"Take the scoundrel to gaol!" cried Troke.

No one moved, but the man at the gate that leads through the carpenter's shop into the barracks, called to us to come out, saying that the prisoners would never suffer the man to be taken. Pounce, however, with more determination than I gave him credit for, kept his ground, and insisted that so flagrant a breach of discipline should not be suffered to pass unnoticed. Thus urged, Mr. Troke pushed through the crowd, and made for the spot whither the man had withdrawn himself.

The yard was buzzing like a disturbed hive, and I momentarily expected that a rush would be made upon us. In a few moments the prisoner appeared, attended by, rather than in the custody of, the Chief Constable of the island. He advanced to the unlucky assistant constable, who was standing close to me, and asked, "What have you ordered me to gaol for?" The man made some reply, advising him to go quietly, when the convict raised his fist and deliberately felled the man to the ground. "You had better retire, gentlemen," said Troke. "I see them getting out their knives."

We made for the gate, and the crowd closed in like a sea upon the two constables. I fully expected murder, but in a few moments Troke and Gimblett appeared, borne along by a mass of men, dusty, but unharmed, and having the convict between them. He sulkily raised a hand as he passed me, either to rectify the position of his straw hat, or to offer a tardy apology. A more wanton, unprovoked, and flagrant outrage than that of which this man was guilty I never witnessed. It is customary for "the old dogs", as the experienced convicts are called, to use the most opprobrious language to their officers, and to this a deaf ear is usually turned, but I never before saw a man wantonly strike a constable. I fancy that the act was done out of bravado. Troke informed me that the man's name is Rufus Dawes, and that he is the leader of the Ring, and considered the worst man on the island; that to secure him he (Troke) was obliged to use the language of expostulation; and that, but for the presence of an officer accredited by his Excellency, he dared not have acted as he had done.

This is the same man, then, whom I injured at Port Arthur. Seven years of "discipline" don't seem to have done him much good. His sentence is "life"—a lifetime in this place! Troke says that he was the terror of Port Arthur, and that they sent him here when a "weeding" of the prisoners was made. He has been here four years. Poor wretch!



May 24th.—After prayers, I saw Dawes. He was confined in the Old Gaol, and seven others were in the cell with him. He came out at my request, and stood leaning against the door-post. He was much changed from the man I remember. Seven years ago he was a stalwart, upright, handsome man. He has become a beetle-browed, sullen, slouching ruffian. His hair is grey, though he cannot be more than forty years of age, and his frame has lost that just proportion of parts which once made him almost graceful. His face has also grown like other convict faces—how hideously alike they all are!—and, save for his black eyes and a peculiar trick he had of compressing his lips, I should not have recognized him. How habitual sin and misery suffice to brutalize "the human face divine"! I said but little, for the other prisoners were listening, eager, as it appeared to me, to witness my discomfiture. It is evident that Rufus Dawes had been accustomed to meet the ministrations of my predecessors with insolence. I spoke to him for a few minutes, only saying how foolish it was to rebel against an authority superior in strength to himself. He did not answer, and the only emotion he evinced during the interview was when I reminded him that we had met before. He shrugged one shoulder, as if in pain or anger, and seemed about to speak, but, casting his eyes upon the group in the cell, relapsed into silence again. I must get speech with him alone. One can do nothing with a man if seven other devils worse than himself are locked up with him.

I sent for Hankey, and asked him about cells. He says that the gaol is crowded to suffocation. "Solitary confinement" is a mere name. There are six men, each sentenced to solitary confinement, in a cell together. The cell is called the "nunnery". It is small, and the six men were naked to the waist when I entered, the perspiration pouring in streams off their naked bodies! It is disgusting to write of such things.



June 26th.—Pounce has departed in the Lady Franklin for Hobart Town, and it is rumoured that we are to have a new Commandant. The Lady Franklin is commanded by an old man named Blunt, a protege of Frere's, and a fellow to whom I have taken one of my inexplicable and unreasoning dislikes.

Saw Rufus Dawes this morning. He continues sullen and morose. His papers are very bad. He is perpetually up for punishment. I am informed that he and a man named Eastwood, nicknamed "Jacky Jacky", glory in being the leaders of the Ring, and that they openly avow themselves weary of life. Can it be that the unmerited flogging which the poor creature got at Port Arthur has aided, with other sufferings, to bring him to this horrible state of mind? It is quite possible. Oh, James North, remember your own crime, and pray Heaven to let you redeem one soul at least, to plead for your own at the Judgment Seat.



June 30th.—I took a holiday this afternoon, and walked in the direction of Mount Pitt. The island lay at my feet like—as sings Mrs. Frere's favourite poet—"a summer isle of Eden lying in dark purple sphere of sea". Sophocles has the same idea in the Philoctetes, but I can't quote it. Note: I measured a pine twenty-three feet in circumference. I followed a little brook that runs from the hills, and winds through thick undergrowths of creeper and blossom, until it reaches a lovely valley surrounded by lofty trees, whose branches, linked together by the luxurious grape-vine, form an arching bower of verdure. Here stands the ruin of an old hut, formerly inhabited by the early settlers; lemons, figs, and guavas are thick; while amid the shrub and cane a large convolvulus is entwined, and stars the green with its purple and crimson flowers. I sat down here, and had a smoke. It seems that the former occupant of my rooms at the settlement read French; for in searching for a book to bring with me—I never walk without a book—I found and pocketed a volume of Balzac. It proved to be a portion of the Vie Privee series, and I stumbled upon a story called La Fausse Maitresse. With calm belief in the Paris of his imagination—where Marcas was a politician, Nucingen a banker, Gobseck a money-lender, and Vautrin a candidate for some such place as this—Balzac introduces me to a Pole by name Paz, who, loving the wife of his friend, devotes himself to watch over her happiness and her husband's interest. The husband gambles and is profligate. Paz informs the wife that the leanness which hazard and debauchery have caused to the domestic exchequer is due to his extravagance, the husband having lent him money. She does not believe, and Paz feigns an intrigue with a circus-rider in order to lull all suspicions. She says to her adored spouse, "Get rid of this extravagant friend! Away with him! He is a profligate, a gambler! A drunkard!" Paz finally departs, and when he has gone, the lady finds out the poor Pole's worth. The story does not end satisfactorily. Balzac was too great a master of his art for that. In real life the curtain never falls on a comfortably-finished drama. The play goes on eternally.

I have been thinking of the story all evening. A man who loves his friend's wife, and devotes his energies to increase her happiness by concealing from her her husband's follies! Surely none but Balzac would have hit upon such a notion. "A man who loves his friend's wife."—Asmodeus, I write no more! I have ceased to converse with thee for so long that I blush to confess all that I have in my heart.—I will not confess it, so that shall suffice.



CHAPTER IV. EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF THE REV. JAMES NORTH.



August 24th.—There has been but one entry in my journal since the 30th June, that which records the advent of our new Commandant, who, as I expected, is Captain Maurice Frere.

So great have been the changes which have taken place that I scarcely know how to record them. Captain Frere has realized my worst anticipations. He is brutal, vindictive, and domineering. His knowledge of prisons and prisoners gives him an advantage over Burgess, otherwise he much resembles that murderous animal. He has but one thought—to keep the prisoners in subjection. So long as the island is quiet, he cares not whether the men live or die. "I was sent down here to keep order," said he to me, a few days after his arrival, "and by God, sir, I'll do it!"

He has done it, I must admit; but at a cost of a legacy of hatred to himself that he may some day regret to have earned. He has organized three parties of police. One patrols the fields, one is on guard at stores and public buildings, and the third is employed as a detective force. There are two hundred soldiers on the island. And the officer in charge, Captain McNab, has been induced by Frere to increase their duties in many ways. The cords of discipline are suddenly drawn tight. For the disorder which prevailed when I landed, Frere has substituted a sudden and excessive rigour. Any officer found giving the smallest piece of tobacco to a prisoner is liable to removal from the island..The tobacco which grows wild has been rooted up and destroyed lest the men should obtain a leaf of it. The privilege of having a pannikin of hot water when the gangs came in from field labour in the evening has been withdrawn. The shepherds, hut-keepers, and all other prisoners, whether at the stations of Longridge or the Cascades (where the English convicts are stationed) are forbidden to keep a parrot or any other bird. The plaiting of straw hats during the prisoners' leisure hours is also prohibited. At the settlement where the "old hands" are located railed boundaries have been erected, beyond which no prisoner must pass unless to work. Two days ago Job Dodd, a negro, let his jacket fall over the boundary rails, crossed them to recover it, and was severely flogged. The floggings are hideously frequent. On flogging mornings I have seen the ground where the men stood at the triangles saturated with blood, as if a bucket of blood had been spilled on it, covering a space three feet in diameter, and running out in various directions, in little streams two or three feet long. At the same time, let me say, with that strict justice I force myself to mete out to those whom I dislike, that the island is in a condition of abject submission. There is not much chance of mutiny. The men go to their work without a murmur, and slink to their dormitories like whipped hounds to kennel. The gaols and solitary (!) cells are crowded with prisoners, and each day sees fresh sentences for fresh crimes. It is crime here to do anything but live.

The method by which Captain Frere has brought about this repose of desolation is characteristic of him. He sets every man as a spy upon his neighbour, awes the more daring into obedience by the display of a ruffianism more outrageous than their own, and, raising the worst scoundrels in the place to office, compels them to find "cases" for punishment. Perfidy is rewarded. It has been made part of a convict-policeman's duty to search a fellow-prisoner anywhere and at any time. This searching is often conducted in a wantonly rough and disgusting manner; and if resistance be offered, the man resisting can be knocked down by a blow from the searcher's bludgeon. Inquisitorial vigilance and indiscriminating harshness prevail everywhere, and the lives of hundreds of prisoners are reduced to a continual agony of terror and self-loathing.

"It is impossible, Captain Frere," said I one day, during the initiation of this system, "to think that these villains whom you have made constables will do their duty."

He replied, "They must do their duty. If they are indulgent to the prisoners, they know I shall flog 'em. If they do what I tell 'em, they'll make themselves so hated that they'd have their own father up to the triangles to save themselves being sent back to the ranks."

