CXII. A PAINFUL SCENE――THE DEATH OF TOMMY――PEACE’S GRIEF…

CXII. A PAINFUL SCENE――THE DEATH OF TOMMY――PEACE’S GRIEF

When Charles Peace arrived at his own residence he was almost as bad as his steed. It was only by a miracle that he had escaped being captured. Stackhouse was of course very well acquainted with all the particulars concerning the Bannercross murder, and should he, Peace, come across him, an ignominous death would be sure to follow as a natural consequence, for the “gentleman of independent means” felt that he could not impose upon the Sheffield detective. All things considered, it was most necessary that the latter should not trace the murder of Mr. Dyson to his residence in Peckham. Stackhouse, although he affected to be quite certain as to our hero’s identity, was by no means so well assured as he professed to be to his brother officer. And in addition to this there were other circumstances which conspired to break the thread of the clue.

Stackhouse was only in London for a few days, and after the chase described in our last chapter, he returned to Sheffield upon other but less important business. He told the officials there that he believed he saw Charles Peace in front of a roadside inn at Sydenham; but the general impression seemed to be that he was mistaken, and so the matter was suffered to drop.

When the pony had been taken out of the trap, its master saw that it was in a very sad condition; there was no use attempting to disguise this fact, which was self-evident.

Tommy had not been quite right for some days before this. It had a cold, and was out of order in other ways, but nothing very serious was supposed to be the matter. A mash was given, and the usual remedies applied, but the enormous stress that had been put upon it on this ill-fated evening seemed too much for the beautiful little creature.

Peace removed the valuables from his trap, and concealed them in his usual hiding-place. When this had been done he rubbed down the pony, and tended it as carefully and affectionately as a mother does her pet child. He was greatly concerned about the animal, perhaps quite as much so as he had been about himself during the fearful half hour or so he had driven so recklessly to save his worthless life. He was greatly dispirited and depressed, and in this instance he had to keep all his troubles to himself. It would never do to let the women of his establishment know the danger he had passed through, or the real cause of the change that had come so suddenly over his Tommy.

His thoughts, as may be readily imagined, were by no means pleasant ones, and for upwards of two hours did he sit in the stable watching his steed and musing upon the present and the past, and it might be trembling for the future, like a guilty remorseless miscreant as he was, for however callous and selfish a man of his type may be, he cannot be altogether dead to the silent monitor within.

He had obtained a considerable amount of booty by his night’s depredation, and it is surprising, seeing the amount of property that fell into his hands, that he was not a rich man. It is a wonder where all the money went to, and the probability is that he did not know himself. It came and it went, how it would be difficult to say.

Upon his entering his domicile, he found both his ladies in the parlour with Willie Ward. As a rule they did not ask him any questions, or rather no more than was absolutely necessary, but they were at no loss to divine that something had “put him out.” His brow grew dark when spoken to, and his answers were sharp and by no means agreeable in either tone or manner, and so but little was said by any member of the select family. When he did not desire conversation, he had recourse to an ingenious device――he took up his violin and directed Willie Ward to accompany him with the guitar. He knew perfectly well that his female companions would much prefer “magging,” as he termed it, and sometimes he was disposed to indulge them, but he was not on this particular evening; he was not in a mood to listen to their discourse; he therefore laid hold of the fiddle he had bought at the sale of Doctor Bourne’s effects, and began to play a prelude. Willie was always but too glad to join in, and he began twanging at one of the guitars.

The two females listened to the music complacently enough, but they, of course, had had quite enough of it, and, first of all, Mrs. Peace went into the kitchen on some excuse or another; in a short time she was followed by Mrs. Thompson. Then a discussion ensued as to the cause of Peace’s moody manner, and both agreed that something or someone had put him out.

However, after putting his goat through some tricks and amusing himself with one or two more of his pets, his ruffled temper became a little more smooth, and Charles Peace was himself again.

The women returned to the parlour. A game or two of whist was played, and then Peace arose, and said he must go into the stable.

“Into the stable?” said Mrs. Thompson, in surprise.

“Yes,” cried our hero. “I don’t like the look of Tommy――he’s very queer.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” observed Mrs. Peace; “but he’ll be better in a day or two, I suppose?”

“I’m not so sure about that. He’s very bad, poor little fellow――refuses his food.”

“May I go with you?” said Willie.

“Aye, if you like. Come along.”

“Oh, that’s what’s put him out,” said Mrs. Thompson.

“I knew there was something the matter. It’s the pony. Well, that’s a bad job.”

“He cares a deal more for Tommy than he does for either of us――you may rest assured of that. But then, you see, the faithful little animal don’t cross him; so there is, after all, good reason for his attachment.”

“He likes to have it all his own way. It’s the case with most men.”

“He’s got a temper――that all who know anything of him will readily admit. But so have we all, I suppose.”

“I hope I’ve got a better temper than he has.”

“I dare say you have; but you mustn’t run Charles down. He’s not such a bad sort after all――there’s many worse than him.”

The two women went on bandying words for some time. There was nothing new in this; it was their custom, and had been so ever since they had become acquainted with each other. It was, as we have before indicated, not altogether perfect harmony in the house in the Evalina-road, and wrangles were of frequent occurrence. It was perhaps in the nature and order of things that this should be so.

Meanwhile Peace and Willie were busily engaged in the stables. The pony seemed to be in great pain――he would not take his food for all Peace’s coaxing――he was restless and fidgetty; nevertheless he pricked up his ears, and strove to put a better face on matters when spoken to and caressed by his master, but with all this it was easy to perceive that he was not in his usual health. As a rule our hero was not accustomed to give way to despair――his naturally sanguine temperament led him to look difficulties or troubles in the face. Had this not been so, he never could possibly have gone through what he had throughout his guilty and chequered career. Without doubt he was a most remarkable individual. The sanguine man can bridge over difficulties, which one of the opposite nature would perhaps sink under. His future, he will admit, presents the possibility of failure or mischance, as well as the possibility of good fortune and success, but with him the preponderance is immensely in favour of the realisation of his wishes.

Let him make up his mind that the attainment of a certain object is desirable and he has a wonderful knack of persuading himself that it is easily attainable.

He will muse over it until he has clearly realised not merely the bare object that would be all that would present itself to an ordinary imagination, but the thing itself, decked out in all the tinsel and trappings which a fervid fancy can create.

With him it is the goal which shines out large and luminous, and it is the obstacles to be overcome in reaching it that are too hazy and insignificant to be worth serious consideration.

The future always presents probabilities of both, but to the naturally despondent and apprehensive the balance is always in favour of mischance.

Both these peculiarities of character are open to serious objections, and if a man might choose his mental constitution for himself no doubt he would be wise to keep clear of both extremes. For all the ordinary purposes of life the capability of regarding the future under the clear and cold light of reason, untinged by the delusive colouring of hopes and fears, is very valuable.

He who can do this will not be daunted by imaginary difficulties, or waste his powers by needless preparation to meet them, and, on the other hand, he will not court failure by undertaking the tasks that lie before him, and neglecting to make due allowances for contingencies.

But if the choice lay between the over-anxious and the over-sanguine temperament, then for all the purposes of an active and happy life the hopeful is infinitely preferable.

It is just possible that excessive care and caution would in the long run more often prove right in judgment than injudicious hope; but even that is perhaps doubtful.

Not merely the unforeseen, but that which cannot be foreseen by the most anxious vigilance, is so potent a factor in human affairs that the fortuitous and accidental may perhaps be said to shape as many of our ends as all our cares can do.

Moreover, anxiety and fear and morbid apprehension are quite as distorting as high-flown hope and confidence.

But even though it be granted that the more cautious temperament is the safer of the two, any advantage in this way is more than counterbalanced by the pluck and energy which a boundless hopefulness is able to inspire.

There is, it must be confessed, very little “go” to be got out of those who are habitually given to a despondent and over-anxious view of things, however useful they may be as skids upon wheels that are apt to go too fast; while, all the world over, it is and always has been those who are dazzled by the brilliancy and colour in which they themselves deck out the future who have done the greatest deeds and excited the greatest influence.

All history almost has been made, wars have been waged, freedoms have been won, dynasties have been overthrown, reforms have been brought about, inventions have been perfected, not by men who have been pre-eminent for their skill in forecasting difficulties, but by those who have insanely “laughed at impossibilities.”

No doubt great caution as well as great hope has been characteristic of many of the foremost men of history, but as a rule the greatest of human works have been accomplished by those whose cautious fears and prudent foresight have continually been borne down by their sanguine temperament or some equivalent to it.

The utterances of oracles, the reading of the stars, omens and prophecies, witchcraft and palmistry, and every other species of infatuation have at all times been called in to inspire just that confident hope with which capricious Nature has so largely endowed some of her children, while to others of them she seems to have denied it altogether.

That an over-sanguine person is incapable of taking an altogether safe view of things, and that he is always in more or less peril, is true; but it is also true that his very delusions are the source of an energy and daring which must always be wanting to the timorous and despondent.

His infatuation may, no doubt, be regarded as merely a mild phase of insanity, since he will often see that which to the soberest sense is undiscernible, while he often appears blind and deaf to the most obvious facts before him. But if the delusions are akin to those of a madman, the strength and the daring are the madman’s too.

Undoubtedly he who has this temperament should be regarded as one of fortune’s favourites. The light that leads him on may often prove delusive, but it does not always do so, and even when it does it sheds a cheery glow upon his path that enables him to enjoy his life as he goes along, and at times permits him to revel in the anticipation of successes that are never to be his.

Cowards die many times before their death; The valiant never taste of death but once,

says Cæsar. In the same sense the hopeful individual enjoys good fortune many times, the anxious and despondent only once; and sometimes not at all.

A more important consideration is the fact that whereas the cares, and worries, and disappointments of life have a natural tendency to intensify the over anxiety and apprehensiveness of those who yield to a proneness in that direction, they tend in an ordinary way to correct the opposite fault.

There are, it is true, some to whom experience seems to bring little wisdom, and there are still more to whom experience brings wisdom, only when it is too late to be very effective; but as a rule the individual who starts in life with a superabundant dash of the buoyant and hopeful in his composition, starts with, no doubt, a somewhat perilous fault, but yet with a fault which time and experience will greatly modify and reduce; while he who is wanting in this faculty of hope has a no less serious flaw in his composition, and one which, unless he strive against it, time and experience will but increase.

The sanguine temperament and self-reliant nature of Peace caused him to surmount difficulties which other men would have sunk under. And had he turned his thoughts and mind more in a proper direction, he had sufficient qualities to have caused him to have cut a respectable figure in the world; but it was not in his nature to abstain from wrong-doing.

He was guided by no moral principle, but had been radically wrong from his earliest childhood.

But we must return to the stable to which Peace and Willie Ward had betaken themselves. The former was much concerned at beholding the pony rear on its hind legs as if in pain; then the faithful animal dropped on all fours again and looked inquiringly at his master.

In a minute or so after this a sudden shivering seemed to seize the pony, who trembled in every limb, at the same time snorting like a war charger.

“Poor little fellow! he is bad,” cried Willie, in a tone of alarm. “I never saw him like this before. What can be the matter with him?”

“That’s not easy to say. He’s dreadfully bad at present, but he’ll get better after a bit.”

“I hope so.”

“Oh! he’ll get better.”

Peace, despite the symptoms, which were of a serious character, was still sanguine.

He strove to put the best face on the matter, and proceeded at once to prepare a bran mash.

In this he was assisted by his step-son. “Tommy” was the most docile, tractable little animal it was well possible to conceive, and took his mash without hesitation.

“Will that do him good?” said the lad.

“I hope so,” returned Peace. “It is a simple remedy, and can’t do him any harm.”

Peace endeavoured to get the pony to take his food; he led him to the manger, and strove by every means in his power to persuade him to eat.

Tommy swallowed a few mouthfuls of oats, but this was evidently an effort.

Presently he turned away from the manger and lay down upon the clean straw which his master had previously prepared for him.

“We will leave him now,” said Peace. “Quiet and rest will do more than we can do for him. Come along.”

The two passed out of the stable and returned to the parlour of No. 4.

“How is the poor little fellow?” inquired Mrs. Peace.

“I don’t like his looks. Very bad. I wish to goodness Bill would drop in.”

“He was here when you were away,” said Mrs. Thompson.

“What! this afternoon?”

“Yes, between five and six o’clock.”

“Did he leave any message?”

“Said he would call to-morrow, in the early part of the day.”

“That’s well. Bill will be able to set him right if any man can. I wish he was here now.”

“Whatever is the matter with the animal?” cried Mrs. Peace.

“He’s been driven at too sharp a pace for one thing, and in the next he has been ailing for some days past. Bill will pull him together.”

“I’m sure I hope he may, but――――”

“But what?” said our hero, sharply.

“Why drive him beyond his pace?”

“Mind your own business. What do you know about the matter? Nobody asked you for your opinion, which aint worth much at any time.”

His partner was silent. She knew perfectly well that he was irritable, and would, to use a common phrase, “quarrel with a straw,” so she said no more.

Peace bore up bravely against adverse circumstances, but his rencontre with the Sheffield policeman troubled him much. There was no telling what might follow. If he discovered the burglar’s snug retreat at Peckham the game would be up.

As he reflected on this Peace’s brow grew dark, and his face wore a troubled expression.

He had, however, a great desire to conceal from his two female associates the trouble that for a time so seriously depressed him; he therefore assumed an air of bravado, and discoursed upon matters in a reckless and over-confident tone. Luckily at this juncture a neighbour dropped in; this was a great relief, a little music followed, and finally a game of cards, so by this means he was enabled to get through the remainder of the evening. Before he went to bed, however, he went into the stable and had another look at “Tommy,” who was evidently in great pain; the poor animal could not rest for long in one position. After attending to him Peace retired to rest.

Between twelve and one on the following morning Bandy-legged Bill presented himself at the house in the Evalina-road. Peace was overjoyed to see him.

“Well, Bill, old man, I’m glad you’ve called――have been anxiously watching for you,” cried Peace.

“Oh, indeed; anything up?”

“Tommy’s very bad, cursedly bad. I don’t know what to make of him. I want you to see if you can put him right.”

“Bad――eh? Attacked suddenly?”

“Well, yes, it is a bit sudden. But come into the stable and have a look at him.”

“Right you are; I’ll see to him.”

The two went into the stable, and Mr. Rawton at once proceeded in the most professional manner possible to make a careful examination of his equine patient.

“Well, what do you make of him? inquired Peace, in an anxious tone.

“Umph!” murmured the gipsy. “He’s as bad as a ’oss well can be, that’s what I make of him. He’s got a fever.”

“A fever!”

“There aint the least doubt of that, and the chances are――――”

“Are what?” cried our hero.

“That it ull finish him.”

“Don’t say that, Bill.”

“Aye, but I must say it. I think I ought to know something about ’osses by this time. Can’t you see that he keeps grinding his teeth, that his eyes are distended, and that every now and then he is convulsed. His sight and hearing, too, are both evidently affected, and he is unable to swallow.”

Peace groaned and said――

“As bad as that, eh?”

“Has he been overdriven?” observed the gipsy.

“Yes, he has.”

“I thought so, and by whom?”

“By me.”

Peace hereupon proceeded to put the gipsy in possession of all those facts with which the reader is already acquainted.

“Ah, Charlie,” said Rawton, after the narrative had been brought to a conclusion; “you’ve knocked him silly. A ’oss is pretty much like a man in many respects. If you make him do more than he ought to do it’s pretty sure to find him out, even as it finds us out. He’s a purty creature, was a free goer-he was none of you sleepy-headed brutes. Worse luck, perhaps, seeing as how he’s done so much for his master. Why, lor’ bless yer, he’d ha’ gone till he dropped――that’s what he’d ha’ done. Don’t I know it――haven’t I put him into a pelting pace myself afore now?”

“You have, and he was none the worse for it.”

“That’s just where it is――he was none the worse for it, but I expect as how it was nothing to what you made him do.”

“I dare say not, but in my case there was no help for it.”

“I don’t deny that. I aint a blamin’ you. Should have done the same thing myself under similar circumstances, but that doesn’t alter matters as far as he is concerned. I’m afraid he’s done for.”

“Done for! You surely don’t mean that?”

“Ye see,” said Mr. Rawton, in an oracular manner, “I’ve had to do with ’osses ever since I was a youngster――a mere kid in a manner of speaking――and can therefore judge pretty well about this ’ere animal. He’s got a fever, he’s dull and heavy, his head hangs down, there’s a chilliness about him, a staring coat, coldness on the surface and at the extremities, and every now and then a shivering fit. These are the first symptoms of what we call symptomatic fever.”

“Well, but can’t you do something for him?” cried Peace.

“I’ll do all I can――that you may rest assured of, but I can’t promise you to effect a cure. I may, it is true, but I’m doubtful. He’s been overdriven, that is one thing against him, but no doubt the disease would have come on whether he had been overdriven or not.”

Bill Rawton went out at once and purchased at the nearest chemist’s some drugs, which he made up into laxative balls, two of which he gave to the pony. After this he took a small quantity of blood from his patient, which seemed to afford great relief.

“Oh, you’ll pull him through,” cried Peace.

The gipsy shook his head.

“I’m afraid of it, Charlie,” said he. “It’s no manner of use attempting to buoy oneself up by false hopes. I am afraid you must make up your mind to lose the faithful little creature who’s done his best for you, and has paid the penalty.”

Peace was sadly depressed as he listened to the words the gipsy had let fall. Still he clung to hope, even as a drowning man clings to a straw.

“It’s a bad business,” he murmured in a sorrowful tone――“a dreadful business. It was a fatal evening, upon which I had to fly for my very life.”

“It’s ugly altogether,” returned Rawton, “for one doesn’t know what may follow.”

“There, that will do. Don’t make matters worse for us by anticipating fresh misfortunes. Look after Tommy, and do your best for him. I’ll leave him in your hands.”

“Are you going anywhere, then?”

“Yes, to Whitechapel.”

“Very well, I’ll do my best.”

“And so I leave my favourite in your hands for the present.”

Peace took his departure, and Rawton remained.

He did not leave the Evalina-road for the remainder of that day.

Peace returned at about dusk.

To his inquiry in the house, he was informed by Mrs. Thompson that the gipsy was in the stable, and that he, the gipsy, had informed her some hour or more ago that the pony was not expected to live.

Peace went into the stable, and found his equine pet stretched on the floor. Rawton was kneeling by its side, and had its head on one of his knees.

“Well,” cried Peace――“what news?”

“He’s a dead un,” returned the gipsy. “All his troubles are over. I’ve done all it was possible for a man to do, but couldn’t save him, poor little fellow!”

Peace sat himself down on an inverted pail, covered his face with his hands, and burst into tears.

“It aint of no manner of use giving way so,” said Rawton. “It was to be. I said so the moment I set eyes upon him this ’ere morning. There wasn’t a ghost of a chance.”

