EVE THE FOURTH.

STATEMENT OF ARTHUR ROWAN, WARDER ON BOARD THE CONVICT SHIP “IRONS,” CONCERNING A PRISONER WHO QUELLED A MUTINY AND WAS AFTERWARDS RELEASED.

By GEORGE MANVILLE FENN.

Dick Bird.

“GAMMON!” I said to him. “I’m too old a bird to be caught with that kind of chaff, my fine fellow. Try it on with the chaplain.”

He gave a kind of wince, just as if I’d pricked him with a pin; and as his eyes puckered up, he ran his thin hand overhis damp, white forehead, and made believe to pass his fingers through his hair.

But he didn’t, for it was cut as short as a Frenchman’s, and then he gave a bit of a sigh.

“Hah!” I said, “that’s very well done, Number Ninety-seven. Neat bit of play-acting. Pity you didn’t take to the stage; but it won’t do for me, so don’t try it on again. I’ve met too many of your kidney, since I’ve had to do with this sort of work.”

“I beg your pardon. I’m sorry I asked you, Mr. Rowan.”

“Then hold your tongue,” I said sourly. “Don’t make worse of it. I know you, my lad. You’re perfectly innocent, of course; the jury were a set of lunatics; and the judge who sentenced you to seven years was an old fool. You’re one of the good sort of young men, who wants to improve himself, and likes reading and writing and chucking texts about.”

He stood there before me with his face working, and that made me worse than ever; for I believe I hated that young fellow then for being so patient and good-looking, and for never giving me a bit of trouble since he’d been on board.

Perhaps it was temper, too, consequent on my liver being out of order, for the heat down south was terrible, and I’d wished myself back in England over and over again.

It was an unlucky time for him to ask me to be breaking the rules and supplying him with books and paper, and I flew out at him and let him have a bit of my mind, as a lesson to keep him quiet and to check some more of the gang, for we had about as ugly a lot taking out there to Sydney, as ever left England—for the benefit of their country, and to be inflicted upon the colonists of New South Wales.

“Perhaps you’re sorry for me,” I went on,like the idiot I was, “and would like to convert me, and feel ready to tell me, how much better it would be for me if I was a convict in irons, how it would give me time to think of my sinful ways. But it won’t do, Ninety-seven. Arthur Rowan knows your sort by heart, so no more humbug with me.”

“Serve yer right,” said one of the gang, who had been looking on—an ugly ruffian of a fellow, named Bird, who was going out for fourteen years for housebreaking. “You’re always on the pious lay. I told yer it wouldn’t do. Give it him again, sir. He’s a reg’lar snivelling humbug, that’s what he is.”

“Keep your tongue between your teeth,” I said sharply, as I fixed my gentleman with my eye. “Who spoke to you?”

He gave his lips a slap, and stared at me as hard as I stared at him, giving me a nasty ugly look which seemed to say, “Oh! if I had the chance!” But I looked him down,and his thick eyelids went slowly over his vicious eyes, as he turned away; and after an order or two I went out and along the tower deck to where the sentry stood on duty, one of the several always ready with loaded musket and fixed bayonet, and he laughed at me.

“Been giving it to ’em hot?”

“Yes,” I said, “it makes me sick when I get hold of a sanctimonious humbug pretending to be so innocent and good. That’s the worst kind of black I know.”

“They’re a nice lot.”

“Deal you know about it,” I growled.

“Don’t be huffy, mate,” he said.

“Enough to make any man huffy. It’s all very well for you swaddies just idling on sentry-go, but you’re too big to have much to do with the convicts. It would be degrading the scarlet cloth, but it isn’t too hard for us warder guards. Wish I’d taken tocrossing sweeping, or some other respectable profession before I took to looking after gaol sweepings.”

“Look here, mate,” he said, “you go and get forward on deck where the wind blows, and have a quiet pipe. You’re out of sorts.”

If he had spoken sharply to me, I should have given him back as good as he gave, but this disarmed me.

