Page 485 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

Frere stared at Blunt, who stared at the window. There
was—so the instinct of the magistrate told him—some
strange project afoot. Yet that common sense which so of-
ten misleads us, urged that it was quite natural Sarah should
employ whaling vessels to increase her trade. Granted that
there was nothing wrong about her obtaining the business,
there was nothing strange about her owning a couple of
whaling vessels. There were people in Sydney, of no better
origin, who owned half-a-dozen. ‘Oh,’ said he. ‘And when
do you start?’
‘I’m expecting to get the word every day,’ returned Blunt,
apparently relieved, ‘and I thought I’d just come and see
you first, in case of anything falling in.’ Frere played with
a pen-knife on the table in silence for a while, allowing it
to fall through his fingers with a series of sharp clicks, and
then he said, ‘Where does she get the money from?’
‘Blest if I know!’ said Blunt, in unaffected simplicity.
‘That’s beyond me. She says she saved it. But that’s all my
eye, you know.’
‘You don’t know anything about it, then?’ cried Frere,
suddenly fierce.
‘No, not I.’
‘Because, if there’s any game on, she’d better take care,’
he cried, relapsing, in his excitement, into the convict ver-
nacular. ‘She knows me. Tell her that I’ve got my eyes on her.
Let her remember her bargain. If she runs any rigs on me,
let her take care.’ In his suspicious wrath he so savagely and
unwarily struck downwards with the open pen-knife that it
shut upon his fingers, and cut him to the bone.

For the Term of His Natural Life