«'* Of 111 turi I /^ .i p^ S^ fi^ -i iK/: •ii i amjiWLtiui wmmimm^ .IBRARY gAN CMBQO ■{/Lm ^' '^y'^^^<^'^^^- 7 -^ ll FOR THE TERM OF HIS NATURAL LIFE. BV MARCUS CLARKE, AUTHOR OF "old tales of a young COUNTKY, ' HOLIDAY PEAK," ETC. LONDON : RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON $3ublishcrs in ©rbinarH to 3)er t felt the breath of this strange woman warm on his cheek, her eyes 24 HIS NATURAL LIFE. seemed to wax and wane, and the hard, small hand he held burnt like fire. "I believe you are right," he cried, "I am half in love with you already." She gazed at him with a contemptuous sinking of her heavily fringed eyelids, and withdrew her hand. "Then don't get to the other half, or you'll regret it." "Shall I?" asked Blunt. "That's my affair. Come, you little vixen, give me that kiss you said I was going to ask you for below," and he caught her in his arms. In an instant she had twisted herself free, and confronted him with flashing eyes. "•You dare ! " she cried. " Kiss me by force ! Pooh ! you make love like a schoolboy. If you can vtake 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 spit-fire, too. What must I do to make you like me ? " She made him a curtsey. " That is your affair," she said ; and as the head of Mr. Frere appeared above the companion, Blunt walked aft, feeling considerably bewildered, and yet not displeased. "She's a fine girl, by jingo," he said, cocking his cap, "and I'm hanged if she ain't sweet upon me." And then the old fellow began to whistle softly to himself as he paced the deck, and to glance towards the man who had taken his place with no friendly eyes. But a sort of shame held him as yet, and he kept 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." SARAH PURFOY. 25 " So there are, but " " But what ? " "Well, never mind. It's against the rules, and I won't have it." " ' Not according to the King's Regulations,' as Captain Vickers would say." Frere laughed at her imitation of his pompous captain. "You are a strange girl; I can't make you out. Come," and he took her hand, " tell me what you are really ? " " Will you promise not to tell ? " " Of course." " Upon your word ? " " Upon my word." "Well, then— but you'll tell ?" " Not I. Come, go on." " Lady's-maid in the family of a gentleman going abroad.** " Sarah, can't you be serious ?" " I am serious. That was the advertisement I answered.* " But 1 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, 2nd, 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 ? " " \l yo7(- loved me, you would tell me," said he, with a quick- ness which surprised himself. " But I have nothing to tell, and 1 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 ! " 26 ins NATURAL LIFE. "Yes, fine enough." " No signs of a breeze yet, though." " No, not yet." Just then, from out of the violet haze that hung over the horizon, a strange glow of light broke. " Hallo ! " cries Frere, " did you see that ? " All had seen it, but they looked for its repetition in vain. Blunt rubbed his eyes. " I saw it," he said, " distinctly. A flash of light." They strained their eyes to pierce through the obscurity. " Best saw something like it before dinner. There must be thunder in the air." At that instant a thin streak of light shot up and then sapk 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 ni. THE MONOTONY BREAKS. THEY looked again, the tiny spark still burned, and imme- diately over it there grew out of the darkness a crimson spot, that hung like a lurid star in the air. The soldiers and sailors on the forecastle had seen it also, and in a moment the whole vessel was astir. Mrs. Vickers, with little Sylvia clinging to her dress, came up to share the new sensa- tion ; and at the sight of her mistress, the modest maid with- drew discreetly from Frcre's side. Not that there was any need to do so ; no one heeded her. Blunt, in his professional ex- citement, had already forgotten her presence, and Frere was in earnest conversation with Vickers. "Take a boat !" said that gentleman. " Certainly, my dear Frere, by all means. That is to say, if the captain does not object, and it is not contrary to the Regulations " THE MONOTONY BREAKS. 27 " Captain, you'll lower a boat, eh ? We may save some of the poor devils," cries Frere, his heartiness of body reviving at the prospect of excitement. " Boat ! " said Blunt, " why, she's twelve miles off and more, and there's not a breath o' wind ! " " But we can't let 'em roast like chestnuts 1 " 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 v/ithout stirring a finger to save 'em ! " " They've got their ov/n boats," says Blunt, whose coolness was in strong contrast to the young officer's impetuosity ; " and if the fire gains, they'll take to 'em, you may depend. In the meantime, we'll show 'em that there's some one near 'em.' And as he spoke, a blue light flared hissing into the night. " There, they'll see that, I expect ! " he said, as the ghastly flame rose, extinguishing the stars for a moment, only to let them appear again brighter in a darker heaven. " Mr. Best — lower and man the quarter-boats ! Mr. Frere — you can go in one, if you like, and take a volunteer or two from those grey jackets of yours amidships. I shall want as many hands as I can spare to man the long-boat and cutter, in case we want 'em. Steady there, lads ! Easy ! " and as the first eight men who could reach the deck parted to the larboard and starboard quarter-boats, Frere ran down on the main-deck. Mrs. Vickers, of course, was in the way, and gave a genteel scream as Blunt rudely pushed past her with a scarce-muttered apology ; but her maid was standing erect and motionless, by the quarter-railing, and as the captain paused for a moment to look round him, he saw her dark eyes fixed on him admiringly. He was, as he said, over forty-two, burly and grey-haired, but he blushed like a girl under her approving gaze. Nevertheless, he said only, " Tliat 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 slopped at the one opposite him. 28 HIS NATURAL LIFE. There seemed to have been some disturbance there lately, for instead of the six pair of feet which should have protruded therefrom, the gleam of the bull's-eye showed but four. " What's the matter here, sentry ? " he asked. " Prisoner ill, sir. Doctor sent him to hospital." " But there should be two." The other came from behind the break of the berths. It was Rufus Dawes. He held by the side as he came, and saluted. " I felt sick, sir, and was trying to get the scuttle open." The heads were all raised along the silent line, and eyes and ears were eager to see and listen. The double tier of bunks looked terribly like a row of wild beast cages at that moment. Maurice Frere stamped his foot indignantly. " Sick ! What are you sick about, you malingering dog ? I'll give you something to sweat the sickness out of you. Stand on one side here ! " Rufus Dawes, wondering, obeyed. He seemed heavy and dejected, and passed his hand across his forehead, as though he would rub away a pain there. " Which of you fellows can handle an oar 1 " Frere went on. " There, curse you, I don't want fifty ! Three'U do. Come on now, make haste ! " The heavy door clashed again, and in another instant the four "volunteers" were on deck. The crimson glow was turn- ing yellow now, and spreading over the sky. " Two in each boat !" 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 1 " she said. " Is he ill?" Pine was next to her, and looked out instantly. " It's that big fellow in No. lo," he cried. " Here, Frere !" But Frere heard him not. He was intent on the beacon that gleamed ever brighter in the distance. " Give way, my lads ! " he shouted. And amid a cheer from the ship, the two boats shot out of the bright circle of the blue light, and disappeared into the darkness. Sarah Purfoy looked at Pine for an explanation, but he turned THE H OS PITA I^ 29 abiuptly 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 sirk 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 mis-shapen shadows, thrown by the sulkily swinging lantern, to meet her. It was the young soldier who had been that day sentry at the convict gangway. "Well, miss,'' he said, " I am here, yer see, waiting for yen" "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.*' HIS NATURAL LIFE, Miles came forward, grinning harder. The girl produced a small object from the pocket of her dress. If Mrs. Vickers had seen it she would probably have been angry, for it was nothing less than the captain's brandy- flask. '' Drink," said she. " It's the same as they have upstairs, so it won't hurt you." The fellow needed no pressing. He took off half the contents of the bottle at a gulp, and then, fetching a long breath, stood staring at her. " That's prime ! " " Is it ? I daresay it is." She had been looking at him with unaffected disgust as he drank. " Brandy is all you men under- stand." Miles — still sucking in his breath — came a pace closer. " Not it," said he, with a twinkle in his little pig's eyes. " I understand something else, miss, I can tell yer." The tone of the sentence seemed to awaken and remind her of her errand in that place. She laughed as loudly and merrily as she dared, and laid her hand on the speaker's arm. The boy — for he was but a boy, one of those many ill-reared cou?rtry louts who leave the plough-tail for the musket, and, for a shilling a day, experience all the " pomp and circumstance of glorious war" — reddened to the roots of his closely cropped hair. " There, that's quite close enough. You're only a common soldier. Miles, and you mustn't make love to me." " Not make love to yer ! " says Miles. " What did yer tell me to meet yer here for then ? " She laughed again. " What a practical animal you are ! Suppose I had some- thing to say to you ? " Miles devoured her with his eyes. " It's hard to marry a soldier," he said, with a recruit's proud intonation of the word ; " but yer might do worse, miss, and I'll work for yer 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 youVe above me. Miss Sarah. You're a lady, but I love yer, I do, and you drives me wild with yer tricks." THE HOSPITAL, 31 "Do I?" "Do yer? Yes, yer do. What did yer come an' make up to me for, and then go sweetheartin' with them others ?" " What others ? " " Why, the cuddy folk — the skipper, and the parson, and that Frere. I see yer walkin' the deck wi' un o' nights. Dom 'um, I'd put a bullet through his red head as soon as look at un." " Hush ! Miles dear — they'll hear you." Her face was all aglow, and her expanded nostrils throbbed. Beautiful as the face was, it had a tigerish look about it at that instant. Encouraged by the epithet. Miles put his arm round her slim waist, just as Blunt had done, but she did not resent it so abruptly. Miles had promised 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 I<;ep quiet until old Pine comes down." She became authoritative. " Come, Miles, let me go in." " Don't ask me, miss. It's against orders, and " "Against orders ! Why, you were blustering about shooting people just now." 32 HIS NATURAL LIFE. The badgered Miles grew angry. " Was I ? Bluster or no bluster, you don't go in." She turned away. " Oh, very well. If this is all the thanks I get for wasting my time down here, I shall go on 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 daresay, 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 lout she was befooling, she passed into the cabin. There was no lantern, and from the partially-blocked stern windows came only a dim, vaporous light. The dull ripple 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 j'oung man of about four- and-twenty. His hands — clutched convulsively now on the blankets — were small and well-shaped, and the unshaven chin bristled with promise of a strong beard. His wild black eyes glared with all the fire of delirium, and as he gasped for breath, the sweat stood in beads on his sallow forehead. The aspect of the man was sufficiently ghastly, and Miles, THE HOSPITAL. 33 drawing back with an oath, did not wonder at the terror which had seized Mrs. Vickers's maid. With open mouth and agonized face, she stood in the centre of the cabin, lantern in hand, hke one turned to stone, gazing at the man on the bed. " Ecod, he be a sight !" says Miles, at length. " Come away, miss, and shut the door. He's raving, I tell yer." The sound of his voice recalled her. She dropped the lantern, and rushed to the bed. "You fool; he's choking, can't you see.^ Water! give me water ! " And wreathing her arms around the man's head, she pulled it down on her bosom, rocking it there, half savagely, to and fro. Awed into obedience by her voice. Miles dipped a pannikin into a small unheaded puncheon, cleated in the corner of the cabin, and gave it her ; and, without thanking him, she placed it to the sick prisoner's lips. He drank greedily, and closed his eyes with a grateful sigh. Just then tha quick ears of Miles heard the jingle of arms. ** Here's the doctor coming, miss ! " he cried. " I hear the sentry saluting. Come away ! Quick ! " She seized the lantern, and, opening the horn slide, ex- tinguished it. " Say it went out," she said in a fierce whisper, " and hold your tongue. Leave me to manage." She bent over the convict as if to arrange his pillow, and then glided out of the cabin, just as Pine descended the hatchway. "Hallo!" cried he, stumbling, as he missed his footing; " Where's the light ? " " Here, sir," says Miles, fumbling with the lantern. " It's all right, sir. It went out, sir." " Went out ! What did you let it go out for, you blockhead ! " growled the unsuspecting Pine. "Just like you boobies? What is the use of a light if it ' goes out,' eh ? " As he groped his way, with out-stretched arms, in the dark- ness, Sarah Purfoy slipped past him unnoticed, and gained the upper deck. 34 ins NATURAL LIFE. CHAPTER V. THE BARRACOON. IN the prison of the 'tween decks reigned a darkness preg- nant with murmurs. The sentry at the entrance to the hatchway was supposed to " prevent the prisoners from making a noise," but he put a very Hberal interpretation upon the clause, and so long as the prisoners refrained from shout- ing, yelling, and fighting — eccentricities in which they sometimes indulged — he did not disturb them. This course of conduct was dictated by prudence, no less than by convenience, for one sentry was but little over so many ; and the convicts, if pressed too hard, would raise a sort of bestial boo-hoo, in which all voices were confounded, and which, while it made noise enough and to spare, utterly precluded individual punishment. One could not flog a hundred and eighty men, and it was impossible to distinguish any particular offender. So, in virtue of this last appeal, convictism had established a tacit right to converse in whispers, and to move about inside its oaken cage. To one coming in from the upper air, the place would have seemed in pitchy darkness ; but the convict eye, accustomed to the sinister twilight, was enabled to discern surrounding objects with tolerable distinctness. The prison was about fifty feet long and fifty feet wide, and ran 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 loop holes, and came, in some- what larger quantity, through a wind-sail passed into the prison from the hatchway. But the wind-sail being necessarily at one end only of the place, the air it brought was pretty well absorbed by the twenty or thirty lucky fellows near itj and THE BARRACOO^V. 3$ 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 ihcy 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 I'an in a double tier rovmd 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 phan- tasmagoria 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 dc]3ths in humanity wliich one cannot explore, as there are mephitic caverns into which one dare not penetrate. Old men, young men, and boys, stalwart burglars and high- way robbers, slept side by side with wizened pickpockets or cunning-featured area-sneaks. The forger occupied the same berth with the body-snatcher. The man of education learned strange secrets of house-breakers' craft, and the vulgar ruffian of St. Giles took lessons of self-control from the keener in- tellect of the professional swindler. The fraudulent clerk and the flash "cracksman" interchanged experiences. The smug- gler's stories of lucky ventures and successful runs were capped 36 HIS NATURAL LIFE. by the footpad's reminiscences of foggy nights and stolen watches. The poacher, grimly thinking of his sick wife and orphaned children, would start as the night-house ruffian clapped him on the shoulder and bade him, with a curse, to take good heart and "be a man." The fast shopboy, whose love of fine company and high living had brought him to this pass, had shaken off the first shame that was on him, and listened eagerly to the narratives of successful vice that fell so glibly from the lips of his older companions. To be trans- ported seemed no such uncommon fate. The old fellows laughed, and wagged their grey heads with all the glee of past experience, and listening youth longed for the time when it might do likewise. Society was the common foe, and magis- trates, jailers, and parsons, were the natural prey of all note- worthy mankind. Only fools were honest, only cowards kissed the rod, and failed to meditate revenge on that world of respectability which had wronged them. Each new comer was one more recruit to the ranks of ruffianism, and not a man penned in that reeking den of infamy but became a sworn hater of law, order, and " free-men. " What he might have been before mattered not. He was now a prisoner, and — thrust into a suffocating barracoon, herded with the foulest of mankind, with all imaginable depths of blasphemy and in- decency sounded hourly in his sight and hearing— he lost his self-respect, and became what his jailers took him to be — a wild beast to be locked under bolts and bars, lest he should break out and tear them. The conversation ran upon the sudden departure of the four. What could they want with them at that hour.? "I tell you there's something up on deck," says one to the group nearest him. "Don't you hear all that rumbling and roUing ? " " 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 awhilg More like the skipper agone fishin'." THE BARRACOON. 37 " The skipper don't go fishin', yer fool. What would he do fishin' ? — special in the middle o' the night." " That 'ud be like old Dovery, eh ? " says a fifth, alluding to an old grey-headed fellow, who — a returned convict — was again under sentence for body snatching. " Ay," put in a young man, who bad the reputation of being the smartest " crow " * in London — " ' fishers of men,' as the parson says." The snuffling imitation of a Methodist preacher was good, and there was another laugh. Just then a miserable little cockney pick-pocket, feeling his way to the door, fell into the party. A volley of oaths and kicks received him. " I beg your pardon, genTmen," cries the miserable wretch, "but I want h'air." " Go to the barber's and buy a wig, then 1 " says the Crow, elated at the success of his last sally. " Oh, sir, my back ! " " Get up ! " groaned some one in the darkness. " O Lord, I'm smothering ! Here, sentry !" " Vater ! " cried the little cockney. " Give us a drop o'vater, for mercy's sake. I haven't moist'ned my chaffer this blessed day." " Half a gallon a day, bo,' and no more," says a sailor next him. " Yes, what have yer done with yer half gallon, eh ? " asked the Crow, derisively. " Some one stole it," said the sufferer. " He's been an' blued it," squealed some one. " Been an' blued it to buy a Sunday veskit with ! Oh, ain't he a vicked young man ? " And the speaker hid his head under the blankets, in humorous affectation of modesty. All this time the miserable little cockney — he was a tailor by trade — had been grovelling under the feet of the Crow and his companions. " Let me h'up, gents," he implored — " let me h'up. I feel as if I should die— I do." " Let the gentleman up," says the humorist in the bunk. " Don't yer see his kcrridge is avaitin' to take him to the Ho pera?" • Ovw— The " look-out man " of a burglars' gang. 38 HIS NATURAL LIFE. The conversation had got a little loud, and, from the top- most bunk on the near side, a bullet head protruded. " Ain't a cove to get no sleep ? " cried a gruff voice. " My blood, if I have t© turn out, I'll knock some of your empty heads together." It seemed that the speaker was a man of mark, for the noise ceased instantly ; and, in the lull which ensued, a shrill scream broke from the wretched tailor. " Help ! they're killing me ? Ah-h-h-h !" "Wot's the matter?" roared the silencer of the riot, jumping from his berth, and scattering the Crow and his companions right and left. " Let him be, can't yer ? " •' H'air ! " cried the poor devil — " h'air ; I'm faint- ing!" Just then there came another groan from the man in the opposite bunk. " Well I'm blessed ! " said the giant, as he held the gasping tailor by the collar and glared round him. " Here's a pretty go ! All the blessed chickens ha' got the croup ! " The groaning of the man in the bunk redoubled. . " Pass the word to the sentry," says some one more humane than the rest. "Ah," says the humorist, "pass him out; it'll be one the less. We'd rather have his room than his company." " Sentry, here's a man sick." But the sentry knew his duty better than to reply. He was a young soldier, but he had been well informed of the artfulness of convict stratagems ; and, moreover, Captain Vickers had carefully apprised him " that by the King's Regulatio7ts, he was forbidden to reply to any question or conivumication addressed to him by a convict, but, in the event of being addressed, was to call the no7i-cominissioned 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 dismall)'. " Here ! 'ullo ! " called out his supporter, in dismay. " Hold up 'ere ! Wot's wrong with yer? Don't come the drops 'ere. THE BARRACOON. 39 Pass him down, some of yer," and the wretch was hustled down the line to the doorway. " Vater ! " he whispered, beating feebly with his hand on the thick oak. " Get us a drink, mister, for Gord's sake ! " But the prudent sentry answered never a word, until the ship's bell warned him of the approach of the relief guard ; and then honest old Pine, coming with anxious face to inquire after his charge, received the intelligence that there was another prisoner sick. He had the door unlocked and the tailor out side in an instant. One look at the flushed, anxious face was enough. " Who's that moaning in there?" he asked. It was the man who had tried to call for the sentry an hour back, and Pine had him out also ; convictism beginning to wonder a little. " Take 'cm 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 Smithficld 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 f;uilt," he cried. "The soldiers are berthed aft. If the Government will overload these ships, I can't help it." "The Government ! Ah ! The Government! The Govern- ment don't sleep, sixty men a-side, in a cabin only six feet high. The Government don't get typhus fever in the tropics, does it?" 40 HIS NATURAL LIFE. No— but- " But what does the Government care, then ? " 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 Hke a fire-ball, and tongue like a strip of leather. Gad, don't I know it?" and Pine grinned mournfully. " I've got him moved into the hospital. Hospital ! It is a hospital ! As dark as a wolf's mouth. I've seen dog-kennels I liked better." Blunt nodded towards the volume of lurid smoke that rolled up out of the glow. — " Suppose there is a shipload of those poor devils ? I can't refuse to take 'em in." " No," says Pine, gloomily, " I suppose you can't. If they come, I must stow 'em somewhere. We'll have to run for the Cape, with the first breeze, if they do come, that is all I can see for it," and he turned away to watch the burning vessel CHAPTER VI. THE FATE OF THE " HYDASPES." IN the meanwhile the two boats made straight for the red column that uprose like a gigantic torch over the silent sea. As Blunt had said, the burning ship lay a good twelve miles from the Malabar, and the pull was a long and a weary one. Once fairly away from the protecting sides of the vessel that had borne them thus far on their dismal journey, the adventurers seemed to have come into a new atmosphere. The immensity of the ocean over which they slowly moved revealed itself for the first time. On board the prison ship, surrounded with all the memories if not with the comforts of the shore they had quitted, they had not realized how far they were from that civilization which had given them birth. The well-lighted, well- furnished cuddy, the homely mirth of the forecastle, the setting of sentries and the changing of guards, even the gloom and THE FATE OF THE '' HYDASPES." 41 terror of the closely-locked prison, combined to make the voyagers feel secure against the unknown dangers of the sea. That defiance of nature which is born of contact with humanity, had hitherto sustained them, and they felt that, though alone on the vast expanse of waters, they were in companionship with others of their kind, and that the perils one man had passed might be successfully dared by another. But now — with one ship growing smaller behind them, and the other, containing they knew not what horror of human agony and human helpless- ness, lying a burning wreck in the black distance ahead of them — they began to feel their own littleness. The Malabai', that huge sea monster, in whose capacious belly so many human creatures lived and suffered, had dwindled to a walnut-shell, and yet beside her bulk how infinitely small had their own frail cock-boat appeared as they shot out from under her towering stern ! Then the black hull rising above them, had seemed a tower of strength, built to defy the utmost violence of wind and wave ; now it was but a slip of wood floating — on an unknown depth of black, fathomless water. The blue-light, which, at its first flashing over the ocean, had made the very stars pale their lustre, and lighted up with ghastly radiance the enormous vault of heaven, was now only a point, brilliant and distinct it is true, but which by its very brilliance dwarfed the ship into insignificance. The Malabar lay on the water like a glow- worm on a floating leaf, and the glare of the signal-fire made no more impression on the darkness than the candle carried by a solitary miner would have made on the abyss of a coal-pit. And yet the Malabar held two hundred creatures like themselves ! The water over which the boats glided was black and smooth, rising into huge foamless billows, the more terrible because they were silent. When the sea hisses, it speaks, and speech breaks the spell of terror ; when it is inert, heaving noiselessly, it is dumb, and seems to brood over mischief. The ocean in a calm is like a sulky giant ; one dreads that it may be meditating evil. Moreover, an angry sea looks less vast in extent than a calm one. Its mounting waves bring the horizon nearer, and one docs not discern how for many leagues the pitiless billows repeat themselves. To appreciate the hideous vastness of the ocean one must see it when it sleeps. The great sky uprose from this silent sea without a cloud. 42 HIS NATURAL LIFE. The stars hung low in its expanse, burning in a violet mist of lower ether. The heavens were emptied of sound, and each dip of the oars was re-echoed in space by a succession of subtle harmonies. As the blades struck the dark water, it flashed fire, and the tracks of the boats resembled two sea-snakes writhing with silent undulations through a lake of quicksilver. It had been a sort of race hitherto, and the rowers, with set teeth and compressed lips, had pulled stroke for stroke. At last the foremost boat came to a sudden pause. Best gave a cheery shout and passed her, steering straight into the broad track of crimson that already reeked on the sea ahead. " What is it 1 " 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 ap- peared to be completely deserted. The chief hold of the fire was amidships, and the lower deck was one mass of llame. Here and there were great charred rifts and gaps in her sides, and the red-hot fire glowed through these as through the bars THE FATE OF THE '' HYDASPESr 43 of a grate. The main-mast had fallen on the starboard side, and trailed a blackened wreck in the water, causing the unwieldy vessel to lean over heavily. The fire roared like a cataract, and huge volumes of flame-flecked smoke poured up out of the hold, and rolled away in a low-lying black cloud over the sea. As Frere's boat pulled slowly round her stern, he hailed the deck again and again. Still there was no answer, and though the flood of light that dyed the water blood-red struck out every rope and spar distinct and clear, his straining eyes could see no Hving 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 Hydaspcs /" Frere gasped. The Hydaspes ! The ship in which his cousin Richard Devine had sailed ! The ship for Avhich 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 1 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 44 HIS NATURAL LIFE. had even now reached the poop ; in a few minutes it would be too late. For ten minutes or more not a word was spoken. With straining 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 rumbhng 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 any way." The boats drew alongside, and in a few seconds Frere was upon deck. " Well, Mr. Frere ? " " No use," cried Frere, shivering. " We only just had time to get away. The nearest thing in the world, sir." THE FATE OF THE " HYDASPES." 45 " Didn't you see any one ? " " Not a soul. They must have taken to the boats." " Then they can't be far off," cried Blunt, sweeping the horizon with his glass. " They must have pulled all the way, for there hasn't been enough wind to fill a hollow tooth with." " Perhaps they pulled in the wrong direction," said Frere. " They had a good four hours' start of us, you know."' Then Best came up, and told the story to a crowd of eager listeners. The sailors having hoisted and secured the boats, were hurried off to the forecastle, there to eat, and relate their experience between mouthfuls, and the four convicts were taken in charge and locked below again. " You had better go and turn in, Frere," said Pine gruffly. " It's no use whistling for a wind here all day." Frere laughed — in his heartiest manner. " I think I will," he said. " I'm dog tired, and as sleepy as an owl," and lie 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 1 " 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 thougli 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 jyc/" says Pine, with a grim emphasis on the word ; " but there is no saying how long it may stop there. I have got three men down as it is." "Well, sir, all authority in the matter is in your hands. Any suggestions you make, I will, of course, do my best to carry out." 46 HIS NATURAL LIFE. " Thank ye. I must have more room in the hospital to begin with. The soldiers must lie a little closer," " I will see what can be done." " And you had better keep your wife and the little girl as much on deck as possible." Vickers turned pale at the mention of his child. " Good heaven ! do you think there is any danger ? " "There is, of course, danger to all of'us ; but with care we may escape it. There's that maid, too. Tell her to keep to herself a little more. She has a trick of roaming about the ship I don't like. Infection is easily spread, and children always sicken' sooner than grown-up people." Vickers pressed his lips together. This old man, with his harsh, dissonant voice, and hideous practicality, seemed like a bird of ill-omen. Blunt, hitherto silently listening, put in a word for the defence of the absent woman, "The wench is right enough, Pine," said he, " What's the matter with Tier ? " " 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 at the ladder. Her face was paler than usual, and dark circles round her eyes gave evidence of a sleepless night. She opened her red lips to speak, and then, seeing Vickers, stopped abruptly. " Well, what is it ? " She looked from one to the other. " I came for Dr. Pine." Vickers, with the quick intelligence of affection, guessed her errand. " Some one is ill ? " " Miss Sylvia, sir. It is nothing to signify, I think. A little feverish and hot, and my mistress " Vickers was down the ladder in an instant, with scared face. Pine caught the girl's round firm arm. "Where have you been ? " Two great flakes of red came out in her white cheeks, and she shot an indignant glance at Blunt, " Come, Pine, let the wench alone ! " "Were you with the child last night?" went on Pine, without turning his head. THE FATE OF THE " HYDASPES." 47 " No ; I have not been in the cabin since dinner yesterday. ]\Irs. Vickers only called me in just now. Let go my arm, sir, you hurt me." Pine loosed his hold as if satisfied at the reply. " I beg your pardon," he said, gruffly. " I did not mean to hurt you. But the fever has broken out in the prison, and I think the child has caught it. You must be careful where you go." " And then, with an anxious face, he went in pursuit of Vickers. Sarah Purfoy stood motionless for an instant, in deadly terror. Her lips parted, her eyes glittered, and she made a movement as though to retrace her steps. " Poor soul ! " thought honest Blunt, " how she feels for the child ! D that lubberly surgeon, he's hurt her !— Never mind, my lass," he said, aloud. It was broad daylight, and he had not as much courage in love-making as at night. " Don't be afraid. I've been in ships with fever before now." Awaking, as it were, at the sound of his voice, she came closer to him. " But ship fever ! I have heard of it ! Men have died like rotten sheep in crowded vessels like this." "Tush! Not they. Don't be frightened ; Miss Sylvia won't die, nor you neither." He took her hand. " It may knock off a few dozen prisoners or so. They are pretty close packed down there " She drew her hand away, and then, remembering herself, gave it him again. "What is the matter?" " Nothing— a pain. I did not sleep last night." " There, there ; you are upset, I dare say. Go and lie down." She was staring away past him over the sea, as if in thought. So intently did she look that he involuntarily turned his head, and the action recalled her to herself. She brought her fine straight brows together for a moment, and then raised them with the action of a thinker who has decided on his course of conduct. " I have a toothache," said she, putting her hand to her face. "Take some laudanum," says Blunt, with dim recollections of his old mother's treatment of such ailments. " Old Pine '11 give you some." To his great astonishment she burst into tears. 48 HIS NATURAL LIFE. " There — there ! Don't cry, my dear. Hang it, don't cry. What are you crying about?" She dashed away the bright drops, and raised her face with a rainy smile of trusting affection. "Nothing! I am lonely. So far from home; and — and Dr. Pine hurt my arm. Look ! " She bared that shapely member as she spoke, and sure enough there were three red marks on the white and shining flesh. " The ruffian ! " cried Blunt, " it's too bad." And, after a hasty look round him, the infatuated fellow kissed the bruise. " I'll get the laudanum for you," he said. "You sha'n't ask that bear for it. Come into my cabin." Blunt's cabin was in the starboard side of the ship, just under the poop awning, and possessed three windows — one looking out over the side, and two upon deck. The corresponding cabin on the other side was occupied by Mr. Maurice Frere. He closed the door, and took down a small medicine chest, cleated above the hooks where hung his signal-pictured telescope. " Here," said he, opening it. " I've 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 Uttle thing," she said ; " I hope she won't die." And then she threw herself on her bed, and buried her hot TYPHUS FEVER. 49 head in the pillow. The intelligence of the fever seemed to have terrified her. Had the news disarranged some well- concocted plan of hers? Being near the accomplishment of some cherished scheme long kept in view, had the sudden and unexpected presence of disease falsified her carefully-made calculations, and cast an almost insurmountable obstacle 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 ;ww," and taking the phial from her pocket, she held it up, to see how much it contained. It was three parts full. " Enough for both," she said, between her set teeth. The action of holding up the bottle reminded her of amorous Blunt, and she smiled. "A strange way to show affection for a man," she said to herself, "and yet he doesn't care, and I suppose I shouldn't by this time. I'll go through with it, and, if the worst comes to the worst, I can fall back on Maurice." She loosened the cork of the phial, so that it would come out with as little noise as possible, and then placed it carefully in her bosom. " I will get a little sleep if I can," she said. " They have got the note, and it shall be done to-night." CHAPTER VII. TYPHUS FEVER. THE felon Rufus Dawes had stretched himself in his bunk and tried to sleep. But though he was tired and sore and his head felt like lead, he could not but keep broad awake. The long pull through the pure air, if it had tired him had revived him, and he felt stronger ; but for all that, the fatal sickness that was on him maintained its hold ; his pulse beat thickly, and his brain throbbed with unnatural heat. Lying in his narrow space— in the semi-darkness — he tossed his limbs 4 50 HIS NATURAL LIFE. about, and dosed 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, Avhose destruction had destroyed for ever all trace of the un- happy 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. lo, the berth occupied by Dawes, was situated in 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 conver- sation in the shelter of the recess. Of these, the giant — who TYPHUS FEVER. ^l 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 in- different 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. Gablx;tt, "and let's have no more chaff. If we're for bizness, let's come to bizncss." " What arc wc 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 keris- tian 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?" 52 HIS NATURAL LIFE. " Well ! " says Mr. Gabbett, with the air of one who was but partly convinced, " I s'pose it is." " All the more reason of getting it off quick. Another thing, when the boys know there's fever aboard, you'll see the rumpus there'll be. They'll be ready enough to join us then. Once get the snapper chest, and we're right as ninepenn'orth o' hapence." This conversation, interspersed with oaths and slang as it was, had an intense interest for Rufus Dawes. Plunged into prison, hurriedly tried, and by reason of his surroundings ignorant of the death of his father and his own fortune, he had hitherto — in his agony and sullen gloom^held aloof from the scoundrels who surrounded him, and repelled their hideous advances of friendship. He now saw his error. He knew that the name he had once possessed was blotted out, that any shred of his old life which had clung to him hitherto, was shrivelled in the fire that consumed the Hydaspes. The secret, for the preservation of which Richard Devine had voluntarily flung away his name, and risked a terrible and disgraceful death, would be now for ever safe ; for Richard Devine was dead — lost at sea with the crew of the ill-fated vessel in which, deluded by a skilfully-sent letter from the prison, his mother beUeved him to have sailed. Richard Devine was dead, and the secret of his birth would die with him. Rufus Dawes, his alter ego, alone should live. Rufus Dawes, the convicted felon, the suspected murderer, should live to claim his freedom, and work out his vengeance ; or, rendered powerful by the terrible ex- perience of the prison-sheds, should seize both, in defiance of jail or jailer. With his head swimming, and his brain on fire, he eagerly listened for more. It seemed as if the fever which burnt in his veins had consumed the grosser part of his sense, and given him increased power of hearing. He was conscious that he was ill. His bones ached, his hands burned, his head throbbed, but he could hear distinctly, and, he thought, reason on what he heard profoundly. " But we can't stir without the girl," Gabbett said. " She's got to stall off the sentry and give us the orfice." The Crow's sallow features lighted up with a cunning smile. " Dear old caper merchant ! Hear him talk ! " said he, " as if he had the wisdom of Solomon in all his glory ? Look here !" TYPHUS FEVER. S3 And he produced a dirty scrap of paper, over which his companions eagerly bent their heads. " Where did yer get that ? " " Yesterday afternoon Sarah was standing on the poop throw- ing bits o' toke to the gulls, and I saw her a-looking at me very hard. At last she came down as near the barricade as she dared, and throwed crumbs and such like up in the air over the side. By-and-by a pretty big lump, doughed up round, fell close to my foot, and, watching a favourable opportunity, I pouched it. Inside was this bit o' rag-bag." "Ah!" said Mr. Gabbett, "that's more like. Read it out, Jemmy." The writing, though feminine in character, was bold and distinct. Sarah had evidently been mindful of the education of her friends, and had desired to give them as little trouble as possible. Allis right. Watch me when I come up to-morrow eve7ting at three bells. If I drop my hatidkerchief, get to work at the time agreed on. The sentry will be safe. Rufus Dawes, though his eyelids would scarcely keep open, and a terrible lassitude almost paralysed his limbs, eagerly drank in the whispered sentence. There was a conspiracy to seize the ship. Sarah Purfoy was in league with the convicts — was herself the wife or mistress of one of them. She had come on board armed with a plot for his release, and this plot was about to be put in execution. He had heard of the atrocities perpetrated by successful mutineers. Story after story of such nature had often made the prison resound with horrible mirth. He knew the characters of the three ruffians who, separated from him by but two inches of planking, jested and laughed over their plans of freedom and vengeance. Though he con- versed but little with his companions, these men were his berth mates, and he could not but know how they would proceed to wreak their vengeance on their jailers. True, that the head of this formidable chimera — John Rex, the forger — was absent, but the two hands, or rather claws — the burglar and the prison-breaker — were present, and the slimly- made, effeminate Crow, if he had not the brains of his master, yet made up for his flaccid muscles and nerveless frame by a cat-like cunning, and a spirit of devilish volatility that nothing could subdue. With such a powerful ally outside as the mock 54 HIS NATURAL LIFE. maid-servant, the chance of success was enormously increased. There were one hundred and eighty convicts and but fifty soldiers. If the first rush proved successful — and the precau- tions taken by Sarah Purfoy rendered success possible— the vessel 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 discus- sion. " 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. " YoK.'" 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 aiid the Moocher interchanged a significant glance. Gabbett had been ten years at the colonial penal settlement of Macquarie Harbour, and he had memories that he did not confide to his companions. When he indulged in one of these fits of recollection, his friends found it best to leave him to himself. Rufus Dawes did not understand the sudden silence. With all his senses stretched to the utmost to listen, the cessation of the whispered colloquy affected him strangely. Old artillery- men have said that, after being at work for days in the trenches, accustomed to the continued roar of the guns, a sudden pause in the firing will cause them intense pain. Something of this feeling was experienced by Rufus Dawes. His faculties of hearing and thinking— both at their highest pitch — seemed to break down. It was as though some prop had been knocked from under him. No longer stimulated by outward sounds, his senses appeared to fail him. The blood rushed into his eyes and ears. He made a violent, vain effort to retain his con- sciousness, but with a faint cry, fell back, striking his head acjainst the e^ge of the bunk. o^ TYPHUS FEVER. 