 CHAPTER 16 KICKING AGAINST THE PRICKS The morning after this, the reverent Mr. North departed in the schooner for Hobart Town. Between the officious chaplain and the commandant, the events of the previous day had fixed a great gulf. Burgess knew that North meant to report the death of Kirkland, and guessed that he would not be backward in relating the story to such persons in Hobart Town as would most readily repeat it. Blank awkward the fellow's dying, he confessed to himself. If he hadn't died, nobody would have bothered about him. A sinister truth. North on the other hand comforted himself with the belief that the fact of the convict's death under the lash would cause indignation and subsequent inquiry. The truth must come out if they only ask, thought he, self-deceiving North. Four years a government chaplain and not yet attained to a knowledge of a government's method of asking about such matters. Kirkland's mangled flesh would have fed the worms before the ink on the last minute from deliberating authority was dry. Burgess however, touched with selfish regrets, determined to balk the person at the outset. He would send down an official return of the unfortunate occurrence by the same vessel that carried his enemy, and thus get the ear of the office. Then walking on the evening of the flogging past the wooden shed where the body lay, saw a trope bearing buckets filled with dark-colored water, and heard a great splashing and sluicing going on inside the hut. "'What is the matter?' he asked. "'Doctor's been post-morticing the prisoner what was flogged this morning, sir,' said trope, and were cleaning up. Meekon sickened and walked on. He had heard that unhappy Kirkland possessed unknown disease of the heart and had unhappily died before receiving his allotted punishment. His duty was to comfort Kirkland's soul. He had nothing to do with Kirkland's slovenly unhandsome body, and so he went for a walk on the pier that the breeze might blow his momentary sickness away from him. On the pier he saw North talking to Father Flaherty, the Roman Catholic chaplain. Meekon had been taught to look upon a priest as a shepherd might look upon a wolf, and passed with a distant bow. The pair were apparently talking on the occurrence of the morning, for he heard Father Flaherty say with a shrug of his round shoulders. He was not one of my people, Mr. North, and the government would not suffer me to interfere with matters relating to Protestant prisoners. The wretched creature was a Protestant, thought Meekon. At least then his immortal soul was not endangered by belief in the damnable heresies of the Church of Rome. So he passed on, giving good-humored Dennis Flaherty, the son of the butter merchant of Kildrum, a wide berth and sea-room, lest he should pounce down upon him unawares, and with jesuitical argument and silken softness of speech, convert him by force to his own state of error. Flaherty, as was the well-known custom of those intellectual gladiators, the priests of the Catholic faith. North on his side left Flaherty with regret. He had spent many a pleasant hour with him and knew him for a narrow-minded, conscientious, yet laughter-loving creature, whose God was neither his belly nor his breviary, but sometimes in one place and sometimes in the other, according to the hour of the day, and the fasts appointed for due mortification of the flesh. A man who would do Christian work in a jog trot parish, or where men lived too easily to sin harshly, but utterly unfit to cope with Satan, as the British government had transported him, was North's sadly satirical reflection upon Father Flaherty, as Port Arthur faded into indistinct beauty behind the Swiss sailing schooner. God helped those poor villains, for neither person nor priest can. He was right. North, the drunkard and self-tormented, had a power for good, of which Meakin and the other knew nothing. Not merely were the men incompetent and self-indulgent, but they understood nothing of that frightful capacity for agony which is deep in the soul of every evildoer. They might strike the rock as they chose with sharpest-pointed machine-made pick of warranted gospel manufacture, stamped with the approval of eminent divines of all ages, but the water of repentance and remorse would not gush for them. They possessed not the frail rod which alone was powerful to charm. They had no sympathy, no knowledge, no experience. He who would touch the hearts of men must have had his own heart seared. The missionaries of mankind have ever been great sinners before they earned the divine right to heal and bless. Their weakness was made their strength, and out of their own agony of repentance came the knowledge which made them masters and saviors of their kind. It was the agony of the garden and the cross that gave to the world's preacher his kingdom in the hearts of men. The crown of divinity is a crown of thorns. North on his arrival went straight to the house of major vickers. I have a complaint to make, sir, he said. I wish to lodge it formally with you. A prisoner has been flogged to death at Port Arthur. I saw it done. Vickers bent his brow. A serious accusation, Mr. North. I must, of course, receive it with respect, coming from you, but I trust that you have fully considered the circumstances of the case. I always understood Captain Burgess was a most humane man. North shook his head. He would not accuse Burgess. He would let the events speak for themselves. I only ask for an inquiry, said he. Yes, my dear sir, I know, very proper indeed on your part, if you think any injustice has been done. But have you considered the expense, the delay, the immense trouble and dissatisfaction all this will give? No trouble, no expense, no dissatisfaction should stand in the way of humanity and justice, cried North. Of course not, but will justice be done? Are you sure you can prove your case? Mind, I admit nothing against Captain Burgess, whom I have always considered a most worthy and zealous officer. But supposing you're charged to be true, can you prove it? Yes, if the witnesses speak the truth. Who are they? Myself, Dr. McElwain, the constable and two prisoners, one of whom was flogged himself. He will speak the truth, I believe. The other man I have not much faith in. Very well, then there is only a prisoner and Dr. McElwain, for if there has been foul play the convict Constable will not accuse the authorities. Moreover, the doctor does not agree with you. No, cried North amazed. No, you see then, my dear sir, how necessary it is not to be hasty in matters of this kind. I really think, pardon me for my plainness, that your goodness of heart has misled you. Captain Burgess sends a report of the case. He says the man was sentenced to a hundred lashes for gross insolence and disobedience of orders, that the doctor was present during the punishment, and that the man was thrown off by his directions after he had received fifty-six lashes, that after a short interval he was found to be dead, and that the doctor made a postmortem examination and found disease of the heart. North started. A postmortem? I never knew there had been one held. Here is the medical certificate, said Vickers holding it out, accompanied by the copies of the evidence of the constable and a letter from the commandant. However North took the papers and read them slowly. They were apparently straightforward enough. Annuism of the ascending aorta was given as the cause of death, and the doctor frankly admitted that had he known the deceased to be suffering from that complaint, he would not have permitted him to receive more than twenty-five lashes. I think McElwain is an honest man, said North doubtfully. He would not dare to return a false certificate, yet the circumstances of the case, the horrible condition of the prisoners, the frightful story of that boy. I cannot enter into these questions, Mr. North. My position here is to administer the law to the best of my ability, not to question it. North bowed his head to the reproof. In some sort of justly unjust way he felt that he deserved it. I can say no more, sir. I am afraid I am helpless in this matter, as I have been in others. I see that the evidence is against me. But it is my duty to carry my efforts as far as I can, and I will do so. Vickers bowed stiffly and wished him good morning. Authority, however well-meaning in private life, has in its official capacity a natural dislike to those dissatisfied persons who persist in pushing inquiries to extremities. North going out with saddened spirits met in the passage a beautiful young girl. It was Sylvia coming to visit her father. He lifted his hat and looked after her. He guessed that she was the daughter of the man he had left, the wife of the captain Freyre concerning whom he had heard so much. North was a man whose morbidly excited brain was prone to strange fancies, and it seemed to him that beneath the clear blue eyes that flashed upon him for a moment lay a hint of future sadness in which in some strange way he himself was to bear part. He stared after her figure until it disappeared, and long after the dainty presence of the young bride, trimly booted, tight-waisted, and neatly gloved, had faded with all its sunshine of gaiety and health from out of his mental vision, he still saw those blue eyes and that cloud of golden hair. CHAPTER XVII. Sylvia had become the wife of Morris Freyre. The wedding created excitement in the convict's settlement for Morris Freyre, though oppressed by the secret shame at open matrimony which affects man of his character, could not in decency, seeing how good a thing for him was this wealthy alliance, demand unceremonious nuptials. So, after the fashion of the town, there being no continent, or Scotland, adjacent to the city, the alliance was entered into a dew-pomp of ball and supper. Bride and bridegroom departing through the golden afternoon to the nearest of Major Vickers' stations. Thence it had been arranged they should return after a fortnight and take ship for Sydney. Major Vickers, affectionate though he was to the man whom he believed to be the saviour of his child, had no notion of allowing him to live on Sylvia's fortune. He had settled his daughter's portion, ten thousand pounds, upon herself and children, and had informed Freyre that he expected him to live upon an income of his own earning. After many consultations between the pair, it had been arranged that a civil appointment in Sydney would suit the bridegroom, who was to sell out of the service. This notion was Freyre's own. He never cared for military duty, and had moreover private debts to no inconsiderable amount. By selling his commission he would be enabled at once to pay these debts, and render himself eligible for any well-paid post under the colonial government, that the interest of his father-in-law, and his own reputation as a convict disciplinarian, might procure. Vickers would feign have kept his daughter with him, but he unselfishly acquiesced in the scheme, admitting that Freyre's pleas to the comfort she would derive from the society to be found in Sydney was a valid one. You can come over and see us when we get settled, papa," said Sylvia, with all her young matrons' pride of place, and we can come and see you. Hobart town is very pretty, but I want to see the world. You should go to London, Poppett," said Morris. That's the place, isn't it, sir? Oh, London! cried Sylvia, clapping her hands, and Westminster Abbey and the Tower and St. James's Palace and Hyde Park and Fleet Street. Sir, said Dr. Johnson, let us take a walk down Fleet Street. Do you remember in Dr. Croker's book, Morris? No, you don't, I know, because you only looked at the pictures, and then read Pierce Egan's account of the topping fight between Bob Gaynor and Nadneel, or some such person. "'Little girls should be seen and not heard,' said Morris, between a laugh and a blush. You have no business to read my books.' "'Why not?' she asked, with a gaiety, which already seemed a little strained. Husband and wife should have no secrets from each other, sir. Besides, I want you to read my books. I am going to read Shelley to you.' "'Don't, my dear,' said Morris, simply. I can't understand him.' This little scene took place at the dinner-table of Fred's cottage in Newtown, to which major vicars had been invited, in order that future plans might be discussed. "'I don't want to go to Port Arthur,' said the bride, later in the evening. "'Morris, there can be no necessity to go there.' "'Well,' said Morris, I want to have a look at the place. I ought to be familiar with all phases of convict discipline, you know.' "'There is likely to be report ordered upon the death of a prisoner,' said Vickers. The chaplain, a fussy but well-meaning person, has been moralising about it. You may as well do it as anybody else, Morris.' "'I, and save the expenses of the trip,' said Morris. "'But it is so melancholy,' cried Sylvia. "'The most delightful place on the island, my dear. I was there for a few days once, and I really was charmed.' "'It was remarkable,' Sylvia's thought, how each of these newly mated ones had caught something of the other's manner of speech. Sylvia was less choice in her mode of utterance, frayre more so. He caught himself wondering which of the two methods both would finally adopt. "'But those dogs, and sharks, and things—oh, Morris, haven't we had enough of