small cleft of a rock overshadowed by an old ilex-tree two men sat
moodily gazing on the sea. In dress they were indeed alike, for
both wore that terrible red and yellow livery that marks a life-long
condemnation, and each carried the heavy chain of the same terrible
sentence. They were linked together at the ankle, and thus, for
convenience' sake, they sat shoulder to shoulder. One was a thin, spare,
but still wiry-looking man, evidently far advanced in life, but with a
vigor in his look and a quick intelligence in his eye that showed
what energy he must have possessed in youth. He had spent years at the
galleys, but neither time nor the degradation of his associations had
completely eradicated the traces of something above the common in his
appearance; for No. 97--he had no other name as a prisoner--had been
condemned for his share in a plot against the life of the king; three of
his associates having been beheaded for their greater criminality.
What station he might originally have belonged to was no longer easy to
determine; but there were yet some signs that indicated that he had been
at least in the middle rank of life. His companion was unlike him in
every way. He was a young man with fresh complexion and large blue eyes,
the very type of frankness and good-nature. Not even prison diet and
discipline had yet hollowed his cheek, though it was easy to see that
unaccustomed labor and distasteful food were beginning to tell upon
his strength, and the bitter smile with which he was gazing on his lank
figure and wasted hands showed the weary misery that was consuming him.

"Well, old Nick," said the young man at length, "this is to be our last
evening together; and if ever I should touch land again, is there any
way I could help you--is there anything I could do for you?"

"So then you're determined to try it?" said the other, in a low growling
tone.

"That I am. I have not spent weeks filing through that confounded chain
for nothing: one wrench now and it's smashed."

"And then?" asked the old man with a grin.

"And then I'll have a swim for it. I know all that--I know it all,"
said he, answering a gesture of the other's hand; "but do you think I
care to drag out such a life as this?"

"_I_ do," was the quiet reply.

"Then why you do is clear and clean beyond me. To me it is worse than
fifty deaths."

"Look here, lad," said the old man, with a degree of animation he had
not shown before. "There are four hundr