After a week of such reflections, the barrenness of life grew insupportable to her, and one day she came to Maurice and begged to be sent back to Hobart Town. "I cannot live in this horrible island," she said. "I am getting ill. Let me go to my father for a few months, Maurice." Maurice consented. His wife was looking ill, and Major Vickers was an old man—a rich old man—who loved his only daughter. It was not undesirable that Mrs. Frere should visit her father; indeed, so little sympathy was there between the pair that, the first astonishment over, Maurice felt rather glad to get rid of her for a while. "You can go back in the Lady Franklin if you like, my dear," he said. "I expect her every day." At this decision—much to his surprise—she kissed him with more show of affection than she had manifested since the death of her child.

The news of the approaching departure became known, but still North did not make his appearance. Had it not been a step beneath the dignity of a woman, Mrs. Frere would have gone herself and asked him the meaning of his unaccountable rudeness, but there was just sufficient morbidity in the sympathy she had for him to restrain her from an act which a young girl—though not more innocent—would have dared without hesitation. Calling one day upon the wife of the surgeon, however, she met the chaplain face to face, and with the consummate art of acting which most women possess, rallied him upon his absence from her house. The behaviour of the poor devil, thus stabbed to the heart, was curious. He forgot gentlemanly behaviour and the respect due to a woman, flung one despairingly angry glance at her and abruptly retired. Sylvia flushed crimson, and endeavoured to excuse North on account of his recent illness. The surgeon's wife looked askance, and turned the conversation. The next time Sylvia bowed to this lady, she got a chilling salute in return that made her blood boil. "I wonder how I have offended Mrs. Field?" she asked Maurice. "She almost cut me to-day." "Oh, the old cat!" returned Maurice. "What does it matter if she did?" However, a few days afterwards, it seemed that it did matter, for Maurice called upon Field and conversed seriously with him. The issue of the conversation being reported to Mrs. Frere, the lady wept indignant tears of wounded pride and shame. It appeared that North had watched her out of the house, returned, and related—in a "stumbling, hesitating way", Mrs. Field said—how he disliked Mrs. Frere, how he did not want to visit her, and how flighty and reprehensible such conduct was in a married woman of her rank and station. This act of baseness—or profound nobleness—achieved its purpose. Sylvia noticed the unhappy priest no more. Between the Commandant and the chaplain now arose a coolness, and Frere set himself, by various petty tyrannies, to disgust North, and compel him to a resignation of his office. The convict-gaolers speedily marked the difference in the treatment of the chaplain, and their demeanour changed. For respect was substituted insolence; for alacrity, sullenness; for prompt obedience, impertinent intrusion. The men whom North favoured were selected as special subjects for harshness, and for a prisoner to be seen talking to the clergyman was sufficient to ensure for him a series of tyrannies. The result of this was that North saw the souls he laboured to save slipping back into the gulf; beheld the men he had half won to love him meet him with averted faces; discovered that to show interest in a prisoner was to injure him, not to serve him. The unhappy man grew thinner and paler under this ingenious torment. He had deprived himself of that love which, guilty though it might be, was, nevertheless, the only true love he had known; and he found that, having won this victory, he had gained the hatred of all living creatures with whom he came in contact. The authority of the Commandant was so supreme that men lived but by the breath of his nostrils. To offend him was to perish and the man whom the Commandant hated must be hated also by all those who wished to exist in peace. There was but one being who was not to be turned from his allegiance—the convict murderer, Rufus Dawes, who awaited death. For many days he had remained mute, broken down beneath his weight of sorrow or of sullenness; but North, bereft of other love and sympathy, strove with that fighting soul, if haply he might win it back to peace. It seemed to the fancy of the priest—a fancy distempered, perhaps, by excess, or superhumanly exalted by mental agony—that this convict, over whom he had wept, was given to him as a hostage for his own salvation. "I must save him or perish," he said. "I must save him, though I redeem him with my own blood."

Frere, unable to comprehend the reason of the calmness with which the doomed felon met his taunts and torments, thought that he was shamming piety to gain some indulgence of meat and drink, and redoubled his severity. He ordered Dawes to be taken out to work just before the hour at which the chaplain was accustomed to visit him. He pretended that the man was "dangerous", and directed a gaoler to be present at all interviews, "lest the chaplain might be murdered". He issued an order that all civil officers should obey the challenges of convicts acting as watchmen; and North, coming to pray with his penitent, would be stopped ten times by grinning felons, who, putting their faces within a foot of his, would roar out, "Who goes there?" and burst out laughing at the reply. Under pretence of watching more carefully over the property of the chaplain, he directed that any convict, acting as constable, might at any time "search everywhere and anywhere" for property supposed to be in the possession of a prisoner. The chaplain's servant was a prisoner, of course; and North's drawers were ransacked twice in one week by Troke. North met these impertinences with unruffled brow, and Frere could in no way account for his obstinacy, until the arrival of the Lady Franklin explained the chaplain's apparent coolness. He had sent in his resignation two months before, and the saintly Meekin had been appointed in his stead. Frere, unable to attack the clergyman, and indignant at the manner in which he had been defeated, revenged himself upon Rufus Dawes.



CHAPTER XIII. MR. NORTH SPEAKS.



The method and manner of Frere's revenge became a subject of whispered conversation on the island. It was reported that North had been forbidden to visit the convict, but that he had refused to accept the prohibition, and by a threat of what he would do when the returning vessel had landed him in Hobart Town, had compelled the Commandant to withdraw his order. The Commandant, however, speedily discovered in Rufus Dawes signs of insubordination, and set to work again to reduce still further the "spirit" he had so ingeniously "broken". The unhappy convict was deprived of food, was kept awake at nights, was put to the hardest labour, was loaded with the heaviest irons. Troke, with devilish malice, suggested that, if the tortured wretch would decline to see the chaplain, some amelioration of his condition might be effected; but his suggestions were in vain. Fully believing that his death was certain, Dawes clung to North as the saviour of his agonized soul, and rejected all such insidious overtures. Enraged at this obstinacy, Frere sentenced his victim to the "spread eagle" and the "stretcher".

Now the rumour of the obduracy of this undaunted convict who had been recalled to her by the clergyman at their strange interview, had reached Sylvia's ears. She had heard gloomy hints of the punishments inflicted on him by her husband's order, and as—constantly revolving in her mind was that last conversation with the chaplain—she wondered at the prisoner's strange fancy for a flower, her brain began to thrill with those undefined and dreadful memories which had haunted her childhood. What was the link between her and this murderous villain? How came it that she felt at times so strange a sympathy for his fate, and that he—who had attempted her life—cherished so tender a remembrance of her as to beg for a flower which her hand had touched?

She questioned her husband concerning the convict's misdoings, but with the petulant brutality which he invariably displayed when the name of Rufus Dawes intruded itself into their conversation, Maurice Frere harshly refused to satisfy her. This but raised her curiosity higher. She reflected how bitter he had always seemed against this man—she remembered how, in the garden at Hobart Town, the hunted wretch had caught her dress with words of assured confidence—she recollected the fragment of cloth he passionately flung from him, and which her affianced lover had contemptuously tossed into the stream. The name of "Dawes", detested as it had become to her, bore yet some strange association of comfort and hope. What secret lurked behind the twilight that had fallen upon her childish memories? Deprived of the advice of North—to whom, a few weeks back, she would have confided her misgivings—she resolved upon a project that, for her, was most distasteful. She would herself visit the gaol and judge how far the rumours of her husband's cruelty were worthy of credit.

One sultry afternoon, when the Commandant had gone on a visit of inspection, Troke, lounging at the door of the New Prison, beheld, with surprise, the figure of the Commandant's lady.

"What is it, mam?" he asked, scarcely able to believe his eyes.

"I want to see the prisoner Dawes."

Troke's jaw fell.

"See Dawes?" he repeated.

"Yes. Where is he?"

Troke was preparing a lie. The imperious voice, and the clear, steady gaze, confused him.

"He's here."

"Let me see him."

"He's—he's under punishment, mam."

"What do you mean? Are they flogging him?"

"No; but he's dangerous, mam. The Commandant—"

"Do you mean to open the door or not, Mr. Troke?"

Troke grew more confused. It was evident that he was most unwilling to open the door. "The Commandant has given strict orders—"

"Do you wish me to complain to the Commandant?" cries Sylvia, with a touch of her old spirit, and jumped hastily at the conclusion that the gaolers were, perhaps, torturing the convict for their own entertainment. "Open the door at once!—at once!"

Thus commanded, Troke, with a hasty growl of its "being no affair of his, and he hoped Mrs. Frere would tell the captain how it happened" flung open the door of a cell on the right hand of the doorway. It was so dark that, at first, Sylvia could distinguish nothing but the outline of a framework, with something stretched upon it that resembled a human body. Her first thought was that the man was dead, but this was not so—he groaned. Her eyes, accustoming themselves to the gloom, began to see what the "punishment" was. Upon the floor was placed an iron frame about six feet long, and two and a half feet wide, with round iron bars, placed transversely, about twelve inches apart. The man she came to seek was bound in a horizontal position upon this frame, with his neck projecting over the end of it. If he allowed his head to hang, the blood rushed to his brain, and suffocated him, while the effort to keep it raised strained every muscle to agony pitch. His face was purple, and he foamed at the mouth. Sylvia uttered a cry. "This is no punishment; it's murder! Who ordered this?"

