Page 535 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

opening, took the shape of an avenging phantom, with arms
upraised to warn him back. The naturalist, the explorer, or
the shipwrecked seaman would have found nothing fright-
ful in this exhibition of the harmless life of the Australian
ocean. But the convict’s guilty conscience, long suppressed
and derided, asserted itself in this hour when it was alone
with Nature and Night. The bitter intellectual power which
had so long supported him succumbed beneath imagina-
tion—the unconscious religion of the soul. If ever he was
nigh repentance it was then. Phantoms of his past crimes
gibbered at him, and covering his eyes with his hands, he
fell shuddering upon his knees. The brand, loosening from
his grasp, dropped into the gulf, and was extinguished with
a hissing noise. As if the sound had called up some spirit
that lurked below, a whisper ran through the cavern.
‘John Rex!’ The hair on the convict’s flesh stood up, and
he cowered to the earth.
‘John Rex?’
It was a human voice! Whether of friend or enemy he
did not pause to think. His terror over-mastered all other
considerations.
‘Here! here!’ he cried, and sprang to the opening of the
vault.
Arrived at the foot of the cliff, Blunt and Staples found
themselves in almost complete darkness, for the light of the
mysterious fire, which had hitherto guided them, had nec-
essarily disappeared. Calm as was the night, and still as was
the ocean, the sea yet ran with silent but dangerous strength
through the channel which led to the Blow-hole; and Blunt,

For the Term of His Natural Life