r fate, and take
advantage of the excitement attendant on their absence to effect his
own escape. "While all the island is looking for these eight boobies, I
shall have a good chance to slip away unmissed." He wished, however, to
have a companion. Some strong man, who, if pressed hard, would turn
and keep the pursuers at bay, would be useful without doubt; and this
comrade-victim he sought in Rufus Dawes.

Beginning, as we have seen, from a purely selfish motive, to urge his
fellow-prisoner to abscond with him, John Rex gradually found himself
attracted into something like friendliness by the sternness with which
his overtures were repelled. Always a keen student of human nature,
the scoundrel saw beneath the roughness with which it had pleased the
unfortunate man to shroud his agony, how faithful a friend and how
ardent and undaunted a spirit was concealed. There was, moreover, a
mystery about Rufus Dawes which Rex, the reader of hearts, longed to
fathom.

"Have you no friends whom you would wish to see?" he asked, one evening,
when Rufus Dawes had proved more than usually deaf to his arguments.

"No," said Dawes gloomily. "My friends are all dead to me."

"What, all?" asked the other. "Most men have some one whom they wish to
see."

Rufus Dawes laughed a slow, heavy laugh. "I am better here."

"Then are you content to live this dog's life?"

"Enough, enough," said Dawes. "I am resolved."

"Pooh! Pluck up a spirit," cried Rex. "It can't fail. I've been thinking
of it for eighteen months, and it can't fail."

"Who are going?" asked the other, his eyes fixed on the ground. John Rex
enumerated the eight, and Dawes raised his head. "I won't go. I have
had two trials at it; I don't want another. I would advise you not to
attempt it either."

"Why not?"

"Gabbett bolted twice before," said Rufus Dawes, shuddering at the
remembrance of the ghastly object he had seen in the sunlit glen at
Hell's Gates. "Others went with him, but each time he returned alone."

"What do you mean?" asked Rex, struck by the tone of his companion.

"What became of the others?"

"Died, I suppose," said the Dandy, with a forced laugh.

"Yes; but how? They were all without food. How came the surviving
monster to live six weeks?"

John Rex grew a shade paler, and did not reply. He recollected the
sanguinary legend that pertained to Gabbett's rescue. But he did not
intend to make the journey in his company, so, after all, he had no