Title: Tales of the Early Days
Author: Price Warung
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Language: English
Date first posted: September 2006
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Tales of the Early Days
Price Warung
Contents.
Captain Maconochie's "Bounty For Crime"
Secret Society of the Ring
I. The Convening of the Ring
II. The Session of Denunciation
III. The Conclave of Doom
IV. The Falling of the Doom
In The Granary
Parson Ford's Confessional
The Heart-Breaking of Anstey's Bess
The Amour of Constable Crake
The Pegging-Out of Overseer Franke
I. The Preliminaries
II. The Completion of the Deed
At Burford's Panorama
CAPTAIN MACONOCHIE'S "BOUNTY FOR CRIME."
Chapter I.
THE most remarkable experiment, all things considered, ever made
with the noble purpose of reforming criminals was Captain Maconochie's
attempt to adapt his "mark" system to the monstrous conditions of
penal life at Norfolk Island. And being in principle humane, and in
method an arraignment of all notions current in British and Colonial
officialdom, it met with precisely that degree of success which was
prophesied for it by Mr.--not then "Sir"--E. Deas-Thomson, Colonial
Secretary of New South Wales.
"Speaking, your Excellency," said that venerable if somewhat
pragmatical gentleman to Governor Sir George Gipps, "from a lengthened
experience of--h'm!--convict disciplinary methods, I have--ah!--no
hope that Captain Maconochie's system will achieve the least good. It
must fail, sir!"
And fail it did. To the undisguised delight of the Colonial
Secretary's Office, Sydney, and the Deputy Commissariat-General's
Departments of Sydney and Norfolk Island, it failed. You see, the
first maxim of the Captain was the reformation of the criminal, while
almost every other person connected with the System, from Lord John
Russell to the meanest scourger on the Island or at Port Arthur,
thought the criminal was a mere thing to be locked up, and fettered,
and flogged into purity of life and integrity of conduct.
Now, Maconochie's success would have meant the System's
condemnation. And his failure meant that the System was right and its
administrators were wise. Therefore the failure was only to be
expected. Men do not care about being proved wrong, even if it could
be shown that a few dozen souls were saved in the process of
correction.
For instance, Mr. Assistant-Deputy-Commissary-General Shanks would
have had to confess himself egregiously in error had Convict Tobias
Tracey, pership John, third trip, kept continuously on the path of
rectitude which Captain Maconochie marked out for him. And that was
not to be thought of. Convict Tracey had to fall once more in the
slough of illdoing in order to prove A. D. C. G. Shanks right.
To enable you to understand how terrible was that fall we must
measure the height which he had attained. Step by step, climbing
upwards, now taking firm foothold on a dead sin, now clutching such
aid as came from the opportunity to do a kindly service to a brother-
felon; again slipping back into the pit of corruption because a
messmate jeered at him; yet again striving against the tremendous
alliance of the forces of evil, till he gained a new standing-place on
the up-track--this was the history of Tracey during 1840, and the
early part of 1841. In the later part of '41 he fell--thanks to A. D.
C. G. Shanks--irretrievably. In the early months of '41, he had first
come under the notice of the Captain-Superintendent, and had begun to
aspire towards a manlier existence. During the interval between those
first tentative strugglings to mount, and that last dreadful fall, his
life was epic in its storms and its battles, its victories and its
defeats.
Chapter II.
Look at his record.
His original conviction was on the 8th September, 1831, at a London
gaol delivery. His crime was burglary, and his sentence,
transportation for life.
His sojourn in the hulk obtained for him the distinction of "a bad
report," and the voyage out to Sydney gave him still higher rank in
the aristocracy of vice. "He was doomed," the Surgeon-Superintendent
of the John (third trip) told him one day in mid-ocean, "to become a
Black Norfolker as sure as Fate."
And Fate is unerring, as every one knows. Two years after landing in
Sydney, he was sentenced by the Supreme Court for highway robbery and
housebreaking. Once more his time was life, with the added distinction
of irons--irons always--sleeping, waking, at work and at his meals--
irons to be knocked off only if he mounted the scaffold, or on freedom
coming to him otherway--say, through some kindly shot or kindlier
blow. Freedom by process of servitude would never come to him. He was
destined by Nature as a Retrograde.
Chaplain Taylor spoke of his "Retrogrades" to Governor Gipps.
"Your 'Retrogrades'? What are they?"
"Men who are further away from freedom each succeeding day they are
on the Island--who are never nearer freedom than when they set foot
here!"
"But, Mr. Taylor, in the nature of the case such characters must be
few?" rejoined his Excellency.
"Few, your Excellency? Sixty out of each hundred!"
Now, at the precise moment the Superintendent's clerk at the Island
gave a receipt to the master of the Governor Phillip, from Sydney, for
the body of Tobias Tracey, No. 33149, per John (3), that hardened
villain might have expected release in twenty-five years, if the devil
and the System would only allow him to keep his hands from picking and
stealing, and breaking-in stores and warders' heads. Being
predestined, however, to the ranks of the Retrogrades, within twenty-
four hours of his arrival he was no nearer than thirty years to his
freedom. He had knocked a gaol-turnkey down.
* * * * *
In 1835 his "police history" was extended by five offences of the
serious order. "Light offences" were invariably at this period, and
till the arrival of Maconochie, sentenced "on view." "On view"
punishments--that is, without trial--are supposed to have numbered,
during 1833-4-5-6-7-8, between 8000 and 9000. They were never
recorded; formal trials only were recorded; and these last during the
years specified totalled 2483, and the awful mutiny year calendar was
embraced in this sum. Of these trials Tracey was responsible, in 1835,
for five.
In 1836 he was credited with four. The circumstance that he was
ironed in gaol for the major part of this year accounted for the
diminution of 20 per cent. in the number of his heavy offences. When a
felon was double--ironed in a 6 x 4 cell, when his right hand was
manacled to a staple in the wall, when he saw a human face four times
daily for ten seconds each time, it cannot be said that his
opportunities for outraging the peace of the realm were numerous.
