For the Term of His Natural Life Part 55

"I thought that Mr. North was--"

"Mr. North has left, sir," said Meekin, dryly, "but I will hear what you have to say. There is no occasion to go, constable; wait outside the door."

Rufus Dawes shifted himself on the wooden bench, and resting his scarcely-healed back against the wall, smiled bitterly. "Don't be afraid, sir; I am not going to harm you," he said. "I only wanted to talk a little."

"Do you read your Bible, Dawes?" asked Meekin, by way of reply. "It would be better to read your Bible than to talk, I think. You must humble yourself in prayer, Dawes."

"I have read it," said Dawes, still lying back and watching him.

"But is your mind softened by its teachings? Do you realize the Infinite Mercy of G.o.d, Who has compa.s.sion, Dawes, upon the greatest sinners?" The convict made a move of impatience. The old, sickening, barren cant of piety was to be recommenced then. He came asking for bread, and they gave him the usual stone.

"Do you believe that there is a G.o.d, Mr. Meekin?"

"Abandoned sinner! Do you insult a clergyman by such a question?"

"Because I think sometimes that if there is, He must often be dissatisfied at the way things are done here," said Dawes, half to himself.

"I can listen to no mutinous observations, prisoner," said Meekin. "Do not add blasphemy to your other crimes. I fear that all conversation with you, in your present frame of mind, would be worse than useless. I will mark a few pa.s.sages in your Bible, that seem to me appropriate to your condition, and beg you to commit them to memory. Hailes, the door, if you please."

So, with a bow, the "consoler" departed.

Rufus Dawes felt his heart grow sick. North had gone, then. The only man who had seemed to have a heart in his bosom had gone. The only man who had dared to clasp his h.o.r.n.y and blood-stained hand, and call him "brother", had gone. Turning his head, he saw through the window--wide open and unbarred, for Nature, at Port Arthur, had no need of bars--the lovely bay, smooth as gla.s.s, glittering in the afternoon sun, the long quay, spotted with groups of parti-coloured chain-gangs, and heard, mingling with the soft murmur of the waves, and the gentle rustling of the trees, the never-ceasing clashing of irons, and the eternal click of hammer. Was he to be for ever buried in this whitened sepulchre, shut out from the face of Heaven and mankind!

The appearance of Hailes broke his reverie. "Here's a book for you,"

said he, with a grin. "Parson sent it."

Rufus Dawes took the Bible, and, placing it on his knees, turned to the places indicated by slips of paper, embracing some twenty marked texts.

"Parson says he'll come and hear you to-morrer, and you're to keep the book clean."

"Keep the book clean!" and "hear him!" Did Meekin think that he was a charity school boy? The utter incapacity of the chaplain to understand his wants was so sublime that it was nearly ridiculous enough to make him laugh. He turned his eyes downwards to the texts. Good Meekin, in the fullness of his stupidity, had selected the fiercest denunciations of bard and priest. The most notable of the Psalmist's curses upon his enemies, the most furious of Isaiah's ravings anent the forgetfulness of the national worship, the most terrible thunderings of apostle and evangelist against idolatry and unbelief, were grouped together and presented to Dawes to soothe him. All the material horrors of Meekin's faith--stripped, by force of dissociation from the context, of all poetic feeling and local colouring--were launched at the suffering sinner by Meekin's ignorant hand. The miserable man, seeking for consolation and peace, turned over the leaves of the Bible only to find himself threatened with "the pains of h.e.l.l", "the never-dying worm", "the unquenchable fire", "the bubbling brimstone", the "bottomless pit", from out of which the "smoke of his torment" should ascend for ever and ever. Before his eyes was held no image of a tender Saviour (with hands soft to soothe, and eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g with ineffable pity) dying crucified that he and other malefactors might have hope, by thinking on such marvellous humanity. The worthy Pharisee who was sent to him to teach him how mankind is to be redeemed with Love, preached only that harsh Law whose barbarous power died with the gentle Nazarene on Calvary.

Repelled by this unlooked-for ending to his hopes, he let the book fall to the ground. "Is there, then, nothing but torment for me in this world or the next?" he groaned, shuddering. Presently his eyes sought his right hand, resting upon it as though it were not his own, or had some secret virtue which made it different from the other. "He would not have done this? He would not have thrust upon me these savage judgments, these dreadful threats of h.e.l.l and Death. He called me 'Brother'!" And filled with a strange wild pity for himself, and yearning love towards the man who befriended him, he fell to nursing the hand on which North's tears had fallen, moaning and rocking himself to and fro.

