Having got out of eye-shot of the ungrateful creatures he hadbefriended, Rufus Dawes threw himself upon the ground in an agony ofmingled rage and regret. For the first time for six years he had tastedthe happiness of doing good, the delight of self-abnegation. For thefirst time for six years he had broken through the selfish misanthropyhe had taught himself. And this was his reward! He had held his temperin check, in order that it might not offend others. He had banished thegalling memory of his degradation, lest haply some shadow of it mightseem to fall upon the fair child whose lot had been so strangely castwith his. He had stifled the agony he suffered, lest its expressionshould give pain to those who seemed to feel for him. He had forborneretaliation, when retaliation would have been most sweet. Having allthese years waited and watched for a chance to strike his persecutors,he had held his hand now that an unlooked-for accident had placed theweapon of destruction in his grasp. He had risked his life, forgone hisenmities, almost changed his nature--and his reward was cold looks andharsh words, so soon as his skill had paved the way to freedom.This knowledge coming upon him while the thrill of exultation at theastounding news of his riches yet vibrated in his brain, made himgrind his teeth with rage at his own hard fate. Bound by the purest andholiest of ties--the affection of a son to his mother--he had condemnedhimself to social death, rather than buy his liberty and life by arevelation which would shame the gentle creature whom he loved. By astrange series of accidents, fortune had assisted him to maintain thedeception he had practised. His cousin had not recognized him. The veryship in which he was believed to have sailed had been lost with everysoul on board. His identity had been completely destroyed--no linkremained which could connect Rufus Dawes, the convict, with RichardDevine, the vanished heir to the wealth of the dead ship-builder.
Oh, if he had only known! If, while in the gloomy prison, distracted bya thousand fears, and weighed down by crushing evidence of circumstance,he had but guessed that death had stepped between Sir Richard and hisvengeance, he might have spared himself the sacrifice he had made. Hehad been tried and condemned as a nameless sailor, who could call nowitnesses in his defence, and give no particulars as to his previoushistory. It was clear to him now that he might have adhered to hisstatement of ignorance concerning the murder, locked in his breastthe name of the murderer, and have yet been free. Judges are just, butpopular opinion is powerful, and it was not impossible that RichardDevine, the millionaire, would have escaped the fate which had overtakenRufus Dawes, the sailor. Into his calculations in the prison--when,half-crazed with love, with terror, and despair, he had counted up hischances of life--the wild supposition that he had even then inheritedthe wealth of the father who had disowned him, had never entered. Theknowledge of that fact would have altered the whole current of his life,and he learnt it for the first time now--too late. Now, lying prone uponthe sand; now, wandering aimlessly up and down among the stunted treesthat bristled white beneath the mist-barred moon; now, sitting--as hehad sat in the prison long ago--with the head gripped hard between hishands, swaying his body to and fro, he thought out the frightful problemof his bitter life. Of little use was the heritage that he had gained. Aconvict-absconder, whose hands were hard with menial service, and whoseback was scarred with the lash, could never be received among the gentlynurtured. Let him lay claim to his name and rights, what then? He was aconvicted felon, and his name and rights had been taken from him by thelaw. Let him go and tell Maurice Frere that he was his lost cousin. Hewould be laughed at. Let him proclaim aloud his birth and innocence, andthe convict-sheds would grin, and the convict overseer set him toharder labour. Let him even, by dint of reiteration, get his wild storybelieved, what would happen? If it was heard in England--after thelapse of years, perhaps--that a convict in the chain-gang in MacquarieHarbour--a man held to be a murderer, and whose convict career wasone long record of mutiny and punishment--claimed to be the heir to anEnglish fortune, and to own the right to dispossess staid and worthyEnglish folk of their rank and station, with what feeling would theannouncement be received? Certainly not with a desire to redeem thisruffian from his bonds and place him in the honoured seat of his deadfather. Such intelligence would be regarded as a calamity, an unhappyblot upon a fair reputation, a disgrace to an honoured and unsulliedname. Let him succeed, let him return again to the mother who had bythis time become reconciled, in a measure, to his loss; he would, at thebest, be to her a living shame, scarcely less degrading than that whichshe had dreaded.
