“Oh, yes, we can. I insist. Maurice, if you love me, take me away.”
“Well,” said Maurice, moved by her evident grief, “I'll try.”
He spoke to Burgess. “Burgess, this matter has unsettled my wife, so that she wants to leave at once. I must visit the Neck, you know. How can we do it?”
“Well,” says Burgess, “if the wind only holds, the brig could go round to Pirates' Bay and pick you up. You'll only be a night at the barracks.”
“I think that would be best,” said Frere. “We'll start to-morrow, please, and if you'll give me a pen and ink I'll be obliged.”
“I hope you are satisfied,” said Burgess.
“Oh yes, quite,” said Frere. “I must recommend more careful supervision at Point Puer, though. It will never do to have these young blackguards slipping through our fingers in this way.”
So a neatly written statement of the occurrence was appended to the ledgers in which the names of William Tomkins and Thomas Grove were entered. Macklewain held an inquest, and nobody troubled about them any more. Why should they? The prisons of London were full of such Tommys and Billys.
Sylvia passed through the rest of her journey in a dream of terror. The incident of the children had shaken her nerves, and she longed to be away from the place and its associations. Even Eaglehawk Neck with its curious dog stages and its “natural pavement”, did not interest her. McNab's blandishments were wearisome. She shuddered as she gazed into the boiling abyss of the Blow-hole, and shook with fear as the Commandant's “train” rattled over the dangerous tramway that wound across the precipice to Long Bay. The “train” was composed of a number of low wagons pushed and dragged up the steep inclines by convicts, who drew themselves up in the wagons when the trucks dashed down the slope, and acted as drags. Sylvia felt degraded at being thus drawn by human beings, and trembled when the lash cracked, and the convicts answered to the sting—like cattle. Moreover, there was among the foremost of these beasts of burden a face that had dimly haunted her girlhood, and only lately vanished from her dreams. This face looked on her—she thought—with bitterest loathing and scorn, and she felt relieved when at the midday halt its owner was ordered to fall out from the rest, and was with four others re-chained for the homeward journey. Frere, struck with the appearance of the five, said, “By Jove, Poppet, there are our old friends Rex and Dawes, and the others. They won't let 'em come all the way, because they are such a desperate lot, they might make a rush for it.” Sylvia comprehended now the face was the face of Dawes; and as she looked after him, she saw him suddenly raise his hands above his head with a motion that terrified her. She felt for an instant a great shock of pitiful recollection. Staring at the group, she strove to recall when and how Rufus Dawes, the wretch from whose clutches her husband had saved her, had ever merited her pity, but her clouded memory could not complete the picture, and as the wagons swept round a curve, and the group disappeared, she awoke from her reverie with a sigh.