Page 608 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

CHAPTER VI. IN

WHICH THE CHAPLAIN

IS TAKEN ILL.

hough the house of the Commandant of Norfolk Island
Twas comfortable and well furnished, and though, of ne-
cessity, all that was most hideous in the ‘discipline’ of the
place was hidden, the loathing with which Sylvia had ap-
proached the last and most dreaded abiding place of the
elaborate convict system, under which it had been her mis-
fortune to live, had not decreased. The sights and sounds of
pain and punishment surrounded her. She could not look
out of her windows without a shudder. She dreaded each
evening when her husband returned, lest he should blurt
out some new atrocity. She feared to ask him in the morn-
ing whither he was going, lest he should thrill her with the
announcement of some fresh punishment.
‘I wish, Maurice, we had never come here,’ said she, pite-
ously, when he recounted to her the scene of the gaol-gang.
‘These unhappy men will do you some frightful injury one
of these days.’
‘Stuff!’ said her husband. ‘They’ve not the courage. I’d
take the best man among them, and dare him to touch me.’
‘I cannot think how you like to witness so much misery

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