 Section 54 of For the term of his natural life. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. For the term of his natural life by Marcus Clarke. Book 3, Port Arthur, 1838. Chapter 25, The Flight. Gabbitt, guided by the crow, had determined to beach the captured boat on the southern point of Cape Serville. It will be seen by those who have followed the description of the topography of Colonel Arthur's penitentiary that nothing but the desperate nature of the attempt could have justified so desperate a measure. The perpendicular cliffs seemed to render such an attempt certain destruction, but Vetch, who had been employed in building the pier at the neck, knew that on the southern point of the promontory was a strip of beach, upon which the company might, by good fortune, land in safety. With something of the decision of his leader, Regs, the crow determined at once that in their desperate plight this was the only measure, and setting his teeth as he seized the ore that served as a rudder, he put the boat's head straight for the huge rock that formed the northern horn of Pirates Bay. Saved for the faint phosphorescent radiance of the foaming waves, the darkness was intense, and Burgess for some minutes pulled almost at random in pursuit. The same tremendous flash of lightning which had saved the life of McNabb by causing Regs to miss his aim showed to the commandant the whale boat balanced on the summit of an enormous wave, and apparently about to be flung against the wall of rock which, magnified in the flash, seemed frightfully near to them. The next instant Burgess himself, his boat lifted by the swiftly advancing billow, saw a wild waste of raging seas scooped into abysmal troughs in which the bulk of a leviathan might wallow. At the bottom of one of these valleys of water lay the mutineer's boat, looking, with its outspread ores, like some six-legged insect floating in a pool of ink. The great cliff, whose every scar and crag was as distinct as though its huge bulk was but a yard distant, seemed to shoot out from its base toward the struggling insect, a broad, flat straw that was a strip of dry land. The next instant the rushing water, carrying the six-legged atom with it, creamed up over this strip of beach. The giant crag amid the thunder crash which followed upon the lightning, appeared to stoop down over the ocean, and as it stooped the billow rolled onwards, the boat glided down into the depths, and the whole phantasmagoria was swallowed up in the tumultuous darkness of the tempest. Burgess, his hair bristling with terror, shouted to put the boat about, but he might with as much reason have shouted at an avalanche. The wind blew his voice away and emptied it violently into the air. A snarling billow jerked the oar from his hand. Despite the desperate efforts of the soldiers, the boat was whirled up the mountain of water like a leaf on a waterspout, and a second flash of lightning showed them what seemed a group of dolls juggling in the surf, and a walnut shell bottom upwards was driven by the recoil of the waves towards them. For an instant all thought that they must share the fate which had overtaken the unlucky convicts, but Burgess succeeded in trimming the boat, and, awed by the peril he had so narrowly escaped, gave the order to return. As the men set the boat's head to the welcome line of lights that marked the neck, a black spot balanced upon a black line was swept under their stern and carried out to sea. As it passed them, this black spot emitted a cry, and they knew that it was one of the shattered boat's crew clinging to an oar. He was the only one of them alive, said Burgess, bandaging his sprained wrist two hours afterwards at the neck, and he's food for the fishes by this time. He was mistaken, however. Fate had in reserve for the crew of villains a less merciful death than that of drowning. Aided by the lightning and that wonderful good luck which urges villainy to its destruction, Vetch beached the boat, and the party, bruised and bleeding, reached the upper portion of the shore in safety. Of all this number only Cox was lost. He was pulling stroke oar, and being something of a laggard, stood in the way of the crow, who, seeing the importance of haste in preserving his own skin, plucked the man backwards by the collar and passed over his sprawling body to the shore. Cox, grasping at anything to save himself, clutched an oar, and the next moment found himself borne out with the overturned whale boat by the undertow. He was drifted past his only hope of rescue, the guard boat, with the velocity that forbade all attempts at rescue, and almost before the poor scoundrel had time to realize his condition, he was in the best possible way of escaping the hanging and his comrades had so often humorously prophesied for him. Being a strong and vigorous villain, however, he clung tenaciously to his oar, and even unbuckling his leather belt, passed it round the slip of wood that was his salvation, girding himself to it as firmly as he was able. In this condition, plus a swoon from exhaustion, he was described by the helmsman of the Pretty Mary, a few miles from Capesurville, at daylight next morning. Blunt, with the wild hope that this wave and stray might be this lover of Sarah Purfoy, dead, lowered a boat and picked him up, nearly bisected by the belt, gorged with saltwater, frozen with cold, and having two ribs broken. The victing of Vetch's murderous quickness retained sufficient life to survive Blunt's remedies for nearly two hours. During that time, he stated that his name was Cox, that he had escaped from Port Arthur with eight others, that John Rex was the leader of the expedition, that the others were all drowned, and that he believed John Rex had been retaken. Having placed Blunt in possession of these particulars, he further said that it pricked him to breathe, cursed Jimmy Vetch, the settlement, and the sea, and so impenitently died. Blunt smoked three pipes, and then altered the course of the Pretty Mary two poisons to the eastward, and ran for the coast. It was possible that the man for whom he was searching had not been retaken, and was even now awaiting his arrival. It was clearly his duty, hearing of the planned escape having been actually attempted, not to give up the expedition while hope remained. I'll take one more along, said he to himself. The Pretty Mary, hugging the coast as closely as she dared, crawled in the thin breeze all day, and saw nothing. It would be madness to land at Cape Sirville, for the whole station would be on the alert, so Blunt, as night was falling, stood off a little across the mouth of Pirate's Bay. He was walking the deck, groaning at the folly of the expedition, when a strange appearance on the southern horn of the bay made him come to a sudden halt. There was a furnace blazing in the bowels of the mountain. Blunt rubbed his eyes and stared. He looked at the man at the helm. Do you see anything yonder, Gem? Gem, a Sydney man, who had never been round that coast before, briefly remarked, lighthouse. Blunt stumped into the cabin and got out his charts. No lighthouse was laid down there, only a mark like an anchor and a note, remarkable hole at this point. A remarkable hole indeed, a remarkable lime kiln would have been more to the purpose. Blunt called up his mate, William Staples, a fellow whom Sarah Purfoy's gold had bought, body and soul. William Staples looked at the waxing waning glow for a while and then said, in tones trembling with greed, it's a fire, lie to, and lower away the jolly boat. Old man, that's our bird for a thousand pounds. The pretty Mary shortened sail and Blunt and Staples got into the jolly boat. Going a hoist your in, sir, said one of the crew with a grin, as Blunt threw a bundle into the stern sheets. Staples thrust his tongue into his cheek. The object of the voyage was now pretty well understood among the carefully picked crew. Blunt had not chosen men who were likely to betray him, though. For that matter, Rex had suggested a precaution which rendered betrayal almost impossible. What's in the bundle, old man? Asked Will Staples after they got clear of the ship. Clothes returned, Blunt. We can't bring him off if it is him. In his canneries. He puts on these duds, do you see, sinks Her Majesty's livery, and comes aboard a shipwrecked mariner. That's well thought of. Who's no since that? The matter's oddly bound. Aye. She's a knowing one. And the sinister laughter of the pair floated across the violet water. Go easy, man, said Blunt, as they neared the shore. They're all awake at Eagle Hawk, and if those cursed dogs give tongue, there will be a boat out in a twinkling. It's lucky the wind's off shore. Staples lay on his oar and listened. The night was moonless, and they disappeared from view. They were approaching the promontory from the southeast, and this isthmus of the guarded neck was hidden by the outlying cliff. In the southwestern angle of this cliff, about midway between the summit and the sea, was an arch, which vomited a red and flickering light that faintly shone upon the sea in the track of the boat. The light was lambent and uncertain, now sinking almost into insignificance, and now leaping up with a fierceness deep glow to throb in the very heart of the mountain. Sometimes the black figure would pass across this gigantic furnace-mouth, stooping and rising, as though feeding the fire. One might have imagined that a door in Vulcan Smithy had been inadvertently left open, and that the old hero was forging arms for a demigod. Blunt turned pale. It's no mortal, he whispered. Let's go back. And what will madams say? What have plunged into Mount Irvis had he been paid for it? Thus appealed to, in the name of his ruling passion, Blunt turned his head and the boat sped onward. The Lyft of the Waterspout has saved John Rex's life. At the moment when it struck him, he was on his hands and knees at the entrance of the cavern. The wave gushing upwards at the same time expanded laterally, and this lateral force drove the convict into the mouth of the subterranean passage. The passage trended downwards and for some seconds he was rolled over and over, the rush of water wedging him at length in the water. The rush of water wedging him at length into a crevice between two enormous stones, which, overhung, are still more formidable abyss. Fortunately for the preservation of his hard fought for life, this very fury of incoming water prevented him from being washed out again with a recoil of the wave. He could hear the water dashing with frightful echo as far down into the depths beyond him, but it was evident that the two stones against which he had been thrust from the outside, and repelled the main body of the stream in the fashion he had observed from his position on the ledge. In a few seconds the cavern was empty. Painfully extricating himself and feeling as yet doubtful off his safety, John Rex essayed to climb the twin blocks that barred the unknown depths below him. The first movement he made caused him to shriek aloud. His left arm, with which he had clung to the rope, hung powerless. When he reached the entrance it was momentarily paralysed. For an instant the unfortunate Rex sank despairingly on the wet and rugged floor of the cave. Then a terrible gurgling beneath his feet warned him of the approaching torrent, and collecting all his energies he scrambled up the incline. Though no fainting with pain and exhaustion he pressed desperately higher and higher. He heard the hideous shriek of the whirlpool which was beneath him grow louder and louder. As the rising waterspout covered the mouth of the cave he felt the salt spray sting his face and the rothel tide licked the hand that hung over the shelf on which he fell. But that was all. He was out of danger at last. And as the thought blessed his senses his eyes closed, and the wonderful courage and strength which had sustained the villain so long exhaled in stupa. When he awoke the cavern was filled with a soft light of dawn. Racing his eyes he could be held high above his head a roof of rock on which the reflection of the sunbeams playing upwards through a pool of water cast flickering colours. On the right