 The evening passed as it had passed a hundred times before, and having smoked a pipe at the barracks, Captain Freyre returned home. His home was a cottage on the New Town Road, a cottage which he had occupied since his appointment as Assistant Police Magistrate, an appointment given to him as a reward for his exertions in connection with the Osprey Mutiny. Captain Morris Freyre had risen in life, quartered in Hobart Town he had assumed a position in society, and had held several of those excellent appointments which in the year 1834 were bestowed upon officers of garrison. He had been superintendent of works at Bridgewater, and when he got his captaincy, Assistant Police Magistrate at Bothell. The affair of the Osprey made a noise, and it was tacitly resolved that the first good thing that fell vacant should be given to the gallant preserver of Major Vickers Child. Major Vickers also prospered. He had always been a careful man, and having saved some money had purchased land on favourable terms. The assignment system enabled him to cultivate portions of it at a small expense, and following the usual custom he stopped his run with cattle and sheep. He had sold his commission, and was now a comparatively wealthy man. He owned a fine estate, the house he lived in was purchased property. He was in good odour at government house, and his office of superintendent of convicts caused him to take an active part in that local government which keeps a man constantly before the public. Major Vickers, a colonist against his will, had become by force of circumstances one of the leading men in Van Diemen's land. His daughter was a good match for any man, and many ensigns and lieutenants cursing their hard lot in country quarters, many sons of settlers living on their father's station among the mountains, and many dappet clerks on the civil establishment envied Morris Freyre his good fortune. Some went so far as to say that the beautiful daughter of Regulation Vickers was too good for the coarse red-faced Freyre who was noted for his fondness for low society and overbearing almost brutal demeanour. No one denied, however, that Captain Freyre was a valuable officer. It was said that in consequence of his tastes he knew more about the tricks of convicts than any man on the island. It was said even that he was wont to disguise himself and mix with the pass holders and convict servants in order to learn their signs and mysteries. When in charge of Bridgewater it had been his delight to rate the chain gangs in their own hideous jargon and to astound a newcomer by his knowledge of his previous history. The convict population hated and cringed to him, for with his brutality and violence he mingled the ferocious good humour that resulted sometimes in tacit permission to go without the letter of the law. Yet as the convicts themselves said, a man was never safe with the captain, for after drinking and joking with them, as the sororical of some public house whose hostess he delighted to honour, he would disappear through a side door just as the constables burst in at the back and show himself as remorseless in his next morning sentence of the captured, as if he had never entered a tap room in all his life. His superiors called this zeal, his inferior treachery. For himself he laughed. Everything is fair to those wretches he was accustomed to say. As the time for his marriage approached, however, he had in a measure given up these exploits and strove by his demeanour to make his acquaintances forget several remarkable scandals concerning his private life, for the promulgation of which he once cared little. When commandant at the Maria Island, and for the first two years after his return from the unlucky expedition to Macquarie Harbour, he had not suffered any fear of society's opinion to restrain his vices. But as the affection for the pure young girl who looked upon him as her saviour from a dreadful death, increased in honest strength, he had resolved to shut up those dark pages in his colonial experience and to read therein no more. He was not remorseful, he was not even disgusted. He merely came to the conclusion that when a man married he was to consider certain extravagances common to all bachelors as at an end. He had had his fling like all young men. Perhaps he had been foolish like most young men, but no reproachful ghost of past misdeeds haunted him. His nature was too prosaic to admit the existence of such phantoms. Sylvia, in her purity and excellence, was so far above him that in raising his eyes to her he lost sight of all the sordid creatures to whose level he had once debased himself, and had come in part to regard the sins he had committed before his redemption by the love of this bright young creature, as evil done by him under a past condition of existence, and for the consequences of which he was not responsible. One of the consequences, however, was very close to him at this moment. His convict servant had, according to his instructions, sat up for him, and as he entered the man handed him a letter bearing a superscription in a female hand. Who brought this, asked Fray, hastily tearing it open to read. The groom, sir, he said that there was a gentleman at the George IV who wished to see you. Fray smiled, in admiration of the intelligence which had dictated such a message, and then frowned in anger at the contents of the letter. You needn't wait, he said to the man. I shall have to go back again, I suppose. Changing his forage cap for a soft hat and selecting a stick from a miscellaneous collection in a corner, he prepared to retrace his steps. What does she want now, he asked himself fiercely as he strode down the moonlit road. But beneath the fierceness there was an undercurrent of petulance, which implied that whatever she did want she had a right to expect. The George IV was a long low house situated in Elizabeth Street. Its front was painted a dull red, and the narrow panes of glass in its windows, and the ostentatious affectation of red curtains and homely comfort gave to it a spurious appearance of old English jollity. And not a man round the door melted into air as Captain Fray approached, for it was now past eleven o'clock, and all persons found in the streets after eight could be compelled to show their pass or explain their business. The convict constables were not scrupulous in the exercise of their duty, and the bluff figure of Fray clad in the blue surge which he affected as a summer costume looked not unlike that of a convict constable. Pushing open the side door with the confident manner of one well acquainted with the house, Fray entered and made his way along a narrow passage to a glass door at the further end. A tap upon this door brought a white-faced, pop-petted Irish girl who curtsied with servile recognition of the visitor and ushered him upstairs. The room into which he was shown was a large one. It had three windows looking into the street and was handsomely furnished. The carpet was soft, the candles were bright, and the supper tray gleamed invitingly from a table between the windows. As Fray entered, a little terrier ran barking to his feet. It was evident that he was not a constant visitor. The rustle of a silk dress behind the terrier betrayed the presence of a woman, and Fray, rounding the promontory of an ottoman, found himself face to face with Sarah Perfoy. Thank you for coming, she said. Fray, sit down. This was the only greeting that passed between them, and Fray sat down in obedience to a motion of a plump hand that twinkled with rings. The eleven years that had passed since we last saw this woman had dealt gently with her. Her foot was as small and her hand as white as a viole. Her hair bound close about her head was plentiful and glossy, and her eyes had lost none of their dangerous brightness. Her figure was coarser, and the white arm that gleamed through a muslin sleeve showed an outline that a fastidious artist might wish to modify. The most noticeable change was in her face. The cheeks owned no longer that delicate purity which they once boasted, but had become thicker, while here and there showed those faint red streaks, as though the rich blood throbbed too painfully in the veins, which are the first signs of the decay of fine women. With middle age and the fullness of figure to which most women of her temperament are prone, had come also that indescribable vulgarity of speech and manner which habitual absence of moral restraint never fails to produce. Morris Frey spoke first. He was anxious to bring his visit to a speedy determination as possible. What do you want of me? he asked. Sarah Purfoy laughed, a false laugh that sounded so unnatural that Frey turned to look at her. I want you to do me a favour, a very great favour, that is, if it will not put you out of the way. What do you mean? asked Frey roughly, pursing his lips with a sullen air. Favour? What do you call this, striking the sofa on which he sat? Isn't this a favour? What do you call your precious house and all that's in it? Isn't that a favour? What do you mean? To his utter astonishment the woman replied by shedding tears. For some time he regarded her in silence, as if unwilling to be softened by such shallow device, but eventually felt constrained to say something. Have you been drinking again? he asked. Or what's the matter with you? Tell me what it is you want and have done with it. I don't know what possessed me to come here at all. Sarah sat upright and dashed away her tears with one passionate hand. I am ill. Can't you see, you fool? said she. The news has unnerved me. If I have been drinking, what then? It's nothing to you, is it? Oh no, return the other. It's nothing to me. You are the principal party concerned. If you choose to bloat yourself with Brandy, do it by all means. You don't pay for it at any rate, said she, with quickness of retaliation which showed that this was not the only occasion on which they had quarrelled. Come, said Freya, impatiently brutal. Get on. I can't stop here all night. She suddenly rose and crossed to where he was standing. Morris, you were very fond of me once. Once, said Morris. Not so very many years ago. Hang it, he said, shifting his arm from beneath her hand. Don't let us have all that stuff over again. It was before you took to drinking and swearing, and going raving mad with passion, anyway. Well, dear, she said, with her great glittering eyes belying the soft tones of her voice. I suffered for it, didn't I? Didn't you turn me out into the streets? Didn't you lash me with your whip like a dog? Didn't you put me in jail for it, eh? It's hard to struggle against you, Morris. The compliment to his obstinacy seemed to please him. Perhaps the crafty woman intended that it should, and he smiled. Well, there, let old times be old times, Sarah. You haven't done badly after all, and he looked round the well-furnished room. What do you want? There was a transport came in this morning. Well, you know who was on board her, Morris? Morris brought one hand into the palm of the other with a rough laugh. Oh, that's it, is it? God, what a flatter was not to think of it before. You want to see him, I suppose? She came close to him, and in her earnestness took his hand. I want to save his life. Oh, that behang, you know. Save his life? It can't be done. You can do it, Morris. I saved John Rex's life, cried Freyre. Why, you must be mad. He is the only creature that loves me, Morris. The only man who cares for me. He has done no harm. He only wanted to be free. Was it not natural? You can save him, if you like. I only ask for his life. What does it matter to you, a miserable prisoner? His death would be of no use. Let him live, Morris. Morris laughed. What have I to do with it? You are the principal witness against him. If you say that he behaved well, and he did behave well, you know, many