know Nick and you know me! We wouldn’t do such a thing. We’ve been
sitting quietly in the gallery all the evening, and walked straight down
here. Oh, Mr. Challice, speak for Nick. Don’t let them think he could do
such an awful thing. Don’t let them take him away. Oh, Mr. Challice! do
be our friend and speak for us!”
She sobbed, as if her heart would break, and I wished to the bottom of
mine, that I’d never been on the look-out to catch Rummles. But there it
was, you see. The watch wasn’t in _his_ pocket and it was in Nick’s, and
the Law goes by facts and not by fancies.
“What are we to do?” I asks of Looseley aside.
“_Do?_” he answers. “There’s only one thing to do! March ’em both off to
the station and have ’em up before the beaks to-morrow morning.”
Nan give such a scream at that, that my heart felt like water within me.
“Nan,” says Nick, very white, but very quiet like, “for _my_ sake don’t
make a disturbance! It can’t do any good! I _didn’t_ take the watch,
_you_ know that, and the truth must win. Let me go quietly, dear, and
you go home as fast as you can, and I’ll come and tell you all about it
as soon as the matter is settled! God bless you, Nan!”
And he held his white face to hers, and she clung round him and kissed
him in a way that brought the water into my eyes; and I couldn’t help
speaking to her.
“Cheer up, my dear!” I says, “depend upon it, it will be all set right,
and we shall find an explanation for the mystery.”
[Illustration:
“God bless you, Nan!”
]
“Oh, let me go with him,” she cried, “dear Mr. Challice! He will be so
lonely and unhappy by himself. Let me come too, and sit by him till the
morning.” But at that I had to shake my head, and Nick reminded her she
had to give an explanation of his absence to them at home.
“Keep up your heart, dear,” he said bravely, “a couple of words will set
this right! Go home, like a good girl, and wait for me.”
And so we watched her go sobbing down the street, with her shawl held up
to her eyes.
“Now, what are yer holding _me_ for?” said Mr. Rummles impudently.
“You’ve got the right chap, and I’ll thank yer to let me go!”
“Yes! I know I _have_ got the right chap,” I answered him, with a good
shake, “and I mean to tell the magistrate so, first thing to-morrow
morning.”
So we hauled them both off to the station-house, and locked them up for
the night, though I never believed for a moment, but that I was right,
and that Rummles, finding himself pursued, had dropped the watch into
the other’s pocket.
It was a very handsome watch, with a heavy chain, and a gold locket
containing hair. On one side of the case was a monogram, but so twisted
and turned that Looseley and I could make nothing of the initials; and
on the other a crest of a dragon and a spear, and some words in Latin
that were spelled thus—“Vivit post funera virtus.”
We couldn’t make nothing of the matter, naterally, but Looseley locked
up the watch safely, and the next morning by ten o’clock we were all
before the beaks.
Well! the upshot of that was, everything went against poor Nick. I felt
sure in my mind it was Rummles as I had seen take the watch; but when my
evidence came to be sifted it was only a supposition after all, for I
couldn’t say I had seen the watch, only the glitter—and supposition
don’t go for much in court. And then the watch had actually been found
on Nick.
There was no supposition about that, and the fact that he was known as a
companion of Rummles went against him. And so the examination ended by
Nick being committed for trial, and that scoundrel, Rummles, let go
free.
When I see his grinning face as he left the court I could have struck
him across the mouth. But I was powerless in the matter, and Nick was
sent to prison to wait his trial for theft. When that poor gal, Nan, who
had been in court at the time, heard the beak’s decision, she dropped
straight down as if she had been shot. Rummles was going to take charge
of her.
“I’ll take the young lady home in a cab,” he says; “I’m a great friend
of hers, and she would rather I would take charge of her.”
“No! you don’t!” I says to him, with a look as black as thunder. “You
don’t lay a finger on that gal or I’ll smash you! You’ve got the best of
it this time, my beauty, but I’ll convict you before I’ve done with you,
or my name’s not Charles Challice.” (And I kept my word, too, for not
three months after I had the good luck to get him seven years’ penal
servitude, for breaking into the house of an unprotected old lady and
stealing all her plate.)
Well, I had Nan carried into one of the court rooms, and when she had
had a glass of cold water and could tell me her address, I took her
home. She didn’t speak one word to me all the way, but when I had put
her down at her place (and a poor place it was), “Officer,” she says,
crying, “shall I ever see him again?”
“See him again?” I replied, trying to speak cheerful, “in course you
will! What’s to prevent it?”
“But how long will they keep him in that horrid place and when he’s as
innocent as I am? My poor, poor Nick!”