But success was almost impossible. He did not dare to retrace his stepsthrough the hideous labyrinth into which he had plunged. Was he to showhis scarred shoulders as a proof that he was a gentleman and an innocentman? Was he to relate the nameless infamies of Macquarie Harbour as aproof that he was entitled to receive the hospitalities of the generous,and to sit, a respected guest, at the tables of men of refinement? Washe to quote the horrible slang of the prison-ship, and retail the filthyjests of the chain-gang and the hulks, as a proof that he was a fitcompanion for pure-minded women and innocent children? Suppose eventhat he could conceal the name of the real criminal, and show himselfguiltless of the crime for which he had been condemned, all the wealthin the world could not buy back that blissful ignorance of evil whichhad once been his. All the wealth in the world could not purchase theself-respect which had been cut out of him by the lash, or banish fromhis brain the memory of his degradation.
For hours this agony of thought racked him. He cried out as though withphysical pain, and then lay in a stupor, exhausted with actual physicalsuffering. It was hopeless to think of freedom and of honour. Let himkeep silence, and pursue the life fate had marked out for him. He wouldreturn to bondage. The law would claim him as an absconder, and wouldmete out to him such punishment as was fitting. Perhaps he might escapeseverest punishment, as a reward for his exertions in saving the child.He might consider himself fortunate if such was permitted to him.Fortunate! Suppose he did not go back at all, but wandered away into thewilderness and died? Better death than such a doom as his. Yet need hedie? He had caught goats, he could catch fish. He could build a hut.In here was, perchance, at the deserted settlement some remnant of seedcorn that, planted, would give him bread. He had built a boat, he hadmade an oven, he had fenced in a hut. Surely he could contrive to livealone savage and free. Alone! He had contrived all these marvels alone!Was not the boat he himself had built below upon the shore? Why notescape in her, and leave to their fate the miserable creatures who hadtreated him with such ingratitude?
The idea flashed into his brain, as though someone had spoken the wordsinto his ear. Twenty strides would place him in possession of the boat,and half an hour's drifting with the current would take him beyondpursuit. Once outside the Bar, he would make for the westward, in thehopes of falling in with some whaler. He would doubtless meet with onebefore many days, and he was well supplied with provision and water inthe meantime. A tale of shipwreck would satisfy the sailors, and--hepaused--he had forgotten that the rags which he wore would betray him.With an exclamation of despair, he started from the posture in whichhe was lying. He thrust out his hands to raise himself, and his fingerscame in contact with something soft. He had been lying at the foot ofsome loose stones that were piled cairnwise beside a low-growing bush;and the object that he had touched was protruding from beneath thesestones. He caught it and dragged it forth. It was the shirt of poorBates. With trembling hands he tore away the stones, and pulled forththe rest of the garments. They seemed as though they had been leftpurposely for him. Heaven had sent him the very disguise he needed.
The night had passed during his reverie, and the first faint streaks ofdawn began to lighten in the sky. Haggard and pale, he rose to his feet,and scarcely daring to think about what he proposed to do, ran towardsthe boat. As he ran, however, the voice that he had heard encouragedhim. "Your life is of more importance than theirs. They will die, butthey have been ungrateful and deserve death. You will escape out of thisHell, and return to the loving heart who mourns you. You can do moreg
ood to mankind than by saving the lives of these people who despiseyou. Moreover, they may not die. They are sure to be sent for. Think ofwhat awaits you when you return--an absconded convict!"
He was within three feet of the boat, when he suddenly checked himself,and stood motionless, staring at the sand with as much horror as thoughhe saw there the Writing which foretold the doom of Belshazzar. Hehad come upon the sentence traced by Sylvia the evening before, andglittering in the low light of the red sun suddenly risen from out thesea, it seemed to him that the letters had shaped themselves at his veryfeet,
GOOD MR. DAWES.
"Good Mr. Dawes"! What a frightful reproach there was to him in thatsimple sentence! What a world of cowardice, baseness, and cruelty, hadnot those eleven letters opened to him! He heard the voice of the childwho had nursed him, calling on him to save her. He saw her at thatinstant standing between him and the boat, as she had stood when sheheld out to him the loaf, on the night of his return to the settlement.
He staggered to the cavern, and, seizing the sleeping Frere by the arm,shook him violently. "Awake! awake!" he cried, "and let us leave thisplace!" Frere, starting to his feet, looked at the white face andbloodshot eyes of the wretched man before him with blunt astonishment."What's the matter with you, man?" he said. "You look as if you'd seen aghost!"
At the sound of his voice Rufus Dawes gave a long sigh, and drew hishand across his eyes.
"Come, Sylvia!" shouted Frere. "It's time to get up. I am ready to go!"
The sacrifice was complete. The convict turned away, and two greatglistening tears rolled down his rugged face, and fell upon the sand.
CHAPTER XVII. AT SEA.
For the Term of His Natural Life Page 29