"The Commandant," said Troke sullenly.

"I don't believe it. Loose him!"

"I daren't mam," said Troke.

"Loose him, I say! Hailey!—you, sir, there!" The noise had brought several warders to the spot. "Do you hear me? Do you know who I am? Loose him, I say!" In her eagerness and compassion she was on her knees by the side of the infernal machine, plucking at the ropes with her delicate fingers. "Wretches, you have cut his flesh! He is dying! Help! You have killed him!" The prisoner, in fact, seeing this angel of mercy stooping over him, and hearing close to him the tones of a voice that for seven years he had heard but in his dreams, had fainted. Troke and Hailey, alarmed by her vehemence, dragged the stretcher out into the light, and hastily cut the lashings. Dawes rolled off like a log, and his head fell against Mrs. Frere. Troke roughly pulled him aside, and called for water. Sylvia, trembling with sympathy and pale with passion, turned upon the crew. "How long has he been like this?"

"An hour," said Troke.

"A lie!" said a stern voice at the door. "He has been there nine hours!"

"Wretches!" cried Sylvia, "you shall hear more of this. Oh, oh! I am sick!"—she felt for the wall—"I—I—" North watched her with agony on his face, but did not move. "I faint. I—"—she uttered a despairing cry that was not without a touch of anger. "Mr. North! do you not see? Oh! Take me home—take me home!" and she would have fallen across the body of the tortured prisoner had not North caught her in his arms.

Rufus Dawes, awaking from his stupor, saw, in the midst of a sunbeam which penetrated a window in the corridor, the woman who came to save his body supported by the priest who came to save his soul; and staggering to his knees, he stretched out his hands with a hoarse cry. Perhaps something in the action brought back to the dimmed remembrance of the Commandant's wife the image of a similar figure stretching forth its hands to a frightened child in the mysterious far-off time. She started, and pushing back her hair, bent a wistful, terrified gaze upon the face of the kneeling man, as though she would fain read there an explanation of the shadowy memory which haunted her. It is possible that she would have spoken, but North—thinking the excitement had produced one of those hysterical crises which were common to her—gently drew her, still gazing, back towards the gate. The convict's arms fell, and an undefinable presentiment of evil chilled him as he beheld the priest—emotion pallid in his cheeks—slowly draw the fair young creature from out the sunlight into the grim shadow of the heavy archway. For an instant the gloom swallowed them, and it seemed to Dawes that the strange wild man of God had in that instant become a man of Evil—blighting the brightness and the beauty of the innocence that clung to him. For an instant—and then they passed out of the prison archway into the free air of heaven—and the sunlight glowed golden on their faces.

"You are ill," said North. "You will faint. Why do you look so wildly?"

"What is it?" she whispered, more in answer to her own thoughts than to his question—"what is it that links me to that man? What deed—what terror—what memory? I tremble with crowding thoughts, that die ere they can whisper to me. Oh, that prison!"

"Look up; we are in the sunshine."

She passed her hand across her brow, sighing heavily, as one awaking from a disturbed slumber—shuddered, and withdrew her arm from his. North interpreted the action correctly, and the blood rushed to his face. "Pardon me, you cannot walk alone; you will fall. I will leave you at the gate."

In truth she would have fallen had he not again assisted her. She turned upon him eyes whose reproachful sorrow had almost forced him to a confession, but he bowed his head and held silence. They reached the house, and he placed her tenderly in a chair. "Now you are safe, madam, I will leave you."

She burst into tears. "Why do you treat me thus, Mr. North? What have I done to make you hate me?"

"Hate you!" said North, with trembling lips. "Oh, no, I do not—do not hate you. I am rude in my speech, abrupt in my manner. You must forget it, and—and me." A horse's feet crashed upon the gravel, and an instant after Maurice Frere burst into the room. Returning from the Cascades, he had met Troke, and learned the release of the prisoner. Furious at this usurpation of authority by his wife, his self-esteem wounded by the thought that she had witnessed his mean revenge upon the man he had so infamously wronged, and his natural brutality enhanced by brandy, he had made for the house at full gallop, determined to assert his authority. Blind with rage, he saw no one but his wife. "What the devil's this I hear? You have been meddling in my business! You release prisoners! You—"

"Captain Frere!" said North, stepping forward to assert the restraining presence of a stranger. Frere started, astonished at the intrusion of the chaplain. Here was another outrage of his dignity, another insult to his supreme authority. In its passion, his gross mind leapt to the worst conclusion. "You here, too! What do you want here—with my wife! This is your quarrel, is it?" His eyes glanced wrathfully from one to the other; and he strode towards North. "You infernal hypocritical lying scoundrel, if it wasn't for your black coat, I'd—"

"Maurice!" cried Sylvia, in an agony of shame and terror, striving to place a restraining hand upon his arm. He turned upon her with so fiercely infamous a curse that North, pale with righteous rage, seemed prompted to strike the burly ruffian to the earth. For a moment, the two men faced each other, and then Frere, muttering threats of vengeance against each and all—convicts, gaolers, wife, and priest—flung the suppliant woman violently from him, and rushed from the room. She fell heavily against the wall, and as the chaplain raised her, he heard the hoof-strokes of the departing horse.

"Oh," cried Sylvia, covering her face with trembling hands, "let me leave this place!"

North, enfolding her in his arms, strove to soothe her with incoherent words of comfort. Dizzy with the blow she had received, she clung to him sobbing. Twice he tried to tear himself away, but had he loosed his hold she would have fallen. He could not hold her—bruised, suffering, and in tears—thus against his heart, and keep silence. In a torrent of agonized eloquence the story of his love burst from his lips. "Why should you be thus tortured?" he cried. "Heaven never willed you to be mated to that boor—you, whose life should be all sunshine. Leave him—leave him. He has cast you off. We have both suffered. Let us leave this dreadful place—this isthmus between earth and hell! I will give you happiness."

"I am going," she said faintly. "I have already arranged to go."

North trembled. "It was not of my seeking. Fate has willed it. We go together!"

They looked at each other—she felt the fever of his blood, she read his passion in his eyes, she comprehended the "hatred" he had affected for her, and, deadly pale, drew back the cold hand he held.

"Go!" she murmured. "If you love me, leave me—leave me! Do not see me or speak to me again—" her silence added the words she could not utter, "till then."



CHAPTER XIV. GETTING READY FOR SEA.



Maurice Frere's passion had spent itself in that last act of violence. He did not return to the prison, as he promised himself, but turned into the road that led to the Cascades. He repented him of his suspicions. There was nothing strange in the presence of the chaplain. Sylvia had always liked the man, and an apology for his conduct had doubtless removed her anger. To make a mountain out of a molehill was the act of an idiot. It was natural that she should release Dawes—women were so tender-hearted. A few well-chosen, calmly-uttered platitudes anent the necessity for the treatment that, to those unaccustomed to the desperate wickedness of convicts, must appear harsh, would have served his turn far better than bluster and abuse. Moreover, North was to sail in the Lady Franklin, and might put in execution his threats of official complaint, unless he was carefully dealt with. To put Dawes again to the torture would be to show to Troke and his friends that the "Commandant's wife" had acted without the "Commandant's authority", and that must not be shown. He would now return and patch up a peace. His wife would sail in the same vessel with North, and he would in a few days be left alone on the island to pursue his "discipline" unchecked. With this intent he returned to the prison, and gravely informed poor Troke that he was astonished at his barbarity. "Mrs. Frere, who most luckily had appointed to meet me this evening at the prison, tells me that the poor devil Dawes had been on the stretcher since seven o'clock this morning."

"You ordered it fust thing, yer honour," said Troke.

"Yes, you fool, but I didn't order you to keep the man there for nine hours, did I? Why, you scoundrel, you might have killed him!" Troke scratched his head in bewilderment. "Take his irons off, and put him in a separate cell in the old gaol. If a man is a murderer, that is no reason you should take the law into your own hands, is it? You'd better take care, Mr. Troke." On the way back he met the chaplain, who, seeing him, made for a by-path in curious haste. "Halloo!" roared Frere. "Hi! Mr. North!" Mr. North paused, and the Commandant made at him abruptly. "Look here, sir, I was rude to you just now—devilish rude. Most ungentlemanly of me. I must apologize." North bowed, without speaking, and tried to pass.

"You must excuse my violence," Frere went on. "I'm bad-tempered, and I didn't like my wife interfering. Women, don't you know, don't see these things—don't understand these scoundrels." North again bowed. "Why, d—n it, how savage you look! Quite ghastly, bigod! I must have said most outrageous things. Forget and forgive, you know. Come home and have some dinner."

"I cannot enter your house again, sir," said North, in tones more agitated than the occasion would seem to warrant.

Frere shrugged his great shoulders with a clumsy affectation of good humour, and held out his hand. "Well, shake hands, parson. You'll have to take care of Mrs. Frere on the voyage, and we may as well make up our differences before you start. Shake hands."