55 The noise roused the burglar in an instant. There was some one in the berth ! The three looked into each other's eyes, in guilty alarm, and then Gabbett dashed round the partition. "It's Dawes!" said the Moocher. " Wc had forgotten him ! " " He'll join us, mate — he'll join us ! " cried Vetch, fearful of bloodshed. Gabbett uttered a furious oath, and flinging himself on to the prostrate figure, dragged it, head foremost, to the floor. The sudden vertigo had saved Rufus Dawes's life. The robber twisted one brawny hand in his shirt, and pressing the knuckles down, prepared to deliver a blow that should for ever silence the listener, when Vetch caught his arm. " He's been asleep," he cried. " Don't hit him ! See, he's not awake yet." A crowd gathered round. The giant relaxed his grip, but the convict gave only a deep groan, and allowed his head to fall on his shoulder. "You've killed him ! " cried some one. Gabbett took another look at the purpling face and the bedewed forehead, and then sprang erect, rubbing at his right hand, as though he would rub off something sticking there. " He's got the fever ! " he roared, with a terror-stricken grimace. " The what ? " asked twenty voices. "The Fever, ye grinning fools ! " cried Gabbett. " I've seen it before to-day. The Typhus is aboard, and he's the fourth man down ! '' The circle of beast-like faces, stretched foiward to "see the fight," widened at the half-uncomprehended, ill-omcncd word. It was as though a bombshell had fallen into the group. Rufus Dawes lay on the deck motionless, bi'eathing 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 ia 56 HIS NATURAL LIFE. a ray of sunshine that shot down the hatchway. This glimpse of sunlight — Gparkling at the entrance of the foetid and stifling prison — seemed to mock their miseries. It was as though heaven laughed at them. By one of those terrible and strange impulses which animate crowds, the mass, turning from the sick man, leapt towards the doorway. The interior of the prison flashed white with suddenly turned faces. The gloom scintillated with rapidly moving hands. " Air ! air ! Give us air ! " " That's it ! " said Sanders to his companions. " I thought the news would rouse 'em." Gabbett — all the savage in his blood stirred by the sight of flashing eyes and wrathful faces — would have thrown himself forward with the rest, but Vetch plucked him back. " It'll be over in a moment," he said. " It's only a fit they've got." He spoke truly. Through the uproar was heard the rattle of iron on iron, as the guard " stood to their arms," and the wedge of grey cloth broke, in sudden terror of the levelled muskets. There was an instant's pause, and then old Pine walked, un- molested, down the prison and knelt by the body of Rufus Dawes. The sight of the familiar figure, so calmly performing its familiar duty, restored all that submission to recognized autho- rity which strict discipline begets. The convicts slunk away into their berths, or officiously ran to help " the doctor," with affectation of intense obedience. The prison was like a school- room, into which the master had suddenly returned. " Stand back, my lads ! Take him up, two of you, and carry him to the door. The poor fellow won't hurt you." His orders were obeyed, and the old man, waiting until his patient had been safely received outside, raised his hand to command attention. " I see you know what I have to tell. The fever has broken out. That man has got it. It is absurd to suppose that no one else will be seized. I might catch it myself. You are much crowded down here, I know ; but, my lads, I can't help that ; I didn't make the ship, you know." " 'Ear, 'ear ! " " It is a terrible thing, but you must keep orderly and quiet, and bear it like men. You know what the discipline is, and it A DANGEROUS CRISIS. 57 is not in my power to alter it. I shall do my best for your com- fort, and I look to you to help me." Holding his grey head very erect indeed, the brave old fellow passed straight down the line, without looking to the right or left. He had said just enough, and he reached the door amid a chorus of " 'Ear, 'ear ! " " Bravo ! " " True for you, docther ! " and so on. But when he got fairly outside, he breathed more freely. He had performed a ticklish task, and he knew it. " 'Ark at 'em," growled the Moocher from his corner, " a-cheerin' at the bloody noos ! " " Wait a bit," said the acuter intelligence of Jemmy Vetch. "Give 'em time. There'll be three or four more down afore night, and ihcn we'll see ! " CHAPTER Vni. 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 danglin' 58 HIS NATURAL LIFE. over the catheads, but nobody touched them. The soldiers and sailors on the forecastle, collected in knots, had no heart even to smoke, but gloomily stared at each other, Vickers was in the cuddy writing ; Blunt was in his cabin ; and Pine, with two carpenters at work under his directions, was improvising in- creased hospital accommodation. The noise of mallet and hammer echoed in the soldiers' berth ominously ; the workmen might have been making coffins. The prison was strangely silent, with the lowering silence which precedes a thunder- storm ; and the convicts on deck no longer told stories, nor laughed at obscene jests, but sat together, moodily patient, as if waiting for something. Three men — two prisoners and a soldier — had succumbed since Rufus Dawes had been removed to the hospital ; and though as yet there had been no complaint or symptom of panic, the face of each man, soldier, sailor, or prisoner, wore an expectant look, as though he wondered whose turn would come next. On the ship — rolling ceaselessly from side to side, like a wounded creature, on the opaque pro- fundity of that stagnant ocean —a horrible shadow had fallen. The Malabar seemed to be enveloped in an electric cloud, whose sullen gloom a chance spark might flash into a blaze that should consume her. The woman who held in her hands the two ends of the chain that would produce this spark, paused, came up upon deck, and, after a glance round, leant against the poop-raihng and looked down into the barricade. As we have said, the prisoners were in knots of four and five, and to one group in particular her glance was directed. Three men, leaning carelessly against the bulwarks, watched her every motion. " There she is, right enough," growled Mr, Gabbett, as if in continuation of a previous remark, " Flash as ever, and look- ing this way, too." " I don't see no wipe," said the practical Moocher. " Patience is a virtue, most noble knucklcr ! " says the Crow, with affected carelessness. " Give the young woman time." " Blowed if Pm 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, Pm for bizniss at once ! " A DANGEROUS CRISIS. 59 " There, look at that," he added, with an oath, as the figure of Maurice Frere appeared side by side with that of the waiting-maid, and the two turned away up the deck together, " It's all right, you confounded muddlehead ! " cried the Crow, losing patience with his perverse and stupid companion. " How can she give us the office with that cove at her elbow ? " Gabbett's only reply to this question was a ferocious grunt, and a sudden elevation of his clenched first, which caused Mr. Vetch to retreat precipitately. The giant did not follow ; and Mr. Vetch, folding his arms, and assuming an attitude of easy contempt, directed his attention to Sarah Purfoy. She seemed an object of general attraction, for at the same moment a young soldier ran up the ladder to the forecastle, and eagerly bent his gaze in her direction. Maurice Frere had come behind her and touched her on the shoulder. Since their conversation the previous evening, he had made up his mind to be fooled no longer. The girl was evidently playing with him, and he would show her that he v.'as not to be trilled 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. " Wliat is the use of playing fast and loose with a fellow this way ? " "A ' follow' 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 6o HIS NATURAL LIFE. in her cheeks. " I have -so much to do," she said, in a half- whisper. "There are so many eyes upon me, I cannot stir without being seen." She raised her head as she spoke, and to give effect to her words, looked round the deck. Her glance crossed that of the young soldier on the forecastle, and though the distance was too great for her to distinguish his features, she guessed who he was — Miles was jealous. Frere, smiling with delight at her change of manner, came close to her, and whispered in her ear. She aftected to start, and took the opportunity of exchanging a signal with the Crow. " I will come at eight o'clock," said she, with modestly averted face. " They relieve guard at eight," he said, deprecatingly. She tossed her head. "Very well, then, attend to your guard; / don't care." " But, Sarah, consider " " As if a woman in love ever considers ! " said she, turning upon him a burning glance, which in truth might have melted a more icy man than he. She loved him then ! What a fool he would be to refuse. To get her to come was the first object ; how to make duty fit with pleasure would be considered afterwards. Besides, the guard could relieve itself for once without his supervision. " Very well, at eight then, dearest." ** Hush ! " said she. " Here comes that stupid captain." And as Frere left her, she turned, and, with her eyes fixed on the convict barricade, dropped the handkerchief she held in her hand over the poop railing. It fell at the feet of the amorous captain, and with a quick upward glance, that worthy fellow picked it up, and brought it to her. " Oh, thank you. Captain Blunt," said she, and her eyes spoke more than her tongue. "Did you take the laudanum?" whispered Blunt, with a twinkle in his eye. " Some of it," said she. " I will bring you back the bottle to-night." Blunt walked aft, humming cheerily, and saluted Frere with a slap on the back. The two men laughed, each at his own thoughts, but their laughter only made the surrounding gloom seem deeper than before. A DANGEROUS GRISTS. 6i Sarah Purfoy, casting her eyes toward the barricade, observed a change in the position of the three men. They were together once more, and the Crow, having taken off his prison cap, held it at arm's length with one hand, while he wiped his brow with the other. Her signal had been observed. During all this, Rufus Dawes, removed to the hospital, was lying flat on his back, staring at the deck above him, trying to think of something he wanted to say. When the sudden faintness, which was the prelude to his sickness, had overpowered him, he remembered being torn out of his bunk by fierce hands — remembered a vision of savage faces, and the presence of some danger that menaced him. He remembered that, while lying on his blankets, struggling with the coming fever, he had overheard a con- versation of vital importance to himself and to the ship, but of the purport of that conversation he had not the least idea. In vain he strove to remember— in vain his will, struggling with delirium, brought back snatches and echoes of sense ; they slipped from him again as fast as caught. He was oppressed with the weight of half-recollected thought. He knew that a terrible danger menaced him ; that could he but force his brain to reason connectedly for ten consecutive minutes, he could give such information as would avert that danger, and save the ship. But, lying with hot head, parched lips, and enfeebled body, he was as one possessed — he could move nor hand nor foot. The place where he lay was but dimly lighted. The ingenuity of Pine had constructed a canvas blind over the port, to prevent the sun striking into the cabin, and this blind absorbed much of the light. He could but just see the deck above his head, and distinguish the outlines of three other berths, apparently similar to his own. The only sounds that broke the silence were the gurgling of the water below him, and the Tap tap, Tap tap, of Pine's hammers at work upon the new partition. By-and-by the noise of these hammers ceased, and then the sick man could hear gasps, and moans, and mutterings — the signs that his companions yet lived. All at once a voice called out, " Of course his bills are worth four hundred pounds ; but, my good sir, four hundred pounds to a man in my position is not worth the getting. Why, I've givefi four hundred pounds for a freak of my girl Sarah ! Is it right, eh, Jezebel ? She's a good girl, though, as girls go. 62 HIS NATURAL LIFE. Mrs. Lionel Crofton, of the Crofts, Sevenoaks, Kent — Sevenoaks, Kent — Seven '' A gleam of light broke in on the darkness which wrapped Rufus Dawes' tortured brain. The man was John Rex, his berth mate. With an effort he spoke. " Rex ! " " Yes, yes. I'm coming ; don't be in a hurry. The sentry's safe, and the howitzer is but five paces from the door. A rush upon deck, lads, and she's ours ! That is, mine. Mine and my wife's, Mrs. Lionel Crofton, of Seven Crofts, no oaks — Sarah Pur- foy, lady's-maid and nurse — ha ! ha ! — lady's-maid and nurse ! " This last sentence contained the name-clue to the labyrinth in which Rufus Dawes' bewildered intellects were wandering. " Sarah Purfoy ! " He remembered now each detail of the conversation he had so strangely overheard, and how impera- tive it was that he should, without delay, reveal the plot that threatened the ship. How that plot was to be carried out, he did not pause to consider ; he was conscious that he was hanging over the brink of delirium, and that, unless he made himself understood before his senses utterly deserted him, all was lost. He attempted to rise, but found that his fever-thralled limbs refused to obey the impulse of his will. He made an effort to speak, but his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, and his jaws stuck together. He could not raise a finger nor utter a sound. The boards over his head waved like a shaken sheet, and the cabin whirled round, while the patch of light at his feet bobbed up and down like the reflection from a wavering candle. He closed his eyes with a terrible sigh of despair, and resigned himself to his fate. At that instant the sound of hammering ceased, and the door opened. It was six o'clock, and Pine had come to have a last look at his patients before dinner. It seemed that there was somebody with him, for a kind, though somewhat pompous, voice remarked upon the scantiness of accommodation, and the " necessity — the absolute necessity " — of complying with the King's Regulations. Honest Vickers, though agonized for the safety of his child, would not abate a jot of his duty, and had sternly come to visit the sick men, aware as he was that such a visit would necessi- tate his isolation from the cabin where his child lay. Mrs. Vickers — weeping and bewailing herself coquettishly at garrison A DANGEROUS CRISIS. 63 parties— had often said that "poor dear John was such a disciplinarian, quite a slave to the service." " Here they are," said Pine ; " six of 'em. This fellow "— going to the side of Rex— "is the worst. If he had not a constitution like a horse, I don't think he could live out the night." " Three, eighteen, seven, four," muttered Rex ; " dot and carry one. Is that an occupation for a gentleman ? No, sir. Good-night, my lord, good-night. Hark ! The clock is striking nine ; five, six, seven, eight ! Well, you've had your day, and can't complain." "A dangerous fellow," says Pine, with the light upraised. "A very dangerous fellow— that is, he was. This is the place, you see— a regular rat-hole ; but what can one do? " " Come, let us get on deck," said Vickers, with a shudder of disgust. Rufus Dawes felt the sweat break out into beads on his forehead. They suspected nothing. They were going away. He 7nHst 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 Avith 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 64 mS NATURAL LIFE. incredulity and alarm, and then he was floating down the cool brown river of his boyhood, on his way — in company with Sarah Purfoy and Lieutenant Frere — to raise the mutiny in the Hydaspes, that lay on the stocks in the old house at Hampstead. CHAPTER IX. woman's weapons. THE two discoverers of this awkward secret held a council of war. Vickers was for at once calling the guard, and announcing to the prisoners that the plot — whatever it might be— had been discovered ; but Pine, accustomed to convict ships, overruled this decision, "You don't know these fellows as well as I do," said he. "In the first place there may be no mutiny at all. The whole thing is, perhaps, some absurdity of that fellow Dawes— and should we once put the notion of attacking us into the prisoners* heads, there is no telling what they might do." " But the man seemed certain," said the other, " He men tioned my wife's maid, too !" " Suppose he did ?— and, begad, I daresay he's right, — I never liked the look of the girl. To tell them that we have found them out this time won't prevent 'em trying it again. We don't know what their scheme is either. If it is a mutiny, half the ship's company may be in it. No, Captain Vickers, allow me, as surgeon-superintendent, to settle our course of action. You are aware that " -That, by the King's Regulations, you are invested with full powers," interrupted Vickers, mindful of discipline in any extremity. " Of course, I merely suggested— and I know no- thing about the girl, except that she brought a good character from her last mistress — a Mrs. Crofton I think the name was. We were glad to get anybody to make a voyage like this." "Well," says Pine, "look here. Suppose we tell these scoundrels that their design, whatever it may be, is known. Very good. They will profess absolute ignorance, and try again on the next opportunity, when, perhaps, we may not know any- thing about it. At all events, we are completely ignorant of the WOMAN'S WEAPONS. 65 nature of the plot and the names of the ringleaders. Let us double the sentries, and quietly get the men under arms. Let Miss Sarah do what she pleases, and 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. Prevention, you know " Pine turned round upon him with that grim practicality which was a part of his nature. " Have_y^z^ 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 con- sidered what will befall those half-dozen women in the soldiers' berths ? Have you thought of the fate of your own wife and child?" Vickers shuddered. " Have it your way, Mr. Pine ; you know best perhaps. But don't risk more lives than you can help." " Be easy, sir," says old Pine ; " I am acting for the best ; upon my soul I am. You don't know what convicts are, or rather what the law has made 'tin—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 m such terms. According to the usual custom on board convict ships, the guards relieved each other every two hours, and at six p.m. the poop guard was removed to the quarter-deck, and the arms which, in the day-time, were disposed on the top of the arm- chest, were placed in an arm-rack constructed on the quarter- S 66 ins NATURAL LIFE, deck for that purpose. Trusting nothing to Frere — who, indeed, by Pine's advice, was, as we have seen, kept in ignorance of the wliole matter — Vickers ordered all the men, save those who had been on guard during the day, to be under arms in the barrack, forbade communication with the upper deck, and placed as sentry at the barrack door his own servant, an old soldier, on whose fidelity he could thoroughly rely. He then doubled the guards, took the keys of the prison himself from the non-com- missioned officer whose duty it was to keep them, and saw that the howitzer on the lower deck was loaded with grape. It was a quarter to seven when Pine and he took their station at the main hatchway, determined to watch until morning. At a quarter past seven, any curious person looking through the window of Captain Blunt's cabin would have seen an un- usual sight. That gallant commander was sitting on the bed- place, with a glass of rum and water in his hand, and the handsome waiting-maid of Mrs. Vickers was seated on a stool by his side. At a first glance it was perceptible that the captain was very drunk. His grey hair was matted all ways about his reddened face, and he was winking and bhnking like an owl in the sunshine. Pie 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 " setder " just as the victim of his fascinations ghded through the carefully-adjusted door, he had been persuaded to go on drinking. " Cue-come, Sarah," he hiccuped. " It's all very fine, my lass, but you needn't be so — hie — proud, you know. I'm a plain sailor— plain s'lor, Srr'h. Ph'n'as Bub— blunt, commander of the Mal-Mal-Malabar. Wors' 'sh good talkin' ? " Sarah allowed a laugh to escape her, and artfully protruded an ankle at the same time. The amorous Phineas lurched over, and made shift to take her hand. " You lovsh me, and I— hie — lovsh you, Sarah. And a preshus tight little craft you — hie — are. Giv'sh — kiss, Sarah." Sarah got up and went to the door. " Wotsh this ? Coin' ! Sarah, don't go," and he staggered up ; and, with the grog swaying fearfully in one hand, made at her. The ship's bell struck seven. Now or never was the time. Blunt caught her round the waist with one arm, and hiccupin"- with love and rum, approached to take the kiss he coveted. WOMAN'S WEAPONS. 67 She seized the moment, surrendered herself to his embrace, drew from her pocket the laudanum bottle, and passing her hand over his shoulder, poured half its contents into the glass, " Think I'm— hie— drunk, do yer ? Nun-not I, my wench." " You will be if you drink much more. Come, finish that and be quiet, or I'll go away." But she threw a provocation into her glance as she spoke, which belied her words, and which penetrated even the sodden intellect of poor Blunt. He balanced himself on his heels for a moment, and holding by the moulding of the cabin, stared at her with a fatuous smile of drunken admiration, then looked at the glass in his hand, hiccuped with much solemnity thrice, and, as though struck with a sudden sense of duty unfulfilled, swallowed the contents at a gulp. The effect was almost instan- taneous. He dropped the tumbler, lurched towards the woman at the door, and then making a half turn in accordance with the motion of the vessel, fell into his bunk, and snored like a grampus. Sarah Purfoy watched him for a few minutes, and then having blown out the light, stepped out of the cabin, and closed the door behind her. The dusky gloom which had held the deck on the previous night enveloped all forward of the mainmast. A lantern swung in the forecastle, and swayed with the motion of the ship. The light at the prison door threw a glow through the open hatch, and in the cuddy, at her right hand, the usual row of oil-lamps burned. She looked mechanically for Vickers, who was ordinarily there at that hour, but the cuddy was empty. So much the better, she thought, as she drew her dark cloak around her, and tapped at Frere's door. As she did so, a strange pain shot through her temples, and her knees trembled. With a strong effort she dispelled the dizziness that had almost overpowered her, and held herself erect. It would never do to break down now. The door opened, and Maurice Frere drew her into the cabin. *' So you have come ? " said he. " You see I have. But, oh ! if I should be seen ! " " 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 eabin ! The intelligence struck her with 68 HIS NATURAL LIFE. dismay. What was the cause of such an unusual proceeding ? Surely they did not suspect ? " What do they want there ? " she asked. Maurice Frere was not in the humour to argue questions of probability. " Who knows ? I don't. Confound 'em," he added, *' what does it matter to us ? We don't want them, do we, Sarah ? " She seemed to be listening for something, and did not reply. Her nervous system was wound up to the highest pitch of ex- citement. The success of the plot depended on the next five minutes. " What are you staring at ? Look at me, can't you ? What eyes you have ! And what hair ! " At that instant the report of a musket-shot broke the silence. The mutiny had begun ! The sound awoke the soldier to a sense of his duty. He sprang to his feet^. and disengaging the arms that clung about his neck, made for the door. The moment for which the convict's accom- plice had waited, approached. She hung upon him with all her weight. Her long hair swept across his face, her warm breath was on his cheek, her dress exposed her round, smooth shoulder. He, intoxicated, conquered, had half turned back, when sud- denly the rich crimson died away from her lips, leaving them an ashen grey colour. Her eyes closed in agony, loosing her hold of him, she staggered to her feet, pressed her hands upon her bosom, and uttered a sharp cry of pain. The fever which had been on her for two days, and which, by a strong exercise of will, she had struggled against, — encouraged by the violent excitement of the occasion, had attacked her at this supreme moment. Deathly pale and sick, she reeled to the- side of the cabin. There was another shot, and a violent clashing of arms ; and Frere, leaving the miserable woman to her fate, leapt out on to the deck. EIGHT BELLS. 69 CHAPTER X. EIGHT BELLS. AT seven o'clock there had been also a commotion in the prison. The news of the fever had awoke in the convicts all that love of liberty which had but slumbered during the monotony of the earlier part of the voyage. Now that death menaced them, they longed fiercely for the chance of escape which seemed permitted to freemen. " Let us go out ! " they said, each man speaking to his particular friend. " We are locked up here to die like sheep." Gloomy faces and despond- ing looks met the gaze of each, and sometimes across this gloom shot a fierce glance that lighted up its blackness, as a lightning- flash renders luridly luminous the indigo dulness of a thunder- cloud. By-and-bye, in some inexplicable way, it came to be understood that there was a conspiracy afloat, that they were to be released from their shambles, that some amongst them had been plotting their freedom. The 'tween decks held its foul breath in wondering anxiety, afraid to breathe its suspicions. The influence of this predominant idea showed itself by a strange shifting of atoms. The mass of villainy, ignorance, and innocence began to be animated with something like a uniform movement. Natural affinities came together, and like allied itself to like, falling noiselessly into harmony, as the pieces of glass and coloured beads in a kaleidoscope assume mathe- matical forms. By seven bells it was found that the prison was divided into three parties — the desperate, the timid, and the cautious. These three parties had arranged themselves in natural sequence. The mutineers, headed by Gabbett, Vetch, and the Moocher, were nearest to the door ; the timid— boys, old men, innocent poor wretches condemned on circumstantial evidence, or rustics condemned to be turned into thieves for pulling a turnip — were at the farther end, huddling together in alarm ; and the prudent — that is to say, all the rest, ready to fight or fly, advance or retreat, assist the authorities or tlieir companions, as the fortune of the day might direct — occupied the middle space. The mutineers proper numbered, perhaps, some thirty men, and of these thirty only half a dozen knew what was really about to be done. 70 HIS NATURAL LIFE. The ship's bell strikes the half-hour, and as the cries of the three sentries passing the word to the quarter-deck die away, Gabbett, who has been leaning with his back against the door, nudges Jemmy Vetch. " Now, Jemmy," says he in a whisper, " Tell 'em ! " The whisper being heard by those nearest the giant, a silence ensues, which gradually spreads like a ripple over the surface of the crowd, reaching even the bunks at the further end. " Gentlemen," says Mr. Vetch, politely sarcastic in his own hang-dog fashion, " myself and my friends here are going to take the ship for you. Those v/ho like to join us had better speak at once, for in about half an hour they will not have the opportunity." He pauses, and looks round with such an impertinently con- fident air, that three waverers in the party amidships slip nearer to hear him. " You needn't be afraid," Mr. Vetch continues, " we have arranged it all for you. There are friends waiting for us outside, and the door will be open directly. All we want, gentlemen, is your wote and interest — I mean your " " Gaffing agin ! " interrupts the giant, angrily. " Come to business, carn't yer? Tell 'em they may like it or lump it, but we mean to have the ship, and them as refuses to join us we mean to chuck overboard. That's about the plain English of it ! " This practical way of putting it produces a sensation, and the conservative party at the other end look in each other's faces with some alarm. A grim murmur runs round, and somebody near Mr. Gabbett laughs a laugh of mingled ferocity and amuse- ment, not reassuring to timid people. " What about the sogers ? " asks a voice from out the ranks of the cautious. " 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 any way ! " The right chord had been struck now, and with a stifled roar the prison admitted the truth of the sentiment. " Go on, old 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 adds, " Stand by now for the door — one rush '11 do it." It was eight o'clock, and the relief guard was coming from EIGHT BELLS. 71 the after deck. The crowd of prisoners round the door held their breath to listen. " It's all planned," says Gabbett, in a low growl. " Wen the door hopens we rush, and we're in among the guard afore they know where they are. Drag 'em back into the prison, grab the h'arm rack, and it's all over." " They're very quiet about it," says the Crow, suspiciously. " I hope it's all right." "Stand from the door, Miles," says Pine's voice outside, in its usual calm accents. The Crow was relieved. The tone was an ordinary one, and Miles was the soldier whom Sarah Purfoyhad 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 bai-ed gums. "NOW !" cries Jemmy Vetch, as the iron-plated oak swung back, and with the guttural snarl of a charging wild boar, Gab- bett hurled himself out of the prison. The red line of light which glowed for an instant through the doorway was blotted out by a mass of figures. All the prison surged forward, and before the eye could wink, five, ten, twenty, of the most desperate were outside. It was as though a sea, breaking against a stone wall, had found some breach through which to pour its waters. The contagion of battle spread. Caution was forgotten ; and those at the back, seeing Jemmy Vetch raised up on the crest of that human billow which reared its black outHnc against an indistinct perspective of struggling figures, responded to his grin of encouragement by rushing furiously forward. Suddenly a horrible roar like that of a trapped wild beast was heard. The rushing torrent choked in the doorway, and from out the lantern glow into which the giant had rushed, a flash broke, followed by a groan, as the perfidious sentry fell back shot through the breast. The mass in the doorway hung irresolute, and then by sheer weight of pressure from behind burst for- wards, and as it so burst, the heavy door crashed into its jambs, and the bolts were shot into their places. 72 HIS NATURAL LIFE. All this took place by one of those simultaneous movements which are so rapid in execution, so tedious to describe in detail. At one instant the prison door had opened, at the next it had closed. The picture which had presented itself to the eyes of the convicts was as momentary as are those of the thaumato- scope. The period of time that had elapsed between the opening and the shutting of the door could have been marked by the musket shot. The report of another shot, and then a noise of confused cries, mingled with the clashing of arms, informed the imprisoned men that the ship had been alarmed. How would it go with their friends on deck ? Would they succeed in overcoming the guards, or would they be beaten back ? They would soon know ; , and in the hot dusk, straining their eyes to see each other, they waited for the issue. Suddenly the noises ceased, and a strange rumbling sound fell upon the ears of the listeners. What had taken place ? This— the men pouring out of the darkness into the sudden glare of the lanterns, rushed, bewildered, across the deck. Miles, true to his promise, did not fire, but the next instant Vickers had snatched the tirelock from him, and leaping into the stream, turned about and fired down towards the prison. The attack was more sudden than he had expected, but he did not lose his presence of mind. The shot would serve a double purpose. It would warn the men in the barrack, and perhaps check the rush by stopping up the doorway with a corpse. Beaten back, strug- gling, and indignant, amid the storm of hideous faces, his humanity vanished, and he aimed deliberately at the head 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 EIGHT BELLS. 73 which had penetrated into the prison, he turned to fight his way back, just in time to see the crowd in the gangway recoil from the flash of the musket fired by Vickers. The next instant, Pine and two soldiers, taking advantage of the momentary cessation of the press, shot the bolts, and secured the prison. The mutineers were caught in a trap. The narrow space between the barracks and the barricade was choked with struggling figures. Some twenty convicts, and half as many soldiers, struck and stabbed at each other in the crowd. There was barely elbowroom, and attacked and attackers fought almost without knowing whom they struck. Gabbett tore a cutlass from a soldier, shook his huge head, and calling on the Moocher to follow, bounded up the ladder, desperately deter- mined to brave the fire of the watch. The Moocher, close at the giant's heels, flung himself upon the nearest soldier, and grasping his wrist, struggled for the cutlass. A brawny, bull- necked fellow next him dashed his clenched fist in the soldier's face, and the man, maddened by the blow, let go the cutlass, and drawing his pistol, shot his new assailant through the head. It was this second shot that had aroused Maurice Frere. As the young lieutenant sprang out upon the deck, he saw by the position of the guard that others had been more mindful of the safety of the ship than he. There was, however, no time for explanation, for, as he reached the hatchway, he was met by the ascending giant, who uttered a hideous oath at the sight of this unexpected adversary, and, too close to strike him, locked him in his arms. The two men went down together. The guard on the quarter-deck dared not fire at the two bodies that, twined about each other, rolled across the deck, and for a moment Mr. Frere's cherished existence hung upon the slenderest thread imaginable. The Moocher, spattered with the blood and brains of his unfortunate comrade, had already set his foot upon the lowest step of the ladder, when the cutlass was dashed from his hand by a blow from a clubbed firelock, and he was dragged roughly backwards. As he fell upon tlie deck, he saw the Crow spring out of the mass of prisoners who had been, an instant before, struggling with the guard, and, gaining the cleared space at the bottom of the ladder, hold up his hands, as though to shield himself from a blow. The confusion had become suddenly 74 HIS NATURAL LIFE. stilled, and upon the group before the barricade had fallen that mysterious silence which had perplexed the inmates of the prison. They were not perplexed for long. The two soldiers who, with the assistance of Pine, had forced-to the door of the prison, rapidly unbolted that trap door in the barricade, of which mention has been made in a previous chapter, and, at a signal from Vickers, three men ran the loaded howitzer from its sinister shelter near the break of the barrack berths, and training the deadly muzzle to a level with the opening in the barricade, stood ready to fire. "Surrender!" cried Vickers, in a voice from which all "humanity" had vanished. "Surrender, and give up your ringleaders, or I'll blow you to pieces !" There was no tremor in his voice, and though he stood, with Pine by his side, at the very mouth of the levelled cannon, the mutineers perceived, with that acuteness which imminent danger brings to the most stolid of brains, that, did they hesitate an instant, he would keep his word. There was an awful moment of silence, broken only by a skurrying noise in the prison, as though a family of rats, disturbed at a flour cask, were scamper- ing to the ship's side for shelter. This skurrying noise was made by the convicts rushing to their berths to escape the threatened shower of grape ; to the twenty desperadoes cowering before the muzzle of the howitzer it spoke more eloquently than words. The charm was broken ; their comrades would refuse to join them. The position ot 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 dark- ness which it framed, nothing was visible. The trap-door might have been a window looking into a tunnel. On each side of this horrible window, almost pushed before it by the pressure of one upon the other, stood Pine, Vickers, and the guard. In front of 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, EIGHT BELLS. 75 sullenly glowed the tiny fire of the burning match in the hand of Vickers's trusty servant. The entrapped men looked up the hatchway, but the guard had already closed in upon it, and some of the ship's crew — with that carelessness of danger characteristic of sailors — were peering down upon them. Escape was hopeless. " One minute ! '' cried Vickers, confident that one second would be enough — " one minute to go quietly, or " " Surrender, mates, for God's sake ! " shrieked some unknown wretch from out of the darkness of the prison. " Do you want to be the death of us ? " Jemmy Vetch, feeling, by that curious sympathy which ner- vous natures possess, that his comrades wished him to act as spokesman, raised his shrill tones. " We surrender," he said. " It's no use getting our brains blown out." And raising his hands, he obeyed the motion of Vickers's finger, and led the way towards the barrack. " Bring the irons forward, there ! " shouted Vickers, hastening from his perilous position ; and before the last man had filed past the still smoking match, the clink of hammers announced that the Crow had resumed those fetters which had been knocked off his dainty limbs a month previously in the Bay of Biscay. In another moment the trap-door was closed, the howitzer rumbled back to its dealings, and the prison bi^eathed again. In the meantime, a scene almost as exciting had taken place on the upper deck. Gabbett, with the blind fury Avhich the consciousness of failure brings to such brute-like natures, had seized Frcrc 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 76 HIS NATURAL LIFE. of the proverb which teaches that a bully is always a coward. He had the tenacity of a bulldog, — once let him get his teeth in his adversary, and he would hold on till he died. In fact he was, as far as personal vigour went, a Gabbett with the education of a prize-fighter ; and, in a personal encounter between two men of equal courage, science tells more than strength. In the 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, griping the throat of the man who had fallen beneath him, must rise from the struggle an easy victor. Brute force was all that was needed, — there was neither room nor time for the display of cunning of fence. But knowledge, though it cannot give strength, gives coolness. Taken by surprise as he was, Maurice Frere did not lose his presence of mind. The convict was so close upon him, that there was no time to strike ; but, as he was forced backwards, he succeeded in crooking his knee round the thigh of his assail- ant, and thrust one hand into his collar. Over and over they rolled, the bewildered sentry not daring to fire, until the ship's side brought them up with a violent jerk, and Frere realized that Gabbett was below him. Pressing with all the might of his muscles, he strove to resist the leverage which the giant was applying to turn him over, but he might as well have pushed against a stone wall. With his eyes protruding, and every sinew strained to its uttermost, he was slowly forced round, and he felt Gabbett releasing his grasp, in order to draw back and aim at him an effectual blow. Disengaging his left hand, Frere suddenly allowed himself to sink, and then drawing up his right knee, struck Gabbett beneath the jaw, and as the huge head was forced backwards by the blow, dashed his fist into the brawny throat. The giant reeled backwards, and falling on his hands and knees, was in an instant surrounded by sailors. Now began and ended, in less time than it takes to write it, one of those Homeric struggles of one man against twenty, which are none the less heroic because the Ajax is a convict? and the Trojans merely ordinary sailors. Shaking his assail- ants to the deck as easily as a wild boar shakes off the dogs which clamber upon his bristly sides, the convict sprang to his feet, and whirling the snatched-up cutlass round his head, kept the circle at bay. Four times did the soldiers round the hatch- way raise their muskets, and four times did the fear of wounding EIGHT BELLS. >ji the men who had flung themselves upon the enraged giant compel them to restrain their fire. Gabbett, his stubbly hair on end, his bloodshot eyes glaring with fury, his great hand opening and shutting in air, as though it gasped for something to seize, turned himself about from side to side — now here, now there, bellowing like a wounded bull. His coarse shirt, rent from shoulder to flank, exposed the play of his huge muscles. He was bleeding from a cut on his forehead, and the blood, trickling down his face, mingled with the foam on his lips, and dropped sluggishly on his hairy breast. Each time that an assailant came within reach of the swinging cutlass, the ruffian's form dilated with a fresh access of passion. At one moment bunched with clinging adversaries— his arms, legs, and shoulders a hang- ing mass of human bodies — at the next, free, desperate, alone in the midst of his foes, his hideous countenance contorted with hate and rage, the giant seemed less a man than a demon, or one of those monstrous and savage apes which haunt the soli- tudes of the African forests. Spurning the mob who had rushed in at him, he strode towards his risen adversary, and aimed at liim 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. 78 HIS NATURAL LIFE. CHAPTER XL DISCOVERIES AND CONFESSIONS. THE shock was felt all through the vessel, and Pine, who had been watching the ironing of the last of the mutineers, at once divined its cause. "Thank God !" he cried, "there's a breeze at last !" and as* the overpowered Gabbett, 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 de- reliction 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^ nowj before that little parson come!"! DISCOVERIES AND CONFESSIONS. 79 Parsons are regular old women to chatter ; " and thus mutter- ing Pine assisted to carry Mrs. Vickers's maid into her cabin. " By George, but she's a fine girl ! " he said, viewing the in- animate body with the professional eye of a surgeon. " I don't wonder at you making a fool of yourself. Chances are, you've caught the fever, though this breeze will help to blow it out of us, please God. That old jackass, Blunt, too ! — he ought to be ashamed of himself, at his age ! " " What do you mean ? " 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 eveiy man in the ship ! I caught her kissing a soldier once." Maurice Frere's cheeks grew hot. The experienced profligate had been taken in, deceived, perhaps laughed at. All the time he had flattered himself that he was fascinating the black-eyed maid, the black-eyed maid had been twisting him round her finger, and perhaps imitating his love-making for the gratifica- tion of her soldier-lover. It was not a pleasant thought ; and yet, strange to say, the idea of Sarah's treachery did not make him dislike her. There is a sort of love— if love it can be called —which thrives under ill-treatment. Nevertheless, he cursed with some appearance of disgust. Vickers met them at the door. " Pine, Blunt has the fever, Mr. Best found him in his cabin groaning. Com^ 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 1 By George, he's been hocussed ! " " Nonsense !" " I see it," slapping his thigh. " It'9 that infernal woman t 8o HIS NA rURAL LIFE. 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 ludi- crous assumption of girlishness, boys young enough to be her sons ; shudder at a frog, and scream" at a spider, she could sit throughout a quarter of an hour of such suspense as she had just undergone with as much courage as if she had been the strongest-minded woman that ever denied her sex. " Is it all over ? " she asked. " Yes, thank God ! " said Vickers, pausing on the threshold. "All is safe now, though we had a narrow escape, I believe. How's Sylvia?" The child was lying on the bed with her fair hair scattered over the pillow, and her tiny hands moving restlessly to and fro. " A little better, I think, though she has been talking a good deal." The red lips parted, and the blue eyes, brighter than ever, stared vacantly around. The sound of her father's voice seemed to have roused her, for she began to speak a little prayer : " God bless papa and mamma, and God bless all on board this ship. God bless me, and make me good girl, for Jesus Christ's sake, our Lord. Amen." The sound of the unconscious child's simple prayer had some- thing awesome in it, and John Vickers, who, not ten minutes before, would have sealed his own death warrant unhesitatingly A NEWSPAPER PARAGRAPH. 