From right to left, from east to west, through the prison city flew the signal of alarm, and the patrol, clattering out along the road to New Norfolk, made hot haste to strike the trail of the fugitive. But night came and found him yet at large, and the patrol returning, weary and disheartened, protested that he must be lying hid in some gorge of the purple mountain that overshadowed the town, and would have to be starved into submission. Meanwhile the usual message ran through the island, and so admirable were the arrangements which Arthur the reformer had initiated, that, before noon of the next day, not a signal station on the coast but knew that No. 8942, etc., etc., prisoner for life, was illegally at large. This intelligence, further aided by a paragraph in the Gazette anent the “Daring Escape”, noised abroad, the world cared little that the Mary Jane, Government schooner, had sailed for Port Arthur without Rufus Dawes.
But two or three persons cared a good deal. Major Vickers, for one, was indignant that his boasted security of bolts and bars should have been so easily defied, and in proportion to his indignation was the grief of Messieurs Jenkins, Scott, and Co., suspended from office, and threatened with absolute dismissal. Mr. Meekin was terribly frightened at the fact that so dangerous a monster should be roaming at large within reach of his own saintly person. Sylvia had shown symptoms of nervous terror, none the less injurious because carefully repressed; and Captain Maurice Frere was a prey to the most cruel anxiety. He had ridden off at a hand-gallop within ten minutes after he had reached the Barracks, and had spent the few hours of remaining daylight in scouring the country along the road to the North. At dawn the next day he was away to the mountain, and with a black-tracker at his heels, explored as much of that wilderness of gully and chasm as nature permitted to him. He had offered to double the reward, and had examined a number of suspicious persons. It was known that he had been inspecting the prison a few hours before the escape took place, and his efforts were therefore attributed to zeal, not unmixed with chagrin. “Our dear friend feels his reputation at stake,” the future chaplain of Port Arthur said to Sylvia at the Christmas dinner. “He is so proud of his knowledge of these unhappy men that he dislikes to be outwitted by any of them.”
Notwithstanding all this, however, Dawes had disappeared. The fat landlord of the Star Hotel was the last person who saw him, and the flying yellow figure seemed to have been as completely swallowed up by the warm summer's afternoon as if it had run headlong into the blackest night that ever hung above the earth.
CHAPTER IX. JOHN REX'S LETTER HOME.
The “little gathering” of which Major Vickers had spoken to Mr. Meekin, had grown into something larger than he had anticipated. Instead of a quiet dinner at which his own household, his daughter's betrothed, and the stranger clergyman only should be present, the Major found himself entangled with Mesdames Protherick and Jellicoe, Mr. McNab of the garrison, and Mr. Pounce of the civil list. His quiet Christmas dinner had grown into an evening party.
The conversation was on the usual topic.
“Heard anything about that fellow Dawes?” asked Mr. Pounce.
“Not yet,” says Frere, sulkily, “but he won't be out long. I've got a dozen men up the mountain.”
“I suppose it is not easy for a prisoner to make good his escape?” says Meekin.