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<h2> BOOK I.—THE SEA. 1827. </h2>
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<h2> CHAPTER I. THE PRISON SHIP. </h2>
<p>In the breathless stillness of a tropical afternoon, when the air was hot
and heavy, and the sky brazen and cloudless, the shadow of the Malabar lay
solitary on the surface of the glittering sea.</p>
<p>The sun—who rose on the left hand every morning a blazing ball, to
move slowly through the unbearable blue, until he sank fiery red in
mingling glories of sky and ocean on the right hand—had just got low
enough to peep beneath the awning that covered the poop-deck, and awaken a
young man, in an undress military uniform, who was dozing on a coil of
rope.</p>
<p>"Hang it!" said he, rising and stretching himself, with the weary sigh of
a man who has nothing to do, "I must have been asleep"; and then, holding
by a stay, he turned about and looked down into the waist of the ship.</p>
<p>Save for the man at the wheel and the guard at the quarter-railing, he was
alone on the deck. A few birds flew round about the vessel, and seemed to
pass under her stern windows only to appear again at her bows. A lazy
albatross, with the white water flashing from his wings, rose with a
dabbling sound to leeward, and in the place where he had been glided the
hideous fin of a silently-swimming shark. The seams of the well-scrubbed
deck were sticky with melted pitch, and the brass plate of the
compass-case sparkled in the sun like a jewel. There was no breeze, and as
the clumsy ship rolled and lurched on the heaving sea, her idle sails
flapped against her masts with a regularly recurring noise, and her
bowsprit would seem to rise higher with the water's swell, to dip again
with a jerk that made each rope tremble and tauten. On the forecastle,
some half-dozen soldiers, in all varieties of undress, were playing at
cards, smoking, or watching the fishing-lines hanging over the catheads.</p>
<p>So far the appearance of the vessel differed in no wise from that of an
ordinary transport. But in the waist a curious sight presented itself. It
was as though one had built a cattle-pen there. At the foot of the
foremast, and at the quarter-deck, a strong barricade, loop-holed and
furnished with doors for ingress and egress, ran across the deck from
bulwark to bulwark. Outside this cattle-pen an armed sentry stood on
guard; inside, standing, sitting, or walking monotonously, within range of
the shining barrels in the arm chest on the poop, were some sixty men and
boys, dressed in uniform grey. The men and boys were prisoners of the
Crown, and the cattle-pen was their exercise ground. Their prison was down
the main hatchway, on the 'tween decks, and the barricade, continued down,
made its side walls.</p>
<p>It was the fag end of the two hours' exercise graciously permitted each
afternoon by His Majesty King George the Fourth to prisoners of the Crown,
and the prisoners of the Crown were enjoying themselves. It was not,
perhaps, so pleasant as under the awning on the poop-deck, but that sacred
shade was only for such great men as the captain and his officers, Surgeon
Pine, Lieutenant Maurice Frere, and, most important personages of all,
Captain Vickers and his wife.</p>
<p>That the convict leaning against the bulwarks would like to have been able
to get rid of his enemy the sun for a moment, was probable enough. His
companions, sitting on the combings of the main-hatch, or crouched in
careless fashion on the shady side of the barricade, were laughing and
talking, with blasphemous and obscene merriment hideous to contemplate;
but he, with cap pulled over his brows, and hands thrust into the pockets
of his coarse grey garments, held aloof from their dismal joviality.</p>
<p>The sun poured his hottest rays on his head unheeded, and though every
cranny and seam in the deck sweltered hot pitch under the fierce heat, the
man stood there, motionless and morose, staring at the sleepy sea. He had
stood thus, in one place or another, ever since the groaning vessel had
escaped from the rollers of the Bay of Biscay, and the miserable hundred
and eighty creatures among whom he was classed had been freed from their
irons, and allowed to sniff fresh air twice a day.</p>
<p>The low-browed, coarse-featured ruffians grouped about the deck cast many
a leer of contempt at the solitary figure, but their remarks were confined
to gestures only. There are degrees in crime, and Rufus Dawes, the
convicted felon, who had but escaped the gallows to toil for all his life
in irons, was a man of mark. He had been tried for the robbery and murder
of Lord Bellasis. The friendless vagabond's lame story of finding on the