hand was the mouth of the cave. On his left a terrific abyss at the bottom of which he could hear the sea faintly lapping and washing. He raised himself and stretched his stiffened limbs. Despite his injured shoulder it was imperative that he should bestow himself. He knew not if his escape had been noticed or if the cavern had another inlet by which McNabb returning might penetrate. Moreover he was wet and famished. To preserve the life which he had torn from the sea he must have fire and wood. First he examined the crevice by which he had entered. It was shaped like an irregular triangle hollowed at the base by the action of the water which in such storms as that of the preceding night was forced into it by the rising of the sea. John Rex did not crawl too near the edge, lest he should slide out of the damp and slippery orifice and be dashed upon the rocks at the bottom of the blowhole. Craning his neck he could see a hundred feet below him the sullenly frothing water, gurgling, spouting and creaming in huge turbid eddies occasionally leaping upwards as though it longed for another storm to send it raging up to the man who had escaped its fury. It was impossible to get down that way. He turned back into the cavern and began to explore in that direction. The twin rocks against which he had been hurled were in fact pillars which supported the roof of the water drive. Beyond them lay a great grey shadow which was emptiness, faintly illuminated by the sea light cast up through the bottom of the gulf. Midway across the grey shadow fell a strange beam of dusky brilliance which casts its flickering light upon a wilderness of waving seaweeds. Even in the desperate position in which he found himself there survived in the vagabonds nature and ancient poetry to make him value the natural marvel upon which he had so strangely stumbled. The immense promontory which viewed from the outside seemed as solid as a mountain was, in reality, but a hollow cone, reft and split into a thousand fishes by the unsuspected action of the sea for centuries. The blow-hole was but an insignificant cranny compared with this enormous chasm. Descending with difficulty the steep incline he found himself on the brink of the gallery of rock, which, jutting out over the pool, bore on its moist and weed-bedded edges signs a frequent submersion. It must be low-tide without the rock. Clinging to the rough and root-like algae that fringe the ever-moist walls, John Rex crept round the projection of the gallery and passed at once from the dimness to daylight. There was a broad loophole in the side of the honeycombed and wave-perforated cliff. The cloudless heaven expanded above him, the fresh breeze kissed his cheek, and sixty feet below him the sea wrinkled all its lacy length, sparkling in myriad wavelets beneath the bright beams of morning. Not a sign of the recent tempest marred the exquisite harmony of the picture. Not a sign of human life gave evidence of the grim neighbourhood of the prison. From the recess out of which he peered, nothing was visible, but a sky of turquoise smiling upon the sea of sapphire. The placidity of nature was, however, to the hunted convict a new source of alarm. It was the reason why the blowhole and its neighbourhood should be thoroughly searched. He guessed that the favourable weather would be an additional inducement to McNabb and Burgess to satisfy themselves as to the fate of their late prisoner. He turned from the opening and prepared to descend still farther into the rock pathway. The sunshine had revived and cheered him, and a sort of instinct brought him that the cliffs so honeycombed above could not be without some gully or chink at its base, which at low tide would give upon the rocky shore. It grew darker as he descended, and twice he almost turned back in dread of the gulfs on either side of him. It seemed to him also that the gullet of weed-clad rock through which he was crawling doubled upon itself and led only into the boughs of the mountain. Nored by hunger and conscious that in a few hours at most the rising tide would fill the subterranean passage and cut off his retreat, he pushed desperately onwards. He had descended some ninety feet and had lost in the devious winding of his downward path, all but the reflection of the light from the gallery, when he was rewarded by a glimpse of sunshine striking upwards. He parted two enormous masses of seaweed whose bubble-headed fronds hung curtain-wise across his path and found himself in the very middle of a narrow cleft of rock through which he was driven to the blowhole. At an immense distance above him was the Arch of Cliff. Beyond that arch appeared a segment of the ragged edge of the circular opening down which he had fallen. He looked in vain for the funnel-mouth whose friendly shelter had received him. It was now indistinguishable. At his feet was a long rift in the solid rock, so narrow that he could almost have leapt across it. This rift was the channel of a swift black current which ran from the sea for fifty yards under an arch eight feet high until it broke upon the jagged rocks that lay blistering in the sunshine at the bottom of the circular opening in the upper cliff. A shudder shook the limbs of the adventurous convict. He comprehended that a high tide the place where he stood was underwater and that the narrow cavern became a sub-acquires pipe of solid rock forty feet long through which was spouted the league-long rollers of the Southern Sea. The narrow stripper rock at the base of the cliff was as flat as a table. Here and there were enormous hollows like pans which the retreating tide had left full of clear steel water. The crannies of the rock were inhabited by small white crabs and John Rex found to his delight that there was on this little shelf abundance of muscles which, though lean and acrid, were sufficiently grateful to his famous stomach. Attached to the flat surfaces of the numerous stones, moreover, were coarse limpards. These, however, John Rex found too salty to be palatable and was compelled to reject them. A larger variety, however, having a succulent body as thick as a man's thumb contained in long razor-shaped shells were in some degree free from this objection and he soon collected the materials for a meal. Having eaten and sunned himself he began to examine the enormous rock to the base of which he had so strangely penetrated. Rugged and worn it raised its huge breast against wind and wave, secure upon a broad pedestal which probably extended as far beneath the sea as the massive column itself rose above it. Rising thus with its shaggy drapery of seaweed clinging about its knees, it seemed to be a motionless but sentient being—some monster of the deep. A titan of the ocean condemned ever to front in silence the fury of that illimitable and rarely travelled sea. Yet silent and motionless as he was the hoary ancient gave hint of the mysteries of his revenge. Standing upon the broad and sea-girt platform where surely no human foot but his had ever stood in life the convict saw many feet above him, pitched into a cavity of the huge thumb-blisted boulders an object which his sailor eye told him at once was part of the top hamper of some large ship. Crusted with shells and its ruin so overrun with the ivy of the ocean that its ropes could barely be distinguished from the weeds with which they were encumbered. This relic of human labour attested the triumph of nature over human ingenuity. Perforated below by the relentless sea, exposed above to the full fury of the tempest, set in solitary defiance to the waves, that rolling from the ice volcano of the southern pole, Hildegg gathered might unchecked upon its iron front. The great rock drew from its lonely warfare the materials of its own silent vengeance. Classed in iron arms it held its prey, smatched from the jaws of the old devouring sea. One might imagine that when the doomed ship with her crew of shrieking souls had splintered and gone down the deaf-blind giant had clutched this fragment upheave from the seething waters with a thrill of savage and terrible joy. John Rex gazing up at this memento of a forgotten agony felt a sensation of the most vulgar pleasure. This wood for my fire, thought he, and mounting to the spot he essayed to fling down the splinters of timber upon the platform. Long exposed to the sun and flung high above the water-mark of recent storms, the timber had dried to the condition of touchwood and would burn fiercely. It was precisely what he required. Strange accident had for years stored upon a desolate rock this fragment of a vanished and long-forgotten vessel that it might aid at last to warm the limbs of a villain escaping from justice. Striking the disintegrated mass with his iron-shot heel John Rex broke off convenient portions and making a bag of his shirt by tying the sleeves and neck. He was speedily staggering into the cavern with a supply of fuel. He made two trips, flinging down the wood on the floor of the gallery that overlooked the sea, and was returning for a third when his quick ear caught the dip of oars. He had barely time to lift the seaweed curtain that veiled the entrance to the chasm when the eagle-hawk boat rounded the promontory. Burgess was in the stern sheets and seemed to be making signals to someone on the top of the cliff. Rex, grinning behind his veil, divined the manoeuvre. McNabb and his party were to search above while the commandant examined the gulf below. The boat headed direct for the passage and for an instant John Rex's undaunted soul shivered at the thought that perhaps after all his pursuers might be aware of the existence of the cavern. Yet that was unlikely. He kept his ground and the boat passed within a foot of him, gliding silently into the gulf. He observed that Burgess's usually florid face was pale and that his left sleeve was cut open showing a bandage on the arm. There had been some fighting then and it was not unlikely that all his fellow desperados had been captured. He chuckled at his own ingenuity and good sense. The boat, emerging from the archway entered the pool of the blowhole and held with a full strength of the party remained stationary. John Rex watched Burgess scan the rocks and eddies, saw him signal to McNabb and then, with much relief, beheld the boat's head brought round to the seaboard. He was so intent upon watching this dangerous and difficult operation that he was oblivious of an extraordinary change which had taken place in the interior of the cavern. The water which, an hour ago, had left exposed a long reef of black hum at rocks, was now spreading one foam-flex sheet over the ragged bottom of the rude staircase by which he had descended. The tide had turned and the sea apparently sucked in through some deeper tunnel in the portion of the cliff, which was below water, was being forced into the vault with a rapidity which bid fear to shortly submerge the mouth of the cave. The convict's feet were already wetted by the incoming waves, and as he turned for one last look at the boat he saw a green bellow heave up against the entrance to the chasm and, almost blotting out the daylight, roll majestically through the arch. It was high time for Burgess to take his departure if he did not wish his whale boat to be cracked like a nut against the roof of the tunnel. Alive to his danger the commandant abandoned the search after his late prisoners' corpse and he hastened to gain the open sea. The boat carried backwards and upwards on the bosom of a monstrous wave narrowly escaped destruction and John Rex climbing to the gallery saw with much satisfaction the broad back of his outwitted jailer disappear round the sheltering promontory. The last efforts of his pursuers had failed, and in another hour the only accessible entrance to the convict's retreat was hidden under three feet of furious seawater. His jailers were convinced of his death and would search for him no more so far so good. Now for the last desperate venture the escape from the wonderful cavern which was at once his shelter and his prison polling his wood together and succeeding after many efforts by the aid of a flint and the ring which yet clung to his ankle in