im
off.

"Don't speak to me," he said, with an imprecation that made North's
flesh creep. "I've told you what I think of you--a hypocrite, who stands
by while a man is cut to pieces, and then comes and whines religion to
him."

North stood in the centre of the cell, with his arms hanging down, and
his head bent.

"You are right," he said, in a low tone. "I must seem to you a
hypocrite. I a servant of Christ? A besotted beast rather! I am not come
to whine religion to you. I am come to--to ask your pardon. I might have
saved you from punishment--saved that poor boy from death. I wanted to
save him, God knows! But I have a vice; I am a drunkard. I yielded to
my temptation, and--I was too late. I come to you as one sinful man to
another, to ask you to forgive me." And North suddenly flung himself
down beside the convict, and, catching his blood-bespotted hands in his
own, cried, "Forgive me, brother!"

Rufus Dawes, too much astonished to speak, bent his black eyes upon the
man who crouched at his feet, and a ray of divine pity penetrated his
gloomy soul. He seemed to catch a glimpse of misery more profound than
his own, and his stubborn heart felt human sympathy with this erring
brother. "Then in this hell there is yet a man," said he; and a
hand-grasp passed between these two unhappy beings. North arose, and,
with averted face, passed quickly from the cell. Rufus Dawes looked at
his hand which his strange visitor had taken, and something glittered
there. It was a tear. He broke down at the sight of it, and when the
guard came to fetch the tameless convict, they found him on his knees in
a corner, sobbing like a child.

CHAPTER XVI. KICKING AGAINST THE PRICKS.

The morning after this, the Rev. Mr. North departed in the schooner
for Hobart Town. Between the officious chaplain and the Commandant the
events of the previous day had fixed a great gulf. Burgess knew that
North meant to report the death of Kirkland, and guessed that he would
not be backward in relating the story to such persons in Hobart Town
as would most readily repeat it. "Blank awkward the fellow's dying,"
he confessed to himself. "If he hadn't died, nobody would have bothered
about him." A sinister truth. North, on the other hand, comforted
himself with the belief that the fact of the convict's death under the
lash would cause indignation and subsequent inquiry. "The truth must
come out if they only ask," thought he. Self-deceiving North! F