convicts?' "'Enough? Why, I'm going to make a living out of them,' said Morris, with his most natural manner. Sylvia sighed. "'Play something, darling,' said her father, and said the girl sitting down to the piano, chilled and warbled in her pure young voice, until the port Arthur question floated itself away upon waves of melody, and was heard of no more for that time. But upon pursuing the subject, Sylvia found her husband firm. He wanted to go, and he would go. Having once assured himself that it was advantageous to him to do a certain thing, the native obstinacy of the animal urged him to do it despite all opposition from others, and Sylvia, having had her first cry over the question of the visit, gave up the point. This was the first difference of their short married life, and she hastened to condone it. In the sunshine of love and marriage, for Morris at first really loved her, and love, curbing the worst part of him, brought to him as it brings to all of us, that gentleness and abnegation of self, which is the only token and assurance of a love ought but animal. Sylvia's fears and doubts melted away, as the mist melt in the beams of mourning. A young girl, with passionate fancy, with honest and noble aspirations, but with a dark shadow of her early mental sickness brooding upon her childlike nature, marriage made her a woman, by developing in her a woman's trust and pride in the man to whom she had voluntarily given herself. Yet by and by, out of this very sentiment, arose a new and strange source of anxiety. Having accepted her position as a wife, and put away from her all doubts as to her own capacity for loving the man to whom she had allied herself, she began to be haunted by a dread lest he might do something which would lessen the affection she bore him. On one or two occasions she had been forced to confess that her husband was more of an egotist than she cared to think. He demanded of her no great sacrifices. Had he done so, she would have found in making them the pleasure that women of her nature always find in such self-mortification. But he now and then intruded on her that disregard for the feelings of others which was part of his character. He was fond of her, almost too passionately fond for her stado-liking, but he was unused to thwart his own will in anything, least of all in those seeming trifles for the consideration of which true unselfishness be thinks itself. Did she want to read when he wanted to walk? He could humidly put aside her book, with an assumption that a walk with him must, of necessity, be the most pleasant thing in the world. Did she want to walk when he wanted to rest? He laughingly set up his laziness as an all-sufficient plea for her remaining within doors. He was at no pains to conceal his weariness when she read her favourite books to him. If he felt sleepy when she sang or played, he slept without apology. If she talked about a subject in which he took no interest, he turned the conversation remorselessly. He would not have wittingly offended her, but it seemed to him natural to yawn when he was weary, to sleep when he was fatigued, and to talk only about those subjects which interested him. Had anybody told him that he was selfish, he would have been astonished. Thus it came about that Sylvia one day discovered that she led two lives, one in the body and one in the spirit, and that with her spiritual existence her husband had no share. This discovery alarmed her, but then she smiled at it. As if Morris could be expected to take interest in all my silly fancies, said she, and despite her assing thought that these same fancies were not foolish, but were the best and brightest portion of her, she succeeded in overcoming her uneasiness. A man's thoughts are different from a woman's, she said. He has his business and his worldly cares, of which a woman knows nothing. I must comfort him, and not worry him with my follies. As for Morris, he grew sometimes rather troubled in his mind. He could not understand his wife. Her nature was an enigma to him. Her mind was a puzzle which would not be pieced together with the rectangular correctness of ordinary life. He had known her from a child, had loved her from a child, and had committed a mean and cruel crime to obtain her, but having got her, he was no nearer to the mystery of her than before. She was all his own, he thought. Her golden hair was for his fingers, her lips were for his caress. Her eyes looked love upon him alone. Yet there were times when her lips were cold to his kisses, and her eyes looked disdainfully upon his course of passion. He would catch her musing when he spoke to her, much as she would catch him sleeping when she read to him, but she awoke with a start and a blush at her forgetfulness which he never did. He was not a man to brood over these things, and after some reflective pipes and ineffectual rubbings of his head, he gave it up. How was it possible, indeed, for him to solve the mental enigma when the woman herself was to him a physical riddle? It was extraordinary that the child he had seen growing up by his side day by day should be a young woman with little secrets, now to be revealed to him for the first time. He found that she had a mole on her neck, and remembered that he had noticed it when she was a child. Then it was a thing of no moment. Now it was a marvellous discovery. He was in daily wonderment at the treasure he had obtained. He marvelled at her feminine devices of dress and adornment. Her dainty garment seemed to him perfumed with the odor of sanctity. The fact was that the patron of Sarah Purphoy had not met with many virtuous women, and had but just discovered what a dainty morsel modesty was. Chapter 18 In the Hospital The hospital of Port Arthur was not a cheerful place, but to the tortured and unnerved roof of stores it seemed a paradise. There at least, despite the roughness and contempt with which his jailers ministered to him, he felt that he was considered. There at least he was free from the enforced companionship of the men whom he loathed, and to whose level he felt with mental agony unspeakable that he was daily sinking. Throughout his long term of degradation he had as yet, aided by the memory of his sacrifice and his love, preserved something of his self-respect, but he felt that he could not preserve it long. Little by little he had come to regard himself as one out of the pale of love and mercy, as one tormented of fortune, plunged into a deep into which the eye of heaven did not penetrate. Since his capture in the garden at Hobart Town he had given loose reign to his rage and his despair. I am forgotten or despised, I have no name in the world. What matter if I become like one of these? It was under the influence of this feeling that he had picked up the cart at the command of Captain Burgess, as the unhappy Kirkland had said, as well you as another, and truly what was he that he should cherish sentiments of honour or humanity? But he had miscalculated his own capacity for evil. As he flogged he blushed, and when he flung down the cart and stripped his own back for punishment he felt a fierce joy in the thought that his baseness would be atoned for in his own blood. Even when, unnerved and faint from the hideous ordeal, he flung himself upon his knees in the cell, he regretted only the impotent ravings that the torture had forced from him. He could have bitten out his tongue for his blasphemous utterings, not because they were blasphemous, but because their utterance, by revealing his agony, gave their triumph to his tormentors. When North found him he was in the very depth of this abasement, and he repulsed his comforter, not so much because he had seen him flogged, as because he had heard him cry. The self-reliance and force of will which had hitherto sustained him through his self-imposed trial had failed him, he felt, at the moment when he needed it most, and the man who had with unflinched front to face the gullos, the desert, and the sea, confessed his debased humanity beneath the physical torture of the lash. He had been flogged before, and had wept in secret at his degradation, but he now for the first time comprehended how terrible that degradation might be made, for he realized how the agony of the wretched body can force the soul to quit its last poor refuge of assumed indifference, and confess itself conquered. Not many months before, one of the companions of the chain, suffering under Burgess's tender masses, had killed his mate when at work with him, and carrying the body on his back to the nearest gang had surrendered himself, going to his death thanking God he had at last found a way of escape from his miseries, which no one would envy him, save his comrades. The heart of doors had been filled with horror at a deed so bloody, and he had with others commented on the cowardice of the man that would thus shirk the responsibility of that state of life in which it had pleased man and the devil to place him. Now he understood how and why the crime had been committed, and felt only pity. Lying awake, with back that burned beneath its loosened rags, when lights were low in the breathful silence of the hospital, he registered in his heart a terrible oath that he would die ere he would again be made such hideous sport for his enemies. In this frame of mind, with such shreds of honour and worth as had formerly clung to him blown away in the whirlwind of his passion, he bethought him of the strange man who had dying to clust his hand and call him brother. He had wept no unmanly tears at this sudden flow of tenderness in one whom he had thought callous as the rest. He had been touched with wondrous sympathy at the confession of weakness made to him in a moment when his own weakness had overcome him to his shame. Soothed by the brief rest that his fortnight of hospital seclusion had afforded him, he had begun, in a languid and speculative way, to turn his thoughts to religion. He had read of martyrs who had borne out in his unspeakable, upheld by their confidence in heaven and God. In his own wild youth he had scoffed at prayers and priests. In the hate to his kind that had grown upon him with his later years he had despised the creed that told men to love one another. God is loved, my brethren, said the chaplain on Sundays, and all the week the thongs of the overseer cracked and the cat hissed and swung. Of what practical value was a piety that preached but did not practice? It was admirable for the religious instructor to tell a prisoner that he must not give way to evil passions, but must bear his punishment with meekness. It was only right that he should advise him to put his trust in God. But as a hardened prisoner, convicted of getting drunk in an unlicensed house of entertainment, had said, God's terrible far from poor Arthur. Rufus' daughters had smiled at the spectacle of priests admonishing men who knew what he knew and had seen what he had seen, for the trivialities of lying and stealing. He had believed all priests, imposters of fools, all religion, a mockery, and a liar. But now, finding her utterly, his own strength had failed him when tried by the rude test of physical pain, he began to think that this religion which was talked of so largely, was not a mere bundle of legends and formulae, but must have in it something vital and sustaining, broken in spirit and weakened in body. With faith in his own will shaken, he longed for something to lean upon, and turned, as all men turn when in such case, to the unknown. Had now there been at hand some Christian priest, some Christian-spirited man even, no matter of what faith, to pour into the ears of this poor wretch words of comfort and grace, to rend away from him the garment of sullenness and despair in which he had wrapped himself, to drag from him a confession of his unworthiness, his obstinacy, and his hasty judgment, and to cheer his fainting soul with promise of immortality and justice, he might have been saved from his after-fate. But there was no such man. He asked for the chaplain, northwards fighting the convict department, seeking vengeance for Kirkland, and, victim of clerks with the cold spurt of the pen, was pushed hither and thither, referred here, snubbed there, bowed out in another place. Rufus Dors, half ashamed of himself for his request, waited a long morning, and then saw, respectfully ushered into his cell as his soul's physician, Mekin. Well, my good man, said Mekin, soothingly, so you wanted to see me. I asked for the chaplain, said Rufus Dors, his anger with himself growing apace. I am the chaplain, returned Mekin with dignity, as he should say, none of your brandy drinking p-jacketed norths but a respectable chaplain who is a friend of a bishop. I thought that Mr. North was—Mr. North has left, sir, said Mekin dryly, but I will hear what you have to say. There is no occasion to go constable, wait outside the door. Rufus Dors shifted himself on the wooden bench, and, resting his scarcely heel back against the wall, smiled bitterly. Don't be afraid, sir, I am not going to harm you, he said. I only wanted to talk a little. Do you read your Bible, Dors? asked Mekin, by way of reply. It would be better to read your Bible than to talk, I think. You must humble yourself in prayer, Dors. I have read it, said Dors, still lying back and watching him. But, as your mind softened by his teachings, do you realise the infinite