Maurice found his favourable expectations of Sydney fully realized. Hisnotable escape from death at Macquarie Harbour, his alliance with thedaughter of so respected a colonist as Major Vickers, and his reputationas a convict disciplinarian rendered him a man of note. He received avacant magistracy, and became even more noted for hardness of heart andartfulness of prison knowledge than before. The convict population spokeof him as "that ---- Frere," and registered vows of vengeance againsthim, which he laughed--in his bluffness--to scorn.
One anecdote concerning the method by which he shepherded his flock willsuffice to show his character and his value. It was his custom to visitthe prison-yard at Hyde Park Barracks twice a week. Visitors to convictswere, of course, armed, and the two pistol-butts that peeped fromFrere's waistcoat attracted many a longing eye. How easy would it be forsome fellow to pluck one forth and shatter the smiling, hateful face ofthe noted disciplinarian! Frere, however, brave to rashness, never wouldbestow his weapons more safely, but lounged through the yard with hishands in the pockets of his shooting-coat, and the deadly butts ready tothe hand of anyone bold enough to take them.
One day a man named Kavanagh, a captured absconder, who had openly swornin the dock the death of the magistrate, walked quickly up to him as hewas passing through the yard, and snatched a pistol from his belt. Theyard caught its breath, and the attendant warder, hearing the click ofthe lock, instinctively turned his head away, so that he might not beblinded by the flash. But Kavanagh did not fire. At the instant whenhis hand was on the pistol, he looked up and met the magnetic glance ofFrere's imperious eyes. An effort, and the spell would have been broken.A twitch of the finger, and his enemy would have fallen dead. There wasan instant when that twitch of the finger could have been given, butKavanagh let that instant pass. The dauntless eye fascinated him. Heplayed with the pistol nervously, while all remained stupefied. Frerestood, without withdrawing his hands from the pockets into which theywere plunged.
"That's a fine pistol, Jack," he said at last.
Kavanagh, down whose white face the sweat was pouring, burst into ahideous laugh of relieved terror, and thrust the weapon, cocked as itwas, back again into the magistrate's belt.
Frere slowly drew one hand from his pocket, took the cocked pistol andlevelled it at his recent assailant. "That's the best chance you'll everget, Jack," said he.
Kavanagh fell on his knees. "For God's sake, Captain Frere!" Frerelooked down on the trembling wretch, and then uncocked the pistol, witha laugh of ferocious contempt. "Get up, you dog," he said. "It takes abetter man than you to best me. Bring him up in the morning, Hawkins,and we'll give him five-and-twenty."
As he went out--so great is the admiration for Power--the poor devils inthe yard cheered him.
One of the first things that this useful officer did upon his arrivalin Sydney was to inquire for Sarah Purfoy. To his astonishment, hediscovered that she was the proprietor of large export warehouses inPitt-street, owned a neat cottage on one of the points of land whichjutted into the bay, and was reputed to possess a banking account of noinconsiderable magnitude. He in vain applied his brains to solve thismystery. His cast-off mistress had not been rich when she left VanDiemen's Land--at least, so she had assured him, and appearances boreout her assurance. How had she accumulated this sudden wealth? Aboveall, why had she thus invested it? He made inquiries at the banks, butwas snubbed for his pains. Sydney banks in those days did some queerbusiness. Mrs. Purfoy had come to them "fully accredited," said themanager with a smile.
"But where did she get the money?" asked the magistrate. "I amsuspicious of these sudden fortunes. The woman was a notorious characterin Hobart Town, and when she left hadn't a penny."
"My dear Captain Frere," said the acute banker--his father had been oneof the builders of the "Rum Hospital"--"it is not the custom of our bankto make inquiries into the previous history of its customers. The billswere good, you may depend, or we should not have honoured them. Goodmorning!"
"The bills!" Frere saw but one explanation. Sarah had received theproceeds of some of Rex's rogueries. Rex's letter to his father andthe mention of the sum of money "in the old house in Blue Anchor Yard"flashed across his memory. Perhaps Sarah had got the money from thereceiver and appropriated it. But why invest it in an oil and tallowwarehouse? He had always been suspicious of the woman, because he hadnever understood her, and his suspicions redoubled. Convinced that therewas some plot hatching, he determined to use all the advantages that hisposition gave him to discover the secret and bring it to light. The nameof the man to whom Rex's letters had been addressed was "Blicks".He would find out if any of the convicts under his care had heard ofBlicks. Prosecuting his inquiries in the proper direction, he soonobtained a reply. Blicks was a London receiver of stolen goods, known toat least a dozen of the black sheep of the Sydney fold. He was reputedto be enormously wealthy, had often been tried, but never convicted.Frere was thus not much nearer enlightenment than before, andan incident occurred a few months afterwards which increased hisbewilderment He had not been long established in his magistracy, whenBlunt came to claim payment for the voyage of Sarah Purfoy. "There'sthat schooner going begging, one may say, sir," said Blunt, when theoffice door was shut.
