and to take his consolations out of the
way of the mustering prisoners.

With a great clanking and clashing of irons, the forty rose and stood
each by his stone-heap. The third constable came round, rapping the
leg-irons of each man with easy nonchalance, and roughly pulling up the
coarse trousers (made with buttoned flaps at the sides, like Mexican
calzoneros, in order to give free play to the ankle fetters), so that
he might assure himself that no tricks had been played since his last
visit. As each man passed this ordeal he saluted, and clanked, with
wide-spread legs, to the place in the double line. Mr. Meekin, though
not a patron of field sports, found something in the scene that reminded
him of a blacksmith picking up horses' feet to examine the soundness of
their shoes.

"Upon my word," he said to himself, with a momentary pang of genuine
compassion, "it is a dreadful way to treat human beings. I don't wonder
at that wretched creature groaning under it. But, bless me, it is near
one o'clock, and I promised to lunch with Major Vickers at two. How time
flies, to be sure!"

CHAPTER VII. RUFUS DAWES'S IDYLL.

That afternoon, while Mr. Meekin was digesting his lunch, and chatting
airily with Sylvia, Rufus Dawes began to brood over a desperate scheme.
The intelligence that the investigation he had hoped for was not to be
granted to him had rendered doubly bitter those galling fetters of self
restraint which he had laid upon himself. For five years of desolation
he had waited and hoped for a chance which might bring him to Hobart
Town, and enable him to denounce the treachery of Maurice Frere. He had,
by an almost miraculous accident, obtained that chance of open speech,
and, having obtained it, he found that he was not allowed to speak.
All the hopes he had formed were dashed to earth. All the calmness
with which he had forced himself to bear his fate was now turned into
bitterest rage and fury. Instead of one enemy he had twenty. All--judge,
jury, gaoler, and parson--were banded together to work him evil and deny
him right. The whole world was his foe: there was no honesty or truth in
any living creature--save one.

During the dull misery of his convict life at Port Arthur one bright
memory shone upon him like a star. In the depth of his degradation,
at the height of his despair, he cherished one pure and ennobling
thought--the thought of the child whom he had saved, and who loved him.
When, on board t