Meekin, in the morning, found his pupil more sullen than ever.

"Have you learned these texts, my man?" said he, cheerfully, willing not to be angered with his uncouth and unpromising convert.

Rufus Dawes pointed with his foot to the Bible, which still lay on the floor as he had left it the night before. "No!"

"No! Why not?"

"I would learn no such words as those. I would rather forget them."

"Forget them! My good man, I--"

Rufus Dawes sprang up in sudden wrath, and pointing to his cell door with a gesture that--chained and degraded as he was--had something of dignity in it, cried, "What do you know about the feelings of such as I? Take your book and yourself away. When I asked for a priest, I had no thought of you. Begone!"

Meekin, despite the halo of sanct.i.ty which he felt should surround him, found his gentility melt all of a sudden. Advent.i.tious distinctions had disappeared for the instant. The pair had become simply man and man, and the sleek priest-master quailing before the outraged manhood of the convict-penitent, picked up his Bible and backed out.

"That man Dawes is very insolent," said the insulted chaplain to Burgess. "He was brutal to me to-day--quite brutal."

"Was he?" said Burgess. "Had too long a spell, I expect. I'll send him back to work to-morrow."

"It would be well," said Meekin, "if he had some employment."

CHAPTER XX. "A NATURAL PENITENTIARY."

"The "employment" at Port Arthur consisted chiefly of agriculture, ship-building, and tanning. Dawes, who was in the chain-gang, was put to chain-gang labour; that is to say, bringing down logs from the forest, or "lumbering" timber on the wharf. This work was not light. An ingenious calculator had discovered that the pressure of the log upon the shoulder was wont to average 125 lbs. Members of the chain-gang were dressed in yellow, and--by way of encouraging the others--had the word "Felon" stamped upon conspicuous parts of their raiment.

This was the sort of life Rufus Dawes led. In the summer-time he rose at half-past five in the morning, and worked until six in the evening, getting three-quarters of an hour for breakfast, and one hour for dinner. Once a week he had a clean shirt, and once a fortnight clean socks. If he felt sick, he was permitted to "report his case to the medical officer". If he wanted to write a letter he could ask permission of the Commandant, and send the letter, open, through that Almighty Officer, who could stop it if he thought necessary. If he felt himself aggrieved by any order, he was "to obey it instantly, but might complain afterwards, if he thought fit, to the Commandant. In making any complaint against an officer or constable it was strictly ordered that a prisoner "must be most respectful in his manner and language, when speaking of or to such officer or constable". He was held responsible only for the safety of his chains, and for the rest was at the mercy of his gaoler. These gaolers--owning right of search, entry into cells at all hours, and other droits of seigneury--were responsible only to the Commandant, who was responsible only to the Governor, that is to say, to n.o.body but G.o.d and his own conscience. The jurisdiction of the Commandant included the whole of Tasman's Peninsula, with the islands and waters within three miles thereof; and save the making of certain returns to head-quarters, his power was unlimited.

A word as to the position and appearance of this place of punishment.

Tasman's Peninsula is, as we have said before, in the form of an earring with a double drop. The lower drop is the larger, and is ornamented, so to speak, with bays. At its southern extremity is a deep indentation called Maingon Bay, bounded east and west by the organ-pipe rocks of Cape Raoul, and the giant form of Cape Pillar. From Maingon Bay an arm of the ocean cleaves the rocky walls in a northerly direction. On the western coast of this sea-arm was the settlement; in front of it was a little island where the dead were buried, called The Island of the Dead. Ere the in-coming convict pa.s.sed the purple beauty of this convict Golgotha, his eyes were attracted by a point of grey rock covered with white buildings, and swarming with life. This was Point Puer, the place of confinement for boys from eight to twenty years of age. It was astonishing--many honest folks averred--how ungrateful were these juvenile convicts for the goods the Government had provided for them.

From the extremity of Long Bay, as the extension of the sea-arm was named, a convict-made tramroad ran due north, through the nearly impenetrable thicket to Norfolk Bay. In the mouth of Norfolk Bay was Woody Island. This was used as a signal station, and an armed boat's crew was stationed there. To the north of Woody Island lay One-tree Point--the southernmost projection of the drop of the earring; and the sea that ran between narrowed to the eastward until it struck on the sandy bar of Eaglehawk Neck. Eaglehawk Neck was the link that connected the two drops of the earring. It was a strip of sand four hundred and fifty yards across. On its eastern side the blue waters of Pirates' Bay, that is to say, of the Southern Ocean, poured their unchecked force. The isthmus emerged from a wild and terrible coast-line, into whose bowels the ravenous sea had bored strange caverns, resonant with perpetual roar of tortured billows. At one spot in this wilderness the ocean had penetrated the wall of rock for two hundred feet, and in stormy weather the salt spray rose through a perpendicular shaft more than five hundred feet deep. This place was called the Devil's Blow-hole. The upper drop of the earring was named Forrestier's Peninsula, and was joined to the mainland by another isthmus called East Bay Neck. Forrestier's Peninsula was an almost impenetrable thicket, growing to the brink of a perpendicular cliff of basalt.

Eaglehawk Neck was the door to the prison, and it was kept bolted. On the narrow strip of land was built a guard-house, where soldiers from the barrack on the mainland relieved each other night and day; and on stages, set out in the water in either side, watch-dogs were chained.

The station officer was charged "to pay special attention to the feeding and care" of these useful beasts, being ordered "to report to the Commandant whenever any one of them became useless". It may be added that the bay was not innocent of sharks. Westward from Eaglehawk Neck and Woody Island lay the dreaded Coal Mines. Sixty of the "marked men"

were stationed here under a strong guard. At the Coal Mines was the northernmost of that ingenious series of semaph.o.r.es which rendered escape almost impossible. The wild and mountainous character of the peninsula offered peculiar advantages to the signalmen. On the summit of the hill which overlooked the guard-towers of the settlement was a gigantic gum-tree stump, upon the top of which was placed a semaph.o.r.e.

This semaph.o.r.e communicated with the two wings of the prison--Eaglehawk Neck and the Coal Mines--by sending a line of signals right across the peninsula. Thus, the settlement communicated with Mount Arthur, Mount Arthur with One-tree Hill, One-tree Hill with Mount Communication, and Mount Communication with the Coal Mines. On the other side, the signals would run thus--the settlement to Signal Hill, Signal Hill to Woody Island, Woody Island to Eaglehawk. Did a prisoner escape from the Coal Mines, the guard at Eaglehawk Neck could be aroused, and the whole island informed of the "bolt" in less than twenty minutes. With these advantages of nature and art, the prison was held to be the most secure in the world. Colonel Arthur reported to the Home Government that the spot which bore his name was a "natural penitentiary". The worthy disciplinarian probably took as a personal compliment the polite forethought of the Almighty in thus considerately providing for the carrying out of the celebrated "Regulations for Convict Discipline".

CHAPTER XXI. A VISIT OF INSPECTION.

One afternoon ever-active semaph.o.r.es transmitted a piece of intelligence which set the peninsula agog. Captain Frere, having arrived from head-quarters, with orders to hold an inquiry into the death of Kirkland, was not unlikely to make a progress through the stations, and it behoved the keepers of the Natural Penitentiary to produce their Penitents in good case. Burgess was in high spirits at finding so congenial a soul selected for the task of reporting upon him.

"It's only a nominal thing, old man," Frere said to his former comrade, when they met. "That parson has made meddling, and they want to close his mouth."

"I am glad to have the opportunity of showing you and Mrs. Frere the place," returned Burgess. "I must try and make your stay as pleasant as I can, though I'm afraid that Mrs. Frere will not find much to amuse her."

"Frankly, Captain Burgess," said Sylvia, "I would rather have gone straight to Sydney. My husband, however, was obliged to come, and of course I accompanied him."

"You will not have much society," said Meekin, who was of the welcoming party. "Mrs. Datchett, the wife of one of our stipendiaries, is the only lady here, and I hope to have the pleasure of making you acquainted with her this evening at the Commandant's. Mr. McNab, whom you know, is in command at the Neck, and cannot leave, or you would have seen him."

"I have planned a little party," said Burgess, "but I fear that it will not be so successful as I could wish."

"You wretched old bachelor," said Frere; "you should get married, like me."

"Ah!" said Burgess, with a bow, "that would be difficult."