Still, he enlarged his record by four entries.
In 1837 they varied his gaol privileges by flogging him, and the
scourging-ground was the best place possible for adorning a man's
record. He had only to swear at the superintending officer to be
credited with another crime; and if, also, he struck the honourable
scourger with his fist or head, or bestowed upon that official a
sadly-needed kick, well, there was a second offence on the same day.
Consequently, Mr. Tracey, who was in gaol from January to 7th March,
was in gaol again from 3rd April "till further orders." In June and
July he was in gaol, but in September he must have been out of gaol,
for he absconded. He was arrested three-quarters of an hour afterwards
at the gate of the Superintendent's quarters--said he had never been
out of the gaol precincts--nevertheless, was presented with 300 lashes
in one dose. And from 14th October onwards to the end of the year he
was in gaol again, his record for the year being seven crimes.
In 1838 a variation in policy took place once more. He added no more
than five offences to his history, but one of these earned him 100
lashes, and another four months in the sweet seclusion of his iron-
cells--and the others? Each won for him a long term of "solitary."
The second Earl of Limerick, then plain Mr. Pery, and a humble
"Superintendent of Agriculture" on the Island, spent a brief space in
one of the same solitary cells. He stayed till it was a question of
his going mad, or going out. He went out, and found that he had been
secluded 17 minutes! Tracey had three terms--14, 14, and 20. Minutes?
No--days!
Chapter III.
As for Tracey's 1839 record, here it is as full as the books give it.
There are no "sentences on view" included, and he must have had his
full share of them. You will not fail to notice the dreadfully heinous
character of the recorded crimes.
DATE. OFFENCE. PUNISHMENT.
1839.
Jan. 8. Loitering on the road to and from his work. To sleep in gaol one night.
Feb. 13. Going to the hospital twice this day under false pretences,
and incorrigible. To gaol until further orders.
13. March Absent without leave and present at a fight. To sleep in
gaol one night.
18. March Assaulting and striking a fellow-prisoner. Handcuffs all day.
22. March Refusing to join his gang when ordered by overseer. Two
days in gaol.
23. March Going to hospital without sufficient cause. One month in gaol.
25. April Attending hospital on false pretences. 25 lashes.
10. April Attending hospital and subsequently refusing to work.
Gaol, on bread and water, 13. till he goes to work.
May 4. Refusing to work. 14 days' gaol, bread and water.
May 21. Neglect of work. Reprimanded conditionally. May 27. Absconding
with three others, breaking open and entering the dwelling of Coxswain
Segsworth, putting the inmates in fear, and resisting and wounding
several constables and others to apprehend him. 300 lashes.
June 10. Refusing to work. 50 lashes and bread and water till he goes
to work.
June 14. Refusing to work. Gaol, on bread and water, as before stated.
June 26. Refusing to work. To receive only half ration of animal food.
Aug. 8. Refusing to work. 50 lashes and bread and water till he goes
to work.
1839.
Sept. 4. Going to hospital on false pretences. 25 lashes and bread and
water till he goes to work.
Oct. 9. Refusing to work. Reprimanded conditionally.
Nov. 9. Making noise in gaol. Three days' solitary confinement on
bread and water.
Nov. 29. Refusing to go to work, stating he was not able. Bread and
water till he is able.
At the end of 1839, with a double-life conviction over him, Tobias
was exactly 53 years distant from freedom. But in February of the
succeeding year Captain Maconochie arrived, and, to the amazement of
the well--informed officers of the System as before established,
almost immediately chose that prime rascal by the John (3) for special
experiment. As soon as the new Super. was possessed of Tobias Tracey's
police record, he ordered the man's irons to be struck off. Now, Major
Bunbury, the previous commandant, had never dared approach Tobias
except under the escort of two soldiers.
But the amazement of the staff was nothing to the surprise of the
notorious fellow himself.
"Lord! what a fool the new 'un is if he thinks as he's got a softy to
deal wi'." Thus he laughed with a coarse mockery, as he passed into
the Super.'s presence.
The Superintendent's tall and erect form filled the doorway of the
Grass Hut where he was holding a preliminary inspection. In a few
weeks he would turn the hut into a school and a Catholic chapel, but
at present he proposed to use it as a court-house. "Why?" The old
officials asked the question--and cackled hilariously when they
received the answer. So that prisoners for trial, who might have been
in the local court before, might not be unpleasantly reminded of their
past misdeeds! "I want to start every man with a clean sheet as far as
possible." Laugh! Of course they laughed.
The Overseer in temporary charge of Convict Tracey saluted, and
presented that ruffian. "Transport Tracey, Tobias. No. 33149, y'r
Honour--bad k'racter--3 B's,1 sir--suspected--"
"Of unnatural crimes--one murder--three burglaries--an' a heap
t'other things, Super.--same ol' list," concluded the convict himself.
"One o' th' worst men on th' Island, y'r Honour, now they've turned
orf Westwood. There ain't a---crime on the list, Super., that I ain't
committed, 'cept those I'm goin' to commit. An' now yer know all, ol'
cove! Give us my five hunderd quick an' 'a done wi' it. Look slippy
now, Ol' King-o'-th'-lags!"
Accustomed as the penal officials comprising Captain Maconochie's
little suite were to outbursts of reckless speech from the more
hardened "old hands,"1 they scarcely expected Tracey to uncoil himself
in this fashion, and they gazed curiously at Maconochie to note the
effect of the speech upon him.
Two--three minutes elapsed before the Superintendent spoke. Tracey
himself had expected an instant order for his removal to the
triangles, and stood doggedly waiting for the command--which did not
come.
All they saw was that Maconochie drew his handkerchief from his
tail--pocket and blew his nose. Then--
"Let it be understood, Overseer--are you Overseer or Warder?"
