 
 effort to keep it raised strained every muscle to agony pitch. 
 His face was purple, and he foamed at the mouth. Sylvia 
 uttered a cry. " This is no punishment ; it's murder ! Who 
 ordered this ? " 
 
 " The Commandant/' said Troke, sullenly. 
 
 " I don't beheve it. Loose him ! " 
 
 ** I daren't ma'am," said Troke. 
 
 " Loose him, I say ! Hailey ! — you, sir, there ! " The noise 
 had brought several warders to the spot. " Do you hear me } 
 Do you know who I am? Loose him, I say ! '' In her eager- 
 ness and compassion, she was on her knees by the side of the 
 infernal machine, plucking at the ropes with her delicate fingers. 
 
436 HIS NATURAL LIFE, 
 
 " Wretches, you have cut his flesh ! He is dying ! Help ! 
 You have killed him !" 
 
 The prisoner, in fact, seeing this angel of mercy stooping over 
 him, and hearing close to him the tones of a voice that for seven 
 years he had heard but in his dreams, had fainted. Troke and 
 Hailey, alarmed by her vehemence, dragged the stretcher out 
 into the light, and hastily cut the lashings. Dawes rolled off 
 like a log, and his head fell against Mrs. Frere. Troke roughly 
 pulled him aside, and called for water. Sylvia, trembling with 
 sympathy, and pale with passion, turned upon the crew. " How 
 long has he been like this ?" 
 
 " An hour," said Troke. 
 
 "A lie ! " said a stern voice at the door. " He has been there 
 nine hours V 
 
 " Wretches ! " cried Sylvia, " you shall hear more of this. 
 
 Oh, oh ! I am sick '."—she felt for the wall—" I— I ." North 
 
 watched her with agony on his face, but did not move. " I 
 
 faint. I " — she uttered a despairing cry that was not without 
 
 a touch of anger. " Mr. North ! do you not see ? Oh ! Take 
 me home — take me home !" and she would have fallen across 
 the body of the tortured prisoner had not North caught her in 
 his arms. 
 
 Rufus Dawes, awaking from his stupor, saw, in the midst of 
 a sunbeam which penetrated a window in the corridor, the 
 woman who came to save his body supported by the priest who 
 came to save his soul ; and staggering to his knees, he stretched 
 out his hands v/ith a hoarse cry. Perhaps something in the 
 action brought back to the dimmed remembrance of the Com- 
 mandant's wife the im.age of a similar figure stretching forth its 
 hands to a frightened child in the mysterious far-off time. She 
 started, and pushing back her hair, bent a wistful, terrified gaze 
 upon the face of the kneeling man, as though she would fain 
 read there an explanation of the shadowy memory which 
 haunted her. It is possible that she would have spoken, but 
 North — thinking the excitement had produced one of those 
 hysterical crises which were common to her — gently drew her, 
 still gazing, back towards the gate. The convict's arms fell, and 
 an undefinable presentiment of evil chilled him as he beheld the 
 priest — emotion pallid in his cheeks — slowly draw the fair young 
 creature from out the sunlight into the grim shadow of the heavy 
 archway. For an instant the gloom swallowed them, and it 
 
MR. NORTH SPEAKS. 437 
 
 seemed to Dawes that the strange wild man of God had in that 
 instant become a man of Evil — blighting the brightness and the 
 beauty of the innocence that clung to him. For an instant — and 
 then they passed out of the prison archway into the free air of 
 heaven — and the sunlight glowed golden on their faces. 
 
 "You are ill," said North. "You will faint. Why do you 
 look so wildly?" 
 
 " What is it ? " she whispered, more in answer to her own 
 thoughts than to his question — "what is it that links me to 
 that man? What deed — what terror — what memory ! I tremble 
 with crowding thoughts, that die ere they can whisper to me. 
 Oh, that prison ! " 
 
 " Look up ; we are in the sunshine." 
 
 She passed her hand across her brow, sighing heavily, as one 
 awaking from a disturbed slumber — shuddered, and withdrew 
 her arm from his. North interpreted the action correctly, and 
 the blood rushed to his face. " Pardon me, you cannot walk 
 alone ; you will fall. I will leave you at the gate." 
 
 In truth she would have fallen had he not again assisted her. 
 She turned upon him eyes whose reproachful sorrow had almost 
 forced him to a confession, but he bowed his head and held 
 silence. They reached the house, and he placed her tenderly 
 in a chair. " Now you are safe, madam, I will leave you." 
 
 She burst into tears. "Why do you treat me thus, Mr. 
 North? What have I done to make you hate me?" 
 
 " Hate you ! " said North, with trembling hps. " Oh, no, I 
 do not — do not hate you. I am rude in my speech, abrupt in 
 my manner. You must forget it, and — and meP 
 
 A horse's feet crashed upon the gravel, and an instant after 
 ^laurice Frere burst into the room. Returning from the Cas- 
 cades, he had met Troke, and learned the release of the 
 prisoner. Furious at this usurpation of authority by his wife, 
 his self-esteem wounded by the thought that she had witnessed 
 his mean revenge upon the man he had so infamously wronged, 
 and his natural brutality enhanced by brandy, he had made for 
 the house at full gallop, determined to assert his authority. 
 Blind with rage, he saw no one but his wife. "What the 
 devil's this I hear ? Yuu have been meddling in my business 1 
 
 You release prisoners ! You " 
 
 " Captain Frere ! " said North, stepping forward to assert the 
 restraining presence of a stranger. Frere started, astonished at 
 
438 
 
 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 , 
 
 the intrusion of the chaplain. Here was another outrage of his 
 dignity, another insult to his supreme authority. In its passion, 
 his gross mind leapt to the worst conclusion. 
 
 " You here, too ! What do you want here— with my wife ! 
 This is your quarrel, is it ? " His eyes glanced wrathfully from 
 one to the other ; and he strode towards North. " You infernal 
 hypocritical lying scoundrel, if it wasn't for your black coat, 
 
 I'd " 
 
 " Maurice ! " cried Sylvia, in an agony of shame and terror, 
 striving to place a restraining hand upon his arm. He turned 
 upon her with so fiercely infamous a curse, that North, pale with 
 righteous rage, seemed prompted to strike the burly ruffian to 
 the earth. For a moment, the two men faced each other, and 
 then Frere, muttering threats of vengeance against each and 
 all — convicts, gaolers, wife, and priest — flung the suppliant 
 woman violently from him, and rushed from the room. She 
 fell heavily against the wall, and as the chaplain raised her, he 
 heard the hoof-strokes of the departing horse. 
 
 " Oh ! " cried Sylvia, covering her face with trembling hands, 
 " let me leave this place ! " 
 
 North, enfolding her in his arms, strove to soothe her with 
 incoherent words of comfort. Dizzy with the blow she had 
 received, she clung to him sobbing. Twice he tried to tear 
 himself away, but had he loosed his hold she would have fallen. 
 He could not hold her — bruised, suffering, and in tears — thus 
 against his heart, and keep silence. In a torrent of agonised 
 eloquence the story of his love burst from his lips. "Why 
 should you be thus tortured ? " he cried. " Heaven never willed 
 you to be mated to that boor — you, whose life should be all sun- 
 shine. Leave him — leave him. He has cast you off. We 
 have both suffered. Let us leave this dreadful place — this 
 isthmus between earth and hell ! I will give you happiness." 
 
 " I am going," she said, faintly. " I had already arranged to 
 go." 
 
 North trembled. " It was not of my seeking. Fate has willed 
 it. We go together ! " 
 
 They looked at each other— she felt the fever of his blood, 
 she read his passion in his eyes, she comprehended the " hatred " 
 he had affected for her, and, deadly pale, drew back the cold 
 hand he held. 
 
 " Go ! " she murmured. "If you love me, leave me — leave 
 
GETTING READY FOR SEA. 439 
 
 me! Do not see me or speak to me again " her silence 
 
 added the words she could not utter, " //// then." 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 GETTING READY FOR SEA. 
 
 MAURICE FRERE'S passion had spent itself in that last 
 act of violence. He did not return to the prison, as he 
 promised himself, but turned into the road that led to 
 the Cascades. He repented him of his suspicions. There was 
 nothing strange in the presence of the chaplain. Sylvia had 
 always liked the man, and an apology for his conduct had doubt- 
 less removed her anger. To make a mountain out of a molehill 
 was the act of an idiot. It was natural that she should release 
 Dawes — women were so tender-hearted. A few well-chosen, 
 calmly-uttered platitudes anent the necessity for treatment that, 
 to those unaccustomed to the desperate wickedness of convicts, 
 must appear harsh, would have served his turn far better than 
 bluster and abuse. Moreover, North was to sail in the Lady 
 Franklin, and might put in execution his threats of official 
 complaint, unless he was carefully dealt with. To put Dawes 
 again to the torture, would be to show to Troke and his friends 
 that the " Commandant's wife " had acted without the " Com- 
 mandant's authority," and that must not be shown. He would 
 not return and patch up a peace. His wife would sail in the 
 same vessel with North, and he would in a few days be left 
 alone on the island to pursue his " discipline " unchecked. With 
 this intent he returned to the prison, and gravely informed poor 
 Troke that he was astonished at his barbarity. " Mrs. Frere, 
 who most luckily had appointed to meet me this evening at the 
 prison, tells me that the poor devil Dawes had been on the 
 stretcher since seven o'clock in the morning." 
 
 " You ordered it fust thing, yer honour," said Troke. 
 