mercy of God who has compassioned Dors upon the greatest sinners? The convict made a move of impatience. The old sickening barren count of piety was to be reccommenced then. He came asking for bread, and there gave him the usual story. Do you believe that there is a God, Mr. Mekin? Abandoned sinner, do you insult a clergyman by such a question? Because I think sometimes, that if there is, he must often be dissatisfied at the way things are done here, said Dors, half to himself. I can listen to no mutinous observations, prisoner, said Mekin. Do not add blasphemy to your other crimes. I fear that all conversation with you in your present frame of mind would be worse than useless. I will mark a few passages in your Bible that seem to me appropriate to your condition, and beg you to commit them to memory. Hail's the door, if you please. So with a bow, the consoler departed. Riffus Dors felt his heart grist sick. North had gone then. The only man who had seemed to have a heart in his bosom had gone. The only man who had dared to clasp his horny and blood-stained hand and call him brother had gone. Turning his head, he saw through the window, wide open and unbarred. For nature, at Port Arthur, had no need of bars. The lovely bay, smooth as glass, glittering in the afternoon sun. The long key spotted with groups of party-coloured chain-gangs, and heard, mingling with a soft murmur of the waves and the gentle rustling of the trees. The never-ceasing clashing of irons, and the eternal clique of hammers. Was he to be forever buried in this white and sepulchre, shut up from the face of heaven and mankind? The appearance of Hail's broke his reverie. Here's a book for you, said he with a grin. Parsons sent it. Riffus Dors took the Bible, and placing it on his knee turned to the places indicated by slips of paper. There were some three or four of these slips of paper, embracing some twenty marked texts. Parsons says you'll come and hear you to-morrow, and you'll to keep the book clean. Keep the book clean, and hear him! Did me constinct that he was a charity schoolboy? The utter incapacity of the chaplain to understand his wants was so sublime, that it was nearly ridiculous enough to make him laugh. He turned his eyes downwards to the text. Good Mekin, in the fullness of his stupidity, had selected the fiercest denunciations of barred and preached. The most notable of the psalmist's curses upon his enemies, the most furious of Isaiah's ravings, and at the forgetfulness of the national worship, the most terrible thunderings of apostle and evangelist against idolatry and unbelief, were grouped together and presented to doors to soothe him. All the material horrors of Mekin's faith, stripped by force of disassociation from the context of all poetic feeling and local colouring, were launched at the suffering sinner by Mekin's ignorant hand. The miserable man, seeking for consolation and peace, turned over the leaves of the Bible, only to find himself threatened with the pains of hell, the never-dying worm, the unquenchable fire, the bubbling brimstone, the bottomless pit, from out of which the smoke of his torment should ascend for ever and ever. Before his eyes was held no image of a tender saviour, with hands soft to soothe and eyes brimming with ineffable pity, Diane crucified that he and other malefactors might have hope by thinking on such marvellous humanity. The worthy Pharisee who was sent to him to teach him how mankind is to be redeemed with love, preached only that harsh law whose barbarous power died with a gentle Nazarene on Calvary. Repel'd by this unlooked foreending to his hopes, he let the book fall to the ground. Is there, then, nothing but torment for me? In this world or the next, he groaned, shuddering. Presently his eyes sought his right hand, resting upon it as though it were not his own, or had some secret virtue which made it different from the other. He would not have done this. He would not have thrust upon me these savage judgments, these dreadful threats of hell and death. He called me brother, and filled with a strange wild pity for himself, and yearning love towards the man who had befriended him. He fell to nursing the hands on which North's tears had fallen, moaning and rocking himself to and fro. Meakin, coming in the morning, found his pupil more sullen than ever. Have you learned these texts, my man? said he, cheerfully, willing not to be angered with his uncouth and unpromising convert. Rufus Dawes pointed with his foot to the Bible, which still lay on the floor as he had left it the night before. No. No. Why not? I would learn no such words as those. I would rather forget them. Forget them? My good man! I—Rufus Dawes sprang up in sudden wrath, and pointing to his cell door with a gesture that, chained and degraded as he was, had something of dignity in it, cried, What do you know about the feelings of such as I? Take your book and yourself away. When I asked for a priest, I had no thought of you. Begone! Meakin, despite the halo of sanctity which he felt should surround him, found his gentility melt all of a sudden. Adventitious distinctions had disappeared for the instant. The pair had become simply man and man, and the sleek priest-master quailing before the outraged manhood of the convict penitent picked up his Bible and backed out. That man, Dawes, is very insolent, said the insulted chaplain to Burgess. He was brutal to me to-day, quite brutal. Was he, said Burgess, had too long a spell I expect. I'll send him back to work tomorrow. It would be well, said Meakin, if he had some employment. CHAPTER XXI. A natural penitentiary. The employment at Port Arthur consisted chiefly of agriculture, shipbuilding, and tanning. Dawes, who was in the chain-gang, was put to chain-gang labour, that is to say, bringing down logs from the forest or lumbering timber on the wharf. This work was not light. An ingenious calculator has discovered that the pressure of the log upon the shoulder was went to average one hundred and twenty-five pounds. Members of the chain-gang were dressed in yellow and, by way of encouraging the others, had the word felon stamped upon conspicuous parts of their raiment. This was the sort of life Riffus Dawes led. In the summertime he rose at half-past five in the morning and worked until six in the evening, getting three-quarters of an hour for breakfast and one hour for dinner. Once a week he had a clean shirt, and once a fortnight, clean socks. If he felt sick he was permitted to report his case to the medical officer. If he wanted to write a letter he could ask permission of the commandant and send the letter, open, through that almighty officer who could stop it if he thought necessary. If he felt himself aggrieved by any order he was to obey instantly but might complain afterwards if he thought fit to the commandant. In making any complaint against an officer or constable, it was strictly ordered that a prisoner must be most respectful in his manner and language when speaking of or to such officer or constable. He was held responsible only for the safety of his chains, and for the rest was at the mercy of his jailer. These jailers, owning right of search, entry into cells at all hours, and other joits of signatory, were responsible only to the commandant, who was responsible only to the governor, that is to say, to nobody but God and his own conscience. The jurisdiction of the commandant included the whole of Tasman's Peninsula, with the islands and waters within three miles thereof, and saved the making of certain returns to headquarters, his power was unlimited. A word as to the position and appearance of this place of punishment. Tasman's Peninsula is, as we have said before, in the form of an earring with a double drop. The lower drop is the larger, and is ornamented, so to speak, with bays. At its southern extremity is a deep indentation called Main-Gon Bay, bounded east and west by the organ-pipe rocks of Cape Raoul, and the giant form of Cape Pillar. From Main-Gon Bay, an arm of the ocean cleaves the rocky walls in an orderly direction. On the western coast of this sea-arm was the settlement. In front of it was a little island where the dead were buried, called the Island of the Dead. ere the incoming convict passed the purple beauty of this convict Golgotha, his eyes were attracted by a point of grey rock covered with white buildings and swarming with life. This was Point Poir, the place of confinement for boys from eight to twenty years of age. It was astonishing, many honest folks averred, how ungrateful were these juvenile convicts for the goods the government had provided for them. From the extremity of Long Bay, as the extension of the sea-arm was named, a convict made tram-road rend due north, through the nearly impenetrable ticket to Norfolk Bay. In the mouth of Norfolk Bay was Woody Island. This was used as a signal station, and an armed boats crew was stationed there. To the north of Woody Island lay one tree-point, the southernmost projection of the job of the yearning, and the sea that ran between narrowed to the eastward until it struck on the sandy bar of Eagle Hawk Neck. Eagle Hawk Neck was the link that connected the two drops of the yearning. It was a strip of sand, four hundred and fifty yards across. On its eastern side the blue waters of Pirates Bay, that is to say of the southern ocean, poured their unchecked force. The east must emerge from a wild and terrible coastline into whose bowels the ravenous sea had bored strange covens, resonant with perpetual roar of tortured billows. At one spot in this wilderness, the ocean had penetrated the wall of rock for two hundred feet, and in stormy weather the salt-spray rose through a perpendicular shaft more than five hundred feet deep. This place was called the Devil's Blowhole. The upper job of the yearning was named Forest Year's Peninsula, and was joined to the mainland by another isthmus called East Bay Neck. Forest Year's Peninsula was an almost impenetrable thicket, growing to the brink of a perpendicular cliff of basalt. Eagle Hawk Neck was the door to the prison, and it was kept bolted. On the narrow strip of land was built a guide-house, where soldiers from the barrack on the mainland relieved each other night and day, and on the stages set out in the water in either side, watchdogs were chained. The station officer was charged to pay his special attention to the feeding and care of these useful beasts, being ordered to report to the commandant whenever any one of them became useless. It may be added that the bay was not innocent of sharks. Westward from Eagle Hawk Neck in Woody Island, lazer-dreaded coal mines, sixty of the marked men, were stationed here under a strong guard. At the coal mines was the northernmost of that ingenious series of semaphores which rendered escape almost impossible. The wild and mountain character of the peninsula offered peculiar advantages to the signalmen. On the summit of the hill which overlooked the guard tower of the settlement was a gigantic gum-tree stump, upon the top of which was placed a semaphore. This semaphore communicated with the two wings of the prison, Eagle Hawk Neck and the coal mines, by sending a line of signals right across the peninsula. Thus the settlement communicated with Mount Arthur, Mount Arthur with one tree hill, one tree hill with Mount Communication, and Mount Communication with the coal mines. On the other side the signals would run thus, the settlement to Signal Hill, Signal Hill to Woody Island, Woody Island to Eagle Hawk. Did a prisoner escape from the coal mines, the guard at Eagle Hawk Neck could be aroused and the whole island informed of the bolt in less than twenty minutes. With these advantages of nature and art, the prison was held to be the most secure in the world. Colonel Arthur reported to the home government that the spot which bore his name was a natural penitentiary. The worthy disciplinarian probably took as a personal compliment the polite forethought of the Almighty, in thus considerably providing for the carrying out of the celebrated regulations for convict discipline. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Landy. One afternoon the ever active semaphores transmitted a piece of intelligence which set the peninsula agog. Captain Frey, having arrived from headquarters with orders to hold an inquiry into the death of Kirkland, was not unlikely to make a progress to the stations, and it behoved the keepers of the natural penitentiary to produce their penitence in good case. Burgess was in high spirits at finding so congenial a soul selected for the task of reporting upon him. It's only a nominal thing, old man, Frey said to his former comrade when they met. That person has made meddling, and they want to close his mouth. I am glad to have the opportunity of showing you and Mrs. Frey the place, returned Burgess. I must try and make your stay as pleasant as I can, though I am afraid that Mrs. Frey will not find much to amuse her. Frankly, Captain Burgess, said Sylvia, I would rather have gone straight to Sydney. My husband, however, was obliged to come, and of course I accompanied him. You will not have much society, said Meakin, who was of the welcoming party. Mrs. Dachet, the wife of one of our stupendaries, is the only lady here, and I hope to have the pleasure of making you acquainted with her this evening at the Commandments. Mr. McNabb, whom you know, is in command at the knack and cannot leave, or you would have seen him. I have planned a little party, said Burgess, but I feel that it will not be so successful as I could wish. You wretched old bachelor, said Frey, you should get married like me. Ah! said Burgess with a bow, that would be difficult. Sylvia was compelled to smile at the compliment, made in the presence of some twenty prisoners who were carrying the various trunks and packages up the hill, and she remarked that the said prisoners grinned at the Commandant's clumsy courtesy. I don't like Captain Burgess, Morris, she said in the interval before dinner. I dare say he did flog that poor fellow to death. He looks as if he could do it. Nonsense, said Morris pettishly. He is a good fellow enough. Besides, I've seen the Doctor Certificate. It's a trumped-up story. I can't understand your absurd sympathy with prisoners. Don't they sometimes deserve sympathy? No, certainly not. A set of lying scoundrels. You're always whining over them, Sylvia. I don't like it, and I've told you before about it. Sylvia said nothing. Morris was often guilty of these small brutalities, and she had learnt that the best way to meet them was by silence. Unfortunately, silence did not mean indifference, for the reproof was unjust, and nothing stings a woman's fine sense like an injustice. Burgess had prepared a feast, and the society of Port Arthur was present. Father Flaherty, Meakin, Doctor McElwayne, and Mr. and Mrs. Datchett had been invited, and the dining-room was resplendent with glass and flowers. I have a fellow who was a professional gardener, said Burgess to Sylvia during the dinner, and I make use of his talents. We have a professional artist also, said McElwayne, with a sort of pride. That picture of the prisoner of Chilon Yonder was painted by him. A very meritorious production, is it not? I have got the place full of curiosities, said Burgess. Quite a collection. I will show them to you to-morrow. Those napkin-rings were made by a prisoner. Ah, quite frair, taking up the dangerly carve-bone. Very neat! That is some of Rax's handiwork, said Meakin. He is very clever at these trifles. He made me a paper-cutter that was really a work of art. We will go down to the next to-morrow, or the next day, Mrs. Frair, said Burgess, and you shall see the blow-hole. It is a curious place. Is it far? asked Sylvia. Oh no, we shall go in the train. The train? Yes, don't look so astonished. You'll see it to-morrow. Oh, you Hobart town ladies don't know what we can do here. What about this Kirkland business? Frair asked. I suppose I can have half an hour with you in the morning, and take the depositions? Any time you like, my dear fellow, sir Burgess, it's all the same to me. I don't want to make more fuss than I can help, Frair said apologetically. The dinner had been good. But I must send these people up a full, true, and particular, don't you know? Of course, cried Burgess, with friendly notion-launch. That's all right. I want Mrs. Frair to see point-pour. Where the boys are? asked Sylvia. Exactly. Nearly three-hundred of them. We'll go down to-morrow, and you shall be my witness, Mrs. Frair, as to the way they are treated. Indeed, said Sylvia, protesting, I would rather not. I don't take the interest in these things that I ought, perhaps. They are very dreadful to me. Nonsense, said Frair with a scowl. We'll come, Burgess, of course. The next two days were devoted to sight-seeing. Sylvia was taken to the hospital and the workshops, showing the semaphores, and shut up by Morris in a dark cell. Her husband and Burgess seemed to treat the prison like a tame animal, whom they could handle at their leisure, and whose natural ferocity was kept in check by their superior intelligence. This, bringing of a young and pretty woman into immediate contact with bolts and bars, had abouted an incongruity which pleased them. Morris penetrated everywhere, questioned the prisoners, gestured with the jailers, even in the munificence of his heart, bestowed tobacco on the sick. With such graceful rattlings of dry bones, they got by and by to Pointe-Poeur, where a luncheon had been provided. An unlucky accident had occurred at Pointe-Poeur that morning, however, and the place was in a suppressed ferment. A refractory little thief named Peter Brown, aged twelve years, had jumped off the high rock and drowned himself in full view of the constables. These jumpings off had become rather frequent lately, and Burgess was enraged at one happening on this particular day. If he could by any possibility have brought the corpse of poor little Peter Brown to life again, he would have soundly whipped it for its impertinence. It is most unfortunate, he said to Freyre, as they stood in their cell where the little body was laid, that it should have happened to-day. Oh! says Freyre, frowning down upon the young face that seemed to smile up at him. It can't be helped. I know these young devils. They do it out of spite. What sort of a character had he? Very bad. Johnson, the book. Johnson bringing it, the two-storey Peter Brown's iniquities set down in the neatest of running hand, and the record of his punishments ornamented in quite an artistic way with flourishes of red ink. 20th November, disorderly conduct, twelve lashes. 24th November, insolence to hospital attendant, diet reduced. 4th December, stealing cap from another prisoner, twelve lashes. 15th December, absenting himself at roll-call, two-day cells. 23rd December, insolence and insubordination, two-day cells. 8th January, insolence and insubordination, twelve lashes. 20th January, insolence and insubordination, twelve lashes. 22nd February, insolence and insubordination, twelve lashes and one-week solitary. 6th March, insolence and insubordination, twenty lashes. That was the last, asked for air? Yes, sir, says Johnson. And then he, um, did it? Just so, sir. That was the way of it. Just so. The magnificent system starved and tortured a child of twelve until he killed himself. That was the way of it. After luncheon the party made a progress. Everything was most admirable. There was a long schoolroom where such man as Meakin taught how Christ loved little children, and behind the schoolroom were the cells and the constables in the little yard where they gave their twenty lashes. Sylvia shuddered at the array of faces. From the stolid nineteen years old booby of the cantish hop fields, to the wizened shrewd ten years old bohemian of the London streets, all degrees and grades of juvenile vice grinned in untameable wickedness or snuffled in effective piety. Suffer little children to come unto me and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven, said, or is reported to have said, the founder of our established religion. Of such it seemed that a large number of honourable gentlemen, together with Her Majesty's faithful commons in Parliament assembled, had done their best to create a kingdom of hell. After the farce had been played again, and the children had stood up and sat down and sung a hymn, and told how many twice five were, and repeated their belief in one God, the Father Almighty Maker of heaven and earth, the party reviewed the workshops, saw the church, and went everywhere but into the room where the body of Peter Brown, aged twelve, lay starkly on its wooden bench, staring at the jail roof which was between it and heaven. Just outside this room Sylvia met with a little adventure. Meakin had stopped behind, and Burgess being suddenly summoned for some official duty, for her had gone with him, leaving his wife to rest on a bench that, placed at the summit of the cliff, overlooked the sea. While resting thus, she became aware of another presence, and turning her head beheld a small boy with his cap in one hand and a hammer in the other. The appearance of the little creature clad in a uniform of grey cloth that was too large for him, and holding in his withered little hand a hammer that was too heavy for him, had something pathetic about it. What is it, you might? asked Sylvia. We thought you might have seen him, Mum, said the little figure, opening its blue eyes with wonder at the kindness of the tone. Him? Whom? Cranky Brown, Mum, returned the child. Him has did it this morning. Me and Billy knowed him, Mum. He was a maid of ours, and we wanted to know if he looked happy. What do you mean, child? said she, with a strange terror at her heart, and then filled with pity at the aspect of the little being, she drew him to her with sudden womanly instinct, and kissed him. He looked up at her with joyful surprise. Oh! he said. Sylvia kissed him again. Does nobody ever kiss you, poor little man? said she. Mother used to, was the reply, but she's at home. Oh, Mum, with a sudden crimsoning of the little face. May I fetch Billy? And take encourage from the bright young face. He gravely marched to an angle of the rock and brought out another little creature, with another grey uniform, and another hammer. This is Billy, Mum, he said. Billy never had no mother. Kiss Billy! The young wife felt the tears rush to her eyes. You two poor babies! she cried, and then, forgetting that she was a lady dressed in silk and lace, she fell on her knees in the dust, and folding the friendless pair in her arms wept over them. What is the matter, Sylvia? said Frere, when he came up. You've been crying. Nothing, Morris. At least I'll tell you by and by. When they were alone that evening, she told him of the two little boys, and he laughed. Artful little humbugs, he said, and supported his argument by so many illustrations of the precocious wickedness of juvenile felons, that his wife was half convinced against her will. Unfortunately, when Sylvia went away, Tommy and Billy put into execution a plan which they had carried in their poor little heads for some weeks. I can do it now, said Tommy. I feel strong. Will it hurt much, Tommy? said Billy. He was not so courageous. Not so much as a whipping. I'm afraid. Oh, Tom, it's so deep. Don't leave me, Tom. The bigger boy took his little handkerchief from his neck, and with it bound his own left hand to his companion's right. Now I can't leave you. What was it the lady the kisser said, Tommy? Lord, have pity of them two fatherless children, repeated Tommy. Let's say it, Tom. And so the two babies knelt on the brink of the cliff, and raising the bound hands together, looked up at the sky, and ungrammatically said, Lord, have pity on we two fatherless children, and then they kissed each other and did it. The intelligence transmitted by the ever-active semaphore reached the commandant in the midst of dinner, and in his agitation he blurted it out. These are the two poor things I saw in the morning, cried Sylvia. Oh, Morris, these two poor babies driven to suicide. Condemnig their young souls to everlasting fire, said Meakin, piously. Mr. Meakin, how could you talk like that? Poor little creatures. Oh, it's horrible. Morris, take me away. And she burst into a passion of weeping. I can't help it, ma'am, says Burgess, rudely, ashamed. It ain't my fault. She's nervous, says Freya, leading her away. You must excuse her. Calm and lie down, dearest. I will not stay here longer, said she. Let us go, to-morrow. We can't, said Freya. Oh, yes we can. I insist. Morris, if you love me, take me away. Well, said Morris, moved by her evident grief. I'll try. He spoke to Burgess. Burgess, this matter has unsettled my wife so that she wants to leave at once. I must visit the neck, you know. How can we do it? Well, says Burgess, if the wind only holds, the brink could go round to Pirate's Bay and pick you up. You'll only be a night at the barracks. I think that would be best, said Freya. We'll start to-morrow, please, and if you'll give me a pen and ink, I'll be obliged. I hope you're satisfied, said Burgess. Oh, quite, said Freya. I must recommend more careful supervision at Pointe-Puerto. It would never do to have these young black-guards slipping through our fingers in this way. So a neatly written statement of the occurrence was appended to the ledgers in which the names of William Tompkins and Thomas Grove were entered. Mackleway and Heldon inquest, and nobody troubled about them any more. Why should they? The prisons of London were full of such Tompkins and Billies. Sylvia passed through the rest of her journey in a dream of terror. The incident of the children had shaken her nerves, and she longed to be away from the place in its associations. Even Eaglehawk Neck, with a curious dog-stage as in its natural pavement, did not interest her. McNabb's blandishments were wearisome. She shuddered as she gazed into the boiling abyss of the blow-hole, and shook with fear as the commandant's train rattled over the dangerous tramway that wound across the precipice to Long Bay. The train was composed of a number of low wagons, pushed and dragged up the steep inclines by convicts, who drew themselves up in the wagons when the trucks dashed down the slope, and acted as drags. Sylvia felt degraded at being thus drawn by human beings, and trembled when the lash cracked, and the convicts answered to the sting like cattle. Moreover, there was among the foremost of these beasts of burden a face that had dimly haunted her girlhood, and only lately vanished from her dreams. This face looked on her, she thought, with bitterest loathing and scorn, and she felt