"What schooner?"
"The Franklin."
Now the Franklin was a vessel of three hundred and twenty tons whichplied between Norfolk Island and Sydney, as the Osprey had plied in theold days between Macquarie Harbour and Hobart Town. "I am afraid that israther stiff, Blunt," said Frere. "That's one of the best billets going,you know. I doubt if I have enough interest to get it for you. Besides,"he added, eyeing the sailor critically, "you are getting oldish for thatsort of thing, ain't you?"
Phineas Blunt stretched his arms wide, and opened his mouth, full ofsound white teeth. "I am good for twenty years more yet, sir," he said."My father was trading to the Indies at seventy-five years of age. I'mhearty enough, thank God; for, barring a drop of rum now and then, I'veno vices to speak of. However, I ain't in a hurry, Captain, for a monthor so; only I thought I'd jog your memory a bit, d ye see."
"Oh, you're not in a hurry; where are you going then?"
"Well," said Blunt, shifting on his seat, uneasy under Frere'sconvict-disciplined eye, "I've got a job on hand."
"Glad of it, I'm sure. What sort of a job?"
"A job of whaling," said Blunt, more uneasy than before.
"Oh, that's it, is it? Your old line of business. And who employs younow?" There was no suspicion in the tone, and had Blunt chosen to evadethe question, he might have done so without difficulty, but he repliedas one who had anticipated such questioning, and had been advised how toanswer it.
"Mrs. Purfoy."
"What!" cried Frere, scarcely able to believe his ears.
"She's got a couple of ships now, Captain, and she made me skipper ofone of 'em. We look for beshdellamare [beche-de-la-mer], and take a turnat harpooning sometimes."
Frere stared at Blunt, who stared at the window. There was--so theinstinct of the magistrate told him--some strange project afoot. Yetthat common sense which so often misleads us, urged that it was quitenatural Sarah should employ whaling vessels to increase her trade.Granted that there was nothing wrong about her obtaining the business,there was nothing strange about her owning a couple of whalingvessels. There were people in Sydney, of no better origin, who ownedhalf-a-dozen. "Oh," said he. "And when do you start?"
"I'm expecting to get the word every day," returned Blunt, apparentlyrelieved, "and I thought I'd just come and see you first, in case ofanything falling in." Frere played with a pen-knife on the table insilence for a while, allowing it to fall through his fingers with aseries of sharp clicks, and then he said, "Where does she get the moneyfrom?"
"Blest if I know!" said Blunt, in unaffected simplicity. "That's beyondme. She says she saved it. But that's all my eye, you know."
"You don't know anything about it, then?" cried Frere, suddenly fierce.
"No, not I."
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sp; "Because, if there's any game on, she'd better take care," he cried,relapsing, in his excitement, into the convict vernacular. "She knowsme. Tell her that I've got my eyes on her. Let her remember her bargain.If she runs any rigs on me, let her take care." In his suspicious wrathhe so savagely and unwarily struck downwards with the open pen-knifethat it shut upon his fingers, and cut him to the bone.
"I'll tell her," said Blunt, wiping his brow. "I'm sure she wouldn'tgo to sell you. But I'll look in when I come back, sir." When he gotoutside he drew a long breath. "By the Lord Harry, but it's a ticklishgame to play," he said to himself, with a lively recollection of thedreaded Frere's vehemence; "and there's only one woman in the world I'dbe fool enough to play it for."
Maurice Frere, oppressed with suspicions, ordered his horse thatafternoon, and rode down to see the cottage which the owner of "PurfoyStores" had purchased. He found it a low white building, situated fourmiles from the city, at the extreme end of a tongue of land which raninto the deep waters of the harbour. A garden carefully cultivated,stood between the roadway and the house, and in this garden he saw a mandigging.
"Does Mrs. Purfoy live here?" he asked, pushing open one of the irongates.
The man replied in the affirmative, staring at the visitor with somesuspicion.
"Is she at home?"
"No."
"You are sure?"
"If you don't believe me, ask at the house," was the reply, given in theuncourteous tone of a free man.
