Page 395 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

rice Frere the correct one after all, and were these convict
monsters gifted with unnatural powers of endurance, only
to be subdued and tamed by unnatural and inhuman pun-
ishments of lash and chain? Her fancies growing amid the
fast gathering gloom, she shuddered as she guessed to what
extremities of evil might such men proceed did an oppor-
tunity ever come to them to retaliate upon their gaolers.
Perhaps beneath each mask of servility and sullen fear that
was the ordinary prison face, lay hid a courage and a despair
as mighty as that which sustained those ten poor wander-
ers over the Pacific Ocean. Maurice had told her that these
people had their secret signs, their secret language. She
had just seen a specimen of the skill with which this very
Rex—still bent upon escape—could send a hidden message
to his friends beneath the eyes of his gaolers. What if the
whole island was but one smouldering volcano of revolt and
murder—the whole convict population but one incarnated
conspiracy, bound together by crime and suffering! Terrible
to think of— yet not impossible.
Oh, how strangely must the world have been civilized,
that this most lovely corner of it must needs be set apart as
a place of banishment for the monsters that civilization had
brought forth and bred! She cast her eyes around, and all
beauty seemed blotted out from the scene before her. The
graceful foliage melting into indistinctness in the gathering
twilight, appeared to her horrible and treacherous. The river
seemed to flow sluggishly, as though thickened with blood
and tears. The shadow of the trees seemed to hold lurking
shapes of cruelty and danger. Even the whispering breeze

For the Term of His Natural Life