"You treat them then like slave-keepers of a wild beast den. They must flog the animals to avoid being flogged themselves."

"Ay," said he, with his coarse laugh, "and having once flogged 'em, they'd do anything rather than be put in the cage, don't you see!"

It is horrible to think of this sort of logic being used by a man who has a wife, and friends and enemies. It is the logic that the Keeper of the Tormented would use, I should think. I am sick unto death of the place. It makes me an unbeliever in the social charities. It takes out of penal science anything it may possess of nobility or worth. It is cruel, debasing, inhuman.



August 26th.—Saw Rufus Dawes again to-day. His usual bearing is ostentatiously rough and brutal. He has sunk to a depth of self-abasement in which he takes a delight in his degradation. This condition is one familiar to me.

He is working in the chain-gang to which Hankey was made sub-overseer. Blind Mooney, an ophthalmic prisoner, who was removed from the gang to hospital, told me that there was a plot to murder Hankey, but that Dawes, to whom he had shown some kindness, had prevented it. I saw Hankey and told him of this, asking him if he had been aware of the plot. He said "No," falling into a great tremble. "Major Pratt promised me a removal," said he. "I expected it would come to this." I asked him why Dawes defended him; and after some trouble he told me, exacting from me a promise that I would not acquaint the Commandant. It seems that one morning last week, Hankey had gone up to Captain Frere's house with a return from Troke, and coming back through the garden had plucked a flower. Dawes had asked him for this flower, offering two days' rations for it. Hankey, who is not a bad-hearted man, gave him the sprig. "There were tears in his eyes as he took it," said he.

There must be some way to get at this man's heart, bad as he seems to be.



August 28th.—Hankey was murdered yesterday. He applied to be removed from the gaol-gang, but Frere refused. "I never let my men 'funk'," he said. "If they've threatened to murder you, I'll keep you there another month in spite of 'em."

Someone who overheard this reported it to the gang, and they set upon the unfortunate gaoler yesterday, and beat his brains out with their shovels. Troke says that the wretch who was foremost cried, "There's for you; and if your master don't take care, he'll get served the same one of these days!" The gang were employed at building a reef in the sea, and were working up to their armpits in water. Hankey fell into the surf, and never moved after the first blow. I saw the gang, and Dawes said—

"It was Frere's fault; he should have let the man go!"

"I am surprised you did not interfere," said I. "I did all I could," was the man's answer. "What's a life more or less, here?"

This occurrence has spread consternation among the overseers, and they have addressed a "round robin" to the Commandant, praying to be relieved from their positions.

The way Frere has dealt with this petition is characteristic of him, and fills me at once with admiration and disgust. He came down with it in his hand to the gaol-gang, walked into the yard, shut the gate, and said, "I've just got this from my overseers. They say they're afraid you'll murder them as you murdered Hankey. Now, if you want to murder, murder me. Here I am. Step out, one of you." All this, said in a tone of the most galling contempt, did not move them. I saw a dozen pairs of eyes flash hatred, but the bull-dog courage of the man overawed them here, as, I am told, it had done in Sydney. It would have been easy to kill him then and there, and his death, I am told, is sworn among them; but no one raised a finger. The only man who moved was Rufus Dawes, and he checked himself instantly. Frere, with a recklessness of which I did not think him capable, stepped up to this terror of the prison, and ran his hands lightly down his sides, as is the custom with constables when "searching" a man. Dawes—who is of a fierce temper—turned crimson at this and, I thought, would have struck him, but he did not. Frere then—still unarmed and alone—proceeded to the man, saying, "Do you think of bolting again, Dawes? Have you made any more boats?"

"You Devil!" said the chained man, in a voice pregnant with such weight of unborn murder, that the gang winced. "You'll find me one," said Frere, with a laugh; and, turning to me, continued, in the same jesting tone, "There's a penitent for you, Mr. North—try your hand on him."

I was speechless at his audacity, and must have shown my disgust in my face, for he coloured slightly, and as we were leaving the yard, he endeavoured to excuse himself, by saying that it was no use preaching to stones, and such doubly-dyed villains as this Dawes were past hope. "I know the ruffian of old," said he. "He came out in the ship from England with me, and tried to raise a mutiny on board. He was the man who nearly murdered my wife. He has never been out of irons—except then and when he escaped—for the last eighteen years; and as he's three life sentences, he's like to die in 'em."

A monstrous wretch and criminal, evidently, and yet I feel a strange sympathy with this outcast.



CHAPTER V. MR. RICHARD DEVINE SURPRISED.



The town house of Mr. Richard Devine was in Clarges Street. Not that the very modest mansion there situated was the only establishment of which Richard Devine was master. Mr. John Rex had expensive tastes. He neither shot nor hunted, so he had no capital invested in Scotch moors or Leicestershire hunting-boxes. But his stables were the wonder of London, he owned almost a racing village near Doncaster, kept a yacht at Cowes, and, in addition to a house in Paris, paid the rent of a villa at Brompton. He belonged to several clubs of the faster sort, and might have lived like a prince at any one of them had he been so minded; but a constant and haunting fear of discovery—which three years of unquestioned ease and unbridled riot had not dispelled—led him to prefer the privacy of his own house, where he could choose his own society. The house in Clarges Street was decorated in conformity with the tastes of its owner. The pictures were pictures of horses, the books were records of races, or novels purporting to describe sporting life. Mr. Francis Wade, waiting, on the morning of the 20th April, for the coming of his nephew, sighed as he thought of the cultured quiet of North End House.

Mr. Richard appeared in his dressing-gown. Three years of good living and hard drinking had deprived his figure of its athletic beauty. He was past forty years of age, and the sudden cessation from severe bodily toil to which in his active life as a convict and squatter he had been accustomed, had increased Rex's natural proneness to fat, and instead of being portly he had become gross. His cheeks were inflamed with the frequent application of hot and rebellious liquors to his blood. His hands were swollen, and not so steady as of yore. His whiskers were streaked with unhealthy grey. His eyes, bright and black as ever, lurked in a thicket of crow's feet. He had become prematurely bald—a sure sign of mental or bodily excess. He spoke with assumed heartiness, in a boisterous tone of affected ease.

"Ha, ha! My dear uncle, sit down. Delighted to see you. Have you breakfasted?—of course you have. I was up rather late last night. Quite sure you won't have anything. A glass of wine? No—then sit down and tell me all the news of Hampstead."

"Thank you, Richard," said the old gentleman, a little stiffly, "but I want some serious talk with you. What do you intend to do with the property? This indecision worries me. Either relieve me of my trust, or be guided by my advice."

"Well, the fact is," said Richard, with a very ugly look on his face, "the fact is—and you may as well know it at once—I am much pushed for money."

"Pushed for money!" cried Mr. Wade, in horror. "Why, Purkiss said the property was worth twenty thousand a year."

"So it might have been—five years ago—but my horse-racing, and betting, and other amusements, concerning which you need not too curiously inquire, have reduced its value considerably."

He spoke recklessly and roughly. It was evident that success had but developed his ruffianism. His "dandyism" was only comparative. The impulse of poverty and scheming which led him to affect the "gentleman" having been removed, the natural brutality of his nature showed itself quite freely. Mr. Francis Wade took a pinch of snuff with a sharp motion of distaste. "I do not want to hear of your debaucheries," he said; "our name has been sufficiently disgraced in my hearing."

"What is got over the devil's back goes under his belly," replied Mr. Richard, coarsely. "My old father got his money by dirtier ways than these in which I spend it. As villainous an old scoundrel and skinflint as ever poisoned a seaman, I'll go bail."

Mr. Francis rose. "You need not revile your father, Richard—he left you all."

"Ay, but by pure accident. He didn't mean it. If he hadn't died in the nick of time, that unhung murderous villain, Maurice Frere, would have come in for it. By the way," he added, with a change of tone, "do you ever hear anything of Maurice?"

"I have not heard for some years," said Mr. Wade. "He is something in the Convict Department at Sydney, I think." "Is he?" said Mr. Richard, with a shiver. "Hope he'll stop there. Well, but about business. The fact is, that—that I am thinking of selling everything."

"Selling everything!"

"Yes. 'Pon my soul I am. The Hampstead place and all."

"Sell North End House!" cried poor Mr. Wade, in bewilderment. "You'd sell it? Why, the carvings by Grinling Gibbons are the finest in England."

"I can't help that," laughed Mr. Richard, ringing the bell. "I want cash, and cash I must have.—Breakfast, Smithers.—I'm going to travel."

Francis Wade was breathless with astonishment. Educated and reared as he had been, he would as soon have thought of proposing to sell St. Paul's Cathedral as to sell the casket which held his treasures of art—his coins, his coffee-cups, his pictures, and his "proofs before letters".

"Surely, Richard, you are not in earnest?" he gasped.

"I am, indeed."

"But—but who will buy it?"

"Plenty of people. I shall cut it up into building allotments. Besides, they are talking of a suburban line, with a terminus at St. John's Wood, which will cut the garden in half. You are quite sure you've breakfasted? Then pardon me."

"Richard, you are jesting with me! You will never let them do such a thing!"

"I'm thinking of a trip to America," said Mr. Richard, cracking an egg. "I am sick of Europe. After all, what is the good of a man like me pretending to belong to 'an old family', with 'a seat' and all that humbug? Money is the thing now, my dear uncle. Hard cash! That's the ticket for soup, you may depend."

"Then what do you propose doing, sir?"

"To buy my mother's life interest as provided, realize upon the property, and travel," said Mr. Richard, helping himself to potted grouse.

"You amaze me, Richard. You confound me. Of course you can do as you please. But so sudden a determination. The old house—vases—coins—pictures—scattered—I really—Well, it is your property, of course—and—and—I wish you a very good morning!"

"I mean to do as I please," soliloquized Rex, as he resumed his breakfast. "Let him sell his rubbish by auction, and go and live abroad, in Germany or Jerusalem if he likes, the farther the better for me. I'll sell the property and make myself scarce. A trip to America will benefit my health."

A knock at the door made him start.

"Come in! Curse it, how nervous I'm getting. What's that? Letters? Give them to me; and why the devil don't you put the brandy on the table, Smithers?"

He drank some of the spirit greedily, and then began to open his correspondence.