lighting a fire and warming his chilled limbs in its cheering blaze. He set himself to meditate upon his course of action. He was safe for the present and the supply of food that the rock afforded was amply sufficient to sustain life in him for many days. But it was impossible that he could remain for many days concealed. He had no fresh water and though by reasoning of the soaking he had received he had here the two felt little inconvenience from this course. The salt and the acrid muscle speedily induced a raging thirst which he could not alleviate. It was imperative that within forty-eight hours at farthest he should be on his way to the peninsula. He remembered the little stream into which in his flight of the previous night he had so nearly fallen and hoped to be able under cover of darkness to steal round the reef and reach it unobserved. His desperate scheme was then to commence. He had to run the gauntlet of the dogs and guards, gain the peninsula and await the rescuing vessel. He confessed to himself that the chances were terribly against him. If Gabbard and the others had been recaptured as he devoutly trusted the coast would be comparatively clear. But if they had escaped he knew Burgess too well to think that he would give up the chase while hope of retaking the absconders remained to him. If indeed all fell out as he had wished he had still to sustain life until Blunt found him. If happily Blunt had not returned weiried with useless and dangerous waiting. As night came on and the fire light showed strange shadows waving from the course of the enormous vault while the dismal abyss is beneath him murmured and muttered with uncouth and ghastly utterances. There fell upon the lonely man the terror of solitude. Was this marvellous hiding place that he had discovered to be his sepulcher? Was he a monster amongst his fellow men to die some monstrous death entombed in this mysterious and terrible cavern of the sea? He had tried to drive away these gloomy thoughts by sketching out for himself a plan of action, but in vain. In vain he strove to picture in its completeness that, as yet vague, to sign by which he had promised himself to rest from the vanished son of the wealthy shipbuilder his name and heritage. His mind filled with forebodings of shadowy horror could not give the subject the calm consideration which it needed. In the midst of his schemes for the baffling of the jealous love of the woman who was to save him and the getting to England and the acting foreign guys, as the long lost heir to the fortune of Sir Richard Devine, there arose ghastly and awesome shapes of death and horror, with whose terrible unsubstantiality he must grapple in the lonely recesses of that dismal cavern. He heaped fresh wood upon his fire that the bright light might drive out the gruesome things that lurked above, below, and around him. He became afraid to look behind him, lest some shapeless mass would see birth, some voracious polyp, with far-reaching arms and jellied mouth ever open to devour, might slide up over the edge of the dripping caves below and fasten upon him in the darkness. His imagination always sufficiently vivid and spurred to an unnatural effect by the exciting scenes of the previous night, painted each patch of shadow clinging bat-like to the humid wall as some globular sea-spider, ready to drop upon him with his viscous and clay-cold body and drain out his chilled blood, and folding him in rough and hairy arms. Each splash in the water beneath him, each sigh of the multitudinous and melancholy sea, seemed to prelude the laborious event of some mis-shape and an ungainly abortion of the use. All the sensations induced by lapping water and regurgitating waves took material shape and surrounded him. All creatures that could be engendered by lime and salt crept forth into the fire-light to stare at him. Red dabs and splashes that were living beings, having a strange phosphoric light of their own, glowed upon the floor. Delivered encrustations of a hundred years of humidity slipped from off the walls and painfully heaved their mushroom surfaces to the blaze. The red glow of the unwanted fire, crimsoning the wet sides of the cavern, seemed to attract countless blisterous and transparent shapelessness that elongated themselves towards him. Bloodless and bladder-y things ran hither and thither, noiselessly. Strange carapace crawled from out of the rocks. All the horrible unseen life of the ocean seemed to be rising up and surrounding him. He retreated to the brink of the gulf and the glare of the upheld brand fell upon a rounded hummock whose coronal of silky weed out-floating in the water looked like the head of a drowned man. He rushed to the entrance of the gallery and his shadow thrown into the opening took the shape of an avenging phantom with arms upraised to warn him back. The naturalist, the explorer or the shipwrecked seaman would have found nothing frightful in this exhibition of the harmless life of the Australian Ocean. But the convict's guilty conscience long suppressed and derided asserted itself in this hour when it was alone with nature and night. The bitter intellectual power which had so long supported him from beneath imagination the unconscious religion of the soul. If ever he was no repentance it was then. Phantoms of his past crimes jibbered him and covering his eyes with his hands he fell shuddering upon his knees. The brand loosening from his grasp dropped into the gulf and was extinguished with a hissing noise. As if the sound had called up some spirit that lurked below a whisper ran through the cavern. John Rex the hair on the convict's flesh stood up and he cowered to the earth. John Rex it was a human voice with a friend or enemy he did not pause to think. His terror overmastered all other considerations. Here, here he cried and sprang to the opening of the vault. Arrived at the foot of the cliff blunt and staples found themselves in almost complete darkness for the light of the mysterious fire which had hitherto guided them had necessarily disappeared. Carmes was the night and still as was the ocean the sea yet ran with silent but dangerous strength through the channel which led to the blowhole and blunt instinctively feeling the boat drawn towards some unknown peril held off the shelf of rocks out of reach of the current. A sudden flash of fire as from a flourished brand burst out above them and floating downwards through the darkness in erratic circles came an atom of burning wood. Surely no one but a hunted man would lurk in such a savage retreat. Blunt in desperate anxiety determined to risk all upon one venture. John Rex! he shouted up through his rounded hands. The light flashed again at the eye-hole of the mountain and on the point above them appeared a wild figure holding in its hands a burning log. His fierce glow illumined a face so contorted by deadly fear and agony of expectation that it was scarce human. Here! Here! The poor devil seems half-crazy, said Will Staples under his breath and then allowed, We're friends! A few moments of fires to explain matters. The terrors which had oppressed John Rex disappeared in human presence and the villain's coolness returned. Kneeling on the rock platform he held Pali. It is impossible for me to come down now, he said. The tide covers the only way out of the cavern. Can't you dive through it? said Will Staples. No, nor you neither, said Rex, shuddering at the thought of trusting himself to that horrible whirlpool. What's to be done? You can't come down that wall. Wait until morning! returned Rex Cooley. It'll be dead low tide at seven o'clock. You must send a boat at six or thereabouts. It'll be low enough for me to get out, I daresay, by that time. But the guard here, my man, they've got their work to do in watching the neck and exploring after my mates. They won't come here. Besides, I'm dead. Dead? Thought to be so, which is as well. Better for me perhaps. If they don't see your ship or your boat you're safe enough. I don't like to risk it, said Blunt. It's life if we're caught. It's death if I'm caught. Returned the other with a sinister laugh. But there's no danger if you're cautious. No one looks for rats in a terriers kennel and there's not a station along the beach from here to Cape Pillar. Take your vessel out of eyeshot off the neck bring the boat up to Scent Beach and the things done. Well, says Blunt, I'll try it. You wouldn't like to stop here till morning. It is rather lonely, suggested Rex, absolutely making a jest of his late terrors. Will Staples laughed. You're a bold boy, said he. Have you got the clothes as I directed? Yes. Then good night, I'll put my fire out in case somebody else might see it who wouldn't be as kind as you are. Good night. Not a word for the madam, said Staples when they reached the vessel. Not a word, the ungrateful dog, asserted Blunt, adding with some heat. That's the way with women. They'll go through fire and water for a man that doesn't care a snap of his fingers for him. But for any poor fellow who rests his neck to pleasure him, they've nothing but snares. I wish I'd never meddled in the business. There are no fools like old fools, thought Will Staples, looking back through the darkness at the place where the fire had been. But he did not utter his thoughts aloud. At eight o'clock the next morning the pretty Mary stood out to sea with every stitch of canvas set, allow and loft. The man who had been brought on board at daylight and was then at breakfast in the cabin. The crew winged at each other when the haggen mariner, a tide in garments that seemed remarkably well-preserved, mounted the side. But they, none of them, were in a position to controvert the skipper's statement. Where are we bound for? asked John Rex, smoking Staples' pipe in lingering puffs of delight. I'm entirely in your hands, Blunt. My orders are to cruise about the whaling grounds until I meet my consort, return Blunt sullenly, and put you aboard her. She'll take you back to Sydney. I'm viddled for a twelve-month trip. Right! cried Rex, clapping his preserver on the back. I'm bound to get to Sydney somehow. But, as the Philistines are abroad, I may as well tarry in Jericho till my beard be grown. Don't stare at my scriptural quotation, Mr. Staples. He added, inspirited by creature comforts and secure amid his purchased friends. I assure you that I've had the very best religious instruction. Indeed, it is chiefly owing to my worthy spiritual pastor and master that I am unable to smoke this very villainous tobacco of yours at the present moment. End of Section 55 Section 56 is for the term of his natural life. This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Magdalena Cook for the term of his natural life by Marcus Clark. Book 3, Port Arthur, 1838 Chapter 27 The Valley of the Shadow of Death It was not until they had scrambled up the beach to safety that the absconders became fully aware of the loss of another of their companions. As they stood on the break of the beach ringing the water from their clothes, gab at small eye, counting their number missed the stroke-or. Where's Cox? The fool fell overboard, said Jimmy Vetch shortly. He never had as much sense in that skull of his as would keep it sound on his shoulders. Gabbert scowled. That's three of us gone, he said, in the tones of a man suffering some personal injury. They summed up their means of defence against attack. Sanders and Greenhill had knives. Gabbert still retained the axe in his belt. Vetch had dropped his musket at the neck and Bowdenham and Cornelius were unarmed. Let's have a look at the tucker, said Vetch. There was but one bag of provisions. It contained a piece of salt-pork, two loaves and some uncooked potatoes. Signal Hill Station was not rich in edibles. That ain't much, said the crow with a roof or face. Is it, Gabbert? It must do anyway, returned the giant carelessly. The inspection over, the six proceeded up the shore and encamped under the rock. Bowdenham was for lighting a fire, but Vetch, who by tacit consent had been chosen leader of their expedition for Bade it, saying that the light might betray them. They'll think we're drowned and won't pursue us, he said. So all that