 " Yes, you fool, but I didn't order you to keep the man there 
 for nine hours, did I ? Why, you scoundrel, you might have 
 killed him ! " Troke scratched his head in bewilderment 
 " Take his irons off, and put him in a separate cell in the old 
 gaol. If a man is a murderer, that is no reason you should take 
 
440 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 the law into your own hands, is it ? You'd better take care, Mr. 
 Troke." On the way back he met the chaplain, who, seeing 
 him, made for a by-path in curious haste. " Halloo ! " roared 
 Frere. " Hi ! Mr. North ! " North paused, and the Com- 
 mandant made at him abruptly. " Look here, sir, I was rude to 
 you just now — devilish rude. Most ungentlemanly of me. I 
 must apologize." North bowed, without speaking, and tried to 
 pass. 
 
 " You must excuse my violence," Frere went on. " I'm bad 
 tempered, and I didn't like my wife interfering. Women, don't 
 you know, don't see these things — don't understand these 
 
 scoundrels." North again bowed. " Why, d n it, how savage 
 
 you look ! Quite ghastly, bigod ! I must have said most out- 
 rageous things. Forget and forgive, you know. Come home 
 and have some dinner." 
 
 " I cannot enter your house again, sir," said North, in tones 
 more agitated than the occasion would seem to warrant. 
 
 Frere shrugged his great shoulders with a clumsy affectation 
 of good humour, and held out his hand. " Well, shake hands, 
 parson. You'll have to take care of Mrs. Frere on the voyage, 
 and we may as well make up our differences before you start. 
 Shake hands." 
 
 " Let me pass, sir ! " cried North, with heightened colour ; 
 and ignoring the proffered hand, strode savagely on. 
 
 " You've a d d fine temper for a parson," said Frere to 
 
 himself "However, if you won't, you won't. Hang me if /'// 
 ask you again." Nor, when he reached home, did he fare better 
 in his efforts at reconciliation with his wife. Sylvia met him 
 with the icy front of a woman whose pride has been wounded 
 too deeply for tears. 
 
 " Say no more about it," she said. " I am going to my 
 father. If you want to explain your conduct, explain it to 
 him." 
 
 " Come, Sylvia," he urged ; " I was a brute, I know. Forgive 
 me." 
 
 _ " It is useless to ask me," she said ; " I cannot. I have for- 
 given you so much during the last seven years." 
 
 He attempted to embrace her, but she withdrew herself 
 loathingly from his arms. He swore a great oath at her, and 
 too obstinate to argue farther, sulked. Blunt coming in about 
 some ship matters, the pair drank rum. Sylvia went to her 
 
GETTING READY FOR SEA. 441 
 
 room, and occupied herself with some minor details of clothes- 
 packing (it is wonderful how women find relief from thoughts in 
 household care), while North, poor fool, seeing from his window 
 the light in hers, sat staring at it, alternately cursing and 
 praying. 
 
 In the meantime, the unconscious cause of all this — Rufus 
 Dawes — sat in his new cell, wondering at the chance which had 
 procured him comfort, and blessing the fair hands that had 
 brought it to him. He doubted not but that Sylvia had inter- 
 ceded with his tormentor, and by her gentle pleading brought 
 him ease. " God bless her," he murmured. " I have wronged 
 her all these years. She did not know that I suffered." He 
 waited anxiously for North to vi^it him, that he might have his 
 belief confirmed. " I will get him to thank her for me," he 
 thought. But North did not come for two whole days. No one 
 came but his gaolers ; and, gazing from his prison window upon 
 the sea that almost washed its walls, he saw the schooner at 
 anchor, mocking him with a liberty he could not achieve. On 
 the third day, however, North came. His manner was con- 
 strained and abrupt. His eyes wandered uneasily, and he 
 seemed burdened with thoughts which he dared not utter. 
 
 " I want you to thank her for me, Mr. North," said Dawes. 
 
 "Thank whom?" 
 
 " Mrs. Frere." 
 
 The unhappy priest shuddered at hearing the name. 
 
 " I do not think you owe any thanks to her. Your irons were 
 removed by the Commandant's order." 
 
 " But by her persuasion. I feel sure of it. Ah, I was 
 wrong to think she had forgotten me. Ask her for her for- 
 giveness." 
 
 " Forgiveness ! " said North, recalling the scene in the prison. 
 ' What have you done to need her forgiveness ? " 
 
 " I doubted her," said Rufus Dawes. " I thought her un- 
 grateful and treacherous. I thought she delivered me again 
 into the bondage from whence I had escaped. I thought she 
 had betrayed me — betrayed me to the villain whose base life 1 
 saved for her sweet sake." 
 
 " What do you mean?" asked North. "You never spoke to 
 me of this." 
 
 " No, I had vowed to bury the knowledge of it in my own 
 breast— it was too bitter to speak.'' 
 
442 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 "Saved his life!" 
 
 " Ay, and hers ! / made the boat that carried her to freedom, 
 7 held her in my arms, and took the bread from my own lips to 
 feed her ! " 
 
 " She cannot know this," said North in an undertone. 
 
 " She has forgotten it, perhaps, for she was but a child. But 
 you wiU remind her, will you not ? You will do me justice in 
 her eyes before I die ? You will get her forgiveness for me ? " 
 
 North could not explain why such an interview as the convict 
 desired was impossible, and so he promised. 
 
 " She is going away in the schooner," said he, concealing the 
 fact of his own departure. " I will see her before she goes, and 
 tell her." 
 
 " God bless you, sir," said poor Dawes. " Now pray with 
 me ; " and the wretched priest mechanically repeated one of the 
 formulae his Church prescribes. 
 
 The next day he told his penitent that Mrs. Frere had for- 
 given him. This was a he. He had not seen her ; but what 
 should a lie be to him now ? Lies were needful in the tortuous 
 path he had undertaken to tread. Yet the deceit he was forced 
 to practise cost him many a pang. He had succumbed to his 
 passion, and to win the love for which he yearned, had volun- 
 tarily abandoned truth and honour ; but standing thus alone 
 with his sin, he despised and hated himself. To deaden remorse 
 and drown reflection, he had recourse to brandy ; and though 
 the fierce excitement of his hopes and fears steeled him against 
 the stupefying action of the liquor, he was rendered by it 
 incapable of calm reflection. In certain nervous conditions 
 our mere physical powers are proof against the action of alcohol, 
 and though ten times more drunk than the toper, who, inco- 
 herently stammering, reels into the gutter, we can walk erect and 
 talk with fluency. Indeed, in this artificial exaltation of the 
 sensibilities, men often display a brilliant wit, and an acuteness 
 of comprehension, calculated to delight their friends, and terrify 
 their physicians. North had reached this condition of brain- 
 drunkenness. In plain terms, he was trembling on the verge of 
 madness. 
 
 The days passed swiftly, and Blunt's preparations for sea 
 were completed. There were two stern cabins in the schooner, 
 one of which was appropriated to Mrs. Frere while the other 
 was set apart for North. Maurice had not attempted to renew 
 
GETTING READY FOR SEA. 443 
 
 his overtures of friendship, and the chaplain had not spoken. 
 Mindful of Sylvia's last words, he had resolved not to meet her 
 until fairly embarked upon the voyage which he intended should 
 link their fortunes together. On the morning of the 19th 
 December, Blunt declared himself ready to set sail, and in 
 the afternoon the two passengers came on board. 
 
 Rufus Dawes, gazing from his window upon the schooner that 
 lay outside the reef, thought nothing of the fact that after the 
 Commandant's boat had taken away the Commandant's wife, 
 another boat should put off with the chaplain. It was quite 
 natural that Mr. North should desire to bid his friends farewell, 
 and through the hot still afternoon he watched for the returning 
 boat, hoping that the chaplain would bring him some message 
 from the woman whom he was never to see more on earth. The 
 hours wore on, however, and no breath of wind ruffled the sur- 
 face of the sea. The day was exceedingly close and sultry, 
 heavy dun clouds hung on the horizon, and it seemed probable 
 that unless a thunder-storm should clear the air before night 
 the calm would continue. Blunt, however, with a true sailor's 
 obstinacy in regard to weather, swore there would be a breeze, 
 and held to his purpose of sailing. The hot afternoon passed 
 away in a sultry sunset, and it was not until the shades of 
 evening had begun to fall that Rufus Dawes distinguished a 
 boat detach itself from the sides of the schooner, and glide 
 through the oily water to the jetty. The chaplain was returning, 
 and in a few hours perhaps would be with him, to bring him 
 the message of comfort for which his soul thirsted. He 
 stretched out his unshackled limbs, and throwing himself upon 
 his stretcher, fell to recalling the past — his boat-building, the 
 news of his fortune, his love, and his self-sacrifice. 
 
 North, however, was not returning to bring to the prisoner a 
 message of comfort, but he was returning on purpose to see him, 
 nevertheless. The unhappy man, torn by remorse and passion, 
 had resolved upon a course of action which seemed to him a 
 penance for his crime of deceit. He had determined to confess 
 to Dawes that the message he brought was wholly fictitious, 
 that he himself loved the wife of the Commandant, and that with 
 her he was about to leave the island for ever. " I am no 
 hypocrite," he thought, in his exaltation. " If I choose to sin, 
 I will sin boldly ; and this poor wretch, who looks up to me as 
 an angel, shall know me for my true self." 
 
444 HIS NA TURAL LIFE. 
 
 The notion of thus destroying his own fame in the eyes of 
 the man whom he had taught to love him, was pleasant to his 
 diseased imagination. It was the natural outcome of the morbid 
 condition of mind into which he had drifted, and he provided 
 for the complete execution of his scheme with cunning born of 
 the mischief working in his brain. It was desirable that the 
 fatal stroke should be dealt at the last possible instant ; that he 
 should suddenly unveil his own infamy, and then depart, never 
 to be seen again. To this end he had invented an excuse for 
 returning to the shore at the latest possible moment. He had 
 purposely left in liis room a dressing-bag — the sort of article one 
 is so likely to forget in the hurry of departure from one's house, 
 and so certain to remember when the time comes to finally pre- 
 pare for settling in another. He had ingeniously extracted 
 from Blunt the fact that " he didn't expect a wind before dark, 
 but wanted all ship-shape and aboard," and then, just as dark- 
 ness fell, discovered that it was imperative for him to go ashore. 
 Blunt cursed, but, if the chaplain insisted upon going, there was 
 no help for it. 
 