"Overseer, sir--of the gaol-gang--Tuff, sir."
"Very well, Overseer Tuff--let it be understood, if you please, that
you are never to report a man's police-history till it is asked for by
me directly."
"Yes, sir!" answered the sub-official, with a sullen respectfulness.
"But 'twas the Majors reg'lashun, sir, wi' all transports, 'specially
desp'rate ones!"
"Ho, ho! I be a desp'rate one, be I, Mr. Tuff?" grinned the
transport. "Well, I know I be--an' 'ere's to keep up th' k'racter."
With a mighty cuff he struck Tuff to the ground. "There, Super.
Macwot's-yer-name, give me my five hunderd lashes, an' 'a done wi' it,
as I said afore!"
The ex-private secretary to noble Sir John Franklin answered the
appeal. He stepped into the schoolroom, and called to the transport to
follow him. Some of the officials who had looked on the incident just
described would have entered likewise, but the Captain quietly waved
them back.
"I would prefer to be alone with this poor fellow, gentlemen. Excuse
me for a few minutes," he said.
"But, sir--the danger!" remonstrated A. D. C. G. Shanks.
The Captain smiled--not as, a few years later, John Price was wont to
smile, with a lofty affectation of indifference to any possible danger
that could threaten him--but pleasantly, as though he held an amulet
bestowed by some good genius against evil.
Captain Maconochie might be a "crank"; but, certainly, he was no
coward.
Chapter IV.
As he walked in, Tracey had, obeying the mechanical instinct which,
in spite of himself, the System had implanted in his nature, took his
cap off. Then he recalled the act. He was not going to submit as "a
softy" to the new Super. Not he. He replaced the cap defiantly as he
faced the Captain. However, the Superintendent gave no indication that
he was aware of the insult. Bunbury would have chained Tracey down for
the same deed.
"My man!" said Maconochie, "I wish to have a talk with you!"
"I don't want to talk to yer! Come on an' flog me--or p'r'aps ye'd
like to do th' nubbling cheat1 trick at once? Better now than later.
I'm boun' to come to it!" responded the callous wretch.
"Look, sir--" Maconochie paused. Till harassed by the incessant
opposition of the old-time officials, Maconochie measured almost every
word he uttered in a transport's presence. "Constant dropping of water
wears away a stone. The habitual use of forms of respect to any--even
the most hardened--prisoner will insensibly, by wearing away the
indurated surface, give his better nature room for play." That was
what he used to say.
"Look, sir--"
"What!" Lifer Tracey could not believe his ears. "Sir! Wot a joke! Me
with an 'incorrigible' record--sir!"
"Look, sir--" Maconochie began again.
"None o' that foolin'. Yer not a-goin' to make a softy o' me, I tell
yer!" Tracey raised his hand threateningly, as though in defence of
that precious possession, his reputation for eminence in evil. "I
be'n't no parson's or Super.'s pet!"
"I am sure of it," rejoined the Captain. "But you are a man, and not
a devil--I am sure of that as well!"
A second of wits-gathering silence. Then--
"No, I be'n't no man--a devil I am, or th'---Systum hasn't done its
work!" He laughed, with the reckless, sardonic laughter of the
hopeless.
"No, you are a man, and no devil! And because you are a man, obey one
of the first instincts of manhood, and that is to behave with respect
to your just and legal superiors."
"Just--legal!" Again the laugh--and then a storm of mad, tumultuous
speech. "Just is them wot justice do--legal is as legal act! Be'n't
truth 'bove all things? Can a man be a man if he's a liar? Be'n't a
liar allus a coward? An' no coward's a man? An' 'udn't I lie ef I paid
respec' w'ere respec' be'n't doo? An' is respec' doo to unybody unner
th' Systum, for wot cove is there unner th' Systum as acts justly, as
acts legally? Answer me that, Ol' King--o'-th'-lags!"
"Poor man, poor man!" exclaimed Maconochie, and, pacing forward, he
held out his hand. Tracey struck it aside passionately.
"Yer've left me nothin' but--oh, nothin', nothin' but hate--an' now
yer give me your pity. To the devil who made yer an' th' Systum!" He
leapt tigerishly on the Superintendent--and was felled by a blow.
There was nothing effeminate about Maconochie's muscles or his nerves,
if there was just a suspicion of that quality attached to his
judgment. No. 33-149 went down, and for a minute stayed down, dazed.
No word was spoken till Tracey, with eyeballs glaring redly instead
of whitely, drew himself up to a sitting posture.
"Didn't I--say as the nubblin' cheat 'ud end it soon? By th' Lord,
sir, I thank yer!"
Maconochie had faced a mutiny from a quarter-deck; had, as a lad,
confronted, with only a toy-dirk in hand, a howling circle of barbaric
mountain tribesmen thirsty for his blood; and yet, he was wont to say,
never did human look appal him as that transport's glare of--
gratitude.
"It's death--this--you know, my man?"
"Death--'tis--an' welcome!" It was a hyena shriek made articulate.
"My friend, let me help you up!" Again Captain Maconochie stretched
forth his hand.
Tracey looked up. "D'yer mean it?" The softening of the words passed
in the next instant from his face and tone. "Mean it!" he continued,
"o' course yer mean it! Be'n't it yer dooty to 'and me to th'
gallows!"
Maconochie pressed down his hand--lower--lower still--till it touched
Tracey's shoulder.
"Tracey!" he whispered, "Tracey! it is my duty to save you from--the
gallows. That is why I am here. Tracey--let us be friends!"
No. 33-149--his agony wried his mouth as he spoke--simply repeated
"Friends!" and then bent his head upon his scarred hands. The upheaval
of his universe had come, for, from the vortex of hell had sprung a
voice--an official voice--that had uttered a kindly word. Kind words
he had sometimes had before, but they were from clergymen; and the
gospellers were bound to say something kind sometimes to earn their
stipends.