8i to preserve the safety of the vessel, felt his eyes fill with un- wonted tears. The contrast was curious. From out the midst of that desolate ocean — in a fever-smitten prison ship, leagues from land, surrounded by ruffians, thieves, and murderers — the baby voice of an innocent child called confidently on Heaven Two hours afterwards — as the Malabar, escaped from the peril whicli had menaced her, plunged cheerily through the rippling water — the mutineers, by their spokesman, Mr. James Vetch, confessed. " They were very sorry, and hoped that their breach of dis- cipline would be forgiven. It was the fear of the typhus which 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 : — ■' Tlic examination of the prisoners who were concerned in the attempt upon the Malabar was concluded on 'luesday last. The four ringleaders, Dawes, Gabbett, Vetch, and Sanders, were condemned to death ; but we understand that, by the clemency of his TCxcellrncy the Governor, their sentence has been commuted to six years at the penal settlement of Ivlac- quarie Harbour," End of Book I. BOOK II. CHAPTER I. THE TOPOGRAPHY OF VAN DIEMEN'S LAND. THE south-east coast of Van Diemen's Land, from the soHtary Mewstone to the basaltic diffs 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, THE TOPOGRAPHY OF VAN DIEMEN'S LAND. 83 through Storm Bay to Storing Island, we sight the Italy of this miniature Adriatic. Between Hobart Town and Sorrell, Pittwater and the Derv/ent, 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 Acta:on reef, attests that Bruny Head was once joined with the shores of Recherche Bay ; while, from the South Cape to the jaws of Macquarie Harbour, the white water caused by sunken reefs, or the jagged peaks of single rocks abruptly rising in mid sea, warn the mariner off shore. It would seem as though nature, jealous of the beauties of her silver Derwent, had made the approach to it as dangerous as possible ; but once through the archipelago of D'Entrecasteaux Channel, or the less dangerous eastern passage of Storm Bay, the voyage up the river is delightful. From the sentinel soli- tude of the Iron Pot to the smiling banks of New Norfolk, the river winds in a succession of reaches, narrowing to a deep chan- nel cleft between rugged and towering cliffs. A line drawn due north from the source of the Derwent would strike another river winding out from the northern part of the island, as the Derwent winds out from the south. The force of the waves, expended, perhaps, in destroying the isthmus, which, two thousand years ago, probably connected Van Dicmcn'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 th.c 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 Dicinen's Land, fertile, fair, and rich, rained upon by the genial showers from the clouds which, attracted by the Frenchman's Cap, Wyld's Crag, or the lofty peaks of the Wei- 84 HIS NATURAL LIFE. lington and Dromedary range, pour down upon the sheltered valleys their fertilizing streams. No parching hot wind — the scavenger, if the torment, of the continent — blows upon her crops and 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 Welling- ton. The hot wind, born amid the burning sand of the interior of the vast Australian continent, sweeps over the scorched and cracking plains, to lick up their streams and wither the herbage in its path, until it meets the waters of the great south bay ; but in its passage across the straits it is reft of its fire, and sinks, exhausted with its journey, at the feet of the terraced slopes of Launceston. The climate of Van Diemen's Land is one of the loveliest in the world. Launceston is warm, sheltered, and moist ; and Hobart Town, protected by Bruny Island and its archipelago of D'Entrecasteaux Channel and Storm Bay from the violence of the southern breakers, preserves the mean temperature of Smyrna ; whilst the district between these two towns spreads in a succession of beautiful valleys, through which glide clear and sparkling streams. But on the western coast, from the steeple- rocks of Cape Grim to the scrub-encircled barrenness of Sandy Cape, and the frowning entrance to Macquarie Harbour, the nature of the country entirely changes. Along that iron-bound shore, from Pyramid Island and the forest-backed solitude of Rocky Point, to the great Ram Head, and the straggling har- bour of Port 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 Mac- quarie Harbour — at the time of which we are writing (1833), in the height of its ill-fame as a convict settlement — is only to be attempted in calm weather. The sea-line is marked with wrecks. The sunken rocks are dismally named after the vessels they have destroyed. The air is chill and moist, the soil prohfic only in prickly undergrowth and noxious weeds, while foetid THE SOLITARY OF "HELL'S GATES." 85 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 Heems- kirk and Mount Zcehan — crouched like two sentinel lions keeping watch over the seaboard. CHAPTER II. THE SOLITARY OF " HELL'S GATES.* « TT ELL'S GATES," formed by a rocky point, which runs Y X abruptly northward, almost touches, on its eastern side, a projecting arm of land which guards the entrance to King's River. In the middle of the gates is a natural bolt— that is to say, an island — which, lying on a sandy bar in the very jaws of the current, creates a double whirlpool, impossible to pass in the smoothest weather. Once through the gates, the con- vict, chained on the deck of the inward-bound vessel, sees in front of him the bald cone of the Frenchman's Cap, piercing the moist air at a height of five thousand feet ; while, gloomed by overhanging rocks, and shadowed by gigantic forests, the black sides of the basin narrow to the mouth of the Gordon. The turbulent stream is the colour of indigo, and, being fed by numerous rivulets, which ooze through masses of decaying vegetable matter, is of so poisonous a nature that it is not only undrinkable, but absolutely kills the fish, which in stormy weather are driven in from the sea. As may be imagined, the furious tempests which beat upon this exposed coast create a strong surf-line. After a few days of north-west wind, the waters of the Gordon 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 86 HIS NATURAL LIFE. posts and logs alone remain — mute witnesses of scenes of agony never to be revived — in the year 1833 the buildings were numerous and extensive. On Philip's Island, on the north side of the harbour, was a small farm, where vegetables were grown for the use of the officers of the estabhshment ; and, on Sarah Island, were sawpits, forges, dockyards, gaol, guard-house, barracks, and jetty. The military force numbered about sixty men, who, with convict-warders and constables, took charge of more than three hundred and fifty prisoners. These miserable wretches, deprived of every hope, were employed in the most degrading labour. No beast of burden was allowed on the settlement ; all the pulling and dragging was done by human beings. About one hundred " good-conduct" men were allowed the lighter toil of dragging timber to the wharf, to assist in shipbuilding ; the others cut down the trees that fringed the mainland, and carried them on their shoulders to the water's edge. The denseness of the scrub and bush rendered it neces- sary for a " roadway," perhaps a quarter of a mile in length, to be first constructed ; and the trunks of trees, stripped of their branches, were rolled together in this roadway, until a " slide " was made, down which the heavier logs could be shunted to- wards the harbour. The timber thus obtained was made into rafts, and floated to the sheds, or arranged for transportation to Hobart Town. The convicts were lodged on Sarah Island, in barracks flanked by a two-storied prison, whose "cells" were the terror of the most hardened. Each morning they received their breakfast of porridge, water, and salt, and then rowed, under the protection of their guard, to the wood-cutting stations, where they worked without food, until night. The launching and hewing of the timber compelled them to work up to their waists in water. Many of them were heavily ironed. Those who died were buried on a little plot of ground, called Halli- day's Island (from the name of the first man buried there), and a plank stuck into the earth, and carved with the initials of the deceased, was the only monument vouchsafed him. Sarah Island, situated at the south-east corner of the har- bour, is long and low. The commandant's house was built in the centre, having the chaplain's house and barracks between it and the gaol. The hospital v/as on the west shore, and in a line with it lay the two penitentiaries. Lines of lofty palisades ran round the settlement, giving it the appearance of a fortified THE SOLITARY OF ''HELLS GATES."* 87 town. These palisades were built for the purpose of warding off the terrific blasts of wind, v/hich, 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 clash in rough weather. On the evening of the 3rd December, 1833, as the sun was sinking behind tlie tree-tops on the left side of the harbour, the figure of a man appeared on the top of this rock. He v/as 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 after- noon had been stormy,"and the rays of the setting sun shone redly on the turbid and rushing waters of the bay. On the right lay Sarah Island ; on the left the bleak shore of the opposite coast, and the tall peak of the Frenchman's Cap ; while the recent storm hung sullenly over the barren hills to the eastward. 88 HIS NATURAL LIFE. Below him appeared the only sign of life. A brig was being towed up the harbour by two convict-manned boats. The sight of this brig seemed to rouse in the mind of the solitary of the rock a strain of reflection, for, sinking his chin upon his hand, he fixed his eyes on the incoming vessel, and immersed himself in moody thought. More than an hour had passed, yet he did not move. The ship anchored, the boats detached themselves from her sides, the sun sank, and the bay was plunged in gloom. Lights began to twinkle along the shore of the settlement. The little fire died, and the water in the iron pot grew cold ; yet the watcher on the rock did not stir. With his eyes staring into the gloom, and fixed steadily on the vessel, he lay along the barren cliff of his lonely prison as motionless as the rock on which he had stretched himself. This solitary man was Rufus Dawes. CHAPTER III. A SOCIAL EVENING. IN the house of Major Vickers, Commandant of Macquarie Harbour, there was, on this evening of December 3rd, unusual gaiety. Lieutenant Maurice Frere, late in command at Maria Island, had unexpectedly come down with news from head -quarters. The Ladybird, Government schooner, visited the settlement on ordinary occasions twice a year, and such visits were looked forward to with no little eagerness by the settlers. To the convicts the arrival of the Ladybird meant arrival of new faces, intelligence of old comrades, news of how the world, from which they were exiled, was progressing. When the Ladybird a.):xw&d, the chained and toil-worn felons felt that they were yet human, that the universe was not bounded by the gloomy forests which surrounded their prison, but that there was a world beyond, where men, like themselves, smoked, and drank, and laughed, and rested, and were Free. When the Ladybird arrived, they heard such news as interested them — that is to say, not mere foolish accounts of wars or ship arrivals, or city gossip, but matters appertaining to their own world — how Tom was with A SOCIAL EVENING. S9 the road gangs, Dick on a ticket-of-leave, Harry taken to the bush, and Jack hung at the Hobart Town Gaol, Such items of inteUigence were the only news they cared to hear, and the new-comers were well posted up in such matters. To the convicts the Ladybird was town talk, theatre, stock quotations, and latest telegrams. She was their newspaper and post-office, the one excitement of their dreary existence, the one link between their own misery and the happiness of their fellow-creatures. To the Commandant and the " free men " this messenger from the outer life was scarcely less welcome. There was not a man on the island who did not feel his heart grow heavier when her white sails disappeared behind the shoulder of the hill. On the present occasion business of more than ordinary importance had procured for* Major Vickers this pleasurable excitement. It had been resolved by Governor Arthur that the convict establishment should be broken up. A succession of murders and attempted escapes had called public attention to the place, and its distance from Hobart Town rendered it inconvenient and expensive. Arthur had fixed upon Tasman's Peninsula — the earring of which we have spoken — as a future convict depot, and naming it Port Arthur, in honour of himself, had sent down Lieutenant Maurice Frere with instructions for Vickers to convey the prisoners of Macquarie Harbour thither. In order to understand the magnitude and meaning of such an order as that with which Lieutenant Frei'e was entrusted, we must glance at tlic 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 SorrcU, was a. man of genial temperament, but little strength of character. He was, moreover, profligate in his private life ; and, encouraged by his example, his officers vio- lated all rules of social decency. It was common for an officer to openly keep a female convict as his mistress. Not only would compliance purchase comforts, but strange stories were afloat concerning the persecution of women who dared to choose their own lovers. To put down this profligacy was the first care of Arthur ; and in enforcing a severe attention to etiquette and outward respectability, he perhaps erred on the side of virtue. Honest, brave, and high-minded, he was also penurious and 90 HIS NATURAL LIFE. cold, and the ostentatious good humour of the colonists dashed itself in vain against his polite indifference. In opposition to this official society created by Governor Arthur was that of the free settlers and the ticket-of-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 con- ditional pardons appeared on the books; and the number of persons holding tickets-of-leave, on the 26th of September the same year, was seven hundred and forty-five. Of the social condition of these people at this time it is impossible to speak without astonishment. According to the recorded testimony of many respectable persons — Government officials, military officers, and free settlers — the profligacy of the settlers was notorious. Drunkenness was a prevailing vice. Even children were to be seen in the streets intoxicated. On Sundays, men and women might be observed standing round the public-house doors, waiting for the expiration of the hours of public worship, in order to continue their carousing. As for the condition of the prisoner population, that, indeed, is indescribable. Notwithstanding the severe punishment for sly grog-selling, it was carried on to a large extent. Men and women were found intoxicated together, and a bottle of brandy was considered to be cheaply bought at the price of twenty lashes. In the factory — a prison for females — the vilest abuses were committed, while the infamies current, as matters of course, in chain gangs and penal settlements, were of too horrible a nature to be more than hinted at here. All that the vilest and most bestial of human creatures could invent and practise, was in this unhappy country invented and practised without restraint and without shame. Seven classes of criminals were established in 1826, when the new barracks for 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 after- noon ; the fourth and fifth were " refractory and disorderly characters — to work in irons;" the sixth were "men of the most degraded and incorrigible character — to be worked in irons, and kept entirely separate from the other prisoners ; " while the seventh were the refus° of this refuse— the murderers, bandits, and villains, whom nei.her chain nor lash could tame. They A SOCIAL EVENING. 91 were regarded as socially dead, and shipped to Hell's Gates, or Maria Island. Hell's Gates was the most dreaded of all these houses of bondage. The discipline at the place was so severe, and the life so terrible, that prisoners would risk all to escape from it. In one year, of eighty-five deaths there, only thirty wei'C from natural causes ; of the remaining dead, twenty-seven were drowned, eight killed accidentally, three shot by the soldiers, and twelve murdered by their comrades. In 1822, one hundred and sixty-nine men out of one hundred and eighty-two were punished to the extent of two thousand lashes. During the ten years of its existence, one hundred and twelve men escaped, out of whom sixty-two only were found — dead. The prisoners killed themselves to avoid living any longer, and if so fortunate as to penetrate the desert of scrub, heath, and swamp, which lay between their prison and the settled dis- tricts, preferred death to recapture. Successfully to transport the remnant of this desperate band of doubly-convicted felons to Arthur's new prison, was the mission of Maurice Frere. He was sitting by the empty fire-place, with one leg carelessly thrown over the other, entertaining the company with his usual indifferent air. The six years that had passed since his de- parture from England had given him a sturdier frame and a fuller face. His hair was coarser, his face redder, and his eye more hard, but in demeanour he was little changed. Sobered he might be, and his voice had acquired that decisive, insured tone which a voice exercised only in accents of command invariably acquires, but his bad qualities were as prominent as ever. His five years' residence at Maria Island had increased that brutality of thought, and overbearing confidence in his own importance, for which he had been always remarkable, but it had also given him an assured air of authority, which covered the more unpleasant features of his character. He was detested by the prisoners — as he said, " it was a word and a blow with him " — but, among his superiors, he passed for an officer, honest and painstaking, though somewhat bluff and severe. " Well, Mrs. Vickers," he said, as he took a cup of tea from the hands of that lady, " I suppose you won't be sorry to get away from this place, eh ? Trouble you for the toast, Vickers ! '' " No indeed," says poor Mrs. Vickers, with the old girlish- ness shadowed by six years ; " I shall be only too glad. A dreadful place 1 John's duties, however, are imperative. But 92 HIS NATURAL LIFE. the wind ! My dear Mr. Frere, you've no idea of it ; I wanted to send Sylvia to Hobart Town, but John would not let her go." "By the way, how is Miss Sylvia ?" asked 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 dreadfid accusations made by that horrid doctor — I ahvays 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 S3.y, G over f les s / 0/ course. Happy suggestion. Wonder it never occurred to me before. " However, her conduct was most ex- emplary — really most exemplary — and during the six months we were in Hobart Town she taught little Sylvia a great deal. Of course she could not help her wretched husband, you know. Could she 1 " " Certainly not ! " said Frere heartily. " I heard something about him too. Got into some scrape, did he not ? Half a cup, please." " Miss Purfoy, or Mrs. Rex, as she really was, though I don't suppose Rex is her real name either— sugar and milk, I think you said— came into a little legacy from an old aunt in England." A SOCIAL EVENING. 93 Mr. Frere gave a little bluff nod, meaning thereby, Old mint ! 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 some- thing about that man I never liked — she was quite left alone. She wanted me to bring her down here to teach Sylvia ; but John thought that it was only to be near her husband, and wouldn't allow it." " Of course it was," said Vickers, rising. " Frere, if you'd like to smoke, we'll go on the verandah. — She will never be satisfied until she gets that scoundrel free." " He's a bad lot, then ?" says Frere, opening the glass window, and leading the way to the sandy garden. " You will excuse my roughness, Mrs . Vickers, but I have become quite a slave to my pipe. Ha, ha, it's wife and child to me!" " Oh, a very bad lot," returned Vickers; "quiet and silent, but ready for any villainy, I count him one of the worst men wc have. With the exception of one or two more, I think he is the worst." "Why don't you flog 'em.?" says Frere, lighting his pipe in the gloom. " By George, sir, I cut the hides off my fellows if they show any nonsense!" " Well," says Vickers, " I don't care about too much cat myself. Barton, who was here before me, flogged tremendously, but I don't think it did any good. They tried to kill him several times. You remember those twelve fellows who were hung? No ! Ah, of course, you were away." " What do you do with 'em ? " " Oh, flog the worst, you know ; but I don't flog more than a man a week, as a rule, and never more than fifty lashes. They're 94 HIS NATURAL LIFE getting quieter now. Then we iron, and dirmb-cells, and maroon them." "Do what?" " Give them solitary confinement on Grammet Island. When a man gets very bad, we clap him into a boat with a week's pro- visions, and pull him over to Grummet. There are cells cut in the rock, you see, and the fellow pulls up his commissariat after him, and lives there by himself for a month or so. It tames them wonderfully.' " Does it?" said Frere. *'By Jove ! it's a capital notion. I wish I had a place of that sort at Maria." " I've a fellow there now," says Vickers ; " Dawes. You remember him, of course — the ringleader of the mutiny in the Malabar. A dreadful ruffian. He was most violent the first year I was here. Barton used to flog a good deal, and Dawes had a childish dread of the cat. When I came, in — when was it p — 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?" A SOCIAL EVENING. 95 " Oh," said Vickers, " they're sure to come— if they can come at all ; but once lost in the scrub, a man hasn't much chxince 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 sur- prise. "/ like it. It's dull, certainly. When I first went to Maria I was dreadfully bored, but one soon gets used to it. There is a sort of satisfaction to me, by George, in keeping the scoundrels in order, I like to see the fellows' eyes glint at you as you walk past 'em. 'Gad, they'd tear me to pieces, if they dared, some of 'em!" and he laughed grimly, as though the hate he inspired was a thing to be proud of. " How shall we go ? " asked Vickers. " Have you got any instructions?" " No," says Frere ; " it's all left to you. Get 'em up the best way you can, Arthur said, and pack 'em off to the new penin- sula. He thinks you too far off here, by George ! He wants to have you within hail." " It's a dangerous thing taking so many at once," suggested Vickers. " Not a bit. Batten 'em down and keep the sentries awake, and they won't do any harm." " But Mrs. Vickers and the child ? " " I've thought of that. You take the Ladybird with the pri- soners, and leave me to bring up Mrs. Vickers in the OsprcyP "We might do that. Indeed, it's the best way, I think. I don't like the notion of having Sj'lvia among those wretches, and yet I don't like to leave her." "Well," says Frere, confident of his own ability to accomplish anything he might undertake, " /'// take the Ladybird^ and you the Osprey. Bring up Mrs. Vickers yourself" " No, no," said Vickers, with a touch of his old pomposity, " that won't do. By the King's Regulations — — " "All right," interjected Frere, "you needn't quote 'em. ' TJie officer co)iiiiiandiiig is obliged to place himself iit charge ' — all right, my dear sir. I've no objection in life." " It was Sylvia that I was thinking of," said Vickers. " Well, then," cries the other, as the door of the room inside 96 ins NATURAL LIFE. opened, and a little white figure came through into the broad verandah. " Here she is ! Ask her yourself. Well, Miss Sylvia, will you come and shake hands with an old friend ?" The bright-haired baby of the Malabar had become a bright- haired child of some eleven years old, and as she stood in her simple white dress in the glow of the lamplight, even the unses- thetic mind of Mr. Frere was struck by her extreme beauty. Her bright blue eyes were as bright and as blue as ever. Her little figure was as upright and as supple as a willow rod ; and her innocent, delicate face was framed in a nimbus of that fine golden hair — dry and electrical, each separate thread shining with a lustre of its own— with which the dreaming painters of the middle ages endowed and glorified their angels. " Come and give me a kiss, Miss Sylvia !" cries Frere. " You haven't forgotten me, have you ?" But the child, resting one hand on her father's knee, surveyed Mr. Frere from head to foot with the charming impertinence of childhood, and then, shaking her lovely hair, inquired — " Who is he, papa?" " Mr. Frere, darling. Don't you remember Mr. Frere, who used to play ball with you on board the ship, and who was so kind to you when you were getting well .'' For shame, Sylvia !" There was in the chiding accents such an undertone of tender- ness, that the reproof fell harmless. " I remember you," said Sylvia, tossing her head ; " but you were nicer then than you are now. I don't like you at all." " You doiCt remember me," said Frere, a little disconcerted, and afiecting to be intensely at his ease. " I am sure you don't. What is my name ?" " Lieutenant Frere. You knocked down a prisoner who picked up my ball. I don't like you." "You're a forward young lady, upon my word !" says Frere, with a great laugh. " Ha ! ha ! so I did, begad, I recollect now. What a memory you've got !" "He's here now, isn't he, papa?" went on Sylvia, regardless of interruption. " Rufus Dawes is his name, and he's always in trouble. Poor fellow, I'm sorry for him. Danny says he's queer in his mind." "And who's Danny?" asked Frere, with another laugh. "The cook," rephed Vickers. "An old man I took out of A SOCIAL EVENING 97 hospital. Sylvia, you talk too much with the prisoners. I have forbidden you once or twice before." "But Danny is not a prisoner, papa — he's a cook," says Sylvia, nothing abashed, "and he's a clever man. He told n^.e 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. More- over, this gloomy place and its associations — what can you expect from a child bred in a convict settlement?" "My dear sir," says the other, "she's delightful ! Her inno- cence of the world is amazing !" " She must have three or four years at a good finishing school at Sydney. Please God, I will give them to her when we go back — or send her to England if I can. She is a good-hearted girl, but she wants polishing sadly, I'm afraid." Just then some one came up the garden path and saluted, "What isit, Troke?" " Prisoner given himself up, sir." 7 98 HIS NATURAL LIFE. "Which of them?" " Gabbett. He came back to-night." • "Alone?" "Yes, sir. The rest have died — he says." "What's that?" asked Frere, suddenly interested. " The bolter I was telling you about — Gabbett, your old friend. He's returned." " How long has he been out ?" " Nigh six weeks, sir," said the constable, touching his cap. "Gad, he's had a narrow squeak for it, I'll be bound. I should like to see him." " He's down at the sheds," said the ready Troke — a " good conduct" burglar. "You can see him at once, gentlemen, if you like." " What do you say, Vickers ?" " Oh, by all means." CHAPTER IV. THE BOLTER. IT was not ar to the sheds, and after a few minutes' walk through the wooden palisades they reached a long stone building, two stories high, from which issued a horrible growling, pierced with shrilly screamed songs. At the sound of the musket butts clashing on the pine wood flagging, the noises ceased, and a silence more sinister than sound fell on the place. Passing between two rows of warders, the two officers reached a sort of ante-room to the gaol, containing a pine-log stretcher, on which a mass of something was lying. On a roughly-made stool, by the side of this stretcher, sat a man, in the grey dress (worn as a contrast to the yellow 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 finder THE BOLTER. 99 to his forehead. "He seems jest muggy-pated. I can't do nothin' wi' 'un." "Gabbett!" The intelligent Troke, considerately alive to the wishes of his superior officers, dragged the mass into a sitting posture, and woke it. Gabbett — for it was he — passed one great hand over his face, and leaning exactly in the position in which Troke placed him, scowled, bewildered, at his visitors. ''Well, Gabbett," says Vickers, "you've come back again, you see. When will you learn sense, eh? Where are your mates?" The giant did not reply. " Do you hear me ? Where are your mates ?" " 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 ex- plaining, " and brought him across in the boat. He had a basin of gruel, but he didn't seem hungry." "Are you hungry?" " Yes." " Why don't you eat your gruel ?" Gabbett curled his great lips. " I /lave 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 wflike 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 loo HIS NATURAL LIFE. you'll give me a fig o' tibbacky." Frere laughed. The brutal indifference of the rejoinder suited his humour, and, with a glance at Vickers, he took a small piece of cavendish from the pocket of his pea-jacket, and gave to the recaptured convict. Gabbett snatched it as a cur snatches at a bone, and thrust it whole into his mouth. "How many mates had he?" asked Maurice, watching the champing jaws as one looks at a strange animal, and asking the question as though a "mate" was something a convict was born with— like a mole, for instance. " Three, sir." " Three, eh 1 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 hideous- ness, increased a thousand-fold by the tattered and filthy rags which barely covered him. Not so much on account of his unshaven jaws, his hare-lip, his torn and bleeding feet, his haggard cheeks, and his huge, wasted frame. Not only because, looking at the animal, as he crouched, with one foot curled round the other, and one hairy arm pendant between his knees, he Avas 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, chnging to him, repelled and disgusted, as though he bore about with him the reek of the shambles. " Come," said Vickers, "let us go back. I shall have to flog him again, I suppose. Oh, this place ! No wonder they call it 'Hell's Gates.'" THE BOLTER. loi " 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, hesi- tating, in his reverence for " discipline," to utter all the thought; " but I have sometimes wondered if kindness would not succeed better than the chain and the cat." "Your old ideas!" laughed his companion. "Remember, they nearly cost us our lives on the Malabar. No, no. /'ve seen something of convicts — though, to be sure, my fellows were not so bad as yours — and there's only one way with 'em. Keep 'em down, sir. Make 'em_/t't'/ 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 on the place." 102 ins NATURAL LIFE. CHAPTER V. SYLVIA. WELL," said Frere, as they went in, "you'll be out of it soon. You can get all ready to start by the end of the month, and I'll bring on Mrs. Vickcrs after- wards." " What is that you say about me ?" asked the sprightly Mrs. Vickers from within. " You wicked men, leaving me alone all this time ! " " Mr. Frere has kindly offered to bring you and Sylvia after us in the Osprey. I shall, of course, have to take the Lady- birdP " 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 ox-er her shoulders, and her hands clasped on her black silk apron (Julia Vickers had her own notions about dressing her daughter), that Frere was again inclined to laugh. " Of course I'll forgive you, my dear," he said. " You didn't mean it, I know." " Oh, but I did mean it, and that's why I'm sorry. I am a very naughty girl sometimes, though you wouldn't think so " (this with a charming consciousness of her own beauty), " es- pecially with Roman history. I don't think the Romans were half as brave as the Carthaginians ; do you, Mr. Frere ? " Maurice, somewhat staggered by this question, could only ask, " Why not .? " " Well, I don't like them hali 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. SYLVIA. 101 " Were they ! Goodness gracious, yes ! Didn't they cut poor Regulus's eyehds off, and roll him down hill in a barrel full of nails ? What do you call that, I should like to know ? " and Mr, Frere, shaking his red head with vast assumption of classical learning, could not but admit that that was not kind on the part of the Carthaginians. " You are a great scholar, Miss Sylvia," he remarked, with a consciousness that this self-possessed girl was rapidly taking him out of his depth. " Are you fond of reading .? " " Very." " And what books do you read ? " " Oh, lots ! ' Paul and Virginia,' and * Paradise Lost,' and ' Shakspeare's Plays,' and ' Robinson Crusoe,' and ' Blair's Ser- mons,' and 'The Tasmanian Almanack,' and 'The Book of Beauty,' and ' Tom Jones.' " "A somewhat miscellaneous collection, I fear," said Mrs. Vickers, with a sickly smile — slie, 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 ! " " Pm not rude," cries Sylvia, indignant at the way in which her literary confidence had been received. " He's rude ! I won't liss you. A'/.w 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 \i\s5 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 ^^rtr, Sylvia ! " cried Vickers, in tones of grave re- proof. But Frere laughed, caught both the child's hands in one of his own, and kissed her again and again, despite her struggles. I04 HIS NATURAL LIFE. " There ! " he said, with a sort of triumph in his tone. " You got nothing by t/iat, 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 recol- lections of old days, and speculations as to future prospects, the little incident was forgotten. But when, an hour later, Mr. Frere traversed the passage that led to his bedroom, he found himself confronted by a little figure wrapped in a shawl. It was his childish enemy. " I've waited for you, Mr. Frere," said she, " to beg pardon. I ought not to have struck you ; I am a wicked girl. Don't say no, because I am ; and if I don't grow better I shall never go to heaven." Thus addressing him, the child produced a piece of paper, folded like a letter, from beneath the shawl, and handed it to him. " What's this .-* " he asked. " Go back to bed, my dear ; you'll catch cold." " It's a written apology ; and I sha'n't catch cold, because I've got my stockings on. If you don't accept it," she added, with an arching of the brows, " it is not my fault. I have struck you, but I apologize. Being a woman, I can't offer you satisfaction in the usual way." Mr. Frere stifled the impulse to laugh, and made his courteous adversary a low bow. " I accept your apology. Miss Sylvia," said he. " Then," returned Miss Sylvia, in a lofty manner, " there is nothing more to be said, and I have the honour to bid you good night, sir." The little maiden drew her shawl around her with immense dignity, and marched down the passage as calmly as though she had been Amadis of Gaul himself. A LEAP IN THE DARK. 105 Frere, gaining his room choking with laughter, opened the folded paper by the light of the tallow candle, and read, in a quaint, childish hand — SiK, — 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 i\iy word she must be a little cracked. Gad, it's a queer life for a child in this place, and no mistake." CHAPTER VI. A LEAP IN THE DARK. TWO or three mornings after the arrival of the Ladybird, the solitary prisoner of the Grummet Rock noticed mys- terious movements along the shore of the island settlement. The prison boats, which had put off every morning at sunrise to Vhe foot of the timbered ranges on the other side of the harbour, had not appeared for some days. The building of a pier, or breakwater, running from the western point of the settlement, was discontinued ; and all hands appeared to be occupied with the newly-built Osprey, which was lying on the slips. Parties of soldiers also daily left the Ladybird, and assisted at the mys- terious work in progress. Rufus Dawes, walking his little round each day, in vain wondered what this unusual commotion por tended. Unfortunately, no one came to enlighten his igno- rance. A fortnight after this, about the 1 5th of December, he observed another curious fact. All the iJoats on the island put off one morning to the opposite side of the harbour, and in tlie 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 stewed in the hold of the brig. This set Rufus Dawes thinking. Could it possibly be that io6 mS NATURAL LIFE. the timber-cutting was to be abandoned, and that the Govern- ment had hit upon some other method of utihzing its convict labour ? He had hewn timber and built boats, and tanned hides and made shoes. Was it possible that some new trade was to be initiated ? Before he had settled this point to his satisfaction, he was startled by another boat expedition. Three boats' crews went down the bay, and returned, after a day's absence, with an addition to their number in the shape of four strangers and a quantity of stores and farming implements. Rufus Dawes, catching sight of these last, came to the con- clusion that the boats had been to Philip Island, where the " garden " was established, and had taken off the gardeners and garden produce. Rufus Dawes decided thai th.Q Ladybird h'Sid brought a new commandant — his sight, trained by his half- savage life, had already distinguished Mr. Maurice Frere — and that these mysteries were " improvements " imder the new rule. When he arrived at this point of reasoning, another conjecture, assuming his first to have been correct, followed as a natural consequence. Lieutenant Frere would be a more severe com- mandant than Major Vickers. Now, severity had already reached its height, so far as he was concerned ; so the unhappy man took a final resolution — he would kill himself. Before we ex- claim against the sin of such a determination, let us endeavour to set before us what the sinner had suffered during the past six years. We have already a notion of what life on a convict ship means ; and we have seen through what a furnace Rufus Dawes had passed before he set foot on the barren shore of Hell's Gates. But to appreciate in its intensity the agony he had suffered since that time, we must multiply the infamy of the 'tween decks of the Malabar an hundred fold. In that prison was at least some ray of light. All were not abominable ; all were not utterly lost to shame and manhood. Stifling though the prison, in- famous the companionship, terrible the memory of past hap- piness — there was yet ignorance of the future, there was yet hope. But at Macquarie Harbour was poured out the very dregs of this cup of desolation. The worst had come, and the worst must for ever remain. The pit of torment was so deep that one could not even see Heaven. There was no hope there so long as life remained. Death alone kept the keys of that island prison. A LEAP IN THE DARK. 107 Is it possible to imagine, even for a moment, what an in- nocent man, gifted with ambition, endowed with power to love and to respect, must have suffered during one week of such punishment ? We ordinary men, leading ordinary lives — walk- ing, riding, laughing, marrying and giving in marriage — can form no notion of such misery as this. Some dim 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 manli- ness is held in an open scorn, we should die, perhaps, or go mad. But we do not know, and carr never know, how unutter- ably loathsome life must become when shared with such beings as those who dragged the tree trunks to the banks of the Gor- don, and toiled, blaspheming, in their irons, on the dismal sandpit of Sarah Island. No human creature could describe to what depth of personal abasement and self-loathing one week of such a life would plunge him. Even if he had the power to write, he dared not. As one who, in a desert, seeking for a face, should come to a pool of blood, and seeing his own reflection, fly — so would such a one haster from the contemplation of his own degrading agony. Imagine such torment endured for six years ! Ignorant that the sights and sounds about him were symp- toms of the final abandonment of the settlement, and that the Ladybird was sent down to bring away the prisoners, Rufus Dawes decided upon getting rid of that burden of life which pressed upon him so heavily. For six years he had hewn wood and drawn water; for six years he had hoped against hope ; for six years he had lived in the valley of the shadow of Death. He dared not recapitulate to himself what he had suffered. Indeed, his senses were deadened and dulled by torture. He cared to remember only one thing — that he was a Prisoner for Life. In vain had been his first dream of freedom. He had done his best, by good conduct, to win release ; but the villainy of Vetch and Rex had deprived him of the fruit of his labour. Instead of gaining credit by his exposure of the plot on board the Malabar, he was himself deemed guilty, and condemned, despite his asseverations of innocence. The knowledge of his "treachery" — for so it was deemed among his associates — wliile it gained for him no credit with the authorities, procured for him io8 HIS NATURAL LIFE. the detestation and ill-will of the monsters among whom he found himself. On his arrival at Hell's Gates he was a marked man — a Pariah among those beings who were Pariahs to all the world beside. Thrice his life was attempted ; but he was not then quite tired of living, and he defended it. This defence was construed by an overseer into a brawl, and the irons from which he had been relieved were replaced. His strength — brute attribute that alone could avail him — made him respected after this, and he was left at peace. At first this treatment was congenial to his temperament ; but by-and-by it became annoying, then painful, then almost unendurable. Tugging at his oar, digging up to his waist in slime, or bending beneath his burden of pine-wood, he looked greedily for some excuse to be addressed. He would take double weight when forming part of the human caterpillar along whose back lay a pine-tree, for a word of fellowship. He would work double tides to gain a kindly sentence from a comrade. In his utter desolation he agonized for the friendship of robbers and murderers. Then the reaction came, and he hated the very sound of their voices. He never spoke, and refused to answer when spoken to. He would even take his scanty supper alone, did his chain so permit him. He gained the reputation of a sullen, dangerous, half-crazy ruffian. Captain Barton, the super- intendent, took pity on him, and made him his gardener. He accepted the pity for a week or so, and then Barton, coming down one morning, found the few shrubs pulled up by the roots, the flower-beds trampled into barrenness, and his gardener sitting on the ground among the fragments of his gardening tools. For this act of wanton mischief he was flogged. At the triangles his behaviour was considered curious. He wept and prayed to be released, fell on his knees to Barton, and implored pardon. Barton would not listen, and at the first blow the prisoner was silent. From that time he became more sullen than ever, only at times he was observed, when alone, to fling himself on the ground and cry like a child. It was generally thought that his brain was affected. When 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 Osprcy. After working there for some time, and being released from his irons, he concealed himself on the slip, and in the evening swam across the harbour. A LEAP IN THE DARK'. 