Frere pushed his horse through the gate, and walked up the broad andwell-kept carriage drive. A man-servant in livery, answering his ring,told him that Mrs. Purfoy had gone to town, and then shut the door inhis face. Frere, more astonished than ever at these outward and visiblesigns of independence, paused, indignant, feeling half inclined to enterdespite opposition. As he looked through the break of the trees, he sawthe masts of a brig lying at anchor off the extremity of the point onwhich the house was built, and understood that the cottage commandedcommunication by water as well as by land. Could there be a specialmotive in choosing such a situation, or was it mere chance? He wasuneasy, but strove to dismiss his alarm.
Sarah had kept faith with him so far. She had entered upon a new andmore reputable life, and why should he seek to imagine evil whereperhaps no evil was? Blunt was evidently honest. Women like SarahPurfoy often emerged into a condition of comparative riches and domesticvirtue. It was likely that, after all, some wealthy merchant wasthe real owner of the house and garden, pleasure yacht, and tallowwarehouse, and that he had no cause for fear.
The experienced convict disciplinarian did not rate the ability of JohnRex high enough.
From the instant the convict had heard his sentence of life banishment,he had determined upon escaping, and had brought all the powers of hisacute and unscrupulous intellect to the consideration of the best methodof achieving his purpose. His first care was to procure money. This hethought to do by writing to Blick, but when informed by Meekin of thefate of his letter, he adopted the--to him--less pleasant alternative ofprocuring it through Sarah Purfoy.
It was peculiar to the man's hard and ungrateful nature that, despitethe attachment of the woman who had followed him to his place ofdurance, and had made it the object of her life to set him free, he hadcherished for her no affection. It was her beauty that had attractedhim, when, as Mr. Lionel Crofton, he swaggered in the night-societyof London. Her talents and her devotion were secondaryconsiderations--useful to him as attributes of a creature he owned, butnot to be thought of when his fancy wearied of its choice. During thetwelve years which had passed since his rashness had delivered him intothe hands of the law at the house of Green, the coiner, he had beenoppressed with no regrets for her fate. He had, indeed, seen andsuffered so much that the old life had been put away from him. When, onhis return, he heard that Sarah Purfoy was still in Hobart Town, he wasglad, for he knew that he had an ally who would do her utmost to helphim--she had shown that on board the Malabar. But he was also sorry, forhe remembered that the price she would demand for her services was hisaffection, and that had cooled long ago. However, he would make use ofher. There might be a way to discard her if she proved troublesome.
His pretended piety had accomplished the end he had assumed it for.Despite Frere's exposure of his cryptograph, he had won the confidenceof Meekin; and into that worthy creature's ear he poured a strange andsad story. He was the son, he said, of a clergyman of the Church ofEngland, whose real name, such was his reverence for the cloth, shouldnever pass his lips. He was transported for a forgery which he did notcommit. Sarah Purfoy was his wife--his erring, lost and yet lovedwife. She, an innocent and trusting girl, had determined--strong in theremembrance of that promise she had made at the altar--to follow herhusband to his place of doom, and had hired herself as lady's-maid toMrs. Vickers. Alas! fever prostrated that husband on a bed of sickness,and Maurice Frere, the profligate and the villain, had taken advantageof the wife's unprotected state to ruin her! Rex darkly hinted howthe seducer made his power over the sick and helpless husband a weaponagainst the virtue of the wife and so terrified poor Meekin that, had itnot "happened so long ago", he would have thought it necessary to lookwith some disfavour upon the boisterous son-in-law of Major Vickers.
"I bear him no ill-will, sir," said Rex. "I did at first. There was atime when I could have killed him, but when I had him in my power, I--asyou know--forbore to strike. No, sir, I could not commit murder!"
"Very proper," says Meekin, "very proper indeed." "God will punish himin His own way, and His own time," continued Rex. "My great sorrow isfor the poor woman. She is in Sydney, I have heard, living respectably,sir; and my heart bleeds for her." Here Rex heaved a sigh that wouldhave made his fortune on the boards.
"My poor fellow," said Meekin. "Do you know where she is?"
"I do, sir."
"You might write to her."
John Rex appeared to hesitate, to struggle with himself, and finally totake a deep resolve. "No, Mr. Meekin, I will not write."
"Why not?"
"You know the orders, sir--the Commandant reads all the letters sent.Could I write to my poor Sarah what other eyes were to read?" and hewatched the parson slyly.
"N--no, you could not," said Meekin, at last.
