The method and manner of Frere's revenge became a subject of whisperedconversation on the island. It was reported that North had beenforbidden to visit the convict, but that he had refused to accept theprohibition, and by a threat of what he would do when the returningvessel had landed him in Hobart Town, had compelled the Commandant towithdraw his order. The Commandant, however, speedily discovered inRufus Dawes signs of insubordination, and set to work again to reducestill further the "spirit" he had so ingeniously "broken". The unhappyconvict was deprived of food, was kept awake at nights, was put to thehardest labour, was loaded with the heaviest irons. Troke, with devilishmalice, suggested that, if the tortured wretch would decline to see thechaplain, some amelioration of his condition might be effected; but hissuggestions were in vain. Fully believing that his death was certain,Dawes clung to North as the saviour of his agonized soul, and rejectedall such insidious overtures. Enraged at this obstinacy, Frere sentencedhis victim to the "spread eagle" and the "stretcher".
Now the rumour of the obduracy of this undaunted convict who had beenrecalled to her by the clergyman at their strange interview, had reachedSylvia's ears. She had heard gloomy hints of the punishments inflictedon him by her husband's order, and as--constantly revolving in hermind was that last conversation with the chaplain--she wondered at theprisoner's strange fancy for a flower, her brain began to thrill withthose undefined and dreadful memories which had haunted her childhood.What was the link between her and this murderous villain? How came itthat she felt at times so strange a sympathy for his fate, and thathe--who had attempted her life--cherished so tender a remembrance of heras to beg for a flower which her hand had touched?
She questioned her husband concerning the convict's misdoings, but withthe petulant brutality which he invariably displayed when the nameof Rufus Dawes intruded itself into their conversation, Maurice Frereharshly refused to satisfy her. This but raised her curiosity higher.She reflected how bitter he had always seemed against this man--sheremembered how, in the garden at Hobart Town, the hunted wretch hadcaught her dress with words of assured confidence--she recollectedthe fragment of cloth he passionately flung from him, and which heraffianced lover had contemptuously tossed into the stream. The nameof "Dawes", detested as it had become to her, bore yet some strangeassociation of comfort and hope. What secret lurked behind the twilightthat had fallen upon her childish memories? Deprived of the adviceof North--to whom, a few weeks back, she would have confided hermisgivings--she resolved upon a project that, for her, was mostdistasteful. She would herself visit the gaol and judge how far therumours of her husband's cruelty were worthy of credit.
One sultry afternoon, when the Commandant had gone on a visit ofinspection, Troke, lounging at the door of the New Prison, beheld, withsurprise, the figure of the Commandant's lady.
"What is it, mam?" he asked, scarcely able to believe his eyes.
"I want to see the prisoner Dawes."
Troke's jaw fell.
"See Dawes?" he repeated.
"Yes. Where is he?"
Troke was preparing a lie. The imperious voice, and the clear, steadygaze, confused him.
"He's here."
"Let me see him."
"He's--he's under punishment, mam."
"What do you mean? Are they flogging him?"
"No; but he's dangerous, mam. The Commandant--"
"Do you mean to open the door or not, Mr. Troke?"
Troke grew more confused. It was evident that he was most unwilling toopen the door. "The Commandant has given strict orders--"
"Do you wish me to complain to the Commandant?" cries Sylvia, with atouch of her old spirit, and jumped hastily at the conclusion thatthe gaolers were, perhaps, torturing the convict for their ownentertainment. "Open the door at once!--at once!"
Thus commanded, Troke, with a hasty growl of its "being no affair ofhis, and he hoped Mrs. Frere would tell the captain how it happened"flung open the door of a cell on the right hand of the doorway. It wasso dark that, at first, Sylvia could distinguish nothing but the outlineof a framework, with something stretched upon it that resembled a humanbody. Her first thought was that the man was dead, but this was notso--he groaned. Her eyes, accustoming themselves to the gloom, began tosee what the "punishment" was. Upon the floor was placed an iron frameabout six feet long, and two and a half feet wide, with round iron bars,placed transversely, about twelve inches apart. The man she came toseek was bound in a horizontal position upon this frame, with his neckprojecting over the end of it. If he allowed his head to hang, the bloodrushed to his brain, and suffocated him, while the effort to keep itraised strained every muscle to agony pitch. His face was purple, and hefoamed at the mouth. Sylvia uttered a cry. "This is no punishment; it'smurder! Who ordered this?"
"The Commandant," said Troke sullenly.
"I don't believe it. Loose him!"
"I daren't mam," said Troke.
"Loose him, I say! Hailey!--you, sir, there!" The noise had broughtseveral warders to the spot. "Do you hear me? Do you know who I am?Loose him, I say!" In her eagerness and compassion she was on her kneesby the side of the infernal machine, plucking at the ropes with herdelicate fingers. "Wretches, you have cut his flesh! He is dying! Help!You have killed him!" The prisoner, in fact, seeing this angel of mercystooping over him, and hearing close to him the tones of a voice thatfor seven years he had heard but in his dreams, had fainted. Troke andHailey, alarmed by her vehemence, dragged the stretcher out into thelight, and hastily cut the lashings. Dawes rolled off like a log, andhis head fell against Mrs. Frere. Troke roughly pulled him aside, andcalled for water. Sylvia, trembling with sympathy and pale with passion,turned upon the crew. "How long has he been like this?"
"An hour," said Troke.
"A lie!" said a stern voice at the door. "He has been there nine hours!"