 " There'll be a breeze in less than two hours," said he. 
 " You've plenty of time, but if you're not back before the first 
 puff, I'll sail without you, as sure as you're born." North assured 
 him of his punctuality. " Don't wait for me, Captain, if I'm not 
 here," said he, with the lightness of tone which men use to mask 
 anxiety. " I'd take him at his word, Bkmt," said the Com- 
 mandant, who was affably waiting to take final farewell of his 
 wife. "Give way there, men," he shouted to the crew, "and 
 wait at the jetty. If Mr. North misses his ship through your 
 laziness, you'll pay for it." So the boat set off, North laugliing 
 uproariously at the thought of being late. Frere observed with 
 some astonishment that the chaplain wrapped himself in a boat 
 cloak that lay in the stern sheets. " Does the fellow want to 
 smother himself in a night like this ! " was his remark. The 
 truth was that, though his hands and head were burning, 
 North's teeth chattered with cold. Perhaps this was the reason 
 why, when landed and out of eyeshot of the crew, he produced 
 a pocket-flask of rum and eagerly drank. The spirit gave him 
 courage for the ordeal to which he had condemned himself ; and 
 with steadied step, he reached the door of the old prison. To 
 his surprise, Gimblett refused him admission ! 
 
 " But I have come direct from tlr~ Commandant," said North. 
 
GETTING READY FOR SEA. 445 
 
 " Got any order, sir ? " 
 
 " Order ! No." 
 
 " I can't let you in, your reverence," said Gimblett. 
 
 " I want to see the prisoner Dawes. I have a special message 
 for him. I have come ashore on purpose." 
 
 " I am very sorry, sir " 
 
 "The ship will sail in two hours, man, and I shall miss her," 
 said North, indignant at being frustrated in his design. " Let 
 me pass." 
 
 " Upon my honour, sir, I daren't," said Gimblett, who was 
 not without his good points. " You know what authority is, sir, 
 as well as I do." 
 
 North was in despair, but a bright thought struck him — a 
 thought that, in his soberer moments, would never haw; entered 
 his head — he would buy admission. He produced the rum 
 flask from beneath the sheltering cloak. " Come, don't talk 
 nonsense to me, Gimblett. You don't suppose I would come 
 here withoni authority. Here, take a pull at this, and let me 
 through." Gimblett's features relaxed into a smile. " Well, 
 sir, I suppose it's all right, if you say so," said he. And clutching 
 the rum bottle with one hand, he opened the door of Dawes's 
 cell with the other. 
 
 North entered, and as the door closed behind him, the 
 prisoner, who had been lying apparently asleep upon his. 
 bed, leapt up, and made as though to catch him by the 
 throat. 
 
 Rufus Dawes had dreamt a dream. Alone, amid the gathering 
 glooms, his fancy had recalled the past, and peopled it with 
 memories. He thought that he was once more upon that barren 
 strand where he had first met with the sweet child he loved. He 
 lived again his life of usefulness and honour. He saw himself 
 working at the boat, embarking, and putting out to sea. The 
 fair head of the innocent girl was again pillowed on his breast ; 
 her young lips again murmured words of affection in his greedy 
 ear. Frere was beside him, watching him, as he had watched 
 before. Once again the grey sea spread around him, barren 
 of succour. Once again, in the wild, wet morning, he beheld the 
 American brig bearing down upon them, and saw the bearded 
 faces of the astonished crew. He saw Frere take the child in 
 his arms and mount upon the deck ; he heard the shout of de- 
 
446 HIS NATURAL LIFE 
 
 \ 
 
 light that went up, and pressed again the welcoming hands 
 which greeted the rescued castaways. The deck was crowded. 
 All the folk he had ever known were there. He saw the white 
 hair and stem features of Sir Richard Devine, and beside him 
 stood, wringing her thin hands, his weeping mother. Then 
 Frere strode forward, and after him John Rex, the convict, who, 
 roughly elbowing through the crowd of prisoners and gaolers, 
 would have reached the spot where stood Sir Richard Devine, 
 but that the corpse of the murdered Lord Bellasis arose and 
 thrust him back. How the hammers clattered in the ship- 
 builder's yard ! Was it a coffin they were making ? Not for 
 Sylvia — surely not for her ! The air grows heavy, lurid with 
 flame, and black with smoke. The Hydaspes is on fire ! Sylvia 
 clings to her husband. Base wretch, would you shake her off 1 
 Look up ; the midnight heaven is glittering with stars ; above 
 the smoke the air breathes delicately ! One step — another I fix 
 your eyes on mine — so — to my heart ! Alas ! she turns ; he 
 catches at her dress. What ! It is a priest — a priest — who, 
 smiling with infernal joy, would drag her to the flaming gulf that 
 yawns for him. The dreamer leaps at the wretch's throat, and 
 
 crying, " Villain, was it for this fate I saved her ? " awakes 
 
 to find himself struggling with the monster of his dream, the idol 
 of his waking senses — " Mr. North." 
 
 North, paralyzed no less by the suddenness of the attack than 
 by the words with which it was accompanied, let fall his cloak, 
 and stood trembling before the prophetic accusation of the man 
 whose curses he had come to earn. 
 
 " I was dreaming," said Rufus Dawes. " A terrible dream ! 
 But it has passed now. The message — you have brought me a 
 message, have you not ? Why — what ails you ? You are pale 
 • — your knees tremble. Did my violence ?" 
 
 North recovered himself with a great effort. " It is nothing. 
 Let us talk, for my time is short. You have thought me a good 
 man — one blessed of God, one consecrated to a holy service : a 
 man honest, pure, and truthful. I have returned to tell you the 
 truth. I am none of these things." Rufus Dawes sat staring, 
 unable to comprehend this madness. " I told you that the 
 woman you loved- for you do love her — sent you a message of 
 forgiveness. I lied." 
 
 " What ! " 
 
GETTING READY FOR SEA. 447 
 
 " I never told her of your confession. I never mentioned your 
 name to her." 
 
 "And she will go without knowing — Oh, Mr. North, what 
 have you done ? " 
 
 " Wrecked my own soul ! " cried North, wildly, stung by the 
 reproachful agony of the tone. " Do not cling to me. My task 
 is done. You will hate me now. That is my wish — I merit it. 
 Let me go, I say. I shall be too late." 
 
 "Too late ! For what?" He looked at the cloak— through 
 the open window came the voices of the men in the boat — the 
 memory of the rose, of the scene in the prison, flashed across 
 him, and he understood it all. " Great Keaven, you go to- 
 gether ! " 
 
 " Let me go," repeated North, in a hoarse voice. 
 
 Rufus Dawes stepped between him and the door. " No, mad- 
 man, I will not let you go, to do this great wrong, to kill this 
 innocent young soul, who — God help her — loves you ! " North, 
 confounded at this sudden reversal of their position towards 
 each other, crouched bewildered against the wall. " I say you 
 shall not go ! You shall not destroy your own soul and hers ! 
 You love her ! So do I ! and my love is mightier than yours, 
 for it shall save her ! " 
 
 " In God's name " cried the unhappy priest, striving to 
 
 stop his ears. 
 
 " Ay, in God's name ! In the name of that God whom in my 
 torments I had forgotten ! In the name of that God whom you 
 taught me to remember ! That God who sent you to save me 
 from despair, gives me strength to save you in my turn ! Oh, 
 Mr. North — my teacher — my friend — my brother — by the sweet 
 hope of mercy which you preached to me, be merciful to this 
 erring woman ! " 
 
 North lifted agonized eyes. " But I love her ! Love her, do 
 you hear ? What do you know of love ? " 
 
 " Love ! " cried Rufus Dawes, his pale face radiant. " Love ! 
 Oh, it is you who do not know it. Love is the sacrifice of self, 
 the death of all desire that is not for another's good. Love is 
 Godlike ! You love ? — no, no, your love is selfishness, and will 
 end in shame ! Listen, I will tell you the history of such a love 
 as yours." 
 
 North, enthralled by the other's overmastering will, fell back 
 trembling. 
 
448 HIS NA TURAL LIFE, 
 
 " I will tell you the secret of my life, the reason why I am 
 here. Come closer." 
 
 « « « * « 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE DISCOVERY. 
 
 THE house in Clarges Street was duly placed at the disposal 
 of Mrs. Richard Devine, who was installed in it, to the 
 profound astonishment and disgust of Mr. Smithers and 
 his fellow-servants. It only remained that the lady should be 
 formally recognized by Lady Devine. The rest of the ingenious 
 programme would follow as a matter of course. John Rex was 
 well aware of the position which, in his assumed personality, 
 he occupied in society. He knew that by the world of servants, 
 of waiters, of those to whom servants and waiters could babble ; 
 of such turfites and men-about-town as had reason to inquire 
 concerning Mr. Richard's domestic affairs — no opinion could 
 be expressed, save that *■* Devine's married somebody, I hear," 
 with variations to the same effect. He knew well that the 
 really great world, the Society, whose scandal would have 
 been socially injurious, had long ceased to trouble itself with 
 Mr. Richard Devine's doings in any particular. If it had 
 reported that the Leviathan of the Turf had married his 
 washerwoman. Society would only have intimated that " it 
 was just what might have been expected of him." To say the 
 truth, however, Mr. Richard had rather hoped that — disgusted 
 at his brutality — Lady Devine would have nothing more to do 
 with him, and that the ordeal of presenting his wife would not 
 be necessary. Lady Devine, however, had resolved on a 
 different line of conduct. The intelligence concerning Mr, 
 Richard Devine's threatened proceedings nerved her to the 
 confession of the dislike which had been long growing in her 
 mind ; aided the formation of those doubts, the shadows of 
 which had now and then cast themselves upon her belief in 
 the identity of the man who called himself her son. 
 
