ou and myself and the world, who made me hate it? I was born free--as
free as you are. Why should I be sent to herd with beasts, and condemned
to this slavery, worse than death? Tell me that, Maurice Frere--tell me
that!" "I didn't make the laws," says Frere, "why do you attack me?"

"Because you are what I was. You are FREE! You can do as you please. You
can love, you can work, you can think. I can only hate!" He paused as if
astonished at himself, and then continued, with a low laugh. "Fine words
for a convict, eh! But, never mind, it's all right, Mr. Frere; we're
equal now, and I sha'n't die an hour sooner than you, though you are a
'free man'!"

Frere began to think that he was dealing with another madman.

"Die! There's no need to talk of dying," he said, as soothingly as it
was possible for him to say it. "Time enough for that by-and-by."

"There spoke the free man. We convicts have an advantage over you
gentlemen. You are afraid of death; we pray for it. It is the best thing
that can happen to us. Die! They were going to hang me once. I wish they
had. My God, I wish they had!"

There was such a depth of agony in this terrible utterance that Maurice
Frere was appalled at it. "There, go and sleep, my man," he said. "You
are knocked up. We'll talk in the morning."

"Hold on a bit!" cried Rufus Dawes, with a coarseness of manner
altogether foreign to that he had just assumed. "Who's with ye?"

"The wife and daughter of the Commandant," replied Frere, half afraid to
refuse an answer to a question so fiercely put.

"No one else?"

"No." "Poor souls!" said the convict, "I pity them." And then he
stretched himself, like a dog, before the blaze, and went to sleep
instantly. Maurice Frere, looking at the gaunt figure of this addition
to the party, was completely puzzled how to act. Such a character had
never before come within the range of his experience. He knew not what
to make of this fierce, ragged, desperate man, who wept and threatened
by turns--who was now snarling in the most repulsive bass of the convict
gamut, and now calling upon Heaven in tones which were little less than
eloquent. At first he thought of precipitating himself upon the sleeping
wretch and pinioning him, but a second glance at the sinewy, though
wasted, limbs forbade him to follow out the rash suggestion of his
own fears. Then a horrible prompting--arising out of his former
cowardice--made him feel for the jack-knife with which one murde