“Yes, I am out of sorts,” I said. “Thank ye, I will the moment I’m off duty. Nothing like a pipe!”

You see it was like this. I was at the Foreland, and doing pretty well, when, more for the sake of the change than anything, I volunteered for Australia, so as to see a little of the world for one thing, but more especially because I’d had a sort of a quarrel with my young lady.

It was a bit of jealousy, and we parted, when a word of explanation would have setall right; but that word wasn’t spoken, till the day before we were to sail with a heavy batch of convicts. Then it was spoken when it was too late, and I couldn’t back out. However, we made it up, swore we’d be true, and broke a ring and then said good-bye.

This didn’t improve my temper, which never was one of the best, and when I tell you that we had too deal with one of the most troublesome, savage lot of scoundrels ever shipped off, rough weather, a deal of illness, and my liver—the doctor said it was going all wrong—you will not be surprised at my temper getting a bit worse.

I never was a favorite with convicts at the Foreland. I was not harsh or brutal to them, but there were certain rules, laid down by the authorities, for the men to follow out, and I never would let them scamp anything.

Then, I never made friends with any of them. If they were obedient and did their work, and kept themselves and their cells clean, they never had a word from me; and I’ll swear, that, whenever a man was really out of sorts and not bad enough to go into the infirmary, I always made it easy for him. But I was too strict an officer for the convicts to like.

Of course I pretty well knew everyone’s history, and, as I’ve told you, I took quite a dislike to young Nick.

Prejudice? Well, of course it was. “Young Nick,” I said to myself, “nice son of his father, Old Nick; and if the law hadn’t nicked him, he’d have run his course as a pickpocket, and grown into a perfect specimen of the swell-mobsman.”

That was on one of my bilious days. For I had not seemed to get over the knocking about and sea-sickness of the first week.

Then, as we got further south into the hot waters, the living on board didn’t agree with me. You see that’s a good many years ago, before the days of preserved meat and vegetables; and salt beef—or horse—and ancient pork out of a pickle-tub, with pease pudding, constituted all the delicacies of our season, except the flinty biscuit and salt butter, which never came welcome to a man, who dearly loved a hot roll and a bit of best fresh.

Of course, you know I’m talking of the days when convicts were sent out to Botany Bay, as they call it, before the Suez Canal and the great steamers made a journey to the Antipodes a pleasure trip.

Our journey was in a big transport—a three-masted, full-rigged ship, fitted up with quarters for the “lags,” as they call ’em; a good strong warder guard; and a company of Her Majesty’s Noughty Noughth,not armed with Martini-Henry rifles, but with the old-fashioned Brown Bess musket muzzle-loaders, you know, with bright ramrods, and each man carrying so many rounds of ball cartridge, that he had to bite, and a little pouch at his waist, to hold so many big percussion caps.

Our voyage was round by the Cape, and then down south, to catch the great currents and favorable winds; and, much sail as our ship carried, the rate at which we went was a regular crawl, giving plenty of time for the men to get troublesome and discontented, with the consequence that a couple of them were flogged.

Bird—“Gaol Bird,” as I called him, though his name was Richard—Dick—Pretty Dick, eh?—he was one; and you should have seen his round, close-cropped bullet-head, and big jaw.

If an artist had come to me and said,“Do you know of a man whom I could sketch as a specimen of a regular rogue?” I shouldn’t have hesitated for a moment—“Dick Bird” I should have said; “only, if you do draw him, have him chained up, and then don’t go too near, as he might knock you down and jump on you, to finish you, with his heavy boots.”

I suppose, Dick got it into his head, that I reported him for his promotion and stripes; and while his back was getting well, he used to smile at me in a queer sort of way, as if the cat had got into his nature, as well as across his back.

There were several little things, that ought to have made me see that a storm was brewing; but it’s a way with human nature to imagine trouble and ruin, where there’s none, and to be very blind where there is. ’Tis our manner to, I suppose, and has to do with the way we were made.