relieved when at the midday halt its owner was ordered to fall out from the rest, and was with four others rechained for the homeward journey. Friar, struck with the appearance of the fire, said, by Joe Poppock, there are her old friends, rechs, and doors, and the others. They won't let him come all the way, because they were such a desperate lot, they might make a rush for it. Sylvia comprehended now. The face was the face of doors, and as she looked after him, she suddenly saw him raise his hands above his head with emotion that terrified her. She felt for an instant a great shock of pitiful recollection. Staring at the group, she strove to recall when and how Rufus doors, the wretch from whose clutches her husband had saved her, had ever merited her pity. But her clouded memory could not complete the picture, and as the wagon swept round a curve and the group disappeared, she awoke from her reverie with a sigh. Morris, she whispered, how is it that the sight of that man always makes me sad? Her husband frowned, and then, caressing her, bade her forget the man and the place and her fears. Now it was wrong to have insisted on your coming, he said. They stood on the deck of the Sydney-bound vessel the next morning, and watched the natural penitentiary grow dim in the distance. You were not strong enough. Doors, said John Rex, you love that girl. Now that you've seen her and other man's wife and have been hinders like a beast to drag him along the road while he held her in his arms, now that you've seen and suffered that, perhaps you'll join us. Rufus doors made a movement of agonised impatience. You'd better. You'll never get out of this place any other way. Come, be a man. Join us. No. It is your only chance. Why refuse it? Do you want to live here all your life? I want no sympathy from you or any other. I will not join you. Rex shrugged his shoulders and walked away. If you think to get any good out of that inquiry you're mightily mistaken, said he as he went. Fair has put a stopper upon that, you'll find. He spoke truly. Nothing more was heard of it. Only that, some six months afterwards, Mr. North, when at Parramatta, received an official letter in which the expenditure of wax and printing and paper was as large as it could be made, which informed him that the Comptroller General of the convict department had decided that further inquiry concerning the death of the prisoner named in the margin was unnecessary, and that some gentleman with an utterly illegible signature had the honour to be his most obedient servant. End of Section 50 Section 51 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 III. Port Arthur, 1833. Chapter 22. Gathering in the Threads Morris found his favourable expectations of Sidney fully realised. His notable escape from death at Macquarie Harbour, his alliance with the daughter of so respected a colonist as Major Vickers, and his reputation as a convict disciplinarian rendered him a man of note. He received a vacant magistory, and became even more noted for hardness of heart and artfulness of prison knowledge than before. The convict population spoke of him as that blank frair, and registered vows of vengeance against him, which he laughed in his bluffness to scorn. One anecdote concerning the method by which he shepherded his flock was suffice to show his character and his value. It was his custom to visit the prison-yard at Hyde Park Barracks twice a week. Visitors to convicts were, of course, armed, and the two pistol-buts that peeped from frair's waistcoat attracted many a longing eye. How easy would it be for some fellow to pluck one forth and shatter the smiling, hateful face of the noted disciplinarian? Frair, however, brave to rashness, never would bestow his weapons more safely, but lashed through the yards with his hands in the pockets of his shooting-coat, and the deadly-buts ready to the hand of any one bold enough to take them. One day, a man named Kavanaugh, a captured absconder, who had openly sworn in the dock the death of the magistrate, walked quickly up to him as he was passing to the yard and snatched a pistol from his belt. The yard caught his breath, and the attendant water, hearing the click of the lock, instinctively turned his head away so that he might not be blinded by the flash. But Kavanaugh did not file. At the instant when his hand was on the pistol, he looked up and met the magnetic glance of Frair's imperious eyes. An effort and the spell would have been broken. A twitch of the finger and his enemy would have fallen dead. There was an instant when that twitch of the finger could have been given, but Kavanaugh let that instant pass. The dauntless eye fascinated him. He played with the pistol nervously while all remained stupefied. Frair stood without withdrawing his hands from the pockets into which they were plunged. It was a fine pistol, Jack, he said at last. Kavanaugh, down whose white face the sweat was pouring, burst into a hideous laugh of relieved terror and thrust the weapon cocked as it was back into the magistrate's belt. Frair slowly drew one hand from his pocket, took the cocked pistol, and levelled it at his recent assailant. It's the best chance you'll ever get, Jack, said he. Kavanaugh fell on his knees. For God's sake, Captain Frair! Frair looked down on the trembling wretch, and then uncocked the pistol with a laugh of ferocious contempt. Get up, you dog, he said. It takes a better man than you to best me. Bring him up in the morning-hawkens, and we'll give him five and twenty. As he went out, so great is the admiration for power, the poor devils in the yard cheered him. One of the first things that this useful officer did upon his arrival in Sydney was to inquire for Sarah Perfoy. To his astonishment, he discovered that she was the proprietor of large export warehouses in Pit Street, owned a neat cottage on one of the points of land which dutted into the bay, and was reputed to possess a banking account of no inconsiderable magnitude. He and Vane applied his brains to solve this mystery. His cast-off mistress had not been rich when she left Van Demon's land, at least, so she had assured him, and appearances bore out her assurance. How had she accumulated this sudden wealth? Above all, why had she thus invested it? He made inquiries at the banks, but was snubbed for his pains. Sydney Banks in those days did some queer business. Mrs. Perfoy had come to them fully accredited, said the manager, with a smile. But where did she get the money? asked the magistrate. I am suspicious of these sudden fortunes. The woman was a notorious character in Hobart Town, and when she left, had no penny. My dear Captain Freyre, said the acute banker, his father had been one of the builders of the Rum Hospital. It is not the custom of our bank to make inquiries into the previous history of its customers. The bills were good, you may depend, or we should not have honoured them. Good morning! The bills! Freyre saw but one explanation. Sarah had received the proceeds of some of Rex's rogueries. Rex's letter to his father and the mention of the sum of money in the old house in Blue Anker Yard flashed across his memory. Perhaps Sarah had got the money from the receiver and appropriated it. But why invest it in an oil and tallow warehouse? He had always been suspicious of the woman, because he had never understood her, and his suspicions redoubled. Convinced that there was some plot hatching, he determined to use all the advantages that his position gave him to discover the secret and bring it to light. The name of the man to whom Rex's letter had been addressed was Blick. He would find out if any of the convicts under his care had heard of Blick. Prosecuting his inquiries in the proper direction, he soon obtained a reply. Blick was a London receiver of stolen goods, known to at least a dozen of the black sheep of the Sydney fold. He was reputed to be enormously wealthy, had often been tried but never convicted. Freyre was thus not much nearer enlightenment than before, and an incident occurred a few months afterwards which increased his bewilderment. He had not been long established in his magistracy, when Blunt came to claim payment for the voyage of Sarah Perfway. Does that Schuner go in begging, one may say, Sir? said Blunt, when the offer store was shot. What Schuner? The Franklin. Now, the Franklin was a vessel of three hundred and twenty tonnes, which plied between Norfolk and Sydney as the Osprey had plied in the old days between Macquario Harbour and Hobart Town. I'm afraid that is rather stiff, Blunt, said Freyre. That's one of the best billets going, you know. I doubt if I have enough interest to get it for you. Besides, he added, eyeing the sailor critically. You're getting oldish for that sort of thing, ain't you? Phineas Blunt stretched his arms wide and opened his mouth full of sound white teeth. I am good for twenty years more yet, Sir, he said. My father was trading to the Indies at seventy-five years of age. I'm hearty enough, thank God, for buying a drop of rum now and then. I've no vices to speak of. However, I ain't in a hurry, Captain, for a month or so, and I thought I'd jog your memory a bit, do you see? Oh, you're not in a hurry. Where are you going, then? Well, said Blunt, shifting on his seat. Uneasy, under Freyre's convict discipline dire. I've got a job on hand. Glad of it, I'm sure. What sort of a job? A job of whaling, said Blunt. More uneasy than before. Oh, that's it, is it? Your old line of business. And who employs you now? There was no suspicion in the tone, and had Blunt chosen to evade the question he might have done so without difficulty. But he replied as one who had anticipated such questioning, and had been advised how to answer it. Mrs. Perfoy. What! cried Freyre, scarcely able to believe his ears. She's got a couple of ships now, Captain, and she made me skipper of one of them. We look for a bestseller mare and take a turn at harpooning sometimes. Freyre stared at Blunt, who stared at the window. There was, so the instinct of the magistrate told him. Some strange project he fought. Yet that common sense which so often misleads us, urged that it was quite natural Sarah should employ whaling vessels to increase her trade. Granted that there was nothing wrong about her obtaining the business, there was nothing strange about her owning a couple of whaling vessels. There were people in Sydney of no better origin, who owned half a dozen. Oh, said he. And when do you start? I'm expecting to get the word every day, returned Blunt, apparently relieved. And I thought I'd just come and see you first, in case of anything falling in. Freyre played with a penknife on the table in silence for a while, allowing it to fall through his fingers with a series of sharp clicks. And then he said, where did she get the money from? Blessed if I know, said Blunt in unaffected simplicity. That's beyond me. She says she saved it. But that's all in my eye, you know. You don't know anything about it then, cried Freyre. Suddenly fierce. No, not I. Because if there's any game on, she'd better take care, he cried, relapsing in his excitement into the convict vernacular. She knows me. Tell her that I've got my eyes on her. Let her remember her bargain. If she runs any rigs on me, let her take care. In his suspicious wroth, he so savagely and unwarily struck downwards with the open penknife, that it shot upon his fingers and cutting to the bone. I'll tell her, said Blunt, wiping his brow. I'm sure she wouldn't go to sell you, but I'll look in when I come back, sir. When he got outside, he drew a long breath. By the Lord Harry, but it's a ticklish game to play, he said to himself, with a lively recollection of the dreaded Freyres for humans. And there's only one woman in the world I'd be full enough to play it for. Morris Freyre, oppressed with suspicions, ordered his horse that afternoon, and rode down to see the cottage which the owner of Purfoy stores had purchased. He found it a low white building, situated four miles from the city, at the extreme end of a tongue of land which ran into the deep waters of the harbour. A garden, carefully cultivated, stood between the roadway and the house. And in this garden he saw a man digging. Does Mrs. Purfoy live here? he asked, pushing open one of the iron gates. The man replied in the affirmative, staring at the visitor with some suspicion. Is she at home? No. You're sure? If you don't believe me, ask of the house, was the reply, given in the uncurtious tone of a free man. Freyre pushed his horse through the gate and walked up the broad and well-kept carriage-drive. A man-servant in livery, answering his ring, told him that Mrs. Purfoy had gone to town, and then shut the door in his face. Freyre, more astonished than ever at these outward and visible signs of independence, paused indignant, feeling half inclined to enter despite opposition. As he looked through the break of the trees he saw the mast of a brig lying at anchor off the extremity of the point on which the house was built, and understood that the cottage commanded communication by water as well as by land. Could there be a special motive in choosing such a situation, or was it mere chance? He was uneasy, but strove to dismiss his alarm. Sarah had kept faith with him so far. She had entered upon a new and more reputable life, and why should he seek to imagine evil where perhaps