Page 569 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

to England with a plausible story of shipwreck, and shall
doubtless be received with open arms by the dear moth-
er from whom I have been so long parted. Richard Devine
shall have his own again.’
To be rid of her was not so easy. Twice he tried to escape
from his thraldom, and was twice brought back. ‘I have
bought you, John,’ his partner had laughed, ‘and you don’t
get away from me. Surely you can be content with these
comforts. You were content with less once. I am not so ugly
and repulsive, am I?’
‘I am home-sick,’ John Carr retorted. ‘Let us go to Eng-
land, Sarah.’
She tapped her strong white fingers sharply on the table.
‘Go to England? No, no. That is what you would like to do.
You would be master there. You would take my money, and
leave me to starve. I know you, Jack. We stop here, dear.
Here, where I can hand you over to the first trooper as an
escaped convict if you are not kind to me.’
‘She-devil!’
‘Oh, I don’t mind your abuse. Abuse me if you like, Jack.
Beat me if you will, but don’t leave me, or it will be worse
for you.’
‘You are a strange woman!’ he cried, in sudden petulant
admiration.
‘To love such a villain? I don’t know that. I love you be-
cause you are a villain. A better man would be wearisome
to such as I am.’
‘I wish to Heaven I’d never left Port Arthur. Better there
than this dog’s life.’

For the Term of His Natural Life