ur heads. We must have a good light some day, Nic, if I am not
taken. You would like to explore the place?"

"If you are taken!" cried Nic. "Why, you could defend yourself against
a hundred people here, and set them at defiance."

"Yes, but I might be surprised. I can't live without sleep, Nic.
They'll take me some day. Friend Brookes will find out that you come to
see me, and track you to the opening."

"He would not dare to come along here."

"No, but he would send those who did. But never mind that now. Let's
enjoy life while we can, even if it is such a poor life as mine."

"I say, Frank Mayne," said Nic, after a thoughtful pause, during which
he had listened to the _whish_, _whish_ of their feet through the water,
and the whispering echoes, now close at hand, now far away.

"Say on, boy."

"I'm going to the port as soon as my father comes back."

"Going, boy? I'm sorry. But you will come back?"

"I hope so; with news. I shall go and see Sir John and Lady O'Hara,
tell them your story, and get you pardoned."

"No. The governor did what he could: I was allowed to go out as an
assigned servant; I have disgraced myself, and I should have to go back
to the gang."

"Not if he knew that you were innocent."

"My character with which I came out spoils that, boy. Don't talk about
it. Mine is a hopeless case."

"But Lady O'Hara is my friend."

"Hush! It is too late."

They went on and on through the obscurity in comparative silence now,
Nic feeling as if he were being led always by that black shadow of a
gigantic man, beyond which there was a faint glow.

Always the same tramp, tramp through the splashing water, and along its
soft bed, which was never more than four or five feet wide at that time,
and the flowing stream kept them easily in the right way. Once or twice
Nic felt startled at the want of light from the smouldering torch, but a
few waves in the air brightened its faint glow again, and they went on
and on as if their journey were to be right through the grim bowels of
the world.

"Is it much farther?" said Nic at last, to break the painful silence.

"Not much."

"But we seem to have come miles."

"I dare say it is two," said the convict, "but imagination makes it
longer. My first journeyings made me think that it must be at least
twenty. Come closer here."

Nic stepped up and touched the arm which bore the light.

"Now look straight on."

"I can see nothing."

"You ar