"Wretches!" cried Sylvia, "you shall hear more of this. Oh, oh! I amsick!"--she felt for the wall--"I--I--" North watched her with agony onhis face, but did not move. "I faint. I--"--she uttered a despairing crythat was not without a touch of anger. "Mr. North! do you not see? Oh!Take me home--take me home!" and she would have fallen across the bodyof the tortured prisoner had not North caught her in his arms.
Rufus Dawes, awaking from his stupor, saw, in the midst of a sunbeamwhich penetrated a window in the corridor, the woman who came tosave his body supported by the priest who came to save his soul; andstaggering to his knees, he stretched out his hands with a hoarse cry.Perhaps something in the action brought back to the dimmed remembranceof the Commandant's wife the image of a similar figure stretching forthits hands to a frightened child in the mysterious far-off time. Shestarted, and pushing back her hair, bent a wistful, terrified gaze uponthe face of the kneeling man, as though she would fain read there anexplanation of the shadowy memory which haunted her. It is possible thatshe would have spoken, but North--thinking the excitement had producedone of those hysterical crises which were common to her--gently drewher, still gazing, back towards the gate. The convict's arms fell,and an undefinable presentiment of evil chilled him as he beheldthe priest--emotion pallid in his cheeks--slowly draw the fair youngcreature from out the sunlight into the grim shadow of the heavyarchway. For an instant the gloom swallowed them, and it seemed to Dawesthat the strange wild man of God had in that instant become a man ofEvil--blighting the brightness and the beauty of the innocence thatclung to him. For an instant--and then they passed out of the prisonarchway into the free air of heaven--and the sunlight glowed golden ontheir faces.
"You are ill," said North. "You will faint. Why do you look so wildly?"
"What is it?" she whispered, more in answer to her own thoughts thanto his question--"what is it that links me to that man? What deed--whatterror--what memory? I tremble with crowding thoughts, that die ere theycan whisper to me. Oh, that prison!"
"Look up; we are in the sunshine."
She passed her hand across her brow, sighing heavily, as one awakingfrom a disturbed slumber--shuddered, and withdr
ew her arm from his.North interpreted the action correctly, and the blood rushed to hisface. "Pardon me, you cannot walk alone; you will fall. I will leave youat the gate."
In truth she would have fallen had he not again assisted her. Sheturned upon him eyes whose reproachful sorrow had almost forced him toa confession, but he bowed his head and held silence. They reached thehouse, and he placed her tenderly in a chair. "Now you are safe, madam,I will leave you."
She burst into tears. "Why do you treat me thus, Mr. North? What have Idone to make you hate me?"
"Hate you!" said North, with trembling lips. "Oh, no, I do not--do nothate you. I am rude in my speech, abrupt in my manner. You must forgetit, and--and me." A horse's feet crashed upon the gravel, and an instantafter Maurice Frere burst into the room. Returning from the Cascades, hehad met Troke, and learned the release of the prisoner. Furious at thisusurpation of authority by his wife, his self-esteem wounded by thethought that she had witnessed his mean revenge upon the man he had soinfamously wronged, and his natural brutality enhanced by brandy, he hadmade for the house at full gallop, determined to assert his authority.Blind with rage, he saw no one but his wife. "What the devil's thisI hear? You have been meddling in my business! You release prisoners!You--"
"Captain Frere!" said North, stepping forward to assert the restrainingpresence of a stranger. Frere started, astonished at the intrusion ofthe chaplain. Here was another outrage of his dignity, another insult tohis supreme authority. In its passion, his gross mind leapt to the worstconclusion. "You here, too! What do you want here--with my wife! This isyour quarrel, is it?" His eyes glanced wrathfully from one to the other;and he strode towards North. "You infernal hypocritical lying scoundrel,if it wasn't for your black coat, I'd--"
"Maurice!" cried Sylvia, in an agony of shame and terror, strivingto place a restraining hand upon his arm. He turned upon her with sofiercely infamous a curse that North, pale with righteous rage, seemedprompted to strike the burly ruffian to the earth. For a moment, thetwo men faced each other, and then Frere, muttering threats of vengeanceagainst each and all--convicts, gaolers, wife, and priest--flung thesuppliant woman violently from him, and rushed from the room. She fellheavily against the wall, and as the chaplain raised her, he heard thehoof-strokes of the departing horse.
"Oh," cried Sylvia, covering her face with trembling hands, "let meleave this place!"
North, enfolding her in his arms, strove to soothe her with incoherentwords of comfort. Dizzy with the blow she had received, she clung to himsobbing. Twice he tried to tear himself away, but had he loosed his holdshe would have fallen. He could not hold her--bruised, suffering, andin tears--thus against his heart, and keep silence. In a torrent ofagonized eloquence the story of his love burst from his lips. "Whyshould you be thus tortured?" he cried. "Heaven never willed you tobe mated to that boor--you, whose life should be all sunshine. Leavehim--leave him. He has cast you off. We have both suffered. Let us leavethis dreadful place--this isthmus between earth and hell! I will giveyou happiness."
"I am going," she said faintly. "I have already arranged to go."
North trembled. "It was not of my seeking. Fate has willed it. We gotogether!"
They looked at each other--she felt the fever of his blood, she read hispassion in his eyes, she comprehended the "hatred" he had affected forher, and, deadly pale, drew back the cold hand he held.
"Go!" she murmured. "If you love me, leave me--leave me! Do not see meor speak to me again--" her silence added the words she could not utter,"till then."
CHAPTER XIV. GETTING READY FOR SEA.
For the Term of His Natural Life Page 88