 " His conduct is brutal," said she to her brother, " I cannot 
 understand it." 
 
THE DISCOVERY. 44c 
 
 "It is more than brutal, it is unnatural," returned Francis 
 Wade, and stole a look at her. " Moreover, he is married." 
 
 "Married!" cried Lady Devine. 
 
 " So he says," continued the other, producing the letter sent 
 to him by Rex at Sarah's dictation. " He writes to me stating 
 that his wife, whom he married last year abroad, has come to 
 England, and wishes us to receive her." 
 
 " I will not receive her!" cried Lady Devine, rising and pacing 
 the room. 
 
 " But that would be a declaration of war," said poor Francis, 
 twisting an Italian onyx which adorned his irresolute hand, " I 
 would not advise that." 
 
 Lady Devine stopped suddenly, with the gesture of one who 
 has finally made a difficult and long-considered resolution. 
 ■' Richard shall not sell this house," she said. 
 
 " But, my dear Ellinor," cried her brother, in some alarm at 
 this unwonted decision, "I am afraid that you can't prevent 
 him." 
 
 " If he is the man he says he is, I can," returned she, with 
 effort. 
 
 Francis Wade gasped, " 7/" he is the man ! It is true — I have 
 
 sometimes thought Oh, Ellinor, can it be that we have been 
 
 deceived!" 
 
 She came to him and leant upon him for support, as she had 
 leant upon her son in the garden where they now stood, nineteen 
 years ago. " I do not know, I am afraid to think. But between 
 Richard and myself is a secret — a shameful secret, Frank, known 
 to no other living person. If the man who threatens me does 
 not know that secret, he is not my son. If he does know 
 it " 
 
 " Well, in Hea-"-en's name, what then?" 
 
 " He knows that he has neither part nor lot in the fortune of 
 the man who was my husband." 
 
 " EUinor, you terrify me. What does this mean?" 
 
 " I wiU tell you if there be need to do so," said the un- 
 happy lady. " But I cannot now. I never meant to speak 
 of it again, even to him. Consider that it is hard to break 
 a silence of nearly twenty years. Write to this man, and tell 
 him that before I receive his wife, I wish to see him alone. 
 No — do not let him come here imtil the truth be known. I 
 will go to him. ' 29 
 
450 mS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 It was with some trepidation that Mr. Richard, sitting with 
 his wife on the afternoon of the 3rd May, 1846, awaited the 
 arrival of his mother. He had been very nervous and unstrung 
 for some days past, and the prospect of the coming interview 
 was, for some reason he could not explain to himself, weighty 
 with fears, "What does she want to come alone for? And 
 what can she have to say.-"' he asked himself. "She cannot 
 suspect anything after all these years, surely?" He endeavoured 
 to reason with himself, but in vain ; the knock at the door which 
 announced the arrival of his pretended mother made his heart 
 jump. 
 
 " I feel deuced shaky, Sarah," he said. " Let's have a nip of 
 something." 
 
 " You've been nipping too much for the last five years, Dick." 
 (She had quite schooled her tongue to the new name.) " Your 
 'shakiness' is the result of 'nipping,' I'm afraid." 
 
 " Oh, don't preach, I am not in the humour for it." 
 
 " Help yourself, then. You are quite sure that you are ready 
 with your story?" 
 
 The brandy revived him, and he rose with affected heartiness. 
 
 " My dear mother, allow me to present to you " He paused, 
 
 for there was that in Lady Devine's face which confirmed his 
 worst fears. 
 
 " I wish to speak to you alone," she said, ignoring with steady 
 eyes the woman whom she had ostensibly come to see. 
 
 John Rex hesitated, but Sarah saw the danger, and hastened 
 to confront it. "A wife should be a husband's best friend, 
 madam. Your son married me of his own free will, and even 
 his mother can have nothing to say to him which it is not my 
 duty and privilege to hear. I am not a girl, as you can see, and 
 I can bear whatever news you bring." 
 
 Lady Devine bit her pale lips. She saw at once that the 
 woman before her was not gently-born, but she felt also that she 
 was a woman of higher mental calibre than herself. Prepared 
 as she was for the worst, this sudden and open declaration of 
 hostilites frightened her, as Sarah had calculated. She began 
 ro realize that if she was to prove equal to the task she had 
 set herself, she must not waste her strength in skirmishing. 
 Steadily refusing to look at Richard's wife, she addressed her- 
 self to Richard. " My brother will be here in half an hour," 
 she said, as though the mention of his name would better her 
 
THE DISCOVERY. 451 
 
 position in some way. " But I begged him to allow me to 
 come first in order that I might speak to you privately." 
 
 " Well," said John Rex, " we are in private. What have you 
 to say?" 
 
 " I want to tell you that I forbid you to carry out the plan you 
 have for breaking up Sir Richard's property." 
 
 " Forbid me !" cried Rex, much relieved. " Why, I only want 
 to do what my father's will enables me to do." 
 
 " Your father's will enables you to do nothing of the sort, and 
 you know it" She spoke, as though rehearsing a series of set- 
 speeches, and Sarah watched her with growing alarm. 
 
 " Oh, nonsense 1 ' cries John Rex, in sheer amazement. " I 
 have a lawyer's opinion on it." 
 
 " Do you remember what took place at Hampstead this day 
 nineteen years ago?" 
 
 "At Hampstend!" said Rex, grown suddenly pale. "This 
 day nineteen years ago. No! What do you mean?" 
 
 " Do you not remember?" she continued, leaning forward 
 eagerly, and speaking almost fiercely. " Do you not remember 
 the reason why you left the house where you were bom, and 
 which you wish now to sell to strangers ? " 
 
 John Rex stood dumbfounded, the blood suffusing his temples. 
 He knew that among the secrets of the man whose inheritance 
 he had stolen was one which he had never gained — the secret of 
 that sacrifice to which Lady Devine had once referred — and he 
 felt that this secret was to be revealed to crush him now. 
 
 Sarah, trembling also, but more with rage than terror, swept 
 towards Lady Devine. " Speak out ! " she said, " if you have 
 anything to say ! Of what do you accuse my husband ? " 
 
 " Of imposture ! " cried Lady Devine, all her outraged mater- 
 nity nerving her to abash her enemy. " This man may be your 
 husband, but he is not my son ! " 
 
 Now that the worst was out, John Rex, choking with passion, 
 felt all the devil within him rebeUing against defeat. "You 
 are mad," he said. " You have recognized me for three years, 
 and now, because I want to claim that wiach is my own, you 
 invent this lie. Take care how you provoke me. If I am not 
 your son — you have recognized me as such. I stand upon the 
 law and upon my rights." 
 
 Lady Devine turned swiftly, and with both hands to her 
 bosom, confronted him. 
 
452 
 
 HIS NA TURAL LIFE. 
 
 " You shall have your rights ! You shall have what the law 
 allows you ! Oh how blind I have been all these years. Persist 
 in your infamous imposture. Call yourself Richard Devine 
 still, and I will tell the world the shameful secret which my 
 son died to hide. Be Richard Devine ! Richard Devine was 
 a bastard, and the law allows him — Nothing ! " 
 
 There was no doubting the truth of her words. It was im- 
 possible that even a woman whose hom-e had been desecrated, 
 as hers had been, would invent a lie so self-condemning. Yet 
 John Rex forced himself to appear to doubt, and his dry Hps 
 asked, " If then your husband was not the father of your son 
 who was ? " 
 
 " My cousin, Armigell Esm& Wade, Lord Bellasis," answered 
 Lady Devine. 
 
 John Rex gasped for breath. His hand, tugging at his 
 neck-cloth, rent away the linen that covered his choking throat. 
 The whole horizon of his past was lit up by a lightning flash 
 which stunned him. His brain, already enfeebled by excess, 
 was unable to withstand this last shock. He staggered, and 
 but for the cabinet against which he leant, would have fallen. 
 The secret thoughts of his heart rose to his lips, and were 
 uttered unconsciously. " Lord BeUasis ! He was my father 
 also, and — I killed him ! " 
 
 A dreadful silence fell, and then Lady Devine, stretching 
 out her hands towards the self-confessed murderer, with a 
 sort of frightful respect, said in a whisper, in which horror and 
 supplication were strangely mingled, " What did you do with 
 my son? Did you kill him also ? " 
 
 But John Rex, wagging his head from side to side, like a 
 beast in the shambles that has received a mortal stroke, made 
 no reply. Sarah Purfoy, awed as she was by the dramatic force 
 of the situation, nevertheless remembered that Francis Wade 
 might arrive at any moment, and saw her last opportunity for 
 safety. She advanced and touched the mother on the shoulder 
 
 " Your son is alive ! " 
 
 « Where ? " 
 
 "Will you promise not to hinder us leaving this house if I tell 
 you ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes." 
 
 " Will you promise to keep the confession which you have 
 heard secret, until we have left England ? " 
 
FIFTEEN- HOURS. 453 
 
 " I promise anything. In God's name, woman, if you have 
 a woman's heart, speak ! Where is my son ? " 
 
 Sarah Purfoy rose over the enemy who had defeated her, and 
 said in level, deliberate accents, " They call him Rufus Dawes. 
 He is a convict at Norfolk Island, transported for hfe for the 
 murder which you heard my husband confess to having com- 
 mitted Ah ! " 
 
 Lady Devine had fainted. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 FIFTEEN HOURS. 
 
 SARAH flew to Rex. " Rouse yourself, John, for heaven's 
 sake. We have not a moment." 
 
 John Rex passed his hand over his forehead wearily. 
 
 " I cannot think. I am broken down. I am ill. My brain 
 seems dead." 
 