While a man might draw twenty breaths he sat so, challenging his
consciousness whether or no his world was altered. And then, from the
core of the beast-nature with which the System had superseded that
granted unto him by his Creator--John Price said once "there were
doubts as to the Creator, but there were none as to the System"--he
spumed once more a torrent of volcanic hatred and suspicion.
"It's all a--trap; yer think I be a double softy to be taken in so?
Yer playin' the forgivin' to get time to call the guards, 'cos yer
afraid I was a--goin' to kill yer! Oh, yer devil!"
He stood with parching lips and clenched hands, and the knots bulged
on his temples as when a gymnast braces himself for a feat that will
cause the heavens to resound either with Homeric plaudits or with his
death-scream. Had he sprung, the help of soldier-guard would have come
too late for the Super. But--
"Stay!" cried Maconochie. "What proof do you demand that I am not the
monster you fancy me? How can I show you my truth--that I mean to be
as true a friend to every man here who will allow me as I can with
God's help be--how can I do this?"
The appeal held Tracey in spite of himself. Scarcely knowing what he
did, he gazed through the one window-space (unglazed) of the hut.
Crossing the parade-ground leisurely were a lady and a maid-servant. A
soldier followed them ten paces away. He pointed to them, and cried,
hoarsely--
"Is that your wife?"
Maconochie's look followed the pointing-finger. "Yes!" he replied.
"Then, I'll believe yer if--you--trust--her--your wife, I mean--in
this room alone wi' me for five minutes by your watch."
The Superintendent's face grew haggard in the tremendousness of the
ordeal. But his soul answered to the test.
He went out--and said a few words to his wife. She went into the
room, all unknowing, but believing utterly in her husband's wisdom.
Chapter V.
Maconochie lost, in the next moment, his composure. He thrust his
watch into the hand of the soldier escorting the lady, and in the same
action seized the man's musket.
"In four minutes--four minutes and a half--call 'Time!'" he
exclaimed, while he himself cocked the musket--and waited. So strained
was his hearing to catch any sound from the room, that though but five
yards distant from the group of officers, he did not hear Mr.
Commissary Shanks say--
"Well--I'm damned! Maconochie's just offering a bounty for crime!"
* * * * *
He did not hear that, or indeed aught else, till the soldier cried,
"Time!" loudly. Then he started forward, but the appearance of his
wife on the step momentarily arrested his rush. With the musket still
in his hand, he ran to meet her. She motioned with her head. Through
the doorway he saw--and heard--Tracey. The transport lay huddled, his
head on the floor, his arms outstretched in the abandon of despair--
or, remorse. And he was sobbing tearless sobs.
* * * * *
Not all at once did Tracey, after that supreme instance of trust,
come back to the path of well-doing. His fight, however, against his
past was strenuous.
It was in February that Captain Maconochie trusted him. And till the
23rd October of the year following, he kept almost a clear record.
"View" sentences had ceased entirely, and to the extreme disgust of
the gentlemen possessing a more extensive acquaintance with the System
than Captain Maconochie, Mr. Tobias Tracey declined to preserve by
frequent attendances at court his average of "offences needing formal
trial."
Mr. D. A. C. G. Shanks, on 23rd October, applied to the
Superintendent for a trusty man to handle some stores.
And Mr. D. A. C. G. Shanks, being in an unbending, not to say affable
mood, condescended to pass a pleasant word with the trusty man
commissioned by the Super. to wait upon his Commissaryship.
"You're Tracey?"
"Yes, sir!" with a salute.
Mr. Shanks laughed. "You're the man the Super. trusted the day after
he took charge--trusted his wife with?"
There was a conscious pride in Tracey's voice as he replied, "He did,
sir!"
"Why, you donkey, he held a cocked musket in his hands all the time!
Fine lot of trust in that, wasn't there?"
Convict Tracey was stunned. "Are yer a-speakin' o' th' truth, sir?"
With a brutal oath, Mr. Deputy-Assistant-Commissary-General Shanks
affirmed he was.
* * * * *
That same evening Tracey broke into Mrs. Whologhan's store with a
crowbar. 1 For the purposes of these stories the epoch of the "Early
Days" is presumed to end with the cessation of transportation to
Western Australia. 1 "Three B's"--Trebly bad record. 1 "Old hand"--
At Norfolk Island this term had a different application to that given
to it on the Continent in later days. It signified a "doubly-
convicted" convict--a prisoner with both a British and a Colonial
sentence. 1 "The Nubbling Cheat Trick"--Hang.
SECRET SOCIETY OF THE RING.
I.--The Convening Of The Ring.
Chapter I.
CAPTAIN MACONOCHIE, who, with Major Anderson, supplied the non-
demoniac element in the reigns of Norfolk Island Commandants, in
pursuance of his theory that the convict should be encouraged to hope
not alone for an alleviation of his physical condition, but also for
"a new moral nature," hit upon an expedient for developing, even in
hardened souls, those softening and refining tendencies which flow
from a heart-felt solicitude for the welfare of others. By detaching
transports into groups, or "sub-gangs," of three or five members, and
holding each man of the three or five responsible for the good
behaviour of his comrades, an irresistible appeal was at once made to
the curiously-confused notions that swayed the average convict mind.
An argument which had regard only to their own comfort or freedom from
punishment would, in the case of nine out of ten "old hands"--the
doubly-convicted convicts transported from the mainland or Van
Diemen's Land--be welcomed by an oath or a ribald jest. When
callousness in infamy was deemed to be an honour--when irons were
thought the insignia of chivalry--and "connoisseurs in murder" felt it
a privilege to take the hand of a "locked-boot" victim--it was an
insult to suggest an immunity from penalties as a reason for right
action. Take another course, however, and appeal to the sense of
fraternity, which seldom died out even in the "best" men, and that
caution in conduct and that eternal obedience to the regulations which
a "good" man would never think of exerting in his own interests, would
be at once exercised for the benefit of his group-mates. Most of
Maconochie's attempts at penal reform sprang from his heart, and were
seldom based on a hard, logical apprehension of facts as they were.