"Cussed brute," said Mr. Smithers, outside the door. "He couldn't use wuss langwidge if he was a dook, dam 'im!—Yessir," he added, suddenly, as a roar from his master recalled him.

"When did this come?" asked Mr. Richard, holding out a letter more than usually disfigured with stampings.

"Lars night, sir. It's bin to 'Amstead, sir, and come down directed with the h'others." The angry glare of the black eyes induced him to add, "I 'ope there's nothink wrong, sir."

"Nothing, you infernal ass and idiot," burst out Mr. Richard, white with rage, "except that I should have had this instantly. Can't you see it's marked urgent? Can you read? Can you spell? There, that will do. No lies. Get out!"

Left to himself again, Mr. Richard walked hurriedly up and down the chamber, wiped his forehead, drank a tumbler of brandy, and finally sat down and re-read the letter. It was short, but terribly to the purpose.



"THE GEORGE HOTEL, PLYMOUTH," 17th April, 1846.

"MY DEAR JACK,—

"I have found you out, you see. Never mind how just at present. I know all about your proceedings, and unless Mr. Richard Devine receives his "wife" with due propriety, he'll find himself in the custody of the police. Telegraph, dear, to Mrs. Richard Devine, at above address.

"Yours as ever, Jack,

"SARAH.

"To Richard Devine, Esq., "North End House, "Hampstead."



The blow was unexpected and severe. It was hard, in the very high tide and flush of assured success, to be thus plucked back into the old bondage. Despite the affectionate tone of the letter, he knew the woman with whom he had to deal. For some furious minutes he sat motionless, gazing at the letter. He did not speak—men seldom do under such circumstances—but his thoughts ran in this fashion: "Here is this cursed woman again! Just as I was congratulating myself on my freedom. How did she discover me? Small use asking that. What shall I do? I can do nothing. It is absurd to run away, for I shall be caught. Besides, I've no money. My account at Mastermann's is overdrawn two thousand pounds. If I bolt at all, I must bolt at once—within twenty-four hours. Rich as I am, I don't suppose I could raise more than five thousand pounds in that time. These things take a day or two, say forty-eight hours. In forty-eight hours I could raise twenty thousand pounds, but forty-eight hours is too long. Curse the woman! I know her! How in the fiend's name did she discover me? It's a bad job. However, she's not inclined to be gratuitiously disagreeable. How lucky I never married again! I had better make terms and trust to fortune. After all, she's been a good friend to me.—Poor Sally!—I might have rotted on that infernal Eaglehawk Neck if it hadn't been for her. She is not a bad sort. Handsome woman, too. I may make it up with her. I shall have to sell off and go away after all.—It might be worse.—I dare say the property's worth three hundred thousand pounds. Not bad for a start in America. And I may get rid of her yet. Yes. I must give in.—Oh, curse her!—[ringing the bell]—Smithers!" [Smithers appears.] "A telegraph form and a cab! Stay. Pack me a dressing-bag. I shall be away for a day or so. [Sotto voce]—I'd better see her myself.—[ Aloud]—Bring me a Bradshaw! [Sotto voce]—Damn the woman."



CHAPTER VI. IN WHICH THE CHAPLAIN IS TAKEN ILL.

Though the house of the Commandant of Norfolk Island was comfortable and well furnished, and though, of necessity, all that was most hideous in the "discipline" of the place was hidden, the loathing with which Sylvia had approached the last and most dreaded abiding place of the elaborate convict system, under which it had been her misfortune to live, had not decreased. The sights and sounds of pain and punishment surrounded her. She could not look out of her windows without a shudder. She dreaded each evening when her husband returned, lest he should blurt out some new atrocity. She feared to ask him in the morning whither he was going, lest he should thrill her with the announcement of some fresh punishment.

"I wish, Maurice, we had never come here," said she, piteously, when he recounted to her the scene of the gaol-gang. "These unhappy men will do you some frightful injury one of these days."

"Stuff!" said her husband. "They've not the courage. I'd take the best man among them, and dare him to touch me."

"I cannot think how you like to witness so much misery and villainy. It is horrible to think of."

"Our tastes differ, my dear.—Jenkins! Confound you! Jenkins, I say." The convict-servant entered. "Where is the charge-book? I've told you always to have it ready for me. Why don't you do as you are told? You idle, lazy scoundrel! I suppose you were yarning in the cookhouse, or—"

"If you please, sir."

"Don't answer me, sir. Give me the book." Taking it and running his finger down the leaves, he commented on the list of offences to which he would be called upon in the morning to mete out judgment.

"Meer-a-seek, having a pipe—the rascally Hindoo scoundrel!—Benjamin Pellett, having fat in his possession. Miles Byrne, not walking fast enough.—We must enliven Mr. Byrne. Thomas Twist, having a pipe and striking a light. W. Barnes, not in place at muster; says he was 'washing himself'—I'll wash him! John Richards, missing muster and insolence. John Gateby, insolence and insubordination. James Hopkins, insolence and foul language. Rufus Dawes, gross insolence, refusing to work.—Ah! we must look after you. You are a parson's man now, are you? I'll break your spirit, my man, or I'll—Sylvia!"

"Yes."

"Your friend Dawes is doing credit to his bringing up."

"What do you mean?"

"That infernal villain and reprobate, Dawes. He is fitting himself faster for—" She interrupted him. "Maurice, I wish you would not use such language. You know I dislike it." She spoke coldly and sadly, as one who knows that remonstrance is vain, and is yet constrained to remonstrate.

"Oh, dear! My Lady Proper! can't bear to hear her husband swear. How refined we're getting!"

"There, I did not mean to annoy you," said she, wearily. "Don't let us quarrel, for goodness' sake."

He went away noisily, and she sat looking at the carpet wearily. A noise roused her. She looked up and saw North. Her face beamed instantly. "Ah! Mr. North, I did not expect you. What brings you here? You'll stay to dinner, of course." (She rang the bell without waiting for a reply.) "Mr. North dines here; place a chair for him. And have you brought me the book? I have been looking for it."

"Here it is," said North, producing a volume of 'Monte Cristo'. She seized the book with avidity, and, after running her eyes over the pages, turned inquiringly to the fly-leaf.

"It belongs to my predecessor," said North, as though in answer to her thought. "He seems to have been a great reader of French. I have found many French novels of his."

"I thought clergymen never read French novels," said Sylvia, with a smile.

"There are French novels and French novels," said North. "Stupid people confound the good with the bad. I remember a worthy friend of mine in Sydney who soundly abused me for reading 'Rabelais', and when I asked him if he had read it, he said that he would sooner cut his hand off than open it. Admirable judge of its merits!"

"But is this really good? Papa told me it was rubbish."

"It is a romance, but, in my opinion, a very fine one. The notion of the sailor being taught in prison by the priest, and sent back into the world an accomplished gentleman, to work out his vengeance, is superb."

"No, now—you are telling me," laughed she; and then, with feminine perversity, "Go on, what is the story?"

"Only that of an unjustly imprisoned man, who, escaping by a marvel, and becoming rich—as Dr. Johnson says, 'beyond the dreams of avarice'—devotes his life and fortune to revenge himself."

"And does he?"

"He does, upon all his enemies save one."

"And he—?" "She—was the wife of his greatest enemy, and Dantes spared her because he loved her."

Sylvia turned away her head. "It seems interesting enough," said she, coldly.

There was an awkward silence for a moment, which each seemed afraid to break. North bit his lips, as though regretting what he had said. Mrs. Frere beat her foot on the floor, and at length, raising her eyes, and meeting those of the clergyman fixed upon her face, rose hurriedly, and went to meet her returning husband.

"Come to dinner, of course!" said Frere, who, though he disliked the clergyman, yet was glad of anybody who would help him to pass a cheerful evening.

"I came to bring Mrs. Frere a book."

"Ah! She reads too many books; she's always reading books. It is not a good thing to be always poring over print, is it, North? You have some influence with her; tell her so. Come, I am hungry."

He spoke with that affectation of jollity with which husbands of his calibre veil their bad temper.

Sylvia had her defensive armour on in a twinkling. "Of course, you two men will be against me. When did two men ever disagree upon the subject of wifely duties? However, I shall read in spite of you. Do you know, Mr. North, that when I married I made a special agreement with Captain Frere that I was not to be asked to sew on buttons for him?"

"Indeed!" said North, not understanding this change of humour.

"And she never has from that hour," said Frere, recovering his suavity at the sight of food. "I never have a shirt fit to put on. Upon my word, there are a dozen in the drawer now."

North perused his plate uncomfortably. A saying of omniscient Balzac occurred to him. "Le grand ecueil est le ridicule," and his mind began to sound all sorts of philosophical depths, not of the most clerical character.

After dinner Maurice launched out into his usual topic—convict discipline. It was pleasant for him to get a listener; for his wife, cold and unsympathetic, tacitly declined to enter into his schemes for the subduing of the refractory villains. "You insisted on coming here," she would say. "I did not wish to come. I don't like to talk of these things. Let us talk of something else." When she adopted this method of procedure, he had no alternative but to submit, for he was afraid of her, after a fashion. In this ill-assorted match he was only apparently the master. He was a physical tyrant. For him, a creature had but to be weak to be an object of contempt; and his gross nature triumphed over the finer one of his wife. Love had long since died out of their life. The young, impulsive, delicate girl, who had given herself to him seven years before, had been changed into a weary, suffering woman. The wife is what her husband makes her, and his rude animalism had made her the nervous invalid she was. Instead of love, he had awakened in her a distaste which at times amounted to disgust. We have neither the skill nor the boldness of that profound philosopher whose autopsy of the human heart awoke North's contemplation, and we will not presume to set forth in bare English the story of this marriage of the Minotaur. Let it suffice to say that Sylvia liked her husband least when he loved her most. In this repulsion lay her power over him. When the animal and spiritual natures cross each other, the nobler triumphs in fact if not in appearance. Maurice Frere, though his wife obeyed him, knew that he was inferior to her, and was afraid of the statue he had created. She was ice, but it was the artificial ice that chemists make in the midst of a furnace. Her coldness was at once her strength and her weakness. When she chilled him, she commanded him.