 Nervously watching the prostrate figure on the floor, she 
 hurried on bonnet, cloak, and veil, and in a twinkling had him 
 outside the house and into a cab. 
 
 "Thirty-nine, Lombard Street. Quick ! " 
 
 " You won't give me up ? " said Rex, turning dull eyes upon 
 her. 
 
 " Give you up ? No. But the police will be after us so soon 
 as that woman can speak, and her brother summon his lawyer. 
 I know what her promise is worth. We have got about fifteen 
 hours." 
 
 " I can't go far; Sarah," said he ; "I aia sleepy and stupid." 
 
 She repressed the terrible fear that tugged at her heart, and 
 strove to rally him. 
 
 "You've been drinking too much, John. Now sit still and be 
 CTOod, while I go and get some money for you." 
 
 She hurried into the bank, and her name secured her an inter- 
 view with the manager at once. 
 
 *' That's a rich woman," said one of the clerks to his friend. 
 
 " A widow, too ! Chance for you, Tom," returned the other ; 
 and, presently, from out the sacred presence came another clerk 
 with a request for " a draft on Sydney for three thousand, leso 
 
454 HIS NATURAL LIFE 
 
 premium," and bearing a cheque signed " Sarah Carr," for ^200, 
 which he " took " in notes, and so returned again. 
 
 From the bank she was taken to Green's Shipping Office. 
 
 " I want a cabin in the first ship for Sydney, please." 
 
 The shipping-clerk looked at a board. 
 
 " The Highflyer goes in twelve days, madam, and there is 
 one cabin vacant." 
 
 " I want to go at once — to-morrow or next day." 
 
 He smiled. " I am afraid that is impossible," said he. 
 
 Just then one of the partners came out of his private room 
 with a telegram in his hand, and beckoned the shipping-clerk. 
 Sarah was about to depart for another office, when the clerk 
 came hastily back, 
 
 "Just the thing for you, ma'am," said he. "We have got 
 a telegram from a gentleman who has a first cabin in the Dido, 
 to say that his wife has been taken ill, and he must give up his 
 berth." 
 
 " When does the Dido sail ? " 
 
 "To-morrow morning. She is at Plymouth, waiting for 
 the mails. If you go down to-night by the mail-train which 
 leaves at 9.30, you v^^ill be in plenty of time, and we will tele- 
 graph." 
 
 " I will take the cabin. How much ? " 
 
 " One hundred and thirty pounds, madam," said he. 
 
 She produced her notes. " Pray count it yourself. We have 
 been delayed in the same manner ourselves. My husband is a 
 great invalid, but I was not so fortunate as to get some one to 
 refund us our passage-money." 
 
 "What name did you say?" asked the clerk counting. "Mr. 
 and Mrs. Carr. Thank you," and he handed her the slip of 
 paper. 
 
 " Thank you" said Sarah, with a bewitching smile, and swept 
 down to her cab again. 
 
 John Rex was gnawing his nails in sullen apathy. She dis- 
 played the passage-ticket. " You are saved. By the time 
 Mr. Francis Wade gets his wits together, and his sister recovers 
 her speech, we shall be past pursuit." 
 
 " To Sydney 1 " cried Rex, angrily, looking at the warrant. 
 " Why there of all places in God's earth ? " 
 
 Sarah surveyed him with an expression of contempt. " Be- 
 cause your scheme has failed. Now this is mine. You have 
 
FIFTEEN HOURS. 455 
 
 deserted me once ; you will do so again in any other country. 
 You are a murderer, a villain, and a coward, but you suit me. 
 I save you, but I mean to keep you. I will bring you to Aus- 
 tralia, where the first trooper will arrest you at my bidding as 
 an escaped convict. If you don't like to come, stay behind. 
 I don't care. I am rich. I have done no wrong. The law 
 cannot touch me — Do you agree ? Then tell the man to drive 
 to Silver's in Cornhill for your outfit." 
 
 Having housed him at last — all gloomy and despondent — in a 
 quiet tavern near the railway station, she tried to get some 
 information as to this last revealed crime. 
 
 "How came you to kill Lord Bellasis?" she asked him 
 quietly. 
 
 " I had found out from my mother that I was his natural son, 
 and one day riding home from a pigeon match I told him so. 
 He taunted me — and I struck him. I did not mean to kill him, 
 but he was an old man, and in my passion I struck hard. As he 
 fell, I thought I saw a horseman among the trees, and I galloped 
 off. My ill-luck began then, for the same night I was arrested 
 at the coiner's." 
 
 " But I thought there was robbery," said she. 
 
 " Not by me. But, for God's sake, talk no more about it \ 
 am sick — my brain is going round. I want to sleep." 
 
 " Be careful, please ! Lift him gently ! " said Mrs. Carr, as 
 the boat ranged alongside the Dido, gaunt and grim, in the 
 early dawn of a bleak May morning. 
 
 " What's the matter ? " asked the officer of the watch, per- 
 ceiving the bustle in the boat. 
 
 " Gentleman seems to have had a stroke," said a boatman. 
 
 It was so. There was no fear that John Rex would escape 
 again from the woman he had deceived. The infernal genius of 
 Sarah Purfoy had saved her lover at last — but saved him only 
 that she might nurse him till he died — died ignorant even of her 
 tenderness, a mere animal, lacking the intellect he had in his 
 selfish wickedness abused. 
 
456 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE REDEMPTION. 
 
 "T"^] 
 
 *HAT is my story. Let it plead with you to turn 
 you from your purpose, and to save her. The 
 punishment of sin falls not upon the sinner 
 only. A deed once done lives in its consequence for ever, and 
 this tragedy of shame and crime to which my felon's death 
 is a fitting end, is but the outcome of a selfish sin like 
 yours ! " 
 
 It had gjown dark in the prison, and as he ceased speaking, 
 Rufus Dawes felt a trembling hand seize his own. It was that 
 of the chaplain. 
 
 " Let me hold your hand ! — Sir Richard Devine did not 
 murder your father. He was murdered by a horseman who, 
 riding with him, struck him and fled." 
 
 " Merciful God ! How do you know this ? " 
 
 " Because I saw the murder committed, because — don't let go 
 my hand — I robbed the body." 
 
 " In my youth I was a gambler. Lord Bellasis won money 
 from me, and to pay him I forged two bills of exchange. 
 Unscrupulous and cruel, he threatened to expose me if I did 
 not give him double the sum. Forgery was death in those days, 
 and I strained every nerve to buy back the proofs of my folly. 
 I succeeded. I was to meet Lord Bellasis near his own house 
 at Hampstead on the night of which you speak, to pay the 
 money and receive the bills. When I saw him fall I galloped 
 up, but instead of pursuing his murderer I rifled his pocket- 
 book of my forgeries. I was afraid to give evidence at the 
 trial, or I might have saved you. — Ah ! you have let go my 
 hand ! " 
 t " God forgive you ! " said Rufus Dawes, and then was silent. 
 
 " Speak ! " cried North. " Speak, or you will make me mad. 
 Reproach me ! Spurn me ! Spit upon me ! You cannot think 
 worse of me than I do myself." 
 
 But the other, his head buried in his hands, did not answer, 
 and with a wild gesture. North staggered out of the cell. 
 
THE REDEMPTION. 457 
 
 Nearly an hour had passed since the chaplain had placed 
 the rum flask in his hand, and Gimblett observed, with semi- 
 drunken astonishment, that it was not yet empty. He had 
 intended, in the first instance, to have taken but one sup in 
 payment of his courtesy — for Gimblett was conscious of his own 
 weakness in the matter of strong waters — but as he waited and 
 waited, the one sup became two, the two three, and at length 
 more than half the contents of the bottle had moistened his 
 gullet, and maddened him for more. Gimblett was in a 
 quandary. If he didn't finish the flask, he would be oppressed 
 with an everlasting regret. If he did finish it he would be 
 drunk ; and to be drunk on duty was the one unpardonable sin. 
 He looked across the darkness of the sea, to where the rising 
 and falling light marked the schooner. The Commandant was 
 a long way off! A faint breeze, which had — according to 
 Blunt's prophecy — arisen with the night, brought up to him the 
 voices of the boat's crew from the jetty below him. His friend 
 Jack Mannix was coxswain of her. He would give Jack a 
 drink. Leaving the gate, he advanced to the edge of the 
 embankment, and, putting his head over, called out to his 
 friend. The breeze, however, which was momentarily freshen- 
 ing, carried his voice away ; and Jack Mannix, hearing nothing, 
 continued his conversation. Gimblett was just drunk enough 
 to be virtuously indignant at this incivility, and seating himself 
 on the edge of the bank, swallowed the remainder of the rum at 
 a draught. The effect upon his enforcedly temperate stomach 
 was very touching. He made one feeble attempt to get upon 
 his legs, cast a reproachful glance at the rum bottle, essayed to 
 drink out of its spirituous emptiness, and then, with a smile of 
 reckless contentment, cursed the isLmd and all its contents and 
 fell fast asleep. 
 