night the miserable wretches crouched fireless together. Morning breaks clear and bright and free for the first time in ten years. They comprehend that their terrible journey has begun. Where are we to go? We live, asked Bowdenham, scanning the barren bush that stretches to the barren sea. Gabbert, you've been out before. How's it done? We'll make the shepherds huts and live on their tucker till we get a change of clothes, said Gabbert, evading the main question. We can follow the coastline. Steady lads, said the prudent Vetch, we must sneak around Yonsand Hills and so creep into the scrub. If they've got a good glass at the neck they can see us. It does seem close, said Bowdenham. I could pitch a stone on to the guardhouse. Goodbye, you bloody spot. He adds with sudden rage, shaking his fist vindictively at the penitentiary. I don't want to see you no more till the day of judgment. Vetch divides the provisions and they travel all day until dark night. The scrub is prickly and dense. Their clothes are torn, their hands and feet bleeding. Already they are outwearyed. No one pursuing they light a fire and sleep. The second day they come to a sandy spit that runs out into the sea and find that they have gone too far the east wood and must follow the shoreline to East Bay Neck. Back through the scrub they drag their heavy feet. That night they eat the last crumb of the loaf. The third day at high noon, after some toilsome walking they reach a big hill, now called Collins Mount and see the upper link of the earring, the isthmus of the East Bay Neck at their feet. The rocks are on their right hand and blue in the lovely distance lies hated Maria Island. We must keep well to the east wood said Green Hill or we shall fall in with the setless and get taken. So passing the isthmus they strike into the bush along the shore and tightening their belts over their gnawing bellies camp under some low lying hills. The fourth day is notable for the in disposition of Bowdenham who is a bad walker and falling behind delays the party and frequent cooies. Gabbett threatens him with a worse fate than sore feet if he lingers. Luckily that evening Green Hill espires a hut but not trusting to the friendship of the occupant they wait until he quits it in the morning and then send Vetch to forage. Vetch secretly congratulating himself on having by his council prevented violence returned spending under half a bag of flour. You'd better carry the flour said he to Gabbett and give me the axe. Gabbett eyes him for a while as if struck by his puniform but finally gives the axe to his mates anders. That day they creep along cautiously between the sea and the hills camping at a creek. Vetch after much search finds a handful of berries and adds them to the main stock. Half of this handful is eaten at once and the other half reserved for tomorrow. The next day they come to an arm of the sea and as they struggle northward Maria Island disappears and with it all dangers from telescopes. That evening they reach the camping ground by twos and threes and each wonder between the proxies of hunger if his face is as haggard and his eyes as bloodshot as those of his neighbour. On the seventh day Bowdenham says his feet are so bad he can't walk and Green Hill with a greedy look at the berries bids him stay behind. Being in a very weak condition he takes his companion at his word and drops off about noon the next day. Gabbett discovering this defection however goes back and in an hour or so appears driving the wretched creature before him with blows as a sheep is driven to the shambles. Green Hill demonstrates that another mouth being thus forced upon the party but the giant silences him with the hideous glance. Jemivec remembers that Green Hill accompanied Gabbett once before and feels uncomfortable. He gives hint of his suspicions to Sanders but Sanders only laughs. It is horribly evident that there is an understanding among the three. The nine son of their freedom writing upon Sandy and Baron Hillock bristling thick with cruel scrub sees the six famine-stricken wretches cursing their God and yet afraid to die. All around is a fruitless, shadeless, shelterless bush above the pitiless heaven. In the distance the remorseless sea something terrible must happen. That grey wilderness arched by grey heaven stooping to grey sea is a fitting keeper of hideous secrets. Vetch suggests that oyster bar cannot be far to the eastward. The line of ocean is deceitfully close and though such a proceeding will take them out of their course they resolve to make for it. After hobbling five miles they seem no nearer than before and nigh dead with fatigue and starvation sink despairingly upon the ground. Vetch thinks Gabbett's eye have a wolfish glare in them and instinctively draws off from him. Said Greenhill in the course of a dismal conversation, I am so weak that I could eat a piece of a man. On the tenth day Bodenham refuses to stir and the others being scarce able to drag along their limbs sit on the ground about him. Greenhill, eyeing the prostrate man, said slowly, I have seen the same done before boys and it tasted like pork. Vetch, hearing his savage comrade give utterance to a thought all had secretly cherished speaks out crying. It would be murder to do it and then perhaps we could need it. Paul said Gabbett with a grin I'll warrant you that but you must all have a hand in it. Gabbett, Sandus and Greenhill then go aside and presently Sandus coming to the crow said he consented to act as flogger he deserves it. So did Gabbett for that matter ay but Bodenham's feet are sore said Sandus and it is a pity to leave him. Having no fire they make a little breakwind and Vetch half dosing behind this at about three in the morning hear someone cry out crust and awake sweating ice. No one but Gabbett and Greenhill would eat that night that savage pair however make a fire fling ghastly fragments on the embers and eat the broil before it's right warm. The frightful carcass is divided that day's march takes place in silence and at midday halt Cornelius volunteers to carry the billy affecting great restoration from the food Vetch gives it to him and in half an hour afterwards Cornelius is missing. Gabbett and Greenhill pursue him in vain and return with curses he'll die like a dog said Greenhill alone in the bush Jimmy Vetch with his intellect acute as ever thinks that Cornelius may prefer such a death but says nothing. The twelve morning dawns wet and misty but Vetch seeing the provision running short strives to be cheerful telling stories of men who have escaped great apparel. Vetch feels with dismay that he is the weakest of the party but has some sort of ludicrous horrible consolation in remembering that he is also the leanest. They come to a creek that afternoon and look until nightfall in vain for a crossing place. The next day Gabbett and Vetch swim across and Vetch directs Gabbett to cut a long sapling which being stretched across the water is seized by Greenhill and the mooch who are dragged over. What would you do without me? say the crow with a ghastly grin. They cannot kindle a fire for Greenhill who carries the tender has allowed it to get wet. The giant swings his axe in savage anger at enforced cold and Vetch takes an opportunity to remark privately to him what a big man Greenhill is. On the fourteenth day they can scarcely crawl and their limbs pain them. Greenhill who is the weakest sees Gabbett and the mooch go aside to consult and crawling to the crow whimpers. For God's sakes Jimmy don't let him murder me. I can't help you says Vetch looking about in terror. Think of poor Tom Bowdenham. But he was no murderer. If they kill me I shall go to hell my soul. He rides on the ground in sickening terror and Gabbett arriving bits Vetch bring wood for the fire. Vetch going sees Greenhill clinging to wolfish Gabbett's knees and Sandus calls after him. You will hear it presently, Jim. The nervous crow puts his hands to his ears but is conscious of a dull crash and a groan. When he comes back Gabbett is putting on the dead man's shoes which are better than his own. We'll stop here a day or so and rest now we've got provisions. Two more days passed and the three eyeing each other suspiciously resumed their march. The third day the sixteenth of their awful journey such portions of the carcass as they have with them prove unfit to eat. They look into each other's famine-sharpened faces and wonder who's next. We must all die together said Sandus quickly before anything else must happen. Vetch marks a terror concealed in the words and when the dreaded giant is out of airshot says for God's sakes let's go on alone Alec. You see what sort of a cove that Gabbett is he'd kill his father before he'd fast one day. They made for the bush but the giant turned and strode towards them. Vetch skipped nimbly on one side but Gabbett struck the mooch on the forehead with the axe. Help, Jim, help! cried the victim. Cut, but not fatally the operation tore the axe from the monster who bore it and flung it to Vetch. Keep it, Jimmy, he cried. Let's have no more murder done. They fear again through the horrible bush until nightfall when Vetch in a strange voice called the giant to him. He must die. Either you or he, laughs Gabbett, give me the axe. No, no, said the crow, his thin malignant face distorted by a horrible resolution. Vetch, stand back. You shall hold him, I'll do the job. Sander, seeing them approach, knew his end was come and submitted crying. Give me half an hour to pray for myself. They consent and the bewildered wretch knelt down and folded his hands like a child. His big stupid face worked with emotion. His great cracked lips moved in desperate agony. He wagged his head from side to side in pitiful confusion of his brutalized senses. I think of the words, Jim. Pah! snarled the cripple, swinging the axe. We can't starve here all night. Four days had passed and the two survivors of this awful journey sat watching each other. The gaunt giant, his eyes gleaming with hate and hunger, sat sentinel over the dwarf. The dwarf, chuckling at his superior sagacity, clutched the fatal axe. For two days they had not spoken to each other. For two days each had promised himself that on the next companion must sleep and die. Vetch comprehended the devilish scheme of the monster who had entrapped five of his fellow beings to aid him by their deaths to his own safety and held aloof. Gabbitt watched to snatch the weapon from his companion and make the odds even once and forever. In the daytime they travelled on, seeking each a pretext to creep behind the other. In the nighttime when they faint slumber, each stealthily raising a head caught the wakeful glance of his companion. Vetch felt his strength diserting him and his brain overpowered by fatigue. Surely the giant, muttering, gesticulating and slavering at the mouth was on the road to madness. Would the monster find opportunity to rush at him and braving the blood-stained axe kill him by main force? Or would he sleep and be himself a victim? Unhappy Vetch. It is the terrible privilege of insanity to be sleepless. On the fifth day Vetch creeping behind a tree takes off his belt and makes a noose. He will hang himself. He gets one end of the belt over a bow, and then is cowered as bids implore. Gabbitt approaches. He tries to evade him and steal away into the bush in vain. The insatiable giant ravenous with famine and sustained by madness is not to be shaken off. Vetch tries to run but his legs bend under him. The axe has tried to drink so much blood feels heavy as a lead. He will fling it away. No, he dares not. Night falls again. He must rest or go mad. His limbs are powerless. His eyelids are glued together. He sleeps as he stands. This horrible thing must be a dream. He is a poor d'Arthur or will wake on his pallet in the penny-login house he slept at when a boy. Is that the deputy come to wake him to the torment of living? It is not time. Surely not time yet. He sleeps and the giant grinning with ferocious joy approaches on a clumsy tip-toe and ceases the coveted axe. On the north coast of Andemans land is a place called St Helens Point and a certain skipper being in want of fresh