Heath a dying man would not have availed him, but for the curious fact
sworn to by the landlord of the Spaniards' Inn, that the murdered nobleman
had shaken his head when asked if the prisoner was his assassin. The
vagabond was acquitted of the murder, but condemned to death for the
robbery, and London, who took some interest in the trial, considered him
fortunate when his sentence was commuted to transportation for life.</p>
<p>It was customary on board these floating prisons to keep each man's crime
a secret from his fellows, so that if he chose, and the caprice of his
gaolers allowed him, he could lead a new life in his adopted home, without
being taunted with his former misdeeds. But, like other excellent devices,
the expedient was only a nominal one, and few out of the doomed hundred
and eighty were ignorant of the offence which their companions had
committed. The more guilty boasted of their superiority in vice; the petty
criminals swore that their guilt was blacker than it appeared. Moreover, a
deed so bloodthirsty and a respite so unexpected, had invested the name of
Rufus Dawes with a grim distinction, which his superior mental abilities,
no less than his haughty temper and powerful frame, combined to support. A
young man of two-and-twenty owning to no friends, and existing among them
but by the fact of his criminality, he was respected and admired. The
vilest of all the vile horde penned between decks, if they laughed at his
"fine airs" behind his back, cringed and submitted when they met him face
to face—for in a convict ship the greatest villain is the greatest
hero, and the only nobility acknowledged by that hideous commonwealth is
that Order of the Halter which is conferred by the hand of the hangman.</p>
<p>The young man on the poop caught sight of the tall figure leaning against
the bulwarks, and it gave him an excuse to break the monotony of his
employment.</p>
<p>"Here, you!" he called with an oath, "get out of the gangway!" Rufus Dawes
was not in the gangway—was, in fact, a good two feet from it, but at
the sound of Lieutenant Frere's voice he started, and went obediently
towards the hatchway.</p>
<p>"Touch your hat, you dog!" cries Frere, coming to the quarter-railing.
"Touch your damned hat! Do you hear?"</p>
<p>Rufus Dawes touched his cap, saluting in half military fashion. "I'll make
some of you fellows smart, if you don't have a care," went on the angry
Frere, half to himself. "Insolent blackguards!"</p>
<p>And then the noise of the sentry, on the quarter-deck below him, grounding
arms, turned the current of his thoughts. A thin, tall, soldier-like man,
with a cold blue eye, and prim features, came out of the cuddy below,
handing out a fair-haired, affected, mincing lady, of middle age. Captain
Vickers, of Mr. Frere's regiment, ordered for service in Van Diemen's
Land, was bringing his lady on deck to get an appetite for dinner.</p>
<p>Mrs. Vickers was forty-two (she owned to thirty-three), and had been a
garrison-belle for eleven weary years before she married prim John
Vickers. The marriage was not a happy one. Vickers found his wife
extravagant, vain, and snappish, and she found him harsh, disenchanted,
and commonplace. A daughter, born two years after their marriage, was the
only link that bound the ill-assorted pair. Vickers idolized little
Sylvia, and when the recommendation of a long sea-voyage for his failing
health induced him to exchange into the —th, he insisted upon
bringing the child with him, despite Mrs. Vickers's reiterated objections
on the score of educational difficulties. "He could educate her himself,
if need be," he said; "and she should not stay at home."</p>
<p>So Mrs. Vickers, after a hard struggle, gave up the point and her dreams
of Bath together, and followed her husband with the best grace she could
muster. When fairly out to sea she seemed reconciled to her fate, and
employed the intervals between scolding her daughter and her maid, in
fascinating the boorish young Lieutenant, Maurice Frere.</p>
<p>Fascination was an integral portion of Julia Vickers's nature; admiration
was all she lived for: and even in a convict ship, with her husband at her
elbow, she must flirt, or perish of mental inanition. There was no harm in
the creature. She was simply a vain, middle-aged woman, and Frere took her
attentions for what they were worth. Moreover, her good feeling towards
him was useful, for reasons which will shortly appear.</p>
<p>Running down the ladder, cap in hand, he offered her his assistance.</p>
<p>"Thank you, Mr. Frere. These horrid ladders. I really—he, he—quite
tremble at them. Hot! Yes, dear me, most oppressive. John, the camp-stool.