"Let me pass, sir!" cried North, with heightened colour; and ignoring the proffered hand, strode savagely on.

"You've a d—d fine temper for a parson," said Frere to himself. "However, if you won't, you won't. Hang me if I'll ask you again." Nor, when he reached home, did he fare better in his efforts at reconciliation with his wife. Sylvia met him with the icy front of a woman whose pride has been wounded too deeply for tears.

"Say no more about it," she said. "I am going to my father. If you want to explain your conduct, explain it to him."

"Come, Sylvia," he urged; "I was a brute, I know. Forgive me."

"It is useless to ask me," she said; "I cannot. I have forgiven you so much during the last seven years."

He attempted to embrace her, but she withdrew herself loathingly from his arms. He swore a great oath at her, and, too obstinate to argue farther, sulked. Blunt, coming in about some ship matters, the pair drank rum. Sylvia went to her room and occupied herself with some minor details of clothes-packing (it is wonderful how women find relief from thoughts in household care), while North, poor fool, seeing from his window the light in hers, sat staring at it, alternately cursing and praying. In the meantime, the unconscious cause of all of this—Rufus Dawes—sat in his new cell, wondering at the chance which had procured him comfort, and blessing the fair hands that had brought it to him. He doubted not but that Sylvia had interceded with his tormentor, and by gentle pleading brought him ease. "God bless her," he murmured. "I have wronged her all these years. She did not know that I suffered." He waited anxiously for North to visit him, that he might have his belief confirmed. "I will get him to thank her for me," he thought. But North did not come for two whole days. No one came but his gaolers; and, gazing from his prison window upon the sea that almost washed its walls, he saw the schooner at anchor, mocking him with a liberty he could not achieve. On the third day, however, North came. His manner was constrained and abrupt. His eyes wandered uneasily, and he seemed burdened with thoughts which he dared not utter.

"I want you to thank her for me, Mr. North," said Dawes.

"Thank whom?"

"Mrs. Frere."

The unhappy priest shuddered at hearing the name.

"I do not think you owe any thanks to her. Your irons were removed by the Commandant's order."

"But by her persuasion. I feel sure of it. Ah, I was wrong to think she had forgotten me. Ask her for her forgiveness."

"Forgiveness!" said North, recalling the scene in the prison. "What have you done to need her forgiveness?"

"I doubted her," said Rufus Dawes. "I thought her ungrateful and treacherous. I thought she delivered me again into the bondage from whence I had escaped. I thought she had betrayed me—betrayed me to the villain whose base life I saved for her sweet sake."

"What do you mean?" asked North. "You never spoke to me of this."

"No, I had vowed to bury the knowledge of it in my own breast—it was too bitter to speak."

"Saved his life!"

"Ay, and hers! I made the boat that carried her to freedom. I held her in my arms, and took the bread from my own lips to feed her!"

"She cannot know this," said North in an undertone.

"She has forgotten it, perhaps, for she was but a child. But you will remind her, will you not? You will do me justice in her eyes before I die? You will get her forgiveness for me?"

North could not explain why such an interview as the convict desired was impossible, and so he promised.

"She is going away in the schooner," said he, concealing the fact of his own departure. "I will see her before she goes, and tell her."

"God bless you, sir," said poor Dawes. "Now pray with me"; and the wretched priest mechanically repeated one of the formulae his Church prescribes.

The next day he told his penitent that Mrs. Frere had forgiven him. This was a lie. He had not seen her; but what should a lie be to him now? Lies were needful in the tortuous path he had undertaken to tread. Yet the deceit he was forced to practise cost him many a pang. He had succumbed to his passion, and to win the love for which he yearned had voluntarily abandoned truth and honour; but standing thus alone with his sin, he despised and hated himself. To deaden remorse and drown reflection, he had recourse to brandy, and though the fierce excitement of his hopes and fears steeled him against the stupefying action of the liquor, he was rendered by it incapable of calm reflection. In certain nervous conditions our mere physical powers are proof against the action of alcohol, and though ten times more drunk than the toper, who, incoherently stammering, reels into the gutter, we can walk erect and talk with fluency. Indeed, in this artificial exaltation of the sensibilities, men often display a brilliant wit, and an acuteness of comprehension, calculated to delight their friends, and terrify their physicians. North had reached this condition of brain-drunkenness. In plain terms, he was trembling on the verge of madness.

The days passed swiftly, and Blunt's preparations for sea were completed. There were two stern cabins in the schooner, one of which was appropriated to Mrs. Frere, while the other was set apart for North. Maurice had not attempted to renew his overtures of friendship, and the chaplain had not spoken. Mindful of Sylvia's last words, he had resolved not to meet her until fairly embarked upon the voyage which he intended should link their fortunes together. On the morning of the 19th December, Blunt declared himself ready to set sail, and in the afternoon the two passengers came on board.

Rufus Dawes, gazing from his window upon the schooner that lay outside the reef, thought nothing of the fact that, after the Commandant's boat had taken away the Commandant's wife another boat should put off with the chaplain. It was quite natural that Mr. North should desire to bid his friends farewell, and through the hot, still afternoon he watched for the returning boat, hoping that the chaplain would bring him some message from the woman whom he was never to see more on earth. The hours wore on, however, and no breath of wind ruffled the surface of the sea. The day was exceedingly close and sultry, heavy dun clouds hung on the horizon, and it seemed probable that unless a thunder-storm should clear the air before night, the calm would continue. Blunt, however, with a true sailor's obstinacy in regard to weather, swore there would be a breeze, and held to his purpose of sailing. The hot afternoon passed away in a sultry sunset, and it was not until the shades of evening had begun to fall that Rufus Dawes distinguished a boat detach itself from the sides of the schooner, and glide through the oily water to the jetty. The chaplain was returning, and in a few hours perhaps would be with him, to bring him the message of comfort for which his soul thirsted. He stretched out his unshackled limbs, and throwing himself upon his stretcher, fell to recalling the past—his boat-building, the news of his fortune, his love, and his self-sacrifice.

North, however, was not returning to bring to the prisoner a message of comfort, but he was returning on purpose to see him, nevertheless. The unhappy man, torn by remorse and passion, had resolved upon a course of action which seemed to him a penance for his crime of deceit. He determined to confess to Dawes that the message he had brought was wholly fictitious, that he himself loved the wife of the Commandant, and that with her he was about to leave the island for ever. "I am no hypocrite," he thought, in his exaltation. "If I choose to sin, I will sin boldly; and this poor wretch, who looks up to me as an angel, shall know me for my true self."

The notion of thus destroying his own fame in the eyes of the man whom he had taught to love him, was pleasant to his diseased imagination. It was the natural outcome of the morbid condition of mind into which he had drifted, and he provided for the complete execution of his scheme with cunning born of the mischief working in his brain. It was desirable that the fatal stroke should be dealt at the last possible instant; that he should suddenly unveil his own infamy, and then depart, never to be seen again. To this end he had invented an excuse for returning to the shore at the latest possible moment. He had purposely left in his room a dressing-bag—the sort of article one is likely to forget in the hurry of departure from one's house, and so certain to remember when the time comes to finally prepare for settling in another. He had ingeniously extracted from Blunt the fact that "he didn't expect a wind before dark, but wanted all ship-shape and aboard", and then, just as darkness fell, discovered that it was imperative for him to go ashore. Blunt cursed, but, if the chaplain insisted upon going, there was no help for it.

"There'll be a breeze in less than two hours," said he. "You've plenty of time, but if you're not back before the first puff, I'll sail without you, as sure as you're born." North assured him of his punctuality. "Don't wait for me, Captain, if I'm not here," said he with the lightness of tone which men use to mask anxiety. "I'd take him at his word, Blunt," said the Commandant, who was affably waiting to take final farewell of his wife. "Give way there, men," he shouted to the crew, "and wait at the jetty. If Mr. North misses his ship through your laziness, you'll pay for it." So the boat set off, North laughing uproariously at the thought of being late. Frere observed with some astonishment that the chaplain wrapped himself in a boat cloak that lay in the stern sheets. "Does the fellow want to smother himself in a night like this!" was his remark. The truth was that, though his hands and head were burning, North's teeth chattered with cold. Perhaps this was the reason why, when landed and out of eyeshot of the crew, he produced a pocket-flask of rum and eagerly drank. The spirit gave him courage for the ordeal to which he had condemned himself; and with steadied step, he reached the door of the old prison. To his surprise, Gimblett refused him admission!

"But I have come direct from the Commandant," said North.

"Got any order, sir?"

"Order! No."

"I can't let you in, your reverence," said Gimblett.

"I want to see the prisoner Dawes. I have a special message for him. I have come ashore on purpose."

"I am very sorry, sir—"

"The ship will sail in two hours, man, and I shall miss her," said North, indignant at being frustrated in his design. "Let me pass."

"Upon my honour, sir, I daren't," said Gimblett, who was not without his good points. "You know what authority is, sir."

