The usual clanking and hammering was prevalent upon the stone jetty of
Port Arthur when the schooner bearing the returned convict, Rufus Dawes,
ran alongside. On the heights above the esplanade rose the grim front
of the soldiers' barracks; beneath the soldiers' barracks was the long
range of prison buildings with their workshops and tan-pits; to the left
lay the Commandant's house, authoritative by reason of its embrasured
terrace and guardian sentry; while the jetty, that faced the purple
length of the “Island of the Dead,” swarmed with parti-coloured figures,
clanking about their enforced business, under the muskets of their
gaolers.
Rufus Dawes had seen this prospect before, had learnt by heart each
beauty of rising sun, sparkling water, and wooded hill. From the
hideously clean jetty at his feet, to the distant signal station, that,
embowered in bloom, reared its slender arms upwards into the cloudless
sky, he knew it all. There was no charm for him in the exquisite blue
of the sea, the soft shadows of the hills, or the soothing ripple of the
waves that crept voluptuously to the white breast of the shining shore.
He sat with his head bowed down, and his hands clasped about his knees,
disdaining to look until they roused him.
“Hallo, Dawes!” says Warder Troke, halting his train of ironed
yellow-jackets. “So you've come back again! Glad to see yer, Dawes! It
seems an age since we had the pleasure of your company, Dawes!” At this
pleasantry the train laughed, so that their irons clanked more than
ever. They found it often inconvenient not to laugh at Mr. Troke's
humour. “Step down here, Dawes, and let me introduce you to your h'old
friends. They'll be glad to see yer, won't yer, boys? Why, bless
me, Dawes, we thort we'd lost yer! We thort yer'd given us the slip
altogether, Dawes. They didn't take care of yer in Hobart Town, I
expect, eh, boys? We'll look after yer here, Dawes, though. You won't
bolt any more.”
“Take care, Mr. Troke,” said a warning voice, “you're at it again! Let
the man alone!”
By virtue of an order transmitted from Hobart Town, they had begun to
attach the dangerous prisoner to the last man of the gang, riveting the
leg-irons of the pair by means of an extra link, which could be removed
when necessary, but Dawes had given no sign of consciousness. At the
sound of the friendly tones, however, he looked up, and saw a tall,
gaunt man, dressed in a shabby pepper-and-salt raiment, and wearing a
black handkerchief knotted round his throat. He was a stranger to him.
“I beg yer pardon, Mr. North,” said Troke, sinking at once the bully in
the sneak. “I didn't see yer reverence.”
“A parson!” thought Dawes with disappointment, and dropped his eyes.
“I know that,” returned Mr. North, coolly. “If you had, you would have
been all butter and honey. Don't trouble yourself to tell a lie; it's
quite unnecessary.”
Dawes looked up again. This was a strange parson.
“What's your name, my man?” said Mr. North, suddenly, catching his eye.
Rufus Dawes had intended to scowl, but the tone, sharply authoritative,
roused his automatic convict second nature, and he answered, almost
despite himself, “Rufus Dawes.”
“Oh,” said Mr. North, eyeing him with a curious air of expectation that
had something pitying in it. “This is the man, is it? I thought he was
to go to the Coal Mines.”
“So he is,” said Troke, “but we hain't a goin' to send there for a
fortnit, and in the meantime I'm to work him on the chain.”
“Oh!” said Mr. North again. “Lend me your knife, Troke.”
And then, before them all, this curious parson took a piece of tobacco
out of his ragged pocket, and cut off a “chaw” with Mr. Troke's knife.
Rufus Dawes felt what he had not felt for three days--an interest in
something. He stared at the parson in unaffected astonishment. Mr. North
perhaps mistook the meaning of his fixed stare, for he held out the
remnant of tobacco to him.
The chain line vibrated at this, and bent forward to enjoy the vicarious
delight of seeing another man chew tobacco. Troke grinned with a silent
mirth that betokened retribution for the favoured convict. “Here,” said
Mr. North, holding out the dainty morsel upon which so many eyes were
fixed. Rufus Dawes took the tobacco; looked at it hungrily for an
instant, and then--to the astonishment of everybody--flung it away with
a curse.
“I don't want your tobacco,” he said; “keep it.”
From convict mouths went out a respectful roar of amazement, and Mr.
Troke's eyes snapped with pride of outraged janitorship. “You ungrateful
dog!” he cried, raising his stick.
Mr. North put up a hand. “That will do, Troke,” he said; “I know your
respect for the cloth. Move the men on again.”