 North, coming out of the prison, did not notice the absence 
 of the gaoler ; indeed, he was not in a condition to notice any- 
 thing. Bare-headed, without his cloak, with staring eyes and 
 clenched hands, he rushed through the gates into the night as 
 one who flies headlong from some fearful vision. It seemed 
 that, absorbed in his own thoughts, he took no heed to his 
 steps, for instead of taking the path which led to the sea, he 
 kept along the more familiar one that led to his own cottage on 
 the hill. " This man a convict ! " he cried. " He is a hero — a 
 
, 
 
 458 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 martyr ! What a life ! Love ! Yes, that is love indeed ! Oh, 
 James North, how base art thou in the eyes of God beside this 
 despised outcast ! " And so muttering, tearing his grey hair, 
 and beating his throbbing temples with clenched hands, he 
 reached his own room, and saw, by the light of the new-bom 
 moon, the dressing-bag and candle standing on the table as he 
 had left them. They brought again to his mind the recollection 
 of the task that was before him. He lighted the candle, and, 
 taking the bag in his hand, cast one last look round the 
 chamber which had witnessed his futile struggles against 
 that baser part of himself which had at last triumphed. Ii 
 was so. Fate had condemned him to sin, and he must now 
 fulfil the doom he might once have averted. Already he 
 fancied he could see the speck that was the schooner move 
 slowly away from the prison shore. He must not linger ; 
 they would be waiting for him at the jetty. As he turned, 
 the moonbeams — as yet unobscured by the rapidly gathering 
 clouds — flung a silver streak across the sea, and across that 
 streak North saw a boat pass. Was his distracted brain playing 
 him false ? — in the stern sat, wrapped in a cloak, the figure of a 
 man ! A fierce gust of wind drove the sea-rack over the moon, 
 and the boat disappeared, as though swallowed up by the 
 gathering storm. North staggered back as the truth struck 
 him. 
 
 He remembered how he had said, " I will redeem him with 
 my own blood ! " Was it possible that a just heaven had thus 
 decided to allow the man whom a coward had condemned, to 
 escape, and to punish the coward who remained? Oh, this 
 man deserved freedom; he was honest, noble, truthful! How 
 different from himself — a hateful self-lover, an unchaste priest, 
 a drunkard. The looking-glass, in which the saintly face of 
 Meekin was soon to be reflected, stood upon the table, and 
 North, peering into it, with one hand mechanically thrust into 
 the bag, started in insane rage, at the pale face and bloodshot 
 eyes he saw there. What a hateful wretch he had become } 
 The last fatal impulse of insanity which seeks relief from its 
 own hideous self came upon him, and his fingers closed con- 
 vulsively upon the object they had been seeking. 
 
 "It is better so," he muttered, addressing, with fixed eyes, 
 his own detested image. " I have examined you long enough. 
 I have read your heart, and written out your seaets 1 You are 
 
THE REDEMPTION. 459 
 
 but a shell — the shell that holds a corrupted and sinful heart. 
 He shall live ; you shall die ! " The rapid motion of his arm 
 overturned the candle, and all was dark. 
 
 Rufus Dawes, overpowered by the revelation so suddenly 
 made to him, had remained for a few moments motionless in 
 his cell, expecting to hear the heavy clang of the outer door, 
 which should announce to him the departure of the chaplain. 
 But he did not hear it, and it seemed to him that the air in 
 the cell had grown suddenly cooler. He went to the door, and 
 looked into the narrow corridor, expecting to see the scowling 
 countenance of Gimblett. To his astonishment the door of the 
 prison was wide open, and not a soul in sight. His first thought 
 was of North. Had the story he had told, coupled with the 
 entreaties he had lavished, sufficed to turn him from his 
 purpose ? 
 
 He looked around. The night was falling sullenly ; the wind 
 was mounting ; from beyond the bar came the hoarse murmur 
 of an angry sea. If the schooner w^as to sail that night, she had 
 best get out into deep waters. Where was the chaplain ? Pray 
 heaven the delay had been sufficient, and they had sailed with- 
 out him. Yet they would be sure to meet. He advanced a 
 few steps nearer, and looked about him. Was it possible that, 
 in his madness, the chaplain had been about to commit some 
 violence which had drawn the trusty Gimblett from his post ? 
 " Gr-r-r-r ! Ouph ! " The trusty Gimblett was lying at his 
 feet — dead drunk I 
 
 " Hi ! Hoho ! Hillo there ! " roared somebody from the 
 jetty below. " Be that you, Muster Noarth ! We ain't too 
 much tiam, sur! " 
 
 From the uncurtained windows of the chaplain's house on the 
 hill beamed the newly-lighted candle. They in the boat did 
 not see it, but it brought to the prisoner a wild hope that made 
 his heart bound. He ran back to his cell, clapped on North's 
 wideawake, and flinging the cloak hastily about him, came 
 quickly down the steps. If the moon should shine out 
 now! 
 
 "Jump in, sir," said unsuspecting Mannix, thinking only ol 
 the flogging he had been threatened with. "It'll be a dirty 
 night, tliis night! Put this over your knees, sir. Shove her 
 off! Give wayl" And they were afloat. But one glimpse of 
 
46o HIS NA TURAL LIFE. 
 
 moonlight fell upon the slouched hat and cloaked figure, and 
 the boat's crew, engaged in the dangerous task of navigating 
 the reef in the teeth of the rising gale, paid no attention to the 
 chaplain. 
 
 " By George, lads, we're but just in tirae ! " cried Mannix ; 
 and they laid alongside the schooner, black in blackness. " Up 
 ye go, yer honour, quick ! '' The wind had shifted, and was 
 now off the shore. Blunt, who had begun to repent of his 
 obstinacy, but would not confess it, thought the next best thing 
 to riding out the gale was to get out to open sea. " Damn the 
 parson," he had said, in all heartiness ; " we can't wait all night 
 for him. Heave ahead, Mr. Johnson !" And so the anchor 
 was a-trip as Rufus Dawes ran up the side. 
 
 The Commandant, already pulling off in his own boat, roared 
 a coarse farewell. " Good-bye, North ! It was touch and 
 go with ye I " adding, " Curse the fellow, he's too proud to 
 answer ! " 
 
 The chaplain indeed spoke to no one, and plunging down 
 the hatchway, made for the stern cabins. " Close shave, your 
 reverence ! " said a respectful somebody, opening a door. It 
 was ; but the clergyman did not say so. He double-locked the 
 door, and hardly realizing the danger he had escaped, flung 
 himself on the bunk, panting. Over his head he heard the 
 rapid tramp of feet and the cheery 
 
 Yo hi-oh 1 and a rumbelow I 
 
 of the men at the capstan. He could smell the sea, and through 
 the open window of the cabin could distinguish the light in the 
 chaplain's house on the hill. The trampling ceased, the vessel 
 began to move swiftly — the Commandant's boat appeared below 
 him for an instant, making her way back — the Lady Franklin 
 had set sail. With his eyes fixed on the tiny light, he strove to 
 think what was best to be done. It was hopeless to think that 
 he could maintain the imposture which, favoured by the dark- 
 ness and confusion, he had hitherto successfully attempted. 
 He was certain to be detected at Hobart Town, even if he could 
 lie concealed during his long and tedious voyage. That 
 mattered little, however. He had saved Sylvia, for North had 
 been left behind. Poor North ! As the thought of pity came 
 to him, the light he looked at was suddenly extinguished, and 
 Rufus Dawes, compelled thereto as by an irresistible power, fell 
 
THE CYCLONE. 461 
 
 upon his knees and prayed for the pardon and happiness of thr- 
 man who had redeemed him. 
 
 * * * * # 
 
 "That's a gun from the shore," said Partridge the mate, 
 " and they're burning a red light. There's a prisoner escaped. 
 Shall we he-to.?" 
 
 " Lie-to !" cried old Blunt, with a tremendous oath. "We'll 
 have suthin else to do. Look there !" 
 
 The sky to the northward was streaked with a belt of livid 
 green colour, above which rose a mighty black cloud, whose 
 shape was ever changing. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIIL 
 
 THE CYCLONE. 
 
 B 
 
 LUNT, recognizing the meteoric heralds of danger, began 
 to regret his obstinacy. He saw that a hurricane was 
 approaching. 
 
 Along the south coast of the Australian continent, though the 
 usual westerly winds and gales of the highest latitudes prevail 
 during the greater portion of the year, hurricanes are not un- 
 frequent. Gales commence at N.W. with a low barometer, 
 increasing at W. and S.W., and gradually veering to the South. 
 True cyclones occur at New Zealand. The log of the Adelaide 
 for 29th Februar,', 1870, describes one which travelled at the rate 
 of ten miles an hour, and had all the veerings, calm centre, etc., 
 of a true tropical hurricane. Now a cyclone occurring off the 
 west coast of New Zealand would travel from the New Hebrides- 
 where such storms are hideously frequent, and envelope Norfob;. 
 Island, passing directly across the track of vessels coming froni 
 South America to Sydney. It was one of these rotatory storms, 
 an escaped tempest of the tropics, which threatened the Lady 
 Fra7ikUn. 
 
 The ominous calm which had brooded over the island during 
 the day had given place to a smart breeze from the north-east, 
 
462 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 and though the schooner had been sheltered at her anchorage 
 under the lee of the island (the "harbour" looked nearly due 
 south), when once fairly out to sea, Blunt saw it would be im- 
 possible to put back in the teeth of the gale. Haply, however, 
 the full fury of the storm would not overtake them till they had 
 gained sea-room. 
 
 Rufus Dawes, exhausted with the excitement through which 
 he had passed, had slept for two or three hours, when he 
 was awakened by the motion of the vessel going on the other 
 tack. He rose to his feet, and found himself in complete dark- 
 ness. Overhead v/as the noise of trampling feet, and he could 
 distinguish the hoarse tones of Blunt bellowing orders. Aston- 
 ished at the absence of the moonlight which had so lately 
 silvered the sea, he flung open the cabin window and looked out. 
 As we have said, the cabin allotted to North was one of the two 
 stern cabins, and from it the convict had a full view of the 
 approaching storm. 
 