men would have left you to starve. They won't hang him. Oh, won't they? That won't make much difference. Oh, Morris, be merciful. She bent towards him and tried to retain his hand, but he withdrew it. You're a nice sort of woman to ask me to help your lover, a man who left me on that cursed coast to die, for all he cared, he said, with a galling recollection of his humiliation of five years back. Save him? Confound him, not I. Ah, Morris, you will. She spoke with a suppressed sob in her voice. What is it to you? You don't care for me now? You beat me and turned me out of doors, though I never did you wrong. This man was a husband to me, long, long before I met you. He never did you any harm. He never will. He will bless you if you save him, Morris. Frere joked his head impatiently. Bless me, he said. I don't want his blessings. Let him swing. Who cares? Still she persisted, with tears streaming from her eyes, with white arms upraised, on her knees even, catching at his coat and beseeching him in broken accents. In her wild, fierce beauty and passionate abandonment, she might have been a deserted Ariadne, a suppliant Medea, anything rather than what she was, a dissolute, half-madden woman, praying for the pardon of her convict husband. Morris Frere flung her off with an oath. Get up, he cried brutally, and stop that nonsense. I tell you, the man's as good as dead for all that I shall do to save him. At this repulse, her pent-up passion broke forth. She sprang to her feet, and, pushing back the hair that in her frenzied pleading had fallen on about her face, poured out upon him a torrent of abuse. You who are you that you dare to speak to me like that? His little finger is worth your whole body. He is a man, a brave man, not a coward like you. A coward. Yes, a coward. A coward. A coward. You are very brave with defenseless men and weak women. You have beaten me until I was bruised black, you cur. But whoever saw you attack a man unless he was chained or bound. Do not I know you? I have seen you taunt a man at the triangles, until I wished the screaming wretch could get loose and murder you as you deserve. You will be murdered one of these days, Morris Frere. Take my word for it. Men are flesh and blood and flesh and blood won't endure the torments you lay on it. There, that'll do, said Frere, growing paler. Don't excite yourself. I know you, you brutal coward. I have not been your mistress, God forgive me, without learning you by heart. I've seen your ignorance and your conceit. I've seen the men who ate your food and drank your wine laugh at you. I've heard what your friends say. I've heard the comparisons they make. One of your dogs has more brains than you and twice as much heart. And these are the men they send to rule us. Oh, heaven, and such an animal as this has life and death in his hand. He may hang, may he. I'll hang with him then, and God will forgive me for murder, for I will kill you. Frere had coward before this frightful torrent of rage, but at the scream which accompanied the last words, he stepped forward as though to seize her. In her desperate courage she flung herself before him. Strike me, you dent. I defy you. Bring up the wretched creatures who learn the way to hell in this cursed house, and let them see you do it. Call them. They are all friends of yours. They all know Captain Morris Freyre. Sarah. You remember Lucy Barnes, poor little Lucy Barnes that stole Six Pennyworth of Calico? She's downstairs now. Would you know her if you saw her? She isn't the bright-faced baby she was when they sent her here to reform, and when Lieutenant Freyre wanted a new housemaid from the factory. Call for her. Call. Do you hear? Ask any one of those beasts whom you lash and chain for Lucy Barnes. He'll tell you all about her. I and about many more. Many more poor souls that are at the bidding of any drunken brute that has stolen a pound note to free the devil with. Oh, you good God in heaven. Will you not judge this man? Freyre trembled. He had often witnessed this creature's whirlwinds of passion, but never had he seen her so violent as this. Her frenzy frightened him. For heaven's sake, Sarah, be quiet. What is it you want? What would you do? I'll go to this girl you want to marry and tell her all I know of you. I have seen her in the streets, have seen her look the other way when I passed her, have seen her gather up her muslin skirts when my silks touched her. I that nursed her, that heard her say her baby prayers. Oh, Jesus pity me. And I know what she thinks of women like me. She is good and virtuous and cold. She would shatter at you if she knew what I know. Shatter. She would hate you. And I will tell her. Aye, I will. You will be respectable, will you? A model husband. Wait till I tell her my story, till I send some of these poor women to tell theirs. You kill my love. I'll blight and ruin yours. Freyr caught her by both wrists and with all his strength forced her to her knees. Don't speak her name, he said in a hoarse voice, or I'll do you a mischief. I know all you mean to do. I'm not such a fool as not to see that. Be quiet. Men have murdered women like you, and now I know how they came to do it. For a few minutes the silence fell upon the pair, and at last Freyr releasing her hands fell back from her. I'll do what you want on one condition. What? That you leave this place? Where for? Anywhere, the farther the better. I'll pay your passage to Sydney, and you go or stay there as you please. She had grown calmer, hearing him thus relenting. About this house, Maurice? You're not in debt? No. Well, leave it. It's your own affair, not mine. If I help you, you must go. May I see him? No. Ah, Maurice. You can see him in the dock if you like, since Freyr with a laugh cut short by a flash of her eyes. There I didn't mean to offend you. Offend me? Go on. Listen here, said he doggedly. If you will go away and promise never to interview with me by word or deed, I'll do what you want. What will you do? She asked, unable to suppress a smile of the victory she had won. I will not say all I know about this man. I will say he befriended me. I will do my best to save his life. You can save it if you like. Well, I will try. On my honor, I will try. I must believe you, I suppose, said she doubtfully, and then with a sudden pitiful pleading, in strange contrast to her formal violence. You're not deceiving me, Maurice? No, why should I? You keep your promise, and I'll keep mine. Is it a bargain? Yes. He eyed her steadfastly for some seconds, and then turned on his heel. As he reached the door, she called him back. Knowing him as she did, she felt that he would keep his word, and her feminine nature could not resist the parting sneer. There is nothing in the bargain to prevent me helping him to escape, she said with a smile. Escape? He won't escape again, I'll go bail. Once get him in double irons of Port Arthur, and he's safe enough. The smile on her face seemed infectious, for his own sullen features relaxed. Good night, Sarah, he said. She put out her hand as if nothing had happened. Good night, Captain Freyre. It's a bargain, then. A bargain. You have a long walk home. Will you have some brandy? I don't care if I do, he said, advancing to the table and filling his glass. Here's a good voyage to you. Sarah Purfoy, watching him burst into a laugh. Human beings are queer creatures, she said. Who would have thought that we had been calling each other names just now? I say I'm a vixen when I'm aroused, ain't I, Morris? Remember what you've promised, said he, with a threat in his voice as he moved to the door. You must be out of this by the next ship that leaves. Never fear, I'll go. Getting into the cool street directly and seeing the calm stars shining and the placid water sleeping with a peace in which he had no share, he strove to cast off the nervous fear that was on him. That interview had frightened him, for it had made him think. It was hard that just as he had turned over a new leaf, this old blotch had come through to the clean page. It was cruel that having comfortably forgotten the past, he should be thus rudely reminded of it. End of chapter 2 Section 32 of For the Term of His Natural Life This is a LibriVox recording, while LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Tony Ashworth For the Term of His Natural Life by Marcus Clarke Book 3 Port Arthur 1838 Chapter 3 The Story of Two Birds of Prey The reader of the foregoing pages has doubtless asked himself, what is the link which binds together John Rex and Sarah Perfoy? In the year 1825, they lived at St. Heliers, Jersey, an old watchmaker named Urban Perfoy. He was a hard-working man and had amassed a little money, sufficient to give his granddaughter an education above the common in those days. At 16 Sarah Perfoy was an empty-headed, strong-willed, precocious girl with big brown eyes. She had a bad opinion of her own sex and an immense admiration for the young and handsome members of the other. The neighbours said that she was too high and mighty for her rank in life. Her grandfather said she was a beauty, unlike her poor dear mother. She herself thought rather meanly of her personal attractions, and rather highly of her mental ones. She was brimful of vitality with strong passions and little religious sentiment. She had not much respect for moral courage, for she did not understand it. But she was a profound admirer of personal prowess. Her distaste for the humdrum life she was leading found expression in a rebellion against social usages. She courted notoriety by eccentricities of dress, and was never so happy as when she was misunderstood. She was the sort of girl of whom women say, here's a pity she has no mother, and men, it is a pity she does not get her husband, and who say to themselves, when shall I have a lover? There was no lack of beings of this latter class among the officers courted in Fort Royal and Fort Henry. But the female population of the island was free and numerous, and in the embarrassment of riches Sarah was overlooked. Though she adored the soldiery, her first lover was a civilian. Walking one day on the cliff she met a young man. He was tall, well-looking, and well-dressed. His name was Lemoine. He was the son of a somewhat wealthy resident of the island, and had come down from London to recruit his health and to see his friends. Sarah was struck by his appearance and looked back at him. He had been struck by hers and looked back also. He followed her and spoke to her, some remark about the wind or the weather, and she thought his voice divine. They got into conversation about scenery, lonely walks, and the dullness of centeliers. Did she often walk there? Sometimes. Would she be there tomorrow? She might. Mr. Lemoine lifted his hat and went back to dinner, rather pleased with himself. They met the next day and the day after that. Lemoine was not a gentleman, but he had lived among gentlemen and had caught something of their manner. He said that after all, virtue was a mere name, and that when people were powerful and rich, the world respected them more than if they had been honest and poor. Sarah agreed with the sentiment. Her grandfather was honest and poor, and yet nobody respected him, at least not with such respect as she cared to acknowledge. In addition to his talent for argument, Lemoine was handsome and had money. He showed her quite a handful of bankboats one day. He told her of London and the great ladies there, and hinting that they were not always virtuous, drew himself up with a moody air, as though he had been unhappily the cause of their fatal lapse into wickedness. Sarah did not wonder at this in the least. Had she been a great lady, she would have done the same. She began to coquette with this seductive fellow, and to hint to him that she had too much knowledge of the world to set a fictitious value