Frere, unable to comprehend the reason of the calmness with which the doomed felon met his taunts and torments, thought that he was shamming piety to gain some indulgence of meat and drink, and redoubled his severity. He ordered Dawes to be taken out to work just before the hour at which the chaplain was accustomed to visit him. He pretended that the man was “dangerous”, and directed a gaoler to be present at all interviews, “lest the chaplain might be murdered”. He issued an order that all civil officers should obey the challenges of convicts acting as watchmen; and North, coming to pray with his penitent, would be stopped ten times by grinning felons, who, putting their faces within a foot of his, would roar out, “Who goes there?” and burst out laughing at the reply. Under pretence of watching more carefully over the property of the chaplain, he directed that any convict, acting as constable, might at any time “search everywhere and anywhere” for property supposed to be in the possession of a prisoner. The chaplain’s servant was a prisoner, of course; and North’s drawers were ransacked twice in one week by Troke. North met these impertinences with unruffled brow, and Frere could in no way account for his obstinacy, until the arrival of the Lady Franklin explained the chaplain’s apparent coolness. He had sent in his resignation two months before, and the saintly Meekin had been appointed in his stead. Frere, unable to attack the clergyman, and indignant at the manner in which he had been defeated, revenged himself upon Rufus Dawes.
Chapter XIII.
Mr. North Speaks
The method and manner of Frere’s revenge became a subject of whispered conversation on the island. It was reported that North had been forbidden to visit the convict, but that he had refused to accept the prohibition, and by a threat of what he would do when the returning vessel had landed him in Hobart Town, had compelled the Commandant to withdraw his order. The Commandant, however, speedily discovered in Rufus Dawes signs of insubordination, and set to work again to reduce still further the “spirit” he had so ingeniously “broken”. The unhappy convict was deprived of food, was kept awake at nights, was put to the hardest labour, was loaded with the heaviest irons. Troke, with devilish malice, suggested that, if the tortured wretch would decline to see the chaplain, some amelioration of his condition might be effected; but his suggestions were in vain. Fully believing that his death was certain, Dawes clung to North as the saviour of his agonized soul, and rejected all such insidious overtures. Enraged at this obstinacy, Frere sentenced his victim to the “spread eagle” and the “stretcher”.
Now the rumour of the obduracy of this undaunted convict who had been recalled to her by the clergyman at their strange interview, had reached Sylvia’s ears. She had heard gloomy hints of the punishments inflicted on him by her husband’s order, and as–constantly revolving in her mind was that last conversation with the chaplain–she wondered at the prisoner’s strange fancy for a flower, her brain began to thrill with those undefined and dreadful memories which had haunted her childhood. What was the link between her and this murderous villain? How came it that she felt at times so strange a sympathy for his fate, and that he– who had attempted her life–cherished so tender a remembrance of her as to beg for a flower which her hand had touched?
She questioned her husband concerning the convict’s misdoings, but with the petulant brutality which he invariably displayed when the name of Rufus Dawes intruded itself into their conversation, Maurice Frere harshly refused to satisfy her. This but raised her curiosity higher. She reflected how bitter he had always seemed against this man–she remembered how, in the garden at Hobart Town, the hunted wretch had caught her dress with words of assured confidence–she recollected the fragment of cloth he passionately flung from him, and which her affianced lover had contemptuously tossed into the stream. The name of “Dawes”, detested as it had become to her, bore yet some strange association of comfort and hope. What secret lurked behind the twilight that had fallen upon her childish memories? Deprived of the advice of North–to whom, a few weeks back, she would have confided her misgivings–she resolved upon a project that, for her, was most distasteful. She would herself visit the gaol and judge how far the rumours of her husband’s cruelty were worthy of credit.
One sultry afternoon, when the Commandant had gone on a visit of inspection, Troke, lounging at the door of the New Prison, beheld, with surprise, 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, steady gaze, 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 to open the door. “The Commandant has given strict orders–”
“Do you wish me to complain to the Commandant?” cries Sylvia, with a touch of her old spirit, and jumped hastily at the conclusion that the gaolers were, perhaps, torturing the convict for their own entertainment. “Open the door at once!–at once!”
Thus commanded, Troke, with a hasty growl of its “being no affair of his, 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 was so dark that, at first, Sylvia could distinguish nothing but the outline of a framework, with something stretched upon it that resembled a human body. Her first thought was that the man was dead, but this was not so–he groaned. Her eyes, accustoming themselves to the gloom, began to see what the “punishment” was. Upon the floor was placed an iron frame about six feet long, and two and a half feet wide, with round iron bars, placed transversely, about twelve inches apart. The man she came to seek was bound in a horizontal position upon this frame, with his neck projecting over the end of it. If he allowed his head to hang, the blood rushed to his brain, and suffocated him, while the effort to keep it raised strained every muscle to agony pitch. His face was purple, and he foamed at the mouth. Sylvia uttered a cry. “This is no punishment; it’s murder! 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 brought several 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 knees by the side of the infernal machine, plucking at the ropes with her delicate fingers. “Wretches, you have cut his flesh! He is dying! Help! You have killed him!” The prisoner, in fact, seeing this angel of mercy stooping over him, and hearing close to him the tones of a voice that for seven years he had heard but in his dreams, had fainted. Troke and Hailey, alarmed by her vehemence, dragged the stretcher out into the light, and hastily cut the lashings. Dawes rolled off like a log, and his head fell against Mrs. Frere. Troke roughly pulled him aside, and called 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 am sick!”–she felt for the wall–“I–I–” North watched her with agony on his face, but did not move. “I faint. I–“–she uttered a despairing cry that 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 body of the tortured prisoner had not North caught her in his arms.
Rufus Dawes, awaking from his stupor, saw, in the midst of a sunbeam which penetrated a window in the corridor, the woman who came to save his body supported by the priest who came to save his soul; and staggering to his knees, he stretched out his hands with a hoarse cry. Perhaps something in the action brought back to the dimmed remembrance of the Commandant’s wife the image of a similar figure stretching forth its hands to a frightened child in the mysterious far-off time. She started, and pushing back her hair, bent a wistful, terrified gaze upon the face of the kneeling man, as though she would fain read there an explanation of the shadowy memory which haunted her. It is possible that she would have spoken, but North–thinking the excitement had produced one of those hysterical crises which were common to her–gently drew her, still gazing, back towards the gate. The convict’s arms fell, and an undefinable presentiment of evil chilled him as he beheld the priest–emotion pallid in his cheeks–slowly draw the fair young creature from out the sunlight into the grim shadow of the heavy archway. For an instant the gloom swallowed them, and it seemed to Dawes that the strange wild man of God had in that instant become a man of Evil–blighting the brightness and the beauty of the innocence that clung to him. For an instant–and then they passed out of the prison archway into the free air of heaven–and the sunlight glowed golden on their faces.