But, in respect to his grouping system, his heart and his head acted
together. His judgment and his experience of the "old hands" taught
him that it was literally and absolutely a point of honour with them
never to procure punishment for another transport who manifested
"spunk." And his heart showed him how to take advantage of this
characteristic. What "old hands" would not do for themselves they
should do for others. They should respect regulations and official
practices, because violation of them would cause the infliction of
punishment upon their colleagues of the group.
Between the principal settlement (which was supposed to change its
name according to the sex of the reigning sovereign, and, therefore,
should have been called Queenstown in the present reign, but which,
notwithstanding, was more often spoken of as Kings-town than
Queenstown) and the outlying barracks at Longridge, the Commandant
laid out, in March and April, 184--, a number of farms of six to ten
acres each. On each farm a hut or cottage was erected, and a company
of from three to five men was assigned to each hut and farm. For the
first year, no rental was demanded by the Commandant. For succeeding
years each group of tenants had to contribute a rental of twelve
bushels of maize for each cleared acre, this quota being estimated to
equal one-third of the average crop per acre raised by labour under
direct taxation. And every group was constituted a "mutual
responsibility" sub-gang. That is to say, for the misdeeds of any one
member of a group, the other members would suffer.
The group tenanting the hut on Section 5 B was constituted by some
"old hands" whose records were of the very "best."1 Tested by the
official standards of the elder System, they would have been welcomed
by Lucifer with a "Hail, fellows, well met!" And thereupon the soft-
hearted Commandant resolved they should have a chance to reform. Very
much to the amusement of the Commissariat and other officials did he
announce this determination.
The sub-gangers were five in number. Osborne, of whom we dare say no
more than that it was a daily wonder to his comrades how he escaped
hanging; Peake, a small-skulled, thirty-year-old lump of a physical
deformity that rivalled his moral nature; a gentlemanly ex-forger who
was popularly known as "Barrington" from the circumstance that he knew
off by heart the account of that immortal scoundrel's career; a
"Swinger"2--Felix--less sullen than brutish in feature, and of
gigantic physical strength; and Reynell, a former soldier of the
"Fighting Half-Hundred," who had been transported to Norfolk Island by
a V.D.L. military court for desertion to Maori-land in a whaler.
A tall, strapping fellow, who carried himself with military
erectness, was Reynell, and it was his boast that his parchment record
was as long as himself. Of course, the assertion was a slight
exaggeration, but Reynell was given to little whimsicalities. A devil
when roused, he was, as a rule, a merry soul, who was pleasantly
cynical. He entered into crime with the same zest as into a battle-
square. "It was but putting the bayonet into the law instead of the
enemy," he said to Mr. Pery, Superintendent of Agriculture, one day
when Pery asked him why he would persist in setting the authorities at
defiance. "I have to let the devil out of me somehow, sir, and as her
gracious Majesty--God bless her!--won't employ me against her enemies,
I have to make enemies of my own. And the law's a grand enemy to
fight, sir! It'll take such a lot of beating!"
Against a criminal of this temper the Law had used everything in its
dread armoury, except "the spread-eagle," the gallows, and--a kind
word and good faith. These last two instruments of unusual punishment
Captain Maconochie now determined to supply. He appointed Reynell
leader of 5 B sub-gang at a Sunday morning "after chapel" muster at
the Iron Room.
"Henry Reynell, per Coquette, colonial transport," called the
mustering--overseer.
"Reynell, how do you come to be included among 'old hands' when
you're a 'colonial'?" questioned the Commandant, with his pleasant
resonance of voice, as soon as the man had replied with his "Here!"
"The honourable Court gave me fourteen years, y'r Honour, and as I
didn't think it enough I got 'em to make it life." There was a ripple
of laughter in the ranks.
"How?" asked the Captain, who took no notice of the demonstration.
"I struck the corporal of the Court guard--and so the honourable
Court gave me what I wanted."
"Not the same Court? It could not act at once and without being
formally convened by the Colonel-Commanding?"
"As to that, sir, I can't say. All I know is that same Court
convicted me--and I came here with a double sentence. Therefore, Major
Ryan thought me entitled, sir, to all the emoluments, rights, and
privileges of an old hand. I've been in irons all the time I've been
here."
"Will you take a word of advice from me, Reynell?" said the
Commandant.
"Will--I--what, y'r Honour?" asked Reynell, with a choking breath in
his voice that might have been amusement, or might have been sheer
amazement at the autocrat of a penal settlement assuming so
extraordinary a tone.
"Take my advice, my good fellow, just to drop that sneering manner of
speech." There was a genuine kindness in the words. Reynell drew
himself up to his full height and clenched his fist. Those who stood
by thought he was about to transform recklessness of tongue into
madness of action. The line between a murderer and a hero is often but
a hair's-breadth, and this man, who might easily become a hero, might
as easily pass the line.
However, other answer than this he did not make. He flung out his
closed hand and said--"So easy to preach, y'r Honour! With the iron in
the soul, and the cat on the back, and the bayonet-point in the body,
what wonder the sneer's on the lip? So easy for you gentlemen to deal
with heartless numbers. You say, Numbers 37189--that's me--and
39204--that's Felix--don't feel. God above--don't we! And what weapon
ha' we to fight the System with if you won't allow us to use our
tongues? Even at our peril we must use 'em!"
He stopped and gathered strength for a last phrase which quivered
with the under-thrill of his bitterness. "It's fighting that's our
last hope of keeping something of manhood to ourselves, sir! Fight!--
I'd die if I did not fight--die or go mad!"
