Page 255 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

ning to despair—mamma and I.’
Dawes snatched her from the ground, and bursting into
a joyous laugh, swung her into the air. ‘Tell me,’ he cried,
holding up the child with two dripping arms above him,
‘what you will do for me if I bring you and mamma safe
home again?’
‘Give you a free pardon,’ says Sylvia, ‘and papa shall make
you his servant!’ Frere burst out laughing at this reply, and
Dawes, with a choking sensation in his throat, put the child
upon the ground and walked away.
This was in truth all he could hope for. All his scheming,
all his courage, all his peril, would but result in the patron-
age of a great man like Major Vickers. His heart, big with
love, with self-denial, and with hopes of a fair future, would
have this flattering unction laid to it. He had performed a
prodigy of skill and daring, and for his reward he was to be
made a servant to the creatures he had protected. Yet what
more could a convict expect? Sylvia saw how deeply her un-
conscious hand had driven the iron, and ran up to the man
she had wounded. ‘And, Mr. Dawes, remember that I shall
love you always.’ The convict, however, his momentary ex-
citement over, motioned her away; and she saw him stretch
himself wearily under the shadow of a rock.

For the Term of His Natural Life