"It is true, sir," said Rex, letting his head sink on his breast. Thenext day, Meekin, blushing with the consciousness that what he was aboutto do was wrong, said to his penitent, "If you will promise to writenothing that the Commandant might not see, Rex, I will send your letterto your wife."
"Heaven bless you, sir,". said Rex, and took two days to compose anepistle which should tell Sarah Purfoy how to act. The letter wasa model of composition in one way. It stated everything clearly andsuccinctly. Not a detail that could assist was omitted--not a line thatcould embarrass was suffered to remain. John Rex's scheme of six months'deliberation was set down in the clearest possible manner. He broughthis letter unsealed to Meekin. Meekin looked at it with an interest thatwas half suspicion. "Have I your word that there is nothing in this thatmight not be read by the Commandant?"
John Rex was a bold man, but at the sight of the deadly thing flutteringopen in the clergyman's hand, his knees knocked together. Strong in hisknowledge of human nature, however, he pursued his desperate plan."Read it, sir," he said turning away his face reproachfully. "You are agentleman. I can trust you."
"No, Rex," said Meekin, walking loftily into the pitfall; "I do not readprivate letters." It was sealed, and John Rex felt as if somebody hadwithdrawn a match from a powder barrel.
In a month Mr. Meekin received a letter, beautifully written, from"Sarah Rex", stating briefly that she had heard of his goodness, thatthe enclosed letter was for her husband, and that if it was against therules to give it him, she begged it might be returned to her unread. Ofcourse Meekin gave it to Rex, who next morning handed to Meekin a mosttouching pious production, begging him to read it. Meekin did so, andany suspicions he may have had were at once disarmed. He was ignorant ofthe
fact that the pious letter contained a private one intended for JohnRex only, which letter John Rex thought so highly of, that, having readit twice through most attentively, he ate it.
The plan of escape was after all a simple one. Sarah Purfoy was toobtain from Blicks the moneys he held in trust, and to embark the sumthus obtained in any business which would suffer her to keep a vesselhovering round the southern coast of Van Diemen's Land without excitingsuspicion. The escape was to be made in the winter months, if possible,in June or July. The watchful vessel was to be commanded by sometrustworthy person, who was to frequently land on the south-easternside, and keep a look-out for any extraordinary appearance along thecoast. Rex himself must be left to run the gauntlet of the dogs andguards unaided. "This seems a desperate scheme," wrote Rex, "but itis not so wild as it looks. I have thought over a dozen others, andrejected them all. This is the only way. Consider it well. I have my ownplan for escape, which is easy if rescue be at hand. All depends uponplacing a trustworthy man in charge of the vessel. You ought to knowa dozen such. I will wait eighteen months to give you time to make allarrangements." The eighteen months had now nearly passed over, andthe time for the desperate attempt drew near. Faithful to his cruelphilosophy, John Rex had provided scape-goats, who, by their vicariousagonies, should assist him to his salvation.
He had discovered that of the twenty men in his gang eight had alreadydetermined on an effort for freedom. The names of these eight wereGabbett, Vetch, Bodenham, Cornelius, Greenhill, Sanders, called the"Moocher", Cox, and Travers. The leading spirits were Vetch and Gabbett,who, with profound reverence, requested the "Dandy" to join. John Rex,ever suspicious, and feeling repelled by the giant's strange eagerness,at first refused, but by degrees allowed himself to appear to bedrawn into the scheme. He would urge these men to their fate, and takeadvantage of the excitement attendant on their absence to effect hisown escape. "While all the island is looking for these eight boobies, Ishall have a good chance to slip away unmissed." He wished, however, tohave a companion. Some strong man, who, if pressed hard, would turnand keep the pursuers at bay, would be useful without doubt; and thiscomrade-victim he sought in Rufus Dawes.
Beginning, as we have seen, from a purely selfish motive, to urge hisfellow-prisoner to abscond with him, John Rex gradually found himselfattracted into something like friendliness by the sternness with whichhis overtures were repelled. Always a keen student of human nature,the scoundrel saw beneath the roughness with which it had pleased theunfortunate man to shroud his agony, how faithful a friend and howardent and undaunted a spirit was concealed. There was, moreover, amystery about Rufus Dawes which Rex, the reader of hearts, longed tofathom.
"Have you no friends whom you would wish to see?" he asked, one evening,when Rufus Dawes had proved more than usually deaf to his arguments.
"No," said Dawes gloomily. "My friends are all dead to me."
"What, all?" asked the other. "Most men have some one whom they wish tosee."
Rufus Dawes laughed a slow, heavy laugh. "I am better here."