Pray, Mr. Frere—oh, thank you! Sylvia! Sylvia! John, have you my
smelling salts? Still a calm, I suppose? These dreadful calms!"</p>
<p>This semi-fashionable slip-slop, within twenty yards of the wild beasts'
den, on the other side of the barricade, sounded strange; but Mr. Frere
thought nothing of it. Familiarity destroys terror, and the incurable
flirt, fluttered her muslins, and played off her second-rate graces, under
the noses of the grinning convicts, with as much complacency as if she had
been in a Chatham ball-room. Indeed, if there had been nobody else near,
it is not unlikely that she would have disdainfully fascinated the
'tween-decks, and made eyes at the most presentable of the convicts there.</p>
<p>Vickers, with a bow to Frere, saw his wife up the ladder, and then turned
for his daughter.</p>
<p>She was a delicate-looking child of six years old, with blue eyes and
bright hair. Though indulged by her father, and spoiled by her mother, the
natural sweetness of her disposition saved her from being disagreeable,
and the effects of her education as yet only showed themselves in a
thousand imperious prettinesses, which made her the darling of the ship.
Little Miss Sylvia was privileged to go anywhere and do anything, and even
convictism shut its foul mouth in her presence. Running to her father's
side, the child chattered with all the volubility of flattered
self-esteem. She ran hither and thither, asked questions, invented
answers, laughed, sang, gambolled, peered into the compass-case, felt in
the pockets of the man at the helm, put her tiny hand into the big palm of
the officer of the watch, even ran down to the quarter-deck and pulled the
coat-tails of the sentry on duty.</p>
<p>At last, tired of running about, she took a little striped leather ball
from the bosom of her frock, and calling to her father, threw it up to him
as he stood on the poop. He returned it, and, shouting with laughter,
clapping her hands between each throw, the child kept up the game.</p>
<p>The convicts—whose slice of fresh air was nearly eaten—turned
with eagerness to watch this new source of amusement. Innocent laughter
and childish prattle were strange to them. Some smiled, and nodded with
interest in the varying fortunes of the game. One young lad could hardly
restrain himself from applauding. It was as though, out of the sultry heat
which brooded over the ship, a cool breeze had suddenly arisen.</p>
<p>In the midst of this mirth, the officer of the watch, glancing round the
fast crimsoning horizon, paused abruptly, and shading his eyes with his
hand, looked out intently to the westward.</p>
<p>Frere, who found Mrs. Vickers's conversation a little tiresome, and had
been glancing from time to time at the companion, as though in expectation
of someone appearing, noticed the action.</p>
<p>"What is it, Mr. Best?"</p>
<p>"I don't know exactly. It looks to me like a cloud of smoke." And, taking
the glass, he swept the horizon.</p>
<p>"Let me see," said Frere; and he looked also.</p>
<p>On the extreme horizon, just to the left of the sinking sun, rested, or
seemed to rest, a tiny black cloud. The gold and crimson, splashed all
about the sky, had overflowed around it, and rendered a clear view almost
impossible.</p>
<p>"I can't quite make it out," says Frere, handing back the telescope. "We
can see as soon as the sun goes down a little."</p>
<p>Then Mrs. Vickers must, of course, look also, and was prettily affected
about the focus of the glass, applying herself to that instrument with
much girlish giggling, and finally declaring, after shutting one eye with
her fair hand, that positively she "could see nothing but sky, and
believed that wicked Mr. Frere was doing it on purpose."</p>
<p>By and by, Captain Blunt appeared, and, taking the glass from his officer,
