done here," said Dawes, half to
himself.

"I can listen to no mutinous observations, prisoner," said Meekin. "Do
not add blasphemy to your other crimes. I fear that all conversation
with you, in your present frame of mind, would be worse than useless. I
will mark a few passages in your Bible, that seem to me appropriate to
your condition, and beg you to commit them to memory. Hailes, the door,
if you please."

So, with a bow, the "consoler" departed.

Rufus Dawes felt his heart grow sick. North had gone, then. The only man
who had seemed to have a heart in his bosom had gone. The only man
who had dared to clasp his horny and blood-stained hand, and call him
"brother", had gone. Turning his head, he saw through the window--wide
open and unbarred, for Nature, at Port Arthur, had no need of bars--the
lovely bay, smooth as glass, glittering in the afternoon sun, the long
quay, spotted with groups of parti-coloured chain-gangs, and heard,
mingling with the soft murmur of the waves, and the gentle rustling of
the trees, the never-ceasing clashing of irons, and the eternal click
of hammer. Was he to be for ever buried in this whitened sepulchre, shut
out from the face of Heaven and mankind!

The appearance of Hailes broke his reverie. "Here's a book for you,"
said he, with a grin. "Parson sent it."

Rufus Dawes took the Bible, and, placing it on his knees, turned to the
places indicated by slips of paper, embracing some twenty marked texts.

"Parson says he'll come and hear you to-morrer, and you're to keep the
book clean."

"Keep the book clean!" and "hear him!" Did Meekin think that he was a
charity school boy? The utter incapacity of the chaplain to understand
his wants was so sublime that it was nearly ridiculous enough to make
him laugh. He turned his eyes downwards to the texts. Good Meekin, in
the fullness of his stupidity, had selected the fiercest denunciations
of bard and priest. The most notable of the Psalmist's curses upon his
enemies, the most furious of Isaiah's ravings anent the forgetfulness
of the national worship, the most terrible thunderings of apostle and
evangelist against idolatry and unbelief, were grouped together and
presented to Dawes to soothe him. All the material horrors of Meekin's
faith--stripped, by force of dissociation from the context, of all
poetic feeling and local colouring--were launched at the suffering
sinner by Meekin's ignorant hand. The miserable man, seeking for
consolati