no evil was? Blunt was evidently honest. Women like Sarah Purfoy often emerged into a condition of comparative riches in apparent domestic virtue. It was likely that, after all, some wealthy merchant was the real owner of house and garden, pleasure-yacht, and tallow warehouse, and that he had no cause for fear. The experienced convict disciplinarian did not rate the ability of John Rex high enough. From the instant the convict had heard his sentence of life-banishment, he had determined upon escaping, and had brought all the powers of his acute and unscrupulous intellect to the consideration of the best method of achieving his purpose. His first care was to procure money. This he sought to do by writing duplique, but when informed by Meakin of the fate of his letter, he adopted the, to him, less pleasant alternative of procuring it through Sarah Purfoy. It was peculiar to the man's hard and ungrateful nature that, despite the attachment of the woman who had followed him to his place of endurance, and had made it the object of her life to set him free, he had cherished for her no affection. It was her beauty that had attracted him, when, as Mr. Lionel Crofton, he swaggered in the night society of London. Her talents and her devotion were secondary considerations, useful to him as attributes of a creature he owned, but not to be thought of when his fancy wearied of its choice. During the twelve years which had passed since his rashness had delivered him into the hands of the Lord, the House of Green, the Koiner, he had been oppressed with no regrets for her fate. He had indeed seen and suffered so much that the old life had been put away from him, when, on his return, he heard that Sarah Purfoy was still in Hobart Town. He was glad, for he knew that he had an ally who would do her utmost to help him. She had shown that on board the Malibar. But he was also sorry, for he remembered that the price she would demand for her services was his affection, and that had cooled long ago. However, he would make use of her. There might be a way to discard her if she proved troublesome. His pretended piety had accomplished the end he had assumed it for. Despite for his exposure of his cryptograph, he had won the confidence of Meakin, and into that worthy creature's ear he poured a strange and sad history. He was the son, he said, of a clergyman of the Church of England, his real name such was his reverence for the cloth should never pass his lips. He was transported for a forgery which he did not commit. Sarah Purfoy was his wife, his airing, lost, and yet loved wife. She, an innocent and trusting girl, had determined, strong in the remembrance of that promise she had made at the altar, to follow her husband to his place of doom, and had hired herself as ladies made to Mrs. Vickers. Alas! Fever prostrated that husband on a bed of sickness, and Maurice Freyre, the profligate and the villain, had taken advantage of the wife's unprotected state to ruin her. Rex darkly hinted how the seducer made his power over this sick and helpless husband a weapon against the virtue of the wife, and so terrified poor Meakin, that had it not happened so long ago, he would have thought it necessary to look with some disfavour upon the boisterous son-in-law of Major Vickers. I bear him no ill will, sir, said Rex. I did at first. There was a time when I could have killed him. But when I had him in my power, I, as you know, forebore to strike. No, sir, I could not permit murder. Very proper, says Meakin. Very proper indeed. God will punish him in his own way, and his own time, continued Rex. My great sorrow is for the poor woman. She is in Sydney, I have heard, living respectively, sir, and my heart bleeds for her. Here, Rex heaved a sigh that would have made his fortune on the boards. My poor fellow, said Meakin, do you know where she is? I do, sir. You might write to her. John Rex appeared to hesitate, to struggle with himself, and finally to take a deep resolve. No, Mr. Meakin, I will not write. Why not? You know the orders, sir. The commandant reads all the letters sent. Could I write to my poor Sarah what other eyes were to read? And he watched the parson slightly. No, you could not, said Meakin, at last. It is true, sir, said Rex, letting his head sink on his breast. The next day, Meakin, blushing with the consciousness that what he was about to do was wrong, said to his penitent, If you are promised to write nothing that the commandant might not see, Rex, I will send your letter to your wife. Heaven bless you, sir, said Rex, and took two days to compose an epistle, which should tell Sarah Perfey how to act. The letter was a model of composition in one way. It stated everything, clearly and succinctly. Not a detail that could assist was omitted, not a line that could embarrass was suffered to remain. John Rex's scheme of six months' deliberation was set down in the clearest possible manner. He brought his letter unsealed to Meakin. Meakin looked at it with an interest that was half suspicion. Have I your word that there is nothing in this that might not be read by the commandant? John Rex was a bold man, but at the sight of the deadly thing fluttering open in the clergyman's hand, his knees knocked together. Strong in his knowledge of human nature, he pursued his desperate plan. Read it, sir, he said, turning away his face reproachfully. You are a gentleman. I can trust you. No, Rex, said Meakin, walking loftily into the pitfall. I do not read private letters. It was sealed, and John Rex felt as if somebody had withdrawn a match from a powder-barrel. In a month Mr. Meakin received a letter beautifully written from Sarah Rex, stating briefly that she had heard of his goodness, that the enclosed letter was for her husband, and that if it was against the rules to give it him, she begged it might be returned to her unread. Of course Meakin gave it to Rex, who next morning handed to Meakin a most touching and pious production, begging him to read it. Meakin did so, and any suspicions he may have had were at once disarmed. He was ignorant of the fact that the pious letter contained a private one intended for John Rex only, which letter John Rex thought so highly of that, having read it twice through most attentively, he ate it. The plan of escape was after all a simple one. Sarah Purfoy was to obtain from Blick the moneys he held in trust, and to embark the sum thus obtained in any business which would suffer her to keep a vessel hovering round the southern coast of Van Diemen's land without exciting suspicion. The escape was to be made in the winter months, if possible, in June or July. The watchful vessel was to be commanded by some trustworthy person, who was to frequently land on the south-eastern side, and keep a lookout for any extraordinary appearance along the coast. Rex himself must be left to run the gauntlet of the dogs and guards unaided. "'This seems a desperate scheme,' wrote Rex, but it is not so wild as it looks. I have thought over a dozen others and rejected them all. This is the only way. Consider it well. I have my own plan for escape, which is easy, if rescue be at hand. All depends upon placing a trustworthy man in charge of the vessel. You ought to know a dozen such. I will wait eighteen months to give you time to make all arrangements." The eighteen months had now nearly passed over, and the time for the desperate attempt drew near. Faithful to his cruel philosophy, John Rex had provided scapegoat, who, by the vicarious agonies, should assist him to his salvation. He had discovered that of the twenty men in his gang, Ait had already determined on an effort for freedom. The names of these were Gabbat, Vetch, Bodinam, Cornelius, Greenhill, Sanders called the Mucha, Cox, and Travers. The leading spirits were Vetch and Gabbat, who, with profound reverence, requested the dandy to join. John Rex, ever suspicious and feeling repelled by the giant strange eagerness, at first refused, but by degrees allowed himself to appear to be drawn into the scheme. He would urge these men to their fate, and take advantage of the excitement attended on their absence to affect his own escape. While all the islanders looking for these eight boobies, I shall have a good chance to slip away unmasked. He wished, however, to have a companion. Some strong man, who, if pressed hard, would turn and keep the pursuers at bay, would be useful without doubt, and this comrade victim he sought in roofers' doors. Beginning, as we have seen, from a purely selfish motive, to urge his fellow prisoner to abscond with him, John Rex gradually found himself attracted into something like friendliness, by the sternness with which his overtures were repelled. Always a keen student of human nature, the scoundrel saw beneath the roughness with which it had pleased the unfortunate men to shroud his agony, how faithful a friend, and how ardent and undaunted a spirit was concealed. There was, moreover, a mystery about roofers' doors, which Rex, the reader of hearts, longed to fathom. Have you no friends whom you would wish to see? he asked one evening, when roofers' doors had proved more than usually deaf to his arguments. No, said doors gloomily. My friends are all dead to me. What all? asked the other. Most men have someone whom they wish to see. Briefest doors laughed, a slow, heavy laugh. I am better here. Then are you content to live this dog's life? Enough, enough, said doors. I am resolved. Poo! pluck up a spirit, cried Rex. It can't fail. I've been thinking of it for eighteen months, and it can't fail. Who are going? asked the other. His eyes fixed on the ground. John Rex enumerated the eight, and doors raised his head. I won't go. I have had two trials at it. I don't want another. I would advise you not to attempt it, either. Why not? Gabbitt bolted twice before, said briefest doors, shuddering at the remembrance of the ghastly object he had seen in the sunlit glen at Hell's gates. Others went with him, but each time he returned alone. What do you mean? asked Rex, struck by the tone of his companion. What became of the others? Died, I suppose, said the dandy with a forced laugh. Yes, but how? They were all without food. How came the surviving monster to live six weeks? John Rex grew a shade polar, and did not reply. He recollected the sanguinary legend that pertained to Gabbitt's rescue, but he did not intend to make the journey in his company, so after all he had no cause for fear. Come with me, then, he said at length. We will try our luck together. No, I have resolved. I stay here. And leave your innocence unproved. How can I prove it? cried Reefestores, roughly impatient. There are crimes committed which are never brought to light, and this is one of them. Well, said Rex, rising as if weary of the discussion. Have it your own way, then. You know best. A private detective game is hard work. I and myself have gone on a wild goose-chase before now. There's a mystery about a certain shipbuilder's son which took me four months to unravel. And then I lost a thread. A shipbuilder's son? Who was he? John Rex paused in wonderment at the eager interest with which the question was put, and then hastened to take advantage of this new opening for conversation. A queer story, a well-known character in my time, Sarah Richard DeVine, a miserly old chem-dudgeon with a scape-grace son. Reefestores beat his lips to avoid showing his emotion. This was the second time that the name of his dead father had been spoken in his hearing. I think I remember something of him, he said, with a voice that sounded strangely calm in his own ears. A curious story, said Rex, plunging into past memories. Amongst other matters, I dabbled a little in the private inquiry-line of business, and the old man came to me. He had a son who had gone abroad, a wild young dog by all accounts, and he wanted particulars of him. Did you get them? To a certain extent, I hunted him through Paris into Brussels from Brussels to Antwerp. From Antwerp back to Paris, I lost him there. A miserable end to a long and expensive search. I got nothing but a portmanteau with a lot of letters from his mother. I sent the particulars to the shipbuilder, and by all accounts the news killed him, for he died not long after. And the son? Came to the queerest end of all. The old man had left him his fortune, a large one, I believe, but he'd left Europe at scenes for India, and was lost in the hideous spills. Frail was his cousin. Ah! by God it annoys me when I think of it, continued Rex, feeling by force of memory once more the adventurer of fashion. With the resources I had too, oh, a miserable failure! The days and nights I've spent walking about, looking for Richard DeVine, and never catching a glimpse of him. The old man gave me his son's portrait, with four particulars of his early life. And I suppose I carried that ivory gim-crack in my breast for nearly three months, pulling it out to refresh my memory every half hour. By God, if the young gentleman was anything like his picture, I could have sworn to him if I'd met him in Timbukh too. Do you think you'd know him again? asked three for stores in a low voice, turning away his head. There may have been something in the attitude in which the speaker had put himself that awakened memory. Or perhaps the subdued eagerness of the tone, contrasting so strangely with the comparative inconsequence of the theme, that