upon virtue. He mistook her artfulness for innocence, and thought he had made a conquest. Moreover, the girl was pretty, and when dressed properly, would look well. Only one obstacle stood in the way of their loves. The dashing profligate was poor. He had been living in London above his means, and his father was not inclined to increase his allowance. Sarah liked him better than anybody else she had seen, but there are two sides to every bargain. Sarah Purfoy must go to London. In vain, her lover sighed and swore. Unless he would promise to take her away with him, Diana was not more chaste. The more virtuous she grew, the more vicious did Lemoine feel. His desire to possess her increased in proportionate ratio to her resistance, and at last he borrowed two hundred pounds from his father's confidential clerk, the Lemoines were merchants by profession, and acceded to her wishes. There was no love on either side. Vanity was the mainspring of the whole transaction. Lemoine did not like to be beaten. Sarah salt herself for a passage to England and an introduction into the great world. We need not describe her career at this epoch. Suffice it to say that she discovered that vice is not always conducive to happiness, and is not, even in this world, so well rewarded as its earnest practice might merit. Sated and disappointed, she soon grew tired of her life, and longed to escape from its wearying dissipations. At this juncture she fell in love. The object of her affections was one Mr Lionel Crofton. Crofton was tall, well made, and with an insinuating address. His features were too strongly marked for beauty. His eyes were the best part of his face, and like his hair they were jet black. He had broad shoulders, sinewy limbs, and small hands and feet. His head was round and well shaped, but it bulged a little over the ears, which were singularly small and lay close to his head. With this man barely four years older than herself, Sarah at seventeen fell violently in love. This was the more strange, as though fond of her, he would tolerate no caprices, and possessed an ungovernable temper, which found vent in curses and even blows. He seemed to have no profession or business, and though he owned a good address, he was even less of a gentleman than a loin. Yet Sarah, attracted by one of the strange sympathies which constitute the romance of such women's lives, was devoted to him. Touched by her affection and rating her intelligence and unscrupulousness at their true value, he told her who he was. He was a swindler, a forger, and a thief, and his name was John Rex. When she heard this she experienced a sinister delight. He told her of his plots, his tricks, his escapes, his villainies, and seeing how for years this young man had prayed upon the world which had deceived and disowned her, her heart went out to him. I'm glad you found me, she said. Two heads are better than one. We will work together. John Rex, known among his intimate associates as Dandy Jack, was the putative son of a man who had been for many years valet to Lord Bellassus, and who retired from the service of that profligate nobleman with a sum of money and a wife. John Rex was sent to as good a school as could be procured for him, and at sixteen was given by the interest of his mother with his father's former master, a clerkship in an old established city banking house. Mrs. Rex was intensely fond of her son and imbued him with a desire to shine in aristocratic circles. He was a clever lad without any principle. He would lie unblushingly and steal deliberately if he thought he could do so with impunity. He was cautious, acquisitive, imaginative, self-conceited, and destructive. He had strong perceptive faculties, and much invention and versatility, but his moral sense was almost entirely wanting. He found that his fellow clerks were not of that gentlemanly stamp which his mother thought so admirable, and therefore he despised them. He thought he should like to go into the army, for he was athletic and rejoiced in feats of muscular strength. To be tired all day to a desk was beyond endurance. But John Rex Sr. told him to wait and see what came of it. He did so, and in the meantime kept late hours, got into bad company, and forged the name of a customer of the bank to a check for twenty pounds. The fraud was a clumsy one, and was detected in twenty-four hours. Forgeries by clerks, however easily detected, are unfortunately not considered to add to the attractions of a banking house, and the old established firm decided not to prosecute, but dismissed Mr. John Rex from their service. The ex-valley, who never liked his legalized son, was at first for turning him out of doors, but by the entreaties of his wife was at last induced to place the promising boy in a draper's shop in the city road. This employment was not a congenial one, and John Rex planned to leave it. He lived at home and had his salary about thirty shillings a week for pocket money. Though he displayed considerable skill with the queue, and not infrequently won considerable sums for one in his position, his expenses averaged more than his income, and having borrowed all he could, he found himself again in difficulties. His narrow escape, however, had taught him a lesson, and he resolved to confess all to his indulgent mother, and be more economical for the future. Just then one of those lucky chances which blight so many lives occurred. The shop-walker died, and Mrs. Baffety and Co. made the gentlemanly Rex act as he substituted for a few days. Shop-walkers have opportunities not accorded to other folks, and on the evening of the third day Mr. Rex went home with a bundle of lace in his pocket. Unfortunately he owed more than the worth of this petty theft, and was compelled to steal again. This time he was detected. One of his fellow shopmen caught him in the very act of concealing a roll of silk, ready for future abstraction, and to his astonishment cried, Harves. Rex pretended to be virtually indignant, but soon saw that such pretence was useless. His companion was too wily to be fooled with such affectation of innocence. I saw you take it, said he, and if you won't share, I'll tell all Baffety. This argument was irresistible, and they shared. Having become good friends, the self-made partner lent Rex a helping hand in the disposal of the booty, and introduced him to a purchaser. The purchaser violated all rules of romance by being, not a Jew, but a very orthodox Christian. He kept a second-hand clothes warehouse in the city road, and was supposed to have branch establishments all over London. Mr. Blix purchased the stolen goods for about a third of their value, and seemed struck by Mr. Rex's appearance. I thought you was a swell mobsman, said he. This, from one so experienced, was a high compliment. Encouraged by success, Rex and his companion took more articles of value. John Rex paid off his debts, and began to feel himself quite a gentleman again. Just as Rex had arrived at this pleasing state of mind, Baffety discovered the robbery. Not having heard about the bank business, he did not suspect Rex. He was such a gentlemanly young man. But having had his eye for some time upon Rex's partner, who was vulgar and squinted, he sent for him. Rex's partner stoutly denied the accusation. An old Baffety, who was a man of merciful tendencies, and could well afford to lose fifty pounds, gave him until the next morning to confess, and state where the goods had gone, hinting at the persuasive powers of a constable at the end of that time. The shopman, with tears in his eyes, came in a hurry to Rex, and informed him that all was lost. He did not want to confess, because he must implicate his friend Rex, but if he did not confess, he would be given in charge. Flight was impossible, for neither had money. In this dilemma John Rex remembered Blix's compliment, and burned to deserve it. If he must retreat, he would lay waste the enemy's country. His exodus should be like that of the Israelites. He would spoil the Egyptians. The shopwalker was allowed half an hour in the middle of the day for lunch. John Rex took advantage of this half hour to hire a cab and drive to Blix. That worthy man received him cordially, for he saw that he was bent upon great deeds. John Rex rapidly unfolded his plan of operations. The warehouse doors were fastened with a spring. He would remain behind after they were locked, and open them at a given signal. A light cart or cab could be stationed in the lane at the back. Three men could fill it with valuables in as many hours. Did Blix know of three such men? Blix's one eye glistened. He thought he did know. At half past eleven they should be there. Was that all? No. Mr John Rex was not going to put up such a splendid thing for nothing. The booty was worth at least five thousand pounds, if it was worth a shilling. He must have one hundred pounds cash when the cart stopped at Blix's door. Blix at first refused point blank. Let there be a division, but he would not buy a pig in a poke. Rex was firm, however. It was his only chance, and at last he got a promise of eighty pounds. That night the glorious achievement known in the annals of Bow Street, as the Great Silk Robbery, took place, and two days afterwards John Rex and his partner, dining comfortably at Birmingham, read an account of the transaction, not in the least like it, in a London paper. John Rex, who had now fairly broken with dull respectability, bid adieu to his home, and began to realise his mother's wishes. He was, after his fashion, a gentleman. As long as the eighty pounds lasted he lived in luxury, and by the time it was spent he had established himself in his profession. This profession was a lucrative one. It was that of a swindler. Gifted with a handsome person, facile manner, and ready wit, he had added to these natural advantages some skill at billiards, some knowledge of gambler's leisure-de-mer, and the useful consciousness that he must pray or be prayed on. John Rex was no common swindler. His natural as well as his acquired abilities saved him from vulgar errors. He saw that to successfully swindle mankind, one was not aim at comparative but superlative ingenuity. He who is contented with being only cleverer than the majority must infallibly be outwitted at last, and to be once outwitted is for a swindler to be ruined. Examining moreover into the history of detected crime, John Rex discovered one thing. At the bottom of all these robberies, deceptions and swindles, was some lucky fellow who profited by the folly of his confederates. This gave him an idea. Suppose he could not only make use of his own talents to rob mankind, but utilize those of others also. Crime runs through infinite grades. He proposed to himself to be at the top. But why should he despise those good fellows beneath him? His speciality was swindling, billiard playing, card playing, borrowing money, obtaining goods, never risking more than two or three coups in a year. But others plundered houses, stole bracelets, watches, diamonds, made as much in a night as he did in six months. Only their occupation was more dangerous. Now came the question. Why more dangerous? Because these men were mere clods, bold enough and clever enough in their own rude way, but no match for the law, with its argous eyes and its bryarian hands. They did the rougher business well enough. They broke locks and burst doors and netted constables. But in the finer arts of plan, attack and escape, they were sadly deficient. Good. These men should be the hands. He would be the head. He would plan the robberies. They should execute them. Working through many channels and never omitting to assist the fellow worker when in distress, John Rex, in a few years, and in a most prosaic business way, became the head of a society of ruffians. Mixing with fast clerks and unsuspecting middle-class