Outbursts of this sort were common enough among the more intelligent
convicts, but Maconochie never ceased to be impressed by them. The
receptive sympathy of the man--which proved his ruin as an
administrator--was always stirred when the note of strength and
sincerity ran through the transport's utterances. He listened now to
Reynell with a patience that to his under-strappers and to the felons
at muster seemed at once wonderful and childish.
With mutual nods and winks (in hearty enjoyment of the joke) the
gentlemen of the Commissariat who accompanied him listened to his
ludicrously feeble reception of Convict Reynell's attack on the
System's amenities.
"Reynell," he said, stepping a pace nearer to the ranks as he spoke,
"I am going to trust you--I will give you a farm--you and any four
others you may choose to pick out of the old hands!"
"You--are--not jollying--me, your Honour?"
"No--you will find by and by that I never 'jolly!'"
"Then, by G--, sir, I'll be true man to you!"
From the rank of men from which Reynell had been called out came in
two or three distinct voices a shout of--
"The Ring'll see 'bout that! The Oath! The Oath!"
Chapter II.
Reynell, instantly flushed with the strenuous hope that had been
created by Maconochie's words, paled as instantly. Then--
"I'll take it back, y'r Honour. I'll remain as I am--a 'good' man!"
"That's right, that's right, my man!" rejoined the Commandant,
genially. Again, a sibilant chorus from the ranks. The transports were
tickled agreeably at what they thought his misapprehension. They had
understood Reynell. Reynell, they knew, was simply adopting the
vocabulary of the damned, in which "darkness was light and light
darkness." But the laughter stopped instantly as Maconochie raised his
hand--and did the fatallest thing of his commandancy.
"Men!" he exclaimed, "no more of that! And now listen!"
A rubbing and clinking of irons and a shuffling of feet rose on the
calm air as the men settled themselves into position. They had heard
they had got a "bad" preaching Commandant--and now Fate was about to
confirm the report by cursing them with a second sermon on the one
day.
"Men, listen! A threat has been used about the Ring. Now, I tell
you--Ring members and nonmembers of the Ring--that I am resolved to
crush that society out of existence."
From among the massed men a confused clamour arose. "So other
Com'dants have said--and they failed!" "Better not try!" "Ye'll ha' to
croak first!" A chorus of defiance in which rumbled an accent of
triumph. The System for three generations of Islanders had been trying
to kill the Ring, and the Ring was still immutable and impregnable.
The men who were of the Ring feared its despotism, but gloried in its
traditions and its power. The men whose names were not scored in its
mysteriously-kept roll, respected it and admired it, for was it not a
rock that withstood the shocks of the Authorities?--an empire supreme
over an empire otherwise omnipotent?
Now, Maconochie had meant to say that the only uprooting force he
intended to apply to the Ring was that of kindness and justice. His
wish was to render the Secret Society innocuous by depriving it of any
occasion for the exercise of its undoubtedly enormous capacity for
desperate action. But he was given no chance of explaining himself.
Though they thought that the loss of their Sunday dinner--deeply
cherished treat!--was involved in the uproar, the one hundred and
fifty men, moved by a common impulse of passion, which, like a
tornado-wave, swept all before it, continued and increased their
clamour. They shouted, whistled, clanked their irons. Every sound was
an inflection of evil. To the officials inured by years of familiarity
with the Island life to such demonstrations, there was nothing
particularly alarming--certainly nothing distressing in the storm. To
the Commandant, however, sensitive in feeling, exalted in imagination,
and subject to a curious persistence of reasoning which convinced him
every transport was less an offender against society than a victim of
society's errors and stupidities, the noise was a literal shock.
He held his hand up to command silence. A strong hiss from the
centre greeted the gesture.
He folded his arms, as though to wait patiently for the cessation of
the tumult. The challenge was responded to by shrieks of laughter.
He lifted his cap and passed his handkerchief across his forehead.
Fifty hands derisively copied the action. It was an admission that he
was beaten, and they delighted in it as their nostrils would have done
in the scent of roast meat.
He turned his back upon the ironed men, and motioned to a gaol-
warder. Assistant-Deputy-Commissary-General Shanks thought he purposed
to order up the main-guard, and for the first time was prepared to
confess to himself that the Commandant was something more than a
dreamer. And--Mr. Shanks was to be disappointed.
Instead of bringing up at the "double" a file of twelve men--instead
of issuing in bloody sequence, incisive commands: "Ready! Present!
Fire!" Captain Maconochie had sent to his own stores for--tobacco! The
imbecility of that act!--how it started Mr. Shanks! How it spoilt his
Sunday's dinner and compelled him to sacrifice his afternoon nap so
that he might write to Governor Gipps and Mr. E. Deas-Thomson!
"Tobacco for rebels! The establishment is going to the devil!" he
groaned later to Mrs. Shanks. "Tobacco!--when they should have had
lead. If he had made requisition upon me, and not have drawn from his
own store, I'd have refused there and then!" For Mr. Shanks' heart was
sore within him.
As for the gentry of the Iron Room, their turbulence held till the
box of tobacco was placed at the Commandant's feet. And then it faded,
with a final hiss and splatter as a breaking wave dies against the
shingle. They were stupefied at this unique form of punishment.
"'E's a-goin' to 'eap coals o' fire on our 'eads!" exclaimed some
one, but the remark passed unheeded. The mass were too surprised even
for ribald comments.
Chapter III.
"Reynell!" Maconochie called.
Reynell looked round before answering. Did the Ring raise objection?
If it did, there was no visible or audible sign of its refusal. And he
stepped forward; and, to the Commandant's pleasure, saluted.
"Reynell, call out four men to assist you!"
"What for, sir?"
"To distribute that tobacco--half a fig to a man."
Reynell stared at the Captain--then gazed back at the massed men.
