The convict caught the boy’s hand, and his eyes softened again; but he dropped the hand and drew back, sending a pang through Nic, who felt that he must have been guilty of some terrible crime, and they stood looking in each other’s eyes for some little time. Then the boy spoke in a husky whisper—for he said to himself, “Poor chap, he must be very sorry for it now,”—“What was it you did, Leather?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why were you sent out here?”
Nic started, and repented having spoken, for the convict drew himself up, with his eyes flashing and his face convulsed by rage, scorn, and indignation.
“Why was I sent out here, boy?” he raged: “because a jury of my fellow-countrymen said I was guilty, and the judge told me that I deserved the greater punishment because I—a man of education, holding so high and responsible a position, and who ought to have known better—was worse than a common ignorant thief; and that he must make an example of me, that the world might see how government servants found no favour when they sinned. He said I had had a fair trial, that my countrymen condemned me, and that he quite agreed with their verdict; and he sentenced me to twenty-one years’ transportation,—he might as well have said for life.”
Nic stood looking at him in pain and misery, and the convict began pacing up and down in the agony evoked by this dragging up of the past.
“I’m sorry I spoke,” faltered Nic.
“No, no: I’m glad. It is like stabbing me, but if I bleed, boy, it is a relief. Transportation for twenty-one years, and to what a life of horror, misery, and despair! Companion to the greatest scoundrels and wretches that ever breathed; loathed and hated by them, because I was not what they, called their sort. Then, when sent out for good behaviour as an assigned servant, hated and scorned and trampled upon by every honest man. You have seen—you know. The convict from the chain gang, a branded felon. Nic, boy!—I beg your pardon, sir,” he cried bitterly—“Master, your slave wonders sometimes that he is alive. I tell you I’ve prayed night after night for death, but it would not come: no spear, no blinding stroke from the sun, no goring by the half-wild bullocks which have chased me; no fall when I have desperately climbed down the side of that gorge. No! spite of all risk I have grown stronger, healthier, as you see—healthier in body, but more and more diseased in mind.”
He stopped and threw himself down upon his breast, to bury his face in his hands; and just then there came a low, chuckling sound, as of laughter, from one of the great grey kingfishers in the tree above them, followed by a wild, dissonant, shrieking chorus from a flock of parrots, as if in defiance at the cruel laugh.
“I don’t mind your speaking to me as you did, Leather,” said Nic at last, as he turned his head aside to hide his emotion, and he sat down to watch his beautiful horse quietly cropping the grass, thinking how much happier the dumb beast was. “I only mind when you talk in your bitter way.—I’m sorry for you.”