looked through it long and carefully. Then the mizentop was appealed to,
and declared that he could see nothing; and at last the sun went down with
a jerk, as though it had slipped through a slit in the sea, and the black
spot, swallowed up in the gathering haze, was seen no more.</p>
<p>As the sun sank, the relief guard came up the after hatchway, and the
relieved guard prepared to superintend the descent of the convicts. At
this moment Sylvia missed her ball, which, taking advantage of a sudden
lurch of the vessel, hopped over the barricade, and rolled to the feet of
Rufus Dawes, who was still leaning, apparently lost in thought, against
the side.</p>
<p>The bright spot of colour rolling across the white deck caught his eye;
stooping mechanically, he picked up the ball, and stepped forward to
return it. The door of the barricade was open and the sentry—a young
soldier, occupied in staring at the relief guard—did not notice the
prisoner pass through it. In another instant he was on the sacred
quarter-deck.</p>
<p>Heated with the game, her cheeks aglow, her eyes sparkling, her golden
hair afloat, Sylvia had turned to leap after her plaything, but even as
she turned, from under the shadow of the cuddy glided a rounded white arm;
and a shapely hand caught the child by the sash and drew her back. The
next moment the young man in grey had placed the toy in her hand.</p>
<p>Maurice Frere, descending the poop ladder, had not witnessed this little
incident; on reaching the deck, he saw only the unexplained presence of
the convict uniform.</p>
<p>"Thank you," said a voice, as Rufus Dawes stooped before the pouting
Sylvia.</p>
<p>The convict raised his eyes and saw a young girl of eighteen or nineteen
years of age, tall, and well developed, who, dressed in a loose-sleeved
robe of some white material, was standing in the doorway. She had black
hair, coiled around a narrow and flat head, a small foot, white skin,
well-shaped hands, and large dark eyes, and as she smiled at him, her
scarlet lips showed her white even teeth.</p>
<p>He knew her at once. She was Sarah Purfoy, Mrs. Vickers's maid, but he
never had been so close to her before; and it seemed to him that he was in
the presence of some strange tropical flower, which exhaled a heavy and
intoxicating perfume.</p>
<p>For an instant the two looked at each other, and then Rufus Dawes was
seized from behind by his collar, and flung with a shock upon the deck.</p>
<p>Leaping to his feet, his first impulse was to rush upon his assailant, but
he saw the ready bayonet of the sentry gleam, and he checked himself with
an effort, for his assailant was Mr. Maurice Frere.</p>
<p>"What the devil do you do here?" asked the gentleman with an oath. "You
lazy, skulking hound, what brings you here? If I catch you putting your
foot on the quarter-deck again, I'll give you a week in irons!"</p>
<p>Rufus Dawes, pale with rage and mortification, opened his mouth to justify
himself, but he allowed the words to die on his lips. What was the use?
"Go down below, and remember what I've told you," cried Frere; and
comprehending at once what had occurred, he made a mental minute of the
name of the defaulting sentry.</p>
<p>The convict, wiping the blood from his face, turned on his heel without a
word, and went back through the strong oak door into his den. Frere leant
forward and took the girl's shapely hand with an easy gesture, but she
drew it away, with a flash of her black eyes.</p>
<p>"You coward!" she said.</p>
<p>The stolid soldier close beside them heard it, and his eye twinkled. Frere
bit his thick lips with mortification, as he followed the girl into the
cuddy. Sarah Purfoy, however, taking the astonished Sylvia by the hand,
glided into her mistress's cabin with a scornful laugh, and shut the door
behind her.</p>
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