For guidance--for a hint as to whether he dare take the bride on their
behalf? Most likely so. And so near is weak kindness to refined
cruelty, there was not one man there in those ranks of ironed, yellow,
brown-and-grey garbed felons with the symbols of shame on their bodies
and the glare of the human beast in their eyes, but hated Maconochie
in that moment of ordeal. Not a man there but would have risked severe
penalties to obtain a fraction of a fig; scarcely a score of the one
hundred and fifty but what had already gone through the mire of
humiliation for a "bit." Therefore their hearts beat with a venomous
strength--because he tempted them sorely. For why did they not answer
to Reynell's unspoken inquiry?
Those who were not of the Ring dare not speak. In collective action
the Ring led the "private" convicts.
And those who were of the Society grew weak with the temptation. But
then--to accept it was to acknowledge Maconochie's supremacy, and to
confess a defeat.
For half a minute the two parties stood silent. The surf, half a mile
away, drove its monotone over the still air. From the wooded sides of
Mount Pitt, on the other hand, travelled, not unmelodiously, the
screech of parrots. A wedge-tailed eagle poised majestically over the
square, and hoarsely flung a taunt to the imprisoned creatures. Save
for these sounds, the parade was as silent as is the lull before the
revolt of thunder against its confines.
Then--first one sharp "No!"--next, two or three were joined in the
repetition--and finally, in impetuous volume, the fierce negatives
rolled from the ranks. Never did monk of the desert make so great a
renunciation! In that volleyed monosyllable those outcasts of
civilization refused a pleasure for which, under other circumstances,
they would have gleefully bartered their souls.
"No!" A brazen, defiant "No!" which epitomized the curses of Tophet.
Reynell marched back to his place; and Maconochie knew, as the storm
of curses and cheers burst out again, that the Ring was triumphant.
Chapter IV.
Unless--
Commissariat-Officer Shanks suggested, with a semi-sneer, the
application of old methods. "Try, Captain Maconochie, a platoon!
There's pretty considerable of a quietening influence in a volley,
sir! That is mutiny, and if you don't get the better of them now,
they'll have every iron off their ankles in an hour, and then you'll
have to shoot the lot, unless you want us all killed."
"No!" replied the Commandant. "Ball-cartridge is the last thing I
propose to use on society's wrecks. Mr. Gaoler--this thing has gone
far enough. Finish the muster and give 'em their dinners!"
"What, sir! Their dinners!" Really, the gaoler was to be excused for
his patent astonishment.
"Ay,--the poor fellows shan't suffer for my blunder in tactics. The
mistake was mine--I've taken 'em the wrong way to-day."
And with this remark, so subversive of all the conventions and
principles of the System--for whenever before did a penal commandant
admit he was in error?--Captain Maconochie touched his cap, in
graceful acknowledgement of the salute of his subordinates, and left
the muster--yard.
* * * * *
The whole of the Iron Room transports enjoyed their dinners the more
for the sauce of triumph. For dessert they were gratified by another
delicious morsel.
The Commandant sent an order to the gaoler to despatch by 6.30 a.m.
on Monday, Henry Reynell, per Coquette (Colonial), and "four other men
that the said prisoner should nominate," to Farm 5 B, therein to be
installed as "sub-gang in charge." The proceeding was, it is needless
to say, altogether exceptional. But then the Island owned an
altogether exceptional commander, and it had proved a day of
exceptional occurrences. And it was, doubtless, in accordance with the
spirit of the joke that the gaoler, as he communicated the decision to
Reynell, mocked him by doffing his cabbage-tree, and addressed him
with a scoffing irony.
"Would it please Mr. Reynell to nominate the gentlemen who were to
accompany him?"
Reynell took the jest admirably. He craved five minutes to make his
selection, and within that time had informed the officer that Osborne,
Peake, Barrington, and "Swinger" Felix would form his comradeship. For
the committee of the Ring had raised no objection. "'Twarn't going out
to the farmsteads, Reynell," said a high ruler of the league--a
Three--"that we complain of, but your promise to be a true man! No
chap in the fellowship shall go 'bad' without permission. It's
breaking oath!"
And consent being thus obtained--we translate the "flash" language
habitually employed in Ring business--the choice was, as we have said,
made, and 5 B group constituted.
On Monday, when the dormitories turned out at 5.30, the first thing
done by the new sub-gang was to present themselves at the
"blacksmith's shop" and have the rivets driven from the bazils.
Felix was last at the low anvil. As the bazil of his left leg fell to
the ground he expanded the massive brawniness of his chest with long
draughts of tonic morning air; and then clutched Reynell with a
wrestler's grasp.
"Why, lad, I be tha' man for ever an' a day. I never 'ud ha' got rid
o' them damned clinks but for thee until the day I wed the worms.
Felix is tha' man for ever an' a day!"
Chapter V.
And now let us gather up the links of the story.
Monday was formal court-day, and, therefore, none of the group saw
the Commandant till the evening. Muster had passed over--the mutual
responsibility farms were mustered only by their leader, he answering
for his group--and the men were busy preparing their "tea," and
rejoicing in the novel sensation of what was virtual freedom, when the
Captain walked up to the hut.
They ceased their preparations and saluted. The spontaneity of the
movement was plain, and it thrilled the "old man's" heart to notice
it. Something, he thought, of that voluntary respect for just
authority, which is an accompaniment of manhood, had been generated in
the men by that one day's liberty, and surely his experiment was about
to be justified? He smiled gaily as he returned the salute.
"Now, men," he said, "don't mind me! Get on with your tea--I am sure
you must need it after all this day in the fields!"
In forty years of the System never had Osborne heard the like. He
bent his eyes to the block of stone which did duty as a temporary
table, and fumbled with his tin maize-meal dish. The others, with the
exception of Peake, were also affected; Reynell to the point of
turning his head away so that neither the Captain nor his group-mates
should discern the tear that scalded his cheek.