profligates, he found out particulars of houses ill-guarded and shops insecurely fastened, and put up Blix's ready ruffians to the more dangerous work. In his various disguises, and under his many names, he found his way into those upper circles of fast society, where animals turn into birds, where a wolf becomes a rook, and a lamb a pigeon. Rich spendthrifts, who affected male society, asked him to their houses. And Mr. Anthony Croftonbury, Captain James Craven, and Mr. Lionel Crofton were names remembered, sometimes with pleasure, oftener with regret, by many a broken man of fortune. He had one quality which, to a man of his profession, was invaluable. He was cautious and master of himself. Having made a success, rung commission from Blix, rooked a gambling niny like Lemoine, or secured an assortment of jewellery sent down to his wife in Gloucestershire, he would disappear for a time. He liked comfort and revel in the sense of security and respectability. Thus he had lived for three years when he met Sarah Purfoy, and thus he proposed to live for many more. With this woman as a co-agitor, he thought he could defy the law. She was the net spread to catch his pigeons. She was the well-dressed lady who ordered goods in London for her husband at Canterbury, and paid half the price down, which was all this letter authorized her to do, and where a less beautiful or clever woman might have failed, she succeeded. Her husband saw fortune before him, and believed that with common prudence he might carry on his most lucrative employment of gentlemen until he chose to relinquish it. Alas for human weakness, he one day did a foolish thing, and the law he had so successfully defied got him in the simplest way imaginable. Under the names of Mr. and Mrs. Skinner, John Rex and Sarah Purfoy were living in quiet lodgings in the neighborhood of Bloomsbury. Their landlady was a respectable poor woman, and had a son who was a constable. This son was given to talking and coming into supper one night. He told his mother that on the following evening an attack was to be made on a gang of coiners in the Old Street Road. The mother, dreaming all sorts of horrors during the night, came the next day to Mrs. Skinner in the parlor, and under a pledge of profound secrecy, told her of the dreadful expedition in which her son was engaged. John Rex was out at a pigeon match with Lord Bellassus, and when he returned at nine o'clock Sarah told him what she had heard. Now four bank place Old Street Road was the residence of a man named Green, who had for some time carried on the lucrative but dangerous trade of counterfeiting. This man was one of the most daring of that army of ruffians whose treasure chest and master of the mint was blicks, and his liberty was valuable. John Rex, eating his dinner more nervously than usual, ruminated on the intelligence and thought it would be but wise to warn Green of his danger. Not that he cared much for Green personally, but it was bad policy to miss doing a good turn to a comrade, and moreover, Green, if captured, might wag his tongue too freely. But how to do it? If he went to blicks, it might be too late. He would go himself. He went out and was captured. When Sarah heard of the calamity, she set to work to help him. She collected all her money in jewels, paid Mrs. Skinner's rent, went to see Rex, and arranged his defence. Blicks was hopeful, but Green, who came very near hanging, admitted that the man was an associate of his, and the recorder, being in a severe mood, transported him for seven years. Sarah Perfoy vowed that she would follow him. She was going as passenger, as emigrant, anything, when she saw Mrs. Vickers advertisement for a lady's maid, and answered it. It chanced that Rex was shipped in the Malabar, and Sarah, discovering this before the vessel had been a week at sea, conceived the bold project of inciting a mutiny for the rescue of her lover. We know the result of that scheme, and the story of the scoundrel's subsequent escape from Macquarie Harbour. End of Chapter 3 Section 33 of, for the term of his natural life, this is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings were in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Tony Ashworth, for the term of his natural life by Marcus Clark, Book 3, Port Arthur, 1838, Chapter 4, The Notorious Doors. The mutineers of the Osprey had been long since given up as dead, and the story of their desperate escape had become indistinct to the general public mind. Now that they had been recaptured in a remarkable manner, popular belief invested them with all sorts of strange surroundings. They had been, according to report, kings over savage islanders, chiefs of lawless and ferocious pirates, respectable married men in Java, merchants in Singapore, and swindlers in Hong Kong. Their adventures had been dramatized at the London Theatre, and the popular novelist of that day was engaged in a work descriptive of their wondrous fortunes. John Rex, the ringleader, was related, it was said, to a noble family, and a special message had come out to Sir John Franklin concerning him. He had every prospect of being satisfactorily hung, however, for even the most outspoken admirers of his skill and courage could not but admit that he had committed an offense which was death by the law. The crown would leave nothing undone to convict him, and the already crowded prison was re-crammed with half a dozen life-sentence men, brought up from Port Arthur to identify the prisoners. Among this number was stated to be the Notorious Doors. This statement gave fresh food for recollection and invention. It was remembered that the Notorious Doors was the absconder who had been brought away by Captain Freyre, and who owed such fettered life as he possessed to the fact that he had assisted Captain Freyre to make the wonderful boat in which the marooned party escaped. It was remembered also how sullen and morose he had been on his trial five years before, and how he had laughed when the commutation of his death sentence was announced to him. The Hobart Town Gazette published a short biography of this horrible villain, a biography sitting forth how he had been engaged in a mutiny on board the convict ship, how he had twice escaped from the Macquarie Harbour, how he had been repeatedly flogged for violence and insubordination, and how he was now double-armed at Port Arthur after two more ineffectual attempts to regain his freedom. Indeed, the Gazette, discovering that the wretch had been originally transported for highway robbery, argued very ably it would be far better to hang such wild beasts in the first instance than suffer them to cumber the ground and grow confirmed in villainy. Of what use to society, asked the Gazette quite pathetically, has this scoundrel been during the last eleven years? And everybody agreed that he had been of no use whatever. Miss Sylvia Vickers also received an additional share of public attention. Her romantic rescue by the heroic Freyre, who was shortly to reap the reward of his devotion in the good old fashion, made her almost as famous as the Villendours or his Confederate monster, John Rex. It was reported that she was to give evidence on the trial, together with her affianced husband, they being the only two living witnesses who could speak to the facts of the mutiny. It was reported also that her lover was naturally most anxious that she should not give evidence, as she was, an additional point of romantic interest, affected deeply by the illness consequent on the suffering she had undergone, and in a state of pitiable mental confusion as to the whole business. These reports caused the court, on the day of the trial, to be crowded with spectators, and as the various particulars of the marvellous history of this double escape were detailed, the excitement grew more intense. The aspect of the four heavily ironed prisoners caused a sensation, which in that city of the ironed, was quite novel, and bets were offered and taken as to the line of defence which they would adopt. At first it was thought that they would throw themselves on the mercy of the crown, seeking in the very extravagance of their story to excite public sympathy, but a little study of the demeanour of the chief prisoner John Rex dispelled that conjecture. Calm, placid and defiant, he seemed prepared to accept his fate, or to meet his accusers with some plea which should be sufficient to secure his acquittal on the capital charge. Only when he heard the indictment, setting forth that he had feloniously pirated the brick osprey, he smiled a little. Mr Meakin, sitting in the body of the court, felt his religious prejudices sadly shocked by that smile. A perfect wild beast, my dear Ms Vickers, he said, returning in a pause during the examination of the convicts, who had been brought to identify the prisoner, to the little room where Sylvia and her father were waiting. He has quite a tigerish look about him. Poor man said Sylvia with a shudder. Poor my dear young lady, you do not pity him? I do, said Sylvia, twisting her hands together as if in pain. I pity them all, poor creatures. Charming sensibility, says Meakin, with a glance at Vickers, the true woman's heart, my dear Major. The Major tapped his fingers impatiently at this ill-timed twaddle. Sylvia was too nervous just then for sentiment. Come here, Poppet, he said, and look through the store. You can see them from here, and if you do not recognize any of them, I can't see what is the use of putting you in the box, though, of course, if it is necessary, you must go. The raised dock was just opposite to the door of the room in which they were sitting. And the four manacled men, each with an armed water behind him, were visible above the heads of the crowd. The girl had never before seen the ceremony of trying a man for his life, and the silent and antique solemnities of the business affected her, as it affects all who see it for the first time. The atmosphere was heavy and distressing. The chains of the prisoners clanked ominously. The crushing force of judge, jailers, warders, and constables assembled to punish the four men appeared cruel. The familiar faces that in her momentary glance, she recognized, seemed to her evilly transfigured. Even the countenance of her promised husband, bent eagerly forward towards the witness box, showed tyrannous and bloodthirsty. Her eyes hastily followed the pointing finger of her father, and sought the men in the dock. Two of them lounged sullen and inattentive. One nervously chewed a straw, or piece of twig, pouring the dock with restless hand. The fourth scowled across the court of the witness box, which she could not see. The four faces were all strange to her. No papa, she said, with a sigh of relief, I can't recognize them at all. As she was turning from the door, a voice from the witness box behind her made her suddenly pale and paused to look again. The court itself appeared at that moment affected, for a murmur ran through it, and some official cried, Silence! The notorious criminal Rufus Dors, the Desperado of Port Arthur, the wild beast whom the gazette had judged not fit to live, had just entered the witness box. He was a man of thirty, in the prime of life, with a torso whose muscular grandeur, not even the ill-fitting yellow jacket, could altogether conceal, with strong and brown and nervous hands, an upright carriage, and a pair of fierce black eyes that roamed over the court hungrily. Not all the weight of the double-iron swaying from the leavened thong around his massive loins could mar that elegance of attitude which comes only from perfect muscular development. Not all the frowning faces bent upon him could frown an accent of respect into the contemptuous tones in which he answered to his name. Rufus Dors, prisoner of the crown, come away my darling, said Vickers, alarmed