109 He was pursued, retaken, and flogged. Then he ran the dismal round of punishment. He burnt Ume, 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 afrer events accounted — in- sisted that he could make good his flight, the unhappy man fell in the first hundred yards of the terrible race, and was seized by two volunteers before he could rise again. His capture helped to secure the brief freedom of his comrades ; for Mr. Troke, content with one prisoner, checked a pursuit which the nature of the ground rendered dangerous, and triumphantly brought Dawes back to the settlement as his peace-offering for the negli- gence which had resulted in the loss of the other four. For this madness the refractory convict had been condemned to the solitude of the Grummet Rock. In tliat dismal hermitage, his mind, preying on itself, had become disordered. He saw visions and dreamt dreams. He would lie for hours motionless, staring at the sun or the sea. He held converse with imaginary beings. He enacted the scene with his mother over again. He harangued the rocks, and called upon the stones about him to witness his innocence and his sacrifice. He was visited by the phantoms of his early friends, and sometimes thought his present life a dream. When- ever he awoke, however, he was commanded by a voice within himself to leap into the surges which washed the walls of his prison, and to dream these sad dreams no more. In the midst of this lethargy of body and brain, the unusual occurrences along the shore of the settlement roused in him a still fiercer hatred of life. He saw in them something incompre- hensible and terrible, and read in them threats of an increase of misery. Had he known that the Ladybird was preparing for sea, and that it had been already decided to fetch him from this rock and iron him with the rest for safe passage to Hobart Town, he might have paused ; but he knew nothing, save that h no HIS NATURAL LIFE. the burden of life was insupportable, and that the time had come for him to be rid of it. In the meantime, the settlement was in a fever of excitement In less than three weeks from the announcement made by Vickers, all had been got ready. The Commandant had finally arranged with Frcre as to his course of action. He himself would accompany the Ladybird with the main body. His wife and daughter were to remain until the sailing of the Osprey, which Mr. Frere — charged with the task of final destruction — was to bring up as soon as possible. " I will leave you a cor- poral's guard, and ten prisoners as a crew," Vickers said. " You can work her easily with that number." To which Frere, smiling at Mrs. Vickers in a self-satisfied way, had replied that he could do with five prisoners if necessary, for he knew how to get double work out of the lazy dogs. Among the incidents which took place during the breaking up, was one which it is necessary to chronicle. Near Philip's Island, on the north side of the harbour, is situated Coal Head, where a party had been lately at work. This party, hastily with- drawn by Vickers to assist in the business of devastation, had left behind it some tools and timber, and at the eleventh hour a boat's crew was sent to bring away the debris. The tools were duly collected, and the pine logs — worth twenty-five shillings apiece in Hobart Town — duly rafted and chained. The timber was secured, and the convicts, towing it after them, pulled for the ship just as the sun sank. In the general relaxation of dis- cipline and haste, the raft had not 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 though the onward motion of the boat kept the chain taut, when the rowers slackened their exertions the mass parted, and Mr. Troke, hooking himself on to the side of the Ladybird, saw a huge log slip out from its fellows and disappear into the darkness. Gazing after it with an indignant and disgusted stare, as though it had been a refractory prisoner who merited two days " solitary," he thought he heard a cry from the direction in which it had been borne. He would have paused to listen, but all his attention was needed to save the timber, and to prevent the boat from being swamped by the struggling mass at her stern. The cry had proceeded from Rufus Dawes. From his solitary A LEAP IN THE DARK. Ill rock he had watched the boat pass him and make for the Lady- bird in channel, and he had decided — with that curious childish- ness into which the mind relapses on such supreme occasions — • that the moment when the gathering gloom swallowed her up, should be the moment when he would plunge into the surge below him. The heavily-labouring boat grew dimmer and dimmer, as each tug of the oars took her farther from him. Presently, only the figure of Mr. Troke in the stern sheets was visible ; then that also disappeared, and as the nose of the timber raft rose on the swell of the next wave, Rufus Dawes flung himself into the sea. He was heavily ironed, and he sank like a stone. He had resolved not to attempt to swim, and for the first moment kept his arms raised above his head, in order to sink the quicker. I3ut, as the short, sharp agony of suffocation caught him, and the shock of the icy water dispelled the mental intoxication under which he was labouring, he desperately struck out, and, despite the weight of his irons, gained the surface for an instant. As he did so, all bewildered, and with the one savage instinct ot self-preservation predominant over all other thoughts, he became conscious of a huge black inass 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. * * 41 « « * 112 HIS NATURAL LIFE. At daylight the next morning, Mr. Troke, landing on the prison rock, found it deserted. The prisoner's cap was lying on the edge of the little cliff, but the prisoner himself had disappeared. Pulling back to the Ladybird, the intelligent Troke pondered on the circumstance, and in delivering his report to Vickers men- tioned the strange cry he had heard the night before. " It's my belief, sir, that he was trying to swim the bay," he said. " He must ha' gone to the bottom anyhow, for he couldn't swim five yards with them irons." Vickers, busily engaged in getting under weigh, accepted this very natural supposition without question. The prisoner had met his death either by his own act, or by accident. It was either a suicide or an attempt to escape, and the former conduct of Rufus Dawes rendered the latter explanation a more probable one. In any case, he was dead. As Mr. Troke rightly surmised, no man could swim the bay in irons ; and when the Ladybird, an hour later, passed the Grummet Rock, all on board her believed that the corpse of its late occupant was lying beneath the waves that seethed at its base. CHAPTER VII. THE LAST OF MACQUARIE HARBOUR. RUFUS DAWES was believed to be dead by the party on board the Ladybird, and his strange escape was unknown to those still at Sarah Island. Maurice Frcre, if he bestowed a thought upon the refractory prisoner cf 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 Osprcy suspected that the boat which had put off for the marooned man had returned without him. Indeed the party had little leisure for thought ; Mr. Frere, eager to prove his ability and energy, was making strenuous exertions to get away, and kept his unlucky ten so hard at work that within a week from the departure of the Ladybird the Osprey was ready for sea. Mrs. Vickers and the child, having watched with some excusable regret the process of demolishing their old home, had settled down in their small cabin in the THE LAST OF MACQUARIE HARBOUR. 113 brig, and on the evening of the nth of January, Mr. Bates, the pilot, who acted as master, informed the crew that Lieutenant Frere had given orders to weigh anchor at daybreak. At daybreak accordingly the brig set sail, with a light breeze from the south-west, and by three o'clock in the afternoon anchored safely outside the Gates. Unfortunately the wind shifted to the north-west, which caused a heavy swell on the bar and prudent Mr. Bates, having consideration for Mrs. Vickers and the child, ran back ten miles into Wellington Bay, and an- chored there again at seven o'clock in the evening. The tide was running strongly, and the brig rolled a good deal. Mrs. Vickers kept her cabin, and sent Sylvia to entertain Lieutenant Frere. Sylvia went, but was not entertaining. She had conceived for Frere one of those violent antipathies which children sometimes own without reason, and since the memorable night of the apology had been barely civil to him. In vain did he pet her and compliment her, she was not to be flattered into liking him. " I do not like you, sir," she said in her stilted fashion, " but that need make no difference to you. You occupy your- self with your prisoners ; I can amuse myself without you, thank you." "Oh, all right !" said Frere, " I don't want to interfere ;" but he felt a little nettled nevertheless. On this particular even- ing the young lady relaxed her severity of demeanour. Her father away, and her mother sick, the little maiden felt lonely, and as a last resource accepted her mother's commands and went to Frere. He was walking up and down the deck, smoking. " Mr. Frere, I am sent to talk to you." " Are you ? All right — go on." " Oh dear no. It is the gentleman's place to entertain. Be amusing!" " Come and sit down tlien, and we'll talk," said Frere, who was in good humour at the success of his arrangements. " What shall we talk about?" " You stupid man ! As if I knew ! It is your place to talk. Fell me a fairy story." "'Jack and the Beanstalk'?" suggested Frere. " Jack and the grandmother ! Nonsense! Make one up out of your head, you know." Frere laughed. " I can't," he said. " I never did such a thing in my life." " Then why not begin? I shall go away if you don't begin." 8 114 ^I^ NATURAL LIFE. Frere rubbed his brows. " Well, have you read — have you read 'Robinson Crusoe'?" — as if the idea was the most brilliant one in the world, '■'■ Oi course I have," returned Sylvia, pouting. *'Read it? — yes. Everybody's read ' Robinson Crusoe' !" " Oh, have they ? Well, I didn't know ; let me see now." And pulling hard at his pipe, he plunged into literary reflection. Sylvia sitting beside him, eagerly watching for the happy thought that never came, pouted and said, "What a stupid, stupid man you are ! I shall be so glad to get back to papa again. He knows all sorts of stories, nearly as many as old Danny." " Danny knows some, then ? " " Danny ! "—with as much surprise as if she said "Walter Scott!" "Of course he does. I suppose now," putting her head on one side, with an amusing expression of superiority, "you never heard the story of the Banshee?" " No, I never did." " Nor the ' White Horse of the Peppers ' ?" " No." " No, I suppose not. Nor the ' Changeling'? nor the ' Lepre- cteiun ' ? " " 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 tiiost ignorant person — for your age, of course. |,' Maurice Frere grew a little angry. " You are very imperti- nent, Sylvia," said he. " Miss Vickers is my name. Lieutenant Frere, and I shall go and talk to Mr. Bates." Which threat she carried out on the spot ; and Mr. Bates, who had filled the dangerous office of pilot, told her about divers and coral reefs, and some adventures of his — a little apocryphal— in the China seas. Frere resumed his smoking, half angry with himself, and half angry with the provoking little fairy. This elfin creature had a fascination for him which he could not account for. However, he saw her no more that evening, and at breakfast THE LAST OF MACQUARIE HARBOUR. 115 the next morning she received him with quaint haughti- ness. " When shall we be ready to sail ? Mr. Frcre, I'll take some marmalade. Thank you." " I don't knov/, Missy," said Bates. " It's very rough on the Bar ; me and Mr. Frere was a soundin' of it this marnin', and it ain't safe yet." " Well," said Sylvia, " I do hope and trust we sha'n't be ship- wrecked, and have to swim miles and miles for our lives." " Ho, ho ! " laughed Frere ; " don't be afraid, I'll take care of you." " Can you swim, Mr. Bates ? " asked Sylvia. "Yes, Miss, I can." " Well, then, you shall take me ; I like you. Mr. Frere can take mamma. We'll go and live on a desert island, Mr. Bates, won't we, and grow cocoa-nuts and bread-fruit, and — what nasty hard biscuits ! — I'll be Robinson Crusoe and you shall be Man Friday. I'd like to live on a desert island, if I was sure there were no savages, and plenty to eat and drink.'' " That would be right enough, my dear, but you don't find them sort of islands every day." " Then',' said Sylvia, with a decided nod, " we won't be ship- wrecked, will we ? " " I hope not, my dear." " Put a biscuit in your pocket, Sylvia, in case of accidents," suggested Frere, with a grin. " Oh ! you know my opinion of you, sir. Don't speak ; I don't want any argument." " Don't you ?— that's right." "Mr. Frere," said Sylvia, gravely pausing at her mother's cabin door, " if I were Richard the Third, do you know what I'd do with you?" " No," says Frere, eating complacently ; " what would you do ?" " Why, I'd make you stand at the door of St. Paul's Cathedral in a white sheet, with a lighted candle in your hand, until you gave up your wicked aggravating ways — you Man ! " The picture of Mr. Frere in a white sheet, with a lighted candle in his hand, at the door of St. Paul's Cathedral, was too much for Mr. Bates's gravity, and he roared with laughter. " She's a queer child, ain't she, sir? A born nateral, and yet a good-natered little soul." Ii6 HIS NATURAL LIFE. "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, Wilham 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 con- spicuously useful. His intelligence and influence among his fellow prisoners combined to make him a somewhat important personage, and Vickers had allowed him privileges from which he had been hitherto debarred. Mr. Frere, however, who super- intended the shipment of some stores, seemed to be resolved to tak-e advantage of Rex's evident willingness to work. He never ceased to hurry and find fault with him. He vowed that he was lazy, sulky, or impertinent. It was "Rex, come here ! Do this ! Do that ! " As the prisoners declared among them- selves, it was evident that Mr. Frere had a "down" On the Dandy. The day before the Ladybird sailed. Rex — rejoicing in the hope of speedy departure — had suffered himself to reply to some more than usually galling remark, and Mr. Frere had complained to Vickers. " The fellow's too ready to get away," said he. " Let him stop for the Osprey, it will be a lesson to him." Vickers assented, and John Rex was informed that he was not to sail with the first party. His comrades vowed that this order was an act of tyranny ; but he himself said nothing. He only redoubled his activity, and — despite all his wish to the con- trary^Frere was unable to find fault. He even took credit to himself for "taming'' the convict's spirit, and pointed out Rex — silent and obedient — as a proof of the excellence of severe The power oe the wilderness. uy measures. To the convicts, however, who knew John Rex better, this silent activity was ominous. He returned with the rest, however, on the evening of the r3th, in api^arcntly cheerful mood. Indeed Mr. Frere, who^ wearied by the delay, had decided to take the whaleboat in whicli the prisoners had returned, and catch a few fish before dinner, observed him laughing with some of the others, and again congratulated himself. The time wore on. Darkness was closing in, and Mr. Bates, walking the deck, kept a look-out for the boat, with the inten- tion of weighing anchor and making for the bar. All was secure. Mrs. Vickers and the child were safely below. The two remain- ing soldiers (two had gone with Frere) were upon deck, and the prisoners in the forecastle were singing. The wind was fair, and the sea had gone down. In less than an hour the Osprey would be safely outside the Harbour. -pi CHAPTER VIII. THE POWER OF THE WILDERNESS. ^HE drifting log that had so strangely served as a means of \^ saving Rufus Dawes swam with the current that was run- ning out of the bay. For some time the burden that it bore was an 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 l^ccome stranded on a sandy point, the ex- tremity of which was lost in darkness. Painfully raising him- self from his uncomfortable posture, he staggered to his feet, and crawling a few paces up the beach, flung himself upon the ground and slept. When morning dawned, he recognised his position. The log had, in passing under the lee of Philip Island, been cast upon the southern point of Coal Head, and some three hundred yards from liim were the mutilated sheds of the coal-gang. For some time he lay still, basking in the warm rays of the rising sun, and scarcely caring to move his bruised and shattered limbs. The sensation of rest was so exquisite, that it overpowered all Ii8 HIS NATURAL LIFE. other consideration's, and he did not even trouble himself to conjecture the reason for the apparent desertion of the huts close by him. If there was no one there — well and good. If the coal party had not gone, he would be discovered in a few moments, and brought back to his island prison. In his exhaus- tion and misery, he accepted the alternative and slept again. As he laid down his aching head, Mr. Troke was reporting his death to Vickers, and while he still slept, the Ladybird, on her way out, passed him so closely, that any one on board her might, with a good glass, have espied his slumbering figure as it lay upon the sand. When he woke it was past mid-day, and the sun poured its full rays upon him. His clothes were dry in all places, save the side on which he had been lying, and he rose to his feet re- freshed by his long sleep. He scarcely comprehended, as yet, his true position. He had escaped, it was true, but not for long. He was versed in the history of escapes, and knew that a man alone on that barren coast was face to face with starvation or recapture. Glancing up at the sun, he wondered, indeed, how it was that he had been free so long. Then the coal sheds caught his eye, and he understood that they were untenanted. This astonished him, and he began to tremble with vague apprehension. Entering, he looked around, expecting every moment to see some lurking constable, or armed soldier. Sud- denly his glance fell upon the loaves which lay in the 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 hini represented the rations of six men. Was it not THE PGIVER OF THE WILDERNESS. 119 possible to cross the desert that lay between hun and freedom on such fare ? The very supposition made his heart beat faster. It surely ivas 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 ei;;;hteen 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 dc'lonrs, 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 hini to freedom. It could be done ! With prudence, it could be done ! He must be careful and abstemious. Abstemious ! He had already eaten too much, and he hastily pulled a barely-tasted piece of meat from his mouth, and replaced it with the rest. The action which at any other time would have seemed disgusting, was, in the case of this poor creature, merely pitiable. Having come to this resolution, the next thing was to disen- cumber himself of his irons. This was more easily done than he expected. He found in the shed an iron gad, and with that and a stone he drove out the rivets. The rings were too strong to be "ovalled,"* or he would have been free long ago. He packed the meat and bread together, and then pushing the gad into his belt — it might be needed as a weapon of defence — he set out on his journey. His intention was to get round the settlement to the coast, reach the settled districts, and, by some tale of shipwreck or of wandering, procure assistance. As to what was particularly to be done when he found himself among free men, he did not pause to consider. At that point his difficulties seemed to hin\ to end. Let him but traverse the desert that was before him, and he would trust to his own ingenuity, or the chance of for- • Ovallcd — "To oval " is a term in use amonf; convicts, and means to so bend the round riiij; of the ankle fetter that the liccl can be drawn up through it. 120 HIS NATURAL LIFE. tune, to avert suspicion. The peril of immediate detection was so imminent, that, beside it, all other fears were dwarfed into insignificance. Before dawn next morning he had travelled ten miles, and by husbanding his food, he succeeded by the night of the fourth day in accomplishing forty more. Footsore and weary, he lay in a thicket of the thorny mclaleuca, and felt at last that he was beyond pursuit. The next day he advanced more slowly. The bush was unpropitious. Dense scrub and savage jungle im- peded his path ; barren and stony mountain ranges arose before him. He was lost in gullies, entangled in thickets, bewildered in morasses. The sea that had hitherto gleamed, salt, ghttering, 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, im- pelled by an irresistible impulse to know the worst, he found the body was mangled. One arm was missing, and the skull had been beaten in by some heavy instrument ! The first thought — that this heap of rags and bones was a mute witness to the folly of his own undertaking, the corpse of some starved absconder — gave place to a second more horrible suspicion. He recognised the number imprinted on the coarse cloth as that which had designated the younger of the two men who had escaped with Gabbett. He was standing on the place where a murder had been committed ! A murder ! — and what else ? Thank God the food he carried was not yet exhausted ! He THE POWER OF THE WILDERNESS. 121 turned and fled, looking back fearfully as he went. He could not breathe in the shadow of that awful mountain. Crashing through scrub and brake, torn, bleeding, and wild with terror, he reached a spur of the Range, and looked around him. Above him rose the iron hills, below him lay the pano- rama of the bush. The white cone of the Frenchman's Cap was on his right hand, on liis 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 Osprcy 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 122 HIS NATURAL LIFE. he was constrained to pluck and eat the tops of tea-trees and peppermint shrubs. These had an aromatic taste, and sufficed to stay the cravings of hunger for a while, but they induced a raging thirst, which he slaked at the icy mountain springs. Had it not been for the frequency of these streams, he must have died in a few days. At last, on the twelfth day from his depar- ture from the Coal Head, he found himself at the foot of Mount Direction, at the head of the peninsula which makes the western side of the harbour. His terrible wandering had but led him to make a complete circuit of the settlement, and the next night brought him round the shores of Birches Inlet to the landing- place opposite to Sarah Island. His stock of provisions had been exhausted for two days, and he was savage with hunger. He no longer thought of suicide. His dominant idea was now to get food. He would do as many others had done before him — give himself up to be flogged and fed. When he reached the landing-place, however, the guard-house was empty. He looked across at the island prison, and saw no sign of life. The settle- ment was deserted ! The shock of this discovery almost deprived him of reason. For days, that had seemed centuries, he had kept life in his jaded and lacerated body solely by the strength of his fierce determination to reach the settlement ; and now that he had reached it, after a journey oi unparalleled horror, he found it deserted. He struck himself to see if he v.-as not dreaming. He refused to believe his eyesight. He shouted, screamed, and waved his tattered garments in the air. Exhausted by these paroxysms, he said to himself, quite calmly, that the sun beating on his unprotected head had dazed his brain, and that in a few moments he should see well-remembered boats pulling towards him. Then, when no boat came, he argued that he was mis- taken in the place ; the island yonder was not Sarah Island, but some other island 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 inexphcable that he could not realize it. He felt as might have felt that wanderer in the enchanted mountains, who, returning in the morning to look for his companions, found them turned to stone. THE SEIZURE OF THE " OSPREV:' 123 At last the dreadful truth forced itself upon him ; he retired a few paces,, and then, with a horrible cry of furious despair, stumbled forward towards the edge of the little reef that fringed the shore. Just as he was about to fling himself for the second time into the dark water, his eyes, sweeping in a last long look around the bay, caught sight of a strange appearance on the left horn of the sea beach. A thin, blue streak, uprising from behind the western arm of the little inlet, hung in the still air. It was the smoke of a fire ! The dying wretch felt inspired with new hope. God had sent him a direct sign from Heaven. The tiny column of bluish vapour seemed to him as glorious as the Pillar of Fire that led the Israelites. There were yet human beings near him ! — and turning his face from the hungry sea, he tottered with the last effort of his failing strength towards the blessed token of their presence. 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 comc.back empty-handed. At last a peremptory signal warned him. It was the sound of a musket fired on board the brig : Mr. Bates was getting im- patient ; and with a scowl, Frere drew up his lines, and ordered tlie two soldiers to pull for the vessel. The Osprcy yet sat motionless on the water, and her bare masts gave no sign of making sail. To the soldiers, pulling with their backs to her, the musket shot seemed the most ordinary occurrence in the world. Eager to quit the dismal prison-bay, they had viewed Mr. Frere's persistent fishing with disgust, and had for the previous half-hour longed to hear the signal of recall which had just startled them. Suddenly, how- ever, they noticed a change of expression in the sullen face of their commander. Frere, sitting in the stern sheets, with his 124 HIS NATURAL LIFE. face to the Osprey, had observed a pecuHar 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 appre- hension, and the soldiers, realizing at once the full terror of their position, forced the heavy whale-boat through the water as fast as the one miserable pair of oars could take her. Mr. Bates, affected by the insidious influence of the hour, and lulled into a sense of false security, had gone below to tell his little playmate that she would soon be on her way to the Hobart Town of which she had heard so much ; and, taking advantage of his absence, the soldier not on guard went to the forecastle to hear the prisoners singing. He found the ten together, in high good humour, listening to a " shanty " sung by three of their number. The voices were melodious enough, and the words of the ditty — chanted by many stout fellows in many a forecastle before and since — of that character which pleases the soldier nature. Private Grimes forgot all about the unprotected state of the deck, and sat down to listen. While he listened, absorbed in tender recollections, James Lesly, William Cheshire, William Russen, John Fair, and James Barker slipped to the hatchway and got upon deck. Barker reached the aft hatchway as the soldier who was on guard turned to complete his walk, and passing his arm round his neck, pulled him down before he could utter a cry. In the con- fusion of the moment the man loosed his grasp of the musket to grapple with his unseen antagonist, and Fair, snatching up the weapon, swore to blow out his brains if he raised a finger. Seeing the sentry thus secured, Cheshire, as if in pursuance of THE SEIZURE OF THE '' OS PREY." 125 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 listen- ing soldier, touched the singer on the shoulder. This was the appointed signal, and John Rex, suddenly terminating his song with a laugh, presented his fist in the face of the gaping Grimes. "No noise!" he cried. "The brig's ours;" and ere Grimes could reply, he was seized by Lyon and Riley, and bound securely. " Come on, lads ! " says Rex, " and pass the prisoner down here. We've got her this time, I'll go bail ! " In obedience to this order, the now gagged sentry was flung down the fore hatch- way, and the hatch secured. " Stand on the hatchway. Porter," cries Rex again ; "and if those fellows come up knock 'em down with a handspike. Lesly and Russen, forward to the companion ladder ! Lyon, keep a look-out for the boat, and if she comes too near, fire ! " As he spoke the report of the first musket rang out. Barker had apparently fired up the companion hatchway. When Mr. Bates had gone below, he found Sylvia curled upon the cushions of the state-room, reading. " Well, Missy ! " he said, " we'll soon be on our way to papa." Sylvia answered by asking a question altogether foreign to the subject. " Mr. Bates," said she, pushing the hair out of her blue eyes, " what's a coracle ! " " A which ? " asked Mr. Bates. " A coracle. C-o-r-a-c-l-e," said she, spelling it slowly. " 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.' " 126 HIS NATURAL LIFE. "Hah," said Mr. Bates, when this remarkable passage was read to him, " that's very mysterious, that is. A corricle, a cory — ," a bright light burst upon him. " A curricle you mean, Miss ! It's a carriage ! I've seen 'em in Hy' Park, with young bloods a drivin' of 'em." " What are young bloods ? " asked Sylvia, rushing at this " new opening." "Oh, nobs ! Swell coves, don't you know," returned poor Bates, thus again attacked. " Young men o' fortune that is, that's given to doing it grand." " I see," said Sylvia, waving her little hand graciously, — " Noblemen and Princes and that sort of people. Quite so. But what about coracle?" "Well," said the humbled Bates, "/ think it's a carriage, Missy. A sort of Pheayton, as they call it." Sylvia, hardly satisfied, returned to the book. It was a little mean-looking volume — a " Child's History of England," — and after perusing it awhile with knitted brows, she burst into a childish laugh. "Why, my dear Mr. Bates !" she cried, waving the History above her head in triumph, " what a pair of geese we are ! A carriage / Oh you silly man ! It's a boat / " " Is it?" said Mr. Bates, in admiration of the intelligence of his companion. "_ Who'd ha' thought that now ? Why couldn't they call it a boat at once, then, and ha' done with it ? " and he was about to laugh also, when, raising his eyes, he saw in the open doorway the figure of James Barker, with a musket in his hand. " Hallo ! What's this ? What do you do here, sir ? " " Sorry to disturb yer," says the convict, with a grin, " but you must come along o' me, Mr. Bates." Bates, at once comprehending that some terrible misfortune had occurred, did not lose his presence of mind. One of the cushions of the couch was under his right hand, and snatching it up, he flung it across the little cabin full in the face of the escaped prisoner. The soft mass struck the man with force suf- ficient to blind him for an instant. The musket exploded harm- lessly in the air, and ere the astonished Barker could recover his footing, Bates had hurled him out of the cabin, and crying " Mutiny ! " locked the cabin door on the inside. The noise brought out Mrs. Vickers from her berth, and the poor little student of EngUsh history ran into her arms. THE SEIZURE OF THE "OSPREY." 127 " Good heavens, Mr, Bates, what is it ? " Bates, furious with rage, so far forgot himself as to swear. " It's a mutiny, ma'am," said he. " Go back to your cabin and lock the door. Those bloody villains have risen on us ! " Julia Vickers felt her heart grow sick. Was she never to escape out of this dreadful life ? " Go into your cabin, ma'am," says Bates again, and don't move a finger till I tell ye. Maybe it ain't so bad as it looks ; I've got my pistols with me, thank God, and Mr. Frere '11 hear the shot any way. Mutiny! On deck there ! " he cried at the full pitch of his voice, and his brow grew damp with dismay when a mocking laugh from above was the only response. Thrusting the woman and child into the state berth, the be- wildered pilot cocked a pistol, and snatching a cutlass from the arm stand fixed to the butt of the mast which penetrated the cabin, he burst open the door with his foot, and rushed to the companion ladder. Barker had retreated to the deck, and for an instant he thought the way was clear, but Lesly and Russen thrust him back with the muzzles of the loaded muskets. He struck at Russen with the cutlass, missed him, and seeing the hopelessness of the attack, was fain to retreat. In the meanwhile. Grimes and the other soldier had loosed themselves from their bonds, and encouraged by the firing, which seemed to them a sign that all was not yet lost, made shift to force up the forehatch. Porter, whose courage was none of the fiercest, and who had been for years given over to that terror of discipline which servitude induces, made but a feeble attempt at resistance, and forcing the handspike from him, the sentry, Jones, rushed aft to help the pilot. As Jones reached the waist, Cheshire, a cold-blooded blue-eyed man, shot him dead. Grimes fell over the corpse, and Cheshire, clubbing the musket — had he another barrel he would have fired, — coolly battered his head as he lay, and then seizing the body of the unfortunate Jones in his arms, tossed it into the sea. " Porter, you lubber ! " he cried, exhausted with the effort to lift the body, " come and bear a hand with this other one ! " Porter advanced aghast, but just then another occurrence claimed the villain's attention, and poor Grimes's life was spared for that time. Rex, inwardly raging at this unexpected resistance on the part of the pilot, flung himself on the skylight, and tore it up bodily. As he did so. Barker, who had reloaded his musket, 128 HIS NATURAL LIFE. fired down into the cabin. The ball passed through the state- room door, and splintering the wood, buried itself close to the golden curls of poor little Sylvia. It was this hair's-breadth escape which drew from the agonized mother that shriek which, pealing through the open stern window, had roused the soldiers in the boat. Rex, who, by the virtue of his dandyism, yet possessed some abhorrence of useless crime, imagined that the cr>^ 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, en- deavoured to gain time. " Shut down the skylight, then," said he, with the ghost of an authority in his voice, " until I ask the lady." This, however, John Rex refused to do. " You can ask well enough where you are," he said. But there was no need for Mr. Bates to put a question. The door of the state-room opened, and Mrs. Vickers appeared, trembling, with Sylvia by her side. " Accept, Mr. Bates," she said, " since it must be so. We should gain nothing by refusing. We are at their mercy— God help us ! " "Amen to that," says Bates under his breath, and then aloud, " We agree ! " JOHN RETS REVENGE. 129 " Put your pistols on the table, and come up, then," says Rex, covering the table with his musket as he spoke. " Nobody shall hurt you." CHAPTER X. JOHN rex's revenge. MRS. VICKERS, pale and sick with terror, yet 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 licncath the open skylight, and shuddering, shook her head. The men above impatiently swore at the delay, and the three hastened on deck. "Who's to' command the brig now?" asked undaunted Bates, as they came up. " I am," says John Rex ; " and, with these brave fellows, I'll take her round the world." The touch of bombast was not out of place. It jumped so far with the humour of the convicts that they set up a feeble cheer, at which Sylvia frowned. Frightened as she was, the prison-bred cliild 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 Osprcy 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 fmal escape wc'e all against Q I30 HIS NATURAL LIFE. them, for what account could they give of themselves ? Over- powered by these reflections, the honest fellow made one last effort to charm his captors back to their pristine bondage, " Fools !" he cried, " do you know what you are about to do ? You will never escape. Give up the brig, and I will declare, before my God, upon the Bible, that I will say nothing, but give all good characters." Lesly and another burst into a laugh at this wild proposition, but Rex, who had weighed his chances well beforehand, felt the force of the pilot's speech, and answered seriously. " It's no use talking," he said, shaking his still handsome head. " We have got the brig, and we mean to keep her. I can navi- gate her, though I am no seaman, so you needn't talk further about it, Mr. Bates. It's liberty we require." " What are you going to do with us ?" asked Bates. " Leave you behind." Bates's face blanched. " What, here f' " Yes. It don't look a picturesque spot, does it ? And yet /'ve lived here for some years ;" and he grinned. Bates was silent. The logic of that grin was unanswerable. " Come ! " cried the Dandy, shaking off his momentary melancholy, " look alive there ! Lower away the jolly-boat. Mrs. Vickers, go down to your cabin and get anything you want. I am compelled to put you ashore, but I have no wish to leave you without clothes." Bates listened, in a sort of dismal admiration, at this courtly convict. He could not have spoken like that had life depended on it. " Now, my little lady," continued Rex, " inin 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 r The whole deck burst into a gi-eat 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) JOHN REX'S REVENGE. 131 made him bite his hps with rage. Had he had his will, he would have struck the httle 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 tauntcr 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 Mi*s. Vickers descended the hatchway, the boat with Frcre and the soldiers came within musket range, and Lesly, ac- cording to orders, fired his musket over their heads, shouting to them to lay to. But Frere, boiling with rage at the manner in which the tables had been turned on him, had determined not to resign his lost authority without a struggle. Disregarding the summons, he came straight on, with his eyes fixed on the vessel. It was now nearly dark, and the figures on the deck were indistinguishable. The indignant lieutenant could but guess at the condition of affairs. Suddenly, from out of the darkness a voice hailed him — " Hold water ! 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 fiiithful watch-dog, barked to warn his master. Blood- thirsty Cheshire caught him by the throat, and Frere, unheeding, ran the boat alongside, under the very nose of the revengeful Rex. The mass of iron fell half in-board upon the now stayed boat, and gave her stcrnway, 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 je see, and wcx^ your masters now ! " 132 HIS NATURAL LIFE Frere, stifling an exclamation of rage, cried to the bow to hook on, but the blow had driven the boat backward, and she was already beyond arm's length of the brig. Looking up, he saw Cheshire's savage face, and heard the click of the lock as he cocked his piece. The two soldiers, exhausted by their long pull, made no effort to stay the progress of the boat, and almost before the swell caused by the plunge of the mass of iron had ceased to agitate the water, the deck of the Osprcy 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 ol the brig broke a flash and a report, and a musket ball cut the water beside them with a chirping noise. Between the black indistinct mass which represented the brig, and the glimmering water, was visible a white speck, which gradually neared them. "Come alongside with ye!" hailed a voice, "or it will be worse for ye ! " " They want to murder us," says Frere. " Give way, men ! " But the two soldiers, exchanging glances one with the other, pulled the boat's head round, and made for the vessel. " It's no use, Mr. Frere," said the man nearest him, " we can do no good now, and they won't hurt us, I dare say." "You dogs, you are in league with them," bursts out Frere, purple with indignation. " Do you mutiny ? " " Come, come, sir," returned the soldier, sulkily, " this ain't the time to bully ; and, as for mutiny, why, one man's about 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 the orders of his officer, did more than an hour's reasoning to convince Maurice Frere of the hopelessness of resistance. His authority — born of circum- stance, and supported by adventitious aid — had left him. The musket shot had reduced him to the ranks. He was now no more than any one else ; indeed, he was less than many, for those who held the firearms were the ruling powers. With a groan he resigned himself to his fate, and looking at the sleeve of the undress uniform he wore, it seemed to him that virtue had gone out of it. When they reached the brig, they found that the jolly-boat JOHN REX'S REVENGE. 133 luid been lowered and laid alongside. In her were eleven persons : Bates, with forehead gashed, and hands bound, the stunnedGrimes, Russen and I^"airpulling, 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 sawthis white bundle. He had feared that the child was injured. By the direction of Rex, the whale-boat was brought alongside the jolly-boat, and Cheshire and Lesly boarded her. Lesly then gave his musket to Rex, and bound Frere's hands behind him, in the same manner as had been done for Bates. Frere attempted to resist this indignity, but Cheshire, clapping his musket to his ear, swore he would blow out hisbrainsif he utteredanother sj'Uable ; and Frere, catchingthe malignant eye of John Rex, remembered how easily a twitch of the finger would pay off old scores, and was silent. " Step in here, sir, if you please," said Rex, with polite irony. " I am sorry to be compelled to tie you, but I must consult my own safety as well as your convenience." Frere scowled, and, stepping awkwardly into the jolly-boat, fell. Pinioned as he was, he could not rise without assistance, and Russen pulled him roughly to his feet, with a coarse laugh. In his present frame of mind, that laugh galled him worse than his bonds. Poor Mrs. Vickers, with a woman's quick instinct, sawtliis, and, even amid her own trouble, found leisure to console. " The wretches ! " she said, under her breath, as Frere was flung down beside her, " to subject you to such indignity ! " Sylvia said nothing, and seemed to shrink from the lieutenant. Perhaps in her childish fancy, she had pictured him as coming to her rescue, armed cap-a-pie, and clad in dazzling mail, or, at the very least, as a muscular hero, who should settle affairs out of hand by sheer personal prowess. If she had entertained any such notion, the reality must have struck coldly upon her senses. Mr. Frere, purple, clumsy, and bound, was not at all heroic. " Now, my lads," says Rex — wlio 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 mutmeers 134 HIS NATURAL LIFE. meant a certainty of hard work, with a chance of ultimate hanging. Yet to stay witli the prisoners was — as far as they could see — to incur the inevitable fate of starvation on a barren coast As is often the case on such occasions, a trifle sufficed to turn the scale. The wounded Grimes, who was slowly re- covering from his stupor, dimly caught the meaning of the. sentence, and in his obfuscated condition of intellect, must needs make comment upon it. " Go with him, ye beggars ! " said he, "and leave us honest men ! Oh, ye'U get a tying-up for this !" The phrase " tying-up " brought with it recollection of the worst portion of military disciphne, 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 yoH / " says the man who had pulled the stroke in the whale-boat, spitting into the water v/ith averted face. Upon which utterance the convicts burst into joyous oaths, and the pair were received with much hand-shaking. Then Rex, with Lyon and Riley as a guard, got into the whale-boat, and having loosed the two prisoners from their bonds, ordered them to take the places of Russen and Fair. The whale-boat was manned by the seven mutineers. Rex steer- ing, Fair, Russen, and the two recruits pulling, and the other four standing up, with their muskets levelled at the jolly-boat. Their long slavery had begotten such a dread of authority in these men, that they feared it even when it was bound and menaced by four muskets. "Keep your distance!" shouted Cheshire, as Frere and Bates, in obedience to orders, began to pull the jolly-boat towards the shore ; and in this fashion was the dismal little party convej-ed to the mainland. It was night when they reached it, but the clear sky began to thrill with a late moon as yet unarisen, and the waves, breaking gently upon the beach, glimmered with a radiance born of their own motion, Frere and Bates, jumping ashore, helped out Mrs. LEFT AT ''HELL'S GATES." 