Page 340 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

of bringing His Majesty’s prisoners to His Majesty’s colo-
nies of New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land, went on
a whaling cruise to the South Seas. The influence which
Sarah Purfoy had acquired over him had, however, irre-
trievably injured him. It was as though she had poisoned
his moral nature by the influence of a clever and wicked
woman over a sensual and dull-witted man. Blunt gradu-
ally sank lower and lower. He became a drunkard, and was
known as a man with a ‘grievance against the Government”.
Captain Frere, having had occasion for him in some capaci-
ty, had become in a manner his patron, and had got him the
command of a schooner trading from Sydney. On getting
this command—not without some wry faces on the part of
the owner resident in Hobart Town—Blunt had taken the
temperance pledge for the space of twelve months, and was
a miserable dog in consequence. He was, however, a faith-
ful henchman, for he hoped by Frere’s means to get some
‘Government billet’—the grand object of all colonial sea
captains of that epoch.
‘Well, sir, she went ashore to see a friend,’ says Blunt,
looking at the sky and then at the earth.
‘What friend?’
‘The—the prisoner, sir.’
‘And she saw him, I suppose?’
‘Yes, but I thought I’d better tell you, sir,’ says Blunt.
‘Of course; quite right,’ returned the other; ‘you had bet-
ter start at once. It’s no use waiting.’
‘As you wish, sir. I can sail to-morrow morning—or this
evening, if you like.’