water landing there with a boat's crew found on the banks of the creek a gaunt and bloodstained man clad in tattered yellow who carried on his back an axe and a bundle. When the sailors came within sight of him he made signs to them to approach and opening his bundle with much ceremony offered them some of his contents. Filled with a horror at what the maniac displayed they seized and bound him. At Hobart town he was recognised as the only survivor of the nine desperados who had escaped from Colonel Arthur's natural penitentiary. End of section 56 End of book 3 Section 57 of his natural life This is a LibriVox recording or LibriVox recordings were in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Tony Ashworth for the term of his natural life by Marcus Clarke Book 4 Norfolk Island 1846 Chapter 1 Extracted from the diary of the Reverend James North Bathurst February the 11th 1846 In turning over the pages of my journal to note the good fortune that has happened to me I am struck by the utter desolation of my life for the last seven years. Can it be possible that I, James North the college hero, the poet, the prize man, the heaven knows what else have been content to live on at this dreary spot an animal eating and drinking for tomorrow I die? Yet it has been so. My world, that world of which I once dreamt so much, has been here. My fame which was to reach the ends of the earth has penetrated to the neighbouring stations. I am considered a good preacher by my sheep-feeding friends. It is kind of them. Yet on the eve of leaving it I confess that this solitary life has not been without its charms. I have had my books and my thoughts. Though at times the latter were but grim companions I have striven with my family's sin and have not always been worsted. Melancholy reflection not always but yet is as a jailer to bring forth some monstrous malefactor. I vowed however that I would not cheat myself in this diary of mine and I will not. No evasions, no glossings over my own sins. This journal is my confessor and I bear my heart to it. It is curious the pleasure I feel in setting down here in black and white these agonies and secret cravings of which I dare not speak. It is for the same reason I suppose that murderers make confession to dogs and cats, that people with something on their mind are given to thinking loud, that the queen of Midas must need whisper to the sages the secret of her husband's infirmity. Outwardly I am a man of God, pious and grave and softly spoken. Inwardly what? The mean cowardly weak sinner that this book knows me. Imp! I could tear you in pieces. One of these days I will. In the meantime I will keep you under lock and key and you shall hug my secrets close. No, old friend, with whom I have communed so long, forgive me, forgive me. You are to me instead of wife or priest. I tell to your cold blue pages how much was it I bought you for in Paramatta, Rascal? These stories, longings, remors I would feign tell to human ear could I find a human being as discreet as thou. It has been said that a man dare not write all his thoughts and deeds. The words would blister the paper. Yet your sheets are smooth enough, you fat rogue. Our neighbours of Rome know human nature. A man must confess. One reads of wretches who have carried secrets in their bosoms for years and blurted them forth at last. I shut up here without companionship, without sympathy, without letters. Cannot lock up my soul and feed on my own thoughts. They will out, and so I whisper them to thee. What art thou, thou tremendous power, who dost inhabit us without our leave? An art within ourselves another self, a master self that loves to domineer. What, conscience? That is a word to frighten children. The conscience of each man is of his own making. My friend the tooth cannibal whom Staples brought in his wailer to Sydney would have found his conscience reproach him sorely did he refuse to partake of the feasts made sacred by the customs of his ancestors. A spark of divinity? The divinity that, according to received doctrine, sits apart and thrown to mid-sweet music, and leaves poor humanity to earn its condemnation as it may? I'll have none of that, though I preach it. One must soothe the senses of the people. Priesthood has its pious frauds. The master spoke in parables. Wit? The wit that sees how ill-balanced are our actions and our aspirations? The devilish wit born of our own brain that sneers at us for our own failings? Perhaps madness. More likely for there are few men who are not mad one hour of the waking twelve. If differing from the judgment of the majority of mankind in regard to familiar things be madness, I suppose I am mad, or too wise. The speculation draws near to hair-splitting. James North, recall your early recklessness, your ruin and your redemption. Bring your mind back to earth. Circumstances have made you what you are, and will shape your destiny for you without your interference. That's comfortably settled. Now supposing to take another counter on my nightmare, that man is in a grave of circumstances, a doctor in which I am inclined to believe, though unwilling to confess, what circumstance can have brought about the sudden awakening of the powers that be to James North's fitness for duty? Hobart Town, January the 12th Dear North, I have much pleasure in informing you that you can be appointed Protestant chaplain at Norfolk Island, if you like. It seems that they did not get on well with the last man, and when I had once recommended you for the office. The pay is small, but you have a house, and so on. It is certainly better than Bathurst, and indeed is considered rather a prize in the clerical lottery. There is to be an investigation into affairs down there. Poor old Pratt, who went down, as you know, at the earnest solicitation of the government, seems to have become absurdly lenient with the prisoners, and it is reported that the island is in a frightful state. So erdly is looking out for some disciplinarian to take the place in hand. In the meantime, the chaplain see is vacant, and I thought of you. I must consider this seeming good fortune further. February the 19th. I accept. There is work to be done among those unhappy men that may be my purgation. The authorities shall hear me yet, though inquiry was stifled at Port Arthur. By the way, a pharaoh had arisen who knows not Joseph. It is evident that the meddlesome parson who complained of men being flogged to death is forgotten, as the men are. How many ghosts must haunt the dismal loneliness of that prison shore? Poor Burgess has gone the way of all flesh. I wonder if his spirit revisits the scenes of its violences. I have written poor Burgess. It is strange how we pity a man gone out of this life. Enmity is extinguished when one can not remember injuries. If a man had injured me, the fact of his living at all would be sufficient grounds for me to hate him. If I had injured him, I should hate him still more. Is that the reason I hate myself at times, my greatest enemy, and one whom I have injured beyond forgiveness? There are offences against one's own nature that are not to be forgiven. Isn't it Tacitus who says the hatred of those most nearly related is most inveterate? But I am taking flight again. February 27th, 11.30pm Nine Creek Station I do like to be accurate in names, dates, etc. Accuracy is a virtue. To exercise it then. Station ninety miles from Bathurst I should say about four thousand head of cattle, luxury without refinement, plenty to eat, drink and read. Hostess's name, Kaa. She is a well-preserved creature, about 34 years of age, and a clever woman, not in a poetical sense, but in the widest, worldly acceptation of the term. At the same time I should be sorry to be her husband. Women have no business with a brain like hers, that is, if they wish to be women and not sexual monsters. Mrs. Kaa is not a lady, though she might have been one. I don't think she is a good woman either. It is possible indeed that she has known a factory before now. There is a mystery about her, for I was informed that she was a Mrs. Purfoy, the widow of a wailing captain, and had married one of her assigned servants, who had deserted her five years ago as soon as he obtained his freedom. A word or two at dinner set me thinking. She had received some English papers, and accounting for her preoccupied man, a grimly said, I think I have news of my husband. I should not like to be in Kaa's shoes if she has news of him. I don't think she would suffer in dignity calmly. After all, what business is it of mine? I was beguiled into taking more wine at dinner than I needed. Confessor, do you hear me? Well, I will not allow myself to be carried away. You grin, you fat familiar. So may I, but I shall be eaten with remorse tomorrow. March the third. A place called Jerelang where I have a head and a heartache. One that hath let go himself from the hold and stay of reason, and lies open to the mercy of all temptations. March the twentieth. Sydney. At Captain Freyres. Seventeen days since I have opened you, beloved and detested companion of mine, I have more than half a mind to never open you again. To read you is to recall to myself all I would most willingly forget. Yet not to read you would be to forget all that which I should for my sins remember. The last week has made a new man of me. I am no longer morose, despairing and bitter, but genial and on good terms with fortune. It is strange that accident should have induced me to stay a week under the same roof with that vision of brightness which has haunted me so long. A meeting in the street, an introduction, an invitation, the thing is done. The circumstances which form our fortunes are certainly curious things. I had thought never again to meet the bright young face to which I felt so strange in attraction. And lo, here it is smiling on me daily. Captain Freyres should be a happy man. Yet there is a skeleton in this house also. That young wife, by nature so lovable and so mirthful, ought not to have the sadness on her face that twice today has clouded it. He seems a passionate and boorish creature, this wonderful convict disciplinarian. His convicts, poor devils, are doubtless disciplined enough. Charming little Sylvia, with your quaint wit and weird beauty, he is not good enough for you, and yet it was a love-match. March the 21st. I have read family prayers every night since I have been here. My black coat and white tie gave me the natural preeminence in such matters. And I feel guilty every time I read. I wonder what the little lady of the traditional eyes would say if she knew that I am a miserable hypocrite, preaching that which I do not practice, exhorting others to believe those marbles which I do not believe. I am a coward not to throw off the saintly mask and appear as a free thinker. Yet am I a coward? I urge upon myself that it is for the glory of God I hold my peace. The scandal of a priest turned infidel would do more harm than the reign of reason would do good. Imagine this trustful woman, for instance. She would suffer anguish at the thoughts of such a sin, though another were the sinner. If anyone offend one of these little ones it were better for him that a millstone be hanged about his neck, and that he be cast into the sea. Yet truth is truth, and should be spoken, should it not? Malignant monitor, who remind us me how often I fail to speak it? Surely among all his army of black coats our worthy bishop must have some man like me who cannot bring their reason to believe in things contrary to the experience of mankind and the laws of nature. March the 22nd. This unromantic Captain Frey had had some romantic incidents in his life, and he is fond of dilating upon them. It seems that in early life he expected to have been left a large fortune by an uncle who had quarrel with his heir. But the uncle dies on the day fixed for the altering of the will. The son disappears and is thought to be drowned. The widow, however, steadfastly refuses to believe in any report of the young man's death, and having a life interest in the property holds it against all comers. My poor host, in consequence, comes out here on his pay, and three years ago, just as he is