I saw nothing, my mates saw nothing. We were used to convicts, and we did our duty, seeing that the men did their work, and taking pretty good care that their irons were all right, and that our locks and bolts were well shot home.

Storms break out pretty suddenly down in the South, where there’s plenty of room for the winds to work, and one terrible storm broke out all at once, when we were about a hundred miles from Sydney.

It was one evening after a fearfully hot day, that the orders were given, for the men in our charge to be had out on deck, for the doctor had reported that he would not be answerable for the men’s health if they were kept so much down in their quarters, which were suffocating at times.

So the soldiers were called out, and planted here and there with fixed bayonets;our fellows were on duty, of course, and the convicts were kept moving about on the deck, while the ports were thrown open below and everything done to ventilate the place.

I’d been seeing to this with some help, and was very glad to get on deck again, to run my eye over the men; and I hadn’t been up five minutes, before I had one of the convicts looking at me in a curious way.

It was Ninety-seven, and he passed on to come round again after a few minutes, and look at me again in an imploring sort of fashion.

This happened four times, and being in a better temper that evening, I took a step or two forward, as he came round the fifth time, and spoke to him.

“What is it, my lad?” I said. “Want a quid of tobacco?”

“I want to speak to you, Mr. Rowan,” he said in a hoarse whisper.

“Yes,” I said, “you always did. You were born with too much tongue, Nick.”

“You don’t believe in me, Mr. Rowan, sir,” he said; “but, for God’s sake, let me speak to you for a few moments.”

“What, to beg, or to tell me some cock-and-bull story, eh?”

“No, sir, it’s life and death to us. It is indeed, sir. For God’s sake, let me speak to you.”

The man’s way was so earnest, that his words made an impression on me, but I only said sternly,

“Go on with your walk, my lad. You’ll be ordered below directly.”

He uttered a deep sigh, and continued his march, with his head down, but as he came round again I said sharply,

“Ninety-seven!”

He gave quite a jump at this, and followed me below, while I caught sight of Bird watching us as he went by.

“For God’s sake let me speak to you.”

“Now, what is it?” I said sharply. “What do you want?”

“You to give warning and be prepared.”

“What for?”

“There’s a plot hatching,” he whispered; “the convicts are going to rise, seize the ship, and take her to some uninhabited part, where they can all land and escape.”

“Indeed!” I said, with a chuckle; “and how are they going to manage it? I thought you were all pretty safe.”

“I don’t know, sir,” he said, “but it is a fact; and if you don’t mind there’ll be murder done.”

“Who will they murder first—you for telling tales?”

“I suppose so, sir,” he said in a low, despondent way. “I was afraid of that, but I felt that I must speak.”

“Oh, did you?” I said surlily; “and pray who’s at the head of the mutiny, and when is it to come off?”

“To-night, I think, sir.”

“Oh, to-night, eh?” I said. “Who’s at the head of it?”

Nick was silent.

“Well,” I said again, “who’s at the head of it?”

“I can’t tell you, sir.”

“Don’t you know?”

He nodded.

“Well, then, who is it?”

“I cannot tell you.”

“No, of course you can’t,” I said contemptuously, “because it’s all one of your hatched-up plans to curry favour.”

“I swear to you it is the truth, sir,” he whispered. “I heard them talking it over.”

“Heard who talking it over?” I said sharply, but he was silent again.

“Be off on deck!” I cried roughly, and he turned upon me, as if he were going to throw himself on his knees.

“What can I say, Mr. Rowan, to make you believe me?”

“Tell me who are the ringleaders.”

“I know——” he stopped short. “I can’t tell you, sir. I will not betray them. I only tell you, to be on the watch to put the rising down.”

“Don’t you be afraid about that,” I said, with a laugh. “Now go on deck, Nick Ninety-seven. You always were a sneak and a humbug. It’s all a flam, and I shall be glad to get to Sydney, if it’s only to see your back.”

He went on deck, and I walked to one of my brother officers, a sturdy fellow named Fraser.