“Oh! the gaol ain’t a horrid place by no means, my dear. It’s as
comfortable as it can be, and Nick will have everything he can want
whilst there.”
“But the disgrace, the shame,” she murmured, “it will kill him! And when
will the trial take place?”
“Very soon. P’r’aps in a few days,” I answered her, for the autumn
sessions was on, and I knew we had very few cases. “And now you must
give up work for a bit, my dear, and wait patiently here till you know
the verdict.”
“_Give up work!_” she repeated. “Oh, no! how can I? It is all I have to
depend upon now Nick is away.”
So day after day I used to watch the poor darling, dragging her way up
to the baker’s shop, and it seemed to me as if she grew thinner and
darker, and her eyes more hollow each time I saw her.
I used to say a few words of comfort to her as she passed, but I knew it
wasn’t the time to tell her of my love, for all her mind was wrapped up
in Nick.
Only I determined that whichever way the trial went, I would speak
straight out to Nan, as soon as ever it was over, and ask her to be my
wife, and let me protect and provide for her to my life’s end.
It come off sooner than even I had expected, but I purposely didn’t tell
Nan of the exact date, for I didn’t want to have no scenes in court, and
thought it far better that she shouldn’t be there.
Besides, I was very doubtful how the case would go, and feared the worst
for poor Nick.
When the time came, and he was brought into court, I thought I had never
seen six weeks make such a change in a strong young man.
He was white and thin and haggard. His cheeks was sunken, so was his
eyes, but he bore a defiant look with it all, as though he _dared_ the
jury to call him guilty. However, right don’t always win in this world,
and everything went against him.
The court made very short work of the case. Looseley’s evidence and mine
was taken before everybody, and Nick hadn’t nothing to say for himself,
except that he didn’t know how the watch got in his pocket, which nobody
believed. _I_ thought _I_ knew, but I was not allowed to say so. You
can’t give evidence of what you _think_, only of what you _know_. And
all I knew for certain was that I saw Looseley take the watch out of
Nick’s pocket.
The watch was in court, of course. It had never been owned, and the
judge ordered it to be locked up again until claimed. But the jury found
Nick guilty, and he was sentenced to seven years’ transportation. I was
standing next the dock, and he turned an agonized face towards me, as
his sentence was pronounced.
“Nan!” he gasped.
“I will see after her,” I answered, and I could read the thanks in his
poor face.
As soon as I was off duty that night I made a run for her lodgings, and
found her sitting up, pale and mournful.
“You’ve come to tell me when my dear Nick’s trial comes off,” she said;
“I am sure of it, for he has never been out of my thoughts all day. Oh,
Mr. Challice, surely they can never have the heart to pronounce him
guilty!”
“My dear,” I says very softly, and laying my hand on hers (Lord, how the
touch did make me tremble!), “there’s many an innercent man has had to
suffer in this world for the wrong-doing of others, and Nick ain’t no
exception to the rule. He had a bad friend in Rummles, and he has ruined
his life. Be prepared for the worst, my poor gal. The trial came off
this morning, and Nick’s got seven years!”
“_Seven years!_” she repeated slowly. “Not seven years’ transportation?”
“Yes, my dear. I’m sorry to say it, but that’s the truth. He was found
guilty and sentenced to seven years’ transportation.”
“Seven years,” she said again in a dazed manner, “seven years, and I am
only twenty-one. Oh! what shall I do?—what _shall_ I do?”
She didn’t cry loud, but seemed to be asking the question of herself in
right earnest.
“Nan,” I says, emboldened by her despair, “I’ll tell you what to do.
Come home to me and I’ll take care of you! Only say the word and let me
put up the banns. ‘Twouldn’t be a grand home, my dear, but it would be a
clean and comfortable one, and Nick’s home, too, as soon as he’s out of
his time. And I’ll love you, my dear gal, faithful and true!
“I’ve loved you ever since I knowed you, Nan, and if love can make them
seven years go quicker, why, they’ll have all the help in my power, and
I can’t say no more.”
“_You_, Mr. Challice?” she says in surprise. “You? Oh, no! Oh, no!”
“And why not, Nan? My wages is pretty good and rising regularly. And you
shall never do a stroke of work again if I can help it. And I’ll be a
friend to your brother, my dear! I did my best to stand his friend
to-day, but the evidence was too strong for me.”
“_My brother!_ Oh, no, you don’t understand, Mr. Challice! _That_ is the
reason. Nick is _not_ my brother!
“He is my dear, dear friend and my lover, and we were to have been
married in a little while. Oh, my Nick, my darling Nick! I shall never
be the wife of any man but you.” And with that she laid her pretty head
down on the table and sobbed fit to kill herself.
There was nothing for me to say after that! I felt terribly cut up over
it, you may be sure, but ’tweren’t her fault and ’tweren’t mine. It was
a misfortune, and I had to bear it as best I could. But all my thoughts
ran, as how I could best comfort her, and that brought me to think of my
sister Margaret.
I told her all the story, just as if she’d been my mother instead of my
sister, and I brought her to see Nan, and when she took my poor gal in
her arms and kissed her, I knew she’d do by her as she would have done
by me.
Well, it was getting on for Christmas by that time, and, as ill luck
would have it, Christmas Eve was the very day fixed for Nick to sail
from England in the convict ship.
That was a nice Christmas Eve for all of us. My heart was well nigh
broken by the thought that Nan would never be more to me than a friend,
and hers was the same at parting with Nick.
She had been allowed to see him more than once, whilst he was in gaol,
and she had been terribly upset on each occasion, but it was nothing to
the day when she had to say good-bye to him for the last time. Margaret
got leave to accompany her to the prison, for she thought she ought to
have a friend with her at such a trying moment, and she was right.
“Good-bye, my darling!” cried Nick, straining Nan tight in his arms.
“Remember! I am _innocent_. And when I have served my time I will send
for you, and we will begin a happier life in the Colonies as man and
wife.
“Be brave, Nan, as you have always been. This is a terrible trial, but
we did not bring it on ourselves. And it is such a comfort for me to
think I leave you in the care of this dear, good woman, and that you
will have a good home and protection during my absence.”
“Yes,” said my sister Margaret, “you need have no fear on that score,
Nick. Nan will remain in the Children’s Hospital working under me, until
she has gained sufficient experience to take a higher position. But you
may rest assured she will never want for food or clothes or occupation
so long as she behaves herself. And that I’ll warrant she means to do.”
“Indeed, indeed, I will,” sobbed Nan, “if only that I may feel your
heart is at ease about me, Nick.”
“My Nan! my Nan!” he cried brokenly. “Oh! take her away, Miss Challice,
whilst I am master of myself, and may God bless you for all your
goodness to her.”
And so my sister Margaret took the poor girl home to the hospital, where
she was well provided for and guarded against all temptation. And Nick
sailed for the Colonies, clad in his convict dress.
Poor Nan! poor Nick! I felt for them both so much, that I wouldn’t have
stolen her heart from him, not if I had been able. But I’ve never forgot
her, nor my love for her, you see, to this very day. Only may all the
Fates keep this here confession out of my wife Deborah’s hands.
CHARLES CHALLICE.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
EVE THE FOURTH.
STATEMENT OF ARTHUR ROWAN, WARDER ON BOARD THE CONVICT SHIP “IRONS,”
CONCERNING A PRISONER WHO QUELLED A MUTINY AND WAS AFTERWARDS RELEASED.
_By GEORGE MANVILLE FENN._
[Illustration:
Dick Bird.
]
“GAMMON!” I said to him. “I’m too old a bird to be caught with that kind
of chaff, my fine fellow. Try it on with the chaplain.”
He gave a kind of wince, just as if I’d pricked him with a pin; and as
his eyes puckered up, he ran his thin hand over his damp, white
forehead, and made believe to pass his fingers through his hair.
But he didn’t, for it was cut as short as a Frenchman’s, and then he
gave a bit of a sigh.
“Hah!” I said, “that’s very well done, Number Ninety-seven. Neat bit of
play-acting. Pity you didn’t take to the stage; but it won’t do for me,
so don’t try it on again. I’ve met too many of your kidney, since I’ve
had to do with this sort of work.”
“I beg your pardon. I’m sorry I asked you, Mr. Rowan.”
“Then hold your tongue,” I said sourly. “Don’t make worse of it. I know
you, my lad. You’re perfectly innocent, of course; the jury were a set
of lunatics; and the judge who sentenced you to seven years was an old
fool. You’re one of the good sort of young men, who wants to improve
himself, and likes reading and writing and chucking texts about.”
He stood there before me with his face working, and that made me worse
than ever; for I believe I hated that young fellow then for being so
patient and good-looking, and for never giving me a bit of trouble since
he’d been on board.
Perhaps it was temper, too, consequent on my liver being out of order,
for the heat down south was terrible, and I’d wished myself back in
England over and over again.
It was an unlucky time for him to ask me to be breaking the rules and
supplying him with books and paper, and I flew out at him and let him
have a bit of my mind, as a lesson to keep him quiet and to check some
more of the gang, for we had about as ugly a lot taking out there to
Sydney, as ever left England—for the benefit of their country, and to be
inflicted upon the colonists of New South Wales.
“Perhaps you’re sorry for me,” I went on, like the idiot I was, “and
would like to convert me, and feel ready to tell me, how much better it
would be for me if I was a convict in irons, how it would give me time
to think of my sinful ways. But it won’t do, Ninety-seven. Arthur Rowan
knows your sort by heart, so no more humbug with me.”
“Serve yer right,” said one of the gang, who had been looking on—an ugly
ruffian of a fellow, named Bird, who was going out for fourteen years
for housebreaking. “You’re always on the pious lay. I told yer it
wouldn’t do. Give it him again, sir. He’s a reg’lar snivelling humbug,
that’s what he is.”
“Keep your tongue between your teeth,” I said sharply, as I fixed my
gentleman with my eye. “Who spoke to you?”
He gave his lips a slap, and stared at me as hard as I stared at him,
giving me a nasty ugly look which seemed to say, “Oh! if I had the
chance!” But I looked him down, and his thick eyelids went slowly over
his vicious eyes, as he turned away; and after an order or two I went
out and along the tower deck to where the sentry stood on duty, one of
the several always ready with loaded musket and fixed bayonet, and he
laughed at me.
“Been giving it to ’em hot?”
“Yes,” I said, “it makes me sick when I get hold of a sanctimonious
humbug pretending to be so innocent and good. That’s the worst kind of
black I know.”
“They’re a nice lot.”
“Deal you know about it,” I growled.
“Don’t be huffy, mate,” he said.
“Enough to make any man huffy. It’s all very well for you swaddies just
idling on sentry-go, but you’re too big to have much to do with the
convicts. It would be degrading the scarlet cloth, but it isn’t too hard
for us warder guards. Wish I’d taken to crossing sweeping, or some other
respectable profession before I took to looking after gaol sweepings.”
“Look here, mate,” he said, “you go and get forward on deck where the
wind blows, and have a quiet pipe. You’re out of sorts.”
If he had spoken sharply to me, I should have given him back as good as
he gave, but this disarmed me.
“Yes, I am out of sorts,” I said. “Thank ye, I will the moment I’m off
duty. Nothing like a pipe!”
You see it was like this. I was at the Foreland, and doing pretty well,
when, more for the sake of the change than anything, I volunteered for
Australia, so as to see a little of the world for one thing, but more
especially because I’d had a sort of a quarrel with my young lady.
It was a bit of jealousy, and we parted, when a word of explanation
would have set all right; but that word wasn’t spoken, till the day
before we were to sail with a heavy batch of convicts. Then it was
spoken when it was too late, and I couldn’t back out. However, we made
it up, swore we’d be true, and broke a ring and then said good-bye.
This didn’t improve my temper, which never was one of the best, and when
I tell you that we had too deal with one of the most troublesome, savage
lot of scoundrels ever shipped off, rough weather, a deal of illness,
and my liver—the doctor said it was going all wrong—you will not be
surprised at my temper getting a bit worse.
I never was a favorite with convicts at the Foreland. I was not harsh or
brutal to them, but there were certain rules, laid down by the
authorities, for the men to follow out, and I never would let them scamp
anything.
Then, I never made friends with any of them. If they were obedient and
did their work, and kept themselves and their cells clean, they never
had a word from me; and I’ll swear, that, whenever a man was really out
of sorts and not bad enough to go into the infirmary, I always made it
easy for him. But I was too strict an officer for the convicts to like.
Of course I pretty well knew everyone’s history, and, as I’ve told you,
I took quite a dislike to young Nick.
Prejudice? Well, of course it was. “Young Nick,” I said to myself, “nice
son of his father, Old Nick; and if the law hadn’t nicked him, he’d have
run his course as a pickpocket, and grown into a perfect specimen of the
swell-mobsman.”
That was on one of my bilious days. For I had not seemed to get over the
knocking about and sea-sickness of the first week.
Then, as we got further south into the hot waters, the living on board
didn’t agree with me. You see that’s a good many years ago, before the
days of preserved meat and vegetables; and salt beef—or horse—and
ancient pork out of a pickle-tub, with pease pudding, constituted all
the delicacies of our season, except the flinty biscuit and salt butter,
which never came welcome to a man, who dearly loved a hot roll and a bit
of best fresh.
Of course, you know I’m talking of the days when convicts were sent out
to Botany Bay, as they call it, before the Suez Canal and the great
steamers made a journey to the Antipodes a pleasure trip.