hoping that the death of his aunt may give him opportunity to enforce a claim as next of kin to some portion of the property, the long-lost son returns, is recognized by his mother and the trustees and installed in due airship. The other romantic story is connected with Frey's marriage. He told me after dinner tonight how his wife had been wrecked when a child, and how he had saved her life and defended her from the rude hands of an escaped convict, one of the monsters our monstrous system breeds. That was how we fell in love, said his wine complacently. An auspicious opportunity, said I, to which he nodded. He is not overburdened with brains, I fancy. Let me see if I can set down some account of this lovely place and its people. A long, low white house surrounded by a blooming garden, wide windows opening on a lawn, the ever-glorious, ever-changing sea beneath. It is evening. I am talking with Mrs. Frey of theories of social reform, of picture galleries, of sunsets and new books. There comes a sound of wheels on the gravel. It is the magistrate returned from his convict discipline. We hear him come briskly up the steps, but we go on talking. I fancy there was a time when the lady would have run to meet him. He enters, coldly kisses his wife, and disturbs at once the current of our thoughts. It has been hot today. What? Still no letter from headquarters, Mr. North? I saw Mrs. Go-Lightly in town, Sylvia, and she asked for you. There is to be a ball at Government House. We must go. Then he departs, and is heard in the distance indistinctly cursing because the water is not hot enough, or because Dawkins, his convict servant, has not brushed his trousers sufficiently. We resume our chat, but he returns all hungry and bluff and whisker brushed. Dinner! Ha-ha! I'm ready for it. North, take Mrs. Freyre. By and by it is. North, some sherry? Sylvia, the soup is spoiled again. Did you go out today? No? His eyebrows contract here, and I know he says inwardly. Reading some trashy novel, I suppose. However, he grins and obligingly relates how the police have captured Cockatoo Bill, the noted bush ranger. After dinner, the disciplinarian and I converse, of dogs and horses, game-cocks, convicts, and moving accidents by flood and field. I remember all college feats, and strive to keep pace with him in the relation of athletics. What hypocrites we are! For all the time I am longing to get to the drawing-room and finish my criticism of the new poet Mr. Tennyson to Mrs. Freyre. Freyre does not read Tennyson, nor anybody else. Ajourn to the drawing-room we chat, Mrs. Freyre and I until supper. He eats supper. She is a charming companion, and when I talk my best, I can talk you must admit, oh, familiar. Her face lightens up with an interest I rarely see upon it any other times. I feel cooled and soothed by this companionship. The quiet refinement of this house after Bullocks and Bathurst is like the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. Mrs. Freyre is about five and twenty. She is rather beneath the middle height with a slight girlish figure. This girlish appearance is enhanced by the fact that she has bright fair hair and blue eyes. Upon conversation with her, however, one sees that her face has lost much of the delicate plumpness which it probably owned in youth. She has had one child, born only to die. Her cheeks are thin, and her eyes have a tinge of sadness which speak of physical pain or mental grief. This thinness of face makes the eyes appear larger and the brow broader than they really are. Her hands are white and painfully thin. They must have been plump and pretty once. Her lips are red with perpetual fever. Captain Freyre seems to have absorbed all his wise vitality. Who quotes the story of Lucius Claudius Hermipus, who lived to a great age by being constantly breathed on by young girls? I suppose Burton who quotes everything. In proportion as she has lost her vigor in youth he has gained strength and heartiness. Though he is at least 40 years of age he does not look more than 30. His face is ruddy, his eyes bright, his voice firm and ringing. He must be a man of considerable strength and, I should say, of more than ordinary animal courage and animal appetite. There is not a nerve in his body which does not twang like a piano wire. Since he is tall, broad and bluff with red whiskers and reddish hair slightly touched with grey. His manner is loud, coarse and imperious. His talk of dogs, horses and convicts. What a strangely mated pair. March the 30th. A letter from Van Diemen's land. There was a row in the pantry, said Freyre, with his accustomed slang. It seems that the Comptroller General of Convicts has appointed a Mr. Pounce to go down and make a report on the state of Norfolk Island. I am to go down with him and shall receive instructions to that effect from the Comptroller General. I have informed Freyre of this and he has written to Pounce to come and stay on his way down. There has been nothing but convict discipline talked since. Freyre is great upon this point and wearies me with his explanations of convict tricks and wickedness. He is celebrated for his knowledge and restable wisdom. His servants hate him but they obey him without a murmur. I have observed that habitual criminals like all savage beasts cower before the man who has once mastered them. I should not be surprised if the Van Diemen's land government selected Freyre as their disciplinarian. I hope they won't and yet I hope they will. April the 4th. Nothing worth recording until today. Eating, drinking and sleeping. Despite my 47 years I begin to feel almost like the James North who fought the Bar-G and took the gold medal. What a drink water is. The fonts and UCA Splendidior Vitrio was better than all the masoch master Horace. I doubt if your celebrated liquor bottle when manly as Wisconsin could compare with it. But to my notable facts I have found out tonight two things which surprise me. One is that the convict who attempted the life of Mrs. Freyre is none other than the unhappy man who my fatal weakness caused to be flogged at Port Arthur and whose face comes before me to reproach me even now. The other that Mrs. Carr is an old acquaintance of Freyre's the latter piece of information I obtained in a curious way. One night while Mrs. Freyre was not there we were talking of clever women. I broached my theory that strong intellect in women went far to destroy their womanly nature. Desire in man said I should be volition in women. Reason, intuition, reverence, devotion, passion, love the woman should strike a lower keynote but a sharper sound. Man has vigor of reason woman quickness of feeling the woman who possesses masculine force of intellect is abnormal. He did not half comprehend me I could see but he agreed with the broad view of the case. I only knew one woman who was really strong-minded as they call it he said and she was a regular bad one. It does not follow that she should be bad said I. This one was though stocked lock and barrel but as sharp as a needle sir and as immovable as a rock a fine woman too. I saw by the expression of the man's face that he owned ugly memories and pressed him further. She's up country somewhere he said married her assigned servant I was told a fellow named I haven't seen her for years and don't know what she may be like now but in the days when I knew her she was just what you described let it be noted that I had described nothing. She came out in the ship with me as made to my wife's mother. It was on the tip of my tongue to say that I had met her but I don't know what induced me to be silent. There are passages in the lives of men of Captain Freya's complexion that they're descanting on. I expect there have been in this case for he changed the subject abruptly as his wife came in. Is it possible that these two creatures the notable disciplinarian and the wife of the assigned servant could have been more than friends in youth? Quite possible. He is the sort of man for gross amours. A pretty way I'm abusing my host. And the supple woman with the dark eyes would have been just the creature of the woman. Perhaps some such story as this may account in part for Mrs. Freya's sad looks. Why do I speculate on such things? I seem to do violence to myself and to insult her by writing such suspicions. If I was a flagellant now I would don hair-shirt and upflail. For this sort cometh not out but by prayer and fasting. April the 7th Mr. Pounce has arrived full of the importance of his mission. He walks with the air of a minister of state on the eve of a vacant garter hoping, wondering, fearing and dignified even in his dubitancy. I am as flippant as a schoolgirl concerning this fatuous official and yet heaven knows I feel deeply enough the importance of the task he has before him. One relieves one's brain by these whirlings of one's mental limbs. I remember that a prisoner at Hobart town twice condemned and twice reprieved jumped and shouted with frenzied vehemence when he heard his sentence of death was finally pronounced. He told me if he had not so shouted he believed he would have gone mad. April the 10th We had a state dinner last night. The conversation was about nothing in the world but convict. I never saw Mrs. Freer to less advantage. Silent, distraight and sad. She told me after dinner that she disliked the very name of convict from early associations. I have lived among them all my life, she said, but that does not make it the better for me. I have terrible fancies at times, Mr. North, that seem half-memories. I dread to be brought in contact with prisoners again. I am sure that some evil awaits me at their hands. I laughed, of course, but it would not do. She holds to her own opinion and looks at me with horror in her eyes. This terror in her face is perplexing. You are nervous, I said. You want rest? I am nervous, she replied, with that candour of voice and manner I have before remarked in her and I have presentiments of evil. We sat silent for a while and then she suddenly turned her large eyes on me and said calmly, Mr. North, what death shall I die? The question was an echo of my own thoughts. I have some foolish fancies as to physiognomy and it made me start. What death indeed? What sort of death would one meet with widely-opened eyes, parted lips and brows bent as though to rally fast-flying courage? Not a peaceful death, surely. I brought my black coat to my aid. My dear lady, you must not think of such things. Death is but a sleep, you know. Why anticipate a nightmare? She sighed, slowly awaking as though from some momentary trance. Checking herself on the verge of tears, she rallied, turned the conversation and finding an excuse for going to the piano, dashed into a waltz. This unnatural gaiety ended, I fancy, in a hysterical fit. I heard her husband afterwards recommending salvalateli. He is the sort of man who would recommend salvalateli to the pythoness if she consulted him. April the 26th. All has been arranged and we start tomorrow. Mr. Pounce is in a condition of painful dignity. He seems afraid to move, lest motion should thaw his official eyes. Having found out that I am the chaplain, he has refrained from familiarity. My self-love is wounded, but my patience relieved. Query. Would not the majority of mankind rather be bored by people in authority than not noticed by them? James North declines to answer for his part. I have made my farewells to my friends and on looking back on the pleasant hours I have spent felt saddened. It is not likely that I shall have many such pleasant hours. I feel like a vagabond who, having been allowed to sit by a cheerful fireside for a while, is turned out into the wet and windy streets and finds them colder than ever. What were the lines I wrote in her album? As some poor tavern-haunter drenched in wine with staggering footsteps through the streets returning, seeing through blinding rain a beacon shine from household lamp in happy window-burning, pauses an instant at the redden pain to gaze on that sweet scene of love and duty, then turns into the wild, wet night again, lest his sad presence mire its homely beauty. Yes, those were the lines, with more of truth than than she expected. And