“Here,” I said, “Ninety-seven tells me the lags are going to rise, seize the ship, and carry her off to an uninhabited island, to play Robinson Crusoe.”

“Young Nick’s a humbug and a sneak,”says my mate. “They’ll have to look sharp then, for we shall be at Sydney to-morrow before this time.”

“Then you don’t think there’s anything in it?”

“Bah! Are they going to try it on now on deck, and half a company of swaddies facing them?”

“Likely!”

“Down below then, when they’re all locked up?”

“Not likely that.”

“It’s all gammon, mate,” he cried. “Flam to get in favour.”

“What I told him,” I said. “Then you wouldn’t report it?”

“I would if I wanted to be snubbed,” said my brother officer, with a grin. “Ha! there goes the order for down below, and they haven’t riz, mate. They’ll be behind the bars in five minutes. Not much flurry to-night.”

As he spoke, a little squad of soldiers marched down and formed up on either side of the gate, and the convicts came down singly and went through till all were in; then the gate was shut and locked, and all was safe for the night.

“No,” I said, in a whisper; “there’ll be no rising.”

“Not till to-morrow morning, mate, when it’s time to get up.”

As Fraser—a man I’d known for years, as one who thoroughly understood convicts—thought as I did, I felt I was right about Nick’s warning, and that it would be folly to go troubling those in authority over us; so I had my meal, and at nine o’clock—one bell, as they call it on board—I went on duty with two more; and it was only then, as I stood in the main decks, looking about me by the light of the swinging lanterns, that I thought of Ninety-seven again, and theimpossibility of the men making any attempt.

For there they all were safely locked up in irons; we were on duty, three of us—Fraser, me, and another—well armed; and only a few yards off there were the sentries with fixed bayonets, and fifty or a hundred armed men ready to be summoned, at the slightest alarm.

“All rubbish,” I said to myself; and then it all passed out of my mind again.

It was very hot indeed that night, and all was wonderfully still, when, as I marched slowly to and fro, with my keys in my belt, I began thinking of home and a certain person, and whether it wouldn’t be wise to stay out there and ask her to join me, when, all at once, there was a stifled sort of cry, right in forward amongst the men’s hammocks, and this was repeated again and again, as if someone was in pain.

Then came a rustling and a low whispering,and, without recalling Nick and his warning, I walked up to the grated door.

“What’s up there?” I said severely.

“Don’t quite know, sir,” said a man, drowsily. “Someone talking in his sleep, I think.”

Then the smothered cries came again.

“Do you hear there?” I said. “What’s the matter?”

A voice answered from far in:—“Someone ill here, sir; Number Seventy, I think.”

“Oh, doctor! doctor!” came feebly, from out of the darkness.

I turned away, to get a lighted lantern and speak to the two men on duty with me.

“It’s that bad soup they had to-day,” I growled; “I knew it wasn’t fit.”

“Shall I fetch the doctor?” said Fraser.

“Not yet,” I said. “He wouldn’t like to be roused out for nothing. I’ll go in and see.”

We warders were so strong, in the beliefof our own power, that I thought nothing of going in there with my lantern amongst that crowd of half savage, half human beasts; and as the door was unlocked, I left my two fellow warders on guard and went right in, between the two rows of hammocks, towards where the moaning arose.

“Here, what’s the matter,” I said. “Who is it?”

I have a vivid recollection of the dim scene, as I asked that question. The darkness all around, save where the faint light of my lantern shone, showing the rows of hammocks hanging from the beams of the deck above, the fierce countenances gleaming out for a moment and the light flashing from their eyes, where all was silent—a peculiar hushed silence, I remember now, as a hoarse, rasping voice came from a few feet away from me.

“Oh! Mr. Rowan, sir, it’s me—Seventy, sir—Bird, sir—I’m dying, sir—poison, sir.”

“Here, let’s look at you,” I said. “Don’t make that row, man.”

“Haggony, sir—Doctor, sir—an—oh—make it hot!”

“Hah! You dog!”