“I’ve lost my best friend――my faithful companion,” murmured Peace. “Ah, Bill, but this is terrible.”

“It may be so, but there are worse misfortunes than this. Keep your pecker up, and don’t take on so. You laughed at me a few days ago when I gave you an account of Hester Teige. Now you are worse than what I was.”

“I would have given anything to have saved him.”

“So would I, but it wasn’t to be done――so it’s no manner of use talking about it; ’cause why, talking or mourning won’t bring him to life again.”

“Of course, I know that very well, but I can’t help grieving. He was my pet, was to me as faithful and docile as a dog. There never was such a faithful creature, and I have killed him. That’s what makes me so miserable――I have killed him.”

“You’ve done nothing of the sort. He was bad at the time, and it is likely enough that he would have died just the same if he had not been put out to such a killing pace. Cheer up, Charlie, it can’t be helped, there are other ponies in the world.”

“Ah, but not like him, none like him.”

“Maybe there are, who knows?”

“Ah, who, indeed? Not I.”

Despite the exhortations of Rawton, Peace could not readily get over the poignant sorrow he felt at the loss of his pony.

This may appear strange with one of his callous temperament. But the fact remains the same, and many persons could testify to the great grief he demonstrated on this occasion.

It passed over, however, in the course of a few days, and Charles Peace was then himself again.

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CXIII. MISS LAURA STANBRIDGE MAKES A MISTAKE――CAUGHT IN THE ACT

Laura Stanbridge throughout her lawless career had been singularly fortunate in escaping detection. She was known or suspected rather of being a receiver of stolen goods, and while following this occupation she had as yet not been entangled in the meshes of that net which the law throws out to catch the unwary or less fortunate criminal.

But no one is wise at all times, and such was proved to be the case with Miss Stanbridge.

Actuated by a mad impulse, or, it might be, from the desire of excitement, this unprincipled woman chose to do a little robbery on her own account.

There was no occasion for it, for she was rich, and therefore had not the excuse of extreme need; but nevertheless she could not resist the impulse.

She was stopping for a day or two in a small country town in the north of England.

Clickborne, the place in question, was one of those clean dull towns where the streets are always white, the pavement equally so, likewise the houses.

Some persons called it a pretty place, and, as far as cleanliness and salubrity were concerned, there was perhaps no reason for complaint.

But it resembled a huge white sepulchre――the names over the doors forming the epitaphs, the cries of the commercial vagrants forming the funeral hymn.

This is, perhaps, not a very flattering description of the place, but it is one which a journalist gave in one of the London newspapers. We do not, of course, vouch for its accuracy, for journalists are prone at times to sacrifice truth to effect. That it was clean and apparently dull is beyond all question.

Suddenly, however, the principal street was thrown into a state of the greatest excitement. Windows were flung open, and a crowd of faces protruded. Beggars basking in the sunshine returned to their feet, and to an unpleasant consciousness of their starvation, which, while in a dormant state they had perhaps forgotten; dogs awoke from their slumbers, and aroused the neighbourhood with their sharp barks; pigeons descended and fluttered round the cause of all this startle and disturbance.

There was nothing of any great importance to cause all this flutter and outcry, but the Clickbornites were very impressible, it would appear.

The cause was simply this.

A lady elegantly dressed was walking quietly along the right-hand side of the street, toying with a green silk parasol between her lavender gloved fingers. The Clickbornites watched with a curiosity as unfeigned as it was undisguised.

She was a lady, or supposed to be such――anyway she had the appearance of one, and therefore it was taken for granted that she was such, and she was dressed in the height of fashion――she was therefore not only a stranger but a prodigy.

Now in most country towns there is one shop which is as large as three, and which employs a fabulous number of young men. In some towns it is a grocer’s, in others it is a fine art repository, in Clickborne it was a draper’s.

Before the door of this well-known establishment one might see at a certain hour handsome carriages, which were driven into Clickborne every afternoon when the weather was fine.

It was also patronised by young gentlemen incipient in dandyism, who attempted with Clickbornian scarfs and collars to rival the exquisites of Bond-street or Belgravia, for it must be noted that in addition to the drapery department there was one devoted to hosiery of every conceivable description.

Every town, remote as it may be, and rude as its inhabitants may appear, has yet its fashionable hours. In Clickborne no one shopped till the afternoon; therefore when they saw the strange lady enter the great shop at noon, the sensation rose to a climax, and the crowd increased. It does not take much to arouse the curiosity of persons who locate themselves in the country; there is generally such a dearth of objects to create excitement that the good folks avail themselves of any excuse for a surprise.

In half an hour’s time the lady reappeared. Her veil was raised. Before she wore it down. However, they had time to see that she was beautiful. Her handsome face inspired the male passengers with awe, the females with envy, and the beggars with hope, although hard experience teaches us that the ugliest people are the most charitable. Beauty is a shrine at which we involuntarily worship, and which we ever invest with the attributes of compassion. This is evidenced but too frequently; and it is not possible for the most determined caviller to contravene. In trials we invariably find that there is but little interest manifested by the outside public in a female prisoner who is unmistakeably plain or ugly.

The lady to whom we are now referring was almost lost sight of round the distant corner, when the shop door was suddenly opened and three young men rushed out into the middle of the street with bare heads and a wonder-struck expression on their countenances. On perceiving the lady they gave a shout, and rushed after her like harriers.

The excitement was by this time at its height. What could it mean? was the question repeatedly asked, but which no one seemed able to answer.

The spectators poured down from their windows to their doors, and from their doors into the street. Something extraordinary had taken place, and everyone was desirous of knowing what that something was.

They saw the shopmen leading back the fashionably-dressed female, who expostulated with them loudly. She was most indignant, and told them that they should be severely punished for the indignity they had offered her.

One of them carried a bundle of lace in his hand, which, with a triumphant wave of his hand, he presented to the owner of the Titanic establishment, who, panting and almost breathless, had come up with his subordinates.

They were immediately surrounded by a horde of men, women, and children, who had come to see what was the matter. These persons cried out in loud voices, and, addressing themselves to the master draper, asked what the poor thing had done.

There was a general feeling of sympathy for the lady manifested by the crowd, some of whom were disposed to take her part at all hazards.

The proprietor of the drapery establishment saw this, and he appealed to them impetuously. He was not very logical, but that did not much matter.

“Was it right,” he said to the gaping bystanders, “that he should have, he’d be afraid to say how many pounds worth of lace, lifted out of his shop without trying to protect himself?”

“Oh, gammon and all!” cried a rough navigator, who had been working on the line for the last few weeks.

“No gammon, my man,” said the draper, with sudden warmth, “it’s a fact. Isn’t it a duty I owe to myself and to all my brethren in the trade to resent such an act――to punish the perpetrator? Isn’t it incumbent on me as a Christian and a church-goer to expose such dishonest practices? I ask you that.”

“I always thought it was the duty of a Christian to forgive his enemies,” said the navigator. “Leastways, that’s what I’ve bin taught, guv’nor.”

“You mind your own business, my friend,” cried the draper, “and I’ll mind mine.”

“Don’t you attempt to cheek me,” said the navigator, who stuck to his post manfully――“’cause I tell yer plainly I aint one as ell stand it. You may keep a fine shop, but that’s no reason for your being better than other people. Let the woman alone, and if so be as she’s done anything wrong, she’ll have to answer for it; but I don’t b’lieve she has.”

“No more do I,” cried another.

One of the town’s people, touched by the beauty and sadness of the prisoner, put in a word for her. He besought the draper to take his goods back, and pass the matter over as a mistake, which he hoped it really was.

“No, no, my friend,” said the tradesman, “I’m for making an example of persons of this description. I’m as straight as an arrow myself, and there is but one course to pursue. I’ve sent one of my lads for a policeman. I pay him by the day, and I can’t afford to let him waste his time.”

“But, my dear fellow, consider――” interposed the townsman, who had before spoken.

“I have considered. If it was a poor man who tried to steal something because he was sick or starving, it would be a different thing altogether――I might take compassion on him; but look at the clothes the woman has on, they are of the most costly description. I can’t afford to dress my wife like that, although I work hard and have done so early and late for the last thirty years.”

“You work hard!” exclaimed the navigator, in evident disgust.

“You don’t know what work is. Come along wi’ me, and I’ll show yer.”

“I don’t want to have any conversation with you,” cried the draper.

“Shut up, then,” said the navigator. “Go back to your flarey shop, and let the woman go about her business.”

“I have no answer to make to this man,” said the other, addressing himself to the crowd.

By this time one of the rural police had succeeded in squeezing his way through the crowd of persons.

The circumstances were explained to him, and the stolen articles displayed. He endeavoured to look as wise as he could, reflected for a few moments, and then said, interrogatively――

“Do you charge her?”

“Of course I do――charge her with robbery, with shoplifting.”

“She couldn’t lift your shop, old man, if she tried ever so,” said the navigator, “so don’t tell no lies.”

At this there was a roar of laughter from the crowd.

“You have him there and no mistake,” cried one.

“So you charge her then?” again repeated the policeman.

“Yes; do your duty,” returned the draper majestically, “sawing the air” with his right arm.

“You must come with me to the station-house,” said the constable, addressing himself to Miss Stanbridge.

She bowed her head without speaking, and walked quietly by his side.

“I should like to land him one on his nose,” said the navigator to a companion in the crowd. “That’s what I should like to do.”

“What’s that you are saying? Have a care,” cried a ci-devant detective. “If you don’t you will get yourself into trouble, my man.”

“Ugh! he aint worth getting into trouble for,” answered the navigator; “so I shall step it. Make your mind easy, old penny-three-farthings a yard. I hope she’ll be discharged by the beak.” And with these words the knight of the pick and spade took himself off.

“I should say she’s an old hand,” observed the detective. This is a conclusion they generally arrive at in cases of this sort.

“Why is she an old hand?” inquired a butcher of the town. “Tell us that. Do you know her?”

“Can’t say that I do,” returned the detective, “but, you see, a raw thief would have turned as white as a turnip when the man said ‘station-house,’ and cried a pailful of tears, pretty nigh. But this moll’s too clever to waste words and tears when it’s no use. She can see that the old man means pulling her, and she knows well enough, I dare say, that one might as well talk to a post as a ‘bobby,’ specially a country ‘bobby.’ Only wait till to-morrow, and you’ll see how white her cheeks and how red her eyes will get.”

“Well, she didn’t look like a thief to me,” said the butcher, “and as to her being an old hand, I don’t b’lieve it. It’s all moonshine.”

Laura Stanbridge was lodged very roughly that night, and brought up the next morning before two of the borough magistrates.

As the detective had predicted, her cheeks were very pale, and her eyes inflamed with weeping, but in her case they were real tears.

She bitterly regretted having been so imprudent as to commit so foolish and unnecessary a robbery; indeed, she could not very well understand what induced her to run such a risk, and for the greater portion of the night she was plunged into the very depths of sorrow.

Her tears and protestations of innocence, combined with her beauty, might, perhaps have saved her if her judges had been gentlemen of the country, who, as a rule, take a merciful view of cases of this description. But they were tradesmen.

The injured draper was a magistrate himself, and, though not allowed to act in his own case, sat close to the Bench, which he watched with his eyes.

[Sidenote: No. 60.]

The consequence was that they committed Miss Stanbridge――or Clara Johnson, as she called herself, upon this occasion――for trial.

After this had been effected the three magistrates returned to their counters――one to sell reels of cotton marked with mendacious numbers; the second to regulate his false weights and measures; the third to superintend the adulteration of articles of food of various descriptions.

The fair culprit was then placed between two policemen and escorted to the gaol, followed by a ragged and sympathising crowd. Indeed, it was impossible not to be affected by her face――so dignified, so pale, and so resigned.

Clickborne Gaol is one of the prettiest specimens of the model prisons in this country. We may contrast it with those of the old style, as we contrast the fairy-like colleges of Cambridge with the grand picturesque but sombre piles of the senior university.

Built of no dark grey stone, but of variegated bricks, which were adorned with fantastic designs and with an assemblage of graceful and picturesque little turrets, it presented nothing of the appearance of a receptacle for thieves and lawless characters, with the exception of thick bars before the windows, and in the ponderous locks attached to the doors.

Laura Stanbridge was conducted by the deputy-governor and the head turnkey of the prison to a building separated from the establishment by the ground in which the prisoners were exercised. The deputy-governor preceded them up a flight of stone steps, and knocked at a small iron door. It was instantly thrown open, and two women of repulsive appearance stood before them. They were both dressed in black, and both had ponderous bunches of keys suspended at their girdles.

Laura was forcibly impressed with the depressing nature of all these formalities, but she bore up as best she could, and endeavoured to put a good face on the matter.

Having handed over the prisoner to the care of these ogresses, the deputy-governor and turnkey returned to their own sphere of action. No man was permitted to enter the female ward but the governor, the chaplain, the visiting justices, and the surgeon; and so, having handed Miss Stanbridge over to the female warders, her two male conductors retired.

The shoplifter would have much preferred their remaining, for, to say the truth, she had more faith in those of the opposite sex than she had in her own.

But the rules of the prison could not be infringed, and she therefore submitted to them with the best grace possible.

She was taken to a reception cell and subjected to the usual course of bathing and searching, with those thousand indignities which felons and suspected persons have to suffer. When this was over she was conducted to her cell, which was on the same model as those of the male prisons, and which has been described in a previous chapter of this work.

Miss Stanbridge was disgusted with her narrow prison-house, and she did not fail to express her dissatisfaction.

“Pray tell me,” said she, in angry tone, “is it customary to put prisoners before their trial in such a miserable hole as this?”

“Most certainly it is,” was the answer of her janiters. “We have no other cells.”

“Then I must tell you plainly that I think it an act of great injustice,” said Laura――-“of gross injustice! Am I to understand that a prisoner before conviction is treated in the same manner as a prisoner sentenced to imprisonment, without hard labour, after conviction?”

“Well, yes, she is. Unless she happens to have money.”

“Oh, indeed. Money, eh?”

“Yes.”

“And what if she has?”

“Oh, that makes all the difference.”

“Does it? Then it’s still more discreditable. Well, assuming she has money――what then?”

“She will be allowed to buy books, clothes, and food.”

“Will she?”

“Certainly.”

“And bedding and furniture?” she asked, glancing at the bed which was rolled up and bound by a strap, and at a wooden stool with no back to it by the wall.”

“You cannot buy furniture; the governor would object to any prisoners making themselves so comfortable in prison. He might perhaps let you have a chair or an extra blanket to your bed; but, of course, we are only subordinates. It rests with the governor.”

“Whom I cannot see, I suppose?”

“Oh, you can see him whenever you like. He is a very genial gentleman, and does all he can to make prisoners comfortable who behave themselves――but they must behave properly.”

“I am not likely to misbehave myself,” said Miss Stanbridge, “but I must tell you frankly that it appears to me that suspected felons are not allowed so many comforts as convicted first-class misdemeanants, who are swindlers, and therefore only felons on a grander scale.”

She pointed to the rule which applied to the treatment of first-class misdemeanants, and which she had discovered with her first glance at the printed board.

“We don’t make the rules,” said one of the female warders.

“I don’t say you do. All I object to is being treated like a guilty person before conviction. I am innocent, and this I shall be able to prove when my trial comes on.”

The women smiled.

“You don’t believe me?” cried Miss Stanbridge.

“Everybody is innocent until found guilty,” was the quick response.

“I don’t expect much sympathy from anyone here; but that does not so much matter. While I am here awaiting my trial it is but fair that I should be treated with some little consideration.”

“Certainly you will be――without doubt.”

“I can send for my luggage, I suppose?”

“If you choose to do so you can. Where is it?”

“At the hotel where I was stopping when this shameful charge was made.”

“We have a prison messenger, who will fetch your luggage if you pay him for doing so.”

“I will pay him,” cried Miss Stanbridge.

“You forget, perhaps,” observed one of the women, “that you had only seven-and-sixpence in your purse.”

“I do not forget. I have good friends who will assist me in the hour of my trial and trouble. I am not without means.”

Upon this both the women were much more conciliatory in their manner.

“We will do our best to make you as comfortable as possible,” they both ejaculated. “We always do that to those who have the misfortune to be charged with any offence.”

“You are very kind, I’m sure,” cried Miss Stanbridge, with something like irony in her tone.

“You had better let me keep the seven and sixpence,” said one of the female warders, “and pay it to the prison servant to clean your cell, otherwise you will have to do it yourself every morning.”

“Clean it myself! Is that in the rules?”

“Yes, it is a rule always exacted.”

“Very well, I’ll leave the amount in your hands. That will be the best course to adopt――won’t it?”

“I think so. There is a bye-law in most gaols against prisoners keeping their own money. Besides, you know you would soon spoil your fine clothes if you elected to clean your own cell, which I suppose you won’t think of doing?”

“Well, I don’t know about that.”

“Then in that case you had better wear the prison dress if you mean to do prison work. It is grey cloth, very comfortable and becoming.”

“May I wear it in addition to this dress?”

“Oh, dear me, no; you must wear our dress or your own.”

Laura Stanbridge hesitated. “I don’t want to be arrayed in the garb of a felon,” she ejaculated. “Not unless there is an absolute necessity for my doing so. I will, therefore, wear my own.”

She reasoned that in the gloomy dress which these poor criminals wore she would lose many of her fascinations. Besides, it was like putting on a badge of guilt――a thing that was most repugnant to her.

Having invited her to study the prison rules, the warders left her to herself. When alone, she gave full vent to her rage, and paced her narrow den with masculine strides, tearing her lip with her white wolfish teeth.

She bitterly regretted having made the false step which brought her into her present awkward predicament. It was a sort of mad infatuation which had led her to attempt the robbery at the draper’s. She could not any way account for the impulse which had so suddenly prompted her to commit such a foolish act.

Crestfallen and humiliated she felt the danger of her position. She felt also its degradation, for this was the first time she had been in prison; but, worse than all, she was fearful of being baulked of that revenge for which she had so long and so patiently waited, and of which she believed herself secure.

Alf Purvis was at large, and she was in “durance vile.”

“Oh,” she ejaculated, “it is indeed bitter to be locked up here when all was working so well without. I must have been mad to run any risk――worse than mad――seeing that there was no earthly need for it.”

She screamed with rage, and climbing up to the window like a cat, she shook the bars with her white hands till the dust flew from the stones.

Uttering frightful imprecations she sank back exhausted.

“This is the worst of folly,” she ejaculated; “I cannot escape with my hands and arms. I must use a woman’s real weapons――her voice, her beauty, her falsehoods, with a man’s mind and nerve to guide them.”

She sat down, and, leaning her head against the wall, with her arms folded and her face slightly upturned, she began to reflect――as a mathematician commences the solution of some abstruse problem――as an actress studies the looks and gestures of a new and difficult part.

Man forgets and forgives, but the woman whose pride has been injured can never forget and will never forgive. Alf Purvis had cruelly wounded her vanity, and this vanity, which when flattered will decoy women into vice, when angered will drive them into crime.