yet what business am I sentimentalising? My socios thinks what a pooling fool this north is. So that's over. Now for Norfolk Island of my purgation. End of Book 4, Chapter 1 Section 58 of For the Term of His Natural Life This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Landy. For the Term of His Natural Life by Marcus Clarke. Book 4, Norfolk Island, 1846 Chapter 2 The Lost Air The lost son of Sir Richard DeVine had returned to England and had made claim to his name and fortune. In other words, John Racks had successfully carried out the scheme by which he had usurped the rights of his old convict comrade. Smoking his cigar and his bachelor lodgings or pausing in a calculation concerning a race, John Racks often wondered at the strange ease with which he had carried out so monstrous and seemingly difficult an imposture. After he was landed in Sydney by the vessel which Sarah Purfoy had sent to save him, he found himself enslaved to a bondage scarcely less galling than that from which he had escaped, the bondage of enforced companionship with an unloved woman. The opportune death of one of her assigned servants enabled Sarah Purfoy to install the escaped convict in his room. In the strange state of society which prevailed of necessity in New South Wales at that period, it was not unusual for assigned servants to marry among the free settlers. And when it was heard that Mrs. Purfoy, the widow of a whaling-captain, had married John Carr, her storekeeper, transported for embezzlement, and with two years of his sentence yet to run, no one expressed surprise. Indeed, when the year after John Carr blossomed as an ex-piree, master of a fine wife and a fine fortune, there were many about him who would have made his existence in Australia pleasant enough. But John Rex had no notion of remaining longer than he could help, and ceaselessly sought means of escape from this second prison-house. For a long time his search was unsuccessful. Much as she loved the scoundrel Sarah Purfoy did not scruple to tell him that she had bought him and regarded him as her property. He knew that if he made any attempt to wage bonds, the woman who had risked so much to save him would not hesitate to deliver him over to the authorities, and state how the opportune death of John Carr had enabled her to give name and employment to John Rex, the absconder. He had thought once that the fact of her being his wife would prevent her from giving evidence against him, and that he could thus defy her. But she reminded him that a word to blunt would be all sufficient. I know you don't care for me now, John, she said, with grim complacency. My life is in my hands, and if you desert me, I will bring you to the gallows." In vain, in his secret eagerness to be rid of her, he raged and chafed. He was tired hand and foot. She held his money, and her shrewd wit had more than doubled it. She was all powerful, and he could but wait until her death or some lucky accident should rid him of her, and leave him free to follow out the scheme he had matured. Once rid of her, he thought, and his solitary rides over the station was the nominal owner. The rest is easy. I shall return to England with a plausible story of shipwreck, and shall doubtless be received with open arms by the dear mother from whom I have been so long parted. Richard DeVine shall have his own again. To be rid of her was not so easy. Twice he tried to escape from his stardom, and was twice brought back. I have brought you, John, his partner had laughed, and you don't get away from me. Surely you can be content with his your content with less once? I am not so ugly and repulsive, am I? I am homesick, John Carr retorted. Let us go to England, Sarah. She tapped her strong white fingers sharply on the table. Go to England? No, no. That is what you would like to do. You would be master there. You would take my money and leave me to starve. I know you, Jack. We'd stop here, dear, here where I can hand you over to the first trooper if you are not kind to me. She, devil? Oh, I don't mind your abuse. Abuse me if you like, Jack. Beat me if you will, but don't leave me, or it will be the worst for you. You are a strange woman, he cried, in sudden petulant admiration. To love such a villain? I don't know that. I love you because you are a villain. A better man would be wearisome to such as I am. I wish to heaven I'd never left Port Arthur, better there than this dog's life. Go back, then, you have only to say the word. And so they would wrangle, she glorying in her power over the man who had so long triumphed over her, and he consoling himself with the hope that the day was not far distance which should bring him at once freedom and fortune. One day the chance came to him. His wife was ill, and the ungrateful scoundrel stole five hundred pounds and taking two horses reached Sydney and obtained a passage in a ferry-o. Having escaped through Aldum, John Rex proceeded to play for the great stake of his life with the utmost caution. He went to the Continent and lived for weeks together in the towns where Richard Devine might possibly have resided, familiarising himself with streets, making the acquaintance of old inhabitants, drawing into his own hands all loose ends of information which could help to knit the meshes of his net the closer. Such loose ends were not numerous. They had been too poor, too insignificant to leave strong memories behind him. Yet Rex knew well by what strange accidents the deceit of an assumed identity is often penetrated. Some old comrade or companion of the lost heir might suddenly appear with keen questions as to trifles which could cut his flimsy web to shreds as easily as a sword of saladin divided the floating silk. He could not afford to ignore the most insignificant circumstances. With consummate skill, piece by piece, he built up the story which was to deceive the poor mother and to make him possessor of one of the largest private fortunes in England. This was the tale he hit upon. He had been saved from the burning Hydespiz by a vessel bound for Rio, ignorant of the death of Sir Richard and prompted by the pride which was known to be a leading feature of his character. He had determined not to return until fortune should have bestowed upon him wealth at least equal to the inheritance from which he had been asked. In Spanish America he had striven to accumulate that wealth in vain. As Vecchero, Traveller, Speculator, Sailor, he had toiled for fourteen years and had failed. Worn out and penitent he had returned home to find a corner of English earth in which to lay his weary bones. The tale was plausible enough and in the telling of it he was armed at all points. There was little fear that the navigator of the captured Osprey, the man who had lived in Chile and cut out cattle on the road, would prove lacking in knowledge of riding, seamanship, or Spanish customs. Moreover, he had determined upon a course of action which showed his knowledge of human nature. The will under which Richard Devine inherited was dated in 1807 and had been made when the testator was in the first hopeful glow of paternity. By its terms Lady Devine was to receive a life interest of three thousand a year in her husband's property, which was placed in the hands of two trustees after the son died or attained the age of twenty-five years. When either of these events should occur, the property was to be realised Lady Devine receiving a sum of a hundred thousand pounds, which she invested in consuls for her benefit, would according to Sir Richard's prudent calculation, exactly compensate for her loss of interest, the remainder going absolutely to the son, nief living, to his children or next of kin if dead. The trustees appointed for Lady Colonel Watt and Wade, and Mr. Silas Quaid of the firm of Percus and Quaid, David in, Sir Richard's solicitors. Colonel Wade, before his death, had appointed with Quaid's consent, his own son, Mr. Francis Wade, to act in his stead. When Mr. Quaid died, the firm of Percus and Quaid, represented in the Quaid branch of it by a smart London-bred nephew, declined further responsibility, and with the consent of Lady Devine, Francis Wade continued alone in his trust. Sir Richard's sister and her husband, Anthony Frere, of Bristol, were long ago dead, and as we know, their representative, Morris Frere, content at last in the lot that fortune had sent him, had given up all thought of meddling with his uncle's business. John Rex, therefore, in the person of the returned Richard, had but two persons to satisfy. His putative uncle, Mr. Francis Wade, and his putative mother, Lady Devine. This he found to be the easiest possible. Francis Wade was an invalid virtuoso who detested business, and his ambition was to be known as a man of taste. The possessor of a small independent income, he had resided at North End ever since his father's death, and had made the place a miniature strawberry hill. When, at his sister's urgent wish, he assumed the sole responsibility of the estate, he put all the floating capital into three per cents, and was content to see the interest accumulate. Lady Devine had never recovered the shock of circumstances attending Sir Richard's death, and, clinging to the belief in her son's existence, regarded herself as the mere guardian of his interests, to be displaced at any moment by his sudden return. The retired pair lived thus together, and spent in charity and brick-a-brack about a fourth of their mutual income. By both of them the return of the wanderer was hailed with delight. To Lady Devine it meant the realisation of a become part of her nature. To Francis Wade it meant relief from a responsibility which his simplicity always secretly loathed, the responsibility of looking after another person's money. I shall not think of interfering with the arrangements which you have made, my dear uncle," said Mr. John Rex on the first night of his reception. He would be most ungrateful of me to do so. My wants are very few, and can easily be supplied. I will see your lawyers some day, and settle it. Seeing them at once, Richard, seeing them at once, I am no man of business, you know, but I think you will find all right. Richard, however, put off the visit from day to day. He desired to have as little to do with lawyers as possible. He had resolved upon his course of action. He would get money from his mother for immediate needs, and when that mother died he would assert his rights. My rough life has unfitted me for drawing-rooms, dear mother," he said. Do not let there be a display about my return. Give me a corner to smoke my pipe, and I am happy. Lady DeVine, with a loving tender pity for which John Rex could not altogether account, consented, and Mr. Richard soon came to be regarded as a martyr to circumstances, a man conscious of his own imperfections, and one whose imperfections were therefore to be lightly dwelt upon. So the return prodigal had his own suite of rooms, his own servants, his own bank account, drank, smoked, and was merry. For five or six months he thought himself in paradise. Then he began to find his life insufferably weary. The burden of hypocrisy is very heavy to bear, and Rex was compelled perpetually to bear it. His mother demanded all his time. She hung upon his lips. She made him repeat fifty times the story of his wanderings. She was never tired of kissing him, of weeping over him, of thanking him for the sacrifice We promise never to speak of it more, Richard, the poor lady said one day. But if my life-long love can make atonement for the rogue I have done you, hush, dearest mother, said John Rex, he did not in the least comprehend what it was all about. Let us say no more. Lady Devine wept quietly for a while and then went away, leaving the man who pretended to be her son much bewildered and a little frightened. There was a secret which he had not fathomed between Lady Devine and her son. The mother did not again refer to it and gain in courage as the days went on Rex grew bold enough to forget his fears. In the first stages of his deception he had been timid and cautious. Then the soothing influence of comfort, respect and security came upon him and almost refined him. He began