I tried to say more, but the words were choked in my throat, for when, lantern in hand, I bent over the convulsed face, as its owner writhed heavily in his hammock, two great sinewy hands seized me by the throat, I was twisted as it were down upon the deck, and Bird wrenched himself round over me, saying in a hoarse voice to drown my struggles and gurgling attempts to cry for help,

“Can’t help kicking, sir. It’s haggony! but I’m a bit better, sir, thank ye, sir. No, sir, I don’t want the doctor, sir.”

All this and more, repeated, as if in mockery over my distorted face, as the ruffian gripped my throat with all his force, while above the singing in my ears and his words,I could hear that something was going on at the door where I had left my two fellow warders, but what I could not tell.

All I knew was, that I tried hard to throw the ruffian off my chest as he knelt upon me, that my senses were departing fast, that Bird would be hung for my murder, and that I was dying of strangulation.

Then, as if it were part of a dream, I saw the men racing out to attack and murder the sentries, and make the vessel their own.

“All through my neglect,” I thought, as there were a thousand lights dancing before my eyes; and then, almost at my last, there was a violent concussion, a savage snarl, a cessation of the compression at my throat, and a tremendous struggle going on upon me in the dark.

“Two great sinewy hands seized me by the throat.”

“Get hold on him, some of you,” came to my singing ears in a fierce growl, as the struggle went on. “Quick! D’yer hear?We shall have ’em all at us directly. Now then. Quick! Youwillhave it, then.”

There was a dull thud and then a groan, followed by a couple of shots outside, one following the other; shots which even then, half dead as I was, gave me a sensation of relief, for I knew they had been fired by the first sentry and the next to spread the alarm.

Almost at the same moment, I felt a warm gush of something flooding my face and neck, and with a moan a man fell back across me, as I lay listening to the rush of feet. Then came loudly, “Now for it, lads!”

There was another rush, and, sounding distant and strange now, as I lay half suffocated, I heard a fierce yelling, and above it in commanding tones,

“Halt! Surrender!”

But the rushing and yelling continued; there was the sound of blows, and then twiceI heard loudly the order “Fire!” followed by a rattling volley; shrieks and groans; the scuffling rush of bare feet, and the clink of irons; and it seemed to me, that the convicts were running back to their hammocks.

Then all seemed to be blank till I was awakened by the glare of lanterns in my eyes, and someone said,

“Here’s Arthur Rowan, sir.”

“Dead?” said a voice, which I knew to be that of one of the officers.

I answered the question myself in a husky voice, with the word seeming to tear its way out of my throat.

“No.”

“Thank God, my lad! We thought they’d done for you.”

I got a sight now of glittering bayonets, and through the foul powder smoke, I caught glimpses of the faces of convicts looking over the sides of their hammocks.

“Turn that man over,” said the same voice I had heard before, as two men took charge of me. “Dead, I think. Who is it?”

“Ninety-seven,” said one of the warders, and it seemed to be Fraser.

“Oh! Did you stab him, Rowan?”

“No, sir,” I said feebly.

“Humph! someone has. Twice. Look sharp, my lads, or he’ll bleed to death. To the doctor.”

As fortune had it, I was carried out, and laid down on the deck, just as the doctor rose, from where he had been on one knee by a figure at my side.

“Carry him out, my lads; he’s past my help. One of you shot pretty truly.”

I looked beside me, and caught a glimpse of the dead man. It was Dick Bird, shot dead as he tried to escape.

“Now you,” said the doctor. “Where’s all this blood from?”

“Not mine,” I whispered, half strangled.

“Humph! Whose then? One more.”

This was as another man was carried along, and laid on my other side.

“Eh?” said the doctor. “Stabbed, eh? How was this?”

“Number Seventy, sir—Bird—knifed him. It was a dodge,” said Fraser.

“Dodge, eh?” said the doctor, whose hands were busy with tourniquets and bandages. “Rum sort of dodge! What do you mean?”

“The men had planned to rise, sir, and that Bird was the ringleader.

