Page 590 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

acted as he had done.
This is the same man, then, whom I injured at Port Ar-
thur. Seven years of ‘discipline’ don’t seem to have done him
much good. His sentence is ‘life’—a lifetime in this place!
Troke says that he was the terror of Port Arthur, and that
they sent him here when a ‘weeding’ of the prisoners was
made. He has been here four years. Poor wretch!
May 24th.—After prayers, I saw Dawes. He was confined
in the Old Gaol, and seven others were in the cell with him.
He came out at my request, and stood leaning against the
door-post. He was much changed from the man I remem-
ber. Seven years ago he was a stalwart, upright, handsome
man. He has become a beetle-browed, sullen, slouching
ruffian. His hair is grey, though he cannot be more than
forty years of age, and his frame has lost that just propor-
tion of parts which once made him almost graceful. His
face has also grown like other convict faces—how hideously
alike they all are!—and, save for his black eyes and a pecu-
liar trick he had of compressing his lips, I should not have
recognized him. How habitual sin and misery suffice to
brutalize ‘the human face divine’! I said but little, for the
other prisoners were listening, eager, as it appeared to me,
to witness my discomfiture. It is evident that Rufus Dawes
had been accustomed to meet the ministrations of my pre-
decessors with insolence. I spoke to him for a few minutes,
only saying how foolish it was to rebel against an authority
superior in strength to himself. He did not answer, and the
only emotion he evinced during the interview was when I
reminded him that we had met before. He shrugged one