to feel as he had felt when Mr. Lionel Crofton was alive. The sensation of being ministered to by a loving woman who kissed him night and morning, calling him son, of being regarded with admiration by rustics, with envy by respectable folk, of being deferred to in all things was novel and pleasing. They were so good to him that he felt at times inclined to confess all and leave his case in the hands of the folk he had injured. Yet he thought such a course would be absurd. It would result in no benefit to anyone simply in misery to himself. The true Richard Devine buried fathoms deep in the greedy ocean of convict discipline and the waves of innumerable punishments washed over him. John Rex flattered himself that he had usurped the name of one who was in fact no living man, and that, unless one should rise from the dead, Richard Devine could never return to accuse him. So flattering himself he gradually became bolder and by slow degrees suffered his true nature to appear. He was violent to the servants, dogs and horses, often wantonly coarse in speech and brutally regardless of the feelings of others. Gov'ned like most women, solely by her feelings, Lady Devine had at first been prodigal of her affection to the man she believed to be her injured son. But his rash acts of selfishness, his habits of grossness and self-indulgence gradually disgusted her. For some time, she, poor woman, fought against this feeling endeavouring to overcome her instincts of this taste, and arguing with herself that to permit a detestation of her unfortunate son to arise in her heart was almost criminal. But she was, at length, forced to succumb. For the first year Mr. Richard conducted himself with great propriety, but as his circle of acquaintance and his confidence in himself increased, he now and then forgot the part he was playing. One day Mr. Richard went to pass the day with a sporting friend, only too proud to see at his table any wonderful a man. Mr. Richard drank a good deal more than was good for him, and came home in a condition of disgusting drunkenness. I say disgusting, because some folk have the art of getting drunk after a humorous fashion that robs intoxication of half its grossness. For John Rex, to be drunk was to be himself, course, and cruel. Francis Wade was away, and Lady Devine had retired for the night when the dog-kite brought home Mr. Richard. The virtuous butler Porter, who opened the door, received a blow in the chest and a demand for brandy. The groom was cursed and ordered to instant oblivion. Mr. Richard stumbled into the dining-room, veiled in dim light as a dining-room which was sitting up for its master ought-to-be, and ordered more candles. The candles were brought after some delay, and Mr. Richard amused himself by spilling their meltings upon the carpet. "'Less have limitation,' he cried, and climbing with muddy boots upon the costly chairs, with his feet the polished table. Attempted to fix the works in the silver sconces with which the antiquarian taste of Mr. Francis Wade had adorned the room. "'You'll break the table, sir,' said the servant. "'Damn the table,' said Rex, by another table. "'What's the table to you?' "'Oh, certainly, sir,' replied the man. "'Oh, certainly? Why, certainly? What do you know about it?' "'Oh, certainly not, sir,' replied the man. "'If I had stock whip here, I'd make you... ...skip.' "'What's brandy?' "'Here, Mr. Richard. "'Have some, good brandy. Send for servants and have dance. Do you dance, Tomcans?' "'No, Mr. Richard. Then you shall dance now, Tomcans. You'll dance upon nothing one day, Tomcans.' "'Here! Hello! Mary! Susan, Janet, William! Hey! Hello!' And he began to shout in blaspheme. "'Don't you think it's time for bed, Mr. Richard?' one of the men ventured to suggest. "'No!' roared the ex-convict emphatically. "'I don't. I've gone to bed at daylight far too long. "'We'll have illumination. I'm master here, master everything. Richard Vines, my name. Isn't it Tomcans, you villain?' "'Oh, yes. Yes, Mr. Richard. "'Course it isn't, make you know it too. I'm no painter-pisher, crockery chap. I'm gentleman. The gentleman seen the world knows what's what. There ain't much I ain't fly to. Wait till the old woman's dead, Tomcans, and you shall see.' More swearing and awful threats of what the inebriate would do when he was in possession. "'Bring up some brandy!' crashed goes the bottle in the fireplace. "'Light up the join-rims. We'll have dance. I'm drunk. What's that? If you'd gone to what I have, you'd be glad to be drunk. I look a fool.' This to his image in another glass. "'I ain't, though, or I wouldn't be here.' "'Cass, you grinning idiot.' Crash goes his fist through the mirror. Don't grin at me. Play up there. Where's old woman? Fisher out, and let's dance.' Lady DeVine has gone to bed, Mr. Richard, cried Tomcans aghast, attempting to bar the passage to the upper regions. "'Let's have her out of bed,' cried John Rex, plunging to the door. Tomcans, attempting to restrain him, is instantly hurled into a cabinet of rare china, and the drunken brute assays the stairs. The other servant sees him. He curses and fights like a demon. Doors bang open, lights gleam, maids hover, horrified, asking if it's fire and begging to be put out. The whole house is in an uproar. In the midst of which Lady DeVine appears and looks down upon the scene. Rex catches sight of her and bursts into blasphemy. She withdraws, strangely terrified, and the animal, torn, bloody and blasphemous, is at last caught into his own apartments. The groom, his face had been seriously damaged in the encounter, bestowing a hearty kick on the prostrate carcass at parting. The next morning Lady DeVine declined to see her son, though he sent a special apology to her. "'I'm afraid I was a little overcome by wine last night,' said he to Tomcans. "'Well, he was, sir,' said Tomcans. "'A very little wine makes me quite ill, Tomcans. Did I do anything very violent?' "'You was rather obstrupulous, Mr. Richard.' "'Here's a sovereign for you, Tomcans. Did I say anything?' "'You cost a good deal, Mr. Richard. Most gents do, and they've been, um, dining out, Mr. Richard.' "'What a fool I am,' thought John Rex, as he dressed. "'I shall spoil everything if I don't take care.'" He was right. He was going the right way to spoil everything. However, for this bout he made amends. Money sued the servants' hall and apologies in time. One Lady Devine's forgiveness. "'I cannot yet conform to English habits, my dear mother,' said Rex, and feel at times out of place in your quiet home. "'I think that, if you can spare me a little money, I should like to travel.'" Lady Devine, with a sense of relief for which she blamed herself, assented and supplied with letters of credit, John Rex meant to Paris. Fairly started in the world of dissipation and excess, he began to grow reckless. When a young man, he had been singly free from the vice of drunkenness. Turning his sobriety as he did all his virtues to vicious account, but he had learned to drink deep in the loneliness of the bush. Master of a large sum of money, he had intended to spend it as he would have spent it in his younger days. He had forgotten that since his death and burial the world had not grown younger. It was possible that Mr. Leonor Crofton might have discovered some of the old set of fools and naves with whom he had once mixed. Many of them were alive and flourishing. Mr. Lemoyne, for instance, was respectably married in his native island of Jersey, and had already threatened to disinherit a nephew who showed a tendency to dissipation. But Mr. Lemoyne would not care to recognise Mr. Leonor Crofton, the gambler and rake, in his proper person, and it was not expedient that his acquaintance should be made in the person of Richard Devine, lest by some unlucky chance he should recognise the cheat. Thus poor Leonor Crofton was compelled to lie still in his grave, and Mr. Richard Devine, trusting to a big beard and more belly figure to keep his secret, was compelled to begin his friendship with Mr. Leonor's wild and friends all over again. In Paris and London there were plenty of people ready to become hail-fellow well-met with any gentleman possessing money. Mr. Richard Devine's history was whispered in many a boudoir and club room. The history, however, was not always told in any way. It was generally known that Lady Devine had a son, who, being supposed to be dead, had suddenly returned to the confusion of his family. But the manner of his return was told in many ways. In the first place Mr. Francis Wade, well known though he was, did not move in that brilliant circle which had lately received his nephew. There are in England many men of fortune as large as that left by the old shipbuilder, who were positively unknown in that little world in all the men worth knowing. Francis Wade was a man of mark in his own coterie. Among artists, bric-a-bac sellers, antiquarians and men of letters he was known as a patron and man of taste. His bankers and his lawyers knew him to be of independent fortune, but as he neither mixed in politics, went into society, bettered, or speculated in merchandise there were several large sections of the community who had never heard his name. Many respectable money-lenders had further information before they would discount his bills and club men in general, save perhaps those ancient quidnunks who know everybody from Adam Downwoods, had but little acquaintance with him. The advent of Mr. Richard DeVine, a coarse person of unlimited means, had therefore chief influence upon that sinister circle of male and female rogues who formed the half-world. They began to inquire concerning his antecedents and failing satisfactory information to prevent liars concerning him. It was generally believed that he was a black sheep, a man whose family kept him out of the way, but he was, in a pecuniary sense, good for a considerable sum. Thus taken upon trust, Mr. Richard DeVine mixed in the very best of bad society and had no lack of agreeable friends to help him spend money. So admirably did he spend it that Francis Wade became at last alarmed at the frequent jaffes and urged his nephew to bring his affairs to a final settlement. Richard DeVine, in Paris or Hamburg or London or elsewhere, could never be got to attack business, and Mr. Francis Wade grew more and more anxious. The poor gentleman positively became ill through the anxiety consequent upon his nephew's dissipations. I wish, my dear Richard, that you would let me know what to do, he wrote. I wish, dear uncle, that you would do what you think best, was his nephew's reply. Will you let Percas and Quaid into the business?" said the badged Francis. I hate lawyers, said Richard. Do what you think right. Mr. Wade began to repent of his too easy taking of matters in the beginning. Not that he had a suspicion of Rex, but that he remembered that Dick was always a loose fish. The even-current of the dilettante's life became disturbed. He grew pale and hollow-eyed. His digestion was impaired. He ceased to take the interest in China which the importance of that article demanded. In a word he grew despondent as to the fitness of his mission in life. Lady Eleanor saw a change in her brother. He became morose, peevish, excitable. She went privately to the family doctor who shrugged his shoulders. There is no danger, said he, if he is kept quiet, keeping quiet and he will live for years. But his father died of heart disease, you know. Lady Eleanor upon this wrote a long letter to Mr. Richard who was at Paris, waited the doctor's opinions and begged him to come over at once. Mr. Richard replied that some horse-racing matter of great importance occupied his attention, but that he would be at his rooms in Cloges Street he had long ago established a townhouse on the fourteenth and would go into matters. I have lost a good deal of money lately, my dear mother, said Mr. Richard, and the present will be a good opportunity to make a final settlement. The fact was that John Rex in his third possession considered that the moment had arrived for the execution of his Grand Coup, the carrying off at one swoop of the whole of the fortune he had gambled for. End of Section 58