caused John Rex's brain to perform one of those feats of automatic synthesis at which we afterwards wonder. The profligate son, the likeness to the portrait, the mystery of Dawes' life, these were the links of a galvanic chain. He closed the circuit, and a vivid flash revealed to him, the man. Water trope coming up put his hand on Rex's shoulder. Dawes, he said, you wanted at the yard. And then, seeing his mistake, added with a grin, cursed you two, you're so much alike one can't tell the other from which. Riffus Dawes walked off moodily. But John Rex's evil face turned pale, and a strange hope made his heart leap. God, trope's right, we are alike. I'll not press into escape any more. End of Section 51 Section 52, off 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 Magdalena Cook. For the term of his natural life by Marcus Clark. Book 3, Port Arthur 1838. Chapter 23, Running the Gauntlet The Pretty Mary, as ugly and evil smelling a tub as ever pitched under a southerly buster, had been lying on and off Cape Seville for nearly three weeks. Captain Blunt was getting wearied. He made strenuous efforts to find the oyster beds of which he was ostensibly in search. But no success attended his efforts. In vain did he take boat and pull into every cove and nook between the Hippolyte Reef and Shouton's Island. In vain did he run the Pretty Mary as near to the rugged cliffs as he dared to take her, and make perpetual expeditions to the shore. In vain did he, in his eagerness for the interests of Mrs. Perfoy, clamber up the rocks and spend hours in solitary soundings in Blackman's Bay. He never found an oyster. If I don't find something in three or four days more, he said to his mate, I shall go back again. It's too dangerous cruising here. On the same evening that Captain Blunt made this resolution, the watchman at Signal Hill saw the arms of the semaphore at the settlement make three motions thus. The semaphore was furnished with three revolving arms, fixed one above the other. The upper one denoted units and had six motions, indicating one to six. The middle one denoted tens, ten to sixty. The lower one marked hundreds from one hundred to six hundred. The lower and upper arms whirled out. That meant three hundred and six. A ball ran up to the top of the post. That meant one thousand. Number 1306, or being interpreted, prisoners absconded. By George Harry said Jones the signalman. There's a bolt. The semaphore signalled again. Number 1411. With arms, Jones said, translating as he read. Come here, Harry. Here's a go. But Harry did not reply, and looking down, the watchman saw a dark figure suddenly fill the doorway. The boasted semaphore had failed this time at all events. The bolters had arrived as soon as the signal. The man sprang at his carbine, but the intruder had already possessed himself off it. It's no use making a fuss, Jones. There are eight of us. Oblige me by attending to your signals. Jones knew the voice. It was that of John Rex. Reply, can't you? said Rex Cooley. Captain Burgess is in a hurry. The arms of the semaphore at the settlement were, in fact, gesticulating with comical vehemence. Jones took the strings in his hands, and with his signalbook open before him, was about to acknowledge the message when Rex stopped him. Send this message, he said. Not seen. Signal sent to Eaglehawk. Jones paused irresolutely. He was himself a convict, and dreaded the inevitable cat that he knew would follow this false message. If they find me out, he said, Rex cocked the carbine, and so decided a meaning in his black eyes that Jones, who could be brave enough on occasions, banished his hesitation at once and began to signal eagerly. There came up a clinking of metal and a murmur from below. What's keeping you, Dandy? All right, get those irons off, and then we'll talk, boys. I'm putting salt on ol' Burgess' tail. The rough jest was received with the roar, and Jones, looking momentarily down from his window on the staging, saw in the waning light a group of men freeing themselves from their irons, with a hammer taken from the guardhouse, while two, already freed, were casting buckets of water on the beacon woodpile. The sentry was lying bound at a little distance. Now, said the leader of this surprise party, signal to Woody Island, Jones perforce obeyed, say, and escape at the mines. Watch one tree-point. Send on to Eaglehawk. Quick now. Jones comprehending at once the force of this manoeuvre, which would have the effect of distracting attention from the neck. Executed the order with a grin. You're a knowing one, Dandy Jack, said he. John Rex acknowledged the compliment by uncocking the carbine. Hold out your hands, Jimmy Vetch. A.A. replied the crow from beneath. Come up and tie our friend, Jones. Gabbett, have you got the axes? There's only one, said Gabbett, with an Oath. Then bring that, and any tucker you can lay your hands on. Have you tied him? On we go, then. And in the space of five minutes from the time when unsuspecting Harry had been silently clutched by the two forms, who rushed upon him out of the shadows of the huts, the signal hill station was deserted. At the settlement, Burgess was foaming. Nine men to seize the long bay boat, and get half an hour's start off the alarm signal, was an unprecedented achievement. What could Water Troak have been about? Water Troak, however, found eight hours afterwards, disarmed, gagged, and bound in the scrub, had been guilty of no negligence. How could he tell that at a certain signal from Dandy Jack, the nine men he had taken to Stuart's Bay would rush him, and, before he could draw a pistol, trust him like a chicken? The worst of the gang, Rufus Dawes, had volunteered for the hater duties of pile driving, and Troak had felt himself secure. How could he possibly guess that there was a plot in which Rufus Dawes, of all men, had refused to join? Constables, mounted at Andronfoot, were dispatched to scour the bush round the settlement. Burgess, confident from the reply of the signal hill semaphore, that the alarm had been given at Eaglehawk Isthmus, promised himself the recapture of the gang before many hours, and giving orders to keep the communications going, retired to dinner. His convict's servants had barely removed the soup when the result of John Rex's ingenuity became manifest. The sepemore signal hill had stopped working. Perhaps the fools can't see, said Burgess, fire the beacon and saddle my horse. The beacon was fired, all right at Mount Arthur, Mount Communication, and the coal mines. To the westward the line was clear, but a signal hill was no answering light. Burgess stamped with rage, get my boat's crew ready, and tell the mines to signal to Woody Ireland. As he stood on the jetty, a breathless messenger brought the reply. A boat's crew gone to one tree point, five men sent from Eaglehawk, in obedience to orders. Burgess understood it at once. The fellows had decoyed the Eaglehawk guard, give way men, and the boat shooting into the darkness made for Long Bay. I won't be far behind them, said the commandant, at any rate. Between Eaglehawk and signal hill were for the absconders other dangers. Along the intended coast of Port Bunch were four constable stations. These stations mere huts within signalling distance of each other fringed the shore, and to avoid them it would be necessary to make a surker into the scrub. Unwilling as he was to lose time, John Rex saw that to attempt to run the gauntlet of these four stations would be destruction. The safety of the party depended upon the reaching of the neck while the guard was weakened by the absence of some of the men along the southern shore, and before the alarm could be given from the eastern arm of the peninsula. With this view he ranged his men in single file, and quitting the road near Norfolk Bay made straight for the neck. The night had set in with a high westerly wind and threatened rain. It was pitch dark, and the fugitives were guided only by the dull rule of the sea, as it beat upon Descent Beach. Had it not been for the accident of a westerly gale, they would not have had even so much assistance. The crowd walked first, as guide carrying a musket taken from Harry, then came Gabbard with an axe, followed by the other six sharing between them such provisions as they had obtained a signal hill. John Rex with a carbine and Troakes pistols walked last. It had been agreed that if attacked they were to run each one his own way. In their desperate case disunion was strength. At intervals on their left glimmed the lights of the Constable stations, as they stumbled onward they heard plainer and more plainly the horse murmur of the sea, beyond which was liberty or death. After nearly two hours of painful progress, Jimmy Vetch stopped and whispered them to approach. They were on a sandy rise. To the left was a black object, a Constable's hut. To the right was a dim white line, the ocean. In front was a row of lamps, and between every two lamps leapt and ran a dusky, indistinct body. Jimmy Vetch pointed with his lean forefinger, the dogs. Instinctively they crouched down, lest even at that distance the two centuries so plainly visible in the red light of the guardhouse fire should see them. Wellbows, said Gabbard, what's to be done now? As he spoke a long low howl broke for one of the chained hounds, and the whole kennel burst into hideous outcry. John Rex, who perhaps was the bravest of the party, shuddered. They have smelt us, he said. We must go on. Gabbard spat in his palm, and took firm a hold of the axe handle. Right you are, he said. I'll leave my mark on some of them before this night's out. On the opposite shore lights began to move, and the fugitives could hear the hurrying tramper-feet. Make for the right-hand side of the jetty, said Rex in a fierce whisper. I think I see a boat there. It is our only chance now. We can never break through the station. Are we ready? Now, all together. Gabbard was fast outstripping the others by some three feet of distance. There were eleven dogs, two of whom were placed on stages set out in the water, and they were so chained that their muscles nearly touched. The giant leapt into the line, and with a blow of his axe split the skull of the beast on his right hand. This action, unluckily, took him within reach of the other dog, who seized him by the thigh. Fire cried McNabb from the other side of the lamps. The giant uttered a cry of rage and pain, and fell with the dog under him. It was, however, the dog who had pulled him down, and the musket-ball intended for him struck travers in the jaw. The unhappy villain fell, like Virgil's dares, spitting blood, teeth and curses. Gabbard clutched the mastiff's throat with iron hand, and forced him to lose his hold. Then, bellowing with fury, seized his axe and sprang forward. Mangled as he was upon the nearest soldier, Gemmi Vetch had been beforehand with him. Uttering a low snarl of hate, he fired, and shot the sentry through the breast. The others rushed through the now broken cordon, and made headlong for the boat. Fools cried wrecks behind them. You have wasted a shot! Look to your left! Burgess hurried down the Tamroad by his men, and tarried at Signal Hill only long enough to lose the surprise guard from their bonds, and taking the woody island boat was pulling with a fresh crude to the neck. The reinforcement was not ten yards from the jetty. The crows saw the danger, and flinging himself into the water, desperately seized McNabb's boat. In with you for your lives, he cried. Another volley from the guard spattered the water around the fugitives, but in the darkness the ill-aimed bullets fell harmless. Gabbard swung himself over the sheets and seized an awl. Cox, Bowdenham, Greenhill, now pusher off. Jump, Tom, jump! And as Burgess leapt to land, Cornelius was dragged over the stern, and the whale boat floated into the deep water. McNabb, seeing this, ran down to the waterside to aid the commandant. Lifter over the barmen, he shouted, with a will, so, and raced in twelve strong arms, the pursuant craft slid across the isthmus. With five minutes' start, said Watch Cooley, as he saw the commandant take his place in the stern sheets, pull away, my jolly boys, and will best him yet. The soldiers on the neck fired again almost at random, but the blaze of their pieces only served to show the commandant's boat a hundred yards astern of that of the mutineers, which had already gained the deep water of Purritt's Bay. Then, for the first time, the six prisoners became aware that John Rex was not among them. Chapter 24. In the Night John Rex had put into execution the first part of his scheme. At the moment, when seeing Burgess's boat near the sandpit, he had uttered the warning cry heard by Vetch. He had turned back into the darkness, and made for the watersedge at a point some distance from the neck. His desperate hope was that the attention of the guard being concentrated on the escaping boat. He might, favoured by the darkness and the confusion, swim to the peninsula. It was not a very marvellous feat to accomplish. And he had confidence in his own powers. One safe on the peninsula, his plans were formed. But owing to the strong westerly wind, which caused an incoming tide upon the isthmus, it was necessary for him to attain some point sufficiently far to the southward to enable him on taking the water to be assisted, not impeded by the current. With