13S Vickers, Sylvia, and the wounded Grimes. This being done under the muzzles of the muskets, Rex commanded that Bates and Frere should push the jolly-boat as far as they could from the shore, and Riley catching her by a boot-hook as she came towards tliem, 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 XL LEFT AT " HELL'S GATES." THERE is no need to dwell upon the mental agonies of that miserable night. Perhaps, of all the five, the one least qualified to endure it realized the prospect of suffering most acutely. Mrs. Vickers— lay-figure and noodle as she was — had the keen instinct of approaching danger, which is in her sex a sixth sense. She was a woman and a mother, and owned to a double capacity for suffering. Her feminine imagination pic- tured all the horrors of death by famine, and having realized her own torments, her maternal love forced her to live them over again in the person of her child. Rejecting Bates's offer of a pea-jacket and Frere's vague tenders of assistance, the poor woman withdrew behind a rock that faced the sea, and, with her daughter in her arms, resigned herself to her torturing thoughts. Sylvia, recovered from her terror, was almost con- tent, and, curled in her mother's shawl, slept. To her little soul, this midnight mystery of boats and muskets had all the flavour of a romance. With Bates, Frerc, and her mother so close to her, it was impossible to be afraid ; besides, it was obvious that Papa — the Supreme Ijcing of the settlement— must at once return and severely punish the impertinent prisoners who had I -,6 niS NATURAL LIFE. 'J dared to insult his wife and child, and as Sylvia dropped off to sleep, she caught herself, with some indignation, pitying the mutineers for the tremendous scrape they had got themselves into. How they would be flogged when Papa came back ! In the mean time this sleeping in the open air was rather pleasant. Honest Bates produced a piece of biscuit, and, with all the generosity of his nature, suggested that this should be set aside for the sole use of the two females, but Mrs. Vickers would not hear of it. " We must all share alike," said she, with something of the spirit that she knew her husband would have displayed under like circumstance ; and Frere wondered at her apparent strength of mind. Had he been gifted with more acuteness, he would not have wondered ; for when a crisis comes to one of two persons who have lived much together, the influence of the nobler spirit makes itself felt. Frere had a tinder-box in his pocket, and he made a fire with some dry leaves and sticks. Grimes fell asleep, and the two men sitting at their fire dis- cussed the chances of escape. Neither liked to openly broach the supposition that they were finally deserted. It was con- cluded between them that, unless the brig sailed in the night — and the now risen moon showed her yet lying at anchor — the convicts would return and bring them food. This supposition proved correct, for about an hour after daylight they saw the whale-boat pulling towards them. A discussion had arisen amongst the mutineers as to the pro- priety of at once making sail, but Barker, who had been one of the pilot-boat crew, and knew the dangers of the Bar, vowed that he would not undertake to steer the brig through the Gates until morning ; and so the boats being secured astern, a strict watch was set, lest the helpless Bates should attempt to rescue the vessel. During the evening — the excitement attendant upon the outbreak having passed away, and the magnitude of the task before them being more fully apparent to their minds — a feeling of pity for the unfortunate party on the mainland took possession of them. It was quite possible that the Osprey might be recaptured, in which case five useless murders would have been committed ; and however callous to bloodshed were the majority of the ten, not one among them could contemplate in cold blood, without a twinge of remorse, the death of the harm- less child of the Commandant. John Rex, seeing how matters were going, made haste to take to himself the credit of mercy. LEFT AT '' HELL'S GATES."" 137 He ruled, and had always ruled, his ruffians not so much by suggesting to them the course they should take, as by leading them on the way they had already chosen for themselves. " I propose," said he, "that we divide the provisions. There are five of them and ten of us. Then nobody can blame us." "Ay," said Porter, mindful of a similar e.xploit, " 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 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 head- quarters, she's bound to come back and look for 'em," said he ; " and we'll want all the tucker we can get, maybe, afore we sights land." This reasoning was admitted and acted upon. There was in the harness-cask about fifty pounds of salt meat, and a third of this quantity, together with half a small sack of Hour, some tea and sugar mixed together in a bag, and an iron kettle and pan- nikin, was placed in the whale-boat. Rex, fearful of excesses among his crew, had also lowered down one of the two small puncheons of rum which the store room contained. Clicshire disputed this, and stumbling over a goat that had been taken on board from Pliilip Island, caught tlie 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 pilcously, and the men laughed. To a stranger it would have appeared that the boat contained a happy party of fisher- men, or coast settlers, returning with the proceeds of a day's marketing. Laying off as the 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." 138 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 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 assist- ance. " Men," said Bates, with something like a sob in his voice, " I didn't expect this. You are good fellows, for there ain't much tucker aboard, I know." " Yes," affirmed Frere, " you're good fellows," Rex burst into a savage laugh. " Shut your mouth, you tyrant," said he, forgetting his Dandyism in the recollection of his former suffering. ",It ain't for your benefit. You may thank the lady and child for it." Julia Vickers hastened to propitiate the arbiter of her daugh- ter's fate. " We are 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 sports- man," came back again for an instant. At that moment, with liberty in his hand, and fortune all before him, he felt his self- respect return, and he looked the lady in ,the face without flinching. "I sincerely trust, madam," said he, "that you will get back safely. May I hope for your good wishes for myself and my companions?" Listening, Bates burst into a roar of astonished enthusiasm. " What a dog it is !" he cried. "John Rex, John Rex, you were never made to be a convict, man !" Rex smiled. " Good-bye, Mr. Bates, and God preserve you!" "Good-bye," says Bates, rubbing his hat off his face, "and I — I — damme, I hope you'll get safe off — there ! — for hberty's sweet to every man." "Good-bye, prisoners!" says Sylvia, waving her handkerchief j "and I hope they won't catch you, too." So, with cheers and waving of handkerchiefs, the boat de- parted. In the emotion which the apparently disinterested conduct of John Rex had occasioned the exiles, all earnest thought of their LEFT AT ''HELL'S GATES." 139 own position had vanished, and, strange to say, the prevaiHng feeling was that of anxiety for the ultimate fate of the mutineers But as the boat grew smaller and smaller in the distance, so did their consciousness of their own situation grow more and more distinct ; and when at last the boat had disappeared in the shadow of the brig, all started, as if from a dream, to the wake- ful contemplation of their own case. A council of war was held, with Mr. Frere at the head of it, and the possessions of the little party were thrown into common stock. The salt meat, flour, and tea were placed in a hollow rock at some distance from the beach, and Mr. Bates was appointed purser, to apportion to each, without fear or favour, his stated allowance. The goat was tethered with a piece of fishing line sufficiently long to allow her to browse. The cask of rum, by special agreement, was placed in the innermost recess of the rock, and it was resolved that its contents should not be touched except in case of sickness, or in last extremity. There was no lack of water, for a spring ran bubbling from the rocks within a hundred yards of the spot where the party had landed. They calculated that, with prudence, their provision would last them for nearly four weeks. It was found, upon a review of their possessions, that they had among them three pocket knives, a ball of string, two pipes and a fig of tobacco, a portion of fishing line, with hooks, and a big jack-knife which Frcre 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 Frcre 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 cat. 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 I40 HIS NATURAL LIFE. was most oppressive. Moreover, it was absolutely necessary that Mrs. Vickers and the child should have some place to themselves. At a little distance from the beach was a sandy rise, that led up to the face of the cliff, and on the eastern side of this rise grew a forest of young trees. Frere proposed to cut down these trees, and make a sort of hut with them. It was soon discovgred, however, that the pocket knives were insuffi- cient for this purpose, but by dint of notching the young saplings and then breaking them down, they succeeded, in a couple 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 sleep- ing place, and Frere and Bates, lying at the mouth of the larder, would at once act as a guard to it and them. Grimes was to make for himself another hut where the fire had been lighted on the previous night. " When they got back to dinner, inspirited by this resolution, they found poor Mrs. Vickers in great alarm. Grimes, who, by reason of the dint in his skull, had been left behind, was walk- ing about the sea-beach, talking mysteriously, and shaking his fist at an imaginary foe. On going up to him, they discovered that the blow had affected his brain, for he was delirious. Frere endeavoured to soothe him, without effect ; and at last, by Bates's advice, the poor fellow was rolled in the sea. The cold bath quelled his violence, and, being laid beneath the shade of a rock hard by, he fell into a condition of great muscular exhaustion, and slept. The damper was then portioned out by Bates, and, together with a small piece of meat, it formed the dinner of the party. Mrs. Vickers reported that she had observed a great commo- tion on board the brig, and thought that the prisoners were throwing overboard such portions of the cargo as were not absolutely necessary to them, in order to lighten her. This notion Bates declared to be correct, and further pointed out that 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, disap- peared round the western horn of the harbour. LEFT AT ''HELL'S GATES." 141 Mrs. Vickers, taking Sylvia with her, went away a few paces, and leaning against the rngged wall of her future home, wept bitterly. Bates and Frere affected cheerfulness, but each felt that he had hitherto regarded the presence of the brig as a sort of safeguard, and had never fully realized his own loneliness until now. The necessity for work, however, admitted of no indulgence of vain sorrow, and Bates setting the example, the pair worked so hard that by nightfall they had torn down and dragged to- gether sufficient brushwood to complete Mrs. Vickers's hut. During the progress of this work they were often interrupted by Grimes, who persisted in vague rushes at them, exclaiming loudly against their supposed treachery in leaving him at the mercy of the mutineers. Bates also complained of the pain caused by the wound in his forehead, and that he was afflicted with a giddiness which he knew not how to avert. By dint of frequently bathing his head at the spring, however, he succeeded in keeping on his legs, imtil the work of dragging together the boughs was completed, when he threw himself on the ground, and declared that he could rise no more. Frere applied to him the remedy that had been so success- fully tried upon Grimes, but the salt water inflamed his wound and rendered his condition worse. Mrs. Vickers recommended that a little spirit and water should be used to wash the cut, and the cask was got out and broached for that purpose. Tea and damper formed their evening meal ; and by the light of a blazing fire, their condition looked less desperate. Mrs. Vickers had set the pannikin on a flat stone, and dispensed the tea with an affectation of dignity which would have been absurd, had it not been heart-rending. She had smoothed her hair and pinned the white shawl about her coqucttishly ; 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. \Vhen tlie tea had been drunk, she fetched water from the spring in tlic kettle, and bathed Bates's head with it. It was rdsolved that, on the morrow, a search should be made for some place from which to cast the fishing-line, and that one of the number should fish daily. The condition of the unfortunate Grimes now gave cause for the greatest uneasiness. From maundering foolishly, he had taken to absolute violence, and had to be watched by Frere. 142 HIS NATURAL LIFE. After much muttering and groaning, the poor fellow at last dropped off to sleep, and Frerc, having assisted Bates to his sleeping place in front of the rock, and laid him down on a heap of green brushwood, prepared to snatch a few hours' slumber. Wearied by excitement and the labours of the day, he slept heavily, but, towards morning, was awakened by a strange noise. Grimes, whose delirium had apparently increased, had suc- ceeded in forcing his way through the rude fence of brushwood, and had thrown himself upon Bates with the ferocity of insanity. Growling to himself, he had seized the unfortunate pilot by the throat, and the pair were struggling together. Bates, weakened by the sickness that had followed upon his wound in the head, was quite unable to cope with his desperate assailant, but call- ing feebly upon Frere for help, had made shift to lay hold upon the jack-knife of which we have before spoken. Frere, starting to his feet, I'ushed to the assistance of the pilot, but was too late. Grimes, enraged by the sight of the knife, tore it from Bates's grasp, and before Frere could catch his arm, plunged it twice into the unfortunate man's breast. " I'm a dead man ! " cried Bates faintly. The sight of the blood, together with the exclamation of his victim, recalled Grimes to consciousness. He looked in bewil- derment at the bloody weapon, and then flinging it from him, rushed away towards the sea, into which he plunged headlong. Frere, aghast at this sudden and terrible tragedy, gazed after him, and saw from out the placid water, sparkling in the bright beams of morning, a pair of arms, with outstretched hands, emerge ; a black spot, that was a head, uprose between these stiffening arms, and then, with a horrible ciy, the whole disap- peared, and the bright water sparkled as placidly as before. The eyes of the terrified Frere travelling back to the wounded man, saw, midway between this sparkling water and the knife that lay on the sand, an object that went far to explain the maniac's sudden 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, drank a quantity of its contents, and been maddened by the fiery spirit. Frere hurried to the side of Bates, and lifting him up, strove LEFT AT " HELLS GA TES." 143 to staunch the blood that flowed from his chest. It would seem that he had been resting himself on his left elbow, and that Grimes, snatching the knife from his right hand, had stabbed him twice in the right breast. He was pale and senseless, and Frere feared that the wound was mortal. Tearing off his neck- handkerchief, he endeavoured to bandage the wound, but found that the strip of silk was insufficient for the purpose. The noise had roused Mrs. Vickers, who, stifling her terror, made haste to tear 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 unheadcd 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 v.'as 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 tlic pilot would not die, for he should then be left alone to look after the women. Perhaps some such thought was agitating Mrs. Vickers also. As for Sylvia, she made no secret of her anxiety. "Don't die, Mr. Bates — oh, don't die!" she said, standing piteously near, but afraid to touch him. " Don't leave mamma and me alone in this dreadful place ! " Poor Bates of course said nothing, but Frere frowned heavily, and Mrs. Vickers said, reprovingly, "Sylvia !" just as if they had been in the old house on distant Sarah Island. In the afternoon Frere went away to drag together some wood for the fire, and when he returned, he found the pilot near his end. Mrs. Vickers said that for an hour he had lain without 144 HIS NATURAL LIFE. motion, and almost without breath. The major's wife had seen more than one death-bed, and was cahn enough ; but poor Httle Sylvia, sitting on a stone hard by, shook with terror. She had a dim notion that death must be accompanied by violence. As the sun sank. Bates rallied ; but the two watchers knew that it was but the final flicker of the expiring candle. " He's going ! " said Frere at length, under his breath, as though fearful of awaking his half-slumbering soul. Mrs. Vickers, her eyes streaming with silent tears, lifted the honest head, and moistened the parched lips with her soaked handkerchief. A tremor shook the once stalwart limbs, and the dying man opened his eyes. For an instant he seemed bewildered, and then, looking from one to the other, intelligence returned to his glance, and it was evident that he remembered all. His gaze rested upon the pale face of the affrighted Sylvia, and then turned to Frere. There- could be no mistaking the mute appeal of those eloquent eyes. " Yes, I'll take care of her," said Frere. Bates smiled, and then observing that the blood from his wound had stained the white shawl of Mrs. Vickers, he made an effort to move his head. It was not fitting that a lady's shawl should be stained with the blood of a poor fellow like himself. The fashionable fribble, with quick instinct, understood the gesture, and gently drew the head back upon her bosom. In the presence of death the woman was womanly. For a moment all was silent, and they thought he had gone ; but all at once he opened his eyes, and looked round for the sea. " Turn my face to it once more," he whispered : and as they raised him, he inclined his ear to listen. " It's calm enough here, God bless it," he said ; " but I can hear the waves a-breaking hard upon the Bar!" And so his head drooped, and he died. As Frere relieved Mrs. Vickers from the weight of the corps^fe, Sylvia ran to her mother. " Oh, mamma, mamma," she criea, "why did God let him die when we wanted him so much ?" Before it grew dark, Frere made shift to carry the body to the shelter of some rocks at a little distance, and spreading the jacket over the face, he piled stones upon it to keep it steady. The march of events had been so rapid, that he scarcely realized that since the previous evening two of the five human creatures left in this wilderness had escaped from it. As he did realize it, he began to wonder whose turn it would be next. LEFT AT "HELL'S GATES:' 145 Mrs. Vickers, worn out by the fatigue and excitement of the day, retired to rest early ; and Sylvia, refusing to speak to Frere, followed her mother. This manifestation of unaccountable dislike on the part of the child hurt Maurice more than he cared to own. He feltangry with her for not loving him, and yet he took no pains to conciliate her. It was with a curious pleasure that he remembered how she must soon look up to him as her chief protector. Had Sylvia been a few years older, the young man would have thought himself in love with her. The following day passed gloomily. It was hot and sultry, and a dull haze hung over the mountains. Frere spent the morning in scooping a grave in the sand, in which to inter poor Bates. Practically awake to his own necessities, he removed such portions of clothing from the body as would be useful to him, but hid them under a stone, not liking to let Mrs. Vickers see what he had done. Having completed the grave by mid- day, he placed the corpse therein, and rolled as many stones as possible to the sides of the mound. In the afternoon he cast the fishing-line from the point of a rock he had marked the day before, but caught nothing. Passing by the grave, on his return, he noticed that Mrs. Vickers had placed at the head of it a rude cross, formed by tying two pieces of stick together. After supper — the usual salt meat and damper — he lit an economical pipe, and tried to talk to Sylvia. " Why won't you be friends with me. Missy .-' " he asked. " I don't like you," said Sylvia. "You frighten me." "Why.?" " You are not kind. I don't mean that you do cruel things but you are — oh, I wish Papa was here ! " " 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. l" can't help it, can I .? " " Rubbish ! " Frere returned. " Come here, and I'll tell you a story." 10 146 niS NATURAL LIFE. Mrs. Vickers had gone back to her cave, and the two were alone by the fire, near which stood the kettle and the newly- made damper. The child, with some show of hesitation, came to him, and he caught and placed her on his knee. The moon had not yet risen, and the shadows cast by the flickering fire seemed weird and monstrous. The wicked wish to frighten this helpless creature came to Maurice Frere. " There was once," said he, " a Castle in an old wood, and in this Castle there lived an Ogre, with great goggle eyes." "You silly man !" said Sylvia, struggling to be free. "You are trying to frighten me ! " " And this Ogre lived on the bones of little girls. One day a little girl was travelling the wood, and she heard the Ogre coming. ' Haw ! haw ! Haw ! haw ! '" " Mr. Frere, let me down ! " " She was terribly frightened, and she ran, and ran, and 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. On the other side of the fire stood the figure of a man. He staggered forward, and then, falling on his knees, stretched out his hands, and hoarsely articulated one word — " Food." It was Rufus Dawes. The sound of a human voice broke the spell of terror that was on the child, and as the glow from the fire fell upon the tattered yellow garments, she guessed at once the whole story. Not so Maurice Frere. He saw before him a new danger, a new mouth to share the scanty provision, and snatching a brand from the fire he kept the convict at bay. But Rufus Dawes, glaring round with wolfish eyes, caught sight of the damper resting against the iron kettle, and made a clutch at it. Frere dashed the brand in his face. " Stand back ! " he cried. "We have no food to spare ! " The convict uttered a savage cry, and raising the iron gad, plunged forward desperately to attack this new enemy : but, quick, as thought, the child glided past Frere, and snatching the loaf, placed it in the hands of the stai-ving 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- "MR." DAWES. 147 haired girl seemed to have transformed him. Allowing the loaf to slip through his fingers, he gazed with haggard eyes at the retreating figure of the child, and as it vanished into the dark- ness outside the circle of firelight, the unhappy man sank his face upon his blackened, horny hands, and burst int^o tears. CHAPTER XII. "MR." DAWES. THE coarse tones of Maurice Frcre 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 momen- tary emotion passed away, the pangs of hunger returned, and greedily seizing upon the piece of damper, he began to eat in silence. "Do you hear, man?" repeated Frere, at length. "What are you ? " " An escaped prisoner. You can give me up in the morning. I've done my best, and I'm beat." This sentence struck Frere with dismay. The man did not know that the settlement had been abandoned ! " I cannot give you up. There is no one but myself and a woman and child on the settlement." Rufus Dawes, pausing in his eating, stared at him in amazement. " The prisoners have gone away in the schooner. If you choose to remain free, you can do so as far as I am concerned. I am as helpless as you are." " But how do_y^7^ come here ?" Frcre laughed bitterly. To give explanations to convicts was forei"-n 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 Ospny." A terrible light broke upon Rufus Dawes, and he began to 148 HrS NATURAL LIFE. understand how he had again missed his chance. " Who took her ? " "That double-dyed villain, John Rex," says Frere, giving vent to his passion. " May she sink, and burn, and " " Have they g07ie, 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 mad- man. " 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 ihefrce 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!" *'MRr DAWES. 149 There was such a depth of agony in this terrible utterance that Maurice Frere was appalled at it. "There, go and sleep, my man," he said. "You are knocked up. We'll talk in the morning." " Hold on a bit ! " cried Rufus Dawes, with a coarseness of manner altogether foreign to that he had just assumed. " Who's with ye ? " " The wife and daughter of the Commandant," replied Frere, half afraid to refuse an answer to a question so fiercely put. " No one else?" "No." " Poor souls ! " said the convict, " I pity them." And then he stretched himself, like a dog, before the blaze, and went to sleep instantly. Maurice Frere, looking at the gaunt figure of this addition to the party, was completely puzzled how to act. Such a character had never before come within the range of his experience. He knew not what to make of the fierce, ragged, desperate man, who wept and threatened by turns — who was now snarling in the most repulsive bass of the convict gamut, and now calling upon heaven in tones which were little less than eloquent. At first he thought of precipitating himself upon the sleeping wretch and pinioning him, but a second glance at the sinewy, though wasted, limbs forbade him to follow out the rash suggestion of his own fears. Then a horrible prompting — arising out of this former cowardice — made him feci for tlie jack-knife with which one murder had already been committed. The stock of pro- visions was so scanty, and, after all, the lives of the woman and child were worth more than that of this unknown desperado 1 But, to do him justice, the thouglit 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. ISO HIS NATURAL LIFE. " 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 remem- bering what had happened, with a great effort, he staggered to his feet. " I thought they'd got me ! " he said ; " but it's the other way, I see. Come, let's have breakfast, Mr. Frere. I'm hungry." " You must wait," said Frere. " Do you think there is no one here but yourself. !"' Rufus Dawes, swaying to and fro from weakness, passed his shred of a cuff over his eyes. " I don't know anything about it. I only know I'm hungry." Frere stopped short. Now or never 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 sakcs. You shall share with us to our last bit and drop ; but, by Heaven, you shall get no more." The convict, stretching out his v.'asted arms, looked down upon them with the uncertain gaze of a drunken man. " I am weak now," he said. " You have the best of me ; '' and then he sank suddenly down upon the ground, exhausted. " Give me drink," he moaned, feebly motioning with his hand. Frere got him water in the pannikin, and having drunk it, he smiled, and lay down to sleep again. Mrs. Vickcrs 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." "MR." DAWES. 151 " No, no," returned Frere, hastily ; " no one wants him to die. But what can we do ? " "I'll nurse him !" cried Sylvia. Frere broke into one of his coarse laughs, the first one that he had indulged in since the mutiny. " Yoit- 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.'' P^-ere swore a great oath, and walked away. He went into the little wood under the cliff, and sat down. He was full of strange thoughts, which he could not express, and which he had never owned before. The dislike the child bore to him made him miserable, and yet he took delight in torment- ing her. He was conscious that he had acted the part of a coward the night before in endeavouring to frighten her, and that the detestation she bore him was well earned ; but he had fully determined to stake his life in her defence, should the savage who had thus come upon them out of the desert attempt violence, and he was unreasonably angry at the pity she had shown. It was not fair to be thus misinterpreted. But he had done wrong to swear, and more so in quitting them so abruptly. The consciousness of his wrong-doing, however, only made him more confirmed in it. His native obstinacy would not allow him to retract what he had said— even to himself. Walking along, he came to Bates's grave, and the cross upon it. Here was another evidence of ill-treatment. She had always preferred Bates. Now that Bates was gone, she must needs transfer her childish affections to a convict. " Oh," said Frere to liimself, with pleasant recollections of many coarse triumphs in love- making, " if you were a woman, you little vixen, I'd nia/cc you love me !" When he had said this, he laughed at himself for his folly — "He was turning romantic!" When he got back, he found Dawes stretched upon the brush- wood, with Sylvia sitting near him. " He is better," said Mrs. Vickers, disdaining to refer to the scene of the morning. "Sit down and have something to eat, Mr. Frere." "Are you better?" asked Frere, abruptly. To his surprise, the convict answered quite civilly, " I shall 152 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 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 v/as 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 ''MR.'' DAWES. 153 little, to this unhappy man it meant everything. He found, to his astonishment, that he was not despised, and that, by the strange concurrence of circumstances, he had been brought into a position in which his convict experiences gave him authority. He was skilled in all the mysteries of the prison sheds. He knew how to sustain life on as little food as possible. He could fell trees without an axe, bake bread without an oven, build a weather-proof hut without bricks or mortar. From the patient he became the adviser ; and from the adviser, the com- mander. In the semi-savage state to which these four human beings had been brought, he found that savage accomplishments were of most value. Might was Right, and Maurice Frere's authority of gentility soon succumbed to Rufus Dawes's autho- rity of knowledge. As the time wore on, and the scanty stock of provisions de- creased, he found that his authority grew more and more power- ful. 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 insulTicient food, it was Rufus Dawes who gathered fresh leaves for her couch, who cheered her by hopeful words, who voluntarily gave up half his own allowance of meat that she might grow the stronger on it. The poor woman and her child called him " Mr." Dawes. Frere watched all this with dissatisfaction that amounted at times to positive hatred. Yet he could say nothing, for he could not but acknowledge that, beside Dawes, he was incap- able. He even submitted to take orders from this escaped convict — it was so evident that the escaped convict knew better than he. Sylvia began to look upon Dawes as a second Bales. 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 154 ^^^^ NATURAL LIFE. when he was starving, and had beUeved in him when the world — the world of four— had looked coldly on him. He would have died for her, and, for love of her, hoped for the vessel which should take her back to freedom and give him again to bondage. But the days stole on, and no vessel appeared. Each day they eagerly scanned the watery horizon ; each day they longed to behold the bowsprit of the returning Ladybu'd glide past the jutting rock that shut out the view of the harbour — but in vain. Mrs. Vickcrs'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, lie would make a journey to the settlement, and, swimming the estuary, search if haply any casks of biscuit had been left \>z- hind in the hurry of departure. He would set springes for the seagulls, and snare the pigeons at Liberty Point. But al these proved impracticable, and with blank faces they watched their bag of flour grow smaller and smaller daily. Then the notion of escape was broached. Could they construct a raft ? Im- possible without nails or ropes. Could they build a boat ? Equally impossible for the same reason. Could they raise a fire sufficient to signal a ship ? Easily ; but what ship would come within reach of that doubly-desolate spot? Nothing could be done but wait for a vessel, which was sure to come for them sooner or later ; and, growing weaker day by day they waited. One day Sylvia was sitting in the sun reading the " English History," which, by the accident of fright, she had brought with her on the night of the mutiny. " Mr. Frere," said she, suddenly, "what is an alchemist?" "A man who makes gold/' was Frerc'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. IV//AT THE SEAWEED SUGGESTED. 155 "No, not absolutely make it. But he was, in his worship of money, an alchemist for all that." "What became of him ?" "I don't know," said Dawes, with so much constraint in his tone that the child instinctively turned the subject. "Then, alchemy is a very old art?" " Oh, yes." "Did the Ancient Britons know it ?" " No, not so old as that." Sylvia suddenly gave a little scream. The remembrance of the evening when she read about the Ancient Britons to poor Bates came vividly into her mind, and though she liad since re- read the passage that had then attracted her attention a hundred times, it had never before presented itself to her in its full signi- ficance. Hurriedly turning the well-thumbed leaves, she read aloud the passage which had provoked remark : — - "The Ancient Britons were little better than Barbarians. "They painted their bodies with Woad, and, seated in their "light coracles of skin stretched upon slender wooden frames, "must have presented a wild and savage appearance." "A ccracle ! Tluit's a boat ! Can't we make a coracle, Mr. Dawes ?" CHAPTER XIII. ^V1IA^ THE SEAWEED SUGGESTED. THE question gave the marooned party new hopes. Maurice Frerc, 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 hope of escape, a/id with delight at having been the means of suggesting it — watched narrowly the countenance 156 HIS NA TURAL LIFE. of Rufus Dawes, but she marked no answering gleam of joy in those downcast eyes. " Can't it be done, Mr. Dawes ? " she asked, trembling for the reply. The convict knitted his brows gloomily. " Come, Dawes !" cried Frere, forgetting his enmity for an instant, in the flash of new hope, " can't you suggest some- thing?" Rufus Dawes, thus appealed to as the acknowledged Head of the little society, felt a pleasant thrill of self-satisfaction. " I don't know," he said, " I must think of it. It looks easy, and yet ' ' He paused as something in the water caught his eye It was a mass of bladdery seaweed that the returning tide was wafting slowly to the shore. This object, which would have passed unnoticed at any other time, suggested to Rufus Dawes a new idea. "Yes," he added slowly, with a change of tone, " it may be done. I think I see my way." The others preserved a respectful silence until he should speak again. " How far do you think it is across the bay ? " he asked of Frere. "What, to Sarah Island?" " No, to the Pilot Station." " About four miles." The convict sighed. " Too far to swim now, though I might have done it once. But this sort of life weakens a man. It must be done after all." " What are you going to do ? " asked Frere. "To kill the goat." Sylvia uttered a little cry ; she had become fond of her dumb companion. " Kill Nanny ! Oh, Mr. Dawes ! What for ? " " I am going to make a boat for you," he said ; " and I want hides, and thread, and tallow." A few weeks back Maurice Frere would have laughed at such a sentence, but he had begun now to comprehend that this escaped convict was not a man to be laughed at, and though he detested him for his superiority, he could not but admit that he was superior. "You can't get more than one hide off a goat, man? "he 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. WHAT THE SEAWEED SUGGESTED. 157 " I am going to catch other goats." "Where?" "At the Pilot Station." " But how are you going to get there ? " " Float across. Come, there is no time for questioning I Go and cut down some sapHngs, 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. Beforeisundown that evening, the carcase of poor Nanny, broken into various most unbutcherly fragments, was hanging on the nearest tree ; and Frere, return- ing with as many young saplings as he could drag together, found Rufus Dawes engaged in a curious occupation. He had killed the goat, and having cut 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 in- testines had been placed in a pool of water to soak. The convict, however, declined to give information as to what he intended to do. " It's my own notion," he said. "Let me alone. I may make a failure of it." Frere, on being pressed by Sylvia, affected to know all about the scheme, but to impose silence on himself. He was galled to think that a convict brain should cgntain a mystery. which he might not share. On the next day, by Rufus Dawes's directions, Frere cut down some rushes that grew about a mile from the campina;- ground, and brought them in on his back. This took him nearly half a day to accomplish. Short rations were beginning to tell upon his physical powers. The convict, on the other hand, trained by a woeful experience in the Boats, to endurance of hardship, was slowly recovering his original strength. " What are they for ? " asked Frere, as he flung the bundles down. His master condescended to reply. " To make a float." "Well?" The other shrugged his broad shoulders. "You are very dull, Mr. Frere. I am going to swim over to the Pilot Station, IS8 HIS NATURAL LIFE. and catch some of those goats. / can get across on the stuffed skin, but I must float them back on the reeds." " How the doose do you mean to catch 'em?" asked Frere, wiping the sweat from his brow. The convict motioned to him to 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. Nov/ 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 seawater, and then heating those pebbles red-hot in the fire, dropped them into it. We could have caught the steam in a cloth and wrung out fresh water had we wished to do so. But, thank God, we have plenty." Frere started. " Did you learn that at the settlement, too ? " he asked. Rufus Dawes laughed, with a sort of bitterness in his tones. " Do you think I have been at the 'settlement' all my life ? The thing is very simple ; it is merely evaporation." Frere burst out in sudden, fretful admiration : " What a fellow you are, Dawes ! What are you — I mean, what have you been ? " A triumphant light came into the other's face, and for the A WONDERFUL DAY'S WORK. 159 instant he seemed about to make some startling revelation. But the light faded, and he checked himself with a gesture of pain. " I am a convict. Never mind what I have been. A sailor, shipbuilder, prodigal, vagabond — what does it matter? It won't alter my fate, will it?" " If we get safely back," says Frere, " I'll ask for a free pardon for you. You deserve it." " Come," returned Dawes, with a discordant laugh. " Let us wait until we do get back." " You don't believe me ? " " I don't want favour at _y the light of a happy home circle. He saw himself — received with tears of joy and marvelling affection — entering into this home circle as one risen from the dead. A new life opened radiant before him, and he was lost in the con- templation of his own happiness. So absorbed was he, that he did not hear the light footstep of the child across the sand. Mrs. Vickers, having been told of the success which had crowned the convict's efforts, had over- come her weakness so far as to hobble down the beach to the boat, and now, heralded by Sylvia, approached, leaning on the arm of Maurice Frere. " Mamma has come to see the boat, Mr. Dawes ! " cries Sylvia, but Dawes did not hear. The child reiterated her words, but still the silent figure did not reply. " Mr. Dawes !" 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 Jiis chain of reasoning, at quite another conclusion as to the state of affairs — was astonished at the presumption of the man. The lieu- tenant regarded himself as already reinstated in his old position, and with Mrs. Vickers on his arm, reproved the apparent in- solence of the convict as freely as he would have done had they both been at his own little kingdom of Maria Island. " You insolent beggar ! " he cried. " Do you dare ! Keep your place, sir ! " The sentence recalled Rufus Dawes to reality. His place was that of a convict. What business had he with tenderness for the daughter of his master .? Yet, after all he had done, and proposed to do, this harsh judgment upon him seemed cruel. THE CORACLE. 173 He saw the two looking at the boat he had built. He marked the flush of hope on the cheek of the poor lady, and the full- blown authority that already hardened the eye of Maurice Frere, and all at once he understood the result of what he had done. He had, by his own act, given himself again to bondage. As long as escape was impracticable, he had been useful, and even powerful. Now he had pointed out the way of escape, he had sunk into the beast of burden once again. In the desert he was "Mr." Dawes, the saviour; in civilized life he would Ijccome once more Rufus Dawes, the ruffian, the prisoner, the absconder. He stood mute, and let Frere point out the excel- lences of the craft in silence ; and then, feeling that the few words of thanks uttered by the lady were chilled by her con- sciousness of the ill-advised freedom he had taken with the child, he turned on his heel, and strode up into the bush. "A queer fellow," said Frere, as Mrs. Vickers followed the retreating figure with her eyes. " Always in an ill temper." " Poor man ! he has behaved very kindly to us," said Mrs. Vickers. Yet even she felt the change of circumstance, and knew that, without any reason she could name, her blind trust and hope in the convict who had saved their lives had been transformed into a patronizing kindliness which was quite foreign to esteem or affection. " Come, let us have some supper," says Frere. " The last we shall eat here, I hope. He will come back when his fit of sulks is over." But he did not come back, and, after a few expressions of wonder at his absence, Mrs. Vickers and her daughter, rapt in the hopes and fears of the morrow, almost forgot that he had left them. With marvellous credulity they looked upon the terrible stake they were about to play for as already won. The possession of the boat seemed to them so wonderful, that the perils of the voyage they were to make in it were altogether lost sight of As for Maurice Frere, he was rejoiced that the con- vict was out of the way. He wished that he was out of the way altogether. 