eard the news, which was bad
enough. Thomas May had been given a hundred lashes and had taken to the
bush.

It appeared that May, whom we had not seen for one or two weeks, had
been working under an overseer named Cross, at a place about ten miles
from the town. (This man Cross was of a notoriously savage disposition,
and had himself been a convict in Van Diemen's Land, but had received a
pardon for having shot and killed a bushranger there.)

May, with the rest of his gang, was felling timber, when a heavy chip
flew from the tallow-wood tree upon which he was working, and struck
the overseer in the face. Cross at once flew into a violent passion, and
with much foul language accused poor May of having thrown the chip at
him. This the young fellow warmly denied, whereupon Cross, taking his
pistol out of his belt, struck the sailor on the mouth with the butt. In
an instant May returned the blow by knocking the overseer down, and was
then seized by two of his fellow-convicts. He was ironed and taken into
town, and on the following morning was brought before Mr Sampson and
another magistrate. It was no use of his pleading provocation, he
received his flogging within a few hours. Towards daylight he crept out
of his hut, broke into his master's storeroom, and took a musket, powder
and ball, and as much food as he could carry, telling a fellow-prisoner
that he would perish in the bush rather than be taken alive.

On the fifth night after his escape, and whilst the constables were
scouring the country in search of him, he came to Patrick Kenna's house.
The night was very dark and the rain descending in torrents; so, there
being no fear of intruders, Kenna barred his door and made the poor
fellow comfortable by giving him a change of clothes, a good meal and
some tobacco to smoke. Tom inquired very eagerly after Walter, and sent
him a long message, and then told Kenna some startling news.

Two days after he had absconded, and when he was quite thirty miles
distant from Bar Harbour, he saw smoke arising from a dense scrub.
Creeping along on his hands and knees he saw two men--escaped convicts
like himself--engaged in skinning a wallaby. He at once made himself
known to them and was welcomed. After a meal from the wallaby, the two
men asked him if he would join them in a plan they had of getting away
from the country; he was just the man, they said, being a sailor, who
could bring the attempt to a successful issue. Then they t