For the Term of His Natural Life Part 38

Maurice brought one hand into the palm of the other with a rough laugh.

"Oh, that's it, is it! 'Gad, what a flat I was not to think of it before! You want to see him, I suppose?" She came close to him, and, in her earnestness, took his hand. "I want to save his life!"

"Oh, that be hanged, you know! Save his life! It can't be done."

"You can do it, Maurice."

"I save John Rex's life?" cried Frere. "Why, you must be mad!"

"He is the only creature that loves me, Maurice--the only man who cares for me. He has done no harm. He only wanted to be free--was it not natural? You can save him if you like. I only ask for his life. What does it matter to you? A miserable prisoner--his death would be of no use. Let him live, Maurice."

Maurice laughed. "What have I to do with it?"

"You are the princ.i.p.al witness against him. If you say that he behaved well--and he did behave well, you know: many men would have left you to starve--they won't hang him."

"Oh, won't they! That won't make much difference."

"Ah, Maurice, be merciful!" She bent towards him, and tried to retain his hand, but he withdrew it.

"You're a nice sort of woman to ask me to help your lover--a man who left me on that cursed coast to die, for all he cared," he said, with a galling recollection of his humiliation of five years back. "Save him!

Confound him, not I!"

"Ah, Maurice, you will." She spoke with a suppressed sob in her voice.

"What is it to you? You don't care for me now. You beat me, and turned me out of doors, though I never did you wrong. This man was a husband to me--long, long before I met you. He never did you any harm; he never will. He will bless you if you save him, Maurice."

Frere jerked his head impatiently. "Bless me!" he said. "I don't want his blessings. Let him swing. Who cares?"

Still she persisted, with tears streaming from her eyes, with white arms upraised, on her knees even, catching at his coat, and beseeching him in broken accents. In her wild, fierce beauty and pa.s.sionate abandonment she might have been a deserted Ariadne--a suppliant Medea. Anything rather than what she was--a dissolute, half-maddened woman, praying for the pardon of her convict husband.

Maurice Frere flung her off with an oath. "Get up!" he cried brutally, "and stop that nonsense. I tell you the man's as good as dead for all I shall do to save him."

At this repulse, her pent-up pa.s.sion broke forth. She sprang to her feet, and, pushing back the hair that in her frenzied pleading had fallen about her face, poured out upon him a torrent of abuse. "You! Who are you, that you dare to speak to me like that? His little finger is worth your whole body. He is a man, a brave man, not a coward, like you.

A coward! Yes, a coward! a coward! A coward! You are very brave with defenceless men and weak women. You have beaten me until I was bruised black, you cur; but who ever saw you attack a man unless he was chained or bound? Do not I know you? I have seen you taunt a man at the triangles, until I wished the screaming wretch could get loose, and murder you as you deserve! You will be murdered one of these days, Maurice Frere--take my word for it. Men are flesh and blood, and flesh and blood won't endure the torments you lay on it!"

"There, that'll do," says Frere, growing paler. "Don't excite yourself."

"I know you, you brutal coward. I have not been your mistress--G.o.d forgive me!--without learning you by heart. I've seen your ignorance and your conceit. I've seen the men who ate your food and drank your wine laugh at you. I've heard what your friends say; I've heard the comparisons they make. One of your dogs has more brains than you, and twice as much heart. And these are the men they send to rule us! Oh, Heaven! And such an animal as this has life and death in his hand! He may hang, may he? I'll hang with him, then, and G.o.d will forgive me for murder, for I will kill you!"

Frere had cowered before this frightful torrent of rage, but, at the scream which accompanied the last words, he stepped forward as though to seize her. In her desperate courage, she flung herself before him.

"Strike me! You daren't! I defy you! Bring up the wretched creatures who learn the way to h.e.l.l in this cursed house, and let them see you do it.

Call them! They are old friends of yours. They all know Captain Maurice Frere."

"Sarah!"

"You remember Lucy Barnes--poor little Lucy Barnes that stole sixpennyworth of calico. She is downstairs now. Would you know her if you saw her? She isn't the bright-faced baby she was when they sent her here to 'reform', and when Lieutenant Frere wanted a new housemaid from the Factory! Call for her!--call! do you hear? Ask any one of those beasts whom you lash and chain for Lucy Barnes. He'll tell you all about her--ay, and about many more--many more poor souls that are at the bidding of any drunken brute that has stolen a pound note to fee the Devil with! Oh, you good G.o.d in Heaven, will You not judge this man?"

Frere trembled. He had often witnessed this creature's whirlwinds of pa.s.sion, but never had he seen her so violent as this. Her frenzy frightened him. "For Heaven's sake, Sarah, be quiet. What is it you want? What would you do?"

"I'll go to this girl you want to marry, and tell her all I know of you.

I have seen her in the streets--have seen her look the other way when I pa.s.sed her--have seen her gather up her muslin skirts when my silks touched her--I that nursed her, that heard her say her baby-prayers (O Jesus, pity me!)--and I know what she thinks of women like me. She is good--and virtuous--and cold. She would shudder at you if she knew what I know. Shudder! She would hate you! And I will tell her! Ay, I will!

You will be respectable, will you? A model husband! Wait till I tell her my story--till I send some of these poor women to tell theirs. You kill my love; I'll blight and ruin yours!"

Frere caught her by both wrists, and with all his strength forced her to her knees. "Don't speak her name," he said in a hoa.r.s.e voice, "or I'll do you a mischief. I know all you mean to do. I'm not such a fool as not to see that. Be quiet! Men have murdered women like you, and now I know how they came to do it."

For a few minutes a silence fell upon the pair, and at last Frere, releasing her hands, fell back from her.

"I'll do what you want, on one condition."

"What?"

"That you leave this place."

"Where for?"

"Anywhere--the farther the better. I'll pay your pa.s.sage to Sydney, and you go or stay there as you please."

She had grown calmer, hearing him thus relenting. "But this house, Maurice?"

"You are not in debt?"

"No."

"Well, leave it. It's your own affair, not mine. If I help you, you must go."

"May I see him?"

"No."

"Ah, Maurice!"

"You can see him in the dock if you like," says Frere, with a laugh, cut short by a flash of her eyes. "There, I didn't mean to offend you."

"Offend me! Go on."

"Listen here," said he doggedly. "If you will go away, and promise never to interfere with me by word or deed, I'll do what you want."

"What will you do?" she asked, unable to suppress a smile at the victory she had won.

"I will not say all I know about this man. I will say he befriended me.

I will do my best to save his life."

"You can save it if you like."

"Well, I will try. On my honour, I will try."

"I must believe you, I suppose?" said she doubtfully; and then, with a sudden pitiful pleading, in strange contrast to her former violence, "You are not deceiving me, Maurice?"

"No. Why should I? You keep your promise, and I'll keep mine. Is it a bargain?"