For the term of his natural life, by Marcus Clarke

PROLOGUE.

On the evening of May 3, 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 two–and–twenty, unusually tall and athletic of figure, dresses 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 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 favour 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? Look ye," 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 confessed 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–twenty 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 great white eyebrows came together in his red face with 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 leave 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 in an hour, madam; let me find him gone."

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 ungrateful during all your years of sorrow—who most need forgiveness. 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! 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! Pray for me."

"Hush, dearest! Come, let me lead you in. I will write. I will 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 maggoty biscuit. The sole aim of the coarse, pushing and hard–headed son of Dick 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 antechambers. 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 received 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 unprofitable, 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 rambling 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 left 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 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, Ellinor, to so sordid a bridegroom. Armigell Esme 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 Esme Wade, ambassador from Queen Elizabeth to the King of Spain in the delicate matter of Mendoza, and afterwards counsellor to James I, and Lieutenant of the Tower. This Esme 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) marrying into the family of the Wottons, the wealth of the house was further 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 17,1668] speaks of visiting him at Belsize. He was raised to the peerage in 1667 by the title of Baron 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 Esme, 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 Esme, the Lieutenant of the Tower. No sooner had he become master of his fortune than he took to dice, drink, and debauchery with all the extravagance 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 thousand guineas last night to that vulgarest of all the Bourbons, the Duc 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–born blackleg. When he was told by thin–lipped, cool Colonel Wade that the rich shipbuilder, Sir Richard Devine, had proposed 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; 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 marriage; 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 May 3, 1827, Lord Bellasis had been attending a pigeon match at Hornsey 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 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 circumstances 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 he 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 intention 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 comprehend 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, p'r'aps 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 drinkers at the Spaniards' Inn had started to search the Heath, and had discovered 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. Knowing 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 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 prisoner answered, but at length Richard Devine raised a pale face which stern resolution had already hardened into defiant manhood, 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 murdered 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 senseless in a fit of apoplexy.

BOOK I.—THE SEA. 1827.

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 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 bulwark. 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 permitted 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 main–hatch, or crouched in careless fashion on the shady side of the barricade, were laughing and talking, with blasphemous 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 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 Heath 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 vagabond 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 gaolers 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 abilities, 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 criminality, 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 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 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. "Insolent blackguards!"

And then the noise of the sentry, on the quarter–deck below him, grounding arms, turned the current of his thoughts. 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–belle 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 failing health induced him to exchange into the —th, he insisted upon bringing the child with him, despite Mrs. Vickers'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 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 attentions 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? 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 destroys 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 imperious 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, 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 someone 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."

By and by, Captain Blunt appeared, and, taking the glass from his officer, looked through it long and carefully. Then the mizentop 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 plaything, 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 witnessed 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 perfume.

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 the 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 shipboard, the cuddy was wont to pass some not unpleasant evenings. 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. Moreover, 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 a mere five feet square, 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?" cried 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."

"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 morning they found him dead."

"And the son's away on the sea somewhere," said Mr. Vickers "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! How can you?" interjected Mrs. Vickers. "'Pon 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 are talking of 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 with the worst of those ruffians 'tween decks, than in her keeping, if I'd done her an injury."

Blunt laughed.

"I don't believe she'd think much of sticking a man, either!" he said, rising. "But I must go on deck, doctor." Pine followed him more slowly. "I don't pretend to know much about women," he 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 another and a darker one, he muttered, "She's after no good, I'll swear."

At that moment his arm was touched by a soldier in undress uniform, who had come up the hatchway. "What is it?"

The man drew himself up and saluted.

"If you please, 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 many gruff 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 followed his summoner down the hatchway.

In the meantime the woman who was the object of the grim old fellow's suspicions was enjoying the comparative coolness of the night air. Her mistress and her mistress's daughter had not yet come out of their cabin, and the men had not yet finished their evening's tobacco. The awning had been removed, the stars were shining in the moonless sky, the poop guard had shifted itself to the quarter–deck, and Miss Sarah Purfoy was walking up and down the deserted poop, in close tête–à–tête with no less a person than Captain Blunt himself. She had passed and repassed him twice silently, and at the third turn the big fellow, peering into the twilight ahead somewhat uneasily, obeyed the glitter of her great eyes, and joined her.

"You weren't put out, my wench," he asked, "at what I said to you below?"

She affected surprise.

"What do you mean?"

"Why, at my—at what I—at my rudeness, there! For I was a bit rude, I admit."

"I? Oh dear, no. You were not rude."

"Glad 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 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.

"You dare!" she cried. "Kiss me by force! Pooh! you make love like a schoolboy. If you can make 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 conscious that he was in rather a ridiculous position, and so decided to laugh.

"You're a spitfire, too. What must I do to make you like me?"

She made him a curtsy.

"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 aloof.

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, my 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."

"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, you can't 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?" "If you loved me, you would tell me," said he, with a quickness 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?"

"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 immediately 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 sensation; and at the sight of her mistress, the modest maid withdrew discreetly from Frere's side. Not that there was any need to do so; no one heeded her. Blunt, in his professional excitement, 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 —"

"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 burn 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 someone 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 grey–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 eye down the double tier of bunks which lined the side of the ship, and stopped at the one opposite him.

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 turning yellow now, and spreading over the sky.

"Two in each boat!" 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 ill?"

Pine was next to her, and looked out instantly. "It's that big fellow in No. 10," 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 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 stern 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 misshapen 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, waiting 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."

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 dare say it is." She had been looking at him with unaffected disgust as he drank. "Brandy is all you men understand." 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 as 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 something 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 like 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."

"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 moment.

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 more.

"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 carn'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."

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 deck 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 dare say, if I ask him."

Miles swore under his breath.

"Dom Mr. Frere! Go in if yer like," he said. "I won'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 lad 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 of 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 swung, 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, 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, like 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 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, extinguished 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 outstretched arms, in the darkness, Sarah Purfoy slipped past him unnoticed, and gained the upper deck.

CHAPTER V.

THE BARRACOON.

In the prison of the 'tween decks reigned a darkness pregnant 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 liberal interpretation upon the clause, and so long as the prisoners refrained from shouting, 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 the 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 loopholes, and came, in somewhat 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 other hundred and fifty did not come so well off. 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 little more free in their movements. It is impossible to convey, in words, any idea of the hideous phantasmagoria of shifting limbs and faces which moved through the evil–smelling twilight of this terrible prison–house. Callot might 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 highway 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 intellect of the professional swindler. The fraudulent clerk and the flash "cracksman" interchanged experiences. The smuggler's stories of lucky ventures and successful runs were capped 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 transported 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 magistrates, gaolers, and parsons were the natural prey of all noteworthy 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 indecency sounded hourly in his sight and hearing—he lost his self–respect, and became what his gaolers 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 rumbling 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 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" (the "look–out" man of a burglars' gang) 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 pickpocket, 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!" says the "Crow", elated at the success of his last sally.

"Oh, sir, my back!"

"Get up!" groaned someone in the darkness. "Oh, 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. "Someone stole it," said the sufferer.

"He's been an' blued it," squealed someone. "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 die—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?"

The conversation had got a little loud, and, from the topmost 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–!"

"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 fainting!"

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! All the blessed chickens ha' got the croup!"

The groaning of the man in the bunk redoubled.

"Pass the word to the sentry," says someone 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 non–commissioned 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. Pass him down, some of yer," and the wretch was hustled down 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 outside 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!"

"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 Government 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?"

"No—but —"

"But what does the Government care, then?"

Blunt 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 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 helplessness, 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 cockboat 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. The stars hung low in its expanse, burning in a violent 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'll 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 appeared 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 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?"

"The 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 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 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 arms 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 then 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 anyway."

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."

"Didn't you see anyone?"

"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."

"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 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 whom they were speaking met him on 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. "Someone 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.

"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 mother's treatment of such ailments. "Old Pine'll give you some."

To his astonishment she burst into tears.

"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 around him, the infatuated fellow kissed the bruise. "I'll get the laudanum for you," he said. "You shan'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 carried 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 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 in 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 the 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 about, and closed his eyes in vain—he could not sleep. His utmost efforts induced only an oppressive stagnation of thought, through which he heard the voices of his fellow–convicts; while before his eyes was still the burning Hydaspes—that vessel whose destruction had destroyed for ever all trace of the unhappy Richard Devine.

It was fortunate for his comfort, perhaps, that the man who had been chosen to accompany him was of a talkative turn, for the prisoners insisted upon hearing the story of the explosion a dozen times over, and Rufus Dawes himself had been roused to give the name of the vessel with his own lips. Had it not been for the hideous respect in which he was held, it is possible that he might have been compelled to give his version also, and to join in the animated discussion which took place upon the possibility of the saving of the fugitive crew. As it was, however, he was left in peace, and lay unnoticed, trying to sleep.

The detachment of fifty being on deck—airing—the prison was not quite so hot as at night, and many of the convicts made up for their lack of rest by snatching a dog–sleep in the bared bunks. The four volunteer oarsmen were allowed to "take it out."

As yet there had been no alarm of fever. The three seizures had excited some comment, however, and had it not been for the counter–excitement of the burning ship, it is possible that Pine's precaution would have been thrown away. The "Old Hands"—who had been through the Passage before—suspected, but said nothing, save among themselves. It was likely that the weak and sickly would go first, and that there would be more room for those remaining. The Old Hands were satisfied.

Three of these Old Hands were conversing together just behind the partition of Dawes's bunk. As we have said, the berths were five feet square, and each contained six men. No. 10, the berth occupied by Dawes, was situated on the corner made by the joining of the starboard and centre lines, and behind it was a slight recess, in which the scuttle was fixed. His "mates" were at present but three in number, for John Rex and the cockney tailor had been removed to the hospital. The three that remained were now in deep conversation in the shelter of the recess. Of these, the giant—who had the previous night asserted his authority in the prison—seemed to be the chief. His name was Gabbett. He was a returned convict, now on his way to undergo a second sentence for burglary. The other two were a man named Sanders, known as the "Moocher", and Jemmy Vetch, the Crow. They were talking in whispers, but Rufus Dawes, lying with his head close to the partition, was enabled to catch much of what they said.

At first the conversation turned on the catastrophe of the burning ship and the likelihood of saving the crew. From this it grew to anecdote of wreck and adventure, and at last Gabbett said something which made the listener start from his indifferent efforts to slumber, into sudden broad wakefulness.

It was the mention of his own name, coupled with that of the woman he had met on the quarter–deck, that roused him.

"I saw her speaking to Dawes yesterday," said the giant, with an oath. "We don't want no more than we've got. I ain't goin' to risk my neck for Rex's woman's fancies, and so I'll tell her."

"It was something about the kid," says the Crow, in his elegant slang. "I don't believe she ever saw him before. Besides, she's nuts on Jack, and ain't likely to pick up with another man."

"If I thort she was agoin' to throw us over, I'd cut her throat as soon as look at her!" snorts Gabbett savagely.

"Jack ud have a word in that," snuffles the Moocher; "and he's a curious cove to quarrel with."

"Well, stow yer gaff," grumbled Mr. Gabbett, "and let's have no more chaff. If we're for bizness, let's come to bizness."

"What are we to do now?" asked the Moocher. "Jack's on the sick list, and the gal won't stir a'thout him."

"Ay," returned Gabbett, "that's it."

"My dear friends," said the Crow, "my keyind and keristian friends, it is to be regretted that when natur' gave you such tremendously thick skulls, she didn't put something inside of 'em. I say that now's the time. Jack's in the 'orspital; what of that? That don't make it no better for him, does it? Not a bit of it; and if he drops his knife and fork, why then, it's my opinion that the gal won't stir a peg. It's on his account, not ours, that she's been manoovering, ain't it?"

"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 experience of the prison–sheds, should seize both, in defiance of gaol or gaoler.

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!"

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 throwing 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 me when I come up to–morrow 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 conversed 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 gaolers.

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 the 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 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 precautions taken by Sarah Purfoy rendered success possible—the vessel was 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 discussion. "You'd like to go home again, wouldn't you, old man?"

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 means."

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 consciousness, but with a faint cry fell back, striking his head against the edge of the bunk.

The noise roused the burglar in an instant. There was someone 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 someone.

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 a ray of sunshine that shot down the hatchway. This glimpse of sunlight —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, unmolested, 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 authority 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 schoolroom, 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 is not in my power to alter it. I shall do my best for your comfort, 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' arms 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 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 increased 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 thunderstorm; 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 some wounded creature, on the opaque profundity 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 looking 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 bizness at once!—"

"—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 fist, 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 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 the guard at eight," he said deprecatingly.

She tossed her head. "Very well, then, attend to your guard; I 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.

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 conversation 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. Mrs. Lionel Crofton, of the Crofts, Sevenoaks, Kent—Sevenoaks, Kent—Seven——"

A gleam of light broke in on the darkness which wrapped Rufus Dawes's 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 Purfoy, 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's bewildered intellects were wandering. "Sarah Purfoy!" He remembered now each detail of the conversation he had so strangely overheard, and how imperative 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 necessitate his isolation from the cabin where his child lay. Mrs. Vickers—weeping and bewailing herself coquettishly at garrison 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 parched 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 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 of 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 mentioned my wife's maid, too!"

"Suppose he did?—and, begad, I dare say 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 nothing 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 anything about it. At all events, we are completely ignorant of the 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 when 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 perhaps? Prevention, you know—"

Pine turned round upon him with that grim practicality which was a part of his nature. "Have you considered the safety of the ship, Captain Vickers? You know, or have heard of, the sort of things that take place in these mutinies. Have you considered 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 daytime, were disposed on the top of the arm–chest, were placed in an arm–rack constructed on the quarter–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–commissioned 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 unusual 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.

"Cuc–come, Sarah," he hiccuped. "It's all very fine, my lass, but you needn't be so—hic—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—hic—lovsh you, Sarah. And a preshus tight little craft you—hic—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 the half–hour. 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. 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—hic—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 instantaneous. 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 main–mast. 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!"

"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 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 excitement. 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 his feet, and disengaging the arms that clung about his neck, made for the door. The moment for which the convict's accomplice 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 suddenly 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 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.

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 get out!" they said, each man speaking to his particular friend. "We are locked up here to die like sheep." Gloomy faces and desponding 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 dullness of a thunder–cloud. By and by, in some inexplicable way, it came to be understood that there was a conspiracy afloat, that they were to be released from their shambles, that some amongst them had been plotting for 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 mathematical 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.

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 hangdog 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 confident 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 vote 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 laughs a laugh of mingled ferocity and amusement, not reassuring to timid people. "What about the sogers?" asked a voice from the ranks of the cautious.

"D——the sogers!" cries the Moocher, moved by a sudden inspiration. "They can but shoot yer, and that's as good as dyin' of typhus anyway!"

The right chord had been struck now, and with a stifled roar the prison admitted the truth of the sentiment. "Go on, old man!" 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 said, "Stand by now for the door—one rush'll do it."

It was eight o'clock and the relief guard was coming from 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. "W'en the door h'opens 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 bristling 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, Gabbett 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 upon 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 forward, and as it so burst, the heavy door crashed into its jambs, and the bolts were shot into their places.

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 thaumatoscope. 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 then 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, struggling, and indignant, amid the storm of hideous faces, his humanity vanished, and he aimed deliberately at the head of 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 the detachment 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 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 elbow–room, 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 determined 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 were drawn 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 now become suddenly 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 scampering 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 came a sort of subdued murmur, like that which sounds within the folds of a sea–shell, but, in the oblong block of darkness 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 the 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, suddenly 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 nervous 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 fingers, 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 cling 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 failure brings 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 rollicking 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 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 struggle, however, that was now taking place, science seemed to be of little value. To the inexperienced eye, it would appear that the frenzied giant, gripping 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 any 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 assailant, 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, which are none the less heroic because the Ajax is a convict, and the Trojans merely ordinary sailors. Shaking his assailants 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 hatchway raise their muskets, and four times did the fear of wounding 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 hanging 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 solitudes 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.

CHAPTER XI.

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, bruised, 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 dereliction 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–piece 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 Vickers 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. Parsons are regular old women to chatter"; and thus muttering Pine assisted to carry Mrs. Vickers's maid into her cabin.

"By George, but she's a fine girl!" he said, viewing the inanimate 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?" 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 gratification 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! By George, he's been hocussed!"

"Nonsense!"

"I see it," slapping his thigh. "It's that infernal woman! She's drugged him, and meant to do the same for—"(Frere gave 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 we'll 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 emergency, 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 ludicrous 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 a good girl, for Jesus Christ's sake, our Lord. Amen."

The sound of the unconscious child's simple prayer had something awesome in it, and John Vickers, who, not ten minutes before, would have sealed his own death warrant unhesitatingly to preserve the safety of the vessel, felt his eyes fill with unwonted 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 the spokesman, Mr. James Vetch, confessed.

"They were very sorry, and hoped that their breach of discipline would be forgiven. It was the fear of the typhus which 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 four 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 Macquarie Harbour."

END OF BOOK THE FIRST

BOOK II.—MACQUARIE HARBOUR. 1833.

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–West 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 height 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 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—the 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 solitude of the Iron Pot to the smiling banks of New Norfolk, the river winds in a succession of reaches, narrowing to a deep channel 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 Wellington 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 corn. 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 Wellington. 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 harbour of Port Davey, 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 is dangerous, and the entrance to the "Hell's Gates" of Macquarie 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 exhalations from swamp and fen cling 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 Heemskirk and Mount Zeehan—crouched like two sentinel lions keeping watch over the seaboard.

CHAPTER II.

THE SOLITARY OF "HELL'S GATES".

"Hell's Gates," formed by a rocky point, which runs 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 convict, 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 will 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 whole place is desolate, and a few rotting 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 necessary 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 towards 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 thein to work up to their waists in water. Many of thein were heavily ironed. Those who died were buried on a little plot of ground, called Halliday'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.

Sarah Island, situated at the south–east corner of the harbour, 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 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 rou–1i 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, and 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 afternoon 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 and the tall peak of the Frenchman's Cap; while the storm hung sullenly over the barren hills to the eastward. 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 arrived, 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 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 depôt, 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 violated 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 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–leave 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 conditional 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 prisoners 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 afternoon; 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;" while the seventh were the refuse of this refuse—the murderers, bandits, and villains, whom neither chain nor lash could tame. They were regarded as socially dead, and shipped to Hell's Gates, or Maria Island. Hells 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 districts, 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 departure 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 girlishness shadowed by six years; "I shall be only too glad. A dreadful place! John's duties, however, are imperative. But 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 Frere, 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 I did not like to leave her behind, and endeavoured to teach her myself."

"Hum! There was a–ha–governess, or something, was there not?" said Frere, staring into his tea–cup. "That maid, 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 say, Governess! Of course. Happy suggestion. Wonder it never occurred to me before. "However, her conduct was most exemplary—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." Mr. Frere gave a little bluff 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 little. "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 something 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 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 provisions 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 'em if they don't come back before the end of the month, eh?"

"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 Frere.

"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 unaffected surprise. "I 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 peninsula. He thinks you too far off here, by George! He wants to have you within hail."

"It's dangerous taking so many at once," suggested Vickers.

"Not a bit. Batten 'em down and keep the sentries awake, and they won't do any harm."

"But Mrs. Vickers and the child?"

"I've thought of that. You take the Ladybird with the prisoners, 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, "I'll 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 commanding 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 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 unaesthetic 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 head, 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? For shame, Sylvia!"

There was in the chiding accents such an undertone of tenderness, that the reproof fell harmless.

"I remember you," said Sylvia, tossing her head; "but you were 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!" said 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 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?"

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. Moreover, 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 innocence 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 someone came up the garden path and saluted.

"What is it, Troke?"

"Prisoner given himself up, sir."

"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?"

"Oh, by all means."

CHAPTER IV.

THE BOLTER.

It was not far to the sheds, and after a few minutes' walk through the wooden palisades they reached a long stone building, two storeys 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 livery) 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 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.

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?"

"Where are your mates?" repeated Troke.

"Dead," says Gabbett.

"All three of them?"

"Ay."

"And how did you get back?"

Gabbett, in eloquent silence, held out a bleeding foot.

"We found him on the point, sir," said Troke, jauntily explaining, "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 can 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 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 it 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, mumbling 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 hideousness, 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 curled 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'."

"You are too soft–hearted, my dear sir," said Frere, half–way up the palisaded path. "We must treat brutes like brutes."

Major Vickers, inured as he was to such sentiments, sighed. "It is not for me to find fault with the system," he said, hesitating, 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. I've seen something of convicts—though, to be sure, my fellows were not so bad as yours—and there's only one way. Keep 'em down, sir. Make 'em feel 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!"

"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 in place."

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 afterwards."

"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 Ladybird."

"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), "especially 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 half so well myself," says Sylvia, with feminine disdain of reasons. "They always had so many soldiers, though the others were so cruel when they conquered."

"Were they?" says Frere.

"Were they! Goodness gracious, yes! Didn't they cut poor Regulus's eyelids 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 concede 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 'Shakespeare's Plays', and 'Robinson Crusoe', and 'Blair's Sermons', 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 limited, 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 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 reproof.

But Frere laughed, caught both the child's hands in one of his own, and kissed her again and again, despite her struggles. "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 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 recollections 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 close around her with immense dignity, and marched down the passage as calmly as though she had been Amadis of Gaul himself.

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 struck you. I apologize in writing. 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 mysterious 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 mysterious work in progress. Rufus Dawes, walking his little round each day, in vain wondered what this unusual commotion portended. Unfortunately, no one came to enlighten his ignorance.

A fortnight after this, about the 15th 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 the timber–cutting was to be abandoned, and that the Government had hit upon some other method of utilizing 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 conclusion that the boats had been to Philip's 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 commandant 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 exclaim 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 suffered since that time, we must multiply the infamy of the 'tween decks of the Malabar a 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, infamous the companionship, terrible the memory of past happiness— 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.

Is it possible to imagine, even for a moment, what an innocent 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—walking, riding, laughing, marrying and giving in marriage—can form no notion of such misery as this. Some dim ideas 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 manliness is held in an open scorn, we should die, perhaps, or go mad. But we do not know, and can never know, how unutterably loathsome life must become when shared with such beings as those who dragged the tree–trunks to the banks of the Gordon, and toiled, blaspheming, in their irons, on the dismal 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 whom 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 hasten from the contemplation of his own degrading agony. Imagine such torment endured for six years!

Ignorant that the sights and sounds about him were symptoms 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 him no credit with the authorities, procured for him 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 superintendent, 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 Vickers came, Dawes sought an interview, and begged to be sent back to Hobart Town. This was refused, of course, but he was 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. 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 after events accounted—insisted 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 negligence which had resulted in the loss of the other four. For this madness the refractory convict had been condemned to the 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. Whenever 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 incomprehensible 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 the Rock and iron him with the rest for safe passage to Hobart Town, he might have paused; but he knew nothing, save that 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 would himself 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 corporal'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 withdrawn 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 débris. 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 discipline and haste, the raft had not been 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 although 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 solitary rock he had watched the boat pass him and make for the Ladybird in the channel, and he had decided—with that curious childishness 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 of self–preservation predominant over all other thoughts, be 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 stern 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.

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 mentioned 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 believed to be dead by the party on board the Ladybird, and his strange 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 brig, and on the evening of the 11th 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 bar, and prudent Mr. Bates, having consideration for Mrs. Vickers and the child, ran back ten miles into Wellington Bay, and anchored there again at seven o'clock in the morning. The tide was running strongly, and the brig rolled a good deal. Mrs. Vickers kept to 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 yourself 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 evening 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," 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. Tell 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."

Frere rubbed his brows. "Well, have you read—have you read 'Robinson Crusoe?'"—as if the idea was a brilliant one.

"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 'Leprechaun'?" "No."

Sylvia got off 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 most ignorant person—for your age, of course."

Maurice Frere grew a little angry. "You are very impertinent, 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 no more of her that evening, and at breakfast the next morning she received him with quaint haughtiness.

"When 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 shipwrecked, 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 should 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 born nateral, and a good–natered little soul."

"When 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, William 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 Ladybird, had been conspicuously 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 superintended 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 themselves, 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 contrary—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 severe 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 13th, in apparently cheerful mood. Indeed Mr. Frere, who, wearied by the delay, had decided to take the whale–boat 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 intention of weighing anchor and making for the Bar. All was secure. Mrs. Vickers and the child were safely below. The two remaining 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 running out of the bay. For some time the burden that it bore was an insensible 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 extremity of which was lost in darkness. Painfully raising himself from his uncomfortable posture, he staggered to his feet, and crawling a few paces up the beach, flung himself upon the ground and slept.

When morning dawned, he recognized his position. The log had, in passing under the lee of Philip's Island, been cast upon the southern point of Coal Head; 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 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 exhaustion 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 midday, 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 refreshed 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. Suddenly his glance fell upon the food rations which lay in the corner 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 had 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 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 much 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 détours, 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 disencumber 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.

[Footnote]* Ovalled—"To oval" is a term in use among convicts, and means so to bend the round ring of the ankle fetter that the heel can be drawn up through it.

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 fortune, 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 impeded 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 hungry 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, impelled 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 recognized 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 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 on the range, and looked around him. Above him rose the iron hills, below him lay the panorama 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 without 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 delicious morsels fit for the table of an emperor. Once or twice 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 departure 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 settlement 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 of 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 minutes he should see well–remembered boats pulling towards him. Then, when no boat came, he argued that he was mistaken in the place; the island yonder was not Sarah Island, but some other island like 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.

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.

CHAPTER IX.

THE SEIZURE OF THE "OSPREY"

Frere'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 impatient; 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, however, they noticed a change of expression in the sullen face of their commander. Frere, sitting in the stern sheets, with his face to the Osprey, had observed a peculiar appearance on her decks. The bulwarks 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 apprehension, 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 Russen, John Fair, and James Barker slipped to the hatchway and got upon the 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 confusion of the moment the man loosed his grip 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 a preconcerted plan, leapt down the after hatchway, and passed up the muskets from the arm–racks to Lesly and 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 listening 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 hatchway, and the hatch secured. "Stand on the hatchway, Porter," cries Rex again; "and if those fellows come up, knock 'em down with a handspoke. 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. "I 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 light coracles of skin stretched upon slender wooden frames, must have presented a wild and savage appearance.'"

"Hah," said Mr. Bates, when this remarkable passage was read to him, "that's very mysterious, that is. A corricle, a cory "—a bright light burst upon him. "A curricle you mean, missy! 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, "I 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? 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 sufficient to blind him for an instant. The musket exploded harmlessly 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 arms.

"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'll hear the shot anyway. 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 bewildered 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, 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 cry was one of pain, 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 liberty we want, that's all."

Bates, hoping against hope for the return of the boat, endeavoured 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 !"

"Put your pistols on the table, and come up, then," says Rex, covering the table with his musket as he spoke. "And nobody shall hurt you."

CHAPTER X.

JOHN REX'S REVENGE.

Mrs Vickers, pale and sick with terror, yet sustained 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 swore impatiently 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 them, for what account could they give of themselves? Overpowered 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 navigate 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, here?"

"Yes. It don't look a picturesque spot, does it? And yet I'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 down 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!"

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 the speech however, lay its safeguard. Rex—whose politeness was mere bravado—was stung to the quick by the reflection upon his courage, and the bitter accent with which the child had pronounced the word prisoner (the generic name of convicts) 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, according 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! 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. Bloodthirsty 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 we're your masters now!"

Frere, stifling an exclamation of rage, cried to the bow to hook on, but the bow 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 the 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 as 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 orders of his officer, did more than an hour's reasoning to convince Maurice Frere of the hopelessness of resistance. His authority—born of circumstance, and supported by adventitious aid—had left him. The musket shot had reduced him to the ranks. He was now no more than anyone 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 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 the stern 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 saw this 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; Frere, catching the 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, found leisure to console him. "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 would 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 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 recovering 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 whaleboat, and having loosed the two prisoners from their bonds, ordered them to take the place of Russen and Fair. The whale–boat was manned by the seven mutineers, Rex steering, 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 thrill with a late moon as yet unrisen, 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. 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 boat–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 a double capacity for suffering. Her feminine imagination pictured 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 content, 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 return and severely punish the impertinent prisoners who had 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 meantime this sleeping in the open air was novel and 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 discussed the chances of escape. Neither liked to openly broach the supposition that they had been finally deserted. It was concluded 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 propriety 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 Osprey might be recaptured, in which case five useless murders would have been committed; and however callous in 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 harmless child of the Commandant.

John Rex, seeing how matters were going, made haste to take to himself the credit of mercy. 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 already chosen for themselves. "I propose," said he, "that we divide the provisions. There are five of them and twelve 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! 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 was made. The soldiers, with generosity born of remorse, were for giving half to the marooned men, but Barker exclaimed against this. "When the schooner finds they don't get to headquarters, 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 with half a small sack of flour, some tea and sugar mixed together in a bag, and an iron kettle and pannikin, 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's 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 fishermen, or coast settlers, returning with the proceeds of a day's marketing.

Laying off as the water 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!" says Rex, "you can't say we've used you badly, for we've divided the provisions." The sight of this almost unexpected succour revived the courage of the five, and they felt 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 assistance.

"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 the child for it."

Julia Vickers hastened to propitiate the arbiter of her daughter's fate. "We are obliged 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 sportsman", 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!" says Sylvia, waving her handkerchief; "and I hope they won't catch you, too."

So, with cheers and waving of handkerchiefs, the boat departed.

In the emotion which the apparently disinterested conduct of John Rex had occasioned the exiles, all earnest thought of their 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 wakeful 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 provisions 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, matches and a fig of tobacco, fishing lines 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 damper, 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 from rain was apprehended, the heat in the middle of the day 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 discovered, however, that the pocket knives were insufficient for this purpose, but by dint of notching the young saplings and then breaking them down, they succeeded, in a couple of 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 sleeping–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 walking 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 commotion on board the brig, and thought that the prisoners must be 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 the mutineers had got out a kedge–anchor, and by hauling on the kedge–line, were gradually 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, disappeared round the western horn of the harbour.

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 together 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 successfully 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. After much muttering and groaning, the poor fellow 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 succeeded 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 calling 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 bewilderment 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 disappeared, 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 burst 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, drunk a quantity of its contents, and been maddened by the fiery spirit.

Frere hurried to the side of Bates, and lifting him up, strove 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 off 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 little 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 wounded 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 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 dropped, 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.

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 just 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 midday, 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!" "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!" Frere returned. "Come here, and I'll tell you a story."

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 ran, 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.

Beyond 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–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 darkness outside the circle of firelight, the unhappy man sank his face upon his blackened, horny 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 you?" he said slowly.

"What do you mean? Do you know me?" asked Frere, drawing back. But the convict did not reply. His momentary 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."

The 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 understand how he had again missed his chance. "Who took her?"

"That double–dyed villain, John Rex," says Frere, giving vent to his passion. "May she sink, and burn, 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!"

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'll have no hard words. Wretch! 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 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! But, 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'!"

Frere began to think that he was dealing with another madman.

"Die! 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."

"There spoke the free man. We convicts have an advantage over you gentlemen. You are afraid of death; we pray for it. It is the best thing that can happen to us. Die! They were going to hang me once. I wish they had. My God, I wish they had!"

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 this 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 his former cowardice— made him feel for the jack–knife with which one murder had already been committed. Their stock of provisions 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 almost the same position as that in which he had left him, and 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 by the shoulder.

"Not alive!" cried the poor wretch, waking with a start, 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 remembering 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 was 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 a 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 mustn't let him die," said she. "That would be murder." "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 tormenting 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 brushwood, 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 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 we'll 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 the 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 well," she said, "and if you are good, I'll tell 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 when 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 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 weatherproof hut without bricks or mortar. From the patient he became the adviser; and from the adviser, the commander. 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 authority of knowledge.

As the time wore on, and the scanty stock of provisions decreased, he found that his authority grew more and more powerful. 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 clay, 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 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 acknowledge that, beside Dawes, he was incapable. 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 was almost a passion. She was his good angel, his protectress, his glimpse of Heaven. She had given him food 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 into 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 behind in the hurry of departure. He would set springes for the seagulls, and snare the pigeons at Liberty Point. But all 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? Impossible 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; and, growing weaker day by day, they waited.

One morning 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."

"What! A man who made gold?"

"After a fashion."

"But did he make gold?" persisted Sylvia.

"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 as 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 significance. 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 XIII.

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 the 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 the hope of escape, and with delight at having been the means of suggesting it—watched narrowly the countenance of Rufus Dawes, but she marked no answering gleam of joy in those 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 something?"

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 can 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 said, 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.

"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 not time for questioning! 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 sundown that evening the carcase of poor Nanny, broken into various most unbutcherly fragments, was hanging on the nearest tree; and Frere, returning 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 off its 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 intestines 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 direction, 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, and catch some of those goats. I 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 approach. 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 turned–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 sparkling 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 sea–water, 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 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, a 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 get back."

"You don't believe me?"

"I don't want favour at your 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 Rufus 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 WONDERFUL DAY'S WORK.

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, 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 tonight. 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, depressed 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 providence,'" 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 promised to ask for a free pardon. He wouldn't have it, though. Too proud to accept it at my hands! 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.

"What is it, Mr. Frere?"

"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 brushwood, 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 completely overcome her, and she was unable to rise.

"Cheer up, ma'am," said Maurice, with an assumption 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 tonight. 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?"

"Never mind," said Frere, again, "you will 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 undefined 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 breakfast, 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 on the reeds. The clumsy bundle 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 opposite bank, half a mile below the point he had attempted to make, and carrying his floats out of reach of the tide, made off across the hill to the Pilot Station.

Arrived there about midday, 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 labour he cut down bushes, so as to mask the approach to the waterhole 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 swung 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 resisted 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 gut. After many failures, however, this happy medium was discovered; and Rufus Dawes, concealing his springes by means of twigs, 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 his 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 catgut 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 unsprung, and before sundown Rufus Dawes had caught four more goats. Removing with care the catgut that had done such good service, he dragged the carcases to the shore, and proceeded to pack them upon his floats. He discovered, however, 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 light 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 excitement of the task he had set himself, he dismissed with fierce impatience the thought of rest, and dragged his weary limbs along the sand, endeavouring to kill fatigue by further exertion. The tide was now running in, and he knew it was imperative 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 ebb, 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 violet 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 touched 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 out 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 paralysed 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 settlement. 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, 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 Frere to 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 four 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. All 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 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 in 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 midday, 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 tapered 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 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 stern. 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!" says Frere suddenly. "Be civil, can't you."

But the other, busily trimming and cutting at the projecting 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 precaution remained. Dipping the pannikin into the melted tallow, he plentifully anointed the seams of the sewn skins. The boat, thus turned topsy–turvy, 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, 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 of 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 on 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 little 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, because that would be uncomfortable. Mr. Frere, you don't play?"

"Oh, yes!" says Frere, unable to withstand the charming pout that accompanied the words. "I'll play. What am I to do?"

"You must walk on this side, and be respectful. Of course it is only Pretend, you know," she added, with a quick consciousness of Frere's conceit. "Now then, the Queen goes down to the Seashore surrounded by her Nymphs! There is no occasion 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.

Maurice could not resist a sneer.

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 sufficiently 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. "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 companion, "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 to 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, still 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. "Oh 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 gamecocks galore; and Maurice Frere, a penniless lieutenant, marooned on the barren coast of Macquarie Harbour, and acting as boat–builder 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 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 contemplation 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 overcome 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!" 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 lieutenant regarded himself as already reinstated in his old position, and with Mrs. Vickers on his arm, reproved the apparent insolence 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 judgment upon him seemed cruel. 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 excellences of the craft in silence; and then, feeling that the few words of thanks uttered by the lady were chilled by her consciousness 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 convict was out of the way. He wished that he was out of the way altogether.

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 himself. 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, forgone 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, rather 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 ship–builder.

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 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 witnesses 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 beneath the mist–barred moon; now, sitting—as he had sat in the prison long ago— with the 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 of years, perhaps—that a convict in the chain–gang in Macquarie Harbour—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 intelligence 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 degradation.

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. Perhaps 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. In here 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 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 ingratitude?

The idea flashed into his brain, as though someone 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 meantime. 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 exclamation 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 cairnwise 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 think 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 ungrateful 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 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"! 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 standing 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 settlement.

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 glistening 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 outgoing current towards the mouth of the harbour. When first launched she had come nigh swamping, being overloaded, 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 life. 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 succeeded 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 sprang up with the dawn, and, hoisting the goat–skin 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 little 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 dulled to pain.

Frere slept until late in the afternoon, and, when he woke, found the boat still tossing on the sea, and Sylvia and her mother both seasick. This seemed strange to him. Sea–sickness 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 to think how curiously events had come about. A leaf had, as it were, been torn out of his autobiography. It seemed a lifetime 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 horseshoe 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 bailing. 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 then plugging the hole with linen.

"It's lucky we ain't in the tropics," said Frere. Poor Mrs. Vickers, lying in 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 prostrated; 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 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 dull water in vain.

"There is no sail, fool!" he said. "You mock us!"

The boat, no longer following the line of the 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 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 towards 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 someone 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 impossible 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 to 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 will see this! Tear up that board! So! Now, place it thus 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!" cried Rufus Dawes. "Sylvia! My darling! 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 stern 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 skilfulness? 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 lying senseless, ignorant even of the approaching succour.

The ship—a brig, with American colours flying—came within hail of them. Frere could almost distinguish figures on her deck. He made his way aft to where Dawes was sitting, unconscious, 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, waited for her.

END OF BOOK THE SECOND

BOOK III.—PORT ARTHUR. 1838.

CHAPTER I.

A LABOURER IN THE VINEYARD.

"Society in Hobart Town, in this year of grace 1838, is, 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 gentleman 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, rattled 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–prisoner, grown fat on the profits of rum. The population that was 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, sympathizing 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 kindness 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 cattle"). "They are horrible creatures. And as for servants—my goodness, 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 the Rev. Mr. Meekin piously. "Heaven send us strength to bear them! Good–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?"

"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 storytelling. "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 positively awful!"

"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 bright garden flecked with shadows, while he went in search of 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. Having 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 someone near at hand was sobbing and crying. 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' course. 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 old 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'll speak to the Major when he comes home."

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 I 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 insubordination."

"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, my dear Miss Vickers, to find myself indeed at the antipodes."

"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 plainness 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.

"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 to 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 unaffectedly 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, I've 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 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 on 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."

"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 extraordinary 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 extraordinary story I ever heard in my life. 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. "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 a soldier—and—but it's a long story."

"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 light 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 unwilling 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 forgotten.

"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 by," said Vickers, "I suppose we shall have to get that fellow up for the trial. We have to identify the villains."

"Can't you and I do that?" asked Frere uneasily.

"I am afraid not. I wouldn't like to swear to a man after five years."

"By George," said Frere, "I'd 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 understand that the climate is quite endurable."

The convict servant, who had entered with some official papers for the Major, stared at the dainty clergyman, and rough Maurice laughed again.

"Oh, it's a stunning climate," he 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 politeness, to cease talking for the moment, caused the conversation 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 contemplate! 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 afternoon."

"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 afternoon."

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?"

"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 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—"

"It's my 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 expression. "She always leaves me for her father," he said to himself. "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 before; 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 appointment 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 life. 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 careful 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 purchased 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 leading 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 father's 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 overbearing, 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 convicts 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–gangs in their own hideous jargon, and to astound a new–comer by his knowledge of his previous history. The convict population hated and cringed to him, for, with his brutality, 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 remorseless, in his next morning's sentence of the captured, as if he had never entered a tap–room in all 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 Maria Island, and for the first two years after his return from the unlucky expedition 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 common 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 phantoms. 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 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, the man handed him a letter, bearing a superscription in a female hand.

"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 miscellaneous 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 Sarah Purfoy.

"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 fullness 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 this a favour? What do you call your precious house and all that's in it? Isn't that 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 constrained 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.

"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 bloat yourself with brandy, do it by all means."

"You don't pay for it, at any rate!" said she, with quickness 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 I? 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?"

"You know who was on board her, Maurice!"

Maurice brought 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! Save his life! It can't be done."

"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 will." 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 will. 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 pleading had fallen about her face, poured out upon him a torrent of abuse. "You! 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! 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 make. One of your dogs has more brains 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 hand! 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! 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 Lieutenant Frere wanted a new housemaid from the Factory! Call for her!—call! do you hear? Ask any one of those beasts whom you lash and chain for Lucy Barnes. He'll tell you all about her—ay, and about many more—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. I'll 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, you must go."

"May I see him?"

"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 will go away, and promise never to interfere with me 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 can 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 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. That 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, an old watchmaker, 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 grandfather 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 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, well–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 dullness of St. Heliers. "Did she often walk there?" "Sometimes." "Would she be there tomorrow?" "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 cared 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 set a fictitious value upon virtue. He mistook her artfulness for innocence, and thought he had made a conquest. Moreover, 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 life, and longed to escape from its wearying 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 profession or business, and though he owned a good address, he was even less of a gentleman than Lemoine. Yet Sarah, attracted by one of the strange sympathies which constitute the romance of such women's lives, was devoted to him. Touched by her affection, and rating her intelligence and unscrupulousness 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 villainies; 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 city banking–house. 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, imaginative, 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 day 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 meantime kept late hours, got into bad company, and forged the name of a customer of the bank to a cheque for twenty pounds. The fraud was a clumsy one, and was detected in twenty–four hours. Forgeries by clerks, however easily detected, are unfortunately not considered to add to the attractions of a banking–house, and the old–established firm 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.

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 displayed considerable skill with the cue, and not infrequently 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, however, 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 supposed 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 "gentleman" 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 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 shop–walker 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 received him cordially, for he saw that he was bent upon great deeds. John Rex rapidly unfolded his plan of operations. The warehouse doors were fastened with a spring. He would remain behind after they were locked, and open them at a given signal. A light 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 first 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 £80. 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 Rex, 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 £80 lasted, he lived in luxury, and by the time it was spent he had established himself in his profession. This profession was a lucrative one. It was that of a swindler. Gifted with a handsome person, facile manner, and ready wit, he had added to these natural advantages some skill at billiards, some knowledge of gambler's 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 mankind, one must not aim at comparative, but superlative, ingenuity. 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, moreover, 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 speciality was swindling, billiard–playing, card–playing, borrowing money, obtaining goods, never risking more than two or three coups 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 circles of "fast" society, where animals turn 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 success, 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 most 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, dreaming 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 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 his 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 hopeful, 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, conceived 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 scoundrel's 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 invested 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 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 Arthur, 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 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 suffering she had undergone, and in a state of pitiable mental confusion 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 sensation 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, with 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!" 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 of them, I can't see what is the use of putting you in the box; 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, gaolers, 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 transfigured. 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 from the leathern thong around his massive loins, could mar that elegance 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 which he answered to his name, "Rufus Dawes, prisoner of the Crown".

"Come away, my darling," 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! 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 like 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 prisoners 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 acquaintance, gave a low cry, and fell into her father's arms.

"Oh, papa, take me away! I feel as if I was going to remember something terrible!"

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!"

"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. I 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 information at him as one might fling a bone to a dangerous dog.

"Miss Vickers," repeated the convict, still staring in a sort of bewildered agony. "They told me she was dead!"

The constable sniffed contemptuously at this preposterous conclusion, as who should say, "If you know all about it, animal, why did you ask?" and then, feeling that the fixed 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 forwarded by the Commandant; of course, that's the rule, and I can't complain. I've been sent there unjustly, your Honour. I made that boat, your Honour. I saved the Major's wife and daughter. I was the man; I did it all 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 surprise 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 nursed 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 him in the box, gentlemen, and make him tell his story. She'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 disposed 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, someone 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 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 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 Majesty's prisoners to His Majesty's colonies of New South Wales and Van Diemen'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, looking 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 after," 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." "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, "I won't refer to the subject. 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 someone. I don't explain what I mean, I know, but I felt that I was 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 comprehending 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 falling 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."

"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; 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 grew 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 very 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 I 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?"

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."

"Oh, 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 believed 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? 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 me."

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 other 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 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."

"I 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 that!") "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."

"I will, Mr. Meekin. I need it sorely, sir—physical as well as spiritual strength, sir—for the Government allowance is sadly insufficient."

"I will speak to the authorities about a change in your dietary scale," returned Meekin, patronizingly. "In the meantime, 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 concerning 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 must 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 line 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, 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 lines, 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 cartload of quartz–pebbles. In the meantime 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 fashionable to grunt when the hammer came in contact with the stone, and under cover of this mock exclamation 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 on 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 fragment of bluestone in a comfortable basin of smaller fragments, made no reply.

"I am afraid you lack patience, Da

For the term of his natural life

by

Marcus Clarke

Table of Contents

DEDICATION

PROLOGUE.

BOOK I.—THE SEA. 1827.

CHAPTER I.

THE PRISON SHIP.

CHAPTER II.

SARAH PURFOY.

CHAPTER III.

THE MONOTONY BREAKS.

CHAPTER IV.

THE HOSPITAL.

CHAPTER V.

THE BARRACOON.

CHAPTER VI.

THE FATE OF THE "HYDASPES".

CHAPTER VII.

TYPHUS FEVER.

CHAPTER VIII.

A DANGEROUS CRISIS.

CHAPTER IX.

WOMAN'S WEAPONS.

CHAPTER X.

EIGHT BELLS.

CHAPTER XI.

DISCOVERIES AND CONFESSIONS.

CHAPTER XII.

A NEWSPAPER PARAGRAPH.

END OF BOOK THE FIRST

BOOK II.—MACQUARIE HARBOUR. 1833.

CHAPTER I.

THE TOPOGRAPHY OF VAN DIEMEN'S LAND.

CHAPTER II.

THE SOLITARY OF "HELL'S GATES".

CHAPTER III.

A SOCIAL EVENING.

CHAPTER IV.

THE BOLTER.

CHAPTER V.

SYLVIA.

CHAPTER VI.

A LEAP IN THE DARK.

CHAPTER VII.

THE LAST OF MACQUARIE HARBOUR.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE POWER OF THE WILDERNESS.

CHAPTER IX.

THE SEIZURE OF THE "OSPREY"

CHAPTER X.

JOHN REX'S REVENGE.

CHAPTER XI.

LEFT AT "HELL'S GATES."

CHAPTER XII.

"MR." DAWES.

CHAPTER XIII.

WHAT THE SEAWEED SUGGESTED.

CHAPTER XIV.

A WONDERFUL DAY'S WORK.

CHAPTER XV.

THE CORACLE.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE WRITING ON THE SAND.

CHAPTER XVII.

AT SEA.

END OF BOOK THE SECOND

BOOK III.—PORT ARTHUR. 1838.

CHAPTER I.

A LABOURER IN THE VINEYARD.

CHAPTER II.

SARAH PURFOY'S REQUEST.

CHAPTER III.

THE STORY OF TWO BIRDS OF PREY.

CHAPTER IV.

"THE NOTORIOUS DAWES."

CHAPTER V.

MAURICE FRERE'S GOOD ANGEL.

CHAPTER VI.