Our journey was in a big transport—a three-masted, full-rigged ship,
fitted up with quarters for the “lags,” as they call ’em; a good strong
warder guard; and a company of Her Majesty’s Noughty Noughth, not armed
with Martini-Henry rifles, but with the old-fashioned Brown Bess musket
muzzle-loaders, you know, with bright ramrods, and each man carrying so
many rounds of ball cartridge, that he had to bite, and a little pouch
at his waist, to hold so many big percussion caps.
Our voyage was round by the Cape, and then down south, to catch the
great currents and favorable winds; and, much sail as our ship carried,
the rate at which we went was a regular crawl, giving plenty of time for
the men to get troublesome and discontented, with the consequence that a
couple of them were flogged.
Bird—“Gaol Bird,” as I called him, though his name was
Richard—Dick—Pretty Dick, eh?—he was one; and you should have seen his
round, close-cropped bullet-head, and big jaw.
If an artist had come to me and said, “Do you know of a man whom I could
sketch as a specimen of a regular rogue?” I shouldn’t have hesitated for
a moment—“Dick Bird” I should have said; “only, if you do draw him, have
him chained up, and then don’t go too near, as he might knock you down
and jump on you, to finish you, with his heavy boots.”
I suppose, Dick got it into his head, that I reported him for his
promotion and stripes; and while his back was getting well, he used to
smile at me in a queer sort of way, as if the cat had got into his
nature, as well as across his back.
There were several little things, that ought to have made me see that a
storm was brewing; but it’s a way with human nature to imagine trouble
and ruin, where there’s none, and to be very blind where there is. ’Tis
our manner to, I suppose, and has to do with the way we were made.
I saw nothing, my mates saw nothing. We were used to convicts, and we
did our duty, seeing that the men did their work, and taking pretty good
care that their irons were all right, and that our locks and bolts were
well shot home.
* * * * *
Storms break out pretty suddenly down in the South, where there’s plenty
of room for the winds to work, and one terrible storm broke out all at
once, when we were about a hundred miles from Sydney.
It was one evening after a fearfully hot day, that the orders were
given, for the men in our charge to be had out on deck, for the doctor
had reported that he would not be answerable for the men’s health if
they were kept so much down in their quarters, which were suffocating at
times.
So the soldiers were called out, and planted here and there with fixed
bayonets; our fellows were on duty, of course, and the convicts were
kept moving about on the deck, while the ports were thrown open below
and everything done to ventilate the place.
I’d been seeing to this with some help, and was very glad to get on deck
again, to run my eye over the men; and I hadn’t been up five minutes,
before I had one of the convicts looking at me in a curious way.
It was Ninety-seven, and he passed on to come round again after a few
minutes, and look at me again in an imploring sort of fashion.
This happened four times, and being in a better temper that evening, I
took a step or two forward, as he came round the fifth time, and spoke
to him.
“What is it, my lad?” I said. “Want a quid of tobacco?”
“I want to speak to you, Mr. Rowan,” he said in a hoarse whisper.
“Yes,” I said, “you always did. You were born with too much tongue,
Nick.”
“You don’t believe in me, Mr. Rowan, sir,” he said; “but, for God’s
sake, let me speak to you for a few moments.”
“What, to beg, or to tell me some cock-and-bull story, eh?”
“No, sir, it’s life and death to us. It is indeed, sir. For God’s sake,
let me speak to you.”
The man’s way was so earnest, that his words made an impression on me,
but I only said sternly,
“Go on with your walk, my lad. You’ll be ordered below directly.”
He uttered a deep sigh, and continued his march, with his head down, but
as he came round again I said sharply,
“Ninety-seven!”
He gave quite a jump at this, and followed me below, while I caught
sight of Bird watching us as he went by.
[Illustration:
“For God’s sake let me speak to you.”
]
“Now, what is it?” I said sharply. “What do you want?”
“You to give warning and be prepared.”
“What for?”
“There’s a plot hatching,” he whispered; “the convicts are going to
rise, seize the ship, and take her to some uninhabited part, where they
can all land and escape.”
“Indeed!” I said, with a chuckle; “and how are they going to manage it?
I thought you were all pretty safe.”
“I don’t know, sir,” he said, “but it is a fact; and if you don’t mind
there’ll be murder done.”
“Who will they murder first—you for telling tales?”
“I suppose so, sir,” he said in a low, despondent way. “I was afraid of
that, but I felt that I must speak.”
“Oh, did you?” I said surlily; “and pray who’s at the head of the
mutiny, and when is it to come off?”
“To-night, I think, sir.”
“Oh, to-night, eh?” I said. “Who’s at the head of it?”
Nick was silent.
“Well,” I said again, “who’s at the head of it?”
“I can’t tell you, sir.”
“Don’t you know?”
He nodded.
“Well, then, who is it?”
“I cannot tell you.”