the hulks at Sheerness among
scenes of wickedness and brutality seemed afterwards like a bad dream,
and the lad prayed--oh, so earnestly!--to be kept from the evil which
surrounded him. Then came the day when, chained two and two, he and his
companions were marched through the streets and shipped on board the
_Neptune_, as unseaworthy a craft as ever sailed the ocean, but thought
good enough for convicts.

However, the _Neptune_ did not sink; but she took nearly a year to reach
her destination, and the convicts, stowed together in the hold, suffered
torments from heat and thirst in the tropics. Then small-pox broke out
amongst them, and many died; the rest were more like skeletons than
living men, when the _Neptune_ at last cast anchor in Botany Bay. Here
the men had to work on Government buildings, and at night were locked up
in barracks, hardly more roomy or airy than the hold of the old
_Neptune_.

Most of the convicts did as little work, and gave as much trouble as
they dared, and nothing but fear of the overseer kept them from open
mutiny. At last, finding the overseer alone one day, and for once
unarmed, two or three of the worst convicts set upon him, and would have
murdered him, if Repton had not stood by him and helped him till
assistance came to overpower the mutineers.

The overseer did not forget this act of Repton's, and next time one of
the merchants came to the barracks to choose a servant from among the
convicts (as was then the custom), he recommended the lad for the
coveted post.

Now, indeed, Repton felt almost happy for the first time since his
conviction. He was still a convict, it is true, and might be flogged at
his master's will, or be sent back to the convict barracks, if he
misconducted himself in any way. But, for the moment, he was actually
free; he lived in a little shed of his own next the stable, and groomed
the horses as a free man; and the relief of no longer being herded with
wicked men, day and night, was too great for words.

Repton loved horses, too, and took such care of his master's beautiful
mare, and the little girl's pony, that there never was any fault to be
found with him. As the months went on, he was trusted more and more by
both master and mistress, and treated more like a humble friend than a
despised convict.

Those were lawless days in the Colony; convicts were constantly escaping
into the bush, where they lived as they could--often venturing out to
rob houses,