g me again, sir!
I picked it up in the yard. It fell out of your coat one day." Frere
smiled with an inward satisfaction at the result of his spirit-breaking.
The explanation was probably the correct one. He was in the habit of
wearing flowers in his coat and it was impossible that the convict
should have obtained one by any other means. Had it been a fig of
tobacco now, the astute Commandant knew plenty of men who would have
brought it into the prison. But who would risk a flogging for so useless
a thing as a flower? "You'd better not pick up any more, Jack," he said.
"We don't grow flowers for your amusement." And contemptuously flinging
the rose over the wall, he strode away.

The gang, left to itself for a moment, bestowed their attention upon
Dawes. Large tears were silently rolling down his face, and he stood
staring at the wall as one in a dream. The gang curled their lips. One
fellow, more charitable than the rest, tapped his forehead and
winked. "He's going cranky," said this good-natured man, who could not
understand what a sane prisoner had to do with flowers. Dawes recovered
himself, and the contemptuous glances of his companions seemed to bring
back the colour to his cheeks.

"We'll do it to-night," whispered he to Mooney, and Mooney smiled with
pleasure.

Since the "tobacco trick", Mooney and Dawes had been placed in the new
prison, together with a man named Bland, who had already twice failed
to kill himself. When old Mooney, fresh from the torture of the
gag-and-bridle, lamented his hard case, Bland proposed that the three
should put in practice a scheme in which two at least must succeed. The
scheme was a desperate one, and attempted only in the last extremity.
It was the custom of the Ring, however, to swear each of its members
to carry out to the best of his ability this last invention of the
convict-disciplined mind should two other members crave his assistance.

The scheme--like all great ideas--was simplicity itself.

That evening, when the cell-door was securely locked, and the absence
of a visiting gaoler might be counted upon for an hour at least, Bland
produced a straw, and held it out to his companions. Dawes took it, and
tearing it into unequal lengths, handed the fragments to Mooney.

"The longest is the one," said the blind man. "Come on, boys, and dip in
the lucky-bag!"

It was evident that lots were to be drawn to determine to whom fortune
would grant freedom. The men drew in sile