Page 264 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

proved the apparent insolence of the convict as freely as he
would have done had they both been at his own little king-
dom of Maria Island. ‘You insolent beggar!’ he cried. ‘Do
you dare! Keep your place, sir!’
The sentence recalled Rufus Dawes to reality. His place
was that of a convict. What business had he with tenderness
for the daughter of his master? Yet, after all he had done,
and proposed to do, this harsh judgment upon him seemed
cruel. He saw the two looking at the boat he had built. He
marked the flush of hope on the cheek of the poor lady, and
the full-blown authority that already hardened the eye of
Maurice Frere, and all at once he understood the result of
what he had done. He had, by his own act, given himself
again to bondage. As long as escape was impracticable, he
had been useful, and even powerful. Now he had pointed
out the way of escape, he had sunk into the beast of burden
once again. In the desert he was ‘Mr.’ Dawes, the saviour; in
civilized life he would become once more Rufus Dawes, the
ruffian, the prisoner, the absconder. He stood mute, and let
Frere point out the excellences of the craft in silence; and
then, feeling that the few words of thanks uttered by the
lady were chilled by her consciousness of the ill-advised
freedom he had taken with the child, he turned on his heel,
and strode up into the bush.
‘A queer fellow,’ said Frere, as Mrs. Vickers followed
the retreating figure with her eyes. ‘Always in an ill tem-
per.’ ‘Poor man! He has behaved very kindly to us,’ said Mrs.
Vickers. Yet even she felt the change of circumstance, and
knew that, without any reason she could name, her blind