Unwitting of the thoughts that possessed his guest, Frere chatted amicably. North said little, but drank a good deal. The wine, however, rendered him silent, instead of talkative. He drank that he might forget unpleasant memories, and drank without accomplishing his object. When the pair proceeded to the room where Mrs. Frere awaited them, Frere was boisterously good-humoured, North silently misanthropic.

"Sing something, Sylvia!" said Frere, with the ease of possession, as one who should say to a living musical-box, "Play something."

"Oh, Mr. North doesn't care for music, and I'm not inclined to sing. Singing seems out of place here."

"Nonsense," said Frere. "Why should it be more out of place here than anywhere else?"

"Mrs. Frere means that mirth is in a manner unsuited to these melancholy surroundings," said North, out of his keener sense.

"Melancholy surroundings!" cried Frere, staring in turn at the piano, the ottomans, and the looking-glass. "Well, the house isn't as good as the one in Sydney, but it's comfortable enough."

"You don't understand me, Maurice," said Sylvia. "This place is very gloomy to me. The thought of the unhappy men who are ironed and chained all about us makes me miserable."

"What stuff!" said Frere, now thoroughly roused. "The ruffians deserve all they get and more. Why should you make yourself wretched about them?"

"Poor men! How do we know the strength of their temptation, the bitterness of their repentance?"

"Evil-doers earn their punishment," says North, in a hard voice, and taking up a book suddenly. "They must learn to bear it. No repentance can undo their sin."

"But surely there is mercy for the worst of evil-doers," urged Sylvia, gently.

North seemed disinclined or unable to reply, and nodded only.

"Mercy!" cried Frere. "I am not here to be merciful; I am here to keep these scoundrels in order, and by the Lord that made me, I'll do it!"

"Maurice, do not talk like that. Think how slight an accident might have made any one of us like one of these men. What is the matter, Mr. North?"

Mr. North has suddenly turned pale.

"Nothing," returned the clergyman, gasping—"a sudden faintness!" The windows were thrown open, and the chaplain gradually recovered, as he did in Burgess's parlour, at Port Arthur, seven years ago. "I am liable to these attacks. A touch of heart disease, I think. I shall have to rest for a day or so." "Ah, take a spell," said Frere; "you overwork yourself."

North, sitting, gasping and pale, smiles in a ghastly manner. "I—I will. If I do not appear for a week, Mrs. Frere, you will know the reason."

"A week! Surely it will not last so long as that!" exclaims Sylvia.

The ambiguous "it" appears to annoy him, for he flushes painfully, replying, "Sometimes longer. It is, a—um—uncertain," in a confused and shame-faced manner, and is luckily relieved by the entry of Jenkins.

"A message from Mr. Troke, sir."

"Troke! What's the matter now?"

"Dawes, sir, 's been violent and assaulted Mr. Troke. Mr. Troke said you'd left orders to be told at onst of the insubordination of prisoners."

"Quite right. Where is he?" "In the cells, I think, sir. They had a hard fight to get him there, I am told, your honour."

"Had they? Give my compliments to Mr. Troke, and tell him that I shall have the pleasure of breaking Mr. Dawes's spirit to-morrow morning at nine sharp."

"Maurice," said Sylvia, who had been listening to the conversation in undisguised alarm, "do me a favour? Do not torment this man."

"What makes you take a fancy to him?" asks her husband, with sudden unnecessary fierceness.

"Because his is one of the names which have been from my childhood synonymous with suffering and torture, because whatever wrong he may have done, his life-long punishment must have in some degree atoned for it."

She spoke with an eager pity in her face that transfigured it. North, devouring her with his glance, saw tears in her eyes. "Does this look as if he had made atonement?" said Frere coarsely, slapping the letter.

"He is a bad man, I know, but—" she passed her hand over her forehead with the old troubled gesture—"he cannot have been always bad. I think I have heard some good of him somewhere."

"Nonsense," said Frere, rising decisively. "Your fancies mislead you. Let me hear you no more. The man is rebellious, and must be lashed back again to his duty. Come, North, we'll have a nip before you start."

"Mr. North, will not you plead for me?" suddenly cried poor Sylvia, her self-possession overthrown. "You have a heart to pity these suffering creatures."

But North, who seemed to have suddenly recalled his soul from some place where it had been wandering, draws himself aside, and with dry lips makes shift to say, "I cannot interfere with your husband, madam," and goes out almost rudely.

"You've made old North quite ill," said Frere, when he by-and-by returns, hoping by bluff ignoring of roughness on his own part to avoid reproach from his wife. "He drank half a bottle of brandy to steady his nerves before he went home, and swung out of the house like one possessed."

But Sylvia, occupied with her own thoughts, did not reply.



CHAPTER VII. BREAKING A MAN'S SPIRIT.



The insubordination of which Rufus Dawes had been guilty was, in this instance, insignificant. It was the custom of the newly-fledged constables of Captain Frere to enter the wards at night, armed with cutlasses, tramping about, and making a great noise. Mindful of the report of Pounce, they pulled the men roughly from their hammocks, examined their persons for concealed tobacco, and compelled them to open their mouths to see if any was inside. The men in Dawes's gang—to which Mr. Troke had an especial objection—were often searched more than once in a night, searched going to work, searched at meals, searched going to prayers, searched coming out, and this in the roughest manner. Their sleep broken, and what little self-respect they might yet presume to retain harried out of them, the objects of this incessant persecution were ready to turn upon and kill their tormentors.

The great aim of Troke was to catch Dawes tripping, but the leader of the "Ring" was far too wary. In vain had Troke, eager to sustain his reputation for sharpness, burst in upon the convict at all times and seasons. He had found nothing. In vain had he laid traps for him; in vain had he "planted" figs of tobacco, and attached long threads to them, waited in a bush hard by, until the pluck at the end of his line should give token that the fish had bitten. The experienced "old hand" was too acute for him. Filled with disgust and ambition, he determined upon an ingenious little trick. He was certain that Dawes possessed tobacco; the thing was to find it upon him. Now, Rufus Dawes, holding aloof, as was his custom, from the majority of his companions, had made one friend—if so mindless and battered an old wreck could be called a friend—Blind Mooney. Perhaps this oddly-assorted friendship was brought about by two causes—one, that Mooney was the only man on the island who knew more of the horrors of convictism than the leader of the Ring; the other, that Mooney was blind, and, to a moody, sullen man, subject to violent fits of passion and a constant suspicion of all his fellow-creatures, a blind companion was more congenial than a sharp-eyed one.

Mooney was one of the "First Fleeters". He had arrived in Sydney fifty-seven years before, in the year 1789, and when he was transported he was fourteen years old. He had been through the whole round of servitude, had worked as a bondsman, had married, and been "up country", had been again sentenced, and was a sort of dismal patriarch of Norfolk Island, having been there at its former settlement. He had no friends. His wife was long since dead, and he stated, without contradiction, that his master, having taken a fancy to her, had despatched the uncomplaisant husband to imprisonment. Such cases were not uncommon.

One of the many ways in which Rufus Dawes had obtained the affection of the old blind man was a gift of such fragments of tobacco as he had himself from time to time secured. Troke knew this; and on the evening in question hit upon an excellent plan. Admitting himself noiselessly into the boat-shed, where the gang slept, he crept close to the sleeping Dawes, and counterfeiting Mooney's mumbling utterance asked for "some tobacco". Rufus Dawes was but half awake, and on repeating his request, Troke felt something put into his hand. He grasped Dawes's arm, and struck a light. He had got his man this time. Dawes had conveyed to his fancied friend a piece of tobacco almost as big as the top joint of his little finger. One can understand the feelings of a man entrapped by such base means. Rufus Dawes no sooner saw the hated face of Warder Troke peering over his hammock, then he sprang out, and exerting to the utmost his powerful muscles, knocked Mr. Troke fairly off his legs into the arms of the in-coming constables. A desperate struggle took place, at the end of which the convict, overpowered by numbers, was borne senseless to the cells, gagged, and chained to the ring-bolt on the bare flags. While in this condition he was savagely beaten by five or six constables.

To this maimed and manacled rebel was the Commandant ushered by Troke the next morning.

"Ha! ha! my man," said the Commandant. "Here you are again, you see. How do you like this sort of thing?"

Dawes, glaring, makes no answer.

"You shall have fifty lashes, my man," said Frere. "We'll see how you feel then!" The fifty were duly administered, and the Commandant called the next day. The rebel was still mute.

"Give him fifty more, Mr. Troke. We'll see what he's made of."

One hundred and twenty lashes were inflicted in the course of the morning, but still the sullen convict refused to speak. He was then treated to fourteen days' solitary confinement in one of the new cells. On being brought out and confronted with his tormentor, he merely laughed. For this he was sent back for another fourteen days; and still remaining obdurate, was flogged again, and got fourteen days more. Had the chaplain then visited him, he might have found him open to consolation, but the chaplain—so it was stated—was sick. When brought out at the conclusion of his third confinement, he was found to be in so exhausted a condition that the doctor ordered him to hospital. As soon as he was sufficiently recovered, Frere visited him, and finding his "spirit" not yet "broken", ordered that he should be put to grind maize. Dawes declined to work. So they chained his hand to one arm of the grindstone and placed another prisoner at the other arm. As the second prisoner turned, the hand of Dawes of course revolved.

"You're not such a pebble as folks seemed to think," grinned Frere, pointing to the turning wheel.

Upon which the indomitable poor devil straightened his sorely-tried muscles, and prevented the wheel from turning at all. Frere gave him fifty more lashes, and sent him the next day to grind cayenne pepper. This was a punishment more dreaded by the convicts than any other. The pungent dust filled their eyes and lungs, causing them the most excruciating torments. For a man with a raw back the work was one continued agony. In four days Rufus Dawes, emaciated, blistered, blinded, broke down.

"For God's sake, Captain Frere, kill me at once!" he said.

"No fear," said the other, rejoiced at this proof of his power. "You've given in; that's all I wanted. Troke, take him off to the hospital."

When he was in hospital, North visited him.

"I would have come to see you before," said the clergyman, "but I have been very ill."