this view, he hurried over the sandy hummocks at the entrance to the neck, and ran backwards towards the sea. In a few strides, he had gained the hardened sandy shore, and, pausing to listen, heard behind him the sound of footsteps. He was pursued. The footsteps stopped, and then a voice cried, Surrender! It was McNabb, who, seeing Rex's retreat, had daringly followed him. John Rex drew from his breast Troak's pistol and waited. Surrender! cried the voice again, and the footsteps advanced toothpaces. At the instant that Rex raised the weapon to fire, a vivid flash of lightning showed him, on his right hand, on the ghastly and pallid ocean, two boats, the hindermost one, apparently within a few yards of him. The men looked like corpses. In the distance rose Cape Seville, and beneath Cape Seville was the hungry sea. The scene vanished in an instant, swallowed up almost before he had realised it. But the shock it gave him made him miss his aim, and flinging away the pistol with a curse, he turned down the path and fled. McNabb followed. The path had been made by frequent passage from the station, and Rex found it tolerably easy running. He had acquired, like most men who live much in the dark, that cat-like perception of obstacles which is due rather to increase sensitiveness of touch, than increased acuteness of vision. His feet accommodated themselves to the inequalities of the ground. His hands instinctively outstretched themselves towards the overhanging boughs. His head ducked off its own accord to any obtrusive sapling, which meant to obstruct his progress. His pursuer was not so fortunate. Twice did John Rex laugh mentally at a crash and scramble that told to a fall, and once in a valley where trickled a little stream, that he had cleared almost without an effort, he heard a splash that made him laugh outright. The track now began to go uphill, and Rex redoubled his efforts, trusting to his superior muscular energy to shake off his pursuer. He breasted the rise and paused to listen. The crashing of branches behind him had ceased, and it seemed that he was alone. He had gained the summit of the cliff. The lights of the neck were invisible. Below him lay the sea. Out of the black emptiness came puffs of sharp salt wind. The tops of the rollers that broke below were blown off and whirled away into the night. White patches swallowed up immediately in the increasing darkness. From the north side of the bay was born the horse-raw of the breakers as they dashed against the perpendicular cliffs which guarded Forestia's peninsula. At his feet arose the frightful shrieking and whistling, broken at intervals by reports like claps of thunder. Where was he? Exhausted and breathless, he sank down into the rough scrub and listened. All at once on the track over which he had passed, he heard a sound that made him bound to his feet in deadly fear, the bay of a dog. He thrust his hand to his breast for the remaining pistol, and uttered a cry of alarm. He had dropped it. He felt round about him in the darkness for some stick or stone that might serve as a weapon. In vain his fingers clutched nothing but prickly scrub and coarse grass. The sweat ran down his face. With staring eyeballs and bristling hair he stared into the darkness as if he were dissipated by the very intensity of his gaze. The noise was repeated, and piercing through the roar of wind and water above and below him seemed to be close at hand. He heard a man's voice cheering the dog in accents that the gaol blew away from him before he could recognise them. It was probable that some of the soldiers had been sent to the assistance of McNabb. Capture then was certain. In his agony the wretched man almost promised himself repentance. Should he escape this peril? The dog crashing through the underwood gave one short, sharp howl, and then ran mute. The darkness had increased the gaol, the wind ravaging the hollow heaven had spread between the lightnings and the sea an impenetrable curtain of black cloud. It seemed possible to seize upon this curtain and draw its edge yet closer, so dense was it. The white raging waters were blotted out, and even the lightning seemed unable to penetrate the intense blackness. A large warm drop of rain fell upon Rex's outstretched hand, and far overhead rumbled a wrathful peeler thunder. The shrieking which he had heard a few moments ago had ceased, but every now and then dull-buddy men's shocks as of some mighty bird flapping the cliff with monstrous wings reverberated around him, and shook the ground where he stood. He looked towards the ocean, and a tall misty form white against the all-pervading blackness beckoned and bowed to him. He saw it distinctly for an instant, and then with an awful shriek as of wrothful despair it sank and vanished. Madden with a terror he could not define, the hunted man turned to meet the material peril that was so close at hand. With a ferocious gasp the dog flung himself upon him. John Rex was born backwards, but in his desperation he clutched the beast by the throat and belly, and exerting all his strength flung him off. The brute uttered one howl and seemed to lie where he had fallen, while above his carcass again hovered that white and vaporous column. It was strange that McNabb and the soldiers did not follow up the advantage they had gained. Courage perhaps he should defeat them yet. He had been lucky to dispose of the dog so easily. With a fierce thrill of renewed hope he ran forward, when at his feet in his face arose that misty form, breathing chill warning as though to wave him back. The terror at his heels drove him on. A few steps more and he should gain the summit of the cliff. He could feel the sea roaring in front of him in the gloom. The column disappeared, and in a lull of wind, up rose from the place where it had been such a hideous medley of shrieks, laughter and exultant wrath that John Rex paused in horror. Too late the ground gave away it seemed beneath his feet. He was falling, clutching in vain at rocks, shrubs and grass. The cloud curtain lifted, and by the lightning that leaped and played about the ocean, John Rex found an explanation of his terrors, more terrible than they themselves had been. The track he had followed led to that portion of the cliff in which the sea had excavated the tunnel spout, known as the Devil's Blowhole. Clinging to a tree that growing halfway down the precipice had arrested his cause, he stared into the abyss. Before him, already high above his head, was a gigantic arch of cliff. Through this arch he saw, at an immense distance below him, the raging and pallid ocean. Beneath him was an abyss splintered with black rocks, turbid and raucous with tortured water. Suddenly the bottom of this abyss seemed to advance to meet him, or rather the black throat of the chasm belched the volume of leaping, curling water, which mounted to drown him. Was it fancy that showed him on the surface of this ricin column, the mangled carcass of the dog? The chasm into which John Rex had fallen was shaped like a huge funnel set up on its narrow end. The sides of the funnel were rugged rock, and in the banks of earth lodged here and there upon projections a scrubby vegetation grew. The scanty growth pours abruptly halfway down the gulf, and the rock below was perpetually damp from the upthrown spray. Accident had the convict been a meekon? We might term it Providence, had lodged him on the lowest of these banks of earth, in calm weather he would have been out of danger, but the lightning flash revealed to his terror sharp and sense a black patch of dripping rock on the side of the chasm, some ten feet above his head. It was evident that upon the next rising of the waterspout the place where he stood would be covered with water. The roaring column mounted with hideous swiftness. Rex felt at rush at him and swing him up wood. With both arms round the tree he clutched the sleeves of his jacket with either hand. Perhaps if he could maintain his hold he might outlive the shock of that suffocating torrent. He felt his feet rudely ceased as though by the hand of a giant and plucked upwards, water gurgled in his ears. His arms seemed about to be torn from their sockets. Had the strain lasted another instant he must have lost his hold. But with a wild horse shriek as though it was some sea monster baffled off its prey, the column sank, and left him gasping, bleeding, half-drowned, but alive. It was impossible that he could survive another shock, and in his agony he unclasped his stiffened fingers, determined to resign himself to his fate. At that instant however he saw on the wall of rock that hollowed on his right hand a red and lurid light, in the midst of which fantastically bobbed hither and thither, the gigantic shadow of a man. He cast his eyes up woods and saw slowly descending into the gulf, a blazing bush tied to a rope. McNabb was taking advantage of the pause in the spouting to examine the sides of the blowhole. A despairing hope seized John Rex. In another instant the light would reveal his figure, clinging like a limpet to the rock to those above. He must be detected in any case, but if they could lower the rope sufficiently he might clutch her and be saved. His dread of the horrible death that was beneath him overcame his resolution to avoid recapture. The long-drawn agony of the retreating water as it was sucked back again into the throat of the chasm had ceased, and he knew that the next tremendous pulsation of the sea below would hurl the spewing destruction up upon him. The gigantic torch slowly descended, and he had already drawn in his breath for a shout, which should make itself heard above the roar of the wind and water, when a strange appearance on the face of the cliff made him pause. About six feet from him, glowing like a molten gold in the gusty glow of the burning tree, a round slick stream of water slipped from the rock into the darkness, like a serpent from its hole. Above this stream a dark spot defied the torchlight, and John Rex felt his heart leap with one last desperate hope as he comprehended that close to him was one of those torturous drives which the worn-like action of the sea bore in such caverns as that in which he had found himself. The drive opened first to the light of the day by the natural convulsion, which had raised the mountain itself above ocean level, probably extended into the boughs of the cliff. The stream ceased to let itself out of the crevice. It was then likely that the rice and column of water did not penetrate far into this wonderful hiding place. Endowed with a wisdom which in one placed in less desperate position would have been madness, John Rex shouted to his pursuers, The rope, the rope, the words projected against the sides of the enormous funnel were pitched high above the blast, and re-duplicated by a thousand echoes reached the ears of those above. He's alive, cried McNabb, peering into the abyss. I see him, look! The soldier whipped the end of the bullock-hide larry at round the tree to which he held, and began to oscillate it, so that the blazing bush might reach the ledge on which the daring convict sustained himself. The groan which preceded the fierce belching forth of the torrent was cast up to them from below. God be good to the poor fellow, said the pious young Scotchman, catching his breath. A white spewing was visible at the bottom of the gulf, and the groan changed into a rapidly increasing bellow. John Rex eyed the blazing pendulum, that with longer and longer swing momentarily neared him, looked up to the black heaven for the last time with the muttered prayer. The bush, the flame fan by the motion, flung a crimson glow upon his frowning features, which, as he caught the rope, had a snare of triumph on them. Slack out, slack out, he cried, and then, drawing the burning bush towards him, attempted to stamp out the fire with his feet. The soldier set his body against the tree-trunk, and gripped the rope hard, turning his head away from the fiery pit below him. Hold tight, your honour, he muttered to McNab, she's coming. The bellow changed into a roar, and the roar into a shriek, and with a gust of wind and spray, the seething sea leapt out of the gulf. John Rex, unable to extinguish the flame, twisted his arm about the rope, and the instant before the surface of the rising water made a momentary flaw to the mouth of the cabin, he spurned the cliff desperately with his feet, and flung himself across the chasm. He had already clutched the rock and thrust himself forward, when the tremendous volume of water struck him. McNab and the soldier felt the sudden pluck of the rope, and saw the light swing across the abyss. Then the fury of the water spout burst with a triumphant scream, the tension ceased, the light was blotted out, and when the column sank, there dangled at the end of the lariat, nothing but the drenched and blackened skeleton of the she-oak bow. Amid a terrific peel of thunder, the long pent-up rain descended, and a sudden ghastly rending asunder of the cloud showed far below them. The heaving ocean, high above them the jagged and glistening rocks, and, at their feet, the blackened murderous abyss of the blow-hole, empty. They pulled up the useless rope in silence, and another dead tree, lighted and lowered, showed them nothing. God rest his poor soul, said McNab shuddering. He's out of our hands now. End of section 53