“Get on!” said Troke, rumbling oaths beneath his breath, and Dawes felt
his newly-riveted chain tug. It was some time since he had been in a
chain-gang, and the sudden jerk nearly overbalanced him. He caught at
his neighbour, and looking up, met a pair of black eyes which gleamed
recognition. His neighbour was John Rex. Mr. North, watching them, was
struck by the resemblance the two men bore to each other. Their height,
eyes, hair, and complexion were similar. Despite the difference in
name they might be related. “They might be brothers,” thought he. “Poor
devils! I never knew a prisoner refuse tobacco before.” And he looked on
the ground for the despised portion. But in vain. John Rex, oppressed by
no foolish sentiment, had picked it up and put it in his mouth.
So Rufus Dawes was relegated to his old life again, and came back to
his prison with the hatred of his kind, that his prison had bred in him,
increased a hundred-fold. It seemed to him that the sudden awakening
had dazed him, that the flood of light so suddenly let in upon
his slumbering soul had blinded his eyes, used so long to the
sweetly-cheating twilight. He was at first unable to apprehend the
details of his misery. He knew only that his dream-child was alive and
shuddered at him, that the only thing he loved and trusted had betrayed
him, that all hope of justice and mercy had gone from him for ever, that
the beauty had gone from earth, the brightness from Heaven, and that he
was doomed still to live. He went about his work, unheedful of the jests
of Troke, ungalled by his irons, unmindful of the groans and laughter
about him. His magnificent muscles saved him from the lash; for the
amiable Troke tried to break him down in vain. He did not complain, he
did not laugh, he did not weep. His “mate” Rex tried to converse with
him, but did not succeed. In the midst of one of Rex's excellent
tales of London dissipation, Rufus Dawes would sigh wearily. “There's
something on that fellow's mind,” thought Rex, prone to watch the signs
by which the soul is read. “He has some secret which weighs upon him.”
It was in vain that Rex attempted to discover what this secret might be.
To all questions concerning his past life--however artfully put--Rufus
Dawes was dumb. In vain Rex practised all his arts, called up all his
graces of manner and speech--and these were not few--to fascinate the
silent man and win his confidence. Rufus Dawes met his advances with
a cynical carelessness that revealed nothing; and, when not addressed,
held a gloomy silence. Galled by this indifference, John Rex had
attempted to practise those ingenious arts of torment by which Gabbett,
Vetch, or other leading spirits of the gang asserted their superiority
over their quieter comrades. But he soon ceased. “I have been longer in
this hell than you,” said Rufus Dawes, “and I know more of the devil's
tricks than you can show me. You had best be quiet.” Rex neglected the
warning, and Rufus Dawes took him by the throat one day, and would have
strangled him, but that Troke beat off the angered man with a favourite
bludgeon. Rex had a wholesome respect for personal prowess, and had
the grace to admit the provocation to Troke. Even this instance of
self-denial did not move the stubborn Dawes. He only laughed. Then
Rex came to a conclusion. His mate was plotting an escape. He himself
cherished a notion of the kind, as did Gabbett and Vetch, but by common
distrust no one ever gave utterance to thoughts of this nature. It would
be too dangerous. “He would be a good comrade for a rush,” thought Rex,
and resolved more firmly than ever to ally himself to this dangerous and
silent companion.
One question Dawes had asked which Rex had been able to answer: “Who is
that North?”
“A chaplain. He is only here for a week or so. There is a new one
coming. North goes to Sydney. He is not in favour with the Bishop.”
“How do you know?”
“By deduction,” says Rex, with a smile peculiar to him. “He wears
coloured clothes, and smokes, and doesn't patter Scripture. The
Bishop dresses in black, detests tobacco, and quotes the Bible like a
concordance. North is sent here for a month, as a warming-pan for that
ass Meekin. Ergo, the Bishop don't care about North.”
Jemmy Vetch, who was next to Rex, let the full weight of his portion
of tree-trunk rest upon Gabbett, in order to express his unrestrained
admiration of Mr. Rex's sarcasm. “Ain't the Dandy a one'er?” said he.
“Are you thinking of coming the pious?” asked Rex. “It's no good with
North. Wait until the highly-intelligent Meekin comes. You can twist
that worthy successor of the Apostles round your little finger!”
“Silence there!” cries the overseer. “Do you want me to report yer?”
Amid such diversions the days rolled on, and Rufus Dawes almost longed
for the Coal Mines. To be sent from the settlement to the Coal Mines,
and from the Coal Mines to the settlement, was to these unhappy men a
“trip”. At Port Arthur one went to an out-station, as more fortunate
people go to Queenscliff or the Ocean Beach now-a-days for “change of
air”.