In truth he looked so. He had had a fever, it seemed, and they had shaved his beard, and cropped his hair. Dawes could see that the haggard, wasted man had passed through some agony almost as great as his own. The next day Frere visited him, complimented him on his courage, and offered to make him a constable. Dawes turned his scarred back to his torturer, and resolutely declined to answer.

"I am afraid you have made an enemy of the Commandant," said North, the next day. "Why not accept his offer?"

Dawes cast on him a glance of quiet scorn. "And betray my mates? I'm not one of that sort."

The clergyman spoke to him of hope, of release, of repentance, and redemption. The prisoner laughed. "Who's to redeem me?" he said, expressing his thoughts in phraseology that to ordinary folks might seem blasphemous. "It would take a Christ to die again to save such as I."

North spoke to him of immortality. "There is another life," said he. "Do not risk your chance of happiness in it. You have a future to live for, man."

"I hope not," said the victim of the "system". "I want to rest—to rest, and never to be disturbed again."

His "spirit" was broken enough by this time. Yet he had resolution enough to refuse Frere's repeated offers. "I'll never 'jump' it," he said to North, "if they cut me in half first."

North pityingly implored the stubborn mind to have mercy on the lacerated body, but without effect. His own wayward heart gave him the key to read the cipher of this man's life. "A noble nature ruined," said he to himself. "What is the secret of his history?"

Dawes, on his part, seeing how different from other black coats was this priest—at once so ardent and so gloomy, so stern and so tender—began to speculate on the cause of his monitor's sunken cheeks, fiery eyes, and pre-occupied manner, to wonder what grief inspired those agonized prayers, those eloquent and daring supplications, which were daily poured out over his rude bed. So between these two—the priest and the sinner—was a sort of sympathetic bond.

One day this bond was drawn so close as to tug at both their heart-strings. The chaplain had a flower in his coat. Dawes eyed it with hungry looks, and, as the clergyman was about to quit the room, said, "Mr. North, will you give me that rosebud?" North paused irresolutely, and finally, as if after a struggle with himself, took it carefully from his button-hole, and placed it in the prisoner's brown, scarred hand. In another instant Dawes, believing himself alone, pressed the gift to his lips. North returned abruptly, and the eyes of the pair met. Dawes flushed crimson, but North turned white as death. Neither spoke, but each was drawn close to the other, since both had kissed the rosebud plucked by Sylvia's fingers.



CHAPTER VIII. EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF THE REV. JAMES NORTH.



October 21st.—I am safe for another six months if I am careful, for my last bout lasted longer than I expected. I suppose one of these days I shall have a paroxysm that will kill me. I shall not regret it.

I wonder if this familiar of mine—I begin to detest the expression—will accuse me of endeavouring to make a case for myself if I say that I believe my madness to be a disease? I do believe it. I honestly can no more help getting drunk than a lunatic can help screaming and gibbering. It would be different with me, perhaps, were I a contented man, happily married, with children about me, and family cares to distract me. But as I am—a lonely, gloomy being, debarred from love, devoured by spleen, and tortured with repressed desires—I become a living torment to myself. I think of happier men, with fair wives and clinging children, of men who are loved and who love, of Frere for instance—and a hideous wild beast seems to stir within me, a monster, whose cravings cannot be satisfied, can only be drowned in stupefying brandy.

Penitent and shattered, I vow to lead a new life; to forswear spirits, to drink nothing but water. Indeed, the sight and smell of brandy make me ill. All goes well for some weeks, when I grow nervous, discontented, moody. I smoke, and am soothed. But moderation is not to be thought of; little by little I increase the dose of tobacco. Five pipes a day become six or seven. Then I count up to ten and twelve, then drop to three or four, then mount to eleven at a leap; then lose count altogether. Much smoking excites the brain. I feel clear, bright, gay. My tongue is parched in the morning, however, and I use liquor to literally "moisten my clay". I drink wine or beer in moderation, and all goes well. My limbs regain their suppleness, my hands their coolness, my brain its placidity. I begin to feel that I have a will. I am confident, calm, and hopeful. To this condition succeeds one of the most frightful melancholy. I remain plunged, for an hour together, in a stupor of despair. The earth, air, sea, all appear barren, colourless. Life is a burden. I long to sleep, and sleeping struggle to awake, because of the awful dreams which flap about me in the darkness. At night I cry, "Would to God it were morning!" In the morning, "Would to God it were evening!" I loathe myself, and all around me. I am nerveless, passionless, bowed down with a burden like the burden of Saul. I know well what will restore me to life and ease—restore me, but to cast me back again into a deeper fit of despair. I drink. One glass—my blood is warmed, my heart leaps, my hand no longer shakes. Three glasses—I rise with hope in my soul, the evil spirit flies from me. I continue—pleasing images flock to my brain, the fields break into flower, the birds into song, the sea gleams sapphire, the warm heaven laughs. Great God! what man could withstand a temptation like this?

By an effort, I shake off the desire to drink deeper, and fix my thoughts on my duties, on my books, on the wretched prisoners. I succeed perhaps for a time; but my blood, heated by the wine which is at once my poison and my life, boils in my veins. I drink again, and dream. I feel all the animal within me stirring. In the day my thoughts wander to all monstrous imaginings. The most familiar objects suggest to me loathsome thoughts. Obscene and filthy images surround me. My nature seems changed. By day I feel myself a wolf in sheep's clothing; a man possessed by a devil, who is ready at any moment to break out and tear him to pieces. At night I become a satyr. While in this torment I at once hate and fear myself. One fair face is ever before me, gleaming through my hot dreams like a flying moon in the sultry midnight of a tropic storm. I dare not trust myself in the presence of those whom I love and respect, lest my wild thoughts should find vent in wilder words. I lose my humanity. I am a beast. Out of this depth there is but one way of escape. Downwards. I must drench the monster I have awakened until he sleeps again. I drink and become oblivious. In these last paroxysms there is nothing for me but brandy. I shut myself up alone and pour down my gullet huge draughts of spirit. It mounts to my brain. I am a man again! and as I regain my manhood, I topple over—dead drunk.

But the awakening! Let me not paint it. The delirium, the fever, the self-loathing, the prostration, the despair. I view in the looking-glass a haggard face, with red eyes. I look down upon shaking hands, flaccid muscles, and shrunken limbs. I speculate if I shall ever be one of those grotesque and melancholy beings, with bleared eyes and running noses, swollen bellies and shrunken legs! Ugh!—it is too likely.



October 22nd.—Have spent the day with Mrs. Frere. She is evidently eager to leave the place—as eager as I am. Frere rejoices in his murderous power, and laughs at her expostulations. I suppose men get tired of their wives. In my present frame of mind I am at a loss to understand how a man could refuse a wife anything.

I do not think she can possibly care for him. I am not a selfish sentimentalist, as are the majority of seducers. I would take no woman away from a husband for mere liking. Yet I think there are cases in which a man who loved would be justified in making a woman happy at the risk of his own—soul, I suppose.

Making her happy! Ay, that's the point. Would she be happy? There are few men who can endure to be "cut", slighted, pointed at, and women suffer more than men in these regards. I, a grizzled man of forty, am not such an arrant ass as to suppose that a year of guilty delirium can compensate to a gently-nurtured woman for the loss of that social dignity which constitutes her best happiness. I am not such an idiot as to forget that there may come a time when the woman I love may cease to love me, and having no tie of self-respect, social position, or family duty, to bind her, may inflict upon her seducer that agony which he has taught her to inflict upon her husband. Apart from the question of the sin of breaking the seventh commandment, I doubt if the worst husband and the most unhappy home are not better, in this social condition of ours, than the most devoted lover. A strange subject this for a clergyman to speculate upon! If this diary should ever fall into the hands of a real God-fearing, honest booby, who never was tempted to sin by finding that at middle-age he loved the wife of another, how he would condemn me! And rightly, of course.



November 4th.—In one of the turnkey's rooms in the new gaol is to be seen an article of harness, which at first creates surprise to the mind of the beholder, who considers what animal of the brute creation exists of so diminutive a size as to admit of its use. On inquiry, it will be found to be a bridle, perfect in head-band, throat-lash, etc., for a human being. There is attached to this bridle a round piece of cross wood, of almost four inches in length, and one and a half in diameter. This again, is secured to a broad strap of leather to cross the mouth. In the wood there is a small hole, and, when used, the wood is inserted in the mouth, the small hole being the only breathing space. This being secured with the various straps and buckles, a more complete bridle could not be well imagined.

I was in the gaol last evening at eight o'clock. I had been to see Rufus Dawes, and returning, paused for a moment to speak to Hailey. Gimblett, who robbed Mr. Vane of two hundred pounds, was present, he was at that time a turnkey, holding a third-class pass, and in receipt of two shillings per diem. Everything was quite still. I could not help remarking how quiet the gaol was, when Gimblett said, "There's someone speaking. I know who that is." And forthwith took from its pegs one of the bridles just described, and a pair of handcuffs.

I followed him to one of the cells, which he opened, and therein was a man lying on his straw mat, undressed, and to all appearance fast asleep. Gimblett ordered him to get up and dress himself. He did so, and came into the yard, where Gimblett inserted the iron-wood gag in his mouth. The sound produced by his breathing through it (which appeared to be done with great difficulty) resembled a low, indistinct whistle. Gimblett led him to the lamp-post in the yard, and I saw that the victim of his wanton tyranny was the poor blind wretch Mooney. Gimblett placed him with his back against the lamp-post, and his arms being taken round, were secured by handcuffs round the post. I was told that the old man was to remain in this condition for three hours. I went at once to the Commandant. He invited me into his drawing-room—an invitation which I had the good sense to refuse—but refused to listen to any plea for mercy. "The old impostor is always making his blindness an excuse for disobedience," said he.—And this is her husband.



CHAPTER IX. THE LONGEST STRAW.



Rufus Dawes hearing, when "on the chain" the next day, of the wanton torture of his friend, uttered no threat of vengeance, but groaned only. "I am not so strong as I was," said he, as if in apology for his lack of spirit. "They have unnerved me." And he looked sadly down at his gaunt frame and trembling hands.

"I can't stand it no longer," said Mooney, grimly. "I've spoken to Bland, and he's of my mind. You know what we resolved to do. Let's do it."