North was in despair, but a bright thought struck him—a thought that, in his soberer moments, would never have entered his head—he would buy admission. He produced the rum flask from beneath the sheltering cloak. "Come, don't talk nonsense to me, Gimblett. You don't suppose I would come here without authority. Here, take a pull at this, and let me through." Gimblett's features relaxed into a smile. "Well, sir, I suppose it's all right, if you say so," said he. And clutching the rum bottle with one hand, he opened the door of Dawes's cell with the other.

North entered, and as the door closed behind him, the prisoner, who had been lying apparently asleep upon his bed, leapt up, and made as though to catch him by the throat.



Rufus Dawes had dreamt a dream. Alone, amid the gathering glooms, his fancy had recalled the past, and had peopled it with memories. He thought that he was once more upon the barren strand where he had first met with the sweet child he loved. He lived again his life of usefulness and honour. He saw himself working at the boat, embarking, and putting out to sea. The fair head of the innocent girl was again pillowed on his breast; her young lips again murmured words of affection in his greedy ear. Frere was beside him, watching him, as he had watched before. Once again the grey sea spread around him, barren of succour. Once again, in the wild, wet morning, he beheld the American brig bearing down upon them, and saw the bearded faces of the astonished crew. He saw Frere take the child in his arms and mount upon the deck; he heard the shout of delight that went up, and pressed again the welcoming hands which greeted the rescued castaways. The deck was crowded. All the folk he had ever known were there. He saw the white hair and stern features of Sir Richard Devine, and beside him stood, wringing her thin hands, his weeping mother. Then Frere strode forward, and after him John Rex, the convict, who, roughly elbowing through the crowd of prisoners and gaolers, would have reached the spot where stood Sir Richard Devine, but that the corpse of the murdered Lord Bellasis arose and thrust him back. How the hammers clattered in the shipbuilder's yard! Was it a coffin they were making? Not for Sylvia—surely not for her! The air grows heavy, lurid with flame, and black with smoke. The Hydaspes is on fire! Sylvia clings to her husband. Base wretch, would you shake her off! Look up; the midnight heaven is glittering with stars; above the smoke the air breathes delicately! One step—another! Fix your eyes on mine—so—to my heart! Alas! she turns; he catches at her dress. What! It is a priest—a priest—who, smiling with infernal joy, would drag her to the flaming gulf that yawns for him. The dreamer leaps at the wretch's throat, and crying, "Villain, was it for this fate I saved her?"—and awakes to find himself struggling with the monster of his dream, the idol of his waking senses—"Mr. North."



North, paralysed no less by the suddenness of the attack than by the words with which it was accompanied, let fall his cloak, and stood trembling before the prophetic accusation of the man whose curses he had come to earn.

"I was dreaming," said Rufus Dawes. "A terrible dream! But it has passed now. The message—you have brought me a message, have you not? Why—what ails you? You are pale—your knees tremble. Did my violence——?"

North recovered himself with a great effort. "It is nothing. Let us talk, for my time is short. You have thought me a good man—one blessed of God, one consecrated to a holy service; a man honest, pure, and truthful. I have returned to tell you the truth. I am none of these things." Rufus Dawes sat staring, unable to comprehend this madness. "I told you that the woman you loved—for you do love her—sent you a message of forgiveness. I lied."

"What!"

"I never told her of your confession. I never mentioned your name to her."

"And she will go without knowing—Oh, Mr. North, what have you done?"

"Wrecked my own soul!" cried North, wildly, stung by the reproachful agony of the tone. "Do not cling to me. My task is done. You will hate me now. That is my wish—I merit it. Let me go, I say. I shall be too late."

"Too late! For what?" He looked at the cloak—through the open window came the voices of the men in the boat—the memory of the rose, of the scene in the prison, flashed across him, and he understood it all.

"Great Heaven, you go together!"

"Let me go," repeated North, in a hoarse voice.

Rufus Dawes stepped between him and the door. "No, madman, I will not let you go, to do this great wrong, to kill this innocent young soul, who—God help her—loves you!" North, confounded at this sudden reversal of their position towards each other, crouched bewildered against the wall. "I say you shall not go! You shall not destroy your own soul and hers! You love her! So do I! and my love is mightier than yours, for it shall save her!"

"In God's name—" cried the unhappy priest, striving to stop his ears.

"Ay, in God's name! In the name of that God whom in my torments I had forgotten! In the name of that God whom you taught me to remember! That God who sent you to save me from despair, gives me strength to save you in my turn! Oh, Mr. North—my teacher—my friend—my brother—by the sweet hope of mercy which you preached to me, be merciful to this erring woman!"

North lifted agonized eyes. "But I love her! Love her, do you hear? What do you know of love?"

"Love!" cried Rufus Dawes, his pale face radiant. "Love! Oh, it is you who do not know it. Love is the sacrifice of self, the death of all desire that is not for another's good. Love is Godlike! You love?—no, no, your love is selfishness, and will end in shame! Listen, I will tell you the history of such a love as yours."

North, enthralled by the other's overmastering will, fell back trembling.

"I will tell you the secret of my life, the reason why I am here. Come closer."

* * * * *



CHAPTER XV. THE DISCOVERY.



The house in Clarges Street was duly placed at the disposal of Mrs. Richard Devine, who was installed in it, to the profound astonishment and disgust of Mr. Smithers and his fellow-servants. It now only remained that the lady should be formally recognized by Lady Devine. The rest of the ingenious programme would follow as a matter of course. John Rex was well aware of the position which, in his assumed personality, he occupied in society. He knew that by the world of servants, of waiters, of those to whom servants and waiters could babble; of such turfites and men-about-town as had reason to inquire concerning Mr. Richard's domestic affairs—no opinion could be expressed, save that "Devine's married somebody, I hear," with variations to the same effect. He knew well that the really great world, the Society, whose scandal would have been socially injurious, had long ceased to trouble itself with Mr. Richard Devine's doings in any particular. If it had been reported that the Leviathan of the Turf had married his washerwoman, Society would only have intimated that "it was just what might have been expected of him". To say the truth, however, Mr. Richard had rather hoped that—disgusted at his brutality—Lady Devine would have nothing more to do with him, and that the ordeal of presenting his wife would not be necessary. Lady Devine, however, had resolved on a different line of conduct. The intelligence concerning Mr. Richard Devine's threatened proceedings seemed to nerve her to the confession of the dislike which had been long growing in her mind; seemed even to aid the formation of those doubts, the shadows of which had now and then cast themselves upon her belief in the identity of the man who called himself her son. "His conduct is brutal," said she to her brother. "I cannot understand it."

"It is more than brutal; it is unnatural," returned Francis Wade, and stole a look at her. "Moreover, he is married."

"Married!" cried Lady Devine.

"So he says," continued the other, producing the letter sent to him by Rex at Sarah's dictation. "He writes to me stating that his wife, whom he married last year abroad, has come to England, and wishes us to receive her."

"I will not receive her!" cried Lady Devine, rising and pacing down the path.

"But that would be a declaration of war," said poor Francis, twisting an Italian onyx which adorned his irresolute hand. "I would not advise that."

Lady Devine stopped suddenly, with the gesture of one who has finally made a difficult and long-considered resolution. "Richard shall not sell this house," she said.

"But, my dear Ellinor," cried her brother, in some alarm at this unwonted decision, "I am afraid that you can't prevent him."

"If he is the man he says he is, I can," returned she, with effort.

Francis Wade gasped. "If he is the man! It is true—I have sometimes thought—Oh, Ellinor, can it be that we have been deceived?"

She came to him and leant upon him for support, as she had leant upon her son in the garden where they now stood, nineteen years ago. "I do not know, I am afraid to think. But between Richard and myself is a secret—a shameful secret, Frank, known to no other living person. If the man who threatens me does not know that secret, he is not my son. If he does know it——"

"Well, in Heaven's name, what then?"

"He knows that he has neither part nor lot in the fortune of the man who was my husband."

"Ellinor, you terrify me. What does this mean?"

"I will tell you if there be need to do so," said the unhappy lady. "But I cannot now. I never meant to speak of it again, even to him. Consider that it is hard to break a silence of nearly twenty years. Write to this man, and tell him that before I receive his wife, I wish to see him alone. No—do not let him come here until the truth be known. I will go to him."

It was with some trepidation that Mr. Richard, sitting with his wife on the afternoon of the 3rd May, 1846, awaited the arrival of his mother. He had been very nervous and unstrung for some days past, and the prospect of the coming interview was, for some reason he could not explain to himself, weighty with fears. "What does she want to come alone for? And what can she have to say?" he asked himself. "She cannot suspect anything after all these years, surely?" He endeavoured to reason with himself, but in vain; the knock at the door which announced the arrival of his pretended mother made his heart jump.

"I feel deuced shaky, Sarah," he said. "Let's have a nip of something."

"You've been nipping too much for the last five years, Dick." (She had quite schooled her tongue to the new name.) "Your 'shakiness' is the result of 'nipping', I'm afraid."

"Oh, don't preach; I am not in the humour for it."

"Help yourself, then. You are quite sure that you are ready with your story?"

The brandy revived him, and he rose with affected heartiness. "My dear mother, allow me to present to you—" He paused, for there was that in Lady Devine's face which confirmed his worst fears.

"I wish to speak to you alone," she said, ignoring with steady eyes the woman whom she had ostensibly come to see.

