For the Term of His Natural Life Part 40

"I do," said Sylvia, twisting her hands together as if in pain. "I pity them all, poor creatures."

"Charming sensibility!" says Meekin, with a glance at Vickers. "The true woman's heart, my dear Major."

The Major tapped his fingers impatiently at this ill-timed twaddle.

Sylvia was too nervous just then for sentiment. "Come here, Poppet," he said, "and look through this door. You can see them from here, and if you do not recognize any of them, I can't see what is the use of putting you in the box; though, of course, if it is necessary, you must go."

The raised dock was just opposite to the door of the room in which they were sitting, and the four manacled men, each with an armed warder behind him, were visible above the heads of the crowd. The girl had never before seen the ceremony of trying a man for his life, and the silent and antique solemnities of the business affected her, as it affects all who see it for the first time. The atmosphere was heavy and distressing. The chains of the prisoners clanked ominously. The crus.h.i.+ng force of judge, gaolers, warders, and constables a.s.sembled to punish the four men, appeared cruel. The familiar faces, that in her momentary glance, she recognized, seemed to her evilly transfigured. Even the countenance of her promised husband, bent eagerly forward towards the witness-box, showed tyrannous and bloodthirsty. Her eyes hastily followed the pointing finger of her father, and sought the men in the dock. Two of them lounged, sullen and inattentive; one nervously chewed a straw, or piece of twig, pawing the dock with restless hand; the fourth scowled across the Court at the witness-box, which she could not see. The four faces were all strange to her.

"No, papa," she said, with a sigh of relief, "I can't recognize them at all."

As she was turning from the door, a voice from the witness-box behind her made her suddenly pale and pause to look again. The Court itself appeared, at that moment, affected, for a murmur ran through it, and some official cried, "Silence!"

The notorious criminal, Rufus Dawes, the desperado of Port Arthur, the wild beast whom the Gazette had judged not fit to live, had just entered the witness-box. He was a man of thirty, in the prime of life, with a torso whose muscular grandeur not even the ill-fitting yellow jacket could altogether conceal, with strong, embrowned, and nervous hands, an upright carriage, and a pair of fierce, black eyes that roamed over the Court hungrily.

Not all the weight of the double irons swaying from the leathern thong around his ma.s.sive loins, could mar that elegance of att.i.tude which comes only from perfect muscular development. Not all the frowning faces bent upon him could frown an accent of respect into the contemptuous tones in which he answered to his name, "Rufus Dawes, prisoner of the Crown".

"Come away, my darling," said Vickers, alarmed at his daughter's blanched face and eager eyes.

"Wait," she said impatiently, listening for the voice whose owner she could not see. "Rufus Dawes! Oh, I have heard that name before!"

"You are a prisoner of the Crown at the penal settlement of Port Arthur?"

"Yes."

"For life?"

"For life."

Sylvia turned to her father with breathless inquiry in her eyes. "Oh, papa! who is that speaking? I know the name! the voice!"

"That is the man who was with you in the boat, dear," says Vickers gravely. "The prisoner."

The eager light died out of her eyes, and in its place came a look of disappointment and pain. "I thought it was a good man," she said, holding by the edge of the doorway. "It sounded like a good voice."

And then she pressed her hands over her eyes and shuddered. "There, there," says Vickers soothingly, "don't be afraid, Poppet; he can't hurt you now."

"No, ha! ha!" says Meekin, with great display of off-hand courage, "the villain's safe enough now."

The colloquy in the Court went on. "Do you know the prisoners in the dock?"

"Yes." "Who are they?"

"John Rex, Henry s.h.i.+ers, James Lesly, and, and--I'm not sure about the last man." "You are not sure about the last man. Will you swear to the three others?"

"Yes."

"You remember them well?"

"I was in the chain-gang at Macquarie Harbour with them for three years." Sylvia, hearing this hideous reason for acquaintance, gave a low cry, and fell into her father's arms.

"Oh, papa, take me away! I feel as if I was going to remember something terrible!"

Amid the deep silence that prevailed, the cry of the poor girl was distinctly audible in the Court, and all heads turned to the door. In the general wonder no one noticed the change that pa.s.sed over Rufus Dawes. His face flushed scarlet, great drops of sweat stood on his forehead, and his black eyes glared in the direction from whence the sound came, as though they would pierce the envious wood that separated him from the woman whose voice he had heard. Maurice Frere sprang up and pushed his way through the crowd under the bench.

"What's this?" he said to Vickers, almost brutally. "What did you bring her here for? She is not wanted. I told you that."