Laura Stanbridge had taken a tigress-like fancy for this man, who was so much younger than herself, and whom she had taught to steal. She had spent pains and money upon him, believing that thus she would secure a powerful weapon; but it had proved a weapon with a sharp edge which stabbed the hand that endeavoured to direct it.

Spurned in her passions, thwarted in her schemes, she had conceived an incredible hatred against him.

It is true she had solaced herself by making a conquest, and for a long time nothing disturbed her friendly and familiar terms of intimacy with Tom Gatliffe. This had continued even up to the time of her arrest; but for all this she had not forgotten her hatred of Purvis, whom, sooner or later, she had determined to bring to ruin. Now she was powerless; she trembled when she thought of the exposure and ignominy that might follow.

She was surrounded by stone walls and iron bars――by persons who would be stone to her entreaties and iron against her bribes.

The stern faces of the warders gave her no hope. Besides, they were women.

She had seen the governor for a moment in the corridor. He had scarcely deigned to honour her with a cursory glance as she passed; and as they were taking her through the yards, her eyes, busy as her thoughts, had observed a number of children playing in the garden, which was separated from the yards by an iron railing surmounted with huge spikes, yet enclosed within the walls. The governor was probably old and possibly phlegmatic. It was at least certain that he was married and the father of a large family. He would not be assailable. Her beauty, her falsehood, and dissimulation would be of no avail, as far as he was concerned. It would but be a waste of time for her to endeavour to propitiate him; besides, from what she could gather, he was a man, who, although reputed timid and considerate, was withal a strict disciplinarian and not easily turned from the path of rigid duty which he had followed for so many years.

She ran her eyes down the rules, and from thence discovered that one of the visiting justices was by law compelled to visit each prisoner once a week alone, in order that the presence of the governor or turnkeys should not intimidate the prisoners from making complaints.

This gave her hope, but it was but a transient one.

“Once a week,” she ejaculated. “Ah, that is not of any great import. I would it were once a day――then there would be some chance for me. In two or three visits it would be difficult, or indeed impossible, to do much, if anything, but in fifteen or twenty――well, I might yet triumph, but I will watch and wait; it is not possible to say at present what my chances may be.”

As she spoke the door of her cell was opened, and a young man of prepossessing appearance presented himself. He was dressed in a suit of black, with a plain white cravat round his throat. His countenance was indicative of deep and anxious thought, and his brow was furrowed with long thin lines. When she saw his face her heart seemed to beat more audibly, her eyes flashed for a moment, then she bent forward her head, and gazed abstractedly on the floor of her cell.

“He is young, and I think impressionable,” she murmured, “and has, I hope, a good heart.”

Then she took a pose.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

CXIV. THE PRISON CHAPLAIN

The gentleman who had so suddenly and unexpectedly entered the cell in which Laura Stanbridge was confined was the ordinary. He was an enthusiast, and during his brief term of office had striven hard to bring the persons he visited to a sense of their miserable position, and the evil effects of criminal careers. In some cases――in very few it is to be feared――he had succeeded in bringing the culprits to a right way of thinking.

His father, William Leverall, returned to England at the age of sixty-five. He had spent his youth and strength in the East Indies, where he had shed so much of his blood. Covered with honourable, but fatal, wounds, he came home to breathe the fresh air of his native land and to die.

He had not succeeded in amassing a fortune, which many less worthy persons than himself had done, for he had never at any time of his life been a devotee at the shrine of mammon. He, however, bequeathed the sum of two hundred pounds a year to his wife and two children. It was all he had to leave them. His will directed that he was to be buried with his hands crossed on his breast, and that his sabre should be by his side.

To pay for her children’s education, which in England costs so much, Mrs. Leverall went to service as companion to a rich relative.

Thus, she seldom saw her children; but they were always with her in her thoughts and dreams, and the letters which she received from them gave her the brightest hopes, for they were both affectionate and obedient to a fault.

It was her wish that her son might take honours at the university and enter holy orders. His father had always been religiously disposed, and therefore the pulpit seemed to his widow to be the pinnacle of human greatness. It was far better, she thought, than following the calling of a soldier.

When her son William (he was named after his father) was twenty years of age, it was time he entered for matriculation; but her daughter Bertha was only seventeen, and though accomplished, was too young to commence life as a governess or teacher of music.

So they had recourse to speculation. Mrs. Leverall gave her son sufficient out of her ten years’ hard savings to pay his expenses to Cambridge, where he intended to compete for that truest of all lotteries――an open scholarship.

She would have preferred Oxford as the arena of his struggles and trials, because her father and brother had both belonged to one of the colleges there. But then it was more expensive, add every sovereign had to be looked at.

Young Leverall was persevering and studious; he was therefore successful. He returned in triumph, while his mother stifled him with embraces.

Bertha, who was sternly classical, crowned him with a wreath of laurels. Then she gazed at his black and silvery hair, from which the green leaves peeped forth here and there like Dryads sporting in a dark cave.

She gazed at his soft hazel eyes, and at his cheeks, which care and thought had made so pale. Unable to restrain her inexpressible love, she flung her arms round his neck, and kissed him and toyed with his hair till the leaves fell one by one crumpled to the ground.

Mrs. Leverall shook her head, and then burst into tears; she saw it was a bad omen. Her son and daughter laughed at her, for these superstitions are only cherished by children and the aged, as shadows are longest and darkest in the morn and in the eve.

With the little which he had earned from alma mater, and with the little which his own mother could afford to give him, he was able to pay his college fees, his room rent, his kitchen bills, and to buy himself clothes. But he was obliged to be very economical, and it was this very economy which drove him within himself and to habits of solitude.

At first fresh from school, where his mother’s straitened means had not prevented him from joining in the amusements of his fellows, he would sometimes pause in his work and look and listen with something of envy to the windows which were blazing with light and to the gay laughter, and the loud chorus of the bacchanalian song.

Soon, however, he learned to despise these boisterous pleasures, for he discovered from the faces and words of their voteries that they, despite their forced uproarious merriment, were not so happy as himself.

He would have become a misanthrope had not his heart been touched by a gentler and more refined influence.

A new spirit seemed to seize him. It did not descend in the shape of a vulture or a raven, as it descends upon fanatics and bigots――if it ever descends upon them at all――but rather in the form of a white and gentle dove.

One morning he awoke a different man. He no longer confined himself to his solitary room or pored over his ponderous books.

Stamping out the last spark of foolish pride with the iron heel of an indomitable will, and disregarding the professed scorn of his college companions, he joined them, and talked with them, hoping that some day he might be able to do them good.

When they found that he was unlike the other needy scholars who, to a man, condemned those innocent luxuries which they were too poor to afford, they began to like him, in spite of his shabby clothes and the tallow candles which he burnt over his Whately and Æschylus.

By the time he had taken his degree with high honours there was not a man in the college who did not respect him, and there were many who were deeply attached to him.

Mr. Leverall was a general favourite, and it would have been strange indeed if it had been otherwise, seeing that he was so unassuming, so gentle and kind to all who came within his influence. The old adage of “winning golden opinions from all sorts of people” might be applied to him.

He had studied hard, was an enthusiast, and looked hopefully to the future. But man’s hopes are not at all times destined to be fulfilled――indeed, but too frequently the reverse is the case.

His mother spoke to him of those distant and almost unknown lands, where savages, with wandering feet and restless hearts, existed in a state of barbarism.

His imagination was fired by the idea of treading where no white foot had ever trod before, of encountering dangers, of civilising a whole nation to the science and commerce of man, and of leading it to the right faith.

A new society had been formed, who were preparing a crusade against the wooden idols of some obscure Indian tribe in South America.

He applied for the post of missionary. His fame and learning and the great eulogiums which his tutors had passed upon his character obtained him the appointment.

The vessel was to sail in about three weeks, and this time he was invited to spend with one of the members of the society.

He had never been in the metropolis before; his eyes and brain were bewildered by the vast chaos of men and houses through which he hurried in an open vehicle.

The next day he walked out alone to study the great city which he might perhaps never see again.

He was looking with wonder at one of those shops, which are as large and massive as a castle, and pondering upon the wealth and enterprise of his countrymen, when a horrible sight met his eyes.

It was a woman so thin, so miserably thin, that she was almost a skeleton; her bones seemed to protrude through her skin, her eyes were hollow, her features pinched and shrivelled.

She wore no dress but a tattered shawl, which could scarcely conceal her shoulders, and a skirt which hung round her wasted limbs in tatters.

Two infants naked and blue with cold were clinging to her for warmth, which she tried to give them with her attenuated arms.

When he saw this he was nearly overcome. Several persons passed her; some were tradesmen, other professional gentlemen, and some were well-dressed ladies with kind benignant countenances.

With words so faint that they resembled moans, and with hands outstretched, this wretched woman appealed to them for alms, but they passed by without deigning to take any notice of her or her supplication.

This continued for some little time, during which Mr. Leverall looked at each passenger as he or she went by.

Presently a policeman came upon the scene, he ordered her, in a sharp angry tone, to move on. She looked tearfully at his face, saw no mercy there, and was about to leave the spot.

Leverall could bear it no longer――he gave her all the money he had with him, and walked quietly away without listening to her shrill and almost delirious exclamations of delight.

In ten minutes he regretted that he had not gone home for more money, but in ten minutes more he began to learn that it required unlimited means, boundless wealth, to relieve the distress one witnesses in certain parts of the metropolis.

Anxious to learn the worst he turned down the narrowest and darkest street he could find, where the shops were of the lowest and filthiest description, where the atmosphere was tainted as with a pestilence, where the streets were knee-deep in mud and putrid vegetables, where squalid children were paddling about, heedless of the unwholesome atmosphere and its surroundings.

Where all starved, and sinned, and drank――the men to nerve themselves for deeds of crime, the women to gain the high spirits and false smiles wherewith to deceive their victims, the children because their mothers taught them to, and because they were hungry.

It must be conceded that this picture is a repulsive one, but is nevertheless such as one sees in the noisome dens of the great city.

It is in vain to legislate for people of this class so long as their homes and the internal arrangements of their habitations remain as they are at the present period.

It is in vain to attempt to disguise the fact.

Mr. Leverall was in the midst of a populous district, where infants were born and old men and women died with no hand stretched out to feed their bodies, to ameliorate their condition of squalid misery, or to save their souls.

He saw enough in one day to convince him that there were thousands at home who were quite as demoralised as the savages abroad.

That night he sent in his resignation, stating his reasons. Half the mission disbelieved him and called him an impostor――the other half believed him and called him a madman.

His friend remonstrated with him, showed him what a brilliant opening he was about to throw away, and assured him that several missions had been started to ameliorate the condition of the London poor, that every effort had been made to bring about a better state of things, but that in almost every instance the success had not been at all commensurate with the time and money expended.

Leverall had his own opinion upon the subject. He could not bring himself to believe that the mission or those appointed as its agents had set the right way about the work of reformation.

The arguments, therefore, made use of by his friend only strengthened him in his resolution.

The missionaries he had worshipped then were only cowards who abandoned a difficult task at home in order to obtain an easy victory abroad. To him difficulties in his narrow path were but mountains by which he could climb to the goal upon which he had set his heart.

He visited the husband of the lady whom his mother had served as a companion. This gentleman was rich and had influence in several quarters. He had an antipathy to foreign charity and home heartlessness; he was a practical man, who was not easily bamboozled by cant or hypocrisy, and he could not restrain his admiration as he listened to the glowing description of the young man who, on the short but incontestable experiences of a few hours, had given up a liberal income from motives which, to say the least, were both honest and reasonable.

“I think I understand you, Leverall,” said his patron. “You think that there is plenty of work at home for a zealous minister――more than enough work in the dens of London.”

“I feel assured of it, sir.”

“But the task is not an easy one, and hence it is that so many who have undertaken it have given it up as hopeless.”

“I do not intend to follow their example,” said Leverall, in a tone of confidence.

His companion smiled.

“You will have to cope,” said he, “not with untutored savages, who, as a rule listen readily, I am told, to the words of those whom they acknowledge to be superior to themselves, but with men who are seared by crime, brutalised by drink, and embittered by misfortune. At present you are young; you have energy, patience, and hope, but you have no experience.”

“That I admit; but experience I shall get as I proceed with my task.”

“My very excellent young friend, be assured that no great design has yet succeeded which has not been matured with profound thought and deliberation.”

“Without doubt that is so.”

“Therefore, all things considered, I bid you think twice before you start on a crusade which might after all turn out, not only immensely laborious, but perhaps in the end unsatisfactory.”

“I do not view it in that light.”

“Perhaps not, but I do.”

“You are without doubt the best judge.”

“Well, Mr. Leverall, I have been thinking the matter over for some little time, and I am glad you have come here to seek my advice in the matter. I tell you what I can do――at least I hope I shall succeed, if it meets with your approval. The chaplaincy of one of our county prisons is at present vacant, apply for the appointment, and I will exert my interest in your favour.”

“Oh, sir, I am indeed obliged by this kind offer.”

“Then you consent?”

“Most willingly.”

“In prison you will meet with criminals of the worst type――you will also meet with many whom a timely word of warning will turn to the path of rectitude. It will be a fine arena for you to study the human character, and in a very short time you will have a practical knowlede of erring man. Your salary will not be very large, but will suffice for your immediate necessities, and I will give you a certain sum of money to expend upon books and whatever else you may deem necessary for the good of those placed under your charge. Keep an account of this money, with a diary of your doings, and send them to me every three months.”

“Accept my most sincere and heartfelt thanks,” cried the young minister.

“When I see that you have grown wise enough to be the leader of a mission,” said his patron with a winning smile, “I will liberate you from your apprenticeship.”

Leverall applied for the appointment, which he readily obtained, through the influence of his friend and counsellor.

Had Laura Stanbridge been able to see into this young man’s heart, which was so gentle and so pure――could she have guessed this divine scheme which was germinating in his brain, and which raised him above all vulgar passions, she would perhaps have despaired of destroying in a few days that which had been implanted at his birth, and which gave promise of such fair fruit.

He was not satisfied with the one hour of communion with the prisoners appointed by the law――it was his practice to visit them all in their cells privately every day.

He had heard that No. 43 was a noted female thief, and he approached her cell with some little mistrust. This statement, however, was altogether erroneous, as many other statements sometimes are, either out of prison or within its walls.

Laura had never been before in trouble――that is, in other words, she had never been in prison, albeit she had been living by dishonest means for a number of years.

The chaplain had expected to find one of those hardened women who are worse than the vilest of men, and who so often replied to his kind words with coarse invectives or obscene jests.

When he entered the cell he started, for he saw a young woman, pale and beautiful, who was seated on a wooden stool, with one hand, limp and motionless, in her lap――with the other supporting her head, half concealed in her beautiful brown hair.

The chaplain gazed for a moment, wonder-stricken, at the graceful form of the prisoner, who was the very personification of grief and resignation. Her manner was subdued, and it might be said refined.

Mr. Leverall thought there must be some mistake. Surely the fair creature before him could not be a hardened offender. He came at once to the conclusion that the authorities were in error, and nothing could dispossess him of this impression.

Laura Stanbridge had observed his start, and the expression of surprise which sat on his countenance. She was about to play a part, and all her hopes depended upon the skill with which she performed it.

“You are one of the fresh arrivals in this gaol, I believe?” said Mr. Leverall.

She answered by an inclination of her head.

“Charged with shoplifting――is that so?”

“Yes, sir,” she answered; “I am charged, that is all.”

“You hope to prove your innocence?”

“Indeed I do.”

“I also hope so.”

“Thank you, sir.”

He took a volume from his pocket, and said kindly――

“Will you allow me to read to you a little from this book?”

She did not reply by words, but again nodded her head, and then heaved a profound sigh.

“Poor thing! She is in great trouble, evidently,” murmured the chaplain.

He then commenced reading. She listened intently, not to the words but to the voice, through the tones of which she hoped to read his heart. She was an adept in divining the disposition of a person by the tone of his voice. She found his was firm and melodious, but also firm and regular in its accent. She looked earnestly at his face through her long eyelashes――an art which is much studied by women, and which she had practised to perfection. In cunning she was almost a match for Charles Peace, and this our hero was very well aware of, for he had at all times been duly impressed with the powers of discernment. He knew her to be a remarkably clever woman, as false and unprincipled as she was clever. These were qualities which were duly estimated by the notorious burglar.

She continued her scrutiny of the prison chaplain, but could discover no symptoms of an amorous or voluptuous temperament in him. His complexion was clear, his forehead high, his eyes mild and open, while his chin was strongly marked and his mouth finely but firmly modelled.

From his voice and face she learnt that he was not only virtuous but firm. Her first glimpse had caused her to hope; her scrutiny almost made her despair. But this shadow of despair strengthened her determination, as those fight most fiercely who stand on the brink of a precipice with their backs to the abyss.

“It is my only chance,” she reflected. “If I fail with him――if he will not listen to my entreaties――I am lost, irretrievably lost. I can do nothing with my gaolers――who will be women against a woman and fierce men against the prisoner. I can do nothing with the governor, who is a regulated machine. This man is young and pious――he is in all probability inexperienced and innocent. So much the better for my purpose. He is human――is to be wrought upon――not by gold, but by words, and――well, we shall see.”

Absorbed in these thoughts she did not hear what he said to her; she only heard an indistinct sound, like the murmuring of distant waters.

When it ceased she glanced through her eyelashes, and saw that he was preparing to go. As he opened the door he looked at her compassionately.

She listened to his retreating footsteps till they became inaudible. Then she clenched her hands together.

“He started. I have made an impression on him――perhaps he admires me. Ah, I will teach him to adore me.”

She gave a laugh, and walked to and fro like a leopardess in an iron cage.

“He looked at me sadly as he went out. Good――that is well. I think he is impressionable, and has, moreover, one spark of pity for me in his breast. Out of that one spark I will raise a fire which may light me out of these accursed walls.”

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CXV. LAURA STANBRIDGE HAS CONFEDERATES――A VISIT TO THE PRISON

The few shillings Laura Stanbridge had on her when cast into gaol were of course soon expended. She found out that a supply of money was absolutely requisite, and she began to consider how this could be obtained. She had a large balance at her banker’s, and a considerable sum in her house at the West-end of London. She had a great objection to doing anything that might advertise her present position to her friends and associates, and she did not care about making a confident of Alf Purvis. She hoped to get through her present difficulty without letting either Alf or Tom Gatliffe know that she had been charged with shoplifting. Unprincipled woman as she was, she had nevertheless a vast amount of pride, and of course this was greatly wounded.

After considering the matter over for some time she determined upon her course of action. Charles Peace was the very man for her purpose. She had befriended him on more than one occasion, and he was in duty bound to do the same towards her. Anyway, she felt that she could trust him, as there was no reason for him to round upon her.