Rufus Dawes stared at the sightless orbs turned inquiringly to his own. The fingers of his hand, thrust into his bosom, felt a token which lay there. A shudder thrilled him. "No, no. Not now," he said.

"You're not afeard, man?" asked Mooney, stretching out his hand in the direction of the voice. "You're not going to shirk?" The other avoided the touch, and shrank away, still staring. "You ain't going to back out after you swored it, Dawes? You're not that sort. Dawes, speak, man!"

"Is Bland willing?" asked Dawes, looking round, as if to seek some method of escape from the glare of those unspeculative eyes.

"Ay, and ready. They flogged him again yesterday."

"Leave it till to-morrow," said Dawes, at length.

"No; let's have it over," urged the old man, with a strange eagerness. "I'm tired o' this."

Rufus Dawes cast a wistful glance towards the wall behind which lay the house of the Commandant. "Leave it till to-morrow," he repeated, with his hand still in his breast.

They had been so occupied in their conversation that neither had observed the approach of their common enemy. "What are you hiding there?" cried Frere, seizing Dawes by the wrist. "More tobacco, you dog?" The hand of the convict, thus suddenly plucked from his bosom, opened involuntarily, and a withered rose fell to the earth. Frere at once, indignant and astonished, picked it up. "Hallo! What the devil's this? You've not been robbing my garden for a nosegay, Jack?" The Commandant was wont to call all convicts "Jack" in his moments of facetiousness. It was a little humorous way he had.

Rufus Dawes uttered one dismal cry, and then stood trembling and cowed. His companions, hearing the exclamation of rage and grief that burst from him, looked to see him snatch back the flower or perform some act of violence. Perhaps such was his intention, but he did not execute it. One would have thought that there was some charm about this rose so strangely cherished, for he stood gazing at it, as it twirled between Captain Frere's strong fingers, as though it fascinated him. "You're a pretty man to want a rose for your buttonhole! Are you going out with your sweetheart next Sunday, Mr. Dawes?" The gang laughed. "How did you get this?" Dawes was silent. "You'd better tell me." No answer. "Troke, let us see if we can't find Mr. Dawes's tongue. Pull off your shirt, my man. I expect that's the way to your heart—eh, boys?"

At this elegant allusion to the lash, the gang laughed again, and looked at each other astonished. It seemed possible that the leader of the "Ring" was going to turn milksop. Such, indeed, appeared to be the case, for Dawes, trembling and pale, cried, "Don't flog me again, sir! I picked it up in the yard. It fell out of your coat one day." Frere smiled with an inward satisfaction at the result of his spirit-breaking. The explanation was probably the correct one. He was in the habit of wearing flowers in his coat and it was impossible that the convict should have obtained one by any other means. Had it been a fig of tobacco now, the astute Commandant knew plenty of men who would have brought it into the prison. But who would risk a flogging for so useless a thing as a flower? "You'd better not pick up any more, Jack," he said. "We don't grow flowers for your amusement." And contemptuously flinging the rose over the wall, he strode away.

The gang, left to itself for a moment, bestowed their attention upon Dawes. Large tears were silently rolling down his face, and he stood staring at the wall as one in a dream. The gang curled their lips. One fellow, more charitable than the rest, tapped his forehead and winked. "He's going cranky," said this good-natured man, who could not understand what a sane prisoner had to do with flowers. Dawes recovered himself, and the contemptuous glances of his companions seemed to bring back the colour to his cheeks.

"We'll do it to-night," whispered he to Mooney, and Mooney smiled with pleasure.

Since the "tobacco trick", Mooney and Dawes had been placed in the new prison, together with a man named Bland, who had already twice failed to kill himself. When old Mooney, fresh from the torture of the gag-and-bridle, lamented his hard case, Bland proposed that the three should put in practice a scheme in which two at least must succeed. The scheme was a desperate one, and attempted only in the last extremity. It was the custom of the Ring, however, to swear each of its members to carry out to the best of his ability this last invention of the convict-disciplined mind should two other members crave his assistance.

The scheme—like all great ideas—was simplicity itself.

That evening, when the cell-door was securely locked, and the absence of a visiting gaoler might be counted upon for an hour at least, Bland produced a straw, and held it out to his companions. Dawes took it, and tearing it into unequal lengths, handed the fragments to Mooney.

"The longest is the one," said the blind man. "Come on, boys, and dip in the lucky-bag!"

It was evident that lots were to be drawn to determine to whom fortune would grant freedom. The men drew in silence, and then Bland and Dawes looked at each other. The prize had been left in the bag. Mooney—fortunate old fellow—retained the longest straw. Bland's hand shook as he compared notes with his companion. There was a moment's pause, during which the blank eyeballs of the blind man fiercely searched the gloom, as if in that awful moment they could penetrate it.

"I hold the shortest," said Dawes to Bland. "'Tis you that must do it."

"I'm glad of that," said Mooney.

Bland, seemingly terrified at the danger which fate had decreed that he should run, tore the fatal lot into fragments with an oath, and sat gnawing his knuckles in excess of abject terror. Mooney stretched himself out upon his plank-bed. "Come on, mate," he said. Bland extended a shaking hand, and caught Rufus Dawes by the sleeve.

"You have more nerve than I. You do it."

"No, no," said Dawes, almost as pale as his companion. "I've run my chance fairly. 'Twas your own proposal." The coward who, confident in his own luck, would seem to have fallen into the pit he had dug for others, sat rocking himself to and fro, holding his head in his hands.

"By Heaven, I can't do it," he whispered, lifting a white, wet face.

"What are you waiting for?" said fortunate Mooney. "Come on, I'm ready."

"I—I—thought you might like to—to—pray a bit," said Bland.

The notion seemed to sober the senses of the old man, exalted too fiercely by his good fortune.

"Ay!" he said. "Pray! A good thought!" and he knelt down; and shutting his blind eyes—'twas as though he was dazzled by some strong light—unseen by his comrades, moved his lips silently. The silence was at last broken by the footsteps of the warder in the corridor. Bland hailed it as a reprieve from whatever act of daring he dreaded. "We must wait until he goes," he whispered eagerly. "He might look in."

Dawes nodded, and Mooney, whose quick ear apprised him very exactly of the position of the approaching gaoler, rose from his knees radiant. The sour face of Gimblett appeared at the trap cell-door.

"All right?" he asked, somewhat—so the three thought—less sourly than usual.

"All right," was the reply, and Mooney added, "Good-night, Mr. Gimblett."

"I wonder what is making the old man so cheerful," thought Gimblett, as he got into the next corridor.

The sound of his echoing footsteps had scarcely died away, when upon the ears of the two less fortunate casters of lots fell the dull sound of rending woollen. The lucky man was tearing a strip from his blanket. "I think this will do," said he, pulling it between his hands to test its strength. "I am an old man." It was possible that he debated concerning the descent of some abyss into which the strip of blanket was to lower him. "Here, Bland, catch hold. Where are ye?—don't be faint-hearted, man. It won't take ye long."

It was quite dark now in the cell, but as Bland advanced his face was like a white mask floating upon the darkness, it was so ghastly pale. Dawes pressed his lucky comrade's hand, and withdrew to the farthest corner. Bland and Mooney were for a few moments occupied with the rope—doubtless preparing for escape by means of it. The silence was broken only by the convulsive jangling of Bland's irons—he was shuddering violently. At last Mooney spoke again, in strangely soft and subdued tones.

"Dawes, lad, do you think there is a Heaven?"

"I know there is a Hell," said Dawes, without turning his face.

"Ay, and a Heaven, lad. I think I shall go there. You will, old chap, for you've been good to me—God bless you, you've been very good to me."

* * * * *

When Troke came in the morning he saw what had occurred at a glance, and hastened to remove the corpse of the strangled Mooney.

"We drew lots," said Rufus Dawes, pointing to Bland, who crouched in the corner farthest from his victim, "and it fell upon him to do it. I'm the witness."

"They'll hang you for all that," said Troke.

"I hope so," said Rufus Dawes.



The scheme of escape hit upon by the convict intellect was simply this. Three men being together, lots were drawn to determine whom should be murdered. The drawer of the longest straw was the "lucky" man. He was killed. The drawer of the next longest straw was the murderer. He was hanged. The unlucky one was the witness. He had, of course, an excellent chance of being hung also, but his doom was not so certain, and he therefore looked upon himself as unfortunate.



CHAPTER X. A MEETING.



John Rex found the "George" disagreeably prepared for his august arrival. Obsequious waiters took his dressing-bag and overcoat, the landlord himself welcomed him at the door. Two naval gentlemen came out of the coffee-room to stare at him. "Have you any more luggage, Mr. Devine?" asked the landlord, as he flung open the door of the best drawing-room. It was awkwardly evident that his wife had no notion of suffering him to hide his borrowed light under a bushel.

A supper-table laid for two people gleamed bright from the cheeriest corner. A fire crackled beneath the marble mantelshelf. The latest evening paper lay upon a chair; and, brushing it carelessly with her costly dress, the woman he had so basely deserted came smiling to meet him.

"Well, Mr. Richard Devine," said she, "you did not expect to see me again, did you?"

Although, on his journey down, he had composed an elaborate speech wherewith to greet her, this unnatural civility dumbfounded him. "Sarah! I never meant to—"

"Hush, my dear Richard—it must be Richard now, I suppose. This is not the time for explanations. Besides, the waiter might hear you. Let us have some supper; you must be hungry, I am sure." He advanced to the table mechanically. "But how fat you are!" she continued. "Too good living, I suppose. You were not so fat at Port Ar—-Oh, I forgot, my dear! Come and sit down. That's right. I have told them all that I am your wife, for whom you have sent. They regard me with some interest and respect in consequence. Don't spoil their good opinion of me."

He was about to utter an imprecation, but she stopped him by a glance. "No bad language, John, or I shall ring for a constable. Let us understand one another, my dear. You may be a very great man to other people, but to me you are merely my runaway husband—an escaped convict. If you don't eat your supper civilly, I shall send for the police."

"Sarah!" he burst out, "I never meant to desert you. Upon my word. It is all a mistake. Let me explain."

"There is no need for explanations yet, Jack—I mean Richard. Have your supper. Ah! I know what you want."