that his daughter's blanched face and eager eyes. Wait, she said impatiently, listening for the voice whose owner she could not see. Rufus Dors, I have heard that name before. You are a prisoner of the crown at the penal settlement of Port Arthur? Yes, for life, for life. Sylvia turned to her father with breathless inquiry in her eyes. Oh, Papa, who is that speaking? I know the name, the voice. That is the man who was with you in the boat, dear, says Vickers gravely, the prisoner. The eager light died out of her eyes, and in its place came a look of disappointment and pain. I thought it was a good man, she said, holding by the edge of the doorway. It sounded like a good voice. And then she pressed her hands over her eyes and shuddered. There, there, says Vickers soothingly. Don't be afraid, Poppet. He can't hurt you now. No, haha, says Meakin with great display of offhand courage. The villain's safe enough now. The colloquy in the court went on. Do you know the prisoners in the dock? Yes. Who are they? John Rex, Henry Shears, James Leslie, and... And I'm not sure about the last man. You're not sure about the last man? Will you swear to the three others? Yes. You remember them well? I was in the chain gang at Macquarie Harbour with them for three years. Sylvia, hearing the hideous reason for acquaintance, gave a low cry and fell into her father's arms. Oh, Poppet, take me away. I feel as if I was going to remember something terrible. Amid the deep silence that prevailed, the cry of the poor girl was distinctly audible in the court, and all heads turned to the door. In the general wonder no one noticed the change that passed over Rufus' doors. His face flushed scarlet. Great drops of sweat stood on his forehead, and his black eyes glared in the direction from whence the sound came, as though they would pierce the envious wood that separated him from the woman whose voice he had heard. Morris Freyre sprang up and pushed his way through the crowd under the bench. What's this, he said to Vickers almost brutally. What did you bring her here for? She's not wanted, I told you that. I considered it my duty, sir, says Vickers with stately rebuke. What has frightened her? What has she heard? What has she seen? asked Freyre with a strangely white face. Sylvia, Sylvia. She opened her eyes at the sound of his voice. Take me home, Papa. I'm ill. Oh, what thoughts? What does she mean? cried Freyre, looking in alarm from one to the other. That Rufian doors frightened her, said Mekin. A gush of recollection, poor child. There, there, calm yourself, Miss Vickers. He is quite safe. Frightened her, eh? Yes, said Sylvia faintly. He frightened me, Morris. I needn't stop any longer, dear, need I. No, says Freyre, the cloud passing from his face. Major, I beg your pardon, but I was hasty. Take her home at once. This sort of thing is too much for her. And so he went back to his place, wiping his brow and breathing hard as one who had just escaped from some near peril. Rufus doors had remained in the same attitude until the figure of Freyre, passing through the doorway, roused him. Who is she, he said, in a low, hoarse voice to the constable behind him? Miss Vickers, said the man shortly, flinging the information at him as one might fling a bone to a dangerous dog. Miss Vickers repeated the convict, still staring in a sort of bewildered agony. They told me she was dead. The constable sniffed contemptuously at this preposterous conclusion. As who should say, if you know all about it, animal, why did you ask? And then, feeling that the fixed gaze of his interrogator demanded some reply, added, You thought she was, I've no doubt. You did your best to make her so, I've heard. The convict raised both his hands with sudden action of rothful despair, as though he would seize the other despite the low, hoarse voice. Though he would seize the other despite the loaded muskets, but checking himself with sudden impulse wheeled round to the court. Your honour, gentlemen, I want to speak. The change in the tone of his voice, no less than the sudden loudness of the exclamation, made the faces hitherto bent upon the door through which Mr Freyre had passed, turned round again. To many there it seemed that the notorious doors was no longer in the box, for in place of the upright and defiant villain who stood there an instant back, was a white-faced, nervous, agitated creature, bending forward in an attitude almost of supplication, one hand grasping the rail, as though to save himself from falling, the other outstretched towards the bench. Your honour, there has been some dreadful mistake made. I want to explain about myself. I explained before when first I was sent to Port Arthur, but the letters were never forwarded by the commandant. Of course that's the rule I can't complain. I've been sent there unjustly, Your honour. I made that boat, Your honour. I saved the mage's wife and daughter. I was the man. I did it all myself, and my liberty was sworn away by a villain who hated me. I thought until now that no one knew the truth, for they told me that she was dead. His rapid utterance took the court so much by surprise that no one interrupted him. I was sentenced to death for bolting, sir, and they reprieved me because I helped them in the boat. Help them. Why, I made it. She will tell you so. I nursed her. I carried her in my arms. I starved myself for her. She was fond of me, sir. She was indeed. She called me good, Mr. Dawes. And this, of course, laugh broke out, which was instantly checked. The judge bent over to ask, does he mean Ms. Vickers? And in this interval, Rufus Dawes, looking down into the court, saw Morris Freyre staring up at him with terror in his eyes. I see you, Captain Freyre, coward and liar. Put him in the box, gentlemen, and make him tell his story. She'll contradict him, never fear. Oh, and I thought she was dead all this while. The judge had got his answer from the clerk by this time. Ms. Vickers had been seriously ill, had fainted just now in the court. Her only memories of the convict who had been with her in the boat were those of terror and disgust. The sight of him just now had most seriously affected her. The convict himself was an inveterate liar and schemer, and his story had been already disproved by Captain Freyre. The judge, a man inclining by nature to humanity, but forced by experience to receive all statements of prisoners with caution, said all he could say and the tragedy of five years was disposed of in the following dialogue. Judge. This is not the place for an accusation against Captain Freyre, nor the place to argue upon your alleged wrongs. If you have suffered injustice, the authorities will hear your complaint and redress it. Rufus Dawes. I have complained, Your Honor. I wrote letter after letter to the government, but they were never sent. Then I heard she was dead, and they sent me to the coal mines after that, and we never hear anything there. Judge. I can't listen to you. Mr. Mangels, have you any more questions to ask the witness? But Mr. Mangels not having any more, someone called Matthew Gavett, and Rufus Dawes still endeavouring to speak, was clanked away with, amid a buzz of remark and surmise. The trial progressed without further incident. Sylvia was not called, and to the astonishment of many of his enemies, Captain Freyre went into the witness box and generously spoke in favour of John Rex. He might have left us to starve, Freyre said. He might have murdered us, we were completely in his power. The stock of provisions on board the brig was not a large one, and I consider that in dividing it with us, he showed great generosity for one in his situation. This piece of evidence told strongly in favour of the prisoners, for Captain Freyre was known to be such an uncompromising foe to all rebellious convicts that it was understood that only the sternest sense of justice and truth could lead him to speak in such terms. The defence set up by Rex, moreover, was more ingenious. He was guilty of absconding, but his moderation might plead an excuse for that. His only object was his freedom, and having gained it he had lived honestly for nearly three years as he could prove. He was charged with piratically seizing the Brig Osprey, and he urged that the Brig Osprey, having been built by convicts at Macquarie Harbour, and never entered in any shipping list, could not be said to be piratically seized, in the strict meaning of the term. The court admitted the force of this objection, and influenced doubtless by Captain Freyre's evidence, the fact that five years had passed since the mutiny, and that the two men most guilty, Cheshire and Barker, had been executed in England, sentenced Rex and his three companions to transportation for life to the penal settlements of the colony. End of Chapter 4 At this happy conclusion to his labours, Freyre went down to comfort the girl, for whose sake he had suffered Rex to escape the gallows. On his way, he was met by a man who touched his hat, and asked to speak with him an instant. This man was past middle age, owned a red brandy, beaten face, and had in his gate and manner, that nameless something that denotes the semen. Well blunt, says Freyre, pausing with the impatient air of a man who expects to hear bad news. What is it now? Only to tell you that it is all right, sir, says Blunt. She's come aboard again this morning. Come aboard again, ejaculated Freyre. Why, I didn't know that she had been ashore. Where did she go? He spoke with an air of confident authority, and Blunt, no longer the bluff tyrant of old, seemed to quail before him. The trial of the mutinies of the Malabar had ruined Pioneer's Blunt. Make what excuses he might. There was no concealing, the fact that Pine found him drunk in his cabin, when he ought to have been attending to his duties on deck. And the authorities could not, or would not, pass over such a heinous breach of discipline. Captain Blunt, who, of course, had his own version of the story, thus deprived of the honor of bringing his majesty's prisoners to his majesty's colonies of New South Wales, and Van Demon's land, went on a wailing cruise to the South Seas. The influence which Sarah Perfoy had acquired over him had, however, irretrievably injured him. It was as though she had poisoned his moral nature, by the influence of a clever and wicked woman over a sensual and dull-witted man. Blunt gradually sank lower and lower. He became a drunkard, and was known as a man with a grievance against the government. Captain Free, having had occasion for him in some capacity, had become, in a manner, his patron, and had got him the command of a schooner trading from Sydney. On getting this command, not without some rye faces on the part of the owner-resident in Hobart Town, Blunt had taken the temperance pledge for the space of twelve months, and was a miserable dog in consequence. He was, however, a faithful henchman, for he hoped, by Free's means, to get some government billet, the grand object of all colonial sea captains of that epoch. Well, sir, she went ashore to see a friend, says Blunt, looking at the sky and then at the earth. What friend? The prisoner, sir. And she saw him, I suppose? Yes, but I thought I'd better tell you, sir, says Blunt. Of course, quite right, return the other. You would better start at once, it's no use waiting. As you wish, sir, I can sail tomorrow morning, or this evening, if you like. This evening, says Freya, turning away, as soon as possible. There's a situation in Sydney I've been looking after, said the other, uneasily, if you could help me to it. What is it? The command of one at the government vessel, sir. Well, keep sober then, says Freya, and I'll see what I can do, and keep that woman's tongue still if you can. The pair looked at each other, and Blunt grinned slavishly. I'll do my best, take care you do, returned