This Man's Wife Part 85

"Julia, my child, come away," whispered Bayle, taking her hand and, trying to raise her as the sergeant looked on good-humouredly. "The man has been flogged for some offence. This is no place for you."

"Hush!" she cried, as, drawing away her hand, she bent over the wretched man and wiped the great drops of perspiration from his forehead.

He ceased his restless writhing and gazed up at the sweet face bending over him with a look of wonder. Then his eyes dilated, and his lips parted. The next moment he had turned his eyes upon Mrs Hallam, who was bending over her child half-trying to raise her, but with a horrible fascination in her gaze, while a curious silence seemed to have fallen on the group--so curious, that when one of the convicts moved slightly, the clank of a ring he wore sounded strangely loud in the hot sunshine.

"By your leave, miss," said the sergeant, not unkindly. "I daren't stop. Fall in, my lads! Stretchers! Forward!"

As the man, who was perfectly silent now, was raised by the convicts to the level of their shoulders, he wrenched his head round that he might turn his distorted features, purple with their deep flush, and continue his wondering stare at Julia and Mrs Hallam.

Then the tramp and clank, tramp and clank went on, the guard raising each a hand to his forehead, and smiling at the group they left, while the old sergeant took off his cap, the sun shining down on a good manly English face, as he took a step towards Julia.

"I beg pardon, miss," he said; "I'm only a rough old pensioner--but if you'd let me kiss your hand."

Julia smiled in the sergeant's brown face as she laid her white little hand in his, and he raised it with rugged reverence to his lips.

Then, saluting Mrs Hallam, he turned quickly to Bayle:

"I did say, sir, as this place was just about like--you know what; but I see we've got angels even here."

He went off at the double after his men, twenty paces ahead, while Bayle, warned by Julia, had just time to catch Mrs Hallam as she reeled, and would have fallen.

"Mother, dear mother!" cried Julia. "This scene was too terrible for you."

"No, no! I am better now," said Mrs Hallam hoa.r.s.ely. "Let us go on.

Did you see?" she whispered, turning to Bayle.

"See?" he said reproachfully. "Yes; but I tried so hard to spare you this scene."

"Yes; but it was to be," she said in the same hoa.r.s.e whisper, as, with one hand she held Julia from her, and spoke almost in her companion's ear. "You did not know him," she said. "I did; at once."

"That man?"

"Yes."

Then, after a painful pause, she added:

"It was Stephen Crellock."

"Her husband's a.s.sociate and friend," said Bayle, as he stood outside the prison gates waiting; for, after the presentation of the proper forms, Millicent Hallam and her child had been admitted by special permission to see the prisoner named upon their pa.s.s, and Christie Bayle remained without, seeing in imagination the meeting between husband, wife, and child, and as he waited, seated on a block of stone, his head went down upon his hands, and his spirit sank very low, for all was dark upon the life-path now ahead.

VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER TWENTY.

IN THE CONVICT BARRACKS.

"Be firm, my darling," whispered Mrs Hallam; and as they followed their guide, hand in hand, Julia seemed to take strength and fort.i.tude from the proud, pale face, and eyes bright with matronly love and hope.

"Mother!"

Only that word, but it was enough. Millicent Hallam was satisfied, for she read in the tone and in the look that accompanied it the fact that her teaching had not been in vain, and that she had come to meet her martyr husband with the love of wife and child.

The officer who showed them into a bare room, with its grated windows, glanced at them curiously before leaving: and then they had to wait through, what seemed to them, an age of agony, listening to the slow, regular tramp of a couple of sentries, one seeming to be in a pa.s.sage close at hand, the other beneath the window of the room where they were seated upon a rough bench.

"Courage! my child," said Mrs Hallam, looking at Julia with a smile; and then it was the latter who had to start up and support her, for there was the distant sound of feet, and Mrs Hallam's face contracted as from some terrible spasm, and she swayed heavily sidewise.

"Heaven give me strength!" she groaned; and then, clinging together, the suffering women watched the door as the heavy tramp came nearer, and with it a strange hollow, echoing sound.

As Julia watched the door the remembrance of the stern, handsome face of her childhood seemed to come up from the past--that face with the profusion of well-tended, wavy black hair, brushed back from the high, white forehead; the bright, piercing eyes that were shaded by long, heavy lashes; the closely-shaven lips and chin, and the thick, dark whiskers--the face of the portrait in their little London home. And it seemed to her that she would see it again directly, that the old sternness would have given place to a smile of welcome, and as her heart beat fast her eyes filled with tears, and she was gazing through a mist that dimmed her sight.

The door was thrown open; the tramp of the footsteps ceased, and as the door was abruptly closed, mother and daughter remained unmoved, clinging more tightly together, staring wildly through their tear-blinded eyes at the gaunt convict standing there with face that seemed to have been stamped in the mould of the poor wretch's they had so lately seen: closely-cropped grey hair, stubbly, silvered beard, and face drawn in a half-derisive smile.

"Well!" he said, in a strange, hoa.r.s.e voice that was brutal in its tones; and a sound issued from his throat that bore some resemblance to a laugh. "Am I so changed?"

"Robert! husband!"

The words rang through the cell-like room like the cry of some stricken life, and Millicent Hallam threw herself upon the convict's breast.

He bent over her as he held her tightly, and placed his mouth to her ear, while the beautiful quivering lips were turned towards his in their agony of longing for his welcoming kiss.

"Hush! Listen!" he said, and he gave her a sharp shake. "Have you brought the tin case?"

She nodded as she clung to him, clasping him more tightly to her heaving breast.

"You've got it safely?"

She nodded quickly again.

"Where is it?"

She breathed hard, and attempted to speak, but it was some time before she could utter the expected words.

"Why don't you speak?" he said in a rough whisper. "You have it safe?"

She nodded again.

"Where?"

"It--it is at--the hotel," panted Mrs Hallam.

"Quite safe?"

"Yes."

"Unopened?"

"Yes."

"Thank G.o.d!"