Page 229 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

‘No one else?’
‘No.’ ‘Poor souls!’ said the convict, ‘I pity them.’ And then
he stretched himself, like a dog, before the blaze, and went
to sleep instantly. Maurice Frere, looking at the gaunt figure
of this addition to the party, was completely puzzled how
to act. Such a character had never before come within the
range of his experience. He knew not what to make of this
fierce, ragged, desperate man, who wept and threatened by
turns—who was now snarling in the most repulsive bass of
the convict gamut, and now calling upon Heaven in tones
which were little less than eloquent. At first he thought of
precipitating himself upon the sleeping wretch and pinion-
ing him, but a second glance at the sinewy, though wasted,
limbs forbade him to follow out the rash suggestion of his
own fears. Then a horrible prompting—arising out of his
former cowardice— made him feel for the jack-knife with
which one murder had already been committed. Their stock
of provisions was so scanty, and after all, the lives of the
woman and child were worth more than that of this un-
known desperado! But, to do him justice, the thought no
sooner shaped itself than he crushed it out. ‘We’ll wait till
morning, and see how he shapes,’ said Frere to himself;
and pausing at the brushwood barricade, behind which the
mother and daughter were clinging to each other, he whis-
pered that he was on guard outside, and that the absconder
slept. But when morning dawned, he found that there was
no need for alarm. The convict was lying in almost the
same position as that in which he had left him, and his eyes
were closed. His threatening outbreak of the previous night

For the Term of His Natural Life