he whaler that had rescued him from the burning boat, he
had felt that the sailors, believing in Frere's bluff lies, shrunk from
the moody felon, he had gained strength to be silent by thinking of the
suffering child. When poor Mrs. Vickers died, making no sign, and thus
the chief witness to his heroism perished before his eyes, the thought
that the child was left had restrained his selfish regrets. When Frere,
handing him over to the authorities as an absconder, ingeniously twisted
the details of the boat-building to his own glorification, the knowledge
that Sylvia would assign to these pretensions their true value had given
him courage to keep silence. So strong was his belief in her gratitude,
that he scorned to beg for the pardon he had taught himself to believe
that she would ask for him. So utter was his contempt for the coward and
boaster who, dressed in brief authority, bore insidious false witness
against him, that, when he heard his sentence of life banishment, he
disdained to make known the true part he had played in the matter,
preferring to wait for the more exquisite revenge, the more complete
justification which would follow upon the recovery of the child from
her illness. But when, at Port Arthur, day after day passed over, and
brought no word of pity or justification, he began, with a sickening
feeling of despair, to comprehend that something strange had happened.
He was told by newcomers that the child of the Commandant lay still
and near to death. Then he heard that she and her father had left the
colony, and that all prospect of her righting him by her evidence was at
an end. This news gave him a terrible pang; and at first he was inclined
to break out into upbraidings of her selfishness. But, with that depth
of love which was in him, albeit crusted over and concealed by the
sullenness of speech and manner which his sufferings had produced, he
found excuses for her even then. She was ill. She was in the hands of
friends who loved her, and disregarded him; perhaps, even her entreaties
and explanations were put aside as childish babblings. She would free
him if she had the power. Then he wrote "Statements", agonized to see
the Commandant, pestered the gaolers and warders with the story of his
wrongs, and inundated the Government with letters, which, containing, as
they did always, denunciations of Maurice Frere, were never suffered to
reach their destination. The authorities, willing at the first to look