 The sight was one of wild grandeur. The huge, black cloud 
 which hung in the horizon had changed its shape. Instead of a 
 curtain it was an arch. Beneath this vast and magnificent 
 portal, shone a dull phosphoric light. Across this livid space 
 pale flashes of sheet-lightning passed noiselessly. Behind it 
 was a dull and threatening murmur, made up of the grumbling of 
 thunder, the falling of rain, and the roar of contending wind and 
 water. The lights of the prison-island had disappeared, so 
 rapid had been the progress of the schooner under the steady 
 breeze, and the ocean stretched around, black and desolate. 
 Gazing upon this gloomy expanse, Rufus Dawes observed a 
 strange phenomenon — lightning appeared to burst upwards from 
 the sullen bosom of the sea. At intervals, the darkly-rolling 
 waves flashed fire, and streaks of flame shot upwards. The 
 wind increased in violence, and the arch of light was fringed 
 with rain. A dull, red glow hung around, like the reflection of a 
 conflagration. Suddenly, a tremendous peal of thunder, ac- 
 companied by a terrific downfall of rain, rattled along the sky. 
 The arch of light disappeared, as though some invisible hand 
 had shut the slide of a giant lantern. A great wall of water 
 rushed roaring over the level plain of the sea, and with an inde- 
 scribable medley of sounds, in which tones of horror, triumph, 
 and torture were blended, the cyclone swooped upon them. 
 
 Rufus Dawes comprehended that the elements had come to 
 
THE CYCLONE. 463 
 
 save or destroy him. In that awful instant the natural powers 
 of the man rose equal to the occasion. In a few hours his fate 
 would be decided, and it was necessary that he should take all 
 precautions. One of two events seemed inevitable — he would 
 either be drowned where he lay, or, should the vessel weather 
 the storm, he would be forced upon deck, and the desperate 
 imposture he had attempted be discovered. For a moment 
 despair overwhelmed him, and he contemplated the raging sea 
 as though he would cast himself into it, and thus end his troubles. 
 The tones of a woman's voice recalled him to himself. Cautiously 
 unlocking the cabin door, he peered out. The cuddy was lighted 
 by a swinging lamp which revealed Sylvia questioning one of 
 the women concerning the storm. As Rufus Dawes looked, he 
 saw her glance, with an air half of hope, half of fear, towards the 
 door behind which he lurked, and he understood that she expected 
 to see the chaplain. Locking the door, he proceeded hastily 
 to dress himself in North's clothes. He would wait until his aid 
 was absolutely required, and then rush out. In the darkness, 
 Sylvia would mistake him for the priest. He could convey her 
 to the boat — if recourse to the boats should be rendered neces- 
 sary — and then take the hazard of his fortune. While she was 
 in danger, his place was near her. 
 
 From the deck of the vessel the scene was appalling. The 
 clouds had closed in. The arch of light had disappeared, and 
 all was a dull, windy blackness. Gigantic seas seemed to mount 
 in the horizon and sweep towards and upon them. It was as 
 though the ship lay in the vortex of a whirlpool, so high on 
 either side of her were piled the rough pyramidical masses of 
 sea. Mighty gusts arose — claps of wind which seemed like 
 strokes of thunder. A sail loosened from its tackling was torn 
 away and blown out to sea, disappearing like a shred of white 
 paper to leeward. The mercury in the barometer marked 
 29'5o. Blunt, who had been at the rum bottle, swore great 
 oaths that no soul on board would see another sun ; and when 
 Partridge rebuked him for blasphemy at such a moment, wept 
 spirituous tears. 
 
 The howling of the wind was benumbing ; the very fury of 
 sound enfeebled while it terrified. The sailors, horror-stricken, 
 crawled about the deck, clinging to anything they thought most 
 secure. It v/as impossible to raise the head to look to windward. 
 
464 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 The eyelids were driven together, and the face stung by the swift 
 and biting spray. Men breathed this atmosphere of salt and 
 wind, and became sickened. Partridge felt that orders were 
 useless— the man at his elbow could not have heard them. The 
 vessel lay almost on her beam ends, with her helm up, stripped 
 even of the sails which had been furled upon the yards. Mortal 
 hands could do nothing for her. 
 
 By five o'clock in the morning, the gale had reached its 
 height. The heavens showered out rain and lightnings ; rain 
 which the wind blew away before it reached the ocean, light- 
 nings which the ravenous and mountainous waves swallowed 
 before they could pierce the gloom. The ship lay over on her 
 side, held there by the madly rushing wind, which seemed to 
 flatten down the sea, cutting off the tops of the waves, and 
 breaking them into fine white spray, which covered the ocean 
 like a thick cloud, as high as the topmast heads. Each gust 
 seemed unsurpassable in intensity, but was succeeded, after a 
 pause, that was not a lull but a gasp, by one of more frantic 
 violence. The barometer stood at 27-82. The ship was a mere 
 labouring, crazy wreck, that might sink at any moment At 
 half-past three o'clock the barometer had fallen to 27 '62. Save 
 when lighted by occasional flashes of sheet-lightning, which 
 showed to the cowed wretches their awestricken faces, this 
 tragedy of the elements was performed in a darkness which was 
 almost palpable. 
 
 Suddenly the mercury rose to 29-90, and, with one awful 
 shriek, the wind dropped to a calm. The Lady Franklin had 
 reached the centre of the cyclone. Partridge, glancing to where 
 the great body of drunken Blunt rolled helplessly lashed to the 
 wheel, felt a strange selfish joy thrill him. If the ship survived, 
 the drunken captain would be dismissed, and he, Partridge the 
 gallant, would reign in his stead. The schooner, no longer 
 steadied by the wind, was at the mercy of every sea. Volumes 
 of water poured over her. Presently she heeled over, for, with 
 a triumphant scream, the wind leapt on to her from a fresh 
 quarter. Following its usual course, the storm returned upon 
 its track. The hurricane was about to repeat itself from the 
 north-west. 
 
 The sea, pouring down through the burst hatchway, tore the 
 door of the cuddy from its hinges. Sylvia found herself sur- 
 rounded by a wildly-surging torrent which tlireatened to over- 
 
THE CYCLONE. 465 
 
 whelm her. She shrieked aloud for aid, but her voice was 
 inaudible even to herself. Clinging to the mast which pene- 
 trated the little cuddy, she fixed her eyes upon the door behind 
 which she imagined North was, and whispered a last prayer for 
 succour. The door opened, and from out the cabin came a 
 figure clad in black. She looked up, and the light of the expir- 
 ing lamp showed her a face that was not that of the man she 
 hoped to see. Then a pair of dark eyes beaming ineffable love 
 and pity were bent upon her, and a pair of dripping arms held 
 her above the brine as she had once been held in the misty 
 mysterious days that were gone. 
 
 In the terror of that moment the cloud which had so long 
 oppressed her brain passed from it. The action of the strange 
 man before her completed and explained the action of the con- 
 vict chained to the Port Arthur coal-waggons, of the convict 
 kneeling in the Norfolk Island torture-chamber. She remem- 
 bered the terrible experience of Macquarie Harbour. She 
 recalled the evening of the boat-building, when, swung into 
 the air by stalwart arms, she had promised the rescuing prisoner 
 to plead for him with her kindred. Regaining her memory 
 thus, all the agony and shame of the man's long life of misery 
 became at once apparent to her. She understood how her, 
 husband had deceived her, and with what base injustice and! 
 falsehood he had bought her young love. No question as to 
 how this doubly-condemned prisoner had escaped from the ' 
 hideous isle of punishment she had quitted occurred to her. 
 She asked not — even in her thoughts — how it had been given 
 to him to supplant the chaplain in his place on board the vessel. 
 She only considered, in her sudden awakening, the story of his 
 wrongs, remembered only his marvellous fortitude and love, 
 knew only, in this last instant of her pure, ill-fated life, that 
 as he had saved her once from starvation and death, so had 
 he come again to save her from sin and from despair. Who- 
 ever has known a deadly peril will remember how swiftly thought 
 then travelled back through scenes clean forgotten, and will 
 understand how Sylvia's retrospective vision merged the past 
 into the actual before her, how the shock of recovered memory 
 subsided in the grateful utterance of other days — " Good Mr. 
 Dawes ! " 
 
 The eyes of the man and woman met in one long, wild gaze. 
 Sylvia stretched out her white hands and smiled, and Richard 
 
 3P 
 
466 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 
 
 Devine understood in his turn the story of the young girl's joy- 
 less life, and knew how she had been sacrificed. 
 
 In the great crisis of our life, when, brought face to face with 
 annihilation, we are suspended gasping over the great empti- 
 ness of death, we become conscious that the Self which we 
 think we knew so well has strange and unthought-of capacities. 
 To describe a tempest of the elements is not easy, but to 
 describe a tempest of the soul is impossible. Amid the fury 
 of such a tempest, a thousand memories, each bearing in its 
 breast the corpse of some dead deed whose influence haunts 
 us yet, are driven like feathers before the blast, as unsubstantial 
 and as unregarded. The mists which shroud our self-knowledge 
 become transparent, and we are smitten with sudden lightning- 
 like comprehension of our own misused power over our fate. 
 
 This much we feel and know, but who can coldly describe the 
 hurricane which thus o'erwhelms him 1 As well ask the drowned 
 mariner to tell of the marvels of mid sea when the great deeps 
 swallowed him and the darkness of death encompassed him 
 round about. These two human beings felt that they had done 
 with life. Together thus, alone in the very midst and presence 
 of death, the distinctions of the world they were about to leave 
 disappeared. Their vision grew clear. They felt as beings 
 whose bodies had already perished, and as they clasped hands, 
 their freed souls, recognising each the loveliness of the other, 
 rushed tremblingly together. 
 
 Borne before the returning whirlwind, an immense wave, 
 which glimmered in the darkness, spouted up and towered 
 above the wreck. The wretches who yet clung to the deck 
 looked shuddering up into the bellying greenness, and knew 
 that the end was come. 
 
 END OF BOOK THE FOURTH, 
 
EMLOGUE. tfi-j 
 
 EPILOGUE. 
 
 AT day-dawn on the morning after the storm, the rays of 
 the rising sun fell upon an object which floated on the 
 surface of the water not far from where the schooner 
 had foundered. 
 