John Rex hesitated, but Sarah saw the danger, and hastened to confront it. "A wife should be a husband's best friend, madam. Your son married me of his own free will, and even his mother can have nothing to say to him which it is not my duty and privilege to hear. I am not a girl as you can see, and I can bear whatever news you bring."

Lady Devine bit her pale lips. She saw at once that the woman before her was not gently-born, but she felt also that she was a woman of higher mental calibre than herself. Prepared as she was for the worst, this sudden and open declaration of hostilities frightened her, as Sarah had calculated. She began to realize that if she was to prove equal to the task she had set herself, she must not waste her strength in skirmishing. Steadily refusing to look at Richard's wife, she addressed herself to Richard. "My brother will be here in half an hour," she said, as though the mention of his name would better her position in some way. "But I begged him to allow me to come first in order that I might speak to you privately."

"Well," said John Rex, "we are in private. What have you to say?"

"I want to tell you that I forbid you to carry out the plan you have for breaking up Sir Richard's property."

"Forbid me!" cried Rex, much relieved. "Why, I only want to do what my father's will enables me to do."

"Your father's will enables you to do nothing of the sort, and you know it." She spoke as though rehearsing a series of set-speeches, and Sarah watched her with growing alarm.

"Oh, nonsense!" cries John Rex, in sheer amazement. "I have a lawyer's opinion on it."

"Do you remember what took place at Hampstead this day nineteen years ago?"

"At Hampstead!" said Rex, grown suddenly pale. "This day nineteen years ago. No! What do you mean?"

"Do you not remember?" she continued, leaning forward eagerly, and speaking almost fiercely. "Do you not remember the reason why you left the house where you were born, and which you now wish to sell to strangers?"

John Rex stood dumbfounded, the blood suffusing his temples. He knew that among the secrets of the man whose inheritance he had stolen was one which he had never gained—the secret of that sacrifice to which Lady Devine had once referred—and he felt that this secret was to be revealed to crush him now.

Sarah, trembling also, but more with rage than terror, swept towards Lady Devine. "Speak out!" she said, "if you have anything to say! Of what do you accuse my husband?"

"Of imposture!" cried Lady Devine, all her outraged maternity nerving her to abash her enemy. "This man may be your husband, but he is not my son!"

Now that the worst was out, John Rex, choking with passion, felt all the devil within him rebelling against defeat. "You are mad," he said. "You have recognized me for three years, and now, because I want to claim that which is my own, you invent this lie. Take care how you provoke me. If I am not your son—you have recognized me as such. I stand upon the law and upon my rights."

Lady Devine turned swiftly, and with both hands to her bosom, confronted him.

"You shall have your rights! You shall have what the law allows you! Oh, how blind I have been all these years. Persist in your infamous imposture. Call yourself Richard Devine still, and I will tell the world the shameful secret which my son died to hide. Be Richard Devine! Richard Devine was a bastard, and the law allows him—nothing!"

There was no doubting the truth of her words. It was impossible that even a woman whose home had been desecrated, as hers had been, would invent a lie so self-condemning. Yet John Rex forced himself to appear to doubt, and his dry lips asked, "If then your husband was not the father of your son, who was?"

"My cousin, Armigell Esme Wade, Lord Bellasis," answered Lady Devine.

John Rex gasped for breath. His hand, tugging at his neck-cloth, rent away the linen that covered his choking throat. The whole horizon of his past was lit up by a lightning flash which stunned him. His brain, already enfeebled by excess, was unable to withstand this last shock. He staggered, and but for the cabinet against which he leant, would have fallen. The secret thoughts of his heart rose to his lips, and were uttered unconsciously. "Lord Bellasis! He was my father also, and—I killed him!"

A dreadful silence fell, and then Lady Devine, stretching out her hands towards the self-confessed murderer, with a sort of frightful respect, said in a whisper, in which horror and supplication were strangely mingled, "What did you do with my son? Did you kill him also?"

But John Rex, wagging his head from side to side, like a beast in the shambles that has received a mortal stroke, made no reply. Sarah Purfoy, awed as she was by the dramatic force of the situation, nevertheless remembered that Francis Wade might arrive at any moment, and saw her last opportunity for safety. She advanced and touched the mother on the shoulder.

"Your son is alive!"

"Where?"

"Will you promise not to hinder us leaving this house if I tell you?"

"Yes, yes."

"Will you promise to keep the confession which you have heard secret, until we have left England?"

"I promise anything. In God's name, woman, if you have a woman's heart, speak! Where is my son?"

Sarah Purfoy rose over the enemy who had defeated her, and said in level, deliberate accents, "They call him Rufus Dawes. He is a convict at Norfolk Island, transported for life for the murder which you have heard my husband confess to having committed—Ah!——"

Lady Devine had fainted.



CHAPTER XVI. FIFTEEN HOURS.



Sarah flew to Rex. "Rouse yourself, John, for Heaven's sake. We have not a moment." John Rex passed his hand over his forehead wearily.

"I cannot think. I am broken down. I am ill. My brain seems dead."

Nervously watching the prostrate figure on the floor, she hurried on bonnet, cloak, and veil, and in a twinkling had him outside the house and into a cab.

"Thirty-nine, Lombard Street. Quick!"

"You won't give me up?" said Rex, turning dull eyes upon her.

"Give you up? No. But the police will be after us as soon as that woman can speak, and her brother summon his lawyer. I know what her promise is worth. We have only got about fifteen hours start."

"I can't go far, Sarah," said he; "I am sleepy and stupid."

She repressed the terrible fear that tugged at her heart, and strove to rally him.

"You've been drinking too much, John. Now sit still and be good, while I go and get some money for you."

She hurried into the bank, and her name secured her an interview with the manager at once.

"That's a rich woman," said one of the clerks to his friend. "A widow, too! Chance for you, Tom," returned the other; and, presently, from out the sacred presence came another clerk with a request for "a draft on Sydney for three thousand, less premium", and bearing a cheque signed "Sarah Carr" for L200, which he "took" in notes, and so returned again.

From the bank she was taken to Green's Shipping Office. "I want a cabin in the first ship for Sydney, please."

The shipping-clerk looked at a board. "The Highflyer goes in twelve days, madam, and there is one cabin vacant."

"I want to go at once—to-morrow or next day."

He smiled. "I am afraid that is impossible," said he. Just then one of the partners came out of his private room with a telegram in his hand, and beckoned the shipping-clerk. Sarah was about to depart for another office, when the clerk came hastily back.

"Just the thing for you, ma'am," said he. "We have got a telegram from a gentleman who has a first cabin in the Dido, to say that his wife has been taken ill, and he must give up his berth."

"When does the Dido sail?"

"To-morrow morning. She is at Plymouth, waiting for the mails. If you go down to-night by the mail-train which leaves at 9.30, you will be in plenty of time, and we will telegraph."

"I will take the cabin. How much?"

"One hundred and thirty pounds, madam," said he.

She produced her notes. "Pray count it yourself. We have been delayed in the same manner ourselves. My husband is a great invalid, but I was not so fortunate as to get someone to refund us our passage-money."

"What name did you say?" asked the clerk, counting. "Mr. and Mrs. Carr. Thank you," and he handed her the slip of paper.

"Thank you," said Sarah, with a bewitching smile, and swept down to her cab again. John Rex was gnawing his nails in sullen apathy. She displayed the passage-ticket. "You are saved. By the time Mr. Francis Wade gets his wits together, and his sister recovers her speech, we shall be past pursuit."

"To Sydney!" cries Rex angrily, looking at the warrant. "Why there of all places in God's earth?"

Sarah surveyed him with an expression of contempt. "Because your scheme has failed. Now this is mine. You have deserted me once; you will do so again in any other country. You are a murderer, a villain, and a coward, but you suit me. I save you, but I mean to keep you. I will bring you to Australia, where the first trooper will arrest you at my bidding as an escaped convict. If you don't like to come, stay behind. I don't care. I am rich. I have done no wrong. The law cannot touch me—Do you agree? Then tell the man to drive to Silver's in Cornhill for your outfit."

Having housed him at last—all gloomy and despondent—in a quiet tavern near the railway station, she tried to get some information as to this last revealed crime.

"How came you to kill Lord Bellasis?" she asked him quietly.

"I had found out from my mother that I was his natural son, and one day riding home from a pigeon match I told him so. He taunted me—and I struck him. I did not mean to kill him, but he was an old man, and in my passion I struck hard. As he fell, I thought I saw a horseman among the trees, and I galloped off. My ill-luck began then, for the same night I was arrested at the coiner's."

"But I thought there was robbery," said she.

"Not by me. But, for God's sake, talk no more about it. I am sick—my brain is going round. I want to sleep."

"Be careful, please! Lift him gently!" said Mrs. Carr, as the boat ranged alongside the Dido, gaunt and grim, in the early dawn of a bleak May morning.

"What's the matter?" asked the officer of the watch, perceiving the bustle in the boat.

"Gentleman seems to have had a stroke," said a boatman.

