reat as his
own. The next day Frere visited him, complimented him on his courage,
and offered to make him a constable. Dawes turned his scarred back to
his torturer, and resolutely declined to answer.

"I am afraid you have made an enemy of the Commandant," said North, the
next day. "Why not accept his offer?"

Dawes cast on him a glance of quiet scorn. "And betray my mates? I'm not
one of that sort."

The clergyman spoke to him of hope, of release, of repentance, and
redemption. The prisoner laughed. "Who's to redeem me?" he said,
expressing his thoughts in phraseology that to ordinary folks might seem
blasphemous. "It would take a Christ to die again to save such as I."

North spoke to him of immortality. "There is another life," said he. "Do
not risk your chance of happiness in it. You have a future to live for,
man."

"I hope not," said the victim of the "system". "I want to rest--to rest,
and never to be disturbed again."

His "spirit" was broken enough by this time. Yet he had resolution
enough to refuse Frere's repeated offers. "I'll never 'jump' it," he
said to North, "if they cut me in half first."

North pityingly implored the stubborn mind to have mercy on the
lacerated body, but without effect. His own wayward heart gave him the
key to read the cipher of this man's life. "A noble nature ruined," said
he to himself. "What is the secret of his history?"

Dawes, on his part, seeing how different from other black coats was this
priest--at once so ardent and so gloomy, so stern and so tender--began
to speculate on the cause of his monitor's sunken cheeks, fiery eyes,
and pre-occupied manner, to wonder what grief inspired those agonized
prayers, those eloquent and daring supplications, which were daily
poured out over his rude bed. So between these two--the priest and the
sinner--was a sort of sympathetic bond.

One day this bond was drawn so close as to tug at both their
heart-strings. The chaplain had a flower in his coat. Dawes eyed it with
hungry looks, and, as the clergyman was about to quit the room, said,
"Mr. North, will you give me that rosebud?" North paused irresolutely,
and finally, as if after a struggle with himself, took it carefully from
his button-hole, and placed it in the prisoner's brown, scarred hand. In
another instant Dawes, believing himself alone, pressed the gift to
his lips. North returned abruptly, and the eyes of the pair met. Dawes
flushed crimson, but North turned white as