his patron, leaving him without further ceremony. Freya found Vickers in the garden, and at once begged him not to talk about the business to his daughter. You saw how bad she was today, Vickers, for goodness sake, don't make her real again. My dear sir, says poor Vickers, I won't refer to the subject. She's been very unwell ever since. Nervous and unstrung. Go in and see her. So Freya went in and soothed the excited girl, with real sorrow and her suffering. It's all right now, Poppet, he said to her. Don't think of it any more, put it out of your mind, dear. It was foolish of me, Morris, I know, but I could not help it. The sound of that man's voice seemed to bring back to me some great pity for something or someone. I don't explain what I mean, I know, but I felt that I was on the verge of remembering a story of some great wrong. Just about to hear some dreadful revelation, that should make me turn from all the people whom I ought most to love. Do you understand? I think I know what you mean, says Freya, with averted face. But that's all nonsense, you know. Of course, return she, with a touch of her old childish manner of disposing of questions out of hand. Everybody knows it's all nonsense, but then we do think such things. It seems to me that I am double, that I have lived somewhere before and have had another life, a dream life. What a romantic girl you are, said the other, dimly comprehending her meaning. How could you have a dream life? Of course, not really, stupid, but in thought, you know. I dream such strange things now and then. I am always falling down precipices and into cataracts and being pushed into great cabins in enormous rocks, horrible dreams. Indigestion, return Freya. You don't take exercise enough. You shouldn't read so much. Have a good five mile walk. And in these dreams, continued Sylvia, not heeding his interruption. There is one strange thing. You are always there, Morris. Come, that's all right, says Morris. Ah, but not kind and good as you are, Captain Bruin. But scowling and threatening and angry, so that I am afraid of you. But that is only a dream, darling. Yes, but playing with the button of his coat. But what? But you look just so today in the court, Morris. And I think that's what made me so silly. My darling, there hush, don't cry. But she had burst into a passion of sobs and tears that shook her slight figure in his arms. Oh, Morris, I am a wicked girl. I don't know my own mind. I think sometimes I don't love you as I ought. You who have saved me and nursed me. There, never mind about that, muttered Morris Freya, with the sort of choking in his throat. She grew more composed presently and said after a while, lifting her face, Tell me, Morris, did you ever, in those days of which you have spoken to me, when you nursed me as a little child in your arms and fed me and starved for me, did you ever think we should be married? I don't know, says Morris. Why? I think you must have thought so because it's not vanity. Dear, you would not else have been so kind and gentle and devoted. Nonsense, Poppet, he said, with his eyes resolutely averted. No, but you have been and I am very pettish sometimes. Papa has spoiled me. You are always affectionate and those worrying ways of yours, which I get angry at, all come from love for me, don't they? I hope so, said Morris, with an unwanted moisture in his eyes. Well, you see, that is the reason why I am angry with myself for not loving you as I ought. I want you to like the things I like and to love the books and the music and the pictures and the world I love. And I forget that you are a man, you know, and I am only a girl, and I forget how nobly you behaved, Morris, and how unselfishly you risked your life for mine. Why? What is the matter, dear? He had put her away from him suddenly and gone to the window, gazing across the sloping garden at the bay below, sleeping in the soft evening light. The schooner, which had brought the witnesses from Port Arthur, lay off the shore, and the yellow flag at her mast fluttered gently in the cool evening breeze. The sight of this flag appeared to anger him, for, as his eyes fell on it, he uttered an impatient exclamation and turned round again. Morris, she cried, I have wounded you. No, no, it is nothing, said he. With the air of a man surprised in a moment of weakness. I did not like to hear you talk in this way about not loving me. Oh, forgive me, dear, I did not mean to hurt you. It is my silly way of saying more than I mean. How could I do otherwise than love you? After all, you have done. Some sudden desperate whim caused him to exclaim, but suppose I had not done all you think. Would you not love me still? Her eyes raised to his face, with anxious tenderness for the pain she had believed herself to have inflicted, fell at his speech. What a question, I don't know. I suppose I should, yet. But what is the use, Morris, of supposing? I know you have done it, and that is enough. How can I say what I might have done if something else had happened? Why, you might not have loved me. If there has been for a moment any sentiment of remorse in his selfish heart, the hesitation of her answer went far to dispel it. To be sure, that's true, and he placed his arm round her. She lifted her face again with a bright laugh. We are a pair of geese supposing. How can we help what has passed? We have the future, darling, the future, in which I am to be your little wife, and we are to love each other all our lives, like the people in the story books. Temptation to evil had often come to Morris free, and his selfish nature had succumbed to it, when in far less witching shape than this fair and innocent child, luring him with wistful eyes to win her. What hopes had he not built upon her love? What good resolutions had he not made by reason of the purity and goodness she was to bring to him? As she said, the past was beyond recall, the future in which she was to love him all her life was before them. With the hypocrisy of selfishness, which deceives even itself, he laid the little head upon his heart with a sensible glow of virtue. God bless you, darling, you are my good angel. The girl sighed, I will be your good angel, dear, if you will let me. End of Section 34, Section 35 of For the Term of His Natural Life. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. For the Term of His Natural Life by Marcus Clarke. Book 3, Port Arthur, 1838. Chapter 6, Mr Meakin Administers Consolation. Rex told Mr Meakin, who the next day did him the honour to visit him, that under Providence he owed his escape from death to the kind manner in which Captain Free had spoken of him. I hope your escape will be a warning to you, my man, said Mr Meakin, and that you will endeavour to make the rest of your life thus spared by the mercy of Providence and atonement for your early errors. Indeed I will, sir, said John Rex, who had taken Mr Meakin's measure very accurately, and it is very kind of you to condescend to speak so to a rich like me. Not at all, said Meakin, with appability. It is my duty. I am a minister of the Gospel. Ah, sir, I wish I had attended the Gospel's teaching. When I was younger, I might have been saved from all this. You might indeed, poor man, but the Divine Mercy is infinite, quite infinite, and will be extended to all of us, to you as well as to me. This with the air of saying, what do you think of that? Remember the penitent thief, Rex, the penitent thief. Indeed I do, sir, and read your Bible, Rex, and pray for strength to bear your punishment. I will, Mr Meakin. I need it sorely. Sir, physical as well as spiritual strength. Sir, for the government allowance is sadly insufficient. I will speak to the authorities about a change in your dietary scale. Return Meakin patronisingly. In the meantime, just collect together in your mind those particulars of your adventures of which you spoke. And have them ready for me when next I call. Such a remarkable history ought not to be lost. Thank you kindly, sir. I will, sir. Ah, a little thought when I occupied the position of a gentleman, Mr Meakin. The cunning scoundrel had been piously grand delinquent concerning his past career, that I should be reduced to this. But it is only just, sir. The mysterious workings of Providence are always just, Rex, return Meakin, who preferred to speak of the Almighty with well-read vagueness. I am glad to see you so conscious of your errors. Good morning. Good morning, and heaven bless you, sir, said Rex, with his tongue in his cheek for the benefit of his yardmates. And so Mr Meakin tripped gracefully away, convinced that he was laboring most successfully in the vineyard, and that the convict, Rex, was really a superior person. I will send his narrative to the bishop, said he, to himself. It will amuse him. There must be many strange histories here, if one could but find them out. But as the thought passed through his brain, his eye fell upon the notorious doves, who, while waiting for the schooner to take him back to Port Arthur, had been permitted to amuse himself by breaking stones. The prison shed which Mr Meakin was visiting was long and low, roofed with iron, and terminating at each end in the stone wall of the jail. At one side rose the cells, at the other the outer wall of the prison. From the outer wall projected a weatherboard under roof, and beneath this were seated 40 heavily iron convicts. Two constables with loaded carbines walked up and down the clear space in the middle, and another watched from a sort of sentry box built against the main wall. Every half hour a third constable went down the line and examined the irons. The admirable system of solitary confinement, which in average cases produces insanity in the space of 12 months, was as yet unknown in Hobart Town. And the 40 heavily iron men had the pleasure of seeing each other's faces every day for six hours. The other inmates of the prison were at work on the roads, or otherwise bestowed in the daytime, but the 40 were judged too desperate to be let loose. They sat three feet apart in two long lines, each man with a heap of stones between his outstretched legs, and cracked the pebbles in leisurely fashion. The double row of dismal woodpeckers tapping at this terribly hollow beach tree of penal discipline had a semi ludicrous appearance. It seemed so painfully absurd that 40 muscular men should be ironed and guarded for no better purpose than the cracking of a cartload of quartz pebbles. In the meantime, the air was heavy with angry glances shot from one to the other, and the passage of the parson was hailed by a grumbling undertone of blasphemy. It was considered fashionable to grunt when the hammer came in contact with the stone, and under cover of this mock exclamation of fatigue, it was convenient to launch an oath. A fanciful visitor seeing the irregularly rising hammers along the line might have likened the shed to the interior of some vast piano, whose notes and unseen hand was erratically fingering. Rufus doors were seated last on the line, his back to the cells, his face to the jail wall. This was the place nearest the watching constable, and was allotted on that account to the most ill-favoured. Some of these companions envied him, that melancholy distinction. Well doors, says Mr. Meakin, measuring with his eye the distance between the prisoner and himself, as one might measure the chain of some ferocious dog. How are you this morning, doors? Doors scowling in a parenthesis between the cracking of two stones was understood to say that he was very well. I am afraid doors, said Mr. Meakin reproachfully, that you have done yourself no good by your outburst in court on Monday. I understand that public opinion is quite incensed against you. Doors slowly arranging one large fragment of bluestone in a comfortable basin of smaller fragments made no reply. I am afraid you lack