ng. I want to know that now. We might have been as much worse
than him as a wolf is worse than an evil-tempered dog."

A beautiful colley came up to the Doctor and fawned on him, looking
into his face with her deep, expressive, hazel eyes.

"We must do something for that fellow, Sam. If it's only for his name's
sake," said the Doctor.

* * * * *

That poor boy, sitting crouched there in the corner, with a broken jaw,
and just so much of human feeling as one may suppose a polecat to have,
caught in a gin, is that same baby that we saw Ellen Lee nursing on the
door-step in the rain, when our poor Mary came upon her on one wild
night in Exeter.

Base-born, workhouse-bred! Tossed from workhouse to prison, from prison
to hulk--every man's hand against him--an Arab of society. As hopeless
a case, my lord judge, as you ever had to deal with; and yet I think,
my lord, that your big heart grows a little pitiful, when you see that
handsome face before you, blank and careless, and you try, fruitlessly,
to raise some blush of shame, or even anger in it, by your eloquence.

Gone beyond that, my lord. Your thunderbolts fall harmless here, and
the man you say is lost, and naturally. Yet, give that same man room to
breathe and act; keep temptation from him, and let his good qualities,
should he have any, have fair play, and, even yet, he may convert you
to the belief that hardened criminals may be reformed, to the extent of
one in a dozen; beyond that no reasonable man will go.

Let us see the end of this man. For now the end of my tale draws near,
and I must begin gathering up the threads of the story, to tie them in
a knot, and release my readers from duty. Here is all I can gather
about him,--

Sam and the Doctor moved heaven, earth, and the Colonial Secretary, to
get his sentence commuted, and with success. So when his companions
were led out to execution, he was held back; reserved for penal
servitude for life.

He proved himself quiet and docile; so much so that when our greatest,
boldest explorer was starting for his last hopeless journey to the
interior, this man was selected as one of the twelve convicts who were
to accompany him. What follows is an extract which I have been favoured
with from his private journal. You will not find it in the published
history of the expedition:--

"Date--lat.--long.--Morning. It is getting hopeless now, and to-morrow
I turn. Sand, and nothing but sand. The salsolaceous plants,