n
that occasion as well as any man. My duty as a citizen and a magistrate
was to stand at the further end of the cell, and give this hardened
criminal a moral lecture, showing how honesty and virtue, as in my
case, had led to wealth and honour, and how yielding to one's passions
led to disgrace and infamy, as in his. That was my duty, I allow. But
then, you see, I didn't do my duty. I had a certain tender feeling
about my stomach which prevented me from doing it. So I only hung
there, with my arm round his neck, and said, from time to time, "O
George, George!" like a fool.

He put his two hands upon my shoulders, so that his fetters hung across
my breast; and he looked me in the face. Then he said, after a time,
"What! Hamlyn? Old Jeff Hamlyn! The only man I ever knew that I didn't
quarrel with! Come to see me now, eh? Jeff, old boy, I'm to be hung
to-morrow."

"I know it," I said. "And I came to ask you if I could do anything for
you. For the sake of dear old Devon, George."

"Anything you like, old Jeff," he said, with a laugh, "so long as you
don't get me reprieved. If I get loose again, lad, I'd do worse than I
ever did yet, believe me. I've piled up a tolerable heap of wickedness
as it is, though. I've murdered my own son, Jeff. Do you know that?"

I answered--"Yes; I know that, George; but that was an accident. You
did not know who he was."

"He came at me to take my life," said Hawker. "And I tell you, as a man
who goes out to be hung to-morrow, that, if I had guessed who he was,
I'd have blown my own brains out to save him from the crime of killing
me. Who is that man?"

"Don't you remember him?" I said. "Major Buckley."

The Major came forward, and held out his hand to George Hawker. "You
are now," he said, "like a dead man to me. You die to-morrow; and you
know it; and face it like a man. I come to ask you to forgive me
anything you may have to forgive. I have been your enemy since I first
saw you: but I have been an honest and open enemy; and now I am your
enemy no longer. I ask you to shake hands with me. I have been warned
not to come within arm's length of you, chained as you are. But I am
not afraid of you."

The Major came and sat on the bed-place beside him.

"As for that little animal," said George Hawker, pointing to the
governor as he stood at the further end of the cell, "if he comes
within reach of me, I'll beat his useless little brains out against the
wall, and he knows it. He was rig