 This object was a portion of the mainmast head of the Lady 
 Franklin, and entangled in the rigging were two corpses — a man 
 and a woman. The arms of the man were clasped round the 
 body of the woman, and her head lay on his breast. 
 
 The Prison Island appeared but as a lon^, low line on the 
 distant horizon. The tempest was over. As the sun rose higher 
 the air grew balmy, the ocean placid ; and, golden in the rays 
 of the new risen morning, the wreck and its burden drifted out 
 to sea. 
 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 CHAPTERS I., IV., V,, VII. 
 
 Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the state of the colony 
 of New South Wales. Printed by order of the House of Commons, 
 1S22. 
 
 "Two Voyages to New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land," 
 by Thomas Raid [Surgeon on board the N'eptune and Morley transport 
 ships], Member of the Royal College of Surgeons in London, and 
 Surgeon in the Royal Navy. London : Longman and Co., 1822. 
 
 " Narrative of a Visit to the Australian Colonies," by James Back- 
 house. London : Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1843. 
 
 Report of a Select Committee on Transportation. Printed by order 
 of the House of Commons, 1838. [Evidence of Colonel Harry Breton. 
 — Q. 2,431-2,436.] 
 
 BOOK IL 
 
 CHAPTERS I., II., III. 
 
 Report of a Select Committee [ut sitpral, 1S38. E\ndence of John 
 Eaines, Esq., pp. 37-49- 
 
 Appendix to above Report. L, No. 56, B. 
 
 " Tasmanian Journal of Natural Science," etc., vol. iL Account of 
 Macquarie Harbour, by T. G. Lempriere, Esq., A.D.C.G., pp. 17, 
 X07, 200. Tasmania : Heniy Bowling. London : John Murray, 
 1846. 
 
 •'Van Diemen's Land Anniversary and Hobart Town Almanac, 
 I S3 1." Account of Mcuquarie Harbour, by James Ross, p. 262. 
 Hobart Town : James Ross, 1832. 
 
470 
 
 HIS NA TUKAL LIFE. 
 
 "Meliora," April, 1861— "Our Convict System:" case of Charles 
 Anderson, chained to a rock for two years in irons. See also "Our 
 Convicts," p. 233, vol. i., Mary Carpenter. Longmans, 1864. 
 
 " Backhouse's Narrative " \ut suprd\, chapters iii., iv. 
 
 Files oi Hobart Town Courier, 1827-8, more especially 23rd October 
 and 7tli December, 1827, and 2nd February, 1828. 
 
 CHAPTERS IV. AND VIII. 
 
 Report of a Select Committee \ut suprd\, 1838, pp. 353, 354, 355. 
 
 CHAPTERS IX., XV., XVII. 
 
 "Tasmanian Journal" \ut supra], vol. i. : Account of MacquarU 
 Harbour, by T. G. Lempriere, Esq. \ut supra]. The seizure of the 
 Cypress (sic.) pp. 366-7. Escape of Morgan and Popjoy, p. 369. The 
 seizure of the Frederick, pp. 371-375. 
 
 " Van Diemen's Land Annual," 1838 : Narrative of the Sufferings 
 and Adventures of certain of Ten Convicts, etc., pp. I-II. Hobart 
 Town : James Ross, 1838. 
 
 *' Old Tales of a Young Country," by Marcus Clarke : The Last 0/ 
 Macquarie Harbour, pp. 141-146. The Seizure of the Cyprus, pp. 
 133-140. Melbourne : George Robertson, 1871. 
 
 BOOK in. 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 Transportation : Copy of a communication upon the subject of 
 Transportation addressed to Earl Grey by the Lord Bishop of Tas- 
 mania. Reprinted for private distribution to the heads of families only. 
 Launceston : Henry Dowling, 1848, 
 
 Report of a Select Committee \ut suiira], 1837. Evidence of Ernest 
 Augustus Slade, Esq. — Q. 870. Ibidem, 1838 : Evidence of James 
 Mudie, Esq. — Q. 804-813. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 "Backhouse's Narrative " \ut supra] : Appendix, Ixxvi. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 "Van Diemen's Land Annual," 1838 \ut supra], pp. 12-33 : "Old 
 Tales," etc. \jit supra]. The Last of Macquarie Harbour, pp. 147-156. 
 
APPENDIX. 471 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Repoit of a Select Committee \iit supra], 1838 : Evidence of E. A. 
 Slade, Esq.— Q. 1,882-1,892. 
 Ibidem : Appendix No ii., E. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Report of a Select Committee \ut supra], 1837 : Evidence of John 
 Russell, Esq., Asst.-Surgeon 63rd Regiment. — Q. 426-615. 
 Ibidem: Evidence of Colonel Geo. Arthur. — Q. 4,510-4,548. 
 
 CHAPTERS XXIII., XXIV., XXVI. 
 
 " The Adventures of Martin Cash, the Bushranger." Hobart Town: 
 J. L. Burke, 1870. pp. 64-70. 
 
 " Van Diemen'a Land Annual " [«/ supra], 1829 : Visit to Port 
 Arthur. Account of the DeviPs Blow-hole. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 Report of a Select Committee \ut supra\ 1832, Appendix I., No. 56 
 C. and D. Deposition of Alexander Pierce and ofticial statements of 
 trial and execution of Pierce and Cox for murder and cannibalism. 
 
 "The Bushrangers," by James Bonwick, Esq. Article — "Port 
 Arthur," 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 CHAPTEKS III., IV. 
 
 Sessional Papers printed by order of the House of Lords, 1847. 
 Enclosure to No. XL Extract of a paper by the Rev. T. B. Naylor. 
 Enclosure 3 in No. XIV. Copy of Report [dated Hobart Town, 20th 
 jfune, 1846] from Robert Pringle Stewart, Esq. : {officer appointed by 
 the Lieut.- Governor of Van Diemen's Land, to inspect the penal settle- 
 ment of Norfolk Island] to the Comptroller-General. 
 
 House of Lords report of a Commission on the execution of Criminal 
 Law, 1847 ; Evidence of the Lord Bishop of Tasmania — Q. 4,795-4,904 
 and 5,085-5,130. 
 
 Despatch of His Excellency Sir WilUam Denison to Secretary of 
 State, lothjuly, 1847. 
 
 Report of a Select Committee \ut supra], 1838 : Evidence of the Very 
 Rev. Wm. Ullathome, D.D.— Q. 150-318. 
 
472 HIS NA TURAL LIFE. 
 
 Report of House of Lords \ut supra\, 1847 : Evidence of Albert 
 Charles Stonor, Esq., Crown Solicitor of New South Wales — Q. 5>I74- 
 5,197 : also evidence of Rev. Wm. Wilson, D.D. — Q. 5,565-5,568. 
 
 Correspondence relating to the dismissal of the Rev. T. Rogers from 
 his chaplaincy at Norfolk Island ; for private circulation. Launceston • 
 Henry Dowling, 1846, 
 
 "Backhouse's Voyages" \ut supra] '. Chapters xxL, xxii., xxiii., xxiv, 
 
 CHAPTERS VII., VIII., IX., XII. 
 
 Adventures of Martin Cash \ut stipra], pp. 133-141 ; Cases of George 
 Armstrong, " Pine Tree Jack," and Alexander Campbell. 
 
 Punishment of the "gag" and "bridle." Correspondence relating 
 to the Rev. T. Rogers [ttt supra], pp. 41-43. 
 
 Report of a Select Committee \ut supra], 1838 : Evidence of the Very 
 Rev. Wm. Ullathorne, D.D.— Q. 267 :— 
 
 " As I mentioned the names of those men who were to die, they 
 one after another, as their names were pronounced, dropped on 
 their knees and thanked God that they were to be delivered 
 from that horrible place, whilst the others lemained standing 
 mute, weeping. It was the most homble scene I have ever 
 witnessed." 
 Ibidem : Evidence of Colonel George Arthur. — Q. 4,548. 
 Ibidem: Evidence of Sir Francis Forbes. — Q. 1,119. 
 Ibidem: Q. 1,335-1.343=— 
 
 " * * * Two or three men murdered their fellow-prisoners, 
 with the certainty of being detected and executed, apparently 
 without malice and with very little excitement, stating that they 
 knew that they should be hanged, but it was better than being 
 where they were." 
 
 THE END, 
 
 J. D. &■ Co 
 
 BICnABD CLAy it, sons, limited, LONDON £E BUNGAY. 
 
:VW 
 
 U DAY USE 
 
 RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED 
 
 Ti 
 
 — Am^ 
 
 LOAN DEPT. 
 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below, 
 or on the date to which renewed. Renewals only: 
 
 Tel. No. 642-3405 — 
 
 .,^. . Renewals may be made 4 days prior to date due. , r 
 
 ^njUI' Renewed books are subject to immediate recaU. I C 
 
 SEC'DLD SEP 11 72-4 m 8 
 27^ 
 
 iECii - e FEB 2 0-^73 - 6 PMr 7 ^ 
 
 — jtXU2ft^9ftO -4 J 
 
 15Apr*55^ 
 
 REC.CIflJAN2S*80 
 
 JUL 2 8 1980 
 
 ^BXDiiJfii r'oa 
 
 *^umJ\:jux 
 
 RPf^rn"-"^ 
 
 FEB ^ 3 laoi) 
 
 APR ? cr CIRr;iM /, . ,., 
 
 ^^^ ^ APR 4 198^ 
 
 ^jr*-<- 
 
 ' 2i-ioom.9,'4^ RECCIRC MAR 4 1985 
 
 LD21A-40m-3,'72 
 (Qll73S10)476-A-32 
 
 General Library 
 
 Uaiversity of Califomia 
 
 Berkeley 
 
GENERAL LIBRARY -U.C. BERKELEY 
 
 BDDD7'=lL|Tma 
 
 Ci^i 
 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY