For the Term of His Natural Life. Marcus Andrew Hislop Clarke

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СКАЧАТЬ only cowards kissed the rod, and failed to meditate revenge on that world of respectability which had wronged them. Each new-comer was one more recruit to the ranks of ruffianism, and not a man penned in that reeking den of infamy but became a sworn hater of law, order, and “free-men.” What he might have been before mattered not. He was now a prisoner, and—thrust into a suffocating barracoon, herded with the foulest of mankind, with all imaginable depths of blasphemy and indecency sounded hourly in his sight and hearing—he lost his self-respect, and became what his gaolers took him to be—a wild beast to be locked under bolts and bars, lest he should break out and tear them.

      The conversation ran upon the sudden departure of the four. What could they want with them at that hour?

      “I tell you there's something up on deck,” says one to the group nearest him. “Don't you hear all that rumbling and rolling?”

      “What did they lower boats for? I heard the dip o' the oars.”

      “Don't know, mate. P'r'aps a burial job,” hazarded a short, stout fellow, as a sort of happy suggestion.

      “One of those coves in the parlour!” said another; and a laugh followed the speech.

      “No such luck. You won't hang your jib for them yet awhile. More like the skipper agone fishin'.”

      “The skipper don't go fishin', yer fool. What would he do fishin'?—special in the middle o' the night.”

      “That 'ud be like old Dovery, eh?” says a fifth, alluding to an old grey-headed fellow, who—a returned convict—was again under sentence for body-snatching.

      “Ay,” put in a young man, who had the reputation of being the smartest “crow” (the “look-out” man of a burglars' gang) in London—“'fishers of men,' as the parson says.”

      The snuffling imitation of a Methodist preacher was good, and there was another laugh.

      Just then a miserable little cockney pickpocket, feeling his way to the door, fell into the party.

      A volley of oaths and kicks received him.

      “I beg your pardon, gen'l'men,” cries the miserable wretch, “but I want h'air.”

      “Go to the barber's and buy a wig, then!” says the “Crow”, elated at the success of his last sally.

      “Oh, sir, my back!”

      “Get up!” groaned someone in the darkness. “Oh, Lord, I'm smothering! Here, sentry!”

      “Vater!” cried the little cockney. “Give us a drop o' vater, for mercy's sake. I haven't moist'ned my chaffer this blessed day.”

      “Half a gallon a day, bo', and no more,” says a sailor next him.

      “Yes, what have yer done with yer half-gallon, eh?” asked the Crow derisively. “Someone stole it,” said the sufferer.

      “He's been an' blued it,” squealed someone. “Been an' blued it to buy a Sunday veskit with! Oh, ain't he a vicked young man?” And the speaker hid his head under the blankets, in humorous affectation of modesty.

      All this time the miserable little cockney—he was a tailor by trade—had been grovelling under the feet of the Crow and his companions.

      “Let me h'up, gents” he implored—“let me h'up. I feel as if I should die—I do.”

      “Let the gentleman up,” says the humorist in the bunk. “Don't yer see his kerridge is avaitin' to take him to the Hopera?”

      The conversation had got a little loud, and, from the topmost bunk on the near side, a bullet head protruded.

      “Ain't a cove to get no sleep?” cried a gruff voice. “My blood, if I have to turn out, I'll knock some of your empty heads together.”

      It seemed that the speaker was a man of mark, for the noise ceased instantly; and, in the lull which ensued, a shrill scream broke from the wretched tailor.

      “Help! they're killing me! Ah-h-h-!”

      “Wot's the matter,” roared the silencer of the riot, jumping from his berth, and scattering the Crow and his companions right and left. “Let him be, can't yer?”

      “H'air!” cried the poor devil—“h'air; I'm fainting!”

      Just then there came another groan from the man in the opposite bunk. “Well, I'm blessed!” said the giant, as he held the gasping tailor by the collar and glared round him. “Here's a pretty go! All the blessed chickens ha' got the croup!”

      The groaning of the man in the bunk redoubled.

      “Pass the word to the sentry,” says someone more humane than the rest. “Ah,” says the humorist, “pass him out; it'll be one the less. We'd rather have his room than his company.”

      “Sentry, here's a man sick.”

      But the sentry knew his duty better than to reply. He was a young soldier, but he had been well informed of the artfulness of convict stratagems; and, moreover, Captain Vickers had carefully apprised him “that by the King's Regulations, he was forbidden to reply to any question or communication addressed to him by a convict, but, in the event of being addressed, was to call the non-commissioned officer on duty.” Now, though he was within easy hailing distance of the guard on the quarter-deck, he felt a natural disinclination to disturb those gentlemen merely for the sake of a sick convict, and knowing that, in a few minutes, the third relief would come on duty, he decided to wait until then.

      In the meantime the tailor grew worse, and began to moan dismally.

      “Here! 'ullo!” called out his supporter, in dismay. “Hold up 'ere! Wot's wrong with yer? Don't come the drops 'ere. Pass him down, some of yer,” and the wretch was hustled down to the doorway.

      “Vater!” he whispered, beating feebly with his hand on the thick oak.

      “Get us a drink, mister, for Gord's sake!”

      But the prudent sentry answered never a word, until the ship's bell warned him of the approach of the relief guard; and then honest old Pine, coming with anxious face to inquire after his charge, received the intelligence that there was another prisoner sick. He had the door unlocked and the tailor outside in an instant. One look at the flushed, anxious face was enough.

      “Who's that moaning in there?” he asked.

      It was the man who had tried to call for the sentry an hour back, and Pine had him out also; convictism beginning to wonder a little.

      “Take 'em both aft to the hospital,” he said; “and, Jenkins, if there are any more men taken sick, let them pass the word for me at once. I shall be on deck.”

      The guard stared in each other's faces, with some alarm, but said nothing, thinking more of the burning ship, which now flamed furiously across the placid water, than of peril nearer home; but as Pine went up the hatchway he met Blunt.

      “We've got the fever aboard!”

      “Good СКАЧАТЬ