She poured out half a tumbler of brandy, and gave it to him. He took the glass from her hand, drank the contents, and then, as though warmed by the spirit, laughed. "What a woman you are, Sarah. I have been a great brute, I confess."

"You have been an ungrateful villain," said she, with sudden passion, "a hardened, selfish villain."

"But, Sarah—"

"Don't touch me!" "'Pon my word, you are a fine creature, and I was a fool to leave you." The compliment seemed to soothe her, for her tone changed somewhat. "It was a wicked, cruel act, Jack. You whom I saved from death—whom I nursed—whom I enriched. It was the act of a coward."

"I admit it. It was." "You admit it. Have you no shame then? Have you no pity for me for what I have suffered all these years?"

"I don't suppose you cared much."

"Don't you? You never thought about me at all. I have cared this much, John Rex—bah! the door is shut close enough—that I have spent a fortune in hunting you down; and now I have found you, I will make you suffer in your turn."

He laughed again, but uneasily. "How did you discover me?"

With a readiness which showed that she had already prepared an answer to the question, she unlocked a writing-case, which was on the side table, and took from it a newspaper. "By one of those strange accidents which are the ruin of men like you. Among the papers sent to the overseer from his English friends was this one."

She held out an illustrated journal—a Sunday organ of sporting opinion—and pointed to a portrait engraved on the centre page. It represented a broad-shouldered, bearded man, dressed in the fashion affected by turfites and lovers of horse-flesh, standing beside a pedestal on which were piled a variety of racing cups and trophies. John Rex read underneath this work of art the name,

MR. RICHARD DEVINE, THE LEVIATHAN OF THE TURF.

"And you recognized me?"

"The portrait was sufficiently like you to induce me to make inquiries, and when I found that Mr. Richard Devine had suddenly returned from a mysterious absence of fourteen years, I set to work in earnest. I have spent a deal of money, Jack, but I've got you!"

"You have been clever in finding me out; I give you credit for that."

"There is not a single act of your life, John Rex, that I do not know," she continued, with heat. "I have traced you from the day you stole out of my house until now. I know your continental trips, your journeyings here and there in search of a lost clue. I pieced together the puzzle, as you have done, and I know that, by some foul fortune, you have stolen the secret of a dead man to ruin an innocent and virtuous family."

"Hullo! hullo!" said John Rex. "Since when have you learnt to talk of virtue?"

"It is well to taunt, but you have got to the end of your tether now, Jack. I have communicated with the woman whose son's fortune you have stolen. I expect to hear from Lady Devine in a day or so."

"Well—and when you hear?"

"I shall give back the fortune at the price of her silence!"

"Ho! ho! Will you?"

"Yes; and if my husband does not come back and live with me quietly, I shall call the police."

John Rex sprang up. "Who will believe you, idiot?" he cried. "I'll have you sent to gaol as an impostor."

"You forget, my dear," she returned, playing coquettishly with her rings, and glancing sideways as she spoke, "that you have already acknowledged me as your wife before the landlord and the servants. It is too late for that sort of thing. Oh, my dear Jack, you think you are very clever, but I am as clever as you."

Smothering a curse, he sat down beside her. "Listen, Sarah. What is the use of fighting like a couple of children. I am rich—"

"So am I." "Well, so much the better. We will join our riches together. I admit that I was a fool and a cur to leave you; but I played for a great stake. The name of Richard Devine was worth nearly half a million in money. It is mine. I won it. Share it with me! Sarah, you and I defied the world years ago. Don't let us quarrel now. I was ungrateful. Forget it. We know by this time that we are not either of us angels. We started in life together—do you remember, Sally, when I met you first?—determined to make money. We have succeeded. Why then set to work to destroy each other? You are handsomer than ever, I have not lost my wits. Is there any need for you to tell the world that I am a runaway convict, and that you are—well, no, of course there is no need. Kiss and be friends, Sarah. I would have escaped you if I could, I admit. You have found me out. I accept the position. You claim me as your husband. You say you are Mrs. Richard Devine. Very well, I admit it. You have all your life wanted to be a great lady. Now is your chance!" Much as she had cause to hate him, well as she knew his treacherous and ungrateful character, little as she had reason to trust him, her strange and distempered affection for the scoundrel came upon her again with gathering strength. As she sat beside him, listening to the familiar tones of the voice she had learned to love, greedily drinking in the promise of a future fidelity which she was well aware was made but to be broken, her memory recalled the past days of trust and happiness, and her woman's fancy once more invested the selfish villain she had reclaimed with those attributes which had enchained her wilful and wayward affections. The unselfish devotion which had marked her conduct to the swindler and convict was, indeed, her one redeeming virtue; and perhaps she felt dimly—poor woman—that it were better for her to cling to that, if she lost all the world beside. Her wish for vengeance melted under the influence of these thoughts. The bitterness of despised love, the shame and anger of desertion, ingratitude, and betrayal, all vanished. The tears of a sweet forgiveness trembled in her eyes, the unreasoning love of her sex—faithful to nought but love, and faithful to love in death—shook in her voice. She took his coward hand and kissed it, pardoning all his baseness with the sole reproach, "Oh, John, John, you might have trusted me after all?"

John Rex had conquered, and he smiled as he embraced her. "I wish I had," said he; "it would have saved me many regrets; but never mind. Sit down; now we will have supper."

"Your preference has one drawback, Sarah," he said, when the meal was concluded, and the two sat down to consider their immediate course of action, "it doubles the chance of detection."

"How so?"

"People have accepted me without inquiry, but I am afraid not without dislike. Mr. Francis Wade, my uncle, never liked me; and I fear I have not played my cards well with Lady Devine. When they find I have a mysterious wife their dislike will become suspicion. Is it likely that I should have been married all these years and not have informed them?"

"Very unlikely," returned Sarah calmly, "and that is just the reason why you have not been married all these years. Really," she added, with a laugh, "the male intellect is very dull. You have already told ten thousand lies about this affair, and yet you don't see your way to tell one more."

"What do you mean?"

"Why, my dear Richard, you surely cannot have forgotten that you married me last year on the Continent? By the way, it was last year that you were there, was it not? I am the daughter of a poor clergyman of the Church of England; name—anything you please—and you met me—where shall we say? Baden, Aix, Brussels? Cross the Alps, if you like, dear, and say Rome." John Rex put his hand to his head. "Of course—I am stupid," said he. "I have not been well lately. Too much brandy, I suppose."

"Well, we will alter all that," she returned with a laugh, which her anxious glance at him belied. "You are going to be domestic now, Jack—I mean Dick."

"Go on," said he impatiently. "What then?"

"Then, having settled these little preliminaries, you take me up to London and introduce me to your relatives and friends."

He started. "A bold game."

"Bold! Nonsense! The only safe one. People don't, as a rule, suspect unless one is mysterious. You must do it; I have arranged for your doing it. The waiters here all know me as your wife. There is not the least danger—unless, indeed, you are married already?" she added, with a quick and angry suspicion.

"You need not be alarmed. I was not such a fool as to marry another woman while you were alive—had I even seen one I would have cared to marry. But what of Lady Devine? You say you have told her."

"I have told her to communicate with Mrs. Carr, Post Office, Torquay, in order to hear something to her advantage. If you had been rebellious, John, the 'something' would have been a letter from me telling her who you really are. Now you have proved obedient, the 'something' will be a begging letter of a sort which she has already received hundreds, and which in all probability she will not even answer. What do you think of that, Mr. Richard Devine?"

"You deserve success, Sarah," said the old schemer, in genuine admiration. "By Jove, this is something like the old days, when we were Mr. and Mrs. Crofton."

"Or Mr. and Mrs. Skinner, eh, John?" she said, with as much tenderness in her voice as though she had been a virtuous matron recalling her honeymoon. "That was an unlucky name, wasn't it, dear? You should have taken my advice there." And immersed in recollection of their past rogueries, the worthy pair pensively smiled. Rex was the first to awake from that pleasant reverie.

"I will be guided by you, then," he said. "What next?"

"Next—for, as you say, my presence doubles the danger—we will contrive to withdraw quietly from England. The introduction to your mother over, and Mr. Francis disposed of, we will go to Hampstead, and live there for a while. During that time you must turn into cash as much property as you dare. We will then go abroad for the 'season'—and stop there. After a year or so on the Continent you can write to our agent to sell more property; and, finally, when we are regarded as permanent absentees—and three or four years will bring that about—we will get rid of everything, and slip over to America. Then you can endow a charity if you like, or build a church to the memory of the man you have displaced."

John Rex burst into a laugh. "An excellent plan. I like the idea of the charity—the Devine Hospital, eh?"

"By the way, how did you find out the particulars of this man's life. He was burned in the Hydaspes, wasn't he?"

"No," said Rex, with an air of pride. "He was transported in the Malabar under the name of Rufus Dawes. You remember him. It is a long story. The particulars weren't numerous, and if the old lady had been half sharp she would have bowled me out. But the fact was she wanted to find the fellow alive, and was willing to take a good deal on trust. I'll tell you all about it another time. I think I'll go to bed now; I'm tired, and my head aches as though it would split."

"Then it is decided that you follow my directions?"

"Yes."

She rose and placed her hand on the bell. "What are you going to do?" he said uneasily.

"I am going to do nothing. You are going to telegraph to your servants to have the house in London prepared for your wife, who will return with you the day after to-morrow."

John Rex stayed her hand with a sudden angry gesture. "This is all devilish fine," he said, "but suppose it fails?"

"That is your affair, John. You need not go on with this business at all, unless you like. I had rather you didn't."

"What the deuce am I to do, then?"

"I am not as rich as you are, but, with my station and so on, I am worth seven thousand a year. Come back to Australia with me, and let these poor people enjoy their own again. Ah, John, it is the best thing to do, believe me. We can afford to be honest now."

"A fine scheme!" cried he. "Give up half a million of money, and go back to Australia! You must be mad!"

"Then telegraph."

"But, my dear—"

"Hush, here's the waiter."

As he wrote, John Rex felt gloomily that, though he had succeeded in recalling her affection, that affection was as imperious as of yore.



CHAPTER XI. EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF THE REV. JAMES NORTH.



