‘And will he be able to tell me to what part of the world he is to be sent?’
‘That’s not always known at the Admiralty, down, sometimes, to the last minute. A convict ship has before now brought up in the Downs bound to Hobart Town or Norfolk Island, and her destination has been changed by express to Botany Bay.’
He touched his cap with a slight bow having thus spoken, and crossed to the other waiting poor folks as though willing to be questioned.
I paced a little space of the deck. I could have held him long in converse; I had, methought, a thousand questions to ask. On a sudden, happening to look along the deck to the left, I saw a number of men appear. Some of them were convicts and the others were the guard. They came into the ship by the gallery that stretched from the quay to the gangway. The convicts were dressed in a rusty brown suit with red stripes upon it; they all looked alike, so horribly levelling is the garb of the felon. A woman who was waiting shrieked out and ran some steps, and a little boy of ten or twelve, whose hand was grasped by a young woman, called out:
‘Father! Father!’ and began to cry piteously, still calling: ‘Father! Father!’
The warders came to a pause near the hatch. There were four convicts; three of them were embraced by the women who had been waiting, the little boy meanwhile continuing to cry loudly, and two of the women sobbing piteously; the fourth advanced and paused with his eyes upon me.
It was Tom, but for a few minutes I did not know him. His face was a fiery red and wet with sweat, as though he had been brought fresh from some exhausting labour; his hair was closely cut, and his beard was cleanly shaved. The loathsome garb had as utterly transformed him as though he had been wrapped in the shroud of the dead. I cried his name and fled to him. He locked me in his arms, and so we stood for a little while speechless.
‘My Marian!’
‘Oh, Tom, time is precious and I have much to say! Have you received any letters from me?’
‘None.’