patience, doors. You do not repent of your offences against the law, I fear. The only answer vouchsafed by the iron man, if answer it could be called, was a savage blow, which split the stone into sudden fragments and made the clergyman skip a step backward. You are a hardened ruffian, sir. Do you not hear me speak to you? I hear you, said doors, picking up another stone. Then listen respectfully, sir, said Meakin, rosate with celestial anger. You have all day to break those stones. Yes, I have all day returned ruffian's doors, with a dog looked upward, and all next day for that matter. And again the hammer descended. I came to console you, man, to console you, says Meakin, indignant at the contempt with which his well-meant overtures had been received. I want to give you some good advice. The self-important annoyance of the tone seemed to appeal to whatever vestige of appreciation for the humerus. Chains and degradation had suffered to linger in the convict's brain for a faint smile crossed his features. I beg your pardon, sir, he said, pray, go on. I was going to say, my good fellow, that you have done yourself a great deal of injury by your ill-advised accusation of Captain Freer, and the use you made of Miss Vickers' name. A frown as of pain contracted the prisoner's brows, and he seemed with difficulty to put a restraint upon his speech. He said to be no inquiry, Mr. Meakin. He asked at length, what I stated was the truth. The truth, so help me God. No blasphemy, sir, said Meakin solemnly. No blasphemy, wretched man. Do not add to the sin of lying the greatest sin of taking the name of the Lord, by God, in vain. He will not hold him guiltless, doves. He will not hold him guiltless, remember. No, there is to be no inquiry. Are they not going to ask her for her story, our stores, with the pitiful change of manner? They told me that she was to be asked, surely they will ask her. I am not perhaps at liberty, said Meakin, placidly unconscious of the agony of despair and rage, that made the voice of the strong man before him quiver, to state the intentions of the authorities, but I can tell you that Ms. Vickers will not be asked anything about you. You are to go back to Port Arthur on the 24th, and to remain there. A groan burst from Rufus' doors, a groan so full of torture that even the comfortable Meakin was thrilled by it. It is the law, you know, my good man. I can't help it, he said. You shouldn't break the law, you know. Cursed the law, cried Dawes, it's the bloody law. It's there, I beg your pardon. And he fell to cracking his stones again, with a laugh that was more terrible in its bitter hopelessness of winning attention or sympathy than any outburst of passion could have been. Come, says Meakin, feeling uneasily constrained to bring forth some of his London learnt platitudes. You can't complain. You have broken the law, and you must suffer. Civilized society says you shouldn't do certain things, and if you do them, you must suffer the penalty. Civilized society imposes. You are not wanting in intelligence. Dawes moors the pity, and you can't deny the justice of that. Rufus' doors, as if disdaining to answer in words, cast his eyes round the yard with a glance that seemed to ask grimly if civilized society was progressing quite in accordance with justice. When its civilization created such places as that stone wall, carbine guarded prison shed, and filled it with such creatures as those 40 human beasts. Doomed to spend the best years at their manhood, cracking pebbles in it. You don't deny that, asked the smug person. Do you, Dawes? It's not my place to argue with you, sir, said Dawes, in a tone of indifference, born of length and suffering, so nicely balanced between contempt and respect that the inexperienced Meakin could not tell whether he had made a convert or subjected himself to an impertinence. But I am a prisoner for life, and don't look at it in the same way that you do. This view of the question did not seem to have occurred to Mr Meakin, for his mild cheek flushed. Certainly, the fact of being a prisoner for life did make some difference. The sound of the noonday bell, however, warned him to cease argument, and to take his consolations out of the way of the mustering prisoners. With a great clanking and clashing of irons, the 40 rows and stood each by his stone heap. The third constable came round, racking the leg irons of each man with easy nonchalance, and roughly pulling up the coarse trousers made with button flaps at the sides, like Mexican calcine arrows, in order to give free play to the ankle fetters, so that he might assure himself that no tricks had been played since his last visit. As each man passed this ordeal, he saluted, and clanked with widespread legs to the place in the double line. Mr Meakin, though not a patron of field sports, found something in the scene that reminded him of a blacksmith picking up horse's feet to examine the soundness of their shoes. Upon my word he said to himself, with a momentary pang of genuine compassion, it is a dreadful way to treat human beings. I don't wonder at that wretched creature groaning under it, but bless me, it is near one o'clock, and I promise to lunch with major vicars at two. How time flies to be sure. End of section 35. Section 36, 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 7, Rufus Dors' Idol That afternoon, while Mr Meakin was digesting his lunch and chatting eerily with Sylvia, Rufus Dors began to brood over a desperate scheme. The intelligence that the investigation he had hoped for was not to be granted to him, and had rendered doubly bitter those galling fetters of self-restraint, which he had laid upon himself. For five years of desolation he had waited and hoped for a chance which might bring him to Hobart Town, and enable him to denounce the treachery of Morris Frear. He had, by an almost miraculous accident, obtained the chance of open speech, and having obtained it, he found that he was not allowed to speak. All the hopes he had formed were dashed to earth. All the calmness with which he had forced himself to bear his fate was now turned into bitterest rage and fury. Instead of one enemy he had twenty. All, Judge, Dury, Jailer, and Parson were banded together to work him evil and deny him right. The whole world was his foe. There was no honesty or truth in any living creature. Save one. During the dull misery of his convict life at Port Arthur, one bright memory shone upon him like a star. In the depth of his degradation, at the height of his despair, he cherished one pure and ennobling thought, the thought of the child whom he had saved and who loved him. When on board the whaler that had rescued him from the burning boat, he had felt that the sailors, believing in Frear's bluff lies, shrunk from the moody felon. He had gained strength to be silent by thinking of the suffering child. When poor Mrs. Vickers died, making no sign, and thus the chief witness to his heroism perished before his eyes, the thought that the child was left had restrained his selfish regrets. When Frear, handing him over to the authorities as an absconder, ingeniously twisted the details of the boat building to his own glorification. The knowledge that Sylvia would assign to these pretensions their true value. Had given him courage to keep silence. So strong was his belief in her gratitude, that he scorned to beg for the pardon he had taught himself to believe that she would ask for him. So Utter was his contempt for the coward and boaster who dressed in brief authority, bore insidious fault witness against him, that when he heard his sentence of life banishment, he disdained to make known the true part he had played in the matter. Preferring to wait for the more exquisite revenge, the more complete justification which would follow upon the recovery of the child from her illness. But when at Port Arthur, day after day passed over, and brought no word of pity or justification, he began with a sickening feeling of despair, to comprehend that something strange had happened. He was told by newcomers that the child of the commandant lay still and near to death. Then he heard that she and her father had left the colony, and that all prospect of her writing him by her evidence was at an end. This news gave him a terrible pang, and at first he was inclined to break out into upbradings of her selfishness. But with that depth of love which was in him, albeit crusted over and concealed by the sullenness of speech and manner which his sufferings had produced, he found excuses for her even then. She was ill. She was in the hands of friends who loved her and disregarded him. Perhaps even her entreaties and explanations were put aside as childish babblings. She would free him if she had the power. Then he wrote statements, agonised to see the commandant, pestered the jailers and warders with the story of his wrongs, and inundated the government with letters which containing, as they did always, denunciations of Morris Freya were never suffered to reach their destination. The authorities willing at the first to look kindly upon him in consideration of his strange experience, grew weary of this perpetual iteration of what they believed to be malicious falsehoods, and ordered him heavier tasks and more continuous labour. They mistook his gloom for treachery, his impatient outburst of passion at his fate for ferocity, his silent endurance for dangerous cunning. As he had been at Macquarie Harbour, so did he become a poor Arthur, a marked man, despairing of winning his coveted liberty by fair means, and horrified at the hideous prospect of a life in chains. He twice attempted to escape, but escape was even more hopeless than it had been at Hell's gates. The peninsula of Port Arthur was admirably guarded, signal stations drew a chain around the prison, and armed boats crew watched each bay, and across the narrow isthmus which connected it with the mainland was a cordon of watchdogs, in addition to the soldier guard. He was retaken, of course, flogged and weighted with heavier ions. The second time they sent him to the coal mines, where the prisoners lived underground, worked half naked, and dragged their inspecting jailers in wagons upon iron tramways, when such great people condescended to visit them. The day on which he started for this place, he heard that Sylvia was dead, and his last hope went from him. Then began with him a new religion. He worshipped the dead. For the living he had but hatred and evil words, for the dead he had love and tender thoughts. Instead of the phantoms of his banished youth, which were want to visit him, he saw now but one vision, the vision of the child who had loved him. Instead of conjuring up for himself pictures of that home circle in which he had once moved, and those creatures who in the past years had thought of him worthy of esteem and affection, he placed before himself but one idea, one embodiment of happiness, one being who was without sin and without stain, among all the monsters of that pit into which he had fallen. Around the figure of an innocent child who had lain in his breast and laughed at him with her red young mouth, he grouped every image of happiness and love. Having banished from his thoughts all hope of resuming his name and place, he pictured to himself some quiet nook at the world's end, a deep garden house in a German country town, or remote cottage by the English seashore, where he and his dream child might have lived together, happier in a pure affection than the love of a man for woman. He bethought him how he could have taught her out of the strange store of learning which his roving life had won for him, how he could have confided to her his real name, and perhaps purchased for her wealth and honour by reason of it. Yet he thought she would not care for wealth and honour, she would prefer a quiet