December 7th.—I have made up my mind to leave this place, to bury myself again in the bush, I suppose, and await extinction. I try to think that the reason for this determination is the frightful condition of misery existing among the prisoners; that because I am daily horrified and sickened by scenes of torture and infamy, I decide to go away; that, feeling myself powerless to save others, I wish to spare myself. But in this journal, in which I bind myself to write nothing but truth, I am forced to confess that these are not the reasons. I will write the reason plainly: "I covet my neighbour's wife." It does not look well thus written. It looks hideous. In my own breast I find numberless excuses for my passion. I said to myself, "My neighbour does not love his wife, and her unloved life is misery. She is forced to live in the frightful seclusion of this accursed island, and she is dying for want of companionship. She feels that I understand and appreciate her, that I could love her as she deserves, that I could render her happy. I feel that I have met the only woman who has power to touch my heart, to hold me back from the ruin into which I am about to plunge, to make me useful to my fellows—a man, and not a drunkard." Whispering these conclusions to myself, I am urged to brave public opinion, and make two lives happy. I say to myself, or rather my desires say to me—"What sin is there in this? Adultery? No; for a marriage without love is the coarsest of all adulteries. What tie binds a man and woman together—that formula of license pronounced by the priest, which the law has recognized as a 'legal bond'? Surely not this only, for marriage is but a partnership—a contract of mutual fidelity—and in all contracts the violation of the terms of the agreement by one of the contracting persons absolves the other. Mrs. Frere is then absolved, by her husband's act. I cannot but think so. But is she willing to risk the shame of divorce or legal offence? Perhaps. Is she fitted by temperament to bear such a burden of contumely as must needs fall upon her? Will she not feel disgust at the man who entrapped her into shame? Do not the comforts which surround her compensate for the lack of affections?" And so the torturing catechism continues, until I am driven mad with doubt, love, and despair.

Of course I am wrong; of course I outrage my character as a priest; of course I endanger—according to the creed I teach—my soul and hers. But priests, unluckily, have hearts and passions as well as other men. Thank God, as yet, I have never expressed my madness in words. What a fate is mine! When I am in her presence I am in torment; when I am absent from her my imagination pictures her surrounded by a thousand graces that are not hers, but belong to all the women of my dreams—to Helen, to Juliet, to Rosalind. Fools that we are of our own senses! When I think of her I blush; when I hear her name my heart leaps, and I grow pale. Love! What is the love of two pure souls, scarce conscious of the Paradise into which they have fallen, to this maddening delirium? I can understand the poison of Circe's cup; it is the sweet-torment of a forbidden love like mine! Away gross materialism, in which I have so long schooled myself! I, who laughed at passion as the outcome of temperament and easy living—I, who thought in my intellect, to sound all the depths and shoals of human feeling—I, who analysed my own soul—scoffed at my own yearnings for an immortality—am forced to deify the senseless power of my creed, and believe in God, that I may pray to Him. I know now why men reject the cold impersonality that reason tells us rules the world—it is because they love. To die, and be no more; to die, and rendered into dust, be blown about the earth; to die and leave our love defenceless and forlorn, till the bright soul that smiled to ours is smothered in the earth that made it! No! To love is life eternal. God, I believe in Thee! Aid me! Pity me! Sinful wretch that I am, to have denied Thee! See me on my knees before Thee! Pity me, or let me die!

December 9th.—I have been visiting the two condemned prisoners, Dawes and Bland, and praying with them. O Lord, let me save one soul that may plead with Thee for mine! Let me draw one being alive out of this pit! I weep—I weary Thee with my prayers, O Lord! Look down upon me. Grant me a sign. Thou didst it in old times to men who were not more fervent in their supplications than am I. So says Thy Book. Thy Book which I believe—which I believe. Grant me a sign—one little sign, O Lord!—I will not see her. I have sworn it. Thou knowest my grief—my agony—my despair. Thou knowest why I love her. Thou knowest how I strive to make her hate me. Is that not a sacrifice? I am so lonely—a lonely man, with but one creature that he loves—yet, what is mortal love to Thee? Cruel and implacable, Thou sittest in the heavens men have built for Thee, and scornest them! Will not all the burnings and slaughters of the saints appease Thee? Art Thou not sated with blood and tears, O God of vengeance, of wrath, and of despair! Kind Christ, pity me. Thou wilt—for Thou wast human! Blessed Saviour, at whose feet knelt the Magdalen! Divinity, who, most divine in Thy despair, called on Thy cruel God to save Thee—by the memory of that moment when Thou didst deem Thyself forsaken—forsake not me! Sweet Christ, have mercy on Thy sinful servant.

I can write no more. I will pray to Thee with my lips. I will shriek my supplications to Thee. I will call upon Thee so loud that all the world shall hear me, and wonder at Thy silence—unjust and unmerciful God!

December 14th.—What blasphemies are these which I have uttered in my despair? Horrible madness that has left me prostrate, to what heights of frenzy didst thou not drive my soul! Like him of old time, who wandered among the tombs, shrieking and tearing himself, I have been possessed by a devil. For a week I have been unconscious of aught save torture. I have gone about my daily duties as one who in his dreams repeats the accustomed action of the day, and knows it not. Men have looked at me strangely. They look at me strangely now. Can it be that my disease of drunkenness has become the disease of insanity? Am I mad, or do I but verge on madness? O Lord, whom in my agonies I have confessed, leave me my intellect—let me not become a drivelling spectacle for the curious to point at or to pity! At least, in mercy, spare me a little. Let not my punishment overtake me here. Let her memories of me be clouded with a sense of my rudeness or my brutality; let me for ever seem to her the ungrateful ruffian I strive to show myself—but let her not behold me—that!



CHAPTER XII. THE STRANGE BEHAVIOUR OF Mr. NORTH.



On or about the 8th of December, Mrs. Frere noticed a sudden and unaccountable change in the manner of the chaplain. He came to her one afternoon, and, after talking for some time, in a vague and unconnected manner, about the miseries of the prison and the wretched condition of some of the prisoners, began to question her abruptly concerning Rufus Dawes.

"I do not wish to think of him," said she, with a shudder. "I have the strangest, the most horrible dreams about him. He is a bad man. He tried to murder me when a child, and had it not been for my husband, he would have done so. I have only seen him once since then—at Hobart Town, when he was taken." "He sometimes speaks to me of you," said North, eyeing her. "He asked me once to give him a rose plucked in your garden."

Sylvia turned pale. "And you gave it him?"

"Yes, I gave it him. Why not?"

"It was valueless, of course, but still—to a convict?"

"You are not angry?"

"Oh, no! Why should I be angry?" she laughed constrainedly. "It was a strange fancy for the man to have, that's all."

"I suppose you would not give me another rose, if I asked you."

"Why not?" said she, turning away uneasily. "You? You are a gentleman."

"Not I—you don't know me."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that it would be better for you if you had never seen me."

"Mr. North!" Terrified at the wild gleam in his eyes, she had risen hastily. "You are talking very strangely."

"Oh, don't be alarmed, madam. I am not drunk!"—he pronounced the word with a fierce energy. "I had better leave you. Indeed, I think the less we see of each other the better."

Deeply wounded and astonished at this extraordinary outburst, Sylvia allowed him to stride away without a word. She saw him pass through the garden and slam the little gate, but she did not see the agony on his face, or the passionate gesture with which—when out of eyeshot—he lamented the voluntary abasement of himself before her. She thought over his conduct with growing fear. It was not possible that he was intoxicated—such a vice was the last one of which she could have believed him guilty. It was more probable that some effects of the fever, which had recently confined him to his house, yet lingered. So she thought; and, thinking, was alarmed to realize of how much importance the well-being of this man was to her.

The next day he met her, and, bowing, passed swiftly. This pained her. Could she have offended him by some unlucky word? She made Maurice ask him to dinner, and, to her astonishment, he pleaded illness as an excuse for not coming. Her pride was hurt, and she sent him back his books and music. A curiosity that was unworthy of her compelled her to ask the servant who carried the parcel what the clergyman had said. "He said nothing—only laughed." Laughed! In scorn of her foolishness! His conduct was ungentlemanly and intemperate. She would forget, as speedily as possible, that such a being had ever existed. This resolution taken, she was unusually patient with her husband.

So a week passed, and Mr. North did not return. Unluckily for the poor wretch, the very self-sacrifice he had made brought about the precise condition of things which he was desirous to avoid. It is possible that, had the acquaintance between them continued on the same staid footing, it would have followed the lot of most acquaintanceships of the kind—other circumstances and other scenes might have wiped out the memory of all but common civilities between them, and Sylvia might never have discovered that she had for the chaplain any other feeling but that of esteem. But the very fact of the sudden wrenching away of her soul-companion, showed her how barren was the solitary life to which she had been fated. Her husband, she had long ago admitted, with bitter self-communings, was utterly unsuited to her. She could find in his society no enjoyment, and for the sympathy which she needed was compelled to turn elsewhere. She understood that his love for her had burnt itself out—she confessed, with intensity of self-degradation, that his apparent affection had been born of sensuality, and had perished in the fires it had itself kindled. Many women have, unhappily, made some such discovery as this, but for most women there is some distracting occupation. Had it been Sylvia's fate to live in the midst of fashion and society, she would have found relief in the conversation of the witty, or the homage of the distinguished. Had fortune cast her lot in a city, Mrs. Frere might have become one of those charming women who collect around their supper-tables whatever of male intellect is obtainable, and who find the husband admirably useful to open his own champagne bottles. The celebrated women who have stepped out of their domestic circles to enchant or astonish the world, have almost invariably been cursed with unhappy homes. But poor Sylvia was not destined to this fortune. Cast back upon herself, she found no surcease of pain in her own imaginings, and meeting with a man sufficiently her elder to encourage her to talk, and sufficiently clever to induce her to seek his society and his advice, she learnt, for the first time, to forget her own griefs; for the first time she suffered her nature to expand under the sun of a congenial influence. This sun, suddenly withdrawn, her soul, grown accustomed to the warmth and light, shivered at the gloom, and she looked about her in dismay at the dull and barren prospect of life which lay before her. In a word, she found that the society of North had become so far necessary to her that to be deprived of it was a grief—notwithstanding that her husband remained to console her.