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 passed, 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 attitude 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 coarse 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.
* * *
The trial progressed without further incident. Sylvia was not called, and, to the astonishment of many of his enemies, Captain Frere went into the witness-box and generously spoke in favour of John Rex. “He might have left us to starve,” Frere said; “he might have murdered us; we were completely in his power. The stock of provisions on board the brig was not a large one, and I consider that, in dividing it with us, he showed great generosity for one in his situation.” This piece of evidence told strongly in favour of the prisoners, for Captain Frere was known to be such an uncompromising foe to all rebellious convicts that it was understood that only the sternest sense of justice and truth could lead him to speak in such terms. The defence set up by Rex, moreover, was most ingenious. He was guilty of absconding, but his moderation might plead an excuse for that. His only object was his freedom, and, having gained it, he had lived honestly for nearly three years, as he could prove. He was charged with piratically seizing the brig Osprey, and he urged that the brig Osprey, having been built by convicts at Macquarie Harbour, and never entered in any shipping list, could not be said to be “piratically seized”, in the strict meaning of the term. The Court admitted the force of this objection, and, influenced doubtless by Captain Frere’s evidence, the fact that five years had passed since the mutiny, and that the two men most guilty (Cheshire and Barker) had been executed in England, sentenced Rex and his three companions to transportation for life to the penal settlements of the colony.
Chapter V.
Maurice Frere’s Good Angel
At this happy conclusion to his labours, Frere went down to comfort the girl for whose sake he had suffered Rex to escape the gallows. On his way he was met by a man who touched his hat, and asked to speak with him an instant. This man was past middle age, owned a red brandy-beaten face, and had in his gait and manner that nameless something that denotes the seaman.
“Well, Blunt,” says Frere, pausing with the impatient air of a man who expects to hear bad news, “what is it now?”
“Only to tell you that it is all right, sir,” says Blunt. “She’s come aboard again this morning.”
“Come aboard again!” ejaculated Frere. “Why, I didn’t know that she had been ashore. Where did she go?” He spoke with an air of confident authority, and Blunt–no longer the bluff tyrant of old– seemed to quail before him. The trial of the mutineers of the Malabar had ruined Phineas Blunt. Make what excuses he might, there was no concealing the fact that Pine found him drunk in his cabin when he ought to have been attending to his duties on deck, and the “authorities” could not, or would not, pass over such a heinous breach of discipline. Captain Blunt–who, of course, had his own version of the story–thus deprived of the honour of bringing His Majesty’s prisoners to His Majesty’s colonies of New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land, went on a whaling cruise to the South Seas. The influence which Sarah Purfoy had acquired over him had, however, irretrievably injured him. It was as though she had poisoned his moral nature by the influence of a clever and wicked woman over a sensual and dull-witted man. Blunt gradually sank lower and lower. He became a drunkard, and was known as a man with a “grievance against the Government”. Captain Frere, having had occasion for him in some capacity, had become in a manner his patron, and had got him the command of a schooner trading from Sydney. On getting this command–not without some wry faces on the part of the owner resident in Hobart Town–Blunt had taken the temperance pledge for the space of twelve months, and was a miserable dog in consequence. He was, however, a faithful henchman, for he hoped by Frere’s means to get some “Government billet”–the grand object of all colonial sea captains of that epoch.
“Well, sir, she went ashore to see a friend,” says Blunt, looking at the sky and then at the earth.
“What friend?”
“The–the prisoner, sir.”
“And she saw him, I suppose?”
“Yes, but I thought I’d better tell you, sir,” says Blunt.
“Of course; quite right,” returned the other; “you had better start at once. It’s no use waiting.”
“As you wish, sir. I can sail to-morrow morning–or this evening, if you like.”
“This evening,” says Frere, turning away; “as soon as possible.”
“There’s a situation in Sydney I’ve been looking after,” said the other, uneasily, “if you could help me to it.”
“What is it?”
“The command of one of the Government vessels, sir.”
“Well, keep sober, then,” says Frere, “and I’ll see what I can do. And keep that woman’s tongue still if you can.”