It was so. There was no fear that John Rex would escape again from the woman he had deceived. The infernal genius of Sarah Purfoy had saved her lover at last—but saved him only that she might nurse him till he died—died ignorant even of her tenderness, a mere animal, lacking the intellect he had in his selfish wickedness abused.



CHAPTER XVII. THE REDEMPTION.



* * * * *

——"That is my story. Let it plead with you to turn you from your purpose, and to save her. The punishment of sin falls not upon the sinner only. A deed once done lives in its consequence for ever, and this tragedy of shame and crime to which my felon's death is a fitting end, is but the outcome of a selfish sin like yours!"

It had grown dark in the prison, and as he ceased speaking, Rufus Dawes felt a trembling hand seize his own. It was that of the chaplain.

"Let me hold your hand!—Sir Richard Devine did not murder your father. He was murdered by a horseman who, riding with him, struck him and fled."

"Merciful God! How do you know this?"

"Because I saw the murder committed, because—don't let go my hand—I robbed the body."

"You!—"

"In my youth I was a gambler. Lord Bellasis won money from me, and to pay him I forged two bills of exchange. Unscrupulous and cruel, he threatened to expose me if I did not give him double the sum. Forgery was death in those days, and I strained every nerve to buy back the proofs of my folly. I succeeded. I was to meet Lord Bellasis near his own house at Hampstead on the night of which you speak, to pay the money and receive the bills. When I saw him fall I galloped up, but instead of pursuing his murderer I rifled his pocket-book of my forgeries. I was afraid to give evidence at the trial, or I might have saved you.—Ah! you have let go my hand!"

"God forgive you!" said Rufus Dawes, and then was silent.

"Speak!" cried North. "Speak, or you will make me mad. Reproach me! Spurn me! Spit upon me! You cannot think worse of me than I do myself." But the other, his head buried in his hands, did not answer, and with a wild gesture North staggered out of the cell.

Nearly an hour had passed since the chaplain had placed the rum flask in his hand, and Gimblett observed, with semi-drunken astonishment, that it was not yet empty. He had intended, in the first instance, to have taken but one sup in payment of his courtesy—for Gimblett was conscious of his own weakness in the matter of strong waters—but as he waited and waited, the one sup became two, and two three, and at length more than half the contents of the bottle had moistened his gullet, and maddened him for more. Gimblett was in a quandary. If he didn't finish the flask, he would be oppressed with an everlasting regret. If he did finish it he would be drunk; and to be drunk on duty was the one unpardonable sin. He looked across the darkness of the sea, to where the rising and falling light marked the schooner. The Commandant was a long way off! A faint breeze, which had—according to Blunt's prophecy—arisen with the night, brought up to him the voices of the boat's crew from the jetty below him. His friend Jack Mannix was coxswain of her. He would give Jack a drink. Leaving the gate, he advanced unsteadily to the edge of the embankment, and, putting his head over, called out to his friend. The breeze, however, which was momentarily freshening, carried his voice away; and Jack Mannix, hearing nothing, continued his conversation. Gimblett was just drunk enough to be virtuously indignant at this incivility, and seating himself on the edge of the bank, swallowed the remainder of the rum at a draught. The effect upon his enforcedly temperate stomach was very touching. He made one feeble attempt to get upon his legs, cast a reproachful glance at the rum bottle, essayed to drink out of its spirituous emptiness, and then, with a smile of reckless contentment, cursed the island and all its contents, and fell asleep.



North, coming out of the prison, did not notice the absence of the gaoler; indeed, he was not in a condition to notice anything. Bare-headed, without his cloak, with staring eyes and clenched hands, he rushed through the gates into the night as one who flies headlong from some fearful vision. It seemed that, absorbed in his own thoughts, he took no heed of his steps, for instead of taking the path which led to the sea, he kept along the more familiar one that led to his own cottage on the hill. "This man a convict!" he cried. "He is a hero—a martyr! What a life! Love! Yes, that is love indeed! Oh, James North, how base art thou in the eyes of God beside this despised outcast!" And so muttering, tearing his grey hair, and beating his throbbing temples with clenched hands, he reached his own room, and saw, by the light of the new-born moon, the dressing-bag and candle standing on the table as he had left them. They brought again to his mind the recollection of the task that was before him. He lighted the candle, and, taking the bag in his hand, cast one last look round the chamber which had witnessed his futile struggles against that baser part of himself which had at last triumphed. It was so. Fate had condemned him to sin, and he must now fulfil the doom he might once have averted. Already he fancied he could see the dim speck that was the schooner move slowly away from the prison shore. He must not linger; they would be waiting for him at the jetty. As he turned, the moonbeams—as yet unobscured by the rapidly gathering clouds—flung a silver streak across the sea, and across that streak North saw a boat pass. Was his distracted brain playing him false?—in the stern sat, wrapped in a cloak, the figure of a man! A fierce gust of wind drove the sea-rack over the moon, and the boat disappeared, as though swallowed up by the gathering storm. North staggered back as the truth struck him.

He remembered how he had said, "I will redeem him with my own blood!" Was it possible that a just Heaven had thus decided to allow the man whom a coward had condemned, to escape, and to punish the coward who remained? Oh, this man deserved freedom; he was honest, noble, truthful! How different from himself—a hateful self-lover, an unchaste priest, a drunkard. The looking-glass, in which the saintly face of Meekin was soon to be reflected, stood upon the table, and North, peering into it, with one hand mechanically thrust into the bag, started in insane rage at the pale face and bloodshot eyes he saw there. What a hateful wretch he had become! The last fatal impulse of insanity which seeks relief from its own hideous self came upon him, and his fingers closed convulsively upon the object they had been seeking.

"It is better so," he muttered, addressing, with fixed eyes, his own detested image. "I have examined you long enough. I have read your heart, and written out your secrets! You are but a shell—the shell that holds a corrupted and sinful heart. He shall live; you shall die!" The rapid motion of his arm overturned the candle, and all was dark.



Rufus Dawes, overpowered by the revelation so suddenly made to him, had remained for a few moments motionless in his cell, expecting to hear the heavy clang of the outer door, which should announce to him the departure of the chaplain. But he did not hear it, and it seemed to him that the air in the cell had grown suddenly cooler. He went to the door, and looked into the narrow corridor, expecting to see the scowling countenance of Gimblett. To his astonishment the door of the prison was wide open, and not a soul in sight. His first thought was of North. Had the story he had told, coupled with the entreaties he had lavished, sufficed to turn him from his purpose?

He looked around. The night was falling suddenly; the wind was mounting; from beyond the bar came the hoarse murmur of an angry sea. If the schooner was to sail that night, she had best get out into deep waters. Where was the chaplain? Pray Heaven the delay had been sufficient, and they had sailed without him. Yet they would be sure to meet. He advanced a few steps nearer, and looked about him. Was it possible that, in his madness, the chaplain had been about to commit some violence which had drawn the trusty Gimblett from his post? "Gr-r-r-r! Ouph!" The trusty Gimblett was lying at his feet—dead drunk!

"Hi! Hiho! Hillo there!" roared somebody from the jetty below. "Be that you, Muster Noarth? We ain't too much tiam, sur!"

From the uncurtained windows of the chaplain's house on the hill beamed the newly-lighted candle. They in the boat did not see it, but it brought to the prisoner a wild hope that made his heart bound. He ran back to the cell, clapped on North's wide-awake, and flinging the cloak hastily about him, came quickly down the steps. If the moon should shine out now!

"Jump in, sir," said unsuspecting Mannix, thinking only of the flogging he had been threatened with. "It'll be a dirty night, this night! Put this over your knees, sir. Shove her off! Give way!" And they were afloat. But one glimpse of moonlight fell upon the slouched hat and cloaked figure, and the boat's crew, engaged in the dangerous task of navigating the reef in the teeth of the rising gale, paid no attention to the chaplain.

"By George, lads, we're but just in time!" cried Mannix; and they laid alongside the schooner, black in blackness. "Up ye go, yer honour, quick!" The wind had shifted, and was now off the shore. Blunt, who had begun to repent of his obstinacy, but would not confess it, thought the next best thing to riding out the gale was to get out to open sea. "Damn the parson," he had said, in all heartiness; "we can't wait all night for him. Heave ahead, Mr. Johnson!" And so the anchor was atrip as Rufus Dawes ran up the side.

The Commandant, already pulling off in his own boat, roared a coarse farewell. "Good-bye, North! It was touch and go with ye!" adding, "Curse the fellow, he's too proud to answer!"

The chaplain indeed spoke to no one, and plunging down the hatchway, made for the stern cabins. "Close shave, your reverence!" said a respectful somebody, opening a door. It was; but the clergyman did not say so. He double-locked the door, and hardly realizing the danger he had escaped, flung himself on the bunk, panting. Over his head he heard the rapid tramp of feet and the cheery,

Yo hi-oh! and a rumbelow!

of the men at the capstan. He could smell the sea, and through the open window of the cabin could distinguish the light in the chaplain's house on the hill. The trampling ceased, the vessel began to move slowly—the Commandant's boat appeared below him for an instant, making her way back—the Lady Franklin had set sail. With his eyes fixed on the tiny light, he strove to think what was best to be done. It was hopeless to think that he could maintain the imposture which, favoured by the darkness and confusion, he had hitherto successfully attempted. He was certain to be detected at Hobart Town, even if he could lie concealed during his long and tedious voyage. That mattered little, however. He had saved Sylvia, for North had been left behind. Poor North! As the thought of pity came to him, the light he looked at was suddenly extinguished, and Rufus Dawes, compelled thereto as by an irresistible power, fell upon his knees and prayed for the pardon and happiness of the man who had redeemed him.