"Men!" continued the Commandant, ever deeper touched by evidences of
gratitude than by testimonies of insult, "I wish you would trust me! I
want to be a friend to you--to every man of the 1600 souls in prison
here! Come, sirs, forget I'm the Commandant--the 'old man.' Think of
me, for the time being at all events, as a man--one who deeply
sympathizes with your sufferings, and who will only be too glad to
alleviate them in every way he can without violating his duty to those
who sent him here! Come, what do you say?"
Peake was the first to speak. "Reynell, y'r Honour, is our leader!" A
dogged resistance to any softening influence was easily to be
understood from his manner.
"Then, Reynell, speak for yourself at least--for the others if you
can."
The ex-soldier drew his under-lip in, and bit it till blood came, in
the severity of the struggle between the Past and the Future that
might be. Then he gulped rather than uttered his answer.
"I take back--the insult--of--yesterday, sir. I'll be true man to
you--so help me God! And the--Ring may do its worst."
Maconochie knew that, come what might--disdain from Privy Councillors
and Secretaries of State, cold water from Governors, and sneers and
insubordination from smaller officials--yet still he had plucked one
soul from the pit. After a few more words of friendly tenor he
returned to Government House.
Upon his going, Peake dropped his thin mask of hypocrisy and looked
what he was--the child of the devil his father, and the System his
mother. Other parentage had he known none. When, as a hunchbacked boy
of eight, he first understood a little of the meaning of life, the
System was already nourishing him at her breasts. And because of this
must we excuse him somewhat.
Peake, when the Captain's steps could not be longer heard, pulled off
his waist-strap.
"Hold!" He threw out an end to "Penman Barrington." "Barrington"
paled--but grasped the leather.
"Reynell, you sneakin' cull--come here!"
And Reynell, too, obeyed the strange command. He took the other end.
The strap was pulled taut. Then Osborne and Felix each laid hold upon
it in the centre, standing on either side of it. The four thus formed
a cross. Sometimes in the cross of the Ring the hands touched and
clasped; but never in the cross of denunciation--as this was.
Three--five--seven times Peake walked round the group, and as he
moved he recited the Convict Oath.
At last, he stopped suddenly--at the end of the third repetition.
"Osborne, you're a 'Sevener'?"
Osborne, hoarse with suppressed fear, muttered "Yes."
"And you're a Sevener, accused?" Reynell was thus addressed. He
nodded assent.
"What are you, Bill?"
"A Niner!" answered Felix.
"Barrington?"
"A Fiver!"
"And I'm a Three. We're all denominations. All denominations
necessary to convene when it's a Sevener as is to go up before---Do
any object?"
Silence. Only Reynell shuddered.
"Then, the Niner shall bid the Niners, and the Sevener the Seveners,
and the Fiver the Fivers, and the Three the Threes to Ring lodge on
Sabbath next if the One ratifies, and the business shall be to try
Sevener Henry Reynell, for that he played our noble Society false, and
promised to be true man to an Establishment officer, and defies the
Society! So the Devil help you all!"
And some trembling lips muttered a low "So the Devil help us!"
II.--The Session Of Denunciation.
Chapter I.
The Ring had been convened. A "session of denunciation" had been
called in the manner provided by the traditional statutes of the
Society, and Convict Henry Reynell, "Colonial" transport per Coquette,
had been duly apprised that on the Sunday following, at three in the
afternoon, he was to be charged with having violated the "laws." He,
an initiate, had defied the Ring; he had told Captain Maconochie that
"he would prove a true man to him"; and this after the Ring had
ordered that in season and out of season the new Commandant was to be
thwarted--not so much disobeyed as thwarted.
When, within a month of Maconochie's arrival, it had become plain
what sort of a man he was, the "One," on requisition from the "Three,"
had convened a "Council of Order," at which it was enacted that the
new Commandant was an "enemy."
The business of a "Council of Order" was to enact "laws" and adopt
"regulations." It was the least potential of the three descriptions of
Ring gatherings.
The second was that known as the "Session of Denunciation." It was
convened only when a formal charge was to be laid against some member
("initiate" or "uninitiate") of the Society, or when some person not
of the Society was to be denounced for his treatment of a member.
The third was the "Conclave of Doom." At this meeting the fiat went
forth for punishment, the executioner was appointed, and--if the doom
was a capital one and the victim a member of the Society--the vacancy
would be filled up.
The "Council of Order" could be attended by any member of the Ring--
whether he belonged to the initiated twenty-five, or to the
uninitiated, "the novices," whose number was practically unlimited. It
was invariably held during a meal-hour, for then only could a large
muster be depended upon.
The "Session of Denunciation" was attended by the "circles" only, or
as many of them as could be present. It was usually held on the nights
of Sundays or holy-days, in the Iron Room. The "circles" were, as a
rule, in irons. "Clinks" and "Trumpeters" were rather regarded as Ring
insignia. Occasionally it was held in the day-time; Reynell's was to
be a day-session.
As for the "Conclave of Doom," it was constituted only by the "One"
and the "Three." If the "One" was in gaol, or in such other position
that his attendance was impossible, then a majority of the members
comprising the circles of "Three" and "Five" could proceed with the
business. The convening of this culminating assemblage, however,
rested absolutely with the "One." The "Three" could not constitute the
Doom-session without his consent; and in this circumstance consisted
the "One's" power of veto. The twenty-four men constituting the
"circles" might pass a unanimous vote of "Death!" or other penalty,
and by his simple refusal to convene a Doom--session within the period
indicated by the law and custom of the Society--which period, in
Maconochie's time, was three months--the presumed victim would go
free.
At the Doom-session, the proceedings were, of course, controlled by
the "One"--the Centre.
At the other sessions, the president was one of "Three" circle, who
acted as leader. The "One" might be present, or he might not, at a
"Council of Order," or a "Denunciation"; but, if present, he would not
take charge of the assemblage. Such a step would have been tantamount
to revealing his identity to the "Ringers" generally, and would have
been a violation of the fundamental law of the Society