For the Term of His Natural Life Part 57

"Mother used to," was the reply, "but she's at home. Oh, mum," with a sudden crimsoning of the little face, "may I fetch Billy?"

And taking courage from the bright young face, he gravely marched to an angle of the rock, and brought out another little creature, with another grey uniform and another hammer.

"This is Billy, mum," he said. "Billy never had no mother. Kiss Billy."

The young wife felt the tears rush to her eyes. "You two poor babies!"

she cried. And then, forgetting that she was a lady, dressed in silk and lace, she fell on her knees in the dust, and, folding the friendless pair in her arms, wept over them.

"What is the matter, Sylvia?" said Frere, when he came up. "You've been crying."

"Nothing, Maurice; at least, I will tell you by and by."

When they were alone that evening, she told him of the two little boys, and he laughed. "Artful little humbugs," he said, and supported his argument by so many ill.u.s.trations of the precocious wickedness of juvenile felons, that his wife was half convinced against her will.

Unfortunately, when Sylvia went away, Tommy and Billy put into execution a plan which they had carried in their poor little heads for some weeks.

"I can do it now," said Tommy. "I feel strong."

"Will it hurt much, Tommy?" said Billy, who was not so courageous.

"Not so much as a whipping."

"I'm afraid! Oh, Tom, it's so deep! Don't leave me, Tom!"

The bigger boy took his little handkerchief from his neck, and with it bound his own left hand to his companion's right.

"Now I can't leave you."

"What was it the lady that kissed us said, Tommy?"

"Lord, have pity on them two fatherless children!" repeated Tommy.

"Let's say it together."

And so the two babies knelt on the brink of the cliff, and, raising the bound hands together, looked up at the sky, and ungrammatically said, "Lord have pity on we two fatherless children!" And then they kissed each other, and "did it".

The intelligence, transmitted by the ever-active semaph.o.r.e, reached the Commandant in the midst of dinner, and in his agitation he blurted it out.

"These are the two poor things I saw in the morning," cried Sylvia. "Oh, Maurice, these two poor babies driven to suicide!"

"Condemning their young souls to everlasting fire," said Meekin, piously.

"Mr. Meekin! How can you talk like that? Poor little creatures! Oh, it's horrible! Maurice, take me away." And she burst into a pa.s.sion of weeping. "I can't help it, ma'am," says Burgess, rudely, ashamed. "It ain't my fault."

"She's nervous," says Frere, leading her away. "You must excuse her.

Come and lie down, dearest."

"I will not stay here longer," said she. "Let us go to-morrow."

"We can't," said Frere.

"Oh, yes, we can. I insist. Maurice, if you love me, take me away."

"Well," said Maurice, moved by her evident grief, "I'll try."

He spoke to Burgess. "Burgess, this matter has unsettled my wife, so that she wants to leave at once. I must visit the Neck, you know. How can we do it?"

"Well," says Burgess, "if the wind only holds, the brig could go round to Pirates' Bay and pick you up. You'll only be a night at the barracks."

"I think that would be best," said Frere. "We'll start to-morrow, please, and if you'll give me a pen and ink I'll be obliged."

"I hope you are satisfied," said Burgess.

"Oh yes, quite," said Frere. "I must recommend more careful supervision at Point Puer, though. It will never do to have these young blackguards slipping through our fingers in this way."

So a neatly written statement of the occurrence was appended to the ledgers in which the names of William Tomkins and Thomas Grove were entered. Macklewain held an inquest, and n.o.body troubled about them any more. Why should they? The prisons of London were full of such Tommys and Billys.

Sylvia pa.s.sed through the rest of her journey in a dream of terror. The incident of the children had shaken her nerves, and she longed to be away from the place and its a.s.sociations. Even Eaglehawk Neck with its curious dog stages and its "natural pavement", did not interest her.

McNab's blandishments were wearisome. She shuddered as she gazed into the boiling abyss of the Blow-hole, and shook with fear as the Commandant's "train" rattled over the dangerous tramway that wound across the precipice to Long Bay. The "train" was composed of a number of low wagons pushed and dragged up the steep inclines by convicts, who drew themselves up in the wagons when the trucks dashed down the slope, and acted as drags. Sylvia felt degraded at being thus drawn by human beings, and trembled when the lash cracked, and the convicts answered to the sting--like cattle. Moreover, there was among the foremost of these beasts of burden a face that had dimly haunted her girlhood, and only lately vanished from her dreams. This face looked on her--she thought--with bitterest loathing and scorn, and she felt relieved when at the midday halt its owner was ordered to fall out from the rest, and was with four others re-chained for the homeward journey. Frere, struck with the appearance of the five, said, "By Jove, Poppet, there are our old friends Rex and Dawes, and the others. They won't let 'em come all the way, because they are such a desperate lot, they might make a rush for it." Sylvia comprehended now the face was the face of Dawes; and as she looked after him, she saw him suddenly raise his hands above his head with a motion that terrified her. She felt for an instant a great shock of pitiful recollection. Staring at the group, she strove to recall when and how Rufus Dawes, the wretch from whose clutches her husband had saved her, had ever merited her pity, but her clouded memory could not complete the picture, and as the wagons swept round a curve, and the group disappeared, she awoke from her reverie with a sigh.

"Maurice," she whispered, "how is it that the sight of that man always makes me sad?"

Her husband frowned, and then, caressing her, bade her forget the man and the place and her fears. "I was wrong to have insisted on your coming," he said. They stood on the deck of the Sydney-bound vessel the next morning, and watched the "Natural Penitentiary" grow dim in the distance. "You were not strong enough."

"Dawes," said John Rex, "you love that girl! Now that you've seen her another man's wife, and have been harnessed like a beast to drag him along the road, while he held her in his arms!--now that you've seen and suffered that, perhaps you'll join us."

Rufus Dawes made a movement of agonized impatience.

"You'd better. You'll never get out of this place any other way. Come, be a man; join us!"

"No!"

"It is your only chance. Why refuse it? Do you want to live here all your life?"