* * * * *

"That's a gun from the shore," said Partridge the mate, "and they're burning a red light. There's a prisoner escaped. Shall we lie-to?"

"Lie-to!" cried old Blunt, with a tremendous oath. "We'll have suthin' else to do. Look there!"

The sky to the northward was streaked with a belt of livid green colour, above which rose a mighty black cloud, whose shape was ever changing.



CHAPTER XVIII. THE CYCLONE.



Blunt, recognising the meteoric heralds of danger, had begun to regret his obstinacy. He saw that a hurricane was approaching.



Along the south coast of the Australian continent, though the usual westerly winds and gales of the highest latitudes prevail during the greater portion of the year, hurricanes are not infrequent. Gales commence at NW with a low barometer, increasing at W and SW, and gradually veering to the south. True cyclones occur at New Zealand. The log of the Adelaide for 29th February, 1870, describes one which travelled at the rate of ten miles an hour, and had all the veerings, calm centre, etc., of a true tropical hurricane. Now a cyclone occurring off the west coast of New Zealand would travel from the New Hebrides, where such storms are hideously frequent, and envelop Norfolk Island, passing directly across the track of vessels coming from South America to Sydney. It was one of these rotatory storms, an escaped tempest of the tropics, which threatened the Lady Franklin.



The ominous calm which had brooded over the island during the day had given place to a smart breeze from the north-east, and though the schooner had been sheltered at her anchorage under the lee of the island (the "harbour" looked nearly due south), when once fairly out to sea, Blunt saw it would be impossible to put back in the teeth of the gale. Haply, however, the full fury of the storm would not overtake them till they had gained sea-room.

Rufus Dawes, exhausted with the excitement through which he had passed, had slept for two or three hours, when he was awakened by the motion of the vessel going on the other tack. He rose to his feet, and found himself in complete darkness. Overhead was the noise of trampling feet, and he could distinguish the hoarse tones of Blunt bellowing orders. Astonished at the absence of the moonlight which had so lately silvered the sea, he flung open the cabin window and looked out. As we have said, the cabin allotted to North was one of the two stern cabins, and from it the convict had a full view of the approaching storm.

The sight was one of wild grandeur. The huge, black cloud which hung in the horizon had changed its shape. Instead of a curtain it was an arch. Beneath this vast and magnificent portal shone a dull phosphoric light. Across this livid space pale flashes of sheet-lightning passed noiselessly. Behind it was a dull and threatening murmur, made up of the grumbling of thunder, the falling of rain, and the roar of contending wind and water. The lights of the prison-island had disappeared, so rapid had been the progress of the schooner under the steady breeze, and the ocean stretched around, black and desolate. Gazing upon this gloomy expanse, Rufus Dawes observed a strange phenomenon—lightning appeared to burst upwards from the sullen bosom of the sea. At intervals, the darkly-rolling waves flashed fire, and streaks of flame shot upwards. The wind increased in violence, and the arch of light was fringed with rain. A dull, red glow hung around, like the reflection of a conflagration. Suddenly, a tremendous peal of thunder, accompanied by a terrific downfall of rain, rattled along the sky. The arch of light disappeared, as though some invisible hand had shut the slide of a giant lantern. A great wall of water rushed roaring over the level plain of the sea, and with an indescribable medley of sounds, in which tones of horror, triumph, and torture were blended, the cyclone swooped upon them.

Rufus Dawes comprehended that the elements had come to save or destroy him. In that awful instant the natural powers of the man rose equal to the occasion. In a few hours his fate would be decided, and it was necessary that he should take all precaution. One of two events seemed inevitable; he would either be drowned where he lay, or, should the vessel weather the storm, he would be forced upon the deck, and the desperate imposture he had attempted be discovered. For the moment despair overwhelmed him, and he contemplated the raging sea as though he would cast himself into it, and thus end his troubles. The tones of a woman's voice recalled him to himself. Cautiously unlocking the cabin door, he peered out. The cuddy was lighted by a swinging lamp which revealed Sylvia questioning one of the women concerning the storm. As Rufus Dawes looked, he saw her glance, with an air half of hope, half of fear, towards the door behind which he lurked, and he understood that she expected to see the chaplain. Locking the door, he proceeded hastily to dress himself in North's clothes. He would wait until his aid was absolutely required, and then rush out. In the darkness, Sylvia would mistake him for the priest. He could convey her to the boat—if recourse to the boats should be rendered necessary—and then take the hazard of his fortune. While she was in danger, his place was near by.



From the deck of the vessel the scene was appalling. The clouds had closed in. The arch of light had disappeared, and all was a dull, windy blackness. Gigantic seas seemed to mount in the horizon and sweep towards and upon them. It was as though the ship lay in the vortex of a whirlpool, so high on either side of her were piled the rough pyramidical masses of sea. Mighty gusts arose—claps of wind which seemed like strokes of thunder. A sail loosened from its tackling was torn away and blown out to sea, disappearing like a shred of white paper to leeward. The mercury in the barometer marked 29:50. Blunt, who had been at the rum bottle, swore great oaths that no soul on board would see another sun; and when Partridge rebuked him for blasphemy at such a moment, wept spirituous tears.

The howling of the wind was benumbing; the very fury of sound enfeebled while it terrified. The sailors, horror-stricken, crawled about the deck, clinging to anything they thought most secure. It was impossible to raise the head to look to windward. The eyelids were driven together, and the face stung by the swift and biting spray. Men breathed this atmosphere of salt and wind, and became sickened. Partridge felt that orders were useless—the man at his elbow could not have heard them. The vessel lay almost on her beam ends, with her helm up, stripped even of the sails which had been furled upon the yards. Mortal hands could do nothing for her.

By five o'clock in the morning the gale had reached its height. The heavens showered out rain and lightnings—rain which the wind blew away before it reached the ocean, lightnings which the ravenous and mountainous waves swallowed before they could pierce the gloom. The ship lay over on her side, held there by the madly rushing wind, which seemed to flatten down the sea, cutting off the top of the waves, and breaking them into fine white spray which covered the ocean like a thick cloud, as high as the topmast heads. Each gust seemed unsurpassable in intensity, but was succeeded, after a pause, that was not a lull but a gasp, by one of more frantic violence. The barometer stood at 27:82. The ship was a mere labouring, crazy wreck, that might sink at any moment. At half-past three o'clock the barometer had fallen to 27:62. Save when lighted by occasional flashes of sheet-lightning, which showed to the cowed wretches their awe-stricken faces, this tragedy of the elements was performed in a darkness which was almost palpable.

Suddenly the mercury rose to 29:90, and, with one awful shriek, the wind dropped to a calm. The Lady Franklin had reached the centre of the cyclone. Partridge, glancing to where the great body of drunken Blunt rolled helplessly lashed to the wheel, felt a strange selfish joy thrill him. If the ship survived the drunken captain would be dismissed, and he, Partridge, the gallant, would reign in his stead. The schooner, no longer steadied by the wind, was at the mercy of every sea. Volumes of water poured over her. Presently she heeled over, for, with a triumphant scream, the wind leapt on to her from a fresh quarter. Following its usual course, the storm returned upon its track. The hurricane was about to repeat itself from the north-west.

The sea, pouring down through the burst hatchway, tore the door of the cuddy from its hinges. Sylvia found herself surrounded by a wildly-surging torrent which threatened to overwhelm her. She shrieked aloud for aid, but her voice was inaudible even to herself. Clinging to the mast which penetrated the little cuddy, she fixed her eyes upon the door behind which she imagined North was, and whispered a last prayer for succour. The door opened, and from out the cabin came a figure clad in black. She looked up, and the light of the expiring lamp showed her a face that was not that of the man she hoped to see. Then a pair of dark eyes beaming ineffable love and pity were bent upon her, and a pair of dripping arms held her above the brine as she had once been held in the misty mysterious days that were gone.

In the terror of that moment the cloud which had so long oppressed her brain passed from it. The action of the strange man before her completed and explained the action of the convict chained to the Port Arthur coal-wagons, of the convict kneeling in the Norfolk Island torture-chamber. She remembered the terrible experience of Macquarie Harbour. She recalled the evening of the boat-building, when, swung into the air by stalwart arms, she had promised the rescuing prisoner to plead for him with her kindred. Regaining her memory thus, all the agony and shame of the man's long life of misery became at once apparent to her. She understood how her husband had deceived her, and with what base injustice and falsehood he had bought her young love. No question as to how this doubly-condemned prisoner had escaped from the hideous isle of punishment she had quitted occurred to her. She asked not—even in her thoughts—how it had been given to him to supplant the chaplain in his place on board the vessel. She only considered, in her sudden awakening, the story of his wrongs, remembered only his marvellous fortitude and love, knew only, in this last instant of her pure, ill-fated life, that as he had saved her once from starvation and death, so had he come again to save her from sin and from despair. Whoever has known a deadly peril will remember how swiftly thought then travelled back through scenes clean forgotten, and will understand how Sylvia's retrospective vision merged the past into the actual before her, how the shock of recovered memory subsided in the grateful utterance of other days—"Good Mr. Dawes!"

