Page 363 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

in it, but Parton and Haines they runs in and gets between
me and the wall, and then Mr. Short he come, and we ex-
amined their irons.’
‘All right?’
‘All right, your honour; and they all swore they knowed
nothing of it. I know Dawes’s irons was all right when he
went to dinner.’
Frere stopped and examined the empty fetters. ‘All right
be hanged,’ he said. ‘If you don’t know your duty better than
this, the sooner you go somewhere else the better, my man.
Look here!’
The two ankle fetters were severed. One had been evi-
dently filed through, and the other broken transversely. The
latter was bent, as from a violent blow.
‘Don’t know where he got the file from,’ said Warder
Short.
‘Know! Of course you don’t know. You men never do
know anything until the mischief’s done. You want me here
for a month or so. I’d teach you your duty! Don’t know—
with things like this lying about? I wonder the whole yard
isn’t loose and dining with the Governor.’
‘This’ was a fragment of delft pottery which Frere’s quick
eye had detected among the broken metal.
‘I’d cut the biggest iron you’ve got with this; and so would
he and plenty more, I’ll go bail. You ought to have lived with
me at Sarah Island, Mr. Short. Don’t know!’
‘Well, Captain Frere, it’s an accident,’ says Short, ‘and
can’t be helped now.’
‘An accident!’ roared Frere. ‘What business have you

For the Term of His Natural Life