life, a life of unassuming usefulness, a life devoted to good deeds, to charity and love. He could see her in his visions, reading by a cheery fireside, wandering in summer woods, or lingering by the marge of the slumbering midday sea. He could feel in his dreams her soft arms about his neck, her innocent kisses on his lips. He could hear her light laugh, and see her sunny ringlet's float back blown as she ran to meet him, conscious that she was dead, and that he did to her gentle memory no disrespect by linking her fortunes to those of a wretch who had seen so much evil as himself. He loved to think of her as still living, and to plot out for her and for himself impossible plans for future happiness. In the noisome darkness of the mine, in the glaring light of the noonday, dragging at his loaded wagon, he could see her ever with him, her calm eyes glazing lovingly on his, as they had gazed in the boat so long ago. She never seemed to grow older, she never seemed to wish to leave him. It was only when his misery became too great for him to bear, and he cursed and blasphemed, mingling for a time in the hideous mirth of his companions, that the little figure fled away. Thus dreaming, he had shaped out for himself a sorrowful comfort, and in his dream world found a compensation for the terrible affliction of living. Indifference to his present sufferings took possession of him, only at the bottom of this indifference, lurked a fixed hatred of the man who had brought these sufferings upon him, and a determination to demand at the first opportunity a reconsideration of that man's claims to be esteemed a hero. It was in this mood that he had intended to make the revelation which he had made in court. But the intelligence that Sylvia lived unmanned him, and his prepared speech had been asserted by a passionate torrent of complaint and invective, which convinced no one, and gave Freya the very argument he needed. It was decided that the prisoner Dorth was a malicious and artful scoundrel, whose only object was to gain a brief respite of the punishment which he had so justly earned. Against this injustice he had resolved to rebel. It was monstrous, he thought, that they should refuse to hear the witness who was so ready to speak in his favour. Infamous that they should send him back to his doom without allowing her to say a word in his defence. But he would defeat that scheme. He had planned a method of escape, and he would break from his bonds, fling himself at her feet and pray her to speak the truth for him, and so save him. Strong in faith in her, and with his love for her brightened by the love he had borne to her dream image, he felt sure of her power to rescue him now, as he had rescued her before. If she knew I was alive, she would come to me, he said. I'm sure she would. Perhaps they told her I was dead. Meditating that night in the solitude of his cell, his evil character had gained him the poor luxury of loneliness. He almost wept to think of the cruel deception that had doubtless been practised on her. They have told her that I was dead in order that she might learn to forget me. But she could not do that. I have thought of her so often during these weary years that she must sometimes have thought of me. Five years! She must be a woman now. My little child, a woman. Yet she is sure to be childlike, sweet and gentle. How she will grieve when she hears of my sufferings. Oh, my darling, my darling, you are not dead. And then, looking hastily about him in the darkness, as though fearful even there of being seen, he pulled from out his breast a little packet and felt it lovingly with his coarse, toil-worn fingers, reverently racing it to his lips and dreaming over it, with a smile on his face, as though it were a sacred talisman that should open to him the doors of freedom. End of Section 36 Section 37 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 Magdalena Cook For the term of his natural life by Marcus Clarke Book 3, Port Arthur, 1838 Chapter 8, An Escape A few days after this, on the 23rd of December, Morris Friot was alarmed by a piece of startling intelligence that notorious doors had escaped from jail. Captain Friot had inspected the prison that very afternoon, and it had seemed to him that the hammers had never fallen so briskly, nor the chains clank so gaily, as on the occasion of his visit. Thinking of their Christmas holiday, the dogs, he had said to the patrolling water, thinking about their Christmas pudding, the luxurious scoundrels, and the comic nearest him had laughed depreciatively, as convicts and schoolboys do laugh at the jests of the man in authority. All seemed contentment. Moreover, he had, by way of a pleasant stroke of wit, tormented Ruffa's doors with his ill fortune. The schooner sails tomorrow, my man, he had said, you'll spend your Christmas at the mines. And congratulated himself upon the fact that Ruffa's doors merely touched his cap and went on with his stone-cracking insolence. Certainly double-ions and hard labour were fine things to break a man's spirit. So that when in the afternoon of the same day he heard the astounding news that Ruffa's doors had freed himself from his fetters, climbed the jail wall in broad daylight, run the gauntlet off Macquarie Street, and was now supposed to be safely hidden in the mountains. He was dumbfounded. How the juice did he do that, Jenkins? He asked as soon as he reached the yard. Well, I'm blessed if I rightly know your honour, says Jenkins. He was over the wall before you could say knife. Scott fired and missed him, and then I heard the sentry's musket, but he missed him too. Missed him, cries Freer. Pretty fellows, you are, all of you. I suppose you couldn't hit a haystack at twenty yards. Why, the man wasn't three feet from the end of your carbine. The unlucky Scott, standing in melancholy attitude by the empty irons, muttered something about the sun having been in his eyes. I don't know how it was, sir. I ought to have hit him for certain. I think I did touch him too, as he went up the wall. A stranger to the customs of the place might have imagined that he was listening to a conversation about a pigeon match. Tell me about it, says Freer, with an angry curse. I was just turning, your honour, when I hear Scott sing out, Hello! And when I turned around, I saw Dorses' irons on the ground, and him are scrambling up the heap of stone's yonder. The two men on my right jumped up, and I thought it was made up thing among them, so I cowered them with my carbine, according to instructions, and called out that I'd shoot the first that stepped out. Then I heard Scott's piece, and the men gave a shout-like. When I looked around, he was gone. Nobody else moved? No, sir. I was confused at first, and thought they were all in it. But part and haste, they run in and gets between me and the wall, and then Mr Short, he come, and we examine the irons. All right? All right, your honour, and they all swore they'd known nothing of it. I know Dors' irons was all right when he went to dinner. Freer stopped and examined the empty fetters. All right be hanged, he said. If you don't know your duty better than this, the sooner you go somewhere else the better, my man. Look here. The two ankle fetters were severed. One had been evidently filed through, and the other broken transversely. The latter was bent, as from a violent blow. Don't know where he got the file from, said Water Short. No, of course you don't know. You may never do know anything until mischief's done. You want me here for a month or so, I teach you your duty. Don't know, we're things like this lying about. I wonder the whole yard isn't loose and dining with a governor. This was a fragment of Delft pottery, which Freer's quick eye had detected among the broken metal. I'd cut the biggest iron you've got with this, and so would he, and plenty more. I'll go bail. You ought to have lived with me at Sarah Island, Mr Short. Don't know. Well, Captain Freer, it's an accident, says Short, and can't be helped now. An accident, Rod Freer, what business have you with accidents? How in the devil's name you let the man get over the wall? I don't know. He ran up that stone heap, says Scott, and seemed to me to jump at the roof of the shed. I fired at him, and he swung his legs over the top of the wall and dropped. Freer measured the distance from his eye, and an irrepressible feeling of admiration rising out of his own skill in athletics took possession of him for an instant. By the Lord Harry, but it's a big jump, he said, and then the instinctive fear with which the consciousness of hideous wrong he had done, the now-escape convict inspired him, made him mad. A desperate villain like that wouldn't stick out a murder if you pressed him hard. Which way did he go? Right up Macquarie Street, and then made for the mountain. There were a few people about, but Mr Maze of the Star Hotel tried to stop him, and was knocked head over heels. He says the fellow runs like a deer. We'll have the reward out if we don't get him tonight, says Freer, turning away. And you'd better put on an extra water. This sort of game is catching, and he strayed away to the barracks. From right to left, from east to west, through the prison city flew the signal of alarm, and the patrol clattering out along the road to New Norfolk made hot haste to strike the trail of the fugitive. But night came and found him yet at lunch, and the patrol returning, weary and disheartened, protested that he must be lying hid in some gorge of the purple mountain that overshadowed the town, and would have to be starved into submission. Meanwhile the usual message ran through the island, and so admirable were the arrangements which Arthur the Reformer had initiated, that before noon of the next day, not a signal station on the coast, but knew that number 8, 9, 4, 2, etc., etc., prisoner for life, was illegally at large. This intelligence further aided by a paragraph in the gassette, an ent that daring escape, noise to broad, the world care little that Mary Jane, government schooner, had sailed for Port Arthur without roofers doors. But two or three persons cared a good deal. Major Vickers, for one, was indignant that his boasted security of bolts and bars should have been so easily defied, and, in proportion to his indignation, was the grief of Mrs. Jenkins, Scott and Co., suspended from office, and threatened with absolute dismissal. Mr. Meakin was terribly frightened at the fact that so dangerous a monster should be roaming at large within reach of his own saintly person. Sylvia had shown symptoms of nervous terror, nonetheless injurious because carefully repressed, and Captain Morris Frear was a prey to the most cruel anxiety. He had ridden off at a hand gullet within 10 minutes after he reached the barracks, and had spent the few hours of remaining daylight in scouring the country along the road to the north. At dawn the next day he was away to the mountain, and with a black tracker at his heels, explored as much of that wilderness of gully and chasm as nature permitted him to. He had offered to double the reward, and had examined a number of suspicious persons. It was known that he had been inspecting the prison a few hours before the escape took place, and his efforts were therefore attributed to Seal, not unmixed with Chagrin. Our dear friend feels his reputation at stake. The future chaplain of Port Arthur said to Sylvia at the Christmas dinner. He is so proud of his knowledge of these unhappy men that he dislikes to be outwitted by any of them. Notwithstanding all this, however, doors had disappeared. The fat landlord of the Star Hotel was the last person who saw him, and the flying yellow figure seemed to have been as completely swallowed up by the warm summer's afternoon, as if it had run headlong into the blackest night that ever hung above the earth.