"I considered it my duty, sir," says Vickers, with stately rebuke.

"What has frightened her? What has she heard? What has she seen?" asked Frere, with a strangely white face. "Sylvia, Sylvia!"

She opened her eyes at the sound of his voice. "Take me home, papa; I'm ill. Oh, what thoughts!"

"What does she mean?" cried Frere, looking in alarm from one to the other.

"That ruffian Dawes frightened her," said Meekin. "A gush of recollection, poor child. There, there, calm yourself, Miss Vickers. He is quite safe."

"Frightened her, eh?" "Yes," said Sylvia faintly, "he frightened me, Maurice. I needn't stop any longer, dear, need I?"

"No," says Frere, the cloud pa.s.sing from his face. "Major, I beg your pardon, but I was hasty. Take her home at once. This sort of thing is too much for her." And so he went back to his place, wiping his brow, and breathing hard, as one who had just escaped from some near peril.

Rufus Dawes had remained in the same att.i.tude until the figure of Frere, pa.s.sing through the doorway, roused him. "Who is she?" he said, in a low, hoa.r.s.e voice, to the constable behind him. "Miss Vickers," said the man shortly, flinging the information at him as one might fling a bone to a dangerous dog.

"Miss Vickers," repeated the convict, still staring in a sort of bewildered agony. "They told me she was dead!"

The constable sniffed contemptuously at this preposterous conclusion, as who should say, "If you know all about it, animal, why did you ask?"

and then, feeling that the fixed gaze of his interrogator demanded some reply, added, "You thort she was, I've no doubt. You did your best to make her so, I've heard."

The convict raised both his hands with sudden action of wrathful despair, as though he would seize the other, despite the loaded muskets; but, checking himself with sudden impulse, wheeled round to the Court.

"Your Honour!--Gentlemen! I want to speak."

The change in the tone of his voice, no less than the sudden loudness of the exclamation, made the faces, hitherto bent upon the door through which Mr. Frere had pa.s.sed, turn round again. To many there it seemed that the "notorious Dawes" was no longer in the box, for, in place of the upright and defiant villain who stood there an instant back, was a white-faced, nervous, agitated creature, bending forward in an att.i.tude almost of supplication, one hand grasping the rail, as though to save himself from falling, the other outstretched towards the bench. "Your Honour, there has been some dreadful mistake made. I want to explain about myself. I explained before, when first I was sent to Port Arthur, but the letters were never forwarded by the Commandant; of course, that's the rule, and I can't complain. I've been sent there unjustly, your Honour. I made that boat, your Honour. I saved the Major's wife and daughter. I was the man; I did it all myself, and my liberty was sworn away by a villain who hated me. I thought, until now, that no one knew the truth, for they told me that she was dead." His rapid utterance took the Court so much by surprise that no one interrupted him. "I was sentenced to death for bolting, sir, and they reprieved me because I helped them in the boat. Helped them! Why, I made it! She will tell you so. I nursed her! I carried her in my arms! I starved myself for her! She was fond of me, sir. She was indeed. She called me 'Good Mr.

Dawes'."

At this, a coa.r.s.e laugh broke out, which was instantly checked. The judge bent over to ask, "Does he mean Miss Vickers?" and in this interval Rufus Dawes, looking down into the Court, saw Maurice Frere staring up at him with terror in his eyes. "I see you, Captain Frere, coward and liar! Put him in the box, gentlemen, and make him tell his story. She'll contradict him, never fear. Oh, and I thought she was dead all this while!"

The judge had got his answer from the clerk by this time. "Miss Vickers had been seriously ill, had fainted just now in the Court. Her only memories of the convict who had been with her in the boat were those of terror and disgust. The sight of him just now had most seriously affected her. The convict himself was an inveterate liar and schemer, and his story had been already disproved by Captain Frere."

The judge, a man inclining by nature to humanity, but forced by experience to receive all statements of prisoners with caution, said all he could say, and the tragedy of five years was disposed of in the following dialogue:- JUDGE: This is not the place for an accusation against Captain Frere, nor the place to argue upon your alleged wrongs. If you have suffered injustice, the authorities will hear your complaint, and redress it.

RUFUS DAWES I have complained, your Honour. I wrote letter after letter to the Government, but they were never sent. Then I heard she was dead, and they sent me to the Coal Mines after that, and we never hear anything there.

JUDGE I can't listen to you. Mr. Mangles, have you any more questions to ask the witness?

But Mr. Mangles not having any more, someone called, "Matthew Gabbett,"

and Rufus Dawes, still endeavouring to speak, was clanked away with, amid a buzz of remark and surmise.