"Then are you content to live this dog's life?"
"Enough, enough," said Dawes. "I am resolved."
"Pooh! Pluck up a spirit," cried Rex. "It can't fail. I've been thinkingof it for eighteen months, and it can't fail."
"Who are going?" asked the other, his eyes fixed on the ground. John Rexenumerated the eight, and Dawes raised his head. "I won't go. I havehad two trials at it; I don't want another. I would advise you not toattempt it either."
"Why not?"
"Gabbett bolted twice before," said Rufus Dawes, shuddering at theremembrance of the ghastly object he had seen in the sunlit glen atHell's Gates. "Others went with him, but each time he returned alone."
"What do you mean?" asked Rex, struck by the tone of his companion.
"What became of the others?"
"Died, I suppose," said the Dandy, with a forced laugh.
"Yes; but how? They were all without food. How came the survivingmonster to live six weeks?"
John Rex grew a shade paler, and did not reply. He recollected thesanguinary legend that pertained to Gabbett's rescue. But he did notintend to make the journey in his company, so, after all, he had nocause for fear. "Come with me then," he said, at length. "We will tryour luck together."
"No. I have resolved. I stay here."
"And leave your innocence unproved."
"How can I prove it?" cried Rufus Dawes, roughly impatient. "There arecrimes committed which are never brought to light, and this is one ofthem."
"Well," said Rex, rising, as if weary of the discussion, "have it yourown way, then. You know best. The private detective game is hard work.I, myself, have gone on a wild-goose chase before now. There's a mysteryabout a certain ship-builder's son which took me four months to unravel,and then I lost the thread."
"A ship-builder's son! Who was he?"
John Rex paused in wonderment at the eager interest with which thequestion was put, and then hastened to take advantage of this newopening for conversation. "A queer story. A well-known character in mytime--Sir Richard Devine. A miserly old curmudgeon, with a scapegraceson."
Rufus Dawes bit his lips to avoid showing his emotion. This was thesecond time that the name of his dead father had been spoken in hishearing. "I think I remember something of him," he said, with a voicethat sounded strangely calm in his own ears.
"A curious story," said Rex, plunging into past memories. "Amongst othermatters, I dabbled a little in the Private Inquiry line of business, andthe old man came to me. He had a son who had gone abroad--a wild youngdog, by all accounts--and he wanted particulars of him."
"Did you get them?"
"To a certain extent. I hunted him through Paris into Brussels, fromBrussels to Antwerp, from Antwerp back to Paris. I lost him there.A miserable end to a long and expensive search. I got nothing buta portmanteau with a lot of letters from his mother. I sent theparticulars to the ship-builder, and by all accounts the news killedhim, for he died not long after."
"And the son?"
"Came to the queerest end of all. The old man had left him hisfortune--a large one, I believe--but he'd left Europe, it seems, forIndia, and was lost in the Hydaspes. Frere was his cousin."
"Ah!"
"By Gad, it annoys me when I think of it," continued Rex, feeling,by force of memory, once more the adventurer of fashion. "With theresources I had, too. Oh, a miserable failure! The days and nights I'vespent walking about looking for Richard Devine, and never catchinga glimpse of him. The old man gave me his son's portrait, with fullparticulars of his early life, and I suppose I carried that ivorygimcrack in my breast for nearly three months, pulling it out to refreshmy memory every half-hour. By Gad, if the young gentleman wasanything like his picture, I could have sworn to him if I'd met him inTimbuctoo."
"Do you think you'd know him again?" asked Rufus Dawes in a low voice,turning away his head.
There may have been something in the attitude in which the speaker hadput himself that awakened memory, or perhaps the subdued eagerness ofthe tone, contrasting so strangely with the comparative inconsequence ofthe theme, that caused John Rex's brain to perform one of those featsof automatic synthesis at which we afterwards wonder. The profligateson--the likeness to the portrait--the mystery of Dawes's life! Thesewere the links of a galvanic chain. He closed the circuit, and a vividflash revealed to him--THE MAN.
Warder Troke, coming up, put his hand on Rex's shoulder. "Dawes," hesaid, "you're wanted at the yard"; and then, seeing his mistake, addedwith a grin, "Curse you two; you're so much alike one can't tell t'otherfrom which."
Rufus Dawes walked off moodily; but John Rex's evil face turned pale,and a strange hope made his heart leap. "Gad, Troke's right; we arealike. I'll not press him to escape any more."
CHAPTER XXIII. RUNNING THE GAUNTLET.
For the Term of His Natural Life Page 54