Peace was therefore much disconcerted upon receiving a letter addressed to him in the Evalina-road from his quondam companion, Laura Stanbridge. In it she begged of him to pay her a visst――he was to pass as her brother on this occasion.

“Look here,” said our hero, addressing himself to “Bandy-legged Bill,” “Lorry Stanbridge has written fool to the end of her name at last.”

“What do you mean?” inquired Bill.

“Mean! Why, just this――she’s been charged with shoplifting――been caught in a lace net, and they’ve run her in.”

“The devil! you don’t mean that? Where did it occur?”

“Down in the country where she went for change of air. Gad, she’s got a change now, and no mistake.”

“Well, I’m blessed, that’s the last thing I should ha’ thought of. Why, I thought she was all over money.”

“So she is――leastways I’ve always understood so. She wants to see me to arrange about her affairs――don’t care about anybody knowing that she’s in quod, and all that sort of thing. That’s not to be so much wondered at. It is hard, but you see, Bill, it won’t do for me to trust myself inside a gaol――’taint likely.”

“But you won’t desert her?”

“I’ll do what I can――bound to do that――but as to paying her a visit, that’s all my eye――won’t do at any price. So you see, old man, I’ve been thinking the matter over, and have come to the conclusion that you might serve poor Lorry.”

“Me?”

“Yes, there would be no harm in you running down to Clickborne, and having a squint at her. She wants to arrange a few matters, and keep the whole affair dark, for the present at all events, till she sees how matters go. Perhaps she may be able to pull through, do you see? and in that case her friends here in London will be none the wiser.”

“She’s not given her own name, I suppose?”

“Oh, Lord, no! She’s too fly for that. Well, what say you? Are you willing?”

“In course I am. She’s done a good turn when I hadn’t a shoe to my foot, or a rag to my back. Will I go?――like a shot! Tell me where it is, and I am all there.”

“You are a good fellow, Bill; I always said so, and are the first to help anyone who is in distress.”

“Oh, gammon and all! Don’t lay it on too thick, Charlie.”

“I mean what I say.”

“I dare say yer does; but now let’s know the rights of it. Fire away!”

Peace explained to the gipsy that Lorry was in want of some ready cash. This he, Peace, was willing to furnish her with. In the next place she wanted somebody to call at her house and inform her maid that she was unavoidably detained in the country.

“As far as the cash is concerned, that there will be no difficulty about; the other matters will require some little consideration. The first thing to be done is for you to see her.”

“I’ll run down this ’ere blessed day,” cried Bill.

“No; to-morrow will do. Start early in the morning, and do your best. You must, of course, not give your own name.”

“I should think not――I’ll call myself Mr. Bourne.”

“Yes, and say you are her uncle. Better to pass as a relative. Her uncle――do you understand?”

“All right, I’m fly. But Lord bless us! this is a pretty business. Why, what could she be thinking about?”

“I expect she did it without thinking; it’s the way with women, but she’s got her head screwed on right enough, has cut her eye-teeth long ago. I certainly shouldn’t have thought she would have let herself be caught tripping in that fashion, but there is none of us know what may happen. It was to be, I suppose; that’s the best way of looking at the matter.”

“She’s proved herself to be a downright good sort to me, and I’d do any mortal thing to serve her,” cried Bill, in an earnest tone. “Whatever she wishes I’ll do, if it be possible――that’s all I can say. Hang it all, but this is a bad business.”

“Don’t you say anything about it to a soul――mind you that.”

“I will not.”

“Not to the women of this house, or Willie.”

“Oh, dear me, no; I shouldn’t think of such a thing. She may still be able to pull through.”

“I hope so, I’m sure. Well I never――blowed if this hasn’t queered me and no mistake.”

“Let’s have some grog, old man. It’s put my pipe out――to-morrow morning, you say?”

“Yes――by the early train. You will be able to learn more then, for of course she’s obliged to be a little pinched in her letter to me, which commences with “My dear brother.”

The gipsy burst out into a loud laugh.

“That’s a caulker,” said he. “She looks a deal more like your daughter, old man.”

“There isn’t the least doubt of that. She looks wonderfully young, all things considered.”

“She’s what I call a fascinating woman, and, when togged-up, is right up to the knocker. Well, I am sorry for her, poor soul――very sorry.”

Mr. Rawton drained off the remainder of his whiskey-and-water, and did not refuse a fresh supply when Peace pushed the bottle towards him.

Bill could take a pretty good amount of spirits and beer, and did not appear to be much the worse for it. Peace, on the contrary, seldom exceeded the bounds of moderation.

“Keep your head cool for to-morrow’s business,” said he to the gipsy, “for you’ll want all your wits about you to dodge the gaolers and to throw dust in their eyes.”

“You don’t want to be very clever to do that if it’s gold dust.”

“Yes, that’s right enough. You’d better take a little with you. It will be serviceable, I dare say――that is, if you know how to work it.”

“I’ll work it right enough; you’ve no call to be afeard of that.”

After some further conversation Bandy-legged Bill took his departure, for by this time Mrs. Peace and Mrs. Thompson had come into the room and put an end to the discussion.

On the following morning Mr. William Rawton took a return ticket to the nearest station to the gaol in which Miss Stanbridge was confined; before doing so he had deemed it advisable to make as elaborate a toilette as circumstances would admit, and looked on this occasion really respectable, and, in addition to this, he had determined upon being guarded in his expressions, avoiding as much as possible any cant sayings or slang expression. His grammar was a little faulty, it must be admitted, but it was wonderful how he could pull himself together, and assume an air of gentility when the occasion required it.

He presented himself at the prison gates, and said he had come from London to see his niece. He was admitted at once, although it was not visiting day, but the chaplain had obtained permission from the governor for No. 43 to see her relatives in the cell in which she was confined, and Bill, or rather Mr. Bourne, as he called himself, was at once conducted up some steps, then through corridor after corridor, till cell 43 was reached.

As he came in sight of it he observed a clerical-looking gentleman emerge from its entrance.

This personage was Mr. Leverall, who glanced at the gipsy.

“Uncle to the prisoner No. 43,” observed the warder, in answer to the glance of inquiry given by the chaplain.

“Ah!” said the latter, “you are the young person’s uncle――are you?” said the chaplain.

“Yes, sir,” returned the gipsy. “It’s been a sad shock to her relatives, and has fallen upon me with terrible and overwhelming force. I have come to know the rights of it, for we all of us find it hard to believe.”

“I hope and trust――and, indeed, I may say I feel assured――that I have awakened in the mind of your niece a sense of her position, which is, indeed, a most distressing one. She has no friends or relatives in this neighbourhood, I believe?”

“No, sir, not any. All her relatives reside in London.”

“You may think yourself greatly favoured in being permitted to visit her in her cell. It is against the prison rules, but the governor has kindly accorded you the privilege.”

“I am sure I don’t know how to sufficiently express my thanks,” said the gipsy, with a look which would have imposed upon the most sceptical.

Mr. Leverall passed on, and Rawton was conducted into the presence of No. 43. As he was passing through the door he slipped half a sovereign into the hand of the warder, who had been instructed to remain with the door half open, in sight of the prisoner and her visitor――so that while in this position he could not fail to hear the whole of the conversation that passed between the two, but the piece of gold had a magical effect; he withdrew out of earshot, and Bill and Miss Stanbridge were enabled to converse without reserve.

“Oh, it’s you, Bill,” cried the latter; “why hasn’t Charlie come?”

“Could’nt――daren’t――that’s the reason. Well, I never expected to see a niece of mine in this position!” he added, emphasising the word “niece” emphatically.

“My dear uncle,” cried Laura, taking up the cue; “I hope you have not come here to upbraid me.”

“Far from it; I am here to see what can be done for you, my darling,” returned he, putting his arms round her neck and giving a loud smack or two with his lips to make believe that he was kissing her. This little ceremony over, he glanced through the chink in the door, and saw that the warder had withdrawn to the further end of the corridor.

“All right,” he said to Laura――“he’s out of earshot. Now let’s to business. Charlie can’t come, but I’m here instead――so fire away while we’ve got the opportunity.”

“You must not say a word to anyone about this unfortunate business.”

The gipsy nodded.

“And, above all, nothing to Gatliffe or Purvis.”

Another nod.

“Go to my house and tell the girl that I am detained in the country, and shall not return for a fortnight at the very least. I wish you could manage to take charge of the house during my absence. That would be a great relief to me.”

“Stop there?”

“Yes.”

“But I haven’t your authority, and they’d turn me out.”

“Ah, dear me, how powerless I am――how very powerless!” cried Laura, in a tone of sadness; “I’m at his mercy――and he would not scruple to do anything.”

“I’ll help you as far as lies in my power,” said Rawton; “that you may depend upon.”

“Do, there’s a good creature; for I need help just now――and I know I can rely upon you.”

The gipsy put five sovereigns into her hand, which she slid into the pocket of her dress.

“That will be enough to go on with, I suppose?” observed he.

“Oh, yes, more than enough; where did you get them from?”

“Charlie.”

“Call at the house as often as you can, and see how matters are going on there. I suppose Alf will see that all’s right. I hope so, but you keep an eye upon the place and let me know if anything’s amiss.”

“I will――anything else?”

“I don’t know that there is.”

The gipsy leant forward and whispered into her ear, “I am your uncle, and my name is Mr. Bourne. Remember that.”

Miss Stanbridge nodded.

“And Charles is Thompson――that’s understood.”

“If you once address him by the other name, he will be ruined. He bid me charge you to remember that.”

“But I’m not likely to forget it.”

“But you’d better not write to him at all.”

“Has he said so?”

“Yes.”

“He has his reasons then――I will not do so.”

The conversation was continued for some time. Laura Stanbridge felt very well assured that Charles Peace had some very strong motive for concealment. Whether she suspected at this time the magnitude of his crimes, or that he was liable at any moment to be arrested on the charge of murder, it is not so easy to determine, but it was quite clear that he had manifested no disposition to desert her since he had sent down Rawton with remarkable promptness.

She had unbounded confidence in the discretion and faithfulness of the gipsy, and this confidence it is needless to say was not misplaced.

[Sidenote: No. 61.]

During their interview she fully explained her position, and laid down the line of action he was to follow. In short, she made him her confidential friend and factotum, and after a long conference, much longer than is usually accorded to prisoners, Bandy-legged Bill kissed her hand affectionately, and passed out of the cell, the door of which was immediately locked by the prison warder.

Bill put a handkerchief to his eyes and pretended to be deeply affected, and apparently overwhelmed with grief he suffered himself to be conducted in silence through the corridor of the prison.

He hastened back to Peace and made him acquainted with all that had passed between himself and Laura Stanbridge.

“Umph!” ejaculated our hero; “it isn’t of any use mincing matters in cases of this sort. I’m sorry for her and will do what I can to help her, but it isn’t any reason because one person has tumbled into the water that another should do the same thing in his endeavours to save a friend. I can’t go and see her, and won’t.”

“She knows that, old man. She’s a sensible woman, and sees things in a proper light. I will see her as often as she requires me, so that’s enough――aint it? You can’t do her a morsel of good.”

“Of course I will serve her to the utmost of my power,” said Peace, “but it must be done without my running any risk. I have got quite enough to contend with here, and if the police are down upon me, or have the slightest idea who I am, the game will be up, and I’m done for. Do your best, Bill, and for mercy’s sake keep dark.”

“You’ve no call to be afeard as far as I am concerned,” replied the gipsy. “I shall see her again, and see how she gets on; but, Lord, I dare say she’ll be able to pull through. She wants me to keep an eye upon her house――which of course I’m in duty bound to do. She aint got altogether what you might call the best sort of people about her! Hang it all, but she has been a fool!”

“A downright fool in this case, and no mistake; but it’s too late to talk about that. She’s got herself into a scrape, and must get out of it in the best way she can.”

“I intend to stand by her, come what may,” cried Bill, “and so don’t you trouble yourself in the matter.”

“You are as good as gold――that’s what you are,” replied Peace.

Rawton remained for some time at Peace’s house, and took his departure therefrom with many protestations of friendship towards Peace and the unfortunate Laura Stanbridge.

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CXVI. THE YOUNG ENTHUSIAST――A WOMAN’S WILES

Miss Stanbridge had set herself a task which required all the tact and finesse she was mistress of to bring about a successful issue. She had the cunning of the serpent, the patience of Job, and hoped to prevail before the drama was played out; anyway, she made up her mind to have a stout fight for it. She was duly impressed with the fact that it would not do to be too precipitate; she must study the character of the man whom she hoped to make her victim.

Two days passed without her being able to obtain any fresh insight into the character of the gaol chaplain. He came in always at the same time, and remained with her the same length of time. He was punctual in his attendance, and equally so in his time of departure.

This was very systematic, but not by any means so satisfactory. He appeared to be fulfilling a duty in a methodical manner; nothing more. Laura watched his looks, his tones, his gestures; weighed them, compared them, and analysed them, and could gain nothing from them that could lead her to hope.

He was earnest in his discourse, was gentle and conciliating in his manner; but then, she judged rightly enough that this was habitual to him. He was so, she imagined, just the same to the other prisoners. She could not flatter herself that he evinced any greater consideration for her than the other inmates in the gaol.

This vexed her. She must have recourse to strategem, for the time was passing, and she was no nearer the goal upon which she had set her heart.

On the last day she listened to his words as well as his tones. They were words of pity which she could not turn as a weapon against him.

She now began to fear that the look upon which she had built her schemes had not been one of compassion for her beauty, but regret for her sins, and that this was a soul too high above her for her arts to pollute.

If this proved to be the case, she would be defeated in her purpose. Up to this time she had studiously avoided speaking to him. She had not looked at him openly, for thus she counted on exciting his curiosity, but now she determined to use her voice, her eyes, and her blandishments, and to cast forth the first of those silver cords with which she hoped to enmesh his heart.

When he came to visit her at the accustomed hour, he found her upon her knees cleaning the floor of her cell. Her snowy arms were white and naked, her brown hair fell with dishevelled art upon her shoulders, and over that voluptuous bosom which her dress did not entirely conceal.

As he entered, she seemed confused and attempted to rise, looking at him with eyes which appeared to languish, but which were really piercing into the depths of his soul.

He glanced at her for a moment or so, and then turned away with aversion, but without precipitation. He said that he would return when he had visited another prisoner, and these words, so calm and cold, crept like ice through her heart.

He had not evinced the slightest passion or hesitation, but was perfectly calm and self-possessed.

She was vexed――she shuddered. This was not a man! He was either supremely dense and unimpressionable, or else sublime as an angel.

In either case he was impregnable.

She heard him enter the cell adjoining her own, and hastily finishing her task she adjusted her hair, and waited patiently until he had concluded his ministrations to the other prisoner.

He remained with No. 42 exactly the same length of time that he had accorded to her on the previous occasions. It was therefore clear that he made no distinction between the other prisoners and herself.

Upon discovering this she was deeply mortified.

Consumed by bitter thoughts and anxieties, for the first time she omitted to look at him or to even listen to his discourse. For the first time she was deaf to his voice, or as blind to his face as she had wished him to believe.

“Oh, you impenetrable creature!” she exclaimed, when she was again alone. “Oh, you man without a passion! I will not rest till I have found out a flaw in your armour――till I have learnt where I can wound you. You must be human――you must be weak. I bide my time. I must and will triumph.”

She dug her nails deep into her flesh, and gnawed her lips, to prevent herself from shrieking aloud.

At the end of two hours, exhausted with rage, she sank back upon the wooden seat, and wiped away the tears which fury had brought to her eyes.

There was a clatter at the door; a trap flew open in the centre, and presented a slide, on which was a bowl of gruel and a hunch of bread――her supper.

At the same moment a stream of white flame burst up into the air and flared and bubbled, making her cell light and cheerful.

She took her supper from the slide, ate it slowly, and replaced the bowl upon the board. Half an hour afterwards the door again clattered and the mug disappeared.

A great bell rang, and filled the whole building with its harsh and monotonous tones.

At this signal she went to the corner of her cell, unrolled her bed, and suspended if from wall to wall after the fashion which has been described in one of our previous chapters. She undressed herself slowly――being engaged in deep thought all the while. She lay down upon the bed; her brow was still dark and disturbed. Suddenly it became irradiated, and the prisoner sprang up in bed, and clapped her hands together.

“Ah, how foolish I have been!” she ejaculated; “but now I understand. How blind I have been! Ah! passionless man, I will conquer you yet. It is my only chance――I will get him into my power!”

The gaslight died out of the leaden pipe; Laura Stanbridge sank back in her bed and fell asleep with a smile upon her lips.

Anyone to have seen her thus would have said she was a young virgin who was dreaming of her honeymoon.

On the following day the chaplain, at his customary hour, paid the shoplifter another visit. He exhorted her to prayer and repentance, and was more than usually earnest in his manner. She listened to him this time, and affected to be deeply moved at the words he gave utterance to. Having fulfilled his duties thus far, he rose to leave the cell. He paused, and laid his hand on the lock. She took advantage of this pause to speak. It was the first time he had heard this voice, which was sweet, plaintive, and dangerous as the voices of the sirens of old.

“Ah, sir,” said Laura Stanbridge, with a sigh, “you tell me to pray for mercy and to repent of my sins.”

“I do,” he murmured.

“And yet you do not even ask me whether I am innocent or guilty?”

He paused for a moment, and looked intently in her face.

“Young woman,” he presently ejaculated, “I am not allowed to make myself your confessor. I beseech you to address yourself to a higher power, to Him who knows all our hearts, if you are innocent.”

“If, reverend sir,” exclaimed Laura, with an injured look, “I am so.”

“That is a question I must decline to discuss or offer an opinion on.

“If what you say is true, I hope and trust you will be able to prove your innocence. Will you read a little of this while I am gone?” he added, and he placed a pocket Bible between her passive hands.

She did not answer.

“I will leave it with you,” he murmured.

She nodded her head mechanically.

He went silently and almost sadly from the cell. Then she rose and walked slowly to and fro, with her beautiful but treacherous head upon her breast.

She repeated these words several times――

“I am not allowed to make myself your confessor.”

In spite of the mild tone in which they had been pronounced, her eyes, which lost nothing, had detected a momentary contraction of the eye-brows.

At length she solved the enigma. Her chaplain had thought of the Roman Catholics as he spoke. Of this she felt convinced. He had therefore a prejudice against them.

“Good!” she murmured, “I have discovered that you have a prejudice, and each prejudice in a man’s mind is a crevice in his armour. It will suit me very well to attack him on his weakest side, and it will go hard with me if I do not in the end succeed in my purpose.”

When we signified that William Leverall was neither a fanatic nor a bigot, an exception should have been made in respect to one point――he did hold the profession of the Catholic faith in utter abhorrence. It is not possible to find any one man faultless. High-minded and virtuous as was Mr. Leverall in almost every way, he was nevertheless intolerant in this respect, and yet it appears strange that this young man, who had so often emptied his needy purse, who had passed so many sleepless nights, after witnessing a spectacle of human misery or human sin――that this man, who was really devout, should dislike men who were perhaps as devout as himself, and who tried to win souls as even he himself strove to do.

A bitter and poisonous hatred to Popery had been instilled into his heart by ignorant and prejudiced tutors, and by the controversial books and newspapers which they had placed in his hands. It was the one blemish on his white robe.

When he came the next day he found No. 43 with the sacred volume in her hands, and her eyes filled with an ardent gaze.

“Oh, sir!” she exclaimed, as she rose, her bosom heaving and her face stirring with emotion. “Oh, sir, you have saved me. I began to read this book, not because you asked me, but because I was dull; but soon the words began to steal into my heart. I read on and on, unable to withdraw my eyes away. When the light was put out I screamed. In the horrible darkness and silence of the night I heard whispers all around me, and sounds like the rustling of wings in the air, and the words which I had read I read again in strokes of fire on the wall.

“I awoke in the morning with a burning head, and a cold shivering in all my limbs. Again I opened the book, almost fearing to read, and yet unable to resist the strange fascination which it exercised over me. Accept my most heartfelt thanks――you have saved me!”

She burst into tears as she spoke, and uttered words which were stifled with sobs; but all the while she was watching him like a lynx. She saw his hands clasp and his lips flutter for an instant; she understood that he believed in her sincerity, and gave a smile behind her hands――so cold, so sardonic, that it would have served as an offering to the demon who inspired her.

He stayed with her for a longer period than his usual wont. In that time he discovered that she possessed the power of diving through the dead and inanimate letter, and revealing the pearls of the spirit which were beyond the reach of common understandings.

In fact, she was a wonderful woman, for in two hours she taught him not only a lesson in theology, but she had completely studied his character and was learning it by heart.

“Ah,” murmured Laura Stanbridge to herself after he had departed, “he is the most virtuous man I ever met with. But so much the better; virtue is simplicity, simplicity leads to concession, concession to vice. That is why many good women fall and are scouted as ruiners, and why artful women, shielding themselves with prudence――the only useful virtue――are respected as moral members of society.”

As she lay in her bed that night, she murmured to herself in a state of satisfaction and full confidence in her diabolical machinations――

“He has two flaws in his armour――the one is ambition――laudable in its way――but in all ambitions there is a stamp of the cloven foot. The other is a blind and senseless bigotry upon a certain point. Through one of these I will stab him in the head, and through the other in the heart.”

For five days she allowed him to visit her without taking any fresh steps.

Precipitation would be her ruin, and she was too wary to risk taking any false step.

During the succeeding five days she coiled herself slowly and silently round the poor sleeping victim; soon he would be quite encircled in those horrible folds which embraced before they killed.

During those five days she matured her observations of the intricacies of his character, and obtained a certain mastery over him by her prodigious penetration into the meaning of the sacred writings, and by her eloquent and exalted language.

These he ascribed to divine inspiration instead of the human intelligence.

There are men so superstitious upon the problem of faith and inspiration, that they are unable to see things in a practical light.

Without knowing it he already venerated her, for in acuteness and powers of perception she was more than a match for him; and he never for a moment suspected that she was playing a part with one special object.

This gained, she would relapse again into the unscrupulous and sinful woman she had been all through her life.

The warders congratulated him upon the good effects of his ministrations.

“No. 43 was quite a different person now from what she used to be,” said one of them to Laura Stanbridge’s pastor.

“I believe and hope she is,” observed Mr. Leverall.

“Oh, dear me yes, sir,” cried the woman, “quite different. When she first came here she’d howl to herself when she thought no one was by, and answer us so surly when any one of us spoke to her, it made a body loathe to go anear her. But now it is quite different. When we go in she’s meek and mild, and is always a reading a good book, and she speaks so beautiful, makes use of such soft and loving expressions that it does one’s heart good to listen to her, poor soul! I do hope she’ll get through the bit of trouble she’s got into.”

The chaplain’s countenance was indicative of the pleasure he felt at listening to the foregoing observations.

“She is in an excellent frame of mind, and feels her position most acutely, I am sure of that,” said he.

“She does, poor dear, and everyone is sorry for her,” cried the canting old crone, who, as the reader may suppose, had been well bribed by the prisoner in cell No. 43.

Miss Stanbridge had been playing her cards pretty well, all things considered. Bribes would not do with the prison chaplain, but she held him in bondage by other means.

Of this she was perfectly convinced, and the sequel proved that she was not far out in her reckoning.

She began to reflect upon her projects, which were still vague and unsettled.

At present they were like dark shadows, which passed backwards and forwards, but which she could not grasp or connect.

She possessed, or supposed she did so, a key to liberty, but she was wandering in the dark, for she had not yet found the door.

She resolved to make him tell her his history. Thus she might obtain a clue to the labyrinth in which she was lost. Thus she might find a fulcrum, without which the most powerful lever is useless.

William Leverall was by this time fairly in the toils of the huntress, albeit she did not realise this herself; but he was so, without perhaps knowing it.

She had so wrought upon him that when he left the cell he could not dismiss her from his thoughts. To say he was in love would be making use of too strong a term; he was fascinated, even as people are said to be fascinated by the piercing eye of the serpent.

His eyes were dull and reddened through want of sleep when he again approached the cell in which Laura Stanbridge was confined.

He had of late visited her several times in the day, and whenever he came he found her always reading.

On this occasion he opened the door softly. She pretended not to hear him.

He gazed upon her with a feeling that almost amounted to veneration. Her pale face and her eyes glowing ardently made her resemble a virgin saint at her devotions.

He was touched, and his countenance was expressive of pity, which, to say the truth, was the index of his thoughts.

He grew more sad when he remembered that, perhaps, in a few weeks she might have to wear a felon’s dress and endure a felon’s doom.

This thought made him shudder. He fancied that he saw her striving to soar above the shame and ignominy――saw her dragged back into the abyss by the base drudgeries and foul companionship of infamous and base women.

“Oh!” he murmured, “how is it possible to avoid the law? How can she be rescued from her impending doom?”

He remained silent and motionless, still gazing at her sorrowfully.

She divined his thoughts, and her black heart leapt with joy. When he spoke to her she gave a faint scream, and said, apologetically――

“Oh! sir, pardon me; I did not know you were here.”

She showed him what she had been reading, and described her feelings with that perfidious eloquence which was one of her chief weapons.

Then she asked him to relate to her his life.

He sat down by her side with his eyes bent on the ground. She was delighted, but did not attempt to give expression to the joy she felt.

Then calmly and in soft low voice he entered upon his history.

He told her all about his college life, his three years at the university, his missionary prospects, his interview with his relative, and his appointment as chaplain to the prison.

He spoke to her of his mother and sister, whom he loved so warmly.

And he laid bare his warm and enthusiastic heart, into which she probed with cold and ingenious calculations.

When he had ended he found her silent and thoughtful, looking vacantly on the ground; he believed that she was buried in a reverie.

But this was not so. She was attempting in these few moments to mould her scheme into a form which could not fail. She threw out a sentence in order that she might feel her way. She watched him keenly as she spoke.

“How long have you been here, then?” she inquired, carelessly.

“Two years,” he answered, with a sigh.

“Two years of prison life――of earnest ministrations! Oh! sir, how many hearts have you moved by your eloquence? Had I not met you, I might have been lost. You so good, so noble――”

“Hush, do not indulge in laudation,” he said, interrupting her.

“But I must when I speak of you,” said she, leaning her head forward till her cheek almost touched his. “Without you my life here would have been insupportable, and the future,” she added, with bitterness, and bursting into tears――“I dread to think of the future.”

“Ah!” he ejaculated; “that is a sad reflection.”

“Oh, sir,” she said, in a tone which seemed to find its way to his heart, “what a terrible position I am in! I behold exposure, ignominy, and disgrace before me. My poor mother will break her heart when she learns what I am charged with.”

“Does she not know it already?” he inquired, in some surprise.

“No――oh, dear, no! My uncle thought it best to keep it from her. It may be that the charge against me will not be substantiated, and in that case she will be spared the infliction of knowing her daughter has been an inmate of a prison. I cannot tell you――words are altogether inadequate to express the miserable state of hopeless despair I am in. Think of a respectable family being disgraced――think of the odium and obloquy that must necessarily fall upon me even under the most favourable circumstances. I have not before spoken of my own deep, deep sorrow――my abject despair. I have not pained you by a recital of all my agonising thoughts, because I thought it selfish to do so; but oh, sir, you behold in me one of the most wretched and miserable creatures you have ever met with. At night I think of these things――by day I strive by prayer and penitence to cast aside the heavy shadow which has fallen over me. I ask for mercy――I pray to be relieved from this miserable thraldom.”

She ceased suddenly and burst into a passionate flood of tears.

He bent over her and with soft words tried to assuage her grief, which was painful to behold.

“You must not give way to despair. Bear up against the deep affliction which has fallen upon you,” he murmured. “Cheer up――brighter days are in store for you, let us hope.”

“For me there is no hope.”

“You must not say that. Hope never deserts us, however sorely we may be tried. It never deserts the truly repentant sinner――you do not need to be told that.”

“Oh, I am supremely miserable,” she ejaculated. “If it were possible for me to return to society without disgrace and exposure I would for the rest of my life devote myself to the service of my fellow-creatures. But――――”

“But what?” he inquired.

“I fear it is not possible. Can you see any way?”

This was a home thrust, and the chaplain hardly knew what reply to make.

“I am sure you would lead an exemplary life――I hope so――if you obtained your release.”

“I would――I swear it!” she exclaimed, with sudden warmth and energy. “I will swear it on this sacred book.”

She laid her hands on a volume which was on the table before her.

“All this is very sad and painful,” he murmured. “You are respectably connected, without doubt.”

“Dear me, yes. Some day I hope to introduce you to my relations.”

“There will be time enough to think of that hereafter.”

“Ah, hereafter――you are right. It is the present, the miserable, hopeless present, I have to consider; and when I think of that I grow sick at heart. Tell me what I am to do――you are so good, so pure, and high-minded.”

She looked up into his face, and saw that he was deeply moved.

“Forgive me troubling you about my wordly affairs. I feel that I am inflicting pain upon you. Pardon, pardon me.”

She drew her hand across her eyes, and again regarded him with a glance which was at once supplicating, caressing, and voluptuous.

He quailed before the glance.

“Tell me――tell me what I am to do,” said she, placing her hand upon his shoulder.

A beautiful woman in distress might well move the most obdurate heart, the most unimpressionable of the opposite sex to her own.

Mr. Leverall felt a strange thrill pass through his frame. It was the first time the prisoner had been so demonstrative. His pulse quickened as he felt her soft, pliant hand upon his shoulder.

She was not slow to perceive the effect of her wiles. As a cat with slow, noiseless and stealthy steps approaches her prey, so did Laura Stanbridge approach her victim.

She poured forth another piteous and eloquent appeal, and as she did so drew closer to him.

“My guide――my counsellor――my kind and gentle monitor! tell me what I am to do,” said she. “You, who are so wise, have such wondrous powers of perception and penetration, are so well adapted to save and succour one who is at the present moment surrounded with difficulties which appear to be insurmountable.”

“I have already given you the best advice I could offer,” said he, not daring to turn his head and look at the upturned beseeching face of the siren by his side.

“You have caused me solace which can never be forgotten,” she exclaimed, with something like rapture in her tone and manner.

She rested her head on his shoulder, pressing him fondly with her hand on the other.

He did not attempt to withdraw from her embrace. He placed his arm round her waist and drew her towards him.

Their lips met, and being now no longer master of himself, he had one long lingering embrace, which, if the truth must be told, was neither parental nor fraternal.

“He is mine,” murmured the charmer, to herself. “He is in my toils, and soon, very soon, I shall be able to mould him at my will.”

It was true enough the chaplain was fascinated with the seductive being by his side. He forgot to administer his habitual moral discourse――he forgot all but one thing, this being that he had an alluring and fascinating woman by his side――and he drank deep of his first draught of illicit love.

She had worked unceasingly to bring about the present issue, and she had succeeded far beyond her expectations. The fortress she had been endeavouring to reach for so long a time fell into her hands as suddenly as unexpected.

A smile of triumph sat upon her features, for she felt that the battle was nearly won. She felt assured also that very shortly she should be able to gain her liberty; nevertheless she could not conceal from herself that much remained to be done.

Mr. Bourne, her uncle, had paid her another visit. He had brought her a second supply of money, which had been sent by Charles Peace.

Laura Stanbridge had bribed the female warders in charge of her so liberally that they were quite astounded at her munificence.

In prisons, workhouses, and other public institutions, money works wonders. It is useful enough, we all of us will readily admit, everywhere and under all circumstances, but without it the prisoner can do little or nothing――with it he or she can do a great deal.

The female warders were in the pay of Laura Stanbridge.

She persuaded them that she was highly connected, that some of her relations belonged to the upper ten, and they believed her. Small wonder at that, seeing that in appearance she was far above those females they were accustomed to have under their charge, and in addition to this she appeared to have ample means furnished her from those of her relations and outside the walls of the prison.

The chaplain’s visit on this occasion was one unusually long――indeed, there is no telling how long it would have been had it not been rudely interrupted.

While seated by the side of his enchantress the alarm bell of the prison was suddenly rung.

This was followed by the shuffling of feet along the corridor, the sounds of many voices, as of people who were conversing hurriedly.

Mr. Leverall judged rightly enough that something unusual had occurred in the gaol.

“My dear Laura,” he exclaimed (he had already learned to call her by her Christian name), “there must be some strong reason for all this commotion; I must, therefore, leave you now.”

“You are going,” cried the prisoner, pouting. “Well, I will not seek to detain you.”

The door was suddenly opened, and a male warder thrust his head in.

He was evidently in a state of alarm, and said――

“Oh, your pardon, sir, but the governor wishes you to attend a patient in the infirmary.”

“What is the matter, Martin?” inquired the chaplain.

“A prisoner has attempted to escape, and is dreadfully injured. The governor thought you had better see him.”

“Oh, certainly, by all means I will do so,” observed the chaplain, who at once left the cell with the prison official.

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CXVII. THE ATTEMPTED ESCAPE――MURDOCK, THE SMUGGLER

When Mr. Leverall reached the infirmary he approached the bedside of one of the patients to whom his attention had been directed by the surgeon.

The man appeared to be almost in a state of collapse.

“Is he in immediate danger?” said the chaplain to the doctor.

“I think not, but his injuries are very serious. He has sustained a compound fracture of the leg, two broken ribs, besides other casualties consequent upon his falling from a high wall on to the stone flags of the yard.”

“How very terrible! It’s that man Murdock, I see.”

“Yes, the smuggler, as he is termed. A most determined, incorrigible ruffian.”

Mr. Leverell made no reply to this last speech, but approached the bedside of the sufferer.

“I am sorry to see you in this position, No. 59,” observed the chaplain, “very sorry.”

“Ugh,” groaned the man, “I wish I’d escaped or else have been killed outright. Oh――oh,” here he writhed with pain.

“You must bear up against this new misfortune, and have the grace of patience,” said the chaplain.

“I aint got any patience left. It’s all gone long ago, and I don’t want any of your palaver.”

“You must not talk like that. Let me read a little to you.”

“No, I won’t be read to――I don’t like it. Leave me to myself.”

“But I must beg of you to listen to my discourse. It is useless your being obstinate or refractory.”

“Get away, and leave me alone,” cried the man in a voice which was something like the roar of a wild beast.

The chaplain began to read after a few further observations, and the man hallooed and shouted like a maniac.

Nevertheless the chaplain persevered, although not a word he was uttering reached the ears of the wretched man.

At this moment the governor came in. He was a tall handsome man, of about fifty-five, with a military stride, and a military voice. He was, in fact, a retired officer in her Majesty’s service.

He glanced at the sufferer, who was writhing and making hideous grimaces.

“I am afraid you’ll not be able to do much with him――not at present, at any rate,” observed the governor, addressing himself to the chaplain; “still I thought it my duty to communicate with you.”

Mr. Leverall bowed to the governor, who glanced at the doctor; then the three gentlemen withdrew into a corner of the room, and conversed in whispers.

“He’s of a most excitable temperament, and as to making any impression on him I frankly own that I believe that to be quite hopeless. Under all the circumstances of the case, he had, I think, better be left to himself. His wounds are dressed, the broken bones are set, as well as we could do them, and in the course of an hour or so I shall prescribe an opiate.”

The governor nodded; the surgeon was a special favourite of his.

“In that case I shall not attempt to address any further conversation to him,” observed Mr. Leverall, pocketing his book, and accompanying the governor out of the ward.

“I am glad he’s taken his hook――jolly glad,” said the smuggler, following with his eyes the receding figures of the governor and the chaplain.

Desperately injured as the man was, and dangerous as were his wounds, these were as nothing in comparison to the madness of his despair at being thwarted in his attempt at escape.

Mat Murdock was a villain of the most pronounced and desperate type. He had for many years of his life been a seafaring man, first as a smuggler, then as a pirate, while at other times he had been in the merchant service.

He had been convicted upon various charges, and had been sentenced to short terms of imprisonment both at home and abroad, and at one time he was the chief of as lawless a set of desperadoes as ever trod on land or sailed in salt water.

At length, however, the law proved too strong for him. He was tried upon the charge of murder and piracy on the high seas. The first charge, however, was reduced to manslaughter, and Mat Murdock was sentenced to penal servitude for life.

He was sent to Dartmoor, and while there he made two attempts to escape. He was such a trouble to the authorities there that they were glad to get rid of him, and an order was therefore sent for his removal.

It was understood that his ultimate destination would be either Portland or Spike Island, but for the time being he was lodged in the same gaol in which Laura Stanbridge was incarcerated.

While here he meditated and matured another plan of escape. He succeeded in removing the bars of his cell, crept through the aperture, and dropped on to the wall which enclosed one of the yards, then began to creep along this in the hopes of arriving at the outer wall, from whence he hoped to drop into the street, but, much to his chagrin, he found himself baffled.

He could not keep his equilibrium, the reason for this being that in one of his attempts to escape from Dartmoor he had been fired upon by the sentry on duty, and had received a bullet in his right hip.

The bullet was extracted and the wound healed up, but it left Murdock partially a cripple. He could not rely upon or make good use of his right leg for ever afterwards; the consequence was, when he was on the wall, its weakness became painfully manifest.

The miserable man was almost powerless; he tottered, swayed to and fro for a moment, then closed his eyes and fell.

When discovered by the prison officials he was senseless.

He was carried into the operating room, where a consultation took place, and the doctors in attendance did the best they could for him under the circumstance, and after this Murdock was placed in the infirmary.

Under the influence of morphia the smuggler was passive and peaceable enough, but the moment the effects of that drug passed away he began howling and screaming like a wild beast.

The bitter mortification he felt at the unsuccessful nature of his last attempt to escape was too much for him.

It drove him frantic, and during the night the manifestation of his rage was so terrible that the patients in the same ward with him could get very little sleep.

On the following day, when the doctor paid his accustomed visit, they one and all complained of the noise made by Murdock.

The wardsman and night nurses corroborated their statement, and the consequence of all this was that the wounded smuggler was transferred to a small room at another part of the prison.

Ill or well, Mat Murdock was a difficult customer to deal with, and not one of the few professional nurses who were in attendance on the prisoners seemed disposed to volunteer their services to wait on the smuggler.

But as we have indicated in a previous chapter, it is a common thing for the prisoners themselves to be appointed as nurses to the sick, and so, after some little discussion, a young man named Walter Knoulton volunteered his services as attendant on Murdock.

There was some reason for this. Knoulton and the smuggler had been on friendly terms ever since they made each other’s acquaintance in the gaol where they were both confined.

They had worked side by side in the same shop at mat making, and Murdock had spun many a yarn to the younger prisoner.

Seeing and knowing all this, the officials one and all agreed that no person was better adapted to the task than Knoulton, who was generally acknowledged to be an excellent nurse.

In addition to this he was a young man of rather a superior class. He was well educated, had moved in respectable society, and was generally liked by all who knew him.

Prior to his conviction he held a good appointment in a mercantile house in one of our provincial towns, and was greatly esteemed by his employers, who, it was said, allowed him too much latitude.

His downfall was brought about by a concurrence of circumstances. He began by betting, then he indulged in a plurality of mistresses, besides other little foibles, which it is perhaps needless to mention. The end of it was that to bridge over a difficulty, he made use of his employers’ money.

The first time he escaped discovery, as he made up the deficiency just in the nick of time, but he had recourse to the same desperate alternative several times afterwards, and the result was that his defalcations were discovered, and he was given into custody.

He was convicted upon the charge of embezzling, but his prosecutors strongly recommended him to mercy. It was thought that he would have a mere nominal sentence――a few days’ imprisonment perhaps――but he had the misfortune of being tried before a severe judge, who never, under any circumstances, gave less than six months’ imprisonment; so six months’ young Knoulton had, and hence his becoming a fellow-prisoner with Murdock, the smuggler.

It would be difficult for me to attempt to convey to the reader the bold and fearless nature of this man, who, like a caged tiger, was for ever clawing at the bars of his cage. Nothing appeared to intimidate him. After his attempt to escape at Dartmoor he had for several months been forced to work at the quarries in chains weighing some thirty pounds, or more. Every vigilance had been exercised by his guards to prevent the possibility of his flight, and yet the idea of escape haunted his imagination, and became a never-dying, never-yielding monomania.

The thought of regaining his liberty seemed to be the one acting principle of his life. He used to observe to his companions in crime that he would much prefer being executed than having to endure a life-long imprisonment.

Whether this was merely said out of bravado or not we cannot determine, but one fact is quite clear――of all the prisoners in this gaol and others he had been drafted to, he was the most restless and discontented――he of all men else pined most for liberty.

When young Knoulton entered the apartment occupied by the sick man, Murdock gave a grunt of satisfaction, but he said nothing at first beyond that momentary expression.

“Poor chap, he does look bad, though,” murmured the commercial, if we may so term him――“very bad.”

There was a silence for some time.

Knoulton sat himself down at a side table and began to read. He and the other convicts, who were elected to similar offices to himself, were permitted to have what books they chose from the prison library. This was, of course, a great boon to them.

He read on for half an hour or so, being under the impression that the patient had sunk into a peaceful slumber; but this was not so.

Murdock even at that hour was meditating how he might at some future time effect the object, the thought of which had occupied his undivided attention for so many long and wearisome years.

He knew that young Knoulton was in the room, and he judged, or rather hoped, he had been appointed nurse. This hope he fancied would be delusive if he made any inquiry.

He, therefore, chose for the nonce to maintain a moody silence. He wouldn’t be first to speak――not he; he didn’t care for any man. He had been befooled and baffled; the world was against him, and he was against the world. These were his first fugitive thoughts upon Knoulton’s first half hour or so in the apartment.

The door opened, and the governor entered.

He walked to the bedside of the patient and looked at him for a moment or so, then apparently satisfied with his inspection he said in a kind tone――

“I hope you like your new quarters, No. 95? They are much more comfortable, I think, than the infirmary.”

The convict nodded.

“Ah, that’s well,” observed the governor in a cheery tone. “Is there anything you want? If so, tell me what it is.”

“Want?” repeated Murdock.

“Yes. Can we do anything for you?”

“Can you? Yes!”

“What is it?”

“Give me my liberty!” shrieked the smuggler.

The governor started back.

“You ask impossibilities,” said he; “be reasonable. At the present moment your life is in peril. Be patient, No. 95; you are not out of danger for the present, and excitement may prove fatal. Be patient and resigned, and hope for the best.”

“Hope! Ugh, that has long since deserted me. I want my liberty.”

The governor said no more, but turned away and slowly left the apartment.

“He is incorrigible, and almost unmanageable,” he whispered to the doctor. “I never met with such an obstinate man in all my experience.”

The doctor nodded significantly, but made no reply to this last speech.

In a few minutes after this, Mat Murdock was left in the charge of Knoulton.

The latter did not seem inclined to force the conversation. He knew the irritable nature of the patient, and therefore deemed it advisable to leave him to his own reflections, which were, to say the truth, bitter enough.

The smuggler tossed about in his bed, groaned, and ground his teeth, but his nurse took no notice of all this; he was well used to scenes of this nature, and was, moreover, well versed in the treatment of such persons.

Presently Murdock glanced towards him, and said in a more subdued tone――

“Have they placed you here to attend upon me?”

“Yes,” answered Knoulton; “I am your nurse. Does that satisfy you?”

“I’d rather have you than anyone else. Give me your hand.”

Knoulton put down his book, and went to the bedside of the injured man, who grasped and shook his hand gratefully.

“Ah! Walter, old chap, I’m pretty well done for. Haven’t much life left in me. But I’m thankful that they’ve allowed ye to be by my side, ’cause, ye see, we’ve always been friends since we first met――always!”

“I hope so, I’m sure,” returned Knoulton.

“Ay, but we have, there’s no gainsaying that――good friends and true. Oh, but it was a narrow squeak after all. If it had not been for my game leg, as deserted me when I most needed its service, I should by this time――long ere this――have been outside these accursed walls. Bad luck to the sodger who fired upon me at Dartmoor, may he be ――――!” He uttered an impious oath.

“Silence! you must not talk like that. It’s no use bearing malice against one who only did an act of duty.”

“I wish he had been throttled afore he fired on me. Had it not been for that all would have gone well.”

“You really must endeavour to be as calm as possible. Do not excite yourself.”

“Not excite myself!”

“No, certainly not; that is if you wish to recover.”

“Just Providence, think what I have suffered,” cried the pirate. “Nine long long years of misery, and now two months of cherished hopes are crushed in a moment. Shattered, maimed and almost done to death, here I am at the mercy of my gaolers, and the hope of liberty still further from me. Merciful heaven, but its terrible――horrible.”

He writhed and moaned in bitter anguish.

“Be patient, Murdock; be contented with your lot.”

“Contented!” he ejaculated, bursting out into a mocking harsh horrible laugh.

“Why are you so desirous of gaining your liberty?”

“Why? Oh, you know not what it is to endure the horrible drudgery of nine years’ penal servitude. If you had, you would not ask such a question.”

“Well, perhaps not. Yours is a hard lot, and has been for so――――”

“For nine long, miserable years.”

“But of what use is liberty to you now? You are old, Murdock. The best and brightest of your days have passed.”

“True, I am old; there’s no denying that. You are right――I am old.”

“Past fifty, I suppose?”

“Nearly sixty.”

“Well, then, supposing you gained your liberty, what would you do to obtain a living? You are getting past work.”

“I’m not past work as yet,” returned the pirate, savagely, “though I am not the man I was; but I can turn my hand to a thing or two still.”

“That may be; still you would have a precarious sort of existence. As I said before, the best of your days are over, and you might starve.”

The captive smiled.

“Should I?” he ejaculated. “I know better than that.”

“I hope you would not. Still, after your long imprisonment, you would find the outside world strangely altered. Many of your friends are doubtless dead. Others may be in distant parts, and you would, therefore, be thrown upon your own resources. I am afraid, Murdock, you have not duly considered all these things.”

“I tell you I have considered all you mention, and more too――a good deal more. Starve――eh?”

An almost disdainful sneer of triumph curled his lip as he said――

“I am richer than you or any one supposes.”

It was now Knoulton’s turn to start.

“Richer!” he ejaculated.

The pirate nodded.

“Aye, lad,” he murmured. “Riches if I could only get outside these walls――if I could only regain my liberty. Ugh!”

“I don’t know what to make of you, and that is the truth,” said the young man. “You are a puzzle to everybody. You rich?”

“Certainly, if I could escape I should be so.”

“You are indeed most fortunate.”

This was said with a degree of bitter irony, which, while it conveyed a doubt of the truth of the assertion, told how highly Knoulton esteemed the gifts of fortune.

[Sidenote: No. 62.]

“Would you like to be rich, Walter?” inquired the pirate.

“I should be telling a falsehood if I said the contrary. Do you take me for a fool that you endeavour to deceive me?”

“Belay there,” cried Murdock――“hold on a bit, lad. I aint romancing, talking wildly, when I say I can make your fortune. What think you of that?”

“I don’t know what to think. It appears to be incredible, but still I am bound to believe what you say, seeing that you can have no motive in declaring that which is untrue. So let it pass. Wait till you are better――till you have recovered. It will be some time before that comes to pass.”

“I say I can make your fortune, and you take no heed of my words or warning.”

“I do take heed. You would carry out some robbery in which you would have me join. I think I understand.”

The pirate shook his head.

“No yer don’t,” cried he. “If you will assist me to make my escape, we’ll succeed the next time. If you will do that you shall be rich, for I will give you half I have.”

Walter Knoulton was under the impression at this time that the pirate was light-headed, and he therefore did not take much notice of the declaration he had made.

He deemed it advisable, however, to humour him, for experience had taught him that it was never at any time advisable to contradict patients in the condition Murdock was in at that time.

“You are in earnest――I know that,” said he; “and I am quite sure you would keep your word as far as your promise to me is concerned.”

“But you don’t believe me, for all that,” observed the sick man.

“Yes, I do――indeed, I do.”

“You merely say that to humour me. Your manner belies your words.”

“I tell you I do.”

“Good, then――that being so we shall be able to understand each other, and I will take you into my confidence, for I believe I can trust you.”

The conversation was suddenly brought to a close by the entrance of the prison chaplain.

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CXVIII. THE INJURED MAN AND HIS ATTENDANT――A PIRATE’S YARN

Gentle in his manner and soft in speech, the chaplain approached the bedside of the wounded smuggler.

“I hope and trust, Murdock, that you are more disposed now to hearken to my counsel. Remember you are at the present time in imminent danger, and there is no telling what may be the result of the terrible injuries you have received. There is no telling how soon you may be called away by a power which is omnipotent. Let me conjure of you to make some amends for the past by a sincere repentance. Remember――――”

“I don’t want to be preached to,” interrupted the hardened criminal; “all I want is to be left alone.”

“But it is my duty to endeavour by every means in my power to bring you to a right way of thinking, and I should be sadly unmindful of my sacred mission if I neglected you at this time. I must therefore beg of you to hear me.”

“I don’t want to hear you. I am nearly mad with pain and driven half crazy when I think of being cheated of my liberty. I am done this time, and if I am to slip my moorings, the sooner I do so the better. There, that will do――I don’t want any palaver. You can’t make matters any better.”

“But I hope and trust I can,” returned Mr. Leverall. “Nay, I will venture to assert that I am sure I can if you will be a little reasonable. Come, Murdock, you must not, you will not turn a deaf ear to one who is prompted by the purest and best of motives in striving, as best he can, to soften your heart and make you comprehend your awful position.”

“I know my position well enough. It is a hopeless one. They’ve been killing me by inches for nine long and miserable years. They’ll never be satisfied until they see the breath out of my body, and then――well, then they may cut me up piecemeal in the dissecting-room as soon as they please.”

“Nobody wishes to see you dead, and you are quite wrong in such a supposition. It is not at all likely that anyone in this gaol regards you with personal animosity. It is unjust and unreasonable to suppose such a thing. You are taking a morbid view of things. Now permit me to read to you.”

“No, I won’t be read to. I don’t want any long-worded sermons. I won’t listen. Leave me alone.”

“But I cannot and must not leave you in your present distress. Remember you have a soul to be saved, and you must listen to the words of One who came into the world to save us all.”

“You have me at an advantage,” cried the smuggler. “I am powerless, and cannot get away.”

“I hope you do not want to get away?”

“Yes, I do.”

“He’s very self-willed, and won’t bear being spoken to,” said Knoulton, addressing himself to the chaplain.

“I am perfectly assured that he is self-willed and obstinate, but that is the greater reason for my endeavouring to move him, and bring the unhappy man to a better condition. I am not in the habit of giving up persons of his nature as altogether hopeless.”

The chaplain then, in a slow, measured voice, read from the volume he had brought with him. Murdock this time made no objection. He closed his eyes, and appeared to be half asleep, nevertheless he listened to much the chaplain uttered.

The reading lasted some quarter of an hour or twenty minutes. Mr. Leverall was under the impression that the old evil-minded man had profited by his ministrations; he closed the book, and laying hold of the smuggler’s horny hand, shook it, and then took his departure――thinking he had done enough for the present, and to continue further would be only to weary the sick man.

“A good, kind gentleman,” said Knoulton, when the door had closed on the chaplain, “and he is one who takes a deep interest in all who have the misfortune to be incarcerated within these walls.”

“Ugh! He means well, I dare say,” cried Murdock.

“I am sure he does――no man ever meant better. I am sure I ought to speak well of him, for he has been both father and brother to me.”

“Ah, it may be so; but I am too far gone, do you see? I aint to be piloted into port by any of his kidney, and so it’s no use mincing matters. I didn’t interfere with him when he let go the jawing tackle; because why――it aint no manner of use. Just heaven, what would I give to be clean out of these waters!”

“And then, if you succeeded in doing so, you would not be much better off, perhaps.”

“Shouldn’t I? You allow me to be the best judge of that. No better off, indeed! I tell you what it is, Walter――you don’t know why I yearn for liberty so much.”

“I confess I do not.”

The pirate shook his head.

“Ah, that’s where it is,” said he.

“Why, you must have led a strange life, I should say,” observed the young man, “and been witness of scenes that were no doubt of a harrowing nature.”

“I’ve passed through a deal more than I could ever tell you――have sailed to almost every port in the world, and have had a hard time of it occasionally, but it’s all over now――Walter, all!”

“Come, take some of this beef-tea,” said his attendant, drawing to the bedside of the sufferer.

Murdock, with great difficulty, sat half up, his back and shoulders supported by pillows, and partook of some refreshment, which he seemed to enjoy.

“There, that’ll do for the present,” said he, handing his attendant the basin. “I feel a little better now.”

The hours flew by, night came on, but the sick man was unable to obtain sleep, and young Knoulton sat up and watched him with exemplary patience. As the night waned, its tedium was beguiled by conversation, for when alone with his nurse the pirate was loquacious enough, for nothing pleased him better than spinning yarns, as he termed it, and giving his companion a brief recital of some of the incidents in his earlier career.

Knoulton encouraged him in this, for he argued that it was far better than his brooding over his present misfortunes.

“Well, for the matter of that, I have seen all sorts of sights, both ashore and afloat,” said Murdock, “but about as terrible a bit of business it is well possible to conceive was what is termed a ‘cacciata.’”

“A what?” said Knoulton.

“A cacciata. It’s an Italian word, I believe, but it means a fight with knives or poignards. As I can’t sleep I’ll just give you an account of it. When I was a young man I did a little business on the cross with an Italian count. He wasn’t of much account, but that doesn’t much matter, but to talk to him you’d suppose butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. I had left my ship for a time, and visited Rome to see the sights there, and met by chance my old friend the count.

“‘Ah, Murdock!’ said he, ‘what brought you here?’

“‘A little matter of business in the first place,’ I answered, ‘and pleasure in the next.’

“‘All right, my friend,’ he returned. ‘I’m glad to see you. You have seen most of the sights, I suppose?’

“‘I have seen a good many.’

“‘Have you any further visits to pay?’

“‘I don’t know that I have. I think I must have seen everything――unless you have something further to show me.’

“‘Well, yes,’ said the Count, ‘you may congratulate yourself, for I think I can show you something this evening that will be both novel and distracting.’

“Just suit me, then,” said I, “for you must know, Walter, I was at this time a young hair-brained chap as didn’t care a straw what places I visited, or what risks I ran.”

“I should imagine you to be all that,” returned Knoulton.

“‘Well, we shall see,’ said the Count; ‘I must leave you, for we must not be seen together, and you must leave Rome in the morning, without fail. Not a word of our conversation to anyone. Meet me to-night in front of the Alberti Theatre. Silence, mystery, and may good fortune favour us.’

“Well,” observed the pirate, “I couldn’t quite get the right soundings, so was just going to heave the lead again, when my gentleman walked swiftly away. I walked on, musing on the mysterious sensation which had been promised me by my friend. Reaching my lodgings, I put on my travelling suit, settled my account, and made arrangements for leaving in the morning, according to the count’s instructions. I was at this time a smart young fellow,” added Murdock, “and in every way different to what you see me now. Lord bless us, it appears impossible I can be the same person――but what have I not gone through since then?”

“Ah, time changes the best of us,” observed his companion. “It will effect a wonderful alteration in me, no doubt, as years go on.”

The pirate made no reply, but remained silent for some little time, and Knoulton was under the impression that he was too weak to continue his narrative. Such, however, was not the case, for after a somewhat lengthy pause, he renewed his story.

“As soon as it was dark,” said Murdock, “I directed my steps to the Alberta Theatre. It was about eight o’clock.

“I found the count promenading the walk. He was not alone, but was accompanied by a young man with a full Italian face, and who walked and chatted with him while waiting for me.

“For some inexplicable reason my heart began to beat violently when my eye fell upon the count and his companion. With a gesture imposing silence upon me the count whispered――

“‘Come, let us lose no time, but get into the carriage.’

“It was with some astonishment that I noticed that I was not presented to the stranger. Nevertheless, so soon as we were in motion we all began to chat as if we were intimate acquaintances.

“The unknown was a person of charming manners and excellent conversational power. Although somewhat effeminate, he had an air of distinction. He had that dull tinge characteristic of the meridionaux who drink only water.

“He was about twenty-four years of age; he wore a moustache of fine texture and ebon blackness; and his raven hair contrasted singularly with the whiteness of a neck whose shape would have excited the envy of a woman. He was, in short, one of the handsomest of Italians.

“The carriage rolled on for some ten minutes, and was already travelling obscure streets, which to me were wholly unknown.

“While it is true that I had no fear, I ought to say that the singular circumstances of this nocturnal journey awakened an emotion which bordered on inquietude, and which induced me to break out suddenly――

“‘My dear friend, I accepted your proposition with my eyes closed. Now, after all this mystery, will you tell me where you are conducting me?’

“‘Your pardon,’ said the count in a serious tone. ‘I have promised to enable you to assist at a spectacle such as you have never seen, and never will again in all your life; but where this spectacle will take place, I am not permitted to say. I count upon your discretion and rely upon your abstaining from all questions. I have promised you a sensation, and you shall see it; and I guarantee to you that it will be satisfactory as a sensation, for it will be most terrible and most bloody.’

“‘Bloody,’ repeated I, surprised at this confidence.

“‘Yes, bloody and terrifying beyond description. There is yet time. Do you wish to renounce this excursion? If you do not have the courage, I will accompany you to――――’

“‘My friend, I have faith in your loyalty; and I know you will do nothing unworty the character of a brave gentleman.’

“‘Fear nothing,’ said the young Italian, in excellent English, ‘only wait till in your own country before you speak.’

“A moment after, our carriage halted. We found ourselves in a small square, dimly lighted, a species of carrefour, which gave access to four streets.

“We descended and waited till the carriage had driven away and the noise of its wheels was lost in the deserted streets. It was nine o’clock.

“‘Follow us,’ whispered the count, ‘and do not utter a single word.’

“We proceeded a dozen steps along one of the streets which led into the place, and then the count stopped before a door, and said, in a low voice――

“‘It is here.’

“He pushed gently against the door, which yielded easily; and then we entered a long dark corridor, at the extremity of which there shone a faint light through the curtains of a second door, which seemed to open into some lighted apartment.

“We had walked about half the length of the hall, when the second door opened and there came out a man, who closed it behind him with great care. During the instant that the door was open we heard a murmur of voices, which convinced us that the room beyond was occupied by a numerous company.

“At a sign from the count we all three halted. The man came softly forward until he reached the count, who stood in advance, and whispered some words in his ear, which we could not hear. The next moment he turned to the right and led us to a stairway which seemed cut in the wall, and which, by the faint light, we saw to be filthy beyond description. We followed our guide on tiptoe and in absolute silence.

“We ascended several steps, and found ourselves in front of a door. Our guide took us by the hand, and we groped our way silently into the darkness of what I imagined to be a hall of some kind. The darkness was impenetrable. We were led a short distance, and then all three of us were quietly forced into a species of bruel, or canapé――and then we waited.

“What was going to happen, and what astounding thing was I about to witness? Despite my confidence in the count, I could not, in view of our marches and countermarches in the darkness, and all so silently, restrain somewhat of an apprehension.

“Gradually there began to reach us, from in front and below us, the murmur of voices, and which we could not distinguish when we first entered the apartment.

“From such indications as I could possess myself of, I concluded that we occupied a position with reference to those below us, like that of spectators in a gallery to the actors on the stage. These were mere suppositions, however, for the darkness was so intense that I had no means of verifying their justness.

“None of us spoke.

“Suddenly a great noise broke out in the place in front of us. There were cries of joy and enthusiasm; there was a general stamping of feet, and, at the same instant, directly in front of us, a curtain was drawn aside as if by magic.

“I was correct in my surmise that we were in a sort of gallery. We were so placed that, without being seen, or our existence suspected, we could command a complete view of the large room below us, and in which some twenty people were conversing with each other, and throwing themselves about with a demoniacal violence.

“The count whispered in my ear: ‘Now we can speak, but we must not permit ourselves to be overheard.’

“‘And now,’ said I, ‘will you explain the mystery of seeing a score of Italians in a state of intoxication?’

The count laughed slightly, and for an answer he said――

“‘Look attentively.’

As for the young Italian, he revealed his presence only by long-drawn sighs.

“I could now examine at my leisure what passed below us in the room, which was lighted by four miserable lamps, and which gave out more odour than light. Some twenty persons were present.

“They were ordinary men with healthy colour, and whose glances were full of pride and energy. Some of them were advanced in years and were gray; others were mere boys, but all appeared equally audacious and daring.

“At the moment I had taken in these particulars, one of them had mounted a bench and commenced to speak; the rest listened with great attention, and from their attitude, I could infer that the proposition of the orator was received with favour.

“All at once, it occurred to me that these men were not intoxicated. There may have been one or two whose brains were somewhat affected by drink; but none had that brutal and contemptible drunkenness which one sometimes sees among our workmen in the large cities. One would imagine them to be conspirators or bandits, but never drunkards.”

“I always understood that the Italians were not addicted to habits of intemperance,” observed young Knoulton.

“Neither are they――at any rate as far as my experience of them is concerned,” returned Murdock.

“If the truth must be spoken I have every reason for believing that the majority, if not all of those present, were as sober as you and I are now.”

“Well, we haven’t had anything to intoxicate us――that is quite certain,” said the young man, with a smile.

The pirate continued――

“‘What is going to happen?’ I asked the count in a low voice.

“‘You see all those men,’ said the count, in a voice which vibrated with emotion; ‘they are mostly young men; in every case, they are robust. Well, my good friend, all these young men whom you see are about to poignard each other――to attempt to kill each other with an unimaginable ferocity.’

“I repressed an exclamation.

“‘What is it you tell me? Why, these men have the appearance of being intimate friends.’

“‘They are; and it is necessary that they should be, and that they should possess a great reciprocity of esteem in order to carry out the terrible combat whose conditions they are even now arranging.’

“I heard this with stupefaction. I tried to believe myself the victim of a joke on the part of my friend; but the tone of his voice left me no room to doubt.

“Besides, the precautions we had taken to assist at the combat of the gladiators; the semi-revelations and mysterious occurrences of the evening did not permit me to suppose that my friend told me anything but the exact truth.

“‘And will this act of savagery take place under my eyes?’

“‘Let me, at first,’ said my friend, ‘explain to you this singular duel, for it is a duel sustained without enmity, without heat, without anger, for the simple purpose of proving to each other their surpassing courage, and their contempt for existence. This savage recreation, which owes its origin to barbarous ages, is called a cacciata from the word caccia (hunting). From time to time, when security from the police is certain, a group of persons such as these meet in some secluded locality for the purpose of holding a caccia, whose end is solely to test their courage. But hold,’ he added, ‘that tall man whom you see at the extremity of the hall is about to announce the proposal to fight.’

“At the same moment I heard, in the obscurity, our young companion rubbing his hands with great satisfaction.

“Although a good deal disturbed at what I had heard, I did not lose a motion of the men.

“Suddenly there arose a great tumult in the hall.

“The man whom the count had indicated by his great stature, pronounced a sort of speech; but he spoke with so much heat and volubility that it was impossible for me to understand a single thing except the word cacciata.

“When he finished speaking, each man put his hand in his pocket and drew out an enormous knife, whose blade shone and sparkled with a sinister brilliancy.

“‘My God,’ said I, ‘are they going to cut each other’s throats under our very eyes?’

“‘Calm yourself,’ said the count, seizing my hands with force. ‘Reassure yourself, you will see nothing――what is now passing is the worst. Come, be courageous, and do not lose sight of a single movement.’

“The recommendation to calm myself was wholly useless.

“Despite myself I was seized by an undefinable nausea. The belief that I was about to see the room below running with human gore gave me a tremour of horror, and held me spellbound in a condition of horrible anticipation.

“But such is the deformity of the human heart that, notwithstanding I experienced a most frightful repulsion, my curiosity was powerfully interested; and my fear of suffering was more than overpowered by my desire not to lose a feature of the frightful scene.

“At once, and as if obedient to a signal, these twenty individuals commenced to disrobe themselves. But before commencing, and seemingly as a precaution, each placed his knife by his side and within reach. It was a formidable weapon whose variety of form indicated the character of the individuals.

“With supreme calmness, and an assurance that was terrifying, they divested themselves of everything save their pantaloons, which was held up by waist belts. In almost the flash of an eye, they were stripped to the waist and ready for the combat.

“It was, I assure you, a moving and cruel spectacle to see all these robust torsos, with their white or bronze colouring, thus becoming revealed in the feeble, tremulous light of the hall.

“Despite the impending horror of a savage butchery I could not but admire the energetic heads, the fierce glances, and the rude muscularity of the arms now ready to deal out death.

“When they cleared away the tables so as to leave the arena free, all these athletic forms assumed attitudes whose delineation would have made the fortune of a painter of the human form.

“‘Now,’ said the count, ‘the fight is going to commence. The tall man whom you see in the centre of the group is recalling to them the conditions of the sanguinary combat. These conditions are――

“‘The lights must be extinguished, so that he who is struck may not know who has given the blow――which is the only means of avoiding repentance on the one hand and hatred on the other.

“‘It is not permitted to give a blow below the belt.

“‘Whatever may be the severity of the wound which one receives he can neither utter a complaint nor a groan, as the sound of his voice would establish his identity.

“‘One who is down cannot be struck. When one is wounded, or wishes to discontinue his participation in the combat, he extends himself at length and is secure from molestation.

“‘But so long as there remain two of them erect, who meet each other in the darkness, they strike pitilessly at each other’s breasts, and this, despite the fact that they may be friends, relatives, or even brothers.’

“And now, the last table and stool being removed, each individual placed himself, knife in hand, with his face to the wall.

“There remained only the extinguishing of the light before the carnage should commence.

“I followed with a horrible curiosity each phase of the savage tragedy which was about to conclude in the darkness, not more than a dozen feet from where I sat. During those latter preliminaries, I felt such a lively emotion of horror that I could scarcely refrain from uttering a cry in order to reveal our presence, and put an end to the infamous proceedings.

“Had only my personal safety been involved, I should not have hesitated, but my companions were present, and they had not ceased to repeat that the smallest suspicion of our presence would compromise all of us. I was obliged, therefore, to await the termination in silence.

“Soon the tall sacrophant extinguished one of the four lamps. Then the second was deliberately put out, and then the third. As I saw him approach the fourth and last one, my heart ceased to beat, and I involuntarily closed my eyes.

“When I opened them it was night, silence, the profound peace of the tomb, and I seemed to be under the influence of a dream.

“At a movement which I made on my seat, and which was more noisy than prudence would permit, the count seized me vigorously by the arms, and his significant pressure seemed to say, silence! At the same moment we heard a certain agitation at our feet; the combatants putting themselves into position for the attack.

“From the depth of the obscurity we could at first hear only what seemed like repressed breathing, and which was scarcely perceptible.

“Doubtless, each was upon the defensive, holding his breath, and acting with great circumspection which would not permit more active movements. But of all this we could see nothing――absolutely nothing; we could only guess at what was passing.

“However, each moment the agitation augmented in the darkness in which swarmed these terrible gladiators.

“The restrained chests began to dilate, and the vague and scarcely perceptible tumult of the first moments began to take a more pronounced form. It seemed to us that we could distinguish, at the least indication, the movements of the combatants.

“We imagined we could see them bounding from one end of the hall to the other, seeking to strike an adversary during the furious élan of their passage.

“Little by little, as the blood of the combatants became frenzied, the primitive incoherence of the battle was accentuated by a horrible murmuring. The impact of rushing bodies began to be distinguishable. The clear sound of the knife striking the flesh could be heard; and then falls and hoarse rattles.

“A little later, when the infernal tumult had swollen to its height, there were heard savage vociferations, sounds of suffocation, dull cries, and strange ejaculations uttered in no language and in no recognisable accent, but none the less horrible and lacerating.

“This fearful occurrence, rendered still more frightful by the profound darkness, lasted some twenty minutes.

“At the end of this time, somebody cried, in Italian――

“‘To the floor, everybody!’ and in a moment silence reigned, as if by enchantment.

“The same stalwart devil who had extinguished the lamps, now relighted them, one by one. The scene which came slowly into view from the darkness was horrible in the extreme.

“Those who had not been struck during the melée immediately began to raise those who were extended in a sea of blood, their chests gashed and their arms slashed by deep blows from the knife.

“A sickening odour filled the already vitiated atmosphere. The combatants pattered across the bloody floor; some crowded about the wounded, others calmly wiped their bloody knives upon their handkerchiefs. Two or three who were wounded, but who had not fallen, with bent necks, examined with cold disdain the wounds they had received.

“The spectacle was at once sinister and yet full of courage, hideous and attractive, abject and full of grandeur. I wished to fly, and yet, when the moment of departure came, it was necessary to tear me away.

“And this is what is known as Cacciata.”

“What a horrible scene!” exclaimed Knoulton. “One would hardly suppose it possible that such atrocities could be committed in a civilised country.”

“I was, as I have already told you, young at the time, but it made so deep an impression on me that I shall never forget it for the remainder of my life.”

“And your friend the count?”

“Oh, he died a violent death. He was stabbed in the street by a hired bravo some years after the tragic affair he had taken me to. He was a bad lot, had sold his best friends, and got himself into some scrape, the rights of which I never knew, but it ended in his death. I have seen a good many horrible sights since then, have been cast adrift on the ocean, and only saved by what one might term almost a miracle, and have been driven into this cursed port at last. Oh, how I sigh to be again on the blue water! You cannot understand the misery of my situation――’cause why? You see you have been brought up differently to what I was, and don’t and can’t feel the punishment of being cooped up under hatches for life. Death is happiness in comparison with it――perfect happiness.”

“You must hold up, and not give way to desponding thoughts. If you do――”

“Well, I know what you would say――I shall go to Davy Jones’s locker. Yes, that’s what you’d say. You are right enough, my lad. Feeling as I do now, I shan’t much care if I do.”

Young Knoulton looked at the clock, and saw that it was time his patient had his medicine. Murdock swallowed the contents of the glass which the other presented to him, and shortly after this he sank into a fitful slumber.

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Chapter CXIX

LAURA STANBRIDGE AND THE CHAPLAIN――AN IRRESISTIBLE APPEAL――THE ESCAPE.

The attempted escape of Mat Murdock had, by this time, become known to most of the inmates of the gaol, and there were many who deeply regretted that the pirate had been so unsuccessful, for there is always a certain amount of sympathy evinced by prisoners for one who has had tact and address enough to plan and carry out any scheme for breaking through the walls, bolts, or bars of the gaol.

Although most of Murdock’s fellow-prisoners sympathised with him, they were discreet enough to refrain from expressing their opinions openly to any of the officials of the gaol.

Laura Stanbridge had learnt the whole history from one of the female warders who had her in their charge. She was by this time on familiar and friendly terms with both of these women, who professed to be greatly interested in her.

The reason for this was obvious enough. Laura had liberally showered her gifts upon them, and hence their altered demeanour towards her.

She had a scheme in her head which she hoped to carry out before the day of trial arrived. She was perfectly well aware that if found guilty she would not have a very lengthened term of imprisonment, but she had special reasons for not running the risk of a conviction. She hoped to get clean away by some means or another.

This designing woman already exercised a powerful influence over Mr. Leverall, who, to say the truth, became each day more and more fascinated with her.

She was always in his thoughts, and he was ashamed to confess to himself the precise nature of these, which, to say the truth, he could not analyse.

He strove, however, to dismiss her image from his mind, but the more he tried the less successful he seemed to be.

It was strange――indeed marvellous――but his was not a solitary case, either with churchmen, heroes, or sages, who are one and all open to the wiles and blandishments of an artful and designing beauty.

While the miserable and ill-fated pirate was tossing uneasily on his pallet, his mind filled with visions of the liberty he was never destined to realise, Mr. Leverall was giving more of his time to the prisoner in cell No. 43 than the exigencies of the case would seem to warrant, but nobody took heed of this.

It is true the two women attendants remarked to each other that the chaplain appeared to be a bit sweet on No. 43, but there was after all nothing surprising in this.

Ministers, like other men, had their favourites in the prison, and it was quite certain, so they averred, that Mr. Leverall had effected a great change in Miss Stanbridge, and it was equally certain, although they did not say so, that she had effected a still greater change in him.

On the morning after Murdock’s attempted escape Laura Stanbridge received another visit from the man who passed as her uncle.

Bandy-legged Bill brought her a fresh supply of money, and, in answer to her inquiries, informed her that he had called repeatedly at her house and informed the maid-servant that her mistress would return to London shortly.

He also said that Mr. Gatliffe had made repeated inquiries after her, and that Alf Purvis had been most insulting to him (Bill), declaring that he did not believe he had any authority to visit the house from its mistress.

As may be readily imagined, Bill retorted. In consequence of this a wordy war ensued, and Purvis ordered the gipsy not to show his face there again; but the latter, as he termed it, “was not to be sat upon” by a conceited puppy like that, and he, therefore, told him that if he gave him any “more of his cheek, he’d give him a prop in the eye” as soon as look at him.

They were very nearly coming to blows there and then, but Mr. Purvis was under the impression that he might get the worst of it; so he was fain to be a little more moderate in his language.

“And I’d ha’ done it, and no flies,” said Rawton. “There aint any mistake about that; ’taint likely I’d submit to be bullyragged by the young hound, and be hanged to him.”

“He’s a conceited fellow, Bill,” observed Laura. “Everybody knows that, but don’t take any notice of what he says. It is isn’t worth while.”

“I don’t know so much about that,” returned the gipsy, with a nod. “A sound thrashing u’d do my gentleman a world of good, and he’ll have it some of these days, mark you that.”

“And how about Charlie Peace――I mean Mr. Thompson?” inquired the fair prisoner.

“Oh, he’s as right as the mail. Sent his love to you and all good wishes, but he dursn’t come himself, because you see he might be recognised, and then the game would be up, and Charlie would be quodded. Oh, don’t think anything the worse of him for it; but he can’t come.”

“I understand that. I don’t wish him to come――it would be the worst of folly for him to do so.”

After a short interview the gipsy took his departure, and returned to the Evalina-road to report progress.

As the evening drew on Mr. Leverall entered cell No. 43, and found its occupant reading and in tears.

He was deeply moved, and drew towards her.

“How is this?” he said, placing his hand on her shoulder. “In tears?”

She looked up at him, and made room on the seat.

He sat down beside her.

“You are weeping,” he said.

“Oh, sir, you little know the miserable hours I pass when you are away, and I have no friend or counsellor――no one to sympathise with me. What am I to do? How am I to avoid exposure, disgrace, ignominy?”

She sobbed convulsively.

He endeavoured to pacify her, and to change the subject of her thoughts, gave her a succint account of Murdock’s attempt at escape, the injuries he had received therefrom, and his present condition.

“Poor fellow!” she exclaimed, when the narrative had been brought to a conclusion; “I can indeed sympathise with him, for I am in much the same position myself. Escape! Do you hear, my kind and benevolent friend――my saviour? If I could escape!”

As she uttered these last words in a low, hissing whisper she crept closer to him, placed her rich ruddy lips close to his ear and repeated them again and again.

He started and almost trembled.

“Do you understand?” said she, her cheek touching his as she made this last inquiry.

“Impossible――quite impossible,” he murmured.

“Nothing is impossible to those who have a will, who are earnest and firm of purpose. Nothing!”

He shook his head, but made no reply in words.

“Ah, sir,” she ejaculated in a persuasive tone. “Take pity on me, and you will be rewarded, be solaced when you reflect that you have been instrumental in rescuing a contrite woman from the dark abyss which lies before her. You, so good, so gentle, whom I love with all the ardour of an affectionate nature――you will aid me, I am sure you will.”

She took his hand within her own soft silky palm, and pressed it with every demonstration of affection.

He knew not what reply to make――his mind seemed to be in a perfect chaos――his temples throbbed, and he felt like one who is on the brink of a precipice.

She poured into his ear a plaintive and urgent appeal.

“My dear young creature, what can I do in this business?”

“Much,” said she. “Answer me one question.”

“What is it?”

“Do you wish me free?”

“Indeed I do,” he answered.

“That is spoken from the heart,” said she; “it is genuine. You do wish me well, I feel assured of that.”

She bent forward and her beautiful bust became half-revealed by this action, for her dress was unfastened in front (accidentally of course).

But Mr. Leverall was an exemplary virtuous and pious young man, yet he was human, and being so was subject to the passions and frailties which the best and most rigid-minded persons find at times to be all-powerful.

For the first time, perhaps, he discovered that he was enamoured of the seductive creature by his side, and she had sufficient penetration to perceive this also.

She was now convinced that she had won the prize which she had sought with so much patience and industry.

“You will aid me,” she murmured, as she placed her cheek against his. “I am sure you will.”

He made no reply.

He was what the corner-man of a nigger troupe would call “a gone coon.”

The huntress had him in her toils.

“You will,” she repeated. “If you could see into this heart!”

She placed his hand beneath the folds of her bodice on her bare bosom.

The young chaplain was astounded――he was in a delirium of delight.

With his disengaged arm he pressed her form, and covered her cheeks and lips with burning and passionate kisses.

* * * * * * *

It was night in the prison.

For a few hours all punishments were past――all cares were forgotten.

It was night in the prison, and all save Murdock and his attendant slept――the guilty with the innocent――the prisoners with the gaolers――the chained with the free.

Pale moonbeams threw a faint light upon the long dusky corridor, and filled it with wild, uncouth, fantastic shadows.

But soon a stranger shadow still――it moved――it glided silently by the wall.

A key turned softly in the lock――a door opened by inches――two shadows floated across the floor.

Another door opened――this time with more noise――it was the door of the corridor.

The moonbeams disappeared. All was dark in the prison――dark and impenetrable us a demon’s mind: dark and gloomy as a lost soul’s despair.

That night the tolling of the deep-toned bell awoke the frightened inhabitants of Clickbourne from their sleep. It was the alarm bell of the gaol――one of the prisoners had escaped.

The dulcet voice of a woman proved to be a more potent agent than the brawny arms of Murdock the pirate.

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CXX. DEATH OF MAT MURDOCK――THE LAST BEQUEST

The extraordinary and unaccountable manner in which the prisoner in cell No. 43 had contrived to get clear of the prison walls was, of course, a matter of surprise to everyone, and a considerable amount of blame and censure fell upon persons who were not in any way concerned in it.

The two female warders underwent a rigid cross-examination, but they both declared that they were as much in the dark as the governor himself.

The turnkeys were next questioned; they could throw no light on the subject. There was a great hubbub for the next few days, but not the faintest scrap of information could be obtained whereby the real culprit might be traced.

The governor was very irate; the warders were sulky, and everybody seemed to be discontented. Nevertheless, Laura Stanbridge had succeeded in her purpose.

She had cleverly given her janitors the go-by, and once more she experienced the inestimable blessing of liberty, and she was far too clever a woman to run the risk of being recaptured by any act of imprudence on her own part.

Meanwhile Mat Murdock remained in a precarious position. He was closely tended by Walter Knoulton, whose kindness and attention were duly appreciated by the pirate, who soon began to lend an attentive ear to the exhortations of the prison chaplain.

A change for the worse took place in the condition of the injured mariner some three or four days after the departure of Laura Stanbridge. Murdock was stricken with fever, and at times he was light-headed.

The night nurse who had been deputed to relieve Knoulton, worn out with fatigue and weary watching, was overcome with sleep, and, while in this condition, the pirate in one of his paroxysms leaped out of bed, wounded and wearied as he was, and caught hold of the iron bars which ran in front of the small window of his apartment and vainly strove to remove them.

He fell to the floor, exhausted and senseless, and it was not possible to say how long he had remained in that condition.

An alarm was given by his attendant when the discovery was made, and Murdock was placed again in bed, but his ultimate death may be attributable to this accident.

But he appeared to have but one dominant idea, this being the desire of escape.

Walter Knoulton returned to his duty, and after this he never left the pirate till the end came.

He found Murdock by this time quite an altered man. He was no longer the dissatisfied, impetuous, unreasonable being, as heretofore; on the contrary, he was passive, resigned, and at times even gentle in his manner――and now and then he would make use of his old nautical phraseology.

“I’m nearly done for,” said he to Knoulton, when they were closed in for the night. “It was a bad business your leaving me in the hands of that lubber. He went fast asleep, and it appears I jumped out of bed.”

“I’ve heard all about it. Don’t blame the chap; he was worn out and sleep overtook him――it’s no fault of his.”

“Well, perhaps not, when one comes to consider the matter; but I tell you what it is, Walter; my line is nearly worn out, my lad. There isn’t half a fathom to run reef. It’s hard for the likes of me to slip my wind in this narrow hammock――deuced hard. I should like to have been going free when I sprang my last for the long voyage.”

“Oh, you must not talk like that; with good nursing and proper attention you will recover,” cried Knoulton.

The pirate shook his head.

“No,” said he; “don’t deceive yourself, Walter. My log is made up, and I must founder; I know that by what the doctor said. He won’t be able to keep me afloat for many days longer. Now there’s a strange feeling about my heart and head which makes me sure that he gave the right heave of the lead. There, I feel stronger now than at any time since I first fell from that cursed wall; but,” added he, in a tone of sadness, “I’ve seen too many shipmates slip their cables not to know that’s my signal for sailing to the other world. Now don’t turn away your head, Walter, because my looks upon your face can’t be for long, and I don’t want them to be shortened. You’ve been good and true to me. We’ve only known each other since we’ve been in limbo, but for all that our friendship has been firm, ever since we first clapped eyes upon each other.”

“It has, and I hope better days are in store for both of us.”

“You are young and have only to sail in the right direction, and all will go well enough with you, my lad. I hope and trust it may, but as to this ere old hulk that’s quite a different matter; but I shouldn’t mind if I could be free. You see, Walter, I was very young when I first looked on the sea. I had seen no land then, and as I grew older it seemed to me to be the natural element for men to live on. I had the same thoughts of land as the long-shore people have of the sea, and I have often thought it strange when I have known messmates of mine who have done that, and brought them aboard again. Now when I overhauled it in my mind I have thought there must be something in the land which I had never fetched. I have many times lain and looked at the green fields, but never fancied they were the sea. No, Walter, never; but it would not become me to call them foolish as thought so much more about the land than the sea, for there may be something in home and friends and birthplaces which drains a man’s heart. There, ahead of all other things, I have never known any of them; for I was on the sea from the earliest days of my life, and should indeed be blessed if I could slip my cable on it now. But I dare say it’s pleasant, as I have heard many of my shipmates say, to be stowed away in an old churchyard which you played about when a boy, and where your kin and friends may always have an eye on your last berth, and the youngsters come and stick flowers on it. I dare say this is all very pleasant, but it is not a thing for me to look or hope for. I have neither family or kin of any sort, no old churchyard as I skylarked about, or youngsters to show their pretty remembrance that it ain’t a skulk that is under hatches. I must never leave these walls, even after death, and there’ll be no one to point out the spot where I lie.”

“No one?” cried Knoulton.

“Well, may be I was wrong there,” returned the pirate. “And I’m sure if you thought my sleep would be lighter or more pleasant by pointing it out, or do anything, you would do it――that I am quite certain of. It’s something for a man to say he has picked up a friend――a true and staunch one――a thousand miles from his home, in a prison.”

“Did you never know your parents?” said Knoulton.

“No, never,” answered the pirate. “I wish somehow or another that I had. But what’s the use of overhauling that now that my grog is stopped? For, with or without family, I must founder, and, perhaps, it’s better that I should. There is nobody to let tears run out of their lee scuppers for my sake. It is better as it is――much better.”

Mat Murdock paused from exhaustion, and his face, which had been flushed, now grew deathly pale.

[Sidenote: No. 63.]

Walter Knoulton saw that it was time he took some nourishment, and he at once proceeded to give him some light nutritious food.

The pirate panted for breath, and a cold clammy perspiration broke out all over him.

He, however, rallied, and, with a faint smile, said in a weak voice――

“That was the first cast of the line――there’s very little water――the next heave I shall shoal.”

“You are better now, Murdock,” said Knoulton. “Cheer up, old man.”

“When I first met you,” observed the pirate, “I knew pretty well that you would stick to me till the last, and I am not mistaken――no, not mistaken. Well, you see, my friend, I haven’t known many as I cared about, few of us have. There is something I would say to you before I sink to my last sleep. I said some few days ago that you should have half I possessed. It seemed ridiculous, I dare say, and you did not take much heed of it, but it’s true, nevertheless. You shall be rich, Walter, independent for the remainder of your life. All I have I bequeath to you.”

“All you have?”

“Yes, every stiver. Don’t think I am wandering, I am in my sober senses. My head was never clearer than it is at the present moment. Listen!”

“I am all attention. Proceed!”

“Will, then, mark what I say. On the beach of St. Michael’s, just beyond the rock of Irglas, in a pit six feet deep, ten years ago I hid an iron case containing gold and jewels to a large amount, enough to make us both rich for the remainder of our lives. I shall never live to gain the treasure, but you may and can, if you’ve a mind to do so.”

Knoulton paused, and then added, in a tone of doubt――

“The tale seems scarcely credible, Murdock. You have been a prisoner for more than nine years.”

“That’s true enough. It’s fully that time since Arkenstall and I, being closely pursued, buried the treasure in the spot I have mentioned. A few days after this we were seized at Preston and tried for mutiny and murder on the high seas. I never committed murder, and this I solemnly declare, but we were both convicted of manslaughter. The rest you know.”

“What has become of your companion, then?”

“What――Arkenstall?”

“Yes.”

“Dead, years ago.”

“Then you are the only person living who knows of this?”

“The only one. You need not, therefore, wonder at my desire to obtain my freedom.”

“Certainly not.”

Notwithstanding all his endeavours to appear indifferent, young Knoulton had listened with deep attention to the pirate’s recital.

When he had ceased to speak the young man remained perfectly silent for some time, seeming to balance in his own mind the probability of the story he had just heard.

Casting his eye up for a moment he found those of his companion fixed on him.

He started from his reverie, and said in a dubious tone――

“The story you tell is, to say the least of it, a strange and improbable one. These hidden treasures are a hackneyed subject.”

His fellow-convict regarded him with a look of indignation.

“You do not believe me, then, Walter?” he murmured.

“Nay, I don’t say that,” was the quick response; “but how came the iron case to fall into your hands, and who did it belong to?”

“It would be too long a story to tell you how we became possessed of it――neither does it much matter. It belonged to an English merchant, who is long since dead.”

“Oh! then there is no claimant?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Will you promise me one thing?”

“What is that?”

“Promise me to search for the treasure after I am dead.”

Young Knoulton hesitated.

“Will you promise?” said the pirate, still more earnestly.

“Yes, I will.”

“Good. Well, then, the doctor has left some sheets of paper and a pen and ink on that table. I will make you a rough drawing of the spot where it is buried. I am not much of a hand at drawing, but I’ve done a chart or two in my time――so let’s go ahead.”

Knoulton gave him the requisite materials, and Murdock sat up in bed and made a tolerably accurate drawing of the spot and its surroundings. When this was completed, he fell back upon his pillow in a state of exhaustion.

A death-like pallor overspread his features, and he drew his breath with difficulty.

“Give me your hand, Walter,” said he. “Ah, that’s well, pray for me, my friend. I have heard that when the chaplain prays for a sinner he makes an easier passage aloft, but if you now could say a word or two for me, I am sure it would do more than parson’s lingo!”

“I will, indeed――I will, messmate,” cried the young man.

“Walter, you couldn’t have done me a kinder act than calling me your messmate,” exclaimed the pirate, with sudden animation.

“That has done me more good than our doctor’s care and attention――that’s cleared the turn for my run more than all. Ah, ah, it’s pleased me to hear you call me your messmate. I don’t like parting with you. You have been very kind to me, very――from the first hour we met. As a dying man, Walter, I have been true to you, and afore I have made a spare hammock, tell me whether you think so?”

“I do, Murdock. I wish you may be spared.”

“Avast there, Walter――avast!” exclaimed the pirate, his voice growing more and more feeble. “You have never forgotten me at any time.

“Come, never turn your head from me. Look on me. Why should you show a wet eye? Damme, you make my scuppers run over. I――we must part some day, and why not now? Walter, take your hand from your face if you love me. Let me see your face. Why, that’s it. Walter, I’ve looked my last upon the sea; there is a haze over it. You had better send a hand aloft, a smart seaman, to keep a bright look-out――it’s very hazy. Walter, are you sure the fire was got under――the deck’s full of smoke? Open one of the ports; and yet I am very cold, Walter. I am shaking. Have I got your hand? Topman, away! There――clap on the yard tackles. Stretch out along your tackle full top out. Walter, my friend, God bless you! Remember the beach of St. Michael’s. The pumps are choked.”

He paused for a moment, and at first young Knoulton thought he was dead, for his eyes closed, and his face exhibited the ghastly pallid hue of death, but a moment afterwards he opened his eyes and tried to gaze around him. They were dull and glazed, but he turned them anxiously from side to side.

He knit his brows and worked his lips about with an evident desire to speak; he passed his hand through his hair, and at length exclaimed――

“The reef has now struck a hole in her which no carpenter can stop; and the seas that wash over her will wash everything out of her as clean as a captain’s steward does a stew-pan. Ah, you may cut away at the masts, but she will not move. You may spare yourself the trouble――here comes a sea that will carry them by the board. Hold on――hold on, mates, for your lives! That sea has fixed her. Cut the lashings of the boat on the boom. The next sea will carry it from the chucks to the quarter. Bear a hand――bear a hand! Here comes the sea, Walter――hold on by me. Where are you? Avast, I am alone! The sea blinds me. I am faint! I cannot swim a stroke! The water gurgles in my throat! Down, down――down――”

The last word died on his lips; his features were convulsed, his jaw fell, and all was over with Mat Murdock, the pirate.

It would be a task of considerable difficulty to attempt any description of the sense of loneliness that fell upon Walter Knoulton at this time. Despair seemed to enter his heart. It is true that he had attended upon the sick on very many occasions, but this was the first time he had witnessed the death of a fellow-creature, and he was so supremely miserable that he was well-nigh bursting into tears.

It is equally true, also, that the dead man had doubtless, for the greater portion of his career, led an evil life. He had been a lawless freebooter, who, from a moral point of view, had very little to recommend him, and was, therefore, deserving of very little sympathy; but Knoulton knew only the best and most favourable side of his character, and he had always evinced a great liking for the old pirate or smuggler. Possibly this might be in some reason attributable to Murdock’s being shunned and despised by the other prisoners, who were, however, greatly in dread of him. To Knoulton, however, he had been uniformly kind, and this was proved by the last request he had made. To trace the secret springs of the human heart is beyond the skill or power of man, and, strange as it may appear, Walter Knoulton felt as acutely the loss of his fellow-prisoner as many men feel the loss of a dearly-loved relative.

“He is gone,” murmured the young man. “Who can say whether he has passed away, and will not trouble any of us further?”

He glanced at the features of the dead man, which were so calm and peaceful, without any expression of pain on them, and heaved a deep sigh.

Then he bethought him of the paper with the rough draft thereon, and at once proceeded to secrete it beneath his flannel shirt.

It would not be intelligible to any one but himself, and even if the prison authorities discovered it, the chances were that it would not be taken from him if he told them that it was given him as a keepsake from his deceased friend, so he had but little fear as far as the chart was concerned.

But presently a sort of superstitious fear seemed to creep over him, and so powerful was this influence that he thought the eyes of the dead pirate moved. This was but imagination, but it exercised a powerful influence over him.

Young Knoulton had attended on sick persons for the greater portion of the time he had been a prisoner, but he had never before had a patient die under his hands.

It was the first time he had been in the presence of death, and as he glanced at the rigid features of the dead pirate, his heart beat audibly, and a horrible fear seemed to creep over him.

Everything was so still; no sound struck upon his ears; not a faint murmur of any sort; he would have been thankful if he could have heard the faintest indication of a human voice, or any articulate sentence uttered by a living creature. He was for some time so overcome that he found it impossible to rise from his seat, but remained sad and thoughtful till the unbroken silence became oppressively painful.

Presently he thought he detected some movement from without, as of a warder passing almost noiselessly along the corridor.

He sprang to his feet, and made towards the door; this done, he shouted for assistance.

A measured tread told him that one of the prison officials was going his rounds. Knoulton hammered at the door with both his fists. It was instantly opened, and a tall man with a large bushy beard thrust his head in.

“Well, what do you want?” inquired he, perfectly unmoved.

“Help! come in!――he is dead.”

“Who? the pirate?”

“Yes; for mercy’s sake come in.”

The warder entered and made straight for the bed on which the remains of Murdock were stretched.

One glance sufficed to tell that it was all over with the wretched Murdock.

“Gone, eh?” he ejaculated. “It’s rather sudden, but the doctor said there was no chance for him. Well, poor fellow, all his troubles are now over in this world. When did he breathe his last?”

“Not half an hour ago. Oh, less than that.”

“Humph! we’ll tell the governor,” returned the warder, passing again through the entrance to the apartment, and closing the door gently after him, which he, however, locked with his usual caution――remembering at the time the clatter there had been about prisoner No. 43.

In a few minutes after this the deputy-governor and prison surgeon entered with the turnkey. The surgeon pronounced the prisoner dead.

The last offices were performed, and young Knoulton’s duties were over as far as the pirate was concerned. They thanked him for his attention, and he was conducted to a cell in another part of the prison.

This was about the most comfortable berth in the whole ship, to make use of the language of the dead pirate, and Knoulton had every possible indulgence it was possible to accord, consistent with the rules of the establishment.

It wanted only six weeks more to complete his term of imprisonment, and during that period he was chiefly engaged in the infirmary, but he could not forget the last words of Murdock, and he had a burning desire to test the truth of his statement as to the treasure which had lain hid for so many years.

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