“He shammed ill, and poor Rowan went to help him, to see what was wrong before calling you. Then Bird caught him by the throat and was strangling him, when this poor fellow, Ninety-seven—Nick—out here for picking pockets, went to Rowan’s help. He had warned us just before dark, but we thought it a flam; and now, when he triedto save my mate, Bird turned upon him and stabbed him.”

“And got his deserts the next moment, eh?” said the doctor, quietly, as he tied his bandages tightly. “Well, Master Ninety-seven has got two terrible stabs, but we must save Ninety-seven’s life. Pickpocket, eh? Not he. The man’s a hero.”

I did not hear any more then, for everything swam round me mistily—faces, bayonets, officers, epaulets—and when I opened my eyes to see clearly, I was lying in a bed in Sydney Infirmary, and the first question, I asked of the hospital nurse, was,

“Is Ninety-seven dead?”

“No. There he lies across the ward. The doctor says he’ll get well.”

I’d had quite a touch of fever and been queer for days, but from that hour I rapidly got well, though for many months my voice was as good as gone.

It was in April, when I left the hospital without seeing Nick. He’d been taken away to the convict infirmary, and it was in December that I saw him again.

In the meantime, while I lay in hospital, I had heard from Fraser, my mate, all I didn’t know about the men getting out after knocking down and trampling on him and the other; but the sentries had fired, and at the alarm the guard turned out, and as the men refused to surrender, fired twice and drove them back.

I said that my voice was as good as gone, but it was strong enough for me to report all I knew, to those who took my evidence at my bedside; and I can tell you, I laid it on pretty thick over poor Nick, for I was mad with myself for doubting the poor fellow, who nearly lost his life in trying to save that of one, who had behaved to him like a brute.

The consequence was, that Ninety-seven was sent up the country, as what they used to call an assigned servant, those being well-behaved men, to whom a chance was given to redeem the past.

“Went up the country in a bullock wagon.”

Three days before Christmas, I, Arthur Rowan, having leave of absence, went up the country in a bullock wagon, pretty well laden with Christmas cheer for a present, though the best present of all I was carrying in my breast.

How I did laugh as I went up, for I felt real happy, and it did seem so comic.

Here it was just upon Christmas, and me with the plums and peel and things for apudding, while the sun shone down so hot, I was nearly cooked meat myself, when on Christmas Eve I walked up to the shingle and bark squatter’s house, all amongst the gum and ti-trees.

There was a laughing jackass on the ridge, a tame ’un, and a great lame kangaroo, and a big long-legged emu stalked about along with the chickens, as I removed the rail fence, where the man, who drove me, stopped to hitch on his bullocks.

But I could see no more for staring at a tall, manly-looking brown fellow in shirt and trousers, though wearing his shirt so open, that I could see a great red scar at the side of his neck.

“Well, Nick, my lad,” I said in my husky voice.

“Mr. Rowan,” he cried, and he quite reeled. “Don’t say I’m to go back to the prison.”

“But I do say it, my lad,” I cried, “and at once. Leastwise, we’ll keep Christmas first. I’ve brought some tackle in the dray.”

He didn’t answer me, but I heard him groan,

“And I was so happy here.”

“Happier than at home, dear lad?” I said.

“What? Home?”

“Ay, and sorry I shall be to see you go, though I wouldn’t believe you once.”

“Then you’ve brought me news?”

“Yes, lad, this,” I cried, slapping a blue paper into his hand. “They let me bring it; me, the man whose life you saved.”

He stared at me, as if he could not hear a word, and his face looked blank and strange.

“Nick, lad, don’t you hear me? I tell you, it’s a free pardon—in the Queen’s name, though, hang me! if I believe you did that wrong.”

“A pardon!” he cried, “for me!” and he tore the paper open and tried to read; then I saw him stagger, but he recovered himself, sank down on his knees, and held the paper to his lips.

“Thank God!” he gasped; and then in a wild, hysterical voice—

“Nan, Nan, my darling! At last—at last!”

Arthur Rowan.

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