The eyes of the man and woman met in one long, wild gaze. Sylvia stretched out her white hands and smiled, and Richard Devine understood in his turn the story of the young girl's joyless life, and knew how she had been sacrificed.

In the great crisis of our life, when, brought face to face with annihilation, we are suspended gasping over the great emptiness of death, we become conscious that the Self which we think we knew so well has strange and unthought-of capacities. To describe a tempest of the elements is not easy, but to describe a tempest of the soul is impossible. Amid the fury of such a tempest, a thousand memories, each bearing in its breast the corpse of some dead deed whose influence haunts us yet, are driven like feathers before the blast, as unsubstantial and as unregarded. The mists which shroud our self—knowledge become transparent, and we are smitten with sudden lightning-like comprehension of our own misused power over our fate.

This much we feel and know, but who can coldly describe the hurricane which thus o'erwhelms him? As well ask the drowned mariner to tell of the marvels of mid-sea when the great deeps swallowed him and the darkness of death encompassed him round about. These two human beings felt that they had done with life. Together thus, alone in the very midst and presence of death, the distinctions of the world they were about to leave disappeared. Then vision grew clear. They felt as beings whose bodies had already perished, and as they clasped hands their freed souls, recognizing each the loveliness of the other, rushed tremblingly together.

Borne before the returning whirlwind, an immense wave, which glimmered in the darkness, spouted up and towered above the wreck. The wretches who yet clung to the deck looked shuddering up into the bellying greenness, and knew that the end was come.



END OF BOOK THE FOURTH



EPILOGUE.

At day-dawn the morning after the storm, the rays of the rising sun fell upon an object which floated on the surface of the water not far from where the schooner had foundered.

This object was a portion of the mainmast head of the Lady Franklin, and entangled in the rigging were two corpses—a man and a woman. The arms of the man were clasped round the body of the woman, and her head lay on his breast. The Prison Island appeared but as a long low line on the distant horizon. The tempest was over. As the sun rose higher the air grew balmy, the ocean placid; and, golden in the rays of the new risen morning, the wreck and its burden drifted out to sea.



APPENDIX.

BOOK ONE:

CHAPTERS I,IV,V,VII. Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the state of the colony of New South Wales. Printed by order of the House of Commons, 1822.

"Two Voyages to New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land", by Thomas Reid [Surgeon on board the Neptune and Morley transport ships], Member of the Royal College of Surgeons in London, and Surgeon in the Royal Navy. London: Longman and Co., 1822.

"Narrative of a Visit to the Australian Colonies", by James Backhouse. London: Hamilton, Adams and Co., 1843.

Report of a Select Committee on Transportation. Printed by order of the House of Commons, 1838. [Evidence of Colonel Henry Breton.—Q.2,431-2,436.]



BOOK TWO:

CHAPTERS I,II,III. Report of a Select Committee [ut supra], 1838. Evidence of John Barnes, Esq., pp.37-49. Also Appendix to above Report, I., No.56,B.

"Tasmanian Journal of Natural Science", etc., vol. ii. Account of Macquarie Harbour, by T. G. Lempriere, Esq., A.D.C.G., pp.17, 107, 200. Tasmania: Henry Dowling. London: John Murray, 1846.

"Van Diemen's Land Anniversary and Hobart Town Almanac, 1831." Account of Macquarie Harbour, by James Ross, p.262. Hobart Town: James Ross, 1832.

"Meliora", April, 1861—"Our Convict System": case of Charles Anderson, chained to a rock for two years in irons. See also "Our Convicts", p.233, vol.i., Mary Carpenter. Longmans, 1864.

"Backhouse's Narrative" [ut supra] chapters iii., iv. Files of Hobart Town Courier, 1827-8, more especially October 23 and December 7, 1827, and February 2, 1828.

CHAPTERS IV. and VIII. Report of a Select Committee [ut supra], 1838, pp. 353, 354, 355.

CHAPTERS IX., XV., XVII. "Tasmanian Journal" [ut supra], vol.i.: Account of Macquarie Harbour, by T. G. Lempriere, Esq. [ut supra]. The seizure of the Cypress (sic.), pp.366-7. Escape of Morgan and Popjoy, p.369. The seizure of the Frederick, pp.371-375.

"Van Diemen's Land Annual", 1838: Narrative of the Sufferings and Adventures of certain of Ten Convicts, etc., pp.1-11. Hobart Town: James Ross, 1838.

"Old Tales of a Young Country", by Marcus Clarke: The Last of Macquarie Harbour, pp. 141-146. The Seizure of the Cyprus, pp.133-140. Melbourne: George Robertson, 1871.



BOOK THREE:

CHAPTER II. Transportation: Copy of a communication upon the subject of Transportation addressed to Earl Grey by the Lord Bishop of Tasmania. Reprinted for private distribution to the heads of families only. Launceston: Henry Dowling, 1848.

Report of a Select Committee [ut supra], 1837. Evidence of Ernest Augustus Slade, Esq.—Q.870. Ibidem, 1838: Evidence of James Mudie, Esq.—Q.804-813.

CHAPTER IX. Backhouse's Narrative [ut supra]: Appendix, lxxvi.

CHAPTER X. "Van Diemen 's Land Annual", 1838 [ut supra], pp.12-33. Old Tales, etc, [ut supra], The Last of Macquarie Harbour, pp.147-156.

CHAPTER XV. Report of a Select Committee [ut supra], 1838: Evidence of E. A. Slade, Esq.-Q.1,882-1,892. Ibidem: Appendix No.ii., E.

CHAPTER XX. Report of a Select Committee [ut supra], 1837: Evidence of John Russell, Esq., Assist.-Surgeon 63rd Regiment.—Q.426-615. Ibidem: Evidence of Colonel Geo. Arthur—Q.4,510-4,548.

CHAPTERS XXIII., XXIV., XXVI. "The Adventures of Martin Cash, the Bushranger." Hobart Town: J. L. Burke, 1870. pp.64-70.

"Van Dieman's Land Annual" [ut supra], 1829: Visit to Port Arthur. Account of the Devil's Blow-Hole.

CHAPTER XXVII. Report of a Select Committee [ut supra], 1832, Appendix I., No.56 C. and D. Deposition of Alexander Pierce and official statements of trial and execution of Pierce and Cox for murder and cannibalism.

"The Bushrangers,", by James Bonwick, Esq. Article-"Port Arthur"



BOOK IV. CHAPTERS III., IV. Sessional Papers printed by order of the House of Lords, 1847. Enclosure to No. XI. Extract of a paper by the Rev. T. B. Naylor. Enclosure 3 in No.XIV. Copy of Report [dated Hobart Town, 20th June, 1846] from Robert Pringle Stewart, Esq.: [officer appointed by the Lieut.-Governor of Van Dieman's Land, to inspect the penal settlement of Norfolk Island] to the Comptroller-General.

House of Lords Report of a Commission on the execution of Criminal Law, 1847, Evidence of the Lord Bishop of Tasmania—Q.4,795—4,904 and 5,085—5,130.

Despatch of His Excellency Sir William Denison to Secretary of State, 10th July, 1847.

Report of a Select Committee [ut supra], 1838: Evidence of the Very Rev. Wm. Ullathorne, D.D.—Q.150-318.

Report of House of Lords [ut supra], 1847: Evidence of Albert Charles Stonor, Esq., Crown Solicitor of New South Wales— Q.5,174-5,197. Also evidence of Rev. Wm. Wilson, D.D.—Q.5,545-5,568.

Correspondence relating to the dismissal of the Rev. T. Rogers from his chaplaincy at Norfolk Island; for private circulation. Launceston: Henry Dowling, 1846.

"Backhouse's Voyages" [ut supra]

CHAPTERS VII., VIII., IX., XII. Adventures of Martin Cash [ut supra], pp.133-141; Cases of George Armstrong, "Pine Tree Jack", and Alexander Campbell.

Punishment of the "gag" and "bridle". Correspondence relating to the Rev. T. Rogers [ut supra], pp. 41-43.

Punishment of the "gag" and "bridle".

Report of a Select Committee [ut supra], 1838: Evidence of the Very Rev. Wm. Ullathorne, D.D.—Q.267:— "As I mentioned the names of those men who were to die, they one after another, as their names were pronounced, dropped on their knees and thanked God that they were to be delivered from that horrible place, whilst the others remained standing mute, weeping. It was the most horrible scene I have ever witnessed."

Ibidem: Evidence of Colonel George Arthur.—Q.4,548.

Ibidem: Evidence of Sir Francis Forbes.—Q.1,119.

Ibidem: Q.1,335-1,343:—

"...Two or three men murdered their fellow-prisoners, with the certainty of being detected and executed, apparently without malice and with very little excitement, stating that they knew that they should be hanged, but it was better than being where they were."

THE END