174 HIS NATURAL LIFE. CHAPTER XVI. THE WRITING ON THE SAND. HAVING got out of eye-shot of the ungrateful creatures he had befriended, Rufus Dawes threw himself upon the ground in an agony of mingled rage and regret. For the first time for six years he had tasted the happiness of doing good, the delight of self-abnegation. For the first time for six years he had broken through the selfish misanthropy he had taught him- self. And this was his reward ! He had held his temper in check, in order that it might not offend others. He had banished the galling memory of his degradation, lest haply some shadow of it might seem to fall upon the fair child whose lot had been so strangely cast with his. He had stifled the agony he suffered, lest its expression should give pain to those who seemed to feel for him. He had forborne retaliation, when retaliation would have been most sweet. Having all these years waited and watched for a chance to strike his persecutors, he had held his hand now that an unlooked-for accident had placed the weapon of destruction in his grasp. He had risked his life, foregone his enmities, almost changed his nature,— and his reward was cold looks and harsh words, so soon as his skill had paved the way to freedom. This knowledge coming upon him while the thrill of exultation at the astounding news of his riches yet vibrated in his brain, made him grind his teeth with rage at his own hard fate. Bound by the purest and holiest of ties, — the affection of a son to his mother — he had condemned himself to social death, 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 shipbuilder. Oh, if he had only known ! If, while in the gloomy prison, distracted by a thousand fears, and weighed down by crushing evidence of circumstance, he had but guessed that death had THE WRITING ON THE SAND. 175 stepped between Sir Richard and his vengeanee, he might have spared himself the sacrifice he had made. He had been tried and condemned as a nameless sailor, who could call no wit- nesses in his defence, and give no particulars as to his previous history. It was clear to him now that he might have adhered to his statement of ignorance concerning the murder, locked in his breast the name of the murderer, and have yet been free. Judges are just, but popular opinion is powerful, and it was not impossible that Richard Devine, the millionaire, would have escaped the fate which had overtaken Rufus Dawes, the sailor. Into his calculations in the prison — when, half-crazed with love, with terror, and despair, he had counted up his chances of life— the wild supposition that he had even then inherited the wealth of the father who had disowned him, had never entered. The knowledge of that fact would have altered the whole current of his life, and he learnt it for the first time now — too late. Now, lying prone upon the sand ; now, wandering aimlessly up and down among the stunted trees that bristled white be- neath the mist-barred moon ; now, sitting — as he had sat in the prison long ago — with his head gripped hard between his hands, swaying his body to and fro, he thought out the frightful problem of his bitter life. Of little use was the heritage that he had gained. A convict-absconder, whose hands were hard with menial service, and whose back was scarred with the lash, could never be received among the gently nurtured. Let him lay claim to his name and rights, what then ? He was a convicted felon, and his name and rights had been taken from him by the law. Let him go and tell Maurice Frere that he was his lost cousin. He would be laughed at. Let him proclaim aloud his birth and innocence, and the convict-sheds would grin, and the convict overseer set him to harder labour. Let him even, by dint of reiteration, get his wild story believed, what would happen ? If it was heard in England — after the lapse of years, perhaps— that a convict in the chain-gang in Macquarie Har- Ijour — 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 flither. Such in- 176 HIS NATURAL LIFE. telligence would be regarded as a calamity, an unhappy blot upon a fair reputation, a disgrace to an honoured and unsullied name. Let him succeed, let him return again to the mother who had by this time become reconciled, in a measure, to his loss ; he would, at the best, be to her a living shame, scarcely less degrading than that which she had dreaded. But success was almost impossible. He did not dare to retrace his steps through the hideous labyrinth into which he had plunged. Was he to show his scarred shoulders as a proof that he was a gentleman and an innocent man .-' Was he to relate the nameless infamies of Macquarie Harbour as a proof that he was entitled to receive the hospitalities of the generous, and to sit, a respected guest, at the tables of men of refinement ? Was he to quote the horrible slang of the prison-ship, and retail the filthy jests of the chain-gang and the hulks, as a proof that he was a fit companion for pure-minded women and innocent children ? Suppose even that he could conceal the name of the real criminal, and show himself guiltless of the crime for which he had been condemned, all the wealth in the world could not buy back that blissful ignorance of evil which had once been his. All the wealth in the world could not purchase the self-respect which had been cut out of him by the lash, or banish from his brain the memory of his degra- dation. For hours this agony of thought racked him. He cried out as though with physical pain, and then lay in a stupor, exhausted with actual physical suffering. It was hopeless to think of freedom and of honour. Let him keep silence, and pursue the life fate had marked out for him. He would return to bondage. The law would claim him as an absconder, and would mete out to him such punishment as was fitting. Per- haps he might escape severest punishment, as a reward for his exertions in saving the child. He might consider himself fortunate if such was permitted to him. Fortunate ! Suppose he did not go back at all, but wandered away into the wilderness and died ? Better death than such a doom as his. Yet need he die .'' He had caught goats, he could catch fish. He could build a hut. There was, perchance, at the deserted settlement some remnant of seed corn that, planted, would give him bread. He had built a boat, he liad made an oven, he had fenced in a hut. Surelv he could contrive to live alone. THE WRITING ON THE WALL. 177 savage and free. Alone ! He had contrived all these marvels alone ! Was not the boat he himself had built below upon the shore ? Why not escape in her, and leave to their fate the miserable creatures who had treated him with such ingrati- tude ? The idea flashed into his brain, as though some one had spoken the words into his ear. Twenty strides would place him in possession of the boat, and half an hour's drifting with the current would take him beyond pursuit. Once outside the Bar, he would make for the westward, in the hopes of falling in with some whaler. He would doubtless meet with one before many days, and he was well supplied with provision and water in the mean time. A tale of shipwreck would satisfy the sailors, and — he paused— he had forgotten that the rags which he wore would betray him. With an ex- clamation of despair, he started from the posture in which he was lying. He thrust out his hands to raise himself, and his fingers came in contact with something soft. He had been lying at the foot of some loose stones that were piled cairn- wise beside a low-growing bush ; and the object that he had touched was protruding from beneath these stones. He caught it and dragged it forth. It was the shirt of poor Bates. With trembling hands he tore away the stones, and pulled forth the rest of the garments. They seemed as though they had been left purposely for him. Heaven had sent him the very disguise he needed. The night had passed during his reverie, and the first faint streaks of dawn began to lighten in the sky. Haggard and pale, he rose to his feet, and scarcely daring to 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 a^i much horror as though he saw there the Writing which 12 178 HIS NATURAL LIFE. foretold the doom of Belshazzar. He had come upon the sentence traced by Sylvia the evening before, and glittering in the low light of the red sun suddenly risen from out the sea, it seemed to him that the letters had shaped themselves at his very feet. GOOD MR. DAWES. " Good Mr. Dawes ! " What a frightful reproach there was to him in that simple sentence ! What a world of cowardice, baseness, and cruelty, had not those eleven letters opened to him ! He heard the voice of the child who had nursed him, calling on him to save her. He saw her at that instant stand- ing between him and the boat, as she had stood when she held out to him the loaf, on the night of his return to the settle- ment. He staggered to the cavern, and seizing the sleeping Frcre by the arm, shook him violently. " Awake ! awake ! " he cried, " and let us leave this place ! " Frere, starting to his feet, looked at the white face and bloodshot eyes of the wretched man before him with blunt astonishment. " What's the matter with you, man ? " he said. " You look as if you'd seen a ghost ! " At the sound of his voice Rufus Dawes gave a long sigh, and drew his hand across his eyes. " Come, Sylvia ! " shouted Frere, " it's time to get up. I am ready to go ! " The sacrifice was complete. The convict turned away, and two great glittering tears rolled down his rugged face, and fell upon the sand. CHAPTER XVII. AT SEA. AN hour after sunrise, the frail boat, which was the last hope of these four human beings, drifted with the out- going current towards the mouth of the Harbour, When first launched she had come nigh swamping, being overloaded, AT SEA. 179 and it was found necessary to leave behind a great portion of the dried meat. With what pangs this was done can be easily imagined, for each atom of food seemed to represent an hour of 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 suc- ceeded in reaching deep water. A great misfortune, however, occurred. Two of the bark buckets, left by some unpardonable oversight uncleated, were washed overboard, and with them nearly a fifth of their scanty store of water. In the face of the greater peril, the accident seemed trifling ; and as, drenched and chilled, they gained the open sea, they could not but admit that fortune had almost miraculously befriended them. They made tedious way with their rude oars ; a light breeze from the north-west sprung up with the dawn, and, hoisting the goatskin sail, they crept along the coast. It was resolved that the two men should keep watcli and watch ; and Frere for the second lime enforced his autliority 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 tliat his senses were becoming 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 sea-sick. This seemed strange to him. Sea-sick- ness appeared to be a malady which belonged exclusively to civilization. Moodily watching the great green waves which curled incessantly between him and the horizon, he marvelled i8o HIS NATURAL LIFE. to think how curiously events had come about. A leaf had, as it were, been torn out of his autobiography. It seemed a hfe- time since he had done anything but moodily scan the sea or shore. Yet, on the morning of leaving the settlement, he had counted the notches on a calendar-stick he carried, and had been astonished to find them but twenty-two in number. Taking out his knife, he cut two nicks in the wicker gunwale of the coracle. That brought him to twenty-four days. The mutiny had taken place on the 13th of January ; it was now the 6th of February. " Surely," thought he, " the Ladybird might have returned by this time." There was no one to tell him that the Ladybird had been driven into Port Davey by stress of weather, and detained there for seventeen days. That night the wind fell, and they had to take to their oars. Rowing all night, they made but little progress, and Rufus Dawes suggested that they should put in to the shore and wait until the breeze sprang up. But, upon getting under the lee of a long line of basaltic rocks which rose abruptly out of the sea, thej- found the waves breaking furiously upon a horse- shoe reef, six or seven miles in length. There was nothing for it but to coast again. They coasted for two days, without a sign of a sail, and on the third day a great wind broke upon them from the south-east, and drove them back thirty miles. The coracle began to leak, and required constant baling. What was almost as bad, the rum-cask, that held the best part of their water, had leaked also, and was now half empty. They caulked it, by cutting out the leak, and plugging the hole with linen. " It's lucky we ain't in the tropics," said Frere. Poor Mrs. Yickcrs, lying at the bottom of the boat, wrapped in her wet shawl, and chilled to the bone with the bitter wind, had not the heart to speak. Surely the stifling calm of the tropics could not be worse than this bleak and barren sea. The position of the four poor creatures was now almost desperate. Mrs. Vickers, indeed, seemed completely pros- trated ; and it was evident that, unless some help came, she could not long survive the continued exposure to the weather. The child was in somewhat better case. Rufus Dawes had wrapped her in his woollen shirt, and, unknown to Frere, had divided with her daily his allowance of meat. She lay in his arms at night, and in the day crept by his side for shelter and AT SEA. iSi protection. As \or\g as she was near him she fdt safe. 'Ihey spoke httle to each other, but when Rufus Dawes felt the pressure of her tiny hand in his, or sustained the weight of her head upon liis 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 tentli 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 tlie 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 1 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 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 tlie other, with a menacing gesture, and staring across the grey water. " I tell you 1 see a sail ! " Frere, overawed by the strange light which gleamed in the eyes of his companion, shifted sulkily back to his place. " Have i82 ins NATURAL LIFE. your own way," he said, "maJman ! 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 Avhich some one called to him. He started up, with shaking knees and bristling hair. The day had broken, and the dawn, in one long pale streak of sickly saffron, lay low on the left hand. Between this streak of saffron-coloured light and the bows of the boat gleamed for an instant a white speck. " A sail ! a sail ! " cried Rufus Dawes, a wild light gleaming in his eyes, and a strange tone vibrating in his voice. " Did I not tell you that I saw a sail ?" Frere, utterly confounded, looked again, with his heart in his mouth, and again did the white speck glimmer. For an instant he felt almost safe, and then a blanker despair than before fell upon him. From the distance at which she was, it was im- possible for the ship to sight the boat. " They will never sec 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 I Tear up that board ! So ! Now, place it thus AT SEA. 183 across the bows. Hack off that sapling end ! Now that dry twist of osier ! Never mind the boat, man ; we can afford to leave her now. Tear off that outer strip of hide ! See the wood beneath is dry ! Quick — you are so slow." " What are you going to do ? " cried Frere, aghast, as the convict tore up all the dry wood he could find, and heaped it on the sheet of bark placed on the bows. " To make a fire ! See ! " Frere began to comprehend. " I have three matches left," he said, fumbling, with trembling fingers, in his pocket. " I wrapped them in one of the leaves of the book to keep them dry." The word "book" was a new inspiration. Rufus Dav.cs 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 liltle heap of touchwood. " Now, steady ! " Tlic 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 liis arms, speechless. Frere, feeding the fire, thought that the chance he had so longed for liad come. With the mother at the point of death, and the child delirious, who could testify to this hated convict's skilful- ness ? No one but Mr. Maurice Frere, and Mr. Maurice Frere, as commandant of convicts, could not but give up an "absconder" to justice. The ship changed her course, and came towards this strange fire in the middle of the ocean. The boat, the fore part of her blazing like a pine torch, could not float above an hour. The little group of the convict and the child remained motionless. Mrs. Vickcrs was lying senseless, ignorant even of the approach- ing succour. t84 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 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, un- conscious, with the child in his arms, and stirred him roughly with his foot. " Go forward," he said, in tones of command, " and give the child to me." Rufus Dawes raised his head, and seeing the approaching vessel, awoke to the consciousness of his duty. With a low laugh, full of unutterable bitterness, he placed the burden he had borne so tenderly in the arms of the lieutenant, and moved to the blazing bows. ***** The brig was close upon them. Her canvas loomed large and dusky, shadowing the sea. Her wet decks shone in the morning sunlight. From her bulwarks peered bearded and eager faces, looking with astonishment at this burning boat and its haggard company, alone on that barren and stormy ocean. Frere, with Sylvia in his arms, waited for her. END OF BOOK ir. BOOK III. CHAPTER I. A LABOURER IN THE VINEYARD. " ^ OCIETY in Hobart Town, in this year of grace 1S3S, is, y^ my dear lord, composed of very curious elements." So ran a passage in tlie sparkling letter which the Rev. Mr. Meekin, newly-appointed chaplain, and seven-days' resident in Van Diemen's Land, was carrying to the post-office, for the delectation of his patron in England. As the reverend gentle- man tripped daintily down the summer street that lay between the blue river and the purple mountain, he cast his mild eyes hither and thither upon human nature, and the sentence he had just penned recurred to him with pleasurable appositencss. 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 1 86 HIS NATURAL LIFE. abroad on that sunny December afternoon had certainly an incongruous appearance to a dapper clergyman lately arrived from London, and missing, for the first time in his sleek, easy- going life, those social screens which in London civilization decorously conceal the frailties and vices of human nature. Clad in glossy black, of the most fashionable clerical cut, with dandy boots, and gloves of lightest lavender, — a white silk overcoat hinting that its wearer was not wholly free from sensitiveness to sun and heat, — the Reverend Meekin tripped daintily to the post-ofiice, 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 tic, his airy coat, his natty boots, and his self-satisfied Christian smile, was so unlike a poor labourer toiling through the heat and burden of the day, that good Mrs. Jellicoe, the wife of an orthodox Comptroller of Convicts' Stores, felt a horrible thrill of momentary heresy. " I would rather have remained in England," continued Mr. Meekin, smoothing one lavender finger with the tip of another, and arching his elegant eyebrows in mild deprecation of any praise of his self-denial, " but I felt it my duty not to refuse the offer made me through the kind- ness of his lordship. Here is a field, leddies — a field for the Christian pastor. They appeal to me, leddies, these lambs of our Church — these lost and outcast lambs of our Church." Mrs. Jellicoe shook her gay bonnet ribbons at Mr. Meekin, with a hearty smile. " You don't know our convicts," she said (from tlie tone of her jolly voice, it might have been " our A LABOURER IN THE VINEYARD. 1S7 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 bi-eathing, but I do confess that the stupid, vicious wretches that one gets are enough to put a saint out of temper." " We have all our crosses, dear leddies — all our crosses," said Mr. Meekin piously. " Heaven send us strength to bear them ! Good-n\oxn'mg.'" "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! W^hat 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 .1 f xt sigh. " You don't mean to say you haven't heard the story, Mr. Meokin ? " " 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 Macquaric 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 — w'as quite light-headed. They thought she wouldn't recover." " How dreadful ! And has she recovered ? " 1 88 HIS NATURAL LIFE. " Oh yes, she's quite strong now, but her memory's gone." "Her memory ?" " Yes," struck in Mrs. Protherick, eager to have a share in the story-telling. " She doesn't remember anything about the three or four weeks they were ashore — at least, not distinctly." " It's a great mercy ! " interrupted Mrs. Jellicoe, determined to keep the post of lionour. " Who wants her to remember these horrors ? From Captain Frere's account, it was posi- tively 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 nm 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 i/u's 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 A LABOURER IN THE VINEYARD. 189 Miss Vickcrs. 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 some one 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' coorse. Now, when I kem back, there's me little place all thrampled by the boys, and she's away wid a ship's captain, saving your presence, miss, dhrinking in the George the Fourth. O my, but it's hard on an ould man ! " and he fell to sobbing again. The girl sighed. " I can do nothing for you, Danny. I dare say you can work about the garden as you did before. I'll speak to the Major when he comes home." I90 HIS NATURAL LIFE. Danny, lifting his bleared eyes to thank her, caught sight of Mr. Meekin^ and sakited 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. INIeekin, and he could only bow and smile at the self-possessed young lady. " Go into the kitchen, Danny, and tell them to give you some tobacco. Say / sent you. I\Ir. Meekin, won't you come in 1 " "A strange old gentleman that, Miss Vickers. A faithful retainer, I presume ? " " An old convict servant of ours," said Sylvia. " He was with papa many years ago. He has got into trouble lately, though, poor old man." "Into trouble.''" asked Mr. Meekin, as Sylvia took off her hat. " On the roads, you know. That's what they call it here. He married a free woman much younger than himself, and she makes him drink, and then gives him in charge for insubordina- tion." " For insubordination ! Pardon me, my dear young lady, did I understand you rightly ? '' " Yes, insubordination. He is her assigned servant, you know," said Sylvia, as if such a condition of things was the most ordinary in the world ; " and if he misbehaves himself, she sends him back to the road-gang." The Reverend Mr. IMeekin opened his mild eyes very wide indeed. " What an extraordinary anomaly ! I am beginning, A LABOURER IN THE VINEYARD. 191 my dear Miss Vickers, to find myself indeed at the anti- podes." " Society here is different from society in England, I believe. Most new arrivals say so," returned Sylvia, quietly. " But for a wife to imprison her husband, my dear young lady ! ". " She can have him flogged if she likes. Danny has been flogged. But then his wife is a bad woman. He was very silly to marry her ; but you can't reason with an old man in love, Mr. Meekin." Mr. Meekin's Christian brow had grown crimson, and his decorous blood tingled to his finger-tips. To hear a young lady talk in such an open way, was terrible. Why, in reading the Decalogue from the altar, Mr. Mcckin was accustomed to soften one indecent prohibition, lest its uncompromising plain- ness of speech might offend the delicate sensibilities of his female souls ! He turned from the dangerous theme without an instant's pause, for wonder at the strange power accorded to Hobart Town " free " wives. " You have been i-eading ? " "' Paul et Virginic.' 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 Hogging as matters of little moment, where wives imprisoned their husbands, and murderers taught French, perfumed the air with his cambric handkerchief in silence. " You have not been here long, Mr. Meekin," said Sylvia, after a pause. 192 HIS NATURAL LIFE. " No, only a week ; and I confess I am surprised. A lovely climate, but, as I said just now to Mrs. Jellicoe, the Trail of the Serpent — the Trail of the Serpent — my dear young lady." " If you send all the wretches in England, here, you must expect the trail of the serpent," said Sylvia. " It isn't the fault of the colony." " Oh, no ; certainly not," returned Meekin, hastening 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 Vickcrs 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 ki'xow Mr. Meekin, papa?" said Sylvia. " Mr. Meekin, Captain Frere." " I have that pleasure," said Vickers. " Glad to sec you, sir. Pray sit down." Upon which, Mr. Meekin beheld Sylvia un- affectedly kiss both gentlemen ; but became strangely aware that the kiss bestowed upon her father was warmer than that which greeted her affianced husband. " Warm weather, Mr. Meekin," said Frere. " Sylvia, my darling, I hope you have not been out in the heat. You have ! My dear, 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 A LABOURER IN THE VINEYARD. 193 herself for her anger, she added, " You are always thinking of me, Maurice," and gave him her hand affectionately. " It's very oppressive, Captain Frere," said Meekin ; " and to a stranger, quite enervating." " Have a glass of wine," said Frere, as if the house was his own. " One wants bucking up a bit a day like this." " Ay, to be sure," repeated Vickers. " A glass of wine. Sylvia dear, some sherry. I hope she has not been attacking you with her strange theories, Mr. Meekin?" " Oh, dear no ; not at all," returned Meekin, feeiing 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 — cjuite famously." " That's right," said Vickers,. " She is very plain-spoken, is my little girl, and strangers can't understand her sometimes. Can they, Poppet ? " Poppet tossed her head saucily. " I don't know," she said. " Why shouldn't they ? But you were going to say something extraordinary when you came in. What is it, dear ? " " Ah," said Vickers with grave face. " Yes, a most extra- ordinary thing. They've caught those villains." "What, you don't mean ? No, papa!" said Sylvia, turning round with alarmed face. In that little family there were, for conversational purposes, but one set of villains in the world — the mutineers of the- Osprey. " They've got four of them in the bay at this moment — Rex, Barker, Shiers, and Lcsly. 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. " yVnd where are the others ? " " Two were executed in England ; the other six have not been taken. These fellows have been sent out for trial." " To what are you alluding, dear sir?" asked Meekin, eyeing the sherry with the gaze of a fasting saint. " The piracy of a convict brig five years ago," replied Vickers. 13 194 ^^S NATURAL LIFE. ** The scoundrels put my poor wife and child ashore, and left them to starve. If it hadn't been for Frere — God bless him ! — they would have died. They shot the pilot and a soldier — and — but it's a long story to tell now." " I have heard of it already," said Meekin, sipping the sherry, which another convict servant had brought for him ; " and of your gallant conduct, Captain Frere." " Oh, that's nothing," said Frere, reddening. " We were all in the same boat. Poppet, have a glass of wine ? " " No," said Sylvia, " I don't want any." She was staring at the strip of sunshine between the verandah and the blind, as though the bright 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 un- willing to admit that her illness had been the cause of her forgetfulness. " Oh, no ; I was twelve years old," said Sylvia ; "that's not a baby, you know. But I think the fever made me stupid." Frere, looking at her uneasily, shifted in his seat. *' There, don't think about it now," he said. "Maurice," asked she suddenly, "what became of the other man ? " "Which other man?" " The man who was with us ; the other one, you know." " Poor Bates ? " " No, not Bates. The prisoner. What was his name ?" "Oh,, ah — the prisoner," said Frere, as if he, too, had for- gotten. "Why, you know, darling, he was sent to Port Arthur." " Ah ! " said Sylvia, with a shudder. " And is he there still ? " " I beUeve so," said Frere, with a frown. " By-the-bye," 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. A LABOURER IN THE VINEYARD. 195 " I am afraid not. I wouldn't like to swear to a man after five years." " By George," said Frere, " I'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 1 Indeed? How charming 1 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 paper 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 parly, out of sheer 196 HIS NATURAL LIFE. politeness, to cease talking for the moment, caused the con- versation to flag, and hinted to Mr. Meekin that it was time for him to depart. " Good afternoon, dear Miss Vickers," he said, rising with his sweetest smile. "Thank you for your delightful music. That piece is an old, old favourite of mine. It was quite a favourite of dear Lady Jane's, and the Bishop's. Pray excuse me, my dear Captain Frere, but this strange occurrence— of the capture of the wreckers, you know— must be my apology for touching on a delicate subject. How charming to contem- plate ! Yourself and your dear young lady ! The preserved and preserver, dear Major. ' None but the brave, you know, none but the brave, none but the brave, deserve the fair!' You remember glorious John, of course. Well, good after- noon." " It's rather a long invitation," said Vickers, always well disposed to anyone who praised his daughter, " but if you've nothing better to do, come and dine with us on Christmas Day, Mr. Meekin. We usually have a little gathering then." " Charm.ed," 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 r^ox^—good after- noon." Sylvia burst into laughter as the door closed. "What a ridiculous creature ! " said she. " Bless the man, with his gloves and his umbrella, and his hair and his scent ! Fancy that mincing noodle showing me the way to Heaven ! I'd rather have old Mr. Bowes, papa, though he is as bhnd 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 hira stay. What has he been doing now?" SARAH PURFOY'S REQUEST. 197 "His wife," said Sylvia, "locked him up, you know, for being drunk. Wife ! What do people want with wives, I wonder." "Ask Maurice !" said her father, smiling. Sylvia moved away, and tossed her head. " What does he know about it ? Maurice, you are a great bear ; and if you hadn't saved my life, you know, I shouldn't love you a bit. There, you may kiss me " (her voice grew softer). " This convict business has brought it all back ; and I should be ungrateful if I didn't love you, dear." Maurice Frere, with suddenly crimsoned face, accepted the proffered caress, and then turned away to the window. A grey-clothed man was working in the garden, and whistling as he worked. " They're not so laadly off," said Frere, under his breath. " What's that, sir ? " asked Sylvia. "That I am not half good enough for you," cried Frere, with sudden vehemence. " I — I " " It's ;;/y 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 liand. " Come, papa, it's cool now, let's walk in the garden, and leave Maurice to think of his own unvvorlhiness." Maurice watched the retreating pair with a puzzled expres- sion. " She always leaves me for her father," he said to him- self. " I wonder if she really loves me, or if it's only gratitude, after all ? » He had often asked himself the same question during the five years of his wooing, but he had never satisfactorily answered it. CHAPTER II. SARAH PURFOY'S REQUEST. THE evening passed as it had passed a hundred times be- fore ; and having smoked a i)ipe at the barracks. Captain Frere returned home. His home was a cottage on the New Town road a cottage which he had occupied since his appoint- 198 HIS NATURAL LIFE. ment as Assistant Police Magistrate, an appointment given to him as a reward for his exertions in connection with the Osprey mutiny. Captain Maurice Frere had risen in 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 care- ful man, and having saved some money, had purchased land on favourable terms. The " assignment system " enabled him to cultivate portions of it at a small expense, and, following the usual custom, he stocked his run with cattle and sheep. He had sold his commission, and was now a comparatively wealthy man. He owned a fine estate ; the house he lived in was pur- chased property. He was in good odour at Government House, and his office of Superintendent of Convicts caused him to take an active part in that local government which keeps a man constantly before the public. Major Vickers, a colonist against his will, had become, by force of circumstances, one of the lead- ing men in Van Diemen's Land. His daughter was a good match for any man ; and many ensigns and lieutenants, cursing their hard lot in " country quarters," many sons of settlers living on their fathers' station among the mountains, and many dapper clerks on the civil establishment, envied Maurice Frere his good fortune. Some went so far as to say that the beautiful daughter of " Regulation Vickers " was too good for the coarse red-faced Frere, who was noted for his fondness for low society, and over- bearing, almost brutal demeanour. No one denied, however, that Captain Frere was a valuable officer. It was said that, in consequence of his tastes, he knew more about the tricks of con- victs than any man on the island. It was said, even, that he was wont to disguise himself, and mix with the pass-holders and convict servants, in order to learn their signs and mysteries. When in charge at Bridgewater it had been his delight to rate the chain-gangs in their own hideous jargon, and to astound a new comer by his knowledge of his previous history. The con- vict population hated and cringed to him, for, with his bmtality SARAH PURFOTS REQUEST. 199 and violence, he mingled a ferocious good humour, that resulted sometimes in tacit permission to go without the letter of the law. Yet, as the convicts themselves said, "a man was never- safe with the Captain ; " for, after drinking and joking with them, as the Sir Oracle of some public-Iiouse whose hostess he delighted to honour, he would disappear through a side door just as the constables burst in at the back, and show himself as remorse- less, in his next morning's sentence of the captured, as if he had never entered a tap-room in 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 ex- pedition to Macquarie Harbour, he had not suffered any fear of society's opinion to restrain his vices, but, as the affection for the pure young girl, who looked upon him as her saviour from a dreadful death, increased in honest strength, he had resolved to shut up those dark pages in his colonial experience, and to read therein no more. He was not remorseful, he was not even disgusted. He merely came to the conclusion that, when a man married, he was to consider certain extravagances com- mon to all bachelors as at an end. He had " had his fling, hke all young men ; " perhaps he had been foolish like most young men, but no reproachful ghost of past misdeeds haunted him. His nature was too prosaic to admit the existence of such phan- toms. Sylvia, in her purity and excellence, was so far above him, that in raising his eyes to her, he lost sight of all the sordid 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, bear- ing a superscription in a female hand. 200 HIS NATURAL LIFE. "Who brought this?" asked Frere, hastily tearing it open to read. " The groom, sir. He said that there was a gentleman at the ' George the Fourth ' who wished to see you." Frere smiled, in admiration of the intelligence which had dictated such a message, and then frowned, in anger at the contents of the letter. " You needn't wait," he said to the man. " I shall have to go back again, I suppose." Changing his forage cap for a soft hat, and selecting a stick from a mis- cellaneous collection in a corner, he prepared to retrace his steps. " What does she want now ? " he asked himself fiercely, as he strode down the moonlit road ; but beneath the fierceness there was an under current of petulance, which implied that, whatever " she " did want, she had a right to expect. ^The " George the Fourth " was a long, low house, situated in Elizabeth-street. Its front was painted a dull red, and the narrow panes of glass in its windows, and the ostentatious affectation of red curtains and homely comfort, gave to it a spurious appearance of old English jollity. A knot of men round the door melted into air as Captain Frere approached, for it was now past eleven o'clock, and all persons found in the streets after eight could be compelled to " show their pass " or explain their business. The convict constables were not scrupulous in the exercise of their duty, and the bluff figure of Frere, clad in the blue serge which he affected as a summer costume, looked not unlike that of a convict constable. Pushing open the side-door with the confident manner of one well acquainted with the house, Frere entered, and made his way along a narrow passage, to a glass^door at the further end. A tap upon this door brought a white-faced, pock-pitted Irish girl, who curtsied with servile recognition of the visitor, and ushered him upstairs. The room into which he was shown was a large one. It had three windows looking into the street, and'' was handsomely furnished. The carpet was soft, the candles were bright, and the supper tray gleamed invitingly from a table between the windows. As Frere entered, a little terrier ran barking to his feet. It was evident that he was not a constant visitor. The rustle of a silk dress behind the terrier betrayed the presence of a woman ; and Frere, rounding the promontory of an ottoman, found himself face to face with Sarah Purfoy. SARAH PURFOY'S REQUEST. 201 "Thank you for coming" she said. " Pray, sit down." This was the only greeting that passed between them, and Frere sat down, in obedience to a motion of a plump hand that twinkled with rings. The eleven years that had passed since we last saw this woman had dealt gently with her. Her foot was as small and her hand as white as of yore. Her hair, bound close about her head, was plentiful and glossy, and her eyes had lost none of their dangerous brightness. Her figure was coarser, and the white arm that gleamed through a muslin sleeve showed an outline that a fastidious artist might wish to modify. The most noticeable change was in her face. The cheeks owned no longer that delicate purity which they once boasted, but had become thicker, while here and there showed those faint red streaks — as though the rich blood throbbed too painfully in the veins — which are the first signs of the decay of " fine " women. With middle age and the fulness of figure to which most women of her temperament are prone, had come also that indescribable vulgarity of speech and manner which habitual absence of moral restraint never fails to produce. Maurice Frere spoke first ; he was anxious to bring his visit to as speedy a termination as possible. " What do you want of me ?" he asked. Sarah Purfoy laughed ; a forced laugh, that sounded so unnatural, that Frere turned to look at her. " I want you to do me a favour — a very great favour ; that is if it will not put you out of the way." "What do you mean ?" asked Frere roughly, pursing his lips with a sullen air. " P'avour ! 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 //w/ a favour? What do you mean ? " To his utter astonishment the woman replied by shedding tears. For some time he regarded her in silence, as if unwilling to be softened by such shallow device, but eventually felt con- strained to say something. " Have you been drinking again ?" he asked, " or what's the matter with you ? Tell me what it is you want, and have done with it. I don't know what possessed me to come here at all." Sarah sat upright, and dashed away her tears with one passionate hand. 202 HIS NATURAL LIFE. "I am ill, can't you see, you fool !" said she. "The news has unnerved me. If I have been drinking, what then? It's nothing to you, is it ? " " Oh, no," returned the other, " it's nothing to me. You are the principal party concerned. If you choose to 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 I Save his life 1 It can't be done." SARAH PURFOTS REQUEST. 203 " You can do it, Maurice." "I save John Rex's life?* cried Frere. "Why, you must be mad ! " " He is the only creature that loves me, Maurice— the only man who cares for me. He has done no harm. He only wanted to be free — was it not natural ? You can save him if you like. I only ask for his life. What does it matter to you ? A miserable prisoner — his death would be of no use. Let him live, Maurice." Maurice laughed. " What have I to do with it ? * " You are the principal witness against him. If you say that he behaved well — and he did behave well, you know : many men would have left you to starve— they won't hang him." " Oh, won't they ! That won't make much difference." " Ah, Maurice, be merciful !" She bent towards him, and tried to retain his hand, but he withdrew it. "You're a nice sort of woman to ask me to help your lover — a man who left me on that cursed coast to die, for all he cared," he said, with a galling recollection of his humiliation of five years back. " Save him ! Confound him, not I ! " "Ah, Maurice, you 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 1 " 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 slop that nonsense. I tell you the man's as good as dead for all I shall do to save him." At this repulse, her pent-up passion broke forth. She sprang to her feet, and, pushing back the hair that in her frenzied 204 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 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 ludke. One of your dogs has more brain than you, and twice as much heart. And these are the men they send to rtde us ! Oh, Heaven ! And such an animal as this has life and death in his hands ! He may hang, may he.? I'll hang with him then, and God will forgive me for murder, for I will kill you ! " Frere had cowered before this frightful torrent of rage, but, at the scream which accompanied the last words, he stepped forward as though to seize her. In her desperate courage, she flung herself before him. " Strike me ! You daren't ! I defy you ! Bring up the wretched creatures who learn the way to Hell in this cursed house, and let them see you do it. Call them ! They are old friends of yours. They all know Captain Maurice Frere." " Sarah ! " " You remember Lucy Barnes — poor little Lucy Barnes that stole sixpennyworth of calico. She is downstairs now. Would you know her if you saw her ? She isn't the bright-faced baby she was when they sent her here to ' reform,' and when Lieu- tenant Frere wanted a new housemaid from the Factory ! Call for her ! — call ! do you hear ? Ask any one of those beasts SARAH PURFOTS REQUEST. 205 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 vVitnessed 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 ? " " ril 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 ine. 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 Jicr name," he said in a hoarse voice, "or Fll 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 — tlie 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 must go." 2o6 HIS NATURAL LIFE. "May I see him?" " No." "Ah, Maurice 1" " You can see him in the dock if you hke," 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 or mine by word or deed, I'll do what you want." " What will you do ? '' she asked, unable to suppress a smile at the victory she had won. " I will not say all I know about this man. I will say he befriended me. I will do my best to save his life." " You cati 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 1 1 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 fdling his glass. " Here's a good voyage to you ! " Sarah Purfoy, watching him, burst into a laugh. " Human beings are queer creatures," she said. "Who would have THE STORY OF TIVO BIRDS OF PREY. 207 thought that we had been calling each other names just now ? I say, I'm a vixen when I'm roused, ain't I, Maurice ?" " Remember what you've promised," said he, with a threat in his voice, as he moved to the door. " You must be out of this by the next ship that leaves." " Never fear, I'll go." Getting into the cool street directly, and seeing the calm stars shining, and the placid water sleeping with a peace in which he had no share, he strove to cast off the nervous fear that was on him. The interview had frightened him, for it had made him think. It was hard that, just as he had turned over a new leaf, this old blot should come through to the clean page. It was cruel that, having comfortably forgotten the past, he should be thus rudely reminded of it. CHAPTER III. THE STORY OF TWO BIRDS OF PREY. THE reader of the foregoing pages has doubtless asked himself, '■ What is the link which binds together John Rex and Sarah Purfoy ?" In the year 1825 there lived, at St. Heliers, Jersey, a watch- maker, named Urban Purfoy. He was a hard-working man, and had amassed a little money — sufficient to give his grand- daughter an education above the common in those days. At sixteen, Sarah Purfoy was an empty-headed, strong-willed, precocious girl, with big brown eyes. She had a bad opinion of her own sex, and an immense admiration for the young and handsome members of the other. The neighbours said that she was too high and mighty for her rank in life. Her grand- father said she was a " beauty," and like her poor dear mother. She herself thought rather meanly of her personal attractions, and rather highly of her mental ones. She was brimful of vitality, with strong passions, and little religious sentiment. She had not much respect for moral courage, for she did not understand it ; but she was a profound admirer of personal prowess. Her distaste for the humdrum life she was leading 208 HIS NATURAL LIFE. found expression in a rebellion against social usages. She courted notoriety by eccentricities of dress, and was never so happy as when she was misunderstood. She was the sort of girl of whom women say — " It is a pity she has no mother ;" and men, " It is a pity she does not get a husband ;" and who say to themselves, " When shall I have a lover ?" There was no lack of beings of this latter class among the officers quartered in Fort Royal and Fort Henry ; but the female population of the island was free and numerous, and in the embarrassment of riches, Sarah was overlooked. Though she adored the soldiery, her first lover was a civilian. Walking one day on the cliff, she met a young man. He was tall, 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 dulness of St. Heliers. " Did she often walk there ?" " Some- times." "Would she be there to-morrow?" "She might." Mr. Lemoine lifted his hat, and went back to dinner, rather pleased with himself. They met the next day, and the day after that. Lemoine was not a gentleman, but he had lived among gentlemen, and had caught something of their manner. He said that, after all, virtue was a mere name, and that when people were powerful and rich, the world respected them more than if they had been honest and poor. Sarah agreed with this sentiment. Her grandfather was honest and poor, and yet nobody respected him — at least, not with such respect as she 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 THE STORY OF TWO BIRDS OF PREY. 209 set a fictitious value upon virtue. He mistook her artfulness for innocence, and thought he had made a conquest. More- over, the girl was pretty, and when dressed properly, would look well. Only one obstacle stood in the way of their loves — the dashing profligate was poor. He had been living in London above his means, and his father was not inclined to increase his allowance. Sarah liked him better than anybody else she had seen, but there are two sides to every bargain. Sarah Purfoy must go to London. In vain her lover sighed and swore. Unless he would promise to take her away with him, Diana was not more chaste. The more virtuous she grew, the more vicious did Lemoine feel. His desire to possess her increased in proportionate ratio to her resistance, and at last he borrowed two hundred pounds from his father's confidential clerk [the Lemoines were merchants by profession], and acceded to her wishes. There was no love on either side — vanity was the mainspring of the whole transaction. Lemoine did not like to be beaten ; Sarah sold herself for a passage to England and an introduction into the "great world." We need not describe her career at this epoch. Suffice it to say that she discovered that vice is not always conducive to happiness, and is not, even in this world, so well rewarded as its earnest practice might merit. Sated, and disappointed, she soon grew tired of her life, and longed to escape from its weary- ing dissipations. At this juncture she fell in love. The object of her affections was one Mr. Lionel Crofton. Crofton was tall, well made, and with an insinuating address. His features were too strongly marked for beauty. His eyes were the best part of his face, and, like his hair, they were jet black. He had broad shoulders, sinewy limbs, and small hands and feet. His head was round, and well-shaped, but it bulged a little over the ears, which were singularly small, and lay close to his head. With this man, barely four years older than herself, Sarah, at seventeen, fell violently in love. This was the more strange, as though fond of her, he would tolerate no caprices, and possessed an ungovernable temper, which found vent in curses, and even blows. He seemed to have no pro- fession or business, and though he owned a good address, he was even less of a gentleman than Lemoine. Yet Sarah, at-- tracted by one of the strange sympathies which constitute the romance of such women's lives, was devoted to him. Touched 14 210 HIS NATURAL LIFE. ■ ■ ■ I IIP I — — ^^^M. II I II II I II by her affection, and rating her intelligence and unscrupulous- ness at their true value, he told her who he was. He was a swindler, a forger, and a thief, and his name was John Rex. When she heard this she experienced a sinister delight. He told her of his plots, his tricks, his escapes, his villanies ; and seeing how for years this young man had preyed upon the world which had deceived and disowned her, her heart went out to him. " I am glad you found me," she said. " Two heads are better than one. We will work together." John Rex, known among his intimate associates as Dandy Jack, was the putative son of a man who had been for many years valet to Lord Bellasis, and who retired from the service of that profligate nobleman with a sum of money and a wife. John Rex was sent to as good a school as could be procured for him, and at sixteen was given, by the interest of his mother with his father's former master, a clerkship in an old-established banking-house. Rex senior was accustomed to talk largely of " gentlemen," and " high society." Mrs. Rex was intensely fond of her son, and imbued him with a desire to shine in aristocratic circles. He was a clever lad, without any principle ; he would lie unblushingly, and steal deliberately, if he thought he could do so with impunity. He was cautious, acquisitive, imagina- tive, self-conceited, and destructive. He had strong perceptive faculties, and much invention and versatility, but his " moral sense" was almost entirely wanting. He found that his fellow clerks were not of that " gentlemanly " stamp which his mother thought so admirable, and, therefore, he despised them. He thought he should like to go into the army, for he was athletic, and rejoiced in feats of muscular strength. To be tied all 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 mean time 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 unfor- tunately 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. THE STORY OF TWO BIRDS OF PREY. 211 This employment was not a congenial one, and John Rex planned to leave it. He lived at home, and had his salary— about thirty shillings a week— for pocket money. Though he dis- played considerable skill with the cue, and not unfrequently won considerable sums for one in his position, his expenses averaged more than his income ; and having borrowed all he could, he found himself again in difficulties. His narrow escape, how- ever, had taught him a lesson, and he resolved to confess all to his indulgent mother, and be more economical for the future. Just then one of those "lucky chances" which blight so many lives occurred. The "shop-walker" died, and Messrs. Baffaty & Co. made the gentlemanly Rex act as his substitute for a few days. Shop-walkers have opportunities not accorded to other folks, and on the evening of the third day Mr. Rex went home with a bundle of lace in his pocket. Unfortunately, he owed more than the worth of this petty theft, and was compelled to steal again. This time he was detected. One of his fellow- shopmen caught him in the very act of concealing a roll of silk, ready for future abstraction, and, to his astonishment, cried " Halves ! " Rex pretended to be virtuously indignant, but soon saw that such pretence was useless ; his companion was too wily to be fooled with such affectation of innocence. " I saw you take it," said he, " and if you won't share I'll tell old Baffaty." This argument was irresistible, and they shared. Having become good friends, the self-made partner lent Rex a helping hand in the disposal of the booty, and introduced him to a purchaser. The purchaser violated all rules of romance by being — not a Jew, but a very orthodox Christian. He kept a second-hand clothes warehouse in the City Road, and was sup- posed to have branch establishments all over London. Mr. Blicks purchased the stolen goods for about a third of their value, and seemed struck by Mr. Rex's appearance. " I thort you was a swell mobsman," said he. This, from one so experienced, was a high compliment. Encouraged by success, Rex and his companion toolc more articles of value. John Rex paid off his debts, and began to feel himself quite a "gentle- man" again. Just as Rex had arrived at this pleasing state of mind, Baffaty discovered the robbery. Not having heard about the bank business, he did not suspect Rex — he was such a gentlemanly young man — but having had his eye for some time upon Rex's partner, who was vulgar, and squinted, he sent forj 212 HIS NATURAL LIFE. him. Rex's partner stoutly denied the accusation, and old Baffaty, who was a man of merciful tendencies, and could well afford to lose fifty pounds, gave him until the next morninr 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 BHcks'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 Egj'ptians. The shopwalker was allowed half an hour in the middle of the day for lunch. John Rex took advantage of this half-hour to hire a cab and drive to Blicks. That worthy man received him cordially, for he saw that he was bent upon great deeds. John Rex rapidly unfolded his plan of operations. The warehouse doors fastened with a spring. He would remain behind after they were locked, and open them at a given signal. A 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 Bhcks know of three such men? Blicks's one eye ghstened. 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 ;i^ 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 rt — 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 /So lasted, he lived in luxury, and by the time it was spent, he had established himself in his profession. This profession was a THE STORY OF TWO BIRDS OF PREY. 213 lucrative one. It was that of a swindler. Gifted with a hand- some person, facile manner, and ready wit, he had added to these natural advantages some skill at billiards, some know- ledge of gamblers' legerdemain, and the useful consciousness that he must prey or be preyed on. John Rex was no common swindler ; his natural as well as his acquired abilities saved him from vulgar errors. He saw that to successfully swindle man- kind, one must not aim at comparative, but superlative, in- genuity. He who is contented with being only cleverer than the majority must infallibly be outwitted at last, and to be once outwitted is — for a swindler — to be ruined. Examining, more- over, into the history of detected crime, John Rex discovered one thing. At the bottom of all these robberies, deceptions, and swindles, was some lucky fellow who profited by the folly of his confederates. This gave him an idea. Suppose he could not only make use of his own talents to rob mankind, but utilize those of others also ? Crime runs through infinite grades. He proposed to himself to be at the top ; but why should he despise those good fellows beneath him ? His specialty was swindling, billiard-playing, card-playing, borrowing money, ob- taining goods, never risking more than two or three 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, b\it no match for the law, with its Argus eyes and its Briarean hands. They did the rougher business well enough ; they broke locks, and burst doors, and " neddied " constables, but in the finer arts of plan, attack, and escape, they were sadly deficient. Good. These men should be the hands ; he would be the head. He would plan the robberies ; they should execute them. Working through many channels, and' never omitting to assist a fellow-worker when in distress, John Rex, in a few years, and in a most prosaic, business way, became the head of a society of ruffians. Mixing with fast clerks and unsuspecting middle- class profligates, he found out particulars of houses ill guarded, and shops insecurely fastened, ^and "put up" Blicks's ready ruffians to the more dangerous work. In his various disguises, and under his many names, he found his way into those upper 214 HIS NATURAL LIFE. circles of " fast " society, where animals tun into birds, where a wolf becomes a rook, and a lamb a pigeon. Rich spendthrifts who affected male society asked him to their houses, and Mr. Anthony Croftonbury, Captain James CraTen,and Mr. Lionel Crofton Avere names remembered, sometimes with pleasure, oftener with regret, by many a broken man of fortune. He had one quality which, to a man of his profession, was invaluable — he was cautious, and master of himself. Having made a suc- cess, wrung commission from Blicks, rooked a gambling ninny like Lemoine, or secured an assortment of jewellery sent down to his " wife " in Gloucestershire, he would disappear for a time. He liked comfort, and revelled in the sense of security and respectability. Thus he had lived for three years when he met Sarah Purfoy, and thus he proposed to live for many more. With this woman as a coadjutor, he thought he could defy the law. She was the net spread to catch his " pigeons ; " she was the well-dressed lady who ordered goods in London for her husband at Canterbury, and paid half the price down, " which was all this letter authorized her to do," and where a less beautiful or clever woman might have failed, she succeeded. Her husband saw fortune before him, and believed that, with common prudence, he might carry on his lucrative employment of "gentleman" until he chose to relinquish it. Alas for human weakness ! He one day did a foolish thing, and the law he had so successfully defied got him in the simplest way imaginable. Under the names of Mr. and Mrs. Skinner, John Rex and Sarah Purfoy were living in quiet lodgings in the neighbourhood of Bloomsbury. Their landlady was a respectable poor woman, and had a son who was a constable. This son was given to talking, and, coming in to supper one night, he told his mother that on the following evening an attack was to be made on a gang of coiners in the Old Street Road. The mother, dream- ing all sorts of horrors during the night, came the next day to Mrs. Skinner, in the parlour, and, under a pledge of profound secrecy, told her of the dreadful expedition in which her son was engaged. John Rex was out at a pigeon-match with Lord Bellasis, and when he returned, at nine o'clock, Sarah told him what she had heard. Now, 4, Bank-place, Old Street Road, was the residence of a man named Green, who had for some time carried on the '*THE NOTORIOUS DAWES." 215 lucrative but dangerous trade of "counterfeiting." This man was one of the most daring of that army of ruffians whose treasure chest and master of the mint was Bhcks, 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. Slie collected all her money and jewels, paid Mrs. Skinner's rent, went to sec Rex, and arranged his defence. Blicks was hope- ful, but Green — who came very near hanging — admitted that the man was an associate of his, and the Recorder, being in a severe mood, transported him for seven years. Sarah Purfoy vowed that she would follow him. She Avas going as passenger, as emigrant, anything, when she saw Mrs. Vickers's advei'tisement for a "lady's-maid," and answered it. It chanced that Rex was shipped in the Malabar, and Sarah, discovering this before the vessel had been a week at sea, con- ceived the bold project of inciting a mutiny for the rescue of her lover. We know the result of that scheme, and the story of the scoundrel's subsequent escape from Macquaric Harbour. CHAPTER IV. "the notorious dawes." THE mutineers of the Osprcy 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 swindlcra in Hong Kong. Their adventures had been dramatized at a 2i6 HIS NATURAL LIFE. London theatre, and the popular novelist of that day Avas 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 Toivn 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 'i " 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 "77/^ NOTORIOUS DAWES." 217 she was to give evidence on the trial, together with her affianced husband, they being the only two living witnesses who could speak to the facts of the mutiny. It was reported also that her lover was naturally most anxious that she should not give evidence, as she was — an additional point of romantic interest — affected deeply by the illness consequent on the suffer- ing she had undergone, and in a state of pitiable mental con- fusion as to the whole business. These reports caused the Court, on the day of the trial, to be crowded with spectators; and as the various particulars of the marvellous history of this double escape were detailed, the excitement grew more intense. The aspect of the four heavily-ironed prisoners caused a sen- sation which, in that city of the ironed, was quite novel, and bets were offered and taken as to the line of defence which they would adopt. At first it was thought that they would throw themselves on the mercy of the Crown, seeking, in the very extravagance of their story, to excite public sympathy ; but a little study of the demeanour of the chief prisoner, John Rex, dispelled that conjecture. Calm, placid, and defiant, he seemed prepared to accept his fate, or to meet his accusers with some plea which should be sufficient to secure his acquittal on the capital charge. Only when he heard the indictment, setting forth that he had " feloniously pirated the brig Ospfey," 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 sec them from here, and if you do not recognize any 2i8 HIS NATURAL LIFE. 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 Avith an armed warder behind him, were visible above the heads of the crowd. The girl had never before seen the ceremony of trying a man for his life, and the silent and antique solemnities of the business affected her, as it affects all who see it for the first time. The atmosphere was heavy and distressing. The chains of the prisoners clanked ominously. The crushing force of judge, jailers, warders, and constables assembled to punish the four men, appeared cruel. The familiar faces, that in her momentary glance, she recognized, seemed to her evilly trans- figured. Even the countenance of her promised husband, bent eagerly forward towards the witness-box, showed tyrannous and bloodthirsty. Her eyes hastily followed the pointing finger oi 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 ele- gance of attitude which comes only from perfect muscular development. Not all the frowning faces bent upon him could frown au accent of respect into the contemptuous tones iu *'TIIE NOTORIOUS DAWES." 219 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, Hstening 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." "ForJife?" « For life." Sylvia turned to her father with breathless inquiry in her eyes. " Oh, papa ! who is that speaking ? I know the name ! I know the voice ! " " That is the man who was with you in the boat, dear," says Vickers, gravely. " The prisoner." The eager light died out of her eyes, and in its place came a look of disappointment and pain. " I thought it was a good man," she said, holding by the edge of the doorway. "It sounded 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 piisoners in the dock?" " Yes." " Who are they ? " " John Rex, Henry Shiers, James Lesly, and, and — I'm not sure about the last man." "You are not sure about the last man. Will you swear to the three others ? " " Yes." " You remember them well ? " " I was in the chain-gang at Macquarie Harbour with them for three years." Sylvia, hearing this hideous reason for ac- quaintance, gave a low cry, and fell into her father's arms. " Oh, papa, take me away ! I feci as if I was going to remember something terrible I " 220 HIS NATURAL LIFE. Amid the deep silence that prevailed, the cry of the poor girl was distinctly audible in the Court, and all heads turned to the door. In the general wonder no one noticed the change that passed over Rufus Dawes. His face flushed scarlet, great drops of sweat stood on his forehead, and his black eyes glared in the direction from whence the sound came, as though they would pierce the envious wood that separated him from the woman whose voice he had heard. Maurice Frere sprang up and pushed his way through the crowd under the bench. " What's this ? " he said to Vickers, almost brutally. " What did j'ou 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 ; Fm 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 informa- tion at him as one might fling a bone to a dangerous dog. " Miss Vickers I " repeated the convict, still staring in a sort of bewildered agony. " They told me she was dead ! " The constable sniffed contemptuously at this preposterous " THE NOTORIOUS DAWES." 221 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 ahnost 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. / made that boat, your Honour. / saved the Major's wife and daughter. / 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 sur- prise that no one interrupted him. " I was sentenced to death for bolting, sir, and they reprieved me because I helped them in the boat. Helped them ! Why, I made it ! She will tell you so. I 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, Kufus 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 222 HIS NATURAL LIFE. box, gentlemen, and make him tell his story. Sh^W contradict him, never fear. Oh, and I thought she was dead all this while ! " The judge had got his answer from the clerk by this time. " Miss Vickers had been seriously ill, had fainted just now in the Court. Her only memories of the convict who had been with her in the boat were those of terror and disgust. The sight of him just now had most seriously affected her. The convict himself was an inveterate liar and schemer, and his story had been already disproved by Captain Frere." The judge, a man inclining by nature to humanity, but forced by experience to receive all statements of prisoners with caution, said all he could say, and the tragedy of five years was dis- posed of in the following dialogue : — Judge : This is not the place for an accusation against Captain Frere, nor the place to argue upon your alleged wrongs. If you have suffered injustice, the authorities will hear your complaint, and redress it. RUFUS Dawes : I have complained, your Honour. I wrote letter after letter to the Government, but they were never sent. Then I heard she was dead, and they sent me to the coal mines after that, and we never hear anything there. Judge : I can't listen to you. Mr. Mangles, have you any more questions to ask the witness ? But Mr. Mangles not having any more, some one called "Matthew Gabbett," and Rufus Dawes, still endeavouring to speak, was clanked away with, amid a buzz of remark and surmise. " The trial progressed without further incident. Sylvia was not called, and, to the astonishment of many of his enemies, Captain Frere went into the witness-box and generously spoke in favour of John Rex. " He might have left us to starve," Frere said — " he might have murdered us ; we were completely in his power. The stock of provisions on board the brig was not a large one, and I consider that, in dividing it with us, he showed great generosity for one in his situation." This piece of evidence told strongly in favour of the prisoners, for Captain Frere was known to be such an uncompromising foe to all rebellious convicts, that it was understood that only the sternest MAURICE FR SHE'S GOOD ANGEL, 223 sense of justice and truth could lead him to speak in such terms. The defence set up by Rex, moreover, was most ingenious. He was guilty of absconding, but his moderation might plead an excuse for that. His only object was his freedom, and having gained it, he had lived honestly fornearly three years,- as he could prove. He was charged with piratically seizing the brig Osp)-ey, 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 penaj 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 Fierc. " 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 fiict that Pine found him drunk in his cabin when he ought to have been 224 f^IS NATURAL LIFE. attending to his duties on deck, and the "authorities" could not, or would not, pass over such a heinous breach of discipline. Captain Blunt— who, of course, had his own version of the story — thus deprived of the honour of bringing His Majesty's prisoners to His Majesty's colonies of New South Wales and Van Die- men's Land, went on a whaling cruise to the South Seas. The influence which Sarah Purfoy had acquired over him had, however, irretrievably injured him. It was as though she had poisoned his moral nature by the influence of a clever and wicked woman over a sensual and dull-witted man. Blunt gradually sank lower and lower. He became a drunkard, and was known as a man with a " grievance against the Government." Captain Frere, having had occasion for him in some capacity, had become in a manner his patron, and had got him the command of a schooner trading from Sydney. On getting this command — not without some wry faces on the part of the owner resident in Hobart Town — Blunt had taken the temperance pledge for the space of twelve months, and was a miserable dog in consequence. He was, however, a faithful henchman, for he hoped by Frere's means to get some " Government billet" — the grand object of all colonial sea captains of that epoch. " Well, sir, she went ashore to see a friend," says Blunt, look- ing at the sky and then at the earth. "What friend.?" " The — the prisoner, sir." " And she saw him, I suppose?" " Yes, but I thought Fd 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." MAURICE FRERE'S GOOD ANGEL. 225 " Take care you do," returned his patron, leaving him without further ceremony. Frere found Vickers in the garden, and at once begged him not to talk about the " business " to his daughter. " You saw how bad she was to-day, Vickers. For goodness' sake don't make her ill again." "My dear sir," says poor Vickers, "/won't refer to the sub- ject. She's been very unwell ever since. Nervous and unstrung. Go in and sae 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 liclp it. The sound of — of —that man's voice seemed to bring back to me some great pity for something or some one. I don't explain what I mean, I know, but I felt that I was just on the verge of remembering a story of some great wrong, just about to hear some dreadful revelation that should make me turn from all the people whom I ought most to love. Do you understand?" " I think I know what you mean," says Fsere, with averted face. " But that's all nonsense, you know." " Of course," returned she, with a touch of her old childish manner of disposing of questions out of hand. " Everybody knows it's all nonsense. But then we do think such things. It seems to me that I am double, that I have lived somewhere before, and have had another life— a dream-life." " What a romantic girl you are," said the other, dimly com- prehending her meaning. " How could you have a dream- life?" " Of course not, really, stupid. But in thought, you know. I dream such strange things now and then. I am always fall- ing down precipices and into cataracts, and being pushed into great caverns in enormous rocks. Horrible dreams ! " " Indigestion," returned Frere. " You don't take exercise enough. You shouldn't read so much. Have a good five-mile walk." "And in these dreams," continued Sylvia, not heeding his interruption, " there is one strange thing. You are always there Maurice." IS 226 HIS NATURAL LIFE. " Come, that's all right," says Maurice. "Ah, but not kind and good as you are, Captain Bruin, but scowling, and threatening, and angry, so that I am afraid of you." " But that is only a dream, darling." "Yes, but " playing with the button of his coat. "But what?" " But you looked just so to-day in the Court, Maurice, and I think that's what made me so silly." " My darling ! There ! 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 gtew 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 / love ; and I forget that you are a man, you know, and I am only a girl ; and I forget how nobly you behaved, Maurice, and how unselfishly you risked your life for mine. Why, what is the matter, dear ? " MAURICE FRERffS GOOD ANGEL. 22J He had put her away from him suddenly, and gone to the window, gazing across the sloping garden at the bay below, sleeping in the soft evening light. The schooner which had brought the witnesses from Port Arthur lay off the shore, and the yellow flag at her mast fluttered gently in the cool evening breeze. The sight of this flag appeared to anger him, for, as his eyes fell on it, he uttered an impatient exclamation, and turned round again. " Maurice ! " she cried, " I have wounded you ! " " No, no. It is nothing," said he, with the air of a man surprised in a moment of weakness. " I — I did not like to hear you talk in this way — about not loving me." " Ah, forgive me, dear ; I did not mean to hurt you. It is my silly way of saying more than I mean. How could I do otherwise than love you — after all you have done ?" Some sudden desperate whim caused him to exclaim, " But suppose I had not done all you think, would you not love me still?" Her eyes, raised to his face with anxious tenderness for the pain she had 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 Wf'." 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 witcliing 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 228 HIS NATURAL LIFE. was beyond recall ; the future — in which she was to love him all her life — was before them. With the hypocrisy of selfishness which deceives even itself, he laid the little head upon his heart with a sensible glow of virtue. " God bless you, darling ! You are my good angel." The girl sighed. " I will be your good angel, dear, if you will let me." CHAPTER VI. MR. MEEKIN ADMINISTERS CONSOLATION. REX told Mr. Meelcin, 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 beai 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 MR. ME E KIN ADMINISTERS CONSOLATION. 229 dietary scale," returned Meekin, patronizingly. " In the mean time, just collect together in your mind those particulars of your adventures of which you spoke, and have them ready for me when next I call. Such a remarkable history ought not to be lost." " Thank you kindly, sir. I will, sir. Ah ! I httle thought when I occupied the position of a gentleman, Mr. Meekin" — the cunning scoundrel had been piously grandiloquent con- cerning his past career — "that I should be reduced to this. Eut 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, 230 HIS NATURAL LIFE. or otherwise bestowed in the day time, but the forty were judged too desperate to be let loose. They sat, three feet apart, in two long 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 cart-load of quartz- pebbles. In the mean time the air was heavy with angry glances shot from one to the other, and the passage of the parson was hailed by a grumbling undertone of blasphemy. It was considered fashionable to grunt when the hammer came in contact with the stone, and under cover of this mock ex- clamation of fatigue, it was convenient to launch an oath. A fanciful visitor, seeing the irregularly rising hammers along the line, might have likened the shed to the interior of some vast piano, whose notes an unseen hand was erratically fingering. Rpfus Dawes was seated last of the line— his back to the cells, his face to the gaol wall. This was the place nearest the watching constable, and was allotted on that account to the most ill-favoured. Some of his companions envied him that melancholy distinction. " Well, Dawes," says Mr. Meekin, measuring with his eye the distance between the prisoner and himself, as one might measure the chain of some ferocious dog. " How are you this morning, Dawes ? " Dawes, scowling in a parenthesis between the cracking of two stones, was understood to say that he was very well. " I am afraid, Dawes," said Mr. Meekin reproachfully, " that you have done yourself no good by your outburst in court on Monday. I understand that pubhc 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, Dawes. You do not repent of your offences against the law, I fear." The only answer vouchsafed by the ircned man — if answer it could be called— was a savage blow, which split the stone into sudden fragments, and made the clergyman skip a step backward. MR. MEEKIN ADMINISTERS CONSOLATION, 231 " You are a hardened ruffian, sir I Do you not hear me speak to you ? " " I hear you," said Dawes, picking up another stone. " Then listen respectfully, sir," said Meekin, roseate with celestial anger. "You have all day to break those stones." " Yes, I have all day," returned Rufus Dawes, with a dogged look upward, " and all next day, for that matter. Ugh 1 " and again the hammer descended. " I came to console you, man — to console you," says Meekin, indignant at the contempt with which his well-meant overtures had been received. "I wanted to give you some good advice!" The self-important annoyance of the tone seemed to appeal to whatever vestige of appreciation for the humorous, chains and degradation had suffered to linger in the convict's brain, for a faint smile crossed his features. *' I beg your pardon, sir," he said. " Pray go on." " I was going to say, my good fellow, that you have done yourself a great deal of injury by your ill-advised accusation of Captain Frere, and the use you made of Miss Vickers's name." A frown, as of pain, contracted the prisoner's brows, and he seemed with difficulty to put a restraint upon his speech. " Is there to be no inquiry, Mr. Meekin.?" he asked, at length. " What I stated was the truth — the truth, so help me God ! " "No blasphemy, sir," said Meekin, solemnly. "No blas- phemy, wretched man. Do not add to the sin of lying the greater sin of taking the name of the Lord thy God in vain. He will not hold him guiltless, Dawes. He will not hold him guiltless, remember. No, there is to be no inquiry." "Are they not going to ask her for her story 1 " asked Dawes, with a pitiful change of manner. " They told me that she was to be asked. Surely they will ask her." " I am not, perhaps, at liberty," says Meekin, placidly un- conscious of the agony of despair and rage that made the voice of the strong man before him quiver, " to state the intentions of the authorities, but I can tell you that Miss Vickcrs will not be asked anything about you. You are to go back to Port Arthur on the 24th, and to remain there." A groan burst from Rufus Dawes ; a groan so full of torture, that even the comfortable Meekin was thrilled by it. " It is the Law, you know, my good man. I can't help it," he said. " You shouldn't break the Law, you know." 232 HIS NATURAL LIFE. "Curse the Law !" cries Dawes. "It's a Bloody Law ; it's there, I beg your pardon," and he fell to cracking his stones again, with a laugh that was more terrible in its bitter hopelessness of winning attention or sympathy, than any out- burst of passion could have been. " Come," says Meekin, feeling uneasily constrained to bring forth some of his London-learnt platitudes. " You can't com- plain. You have broken the Law, and you must suffer. Civilized Society says you sha'n't do certain things, and if you do them you must suffer the penalty Civilized Society imposes. You are not wanting in intelligence, Dawes, more's the pity — and you can't deny the justice of that." Rufus Dawes, as if disdaining to answer in words, cast his eyes round the yard with a glance that seemed to ask grimly if Civilized Society was progressing quite in accordance with justice, when its civiHzation created such places as that stone- walled, carbine-guarded prison-shed, and filled it with such creatures as those forty human beasts, doomed to spend the best years of their manhood cracking pebbles in it. "YoH don't deny that?" asked the smug parson, "do you, Dawes ? " " It's not my place to argue with you, sir," said Dawes, in a tone of indifference, born of lengthened suffering, so nicely balanced between contempt and respect, that the inexperienced Meekin could not tell whether he had made a convert, or sub- jected himself to an impertinence ; "but I'm a prisoner for "life, and don't look at it in the same way that you do." This view of the question did not seem to have occurred to Mr. Meekin, for his mild cheek flushed. Certainly, the fact of being a prisoner for life did make some difference. The sound of the noonday bell, however, warned him to cease argument, and to take his consolations out of the way of the mustering prisoners. With a great clanking and clashing oi irons, the forty rose and stood each by his stone-heap. The third constable came round, rapping the leg-irons of each man with easy nonchalance, and roughly pulling up the coarse trousers (made with buttoned flaps at the sides, like Mexican calzoiicros, in order to give free play to the ankle fetters), so that he might assure himself that no tricks had been played since his last visit. As each man passed this ordeal he saluted, and clanked, with wide-spread KUFUS DAWES'S IDYLL. 233 legs, to his place in the double line. Mr. Meekin, though not a patron of field sports, found something in the scene that reminded him of a blacksmith picking up horses' feet to examine the soundness of their shoes. " Upon my word," he said to himself, with a momentary pang of genuine compassion, " it is a dreadful way to treat human beings. I don't wonder at that wretched creature groaning under it. But, bless me, it is near one o'clock, and I promised to lunch with Major Vickers at two. How time flies, tobe sure!' CHAPTER VII. RUFUS DAWES'S IDYLL. 1 ' I "^HAT afternoon, while Mr. Meekin was digesting his lunch, and chatting airily with Sylvia, Rufus Dawes began to brood over a desperate scheme. The intelli- gence that the investigation he had hoped for was not to be granted to him had rendered doubly bitter those galling fetters of self-restraint which he had laid upon himself. For five years of desolation he had waited and hoped for a chance which might bring him to Hobart Town, and enable him to denounce the treachery of Maurice Frere. He had, by an almost miracu- lous accident, obtained that chance of open speech, and, having obtained it, he found that he was not allowed to speak. All the hopes he had formed were dashed to earth. All the calmness with which he had forced himself to bear his fate was now turned into bitterest rage and fury. Instead of one enemy he had twenty. All — judge, jury, gaoler, and parson — v.'cre banded together to work him evil and deny him right. The whole world was his foe : there was no honesty or truth in any living creature — save one. During the dull misery of his convict life at Port Arthur one bright memory shone upon him like a star. In the depth of his degradation, at the height of his despair, he cherished one pure and ennobling thought — the thought of the child whom he had saved, and who loved him. When, on board the Avhaler that had rescued him from the burning boat, he had felt that the sailors, believing in Frere's bluff lies, shrunk from the 234 HIS NATXJRAL life. moody felon, he had gained strength to be silent, by thinking of the suffering child. When poor Mrs. Vickers died, making no sign, and thus the chief witness to his heroism perished before his eyes, the thought that the child was left had restrained his selfish regrets. When Frere, "handing him over to the authorities as an absconder, ingeniously twisted the details of the boat-building to his own glorification, the knowledge that Sylvia would assign to these pretensions their true value had given him courage to keep silence. So strong was his belief in her gratitude, that he scorned to beg for the pardon he had taught himself to believe that she would ask for him. So utter was his contempt for the coward and boaster who, dressed in brief authority, bore insidious false witness against him, that, when he heard his sentence of life banishment, he disdained to make know^n the true part he had played in the matter, pre- ferring to wait for the more exquisite revenge, the more complete justification which would follow upon the recovery of the child from her illness. But when, at Port Arthur, day after day passed over, and brought no word of pity or justification, he began, with a sickening feeling of despair, to comprehend that something strange had happened. He was told by new comers that the child of the Commandant lay still sick and near to death. Then he heard that she and her father had left the colony, and that all prospect of her righting him by her evidence was at an end. This news gave him a terrible pang ; and at first he was inclined to break out into upbraidings of her selfish- ness. But, with that depth of love which was in him, albeit crusted over and concealed by the suUenness of speech and manner which his sufferings had produced, he found excuses for her even then. She was ill. She was in the hands of friends who loved her^ and disregarded himj perhaps, even her entreaties and explanations were put aside as childish babblings. She would free him if she had the power. Then he wrote " statements," agonized to see the Commandant, pestered the gaolers and warders with the story of his wrongs, and inundated the Government with letters, which, containing, as they did always, denunciations of Maurice Frere, were never suffered to reach their destination. The authorities, willing at the first to look kindly upon him in consideration of his strange experience, grew weary of this perpetual iteration of what they believed to be malicious falsehoods, and ordered him heavier tasks and RUFUS DAWES'S IDYLL. 235 more continuous labour. They mistook his gloom for treachery, his impatient outbursts of passion at his fate for ferocity, his silent endurance for dangerous cunning. As he had been at Macquarie Harbour, so did he become at Port Arthur — a marked man. Despairing of winning his coveted liberty by fair means, and horrified at the hideous prospect of a life in chains, he twice attempted to escape, but escape was even more hopeless than it had been at Hell's Gates. The Peninsula of Port Arthur was admirably guarded, signal stations drew a chain round the prison, an armed boat's crew watched each bay, and across the narrow isthmus which connected it with the main- land was a cordon of watch-dogs, in addition to the soldier guard. He was retaken, of course, flogged, and weighted with heavier irons. The second time, they sent him to the Coal Mines, where the prisoners lived underground, worked half naked, and dragged their inspecting gaolers in waggons upon iron tramways, when such great people condescended to visit them. The day on which he started for this place he heard that Sylvia was dead, and his last hope went from him. Then began with him a new religion. He worshipped the dead. For the living, he had but hatred and evil words ; for the dead, he had love and tender thoughts. Instead of the phantoms of his vanished youth which were once wont to visit him, he saw now but one vision — the vision of the child who had loved him. Instead of conjuring up for himself pictures of that home circle in which he had once moved, and those crea- tures who in the past years had thought him worthy of esteem and affection, he placed before himself but one idea, one embodiment of happiness, one being who was without sin and without stain, among all the monsters of that pit into which he had fallen. Around the figure of the innocent child who had lain in his breast, and laughed at him with her red young mouth, he grouped every image of happiness and love. Having banished from his thoughts all hope of resuming his name and place, he pictured to himself some quiet nook at the world's end — a deep-gardened house in a German country town, or remote cottage by the English seashore, where he and his dream-child might have lived together, happier in a purer affection than the love of man for woman. He bethought him how he could have taught her out of the strange store of learning which his roving life had won for him, how he could 236 HIS NATURAL LIFE. have confided to her his real name, and perhaps purchase for her wealth and honour by reason of it. Yet, — he thought, she would not care for wealth and honour, she would prefer a quiet life, — a life of unassuming usefulness, a life devoted to good deeds, to charity and love. He could see her — in his visions — reading by a cheery fireside, wandering in summer woods, or lingering by the marge of the slumbering mid-day sea. He could feel — in his dreams — her soft arms about his neck, her innocent kisses on his lips, he could hear her light laugh, and see her sunny ringlets float, back-blown, as she ran to meet him. Conscious that she was dead, and that he did to her gentle memory no disrespect by linking her fortunes to those of a wretch who had seen so much of evil as himself, he loved to think of her as still Hving, and to plot out for her and for himself impossible plans of future happiness. In the noisome darkness of the mine, in the glaring light of the noonday — dragging at his loaded waggon, he could see her ever with him, her calm eyes gazing lovingly on his, as they had gazed in the boat so long ago. She never seemed to grow older, she never seemed to wish to leave him. It was only when his misery became too great for him to bear, and he cursed and blas- phemed, mingling for a time in the hideous mirth of his companions, that the little figure fled away. Thus dreaming, he had shaped out for himself a sorrowful comfort, and in his dream-world found a compensation for the terrible affliction of living. Indifference to his present sufferings took possession of him ; only at the bottom of this indifference lurked a fixed hatred of the man who had brought these sufferings upon him, and a determination to demand at the first opportunity a recon- sideration of that man's claims to be esteemed a hero. It was in this mood that he had intended to make the revelation which he had made in court, but the intelligence that Sylvia lived unmanned him, and his prepared speech had been usurped by a passionate torrent of complaint and invective, which convinced no one, and gave Frere the very argument he needed. It was decided that the prisoner Dawes was a malicious and artful scoundrel, whose only object was to gain a brief respite of the punishment which he had so justly earned. Against this in- justice he had resolved to rebel. It was monstrous, he thought, that they should refuse to hear the witness who was so ready to speak in his favour, infamous that they should send him AN ESCAPE. 237 back to his doom without allowing her to say a word in his defence. But he would defeat that scheme. He had planned a method of escape, and he would break from his bonds, fling himself at her feet, and pray her to speak the truth for him, and so save him. Strong in his faith in her, and with his love for her brightened by the love he had borne to her dream-image, he felt sure of her power to rescue him now, as he had rescued her before. " If she knew I was alive, she would come to me," he said. " I am sure she would. Perhaps they told her that I was dead." Meditating that night in the solitude of his cell— his evil character had gained him the poor luxury of loneliness — he almost wept to think of the cruel deception that had doubtless been practised on her. " They have told her that I was dead, in order that she might learn to forget me ; but she could not do that. I have thought of her so often during these weary years, that she must sometimes have thought of me. Five vears ! She must be a woman now. My little child a woman ! Yet she is sure to be childlike, sweet, and gentle. How she will grieve when she hears of my sufferings. Oh ! my darling, my darling, you are not dead ! " And then, looking hastily about him in the darkness, as though fearful even there of being seen, he pulled from out his breast a little packet, and felt it lovingly with his coarse, toil-worn fingers, reverently raising it to his hps, and dreaming over it, with a smile on his face, as though it were a sacred talisman that should open to him the doors of freedom. CHAPTER Vni. AN ESCAPE. A FEW days after this — on the 23rd of December — ^Maurice Frere was alarmed by a piece of startling intelligence. The notorious Dawes had escaped from gaol ! Captain Frere had inspected the prison that very afternoon, and it had seemed to him that the hammers had never fallen so briskly, nor the chains clanked so gaily, as on the occasion of his visit. " Thinking of their Christmas hoUday, the dogs ! " 238 mS NATURAL LIFE. he had said to the patrolling warder. "Thinking of their Christmas pudding, the luxurious scoundrels ! " and the con- vict nearest him had laughed appreciatively, as convicts and schoolboys do laugh at the jests of the man in authority. All seemed contentment. Moreover, he had — by way of a pleasant stroke of wit— tormented Rufus Dawes with his ill-fortune. " The schooner sails to-morrow, my man," he had said ; " you'll spend yoi(7- Christmas at the mines ." And congratulated him- self upon the fact that Rufus Dawes merely touched his cap, and went on with his stone-cracking in silence. Certainly double irons and hard labour were fine things to break a man's spirit. So that, when in the afternoon of the same day he heard the astounding news that Rufus Dawes had freed, him- self from his fetters, climbed the gaol wall in broad daylight, run the gauntlet of Macquarie-street, and was now supposed to be safely hidden in the mountains, he was dumbfounded. " How the deuce did he do it, Jenkins ? " he asked, as soon as he reached the yard. "Well, I'm blessed if I rightly know, your honour," says Jenkins. "He was over the wall before you could say 'knife.' Scott fired and missed him, and then I heard the sentry's musket, but he missed him, too." " Missed him ! " cries Frere. " Pretty fellows you are, all of you ! I suppose you couldn't hit a haystack at twenty yards ? Why, the man wasn't three feet from the end of your carbine ! " The unlucky Scott, standing in melancholy attitude by the empty irons, muttered something about the sun having been in his eyes. " I don't know how it was, sir. I ought to have hit him, for certain. I think I did touch him, too, as he went up the wall." A stranger to the customs of the place might have imagined that he was listening to a conversation about a pigeon match. " Tell me all about it," says Frere, with an angry curse. " I was just turning, your honour, when I hears Scott sing out ' Hullo ! " and when I turned round, I saw Dawes's irons on the ground, and him a-scrambling up the heap o' stones yonder. The two men on my right jumped up, and I thought it was a made-up thing among 'em, so I covered 'em with my carbine, according to instructions, and called out that I'd shoot the first that stepped out. Then I heard Scott's piece, and the men gave a shout like. When I looked round, he was gone." AN ESCAPE. 239 " Nobody else moved ? " " No, sir. I was confused at first, and thought they were all in it, but Parton and Haines they runs in and gets between me and the wall, and then Mr. Short he come, and we examined their irons." "All right?" " All right, your honour ; and they all swore they knowed nothing of it. I know Dawes's irons was all right when he went to dinner." Frere stooped and examined the empty fetters. '* All right be hanged," he said. " If you don't know your duty better than this, the sooner you go somewhere else the better, my man.. Look here ! " The two ankle fetters were severed. One had been evidently filed through, and the other broken transversely. The latter was bent, as from a violent blow. " Don't know where he got the file from, " said Warder Short. " Know ! Of course you don't know. You men never do know anything until the mischief's done. You want me here for a month or so. I'd teach you your duty ! Don't know — with things -like this lying about ? I wonder the whole yard isn't loose and dining with the Governor." " This" was a fragment of delft which Frere's quick eye had detected among the broken metal. " I'd cut the biggest iron you've got with this ; and so would he and plenty more, I'll go bail. You ought to have lived with me at Sarah Island, Mr. Short. Don't know !" "Well, Captain Frere, it's an accident," says Short, "and can't be helped now." " An accident ! " roared Frere. " What business have you with accideiits f How, in the devil's name, you let the man get over the wall, I don't know." "He ran up that stone heap," says Scott, "and seemed to me to jump at the roof of the shed. I fired at him, and he swung his legs over the top of the wall and dropped." Frere measured the distance from his eye, and an irrepressible feeling of admiration, arising out of his own skill in athletics, took possession of him for the instant. " By the Lord Harry, but it's a big jump !" he said ; and then the instinctive fear with which the consciousness of the hideous 240 ins NATURAL LIFE. wrong he had done the now escaped convict inspired him, made him add — " A desperate villain like that wouldn't stick at a murder if you pressed him hard. Which way did he go?" " Right up Macquarie-street, and then made for the Moun- tain. There were few people about, but Mr. Mays, of the Star Hotel, tried to stop him, and was knocked head over heels. He says the fellow runs like a deer." " We'll have the reward out if we don't get him to-night," says Frere, turning away ; " and you'd better put on an extra warder. This sort of game is catching ;" and he strode away to the Barracks. From right to left, from east to west, through the prison city flew the signal of alarm, and the patrol, clattering out along the road to New Norfolk, made hot haste to strike the trail of the fugitive. But night came and found him yet at large, and the patrol returning, weary and disheartened, protested that he must be lying hid in some gorge of the purple mountain that overshadowed the town, and would have to be starved into submission. Meanwhile the usual message ran through the island, and so admirable were the arrangements which Arthur the reformer had initiated, that, before noon of the next day, not a signal station on the coast but knew that No. 8942, etc., etc., prisoner for life, was illegally at large. This intelligence, further aided by a paragraph in the Gazette anent the " Daring Escape," noised abroad, the world cared little that the Mary Jane, Government schooner, had sailed for Port Arthur with- out Rufus Dawes. But two or three persons cared a good deal. Major Vickers, for one, was indignant that his boasted security of bolts and bars should have been so easily defied, and in proportion to his indignation was the grief of Messieurs Jenkins, Scott, and Co., suspended from office, and threatened with absolute dismissal. Mr. Meekin was terribly frightened at the fact that so danger- ous a monster should be roaming at large within reach of his own saintly person. Sylvia had shown symptoms of nervous terror, none the less injurious because carefully repressed ; and Captain Maurice Frere was a prey to the most cruel anxiety. He had ridden off at a hand-gallop within ten minutes after he had reached the barracks, and had spent the few hours of remaining daylight in scouring the country along the road to JOHr^ REX'S LETTER HOME. 241 the North. At dawn the next c'ay he was away to the Moun- tain, and with a black-tracker at his heels, explored as much of that wilderness of gully and chasm as nature permitted to him. He had offered to double the reward, and had examined a number of suspicious persons. It was known that he had been inspecting the prison a few hours before the escape took place, and his efforts were therefore attributed to zeal, not un- mixed with chagrin. " Our dear friend feels his reputation at stake," the future chaplain of Port Arthur said to Sylvia at the Christmas dinner. "He is so proud of his knowledge of these unhappy men that he dislikes to be outwitted by any of them." Notwithstanding all this, however, Dawes had disappeared. The fat landlord of the Star Hotel was the last person who saw him, and the flying yellow figure seemed to have been as completely swallowed up by the warm summer's afternoon as if it had run headlong into the blackest night that ever hung above the earth. CHAPTER IX. JOHN rex's letter HOME. THE " little gathering " of which iVIajor Vickers had spoken to Mr. Meekin, had grown into something larger than he had anticipated. Instead of a quiet dinner at which his own household, his daughter's betrothed, and the stranger clergyman only should be present, the Major found himself entangled with Mesdames Protherick and Jellicoe, Mr. McNab of the garrison, and Mr. Pounce of the civil list. His quiet Christmas dinner had grown into an evening party. The conversation was on the usual topic. " Heard anything about that fellow Dawes ? " asked Mr. Pounce, "Not yet," says Frere, sulkily; "but he won't be out long. I've got a dozen men up the mountain." " 1 suppose it is not easy for a prisoner to make good his escape ? " says Meekin. " Oh, he needn't be caught," says Frere, " if that's what you mean, but he'll starve instead. The bushranging days are over 16 S42 mS NATURAL LIFE. now, and it's a precious poor look-out for any man to live upon luck in the bush." "Indeed, yes," says Mr. Pounce, lapping his soup. "This island seems specially adapted by Providence for a convict settlement ; for with an admirable climate, it carries little indi- genous vegetation which will support human life." "Wull," said McNab to Sylvia, " I don't think Prauvidence had any thocht o' caunveect deeciplin whun He created the cauleny o' Van Deemen's Lan'." " Neither do I," said Sylvia. " I don't know," says Mrs. Protherick. " Poor Protherick used often to say that it seemed as if some Almighty Hand had planned the Penal Settlements round the coast, the country is so delightfully barren." " Ay, Port Arthur couldn't have been better if it had been made on purpose," says Frere ; " and all up the coast from Tenby to St. Helen's there isn't a scrap for human being to make a meal on. The West Coast is worse. By George, sir, in the old days, I remember " " By the way," says Meekin, " I've got something to show you. Rex's confession. I brought it down on purpose." *' Rex's confession ! " " His account of his adventures after he left Macquarie Har- bour. I am going to send it to the Bishop." " Oh, I should like to see it," said Sylvia, with heightened colour. " The story of these unhappy men has a personal in- terest for me, you know." /^ "A forbidden subject. Poppet." " No, papa, not altogether forbidden ; for it does not affect me now as it used to do. You must let me read it, Mr. INIeekin." " A pack of lies, I expect," said Frere, with a scowl. I " That scoundrel Rex couldn't tell the truth to save his life." / " You misjudge him. Captain Frere," said Meekin. ^' All the prisoners are not hardened in iniquity like Rufus Dawes. Rex is, I believe, truly penitent, and has written a most touching letter to his father." " A letter ! " said Vickers. " You know that, by the King's— no, the Queen's regulations, no letters are allowed to be sent to the friends of prisoners without first passing through the hands of the authorities." " I am aware of that, Major, and for that reason hW brought JOHN REX'S LETTER HOME. 243 it with me, that you may read it for yourself. It seems to me to breathe a spirit of true piety." " Let's have a look at it," said Frere. " Here it is," returned Meekin, producing a packet : " and when the cloth is removed, I will ask permission of the ladies to read it aloud. It is most interesting." A glance of surprise passed between the ladies Protherick and Jellicoe. The idea of a convict's letter proving interest- ing ! Mr. Meekin was new to the ways of the place. Frere, turning the packet between his fingers, read the address : John Rex, sen., Care of Mr. Blick, 38, Bishopsgate Street Within, Ixindon. " Why can't he write to his father direct ? " said he. " Who's Blick ? " " A worthy merchant, I am told, in whose counting-house the unfortunate Rex passed his younger days. He had a tolerable education, as you are aware." "Educated prisoners are always the worst," said Vickers. " James, some more wine. We don't drink toasts here, but as this is Christmas Eve — ' Her Majesty the Oueen 1 ' " "Hear, hear, hear!" says Maurice. "'Her Majesty the Queen ! ' " Having drunk this loyal toast with due fervour, Vickers pro- posed, "His Excellency Sir John Franklin," which toast was likewise duly honoured. " Here's a Merry Christmas and a Ha])py New Year to you, sir," said Frere, with the letter still in his hand. " God bless us all." "Amen ! " says Meekin piously. "Let us hope He will ; and now, Icddies, the letter. I will read you the Confession after- wards." Opening the packet with the satisfaction of a Gospel vineyard labourer who sees his first vine sprouting, the good creature began : " • Hobart Town, Dec. 27th, 1838. "My Dear Father,— Through all the chances, changes, and vicissitudes of my chequered life, I never had a task so painful to my mangled feelings' 244 til^ NATURAL LIFE. as the present one, of addressing you from this doleful spot — my sea-girt prison, on the beach of which I stand a monument of destruction ; driven by the adverse winds of fate to the confines of black despair, and into the vortex of galling misery." " Poetical ! " said Frere. " ' I am just like a gigantic tree of the forest which has stood many a wintry blast and stormy tempest, but now, alas ! I am become a withered trunk, with all my greenest and tenderest branches lopped off. Though fast at- taining middle age, I am not filling an envied and honoured post with credit and respect. No — I shall be soon wearing the garb of degradation, and the badge and brand of infamy at P. A., which is, being interpreted, Port Arthur, the '' Villain's Home." ' " " Poor fellow ! " said Sylvia. " Touching, is it not 1 " assented Meel^in, continuing, — /"I am, with heartrending sorrow and anguish of soul, ranged and mingled with the Outcasts of Society. My present circumstances and picture you will find well and truly drawn in the 102nd Psalm, commencing with the 4th verse to the 12th inclusive, which, my dear father, I request you will read attentively before you proceed any further.' " ----_ " Hullo ! " said Frere, pulling out his pocket-book, " what's that? Read those numbers again." Mr. Meekin complied, and Frere grinned. " Go on," he said. " I'll show you something in that letter directly." " 'Oh, my dear father, avoid, I beg of you, the reading of profane books. Let your mind dwell upon holy things, and assiduously study to grow in grace. Psalm Ixxiii. 2. Yet I have hope even in this my desolate condition. Psalm XXXV. 18. " For the Lord our God is merciful, and inclineth His ear unto pity." * 'Blasphemous dog ! " said Vickers. " You don't believe all that, Meekin, do you ? " The parson reproved him gently. " Wait a moment, sir, until I have finished." • " ' Party spirit runs very high, even in prison in Van Diemcn's Land. ! am sorry to say that a licentious press invariably evinces a very great degree of contumely, while the authorities are held in respect by all well-disposed persons, though it is often endeavoured by some to britig on them the hatred and contempt of prisoners. But I am glad to tell you that all their JOHN REX'S LETTER HOME. 245 efforts are without avail ; but, nevertheless, do not read in any colonial newspaper. There is so much scurrility and vituperation in their produc- tions.' " "Thai's for your benefit, Frere," said Vickers, with a smile, "You remember what was said about your presence at the race meetings ? " " Of course," said P'rere. " Artful scoundrel ! Go on, Mr, Meekin, pray." " ' I am aware that you will hear accounts of cruelty and tyranny, said, by the malicious and the evil-minded haters of the Government and Govern- ment officials, to have been inflicted by gaolers on convicts. To be candid, this is not the dreadful place it has been represented to be by vindictive writers. Severe flogging and heavy chaining is sometimes used, no doubt, but only in rare cases ; and nominal punishments are marked out by law for slight breaches of discipline. So far as I have an opportunity of judg- ing, the lash is never bestowed unless merited.' " ,/*' As far as he is concerned, I don't doubt it ! " said Frere, cracking a walnut. " ' The texts of Scripture quoted by our chaplain have comforted me much, and I have much to be grateful for ; for after the rash attempt I made to secure my freedom, I have reason to be thankful for the mercy shown to me. Death — dreadful death of soul and body — would have been my por- tion ; but, by the mercy of Omnipotence, I have been spared to repentance — John iii. I have now come to bitterness. The chaplain, a pious gentle- man, says it never really pays to steal. ' ' Lay up for yourselves treasures in Heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt.'' Honesty is the best policy, I am convinced, and I would not for ^^i.ooo repeat my evil courses — Psalm xx.xviii. 14. When I think of the happy days I once passed with good Mr. Blick, in the old house in Blue Anchor Yard, and reflect that since that happy time I have recklessly plunged in sin, and stolen goods and watches, studs, rings, and jewellery, become, indeed, a common thief, I tremble with remorse, and fly to prayer — Psalm v. Oh what sinners we are ! Let me hope that now I, by God's blessing placed beyond temptation, will live safely, and that some day I even may, by the will of the Lord Jesus, find mercy for my sins. Some kind of madness has method in it, but madness of sin holds us without escape. Such is, dear father, then, my hope and trust for my remaining life here — Psalm c. 74. I owe my bodily well-b(;ing to Captain Maurice Frere, who was n;ood enough to speak of my conduct in reference to the Osprcy, when, with Shires, Barker, and others, we captured that vessel. Pray for Captain Frere, my dear father. He is a good man, and though his public duty is painful and trying to his feelings, yet, as a public functionary, he could not allow his private feelings, whether of mercy or revenge, to step between him and his duty.' " 246 HIS NATURAL LIFE. " Confound the rascal ! " said Frere, growing crimson. :, " ' Remember me most affectionately to Sarah and little William, and all friends who yet cherish the recollection of me, and bid them take warning by my fate, and keep from evil courses. A good conscience is better than gold, and no amount can compensate for the misery incident to a return to crime. Whether I shall ever see you again, dear father, is more-thanjin- certain ; for my doom is life, unless the Government alter their plans con- cerning me, and allow me an opportunity to earn my freedom by hard work. " 'The blessing of God rest with you, my dear father ; and that you may be washed white in the blood of the Lamb is the prayer of your " ' Unfortunate Son, " 'John Rex "'P.S. — Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be whiter than snow." " Is that all ?" said Frere. " That is all, sir, and a very touching letter it is." " So it is," said Frere. " Now let me have it a moment, LIr. Meekin." He took the paper, and referring to the numbers of the texts which he had written in his pocket-book, began to knit his brows over Mr. John Rex's impious and hypocritical production. " I thought so," he said, at length. " Those texts were never written for nothing. It's an old trick, but cleverly done." "What do you mean.?" said Meekin. " Mean ! " cries Frere, with a smile at his own acuteness. "This precious composition contains a very gratifying piece of intelligence for Mr. Blick, whoever he is. Some receiver, I've no doubt. Look here, Mr. Meekin. Take the letter and this pencil, and begin at the first text. The 102nd Psalm, from the 4th verse to the 12th inclusive, doesn't he say? Very good; that's nine verses, isn't it? Well, now, underscore nine consecu- tive words from the second word immediately following the next text quoted, ' I hare hope,' etc. Have you got it ? " " Yes," says Meekin, astonished, while all heads bent over the table. " Well, now, his text is the eighteenth verse of the thirty^;?/"//; Psalm, isn't it ? Count eighteen words on, then underscore 7^7/^ consecutive ones. You've done that ? " "A moment — sixteen — seventeen — eighteen, ^authorities.^* " Count and score in the same way until you come to the 'fOHN REX'S LETTER HOME. 24J word 'Texts' somewhere. Vickers, I'll trouble you for tha claret." " Yes," said Meekin after a pause. " Here it is — ' the texts ol Scripture quoted by our chaplain.' But surely Mr. Frere-^ " " Hold on a bit now," cries Frcre. "What's the next quota- tion ? — John iii. That's every third word. Score every third word beginning with ' I ' immediately following the text, now, until you come to a quotation. Got it ? How many words in it ?" " ' Lay up for yourselves treasures in Heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt,'" said Meekin, a little scandalized, " Fourteen words." "Count fourteen words on, then, and score the fourteenth- I'm up to this text-quoting business." " The word '^T 1,000,' " said Meekin. " Yes." "Then there's another text. Thirty-eighth — isn't it? — Psalm and the fourteenth verse. Do that the same way as the other — count fourteen words, and then score eight in succession. Where does that bring you ? " ''The fifth Psalm." " Every fifth word then. Go on, my dear sir — goon. 'Method' of 'escape,' yes. The Imndredth Psalm means a full stop. What verse? Seventy-four. Count seventy-four words and score." There was a pause for a few minutes while Mr. Meekin counted. The letter had really turned out interesting. " Read out your marked words now, Meekin. Let's see if I'm right." Mr. Meekin read with gradually crimsoning face : — "'I have hopes even in this my desolate condition ... in prison Van Diemen's Land . . . the authorities are held in . . . hatred and contempt of prisoners . . . read in any colonial newspaper . . . accounts of cruelty and tyranny . . . inflicted by gaolers on convicts . . . severe flogging and heavy chaining . . , for slight breaches of discipline ; . I . . . come . . . the pious . . . it . . . pays . . . ^1,000 . . . in the old house in Blue Anchor Yard . . . stolen goods and watches studs rings and jewellery . . . are . , . now . . . placed . . . safely . . • I . . . will . . . find . . . some . . . method of . . . escape . . . then . . . for . . . revenge." " Well," said Maurice, looking round with a grin, " what do you think of that ? " 248 HIS NATURAL LIFE. " Most remarkable !" said Mr. Pounce. " How did you find it out, Frere ? " " Oh, it's nothing,^ says Frere ; meaning that it was a great deal. " I've studied a good many of these things, and this one is clumsy to some I've seen. But it's pious, isn't it, Meekin ? '* Mr. Meekin arose in wrath. " It's very ungracious on your part. Captain Frere. A capital joke, I have no doubt ; but permit me to say I do not like jest- ing on such matters. This poor fellow's letter to his aged father to be made the subject of heartljss merriment, I confess I do not understand. It was confided to me in my sacred character as a Christian pastor." ^...^^ " That's just it. The fellows play upon the parsons, excuse me, don't you know, and under' cover of your ' sacred character,' play all kinds of pranks. How the dog must have chuckled when he gave you that ! " " Captain Frere," said Mr. Meekin, changing colour like a chameleon with indignation and rage, "your interpretation is, I am convinced, an incorrect one. How could the poor man compose such an ingenious piece of cryptography ? ' " If you mean, fake up that paper," returned Frere, uncon- sciously dropping into prison slang, " I'll tell you. He had a Bible, I suppose, while he was writing ? " " I certainly permitted him the use of the Sacred Volume, Captain Frere. I should have judged it inconsistent with the character of my Office to have refused it to him." " Of course. And that's just where you parsons are always putting your foot into it. If you'd put your ' Office ' into your pocket and open your eyes a bit " " Maurice ! My dear Maurice ! " " I beg your pardon, Meekin," says Maurice, with clumsy apology; "but I know these fellows. I've lived among 'em, I came out in a ship with 'em, I've talked with 'em, and drank with 'em, and I'm down to all their moves, don't you see. The Bible is the only book they get hold of, and texts are the only bits of learning ever taught 'm, and being chockfull of villainy and plots and conspiracies, what other book should they make use of to aid their infernal schemes but the one that the chaplain has made a text-book of for 'em ? " And Maurice rose in disgust, not unmixed with self-laudation. " Pear me, it is really very terrible," said Meekin, who wag JOHW REX'S LETTER HOME. 249 not ill-meaning, but only self-complacent — "very terrible in- deed." " But unhappily true," said Mr. Pounce. " An olive? Thanks." " Upon me soul ! " burst out honest McNab, " the hail see- stem seems to be maist ill-calculated tae advance the wark c' reeformation." "Mr. McNab, I'll trouble you for the port," said equally honest Vickers, bound hand and foot in the chains of the rules of the service. And so, what seemed likely to become a dangerous discussion upon convict discipline, was stifled judi- ciously at the birth. But Sylvia, prompted, perhaps by curiosity, perhaps by a desire to modify the parson's chagrin, in passing Mr. Meekin, took up the " confession," that lay unopened beside his wine glass, and bore it off. " Come, Mr. Meekin," said Vickers, when the door closed behind the ladies, " help yourself. I am sorry the letter turned out so strangely, but you may rely on Frere, I assure you. He knows more about convicts than any man on the island." " I see. Captain Frere, that you have made a study of the criminal classes." " So I have, my dear sir, and know every turn and twist among 'em. I tell you my maxim. It's some French fellow's too, I believe, but that don't matter — divide to conquer. Set all the dogs spying on each other," " Oh ! " said Meekin. " It's the only way. Why, my dear sir, if the prisoners were as faithful to each other as we are, we couldn't hold the island a week. It's just because no man can trust his neighbour that every mutiny falls to the ground." " I suppose it must be so," said poor Meekin. " It is so ; and, by George, sir, if I had my way, I'd have it so that no prisoner should say a word to his right hand man, but his left hand man should tell me of it. I'd promote the men that peached, and make the beggars their own warders. Ha, ha ! " " But such a course. Captain Frere, though perhaps useful in a certain way, would surely produce harm. It would excite the worst passions of our fallen nature, and lead to endless lying and tyranny. I'm sure it would." " Wait a bit," cries Frere. " Perhaps, one of these days, I'll get a chance, and then I'll try it. Convicts ! By the Lord 250 HIS NATURAL LIFE. Harry, sir, there's only one way to treat 'em ; give 'em tobacco when they behave 'emselves, and flog 'em when they don't." " Terrible ! " says the clergyman with a shudder. " You speak of them as if they were wild beasts." " So they are," said Maurice Frere, calmly. CHAPTER X. WHAT BECAME OF THE MUTINEERS OF THE " OSPREY." AT the bottom of the long luxuriant garden-ground was a rustic seat abutting upon the low wall that topped the lane. The branches of the English trees (planted long ago) hung above it, and between their rustling boughs one could see the reach of the silver river. Sitting with her face to the bay and her back to the house, Sylvia opened the manuscript she had carried off from Meekin, and began to read. It was written in a firm, large hand, and headed— "A NARRATIVE " Of the sufferings and adventures of certain of the ten convicts who seized the brig " osprey," AT Macquarie Harbour, in Van Diemen's Land, RELATED BY ONE OF THE SAID CONVICTS WHILE LYING UNDER SENTENCE FOR THIS OFFENCE IN THE GAOL AT HoBART Town." Sylvia, having read this grandiloquent sentence, paused for a moment. The story of the mutiny, which had been the chief event of her childhood, lay before her, and it seemed to her that, were it related truly, she should comprehend something strange and terrible, which had been for many years a shadow upon her memory. Longing, and yet fearing, to proceed, she held the paper, half unfolded, in her hand, as, in her childhood, she had held ajar the door of some dark room, into which she longed and yet feared to enter. Her timidity lasted but an instant. • • • • • WHAT BECAME OF THE MUTINEERS. 251 " When orders arrived from head-quarters to break up the penal settlement of Macquarie Harbour, the Commandant (Major Vickers, — th Regiment) and most of the prisoners embarked on board a colonial vessel, and set sail for Hobart Town, leaving behind them a brig that had been built at Mac- quarie Harbour, to be brought round after them, and placing Captain Maurice Frere in command. Left aboard her was Mr. Bates, who had acted as pilot at the settlement, also four soldiers, and ten prisoners, as a crew to work the vessel. The Commandant's wife and child were also aboard." * 4< * « « " How strangely it reads," thought the girl. iH « * li' III "On the I2th of January, 1834, we set sail, and in the after- noon anchored safely outside the Gates ; but a breeze setting in from the north-west, caused a swell on the Bar, and Mr. Bates ran back to Wellington Bay. We remained there all next day ; and in the afternoon Captain Frere took two soldiers and a boat, and went a-fishing. There were then only Mr. Bates and the other two soldiers aboard, and it was proposed by William Cheshire to seize the vessel. I was at first unwilling, thinking that loss of life might ensue ; but Cheshire and the others, knowing that I was acquainted with navigation — having in happier days lived much on the sea — threatened me if I refused to join. A song was started in the folksle, and one of the soldiers coming to listen to it, was seized, and Lyon and Riley then made prisoner of the sentry. Forced thus into a project with which I had at first but little sympathy, I felt my heart leap at the prospect of freedom, and would have sacrificed all to obtain it. Maddened by the desperate hopes that inspired me, I from that moment assumed the command of my wretched companions ; and honestly think, that however culpable I may have been in the eyes of the law, I prevented them from the display of a violence to which their savage life had unhappily made them but too accustomed." ■If * * % * " Poor fellow," said Sylvia, beguiled by Master Rex's specious paragraphs, " I think he was not to blame." ***** " Mr. Bates was below in the cabin, and on being summoned by Cheshire to surrender, with great courage attempted a 252 HIS NATURAL LIFE. defence. Barker fired at him through the skylight, but fearful of the lives of the Commandant's wife and child, I strucK up his musket, and the ball passed through the mouldings of the stern windows. At the same time, the soldiers whom we had bound in the folksle forced up the hatch and came on/ deck. Cheshire shot the first one, and struck the other with his clubbed musket. The wounded man lost his footing, and the brig lurching with the rising tide, he fell into the sea. This was — by the blessing of God— the only life lost in the whole affair. " Mr, Bates, seeing now that we had possession of the deck, surrendered, upon promise that the Commandant's wife and child should be put ashore in safety. I directed him to take such matters as he needed, and prepared to lower the jolly- boat. As she swung off the davits. Captain Frere came along- side in the whale-boat, and gallantly endeavoured to board us, but the boat drifted past the vessel. I was now determined to be free— indeed, the minds of all on board were made up to carry through the business — and hailing the whale-boat, swore to fire into her unless she surrendered. Captain Frere refused, and was for boarding us again, but the two soldiers joined with us, and prevented his intention. Having now got the prisoners into the jolly-boat, we transferred Captain Frere into her, and being ourselves in the whale-boat, compelled Captain Frere and Mr, Bates to row ashore. We then took the jolly-boat in tow, and returned to the brig, a strict watch being kept for fear that they should rescue the vessel from us. " At break of day every man was upon deck, and a consul- tation took place concerning the parting of the provisions. Cheshire was for leaving them to starve, but Lesly, Shires, and I held out for an equal division. After a long and violent controversy, Humanity gained the day, and the provisions were put into the whale-boat, and taken ashore. Upon the receipt of the provisions, Mr. Bates thus expressed himself : ' Men, I did not for one moment expect such kind treatment from you, regarding the provisions you have now brought ashore for us, out of so little which there was on board. When I consider your present undertaking, without a competent navigator, and in a leaky vessel, your situation seems most perilous ; therefore I hope God will prove kind to you, and preserve you from the manifold dangers you may have to encounter on the stormy Qcean.' Mrs. Vickefs also was pleased to say that I ha4 WHAT BECAME OP THE MUTINEERS. 253 behaved kindly to her, that she wished me well, and that when she returned to Hobart Town she would speak in my favour. They then cheered us on our departure, wishing we might be prosperous on account of our humanity in sharing the provi- sions with them. " Having had breakfast, we commenced throwing overboard the light cargo which was in the hold, which employed us until dinner-time. After dinner we ran out a small kedge-anchor with about one hundred fathoms of line, and having weighed anchor, and the tide being slack, we hauled on the kedge-linc, and succeeded in this manner by kedging along, and we came to two islands, called the Cap and Bonnet. The whole of us then commenced heaving the brig short, sending the whale-boat to take her in tow, after we had irippcd the anchor. By this means we got her safe across the bar. Scarcely was this done when a light breeze sprang up from the south-west, and firing a musket to apprize the party we had ^zi^. of our safety, we made sail and put out to sea."' Having read thus far, Sylvia paused in an agony of recollec- tion. She remembered the firing of the musket, and that her mother had wept over her. But beyond this all was uncer- tainty. Memories slipped across her mind like shadows — she caught at them, and they were gone. Yet the reading of this strange story made her nerves thrill. Despite the hypocritical grandiloquence and affected piety of the narrative, it was easy to see that, save some warping of facts to make for himself a better case, and to extol the courage of the gaolers who had him at their mercy, the narrator had not attempted to ij*>ner his tale by the invention of perils. The history of the asperate project that had been planned and carried out five years before, was related with grim simplicity which, (because it at once bears the stamp of truth, and forces the imagination of the reader to supply the omitted details of horror), is more effective to inspire sympathy than elaborate description. The very barrenness of the narration was hideously suggestive, and the girl felt her heart beat quicker as her poetic intellect rushed to complete the terrible picture sketched by the convict. She saw it all — the blue sea, the burning sun, the slowly moving ship, the wretched company on the shore ; she heard Was that a rustling in the bushes below her ? A bird ! How nervous she was growing ! fiS4 HIS NATURAL LIFE. " Being thus fairly rid — as we thought — of our prison hfe, we cheerfully held consultation as to our future course. It was my intention to get among the islands in the South Seas, and scuttling the brig, to pass ourselves off among the natives as shipwrecked seamen, trusting^^^te-OxjdVTTiercy that some home- ward bound vessel might at length rescue us. With this view, I made James Lesly first mate, he being an experienced mariner, and prepared myself, with what few instruments we had, to take our departure from Birches Rock. Having hauled the whale-boat alongside, we stove her, together with the jolly- boat, and cast her adrift. This done, I parted the landsmen with the seamen, and, steering east south-east, at eight p.m. we set our first watch. In little more than an hour after this, came on a heavy gale from the south-west. I, and others of the landsmen, were violently sea-sick, and Lesly had some diffi- culty in handling the brig, as the boisterous weather called for two men at the helm. In the morning, getting upon deck with difficulty, I found that the wind had abated, but upon sounding the well discovered much water in the hold. Lesly rigged the pumps, but the starboard one only could be made to work. From that time there were but two businesses aboard — from the pump to the helm. The gale lasted two days and a night, the brig running under close-reefed topsails, we being afraid to shorten sail, lest we might be overtaken by some pursuing vessel, so strong was the terror of our prison upon us. " On the 1 6th, at noon, I again forced myself on deck, and taking a meridian observation, altered the course of the brig to east and by south, wishing to run to the southward of New Zealand, out of the usual track of shipping ; and having a notion that, should our provisions hold out, we might make the South American coast, and fall into Christian hands. This done, I was compelled to retire below, and for a week lay in my berth as one at the last gasp. At times I repented of my resolution. Fair urging me to bestir myself, as the men were not satisfied with our course. On the 21st a mutiny occurred, led by Lyons, who asserted we were heading into the Pacific, and must infallibly perish. This disaffected man, though ignorant of navigation, insisted upon steering to the south, believing that we had run to the northward of the Friendly Islands, and was for running the ship ashore and beseeching the protection of the natives. Lesly in vain protested that a southward course WHAT BECAME OF THE MUTINEERS. 255 would bring us into icefields. Barker, who had served on . board a whaler, strove to convince the mutineers that the temperature of such latitudes was too warm for such an error to escape us. After much noise, Lyons rushed to the helm, and Russen, drawing one of the pistols taken from Mr. Bates, shot him dead, upon which the others returned to their duty. This dreadful deed was, I fear, necessary to the safety of the brig ; and had it occurred on board a vessel manned by freemen, would have been applauded as a stern but needful measure. " Forced by these tumults upon deck, I made a short speech to the crew, and convinced them that I was competent to per- form what I had promised to do, though at the time my heart inwardly failed me, and I longed for some sign of land. Sup- ported at each arm by Lesly and Barker, I took an observation, and altered our course to north by east, the brig running eleven knots an hour under single-reefed topsails, and the pumps hard at work. So we ran until the 31st of January, when a white squall took us, and nearly proved fatal to all aboard. " Lesly now committed a great error, for, upon the brig righting, (she was thrown upon her beam ends, and her spanker boom carried away,) he commanded to furl the fore-top sail, strike top-gallant yards, furl the main course, and take a reef in the maintopsail, leaving her to scud under single-reefed main- topsail and fore-sail. This caused the vessel to leak to that degree that I despaired of reaching land in her, and prayed to the Almighty to send us speedy assistance. For nine days and nights the storm continued, the men being utterly exhausted. One of the two soldiers whom we had employed to fish the two pieces of the spanker boom, with some quartering that we had, was washed overboard and drowned. Our provision was now nearly done, but the gale abating on the ninth day, we hastened to put provisions on the launch. The sea was heavy, and we were compelled to put a purchase on the fore and main yards, with preventers to windward, to ease the launch in going over the side. We got her fairly afloat at last, the others battening down the hatches in the brig. Having dressed ourselves in tha clothes of Captain Frcre and the pilot, we left the brig at sun- down, lying with her channel plates nearly under water, " The wind freshening during the night, our launch, which might, indeed, be termed a long-boat, having been fitted with mast, bowsprit, and main boom, began to be very uneasy, ship- 2S6 HIS NATURAL LIFE^ ping two seas one after the other. The plan we could devise was to sit, four of us about, in the stern sheets, with our backs to the sea, to prevent the water pooping us. This itself was enough to exhaust the strongest men. The Ax^, however, made us some amends for the dreadful night. Land was not more than ten miles from us ; approaching as nearly as we could with safety, we hauled our wind, and ran along it, trusting to find some harbour. At half-past two we sighted a bay of very curious appearance, having two large rocks at the entrance, resembling pyramids. Shires, Russen, and Fair landed, in hopes of discovering fresh water, of which we stood much in need. Before long they returned, stating that they had found an Indian hut, inside of which were some rude earthenware vessels. Fearful of surprise, we lay off the shore all that night, and putting into the bay very early in the morning, killed a seal. This was the first fresh meat I had tasted for four years. It seemed strange to eat it under such circumstances. We cooked the flippers, heart, and liver for breakfast, giving some to a cat which we had taken with us out of the brig, for I would not, willingly, allow even that animal to perish. After break- fast, we got under weigh ; and we had scarcely been out half an hour when we had a fresh breeze, which carried us along at the rate of seven knots an hour, running from bay to bay to find inhabitants. Steering along the shore, as the sun went down, we suddenly heard the bellowing of a bullock, and James Barker, whom, from his violent conduct, I thought incapable ot such sentiment, burst into tears. " In about two hours we perceived great fires on the beach and let go the anchor in nineteen fathoms of water. We lay awake all that night. In the morning, we rowed further inshore, and moored the boat to some sea #ced. As soon as the inhabitants caught sight of us, they came down to the beach. I distributed needles and thread among the Indians, and on saying ' Valdivia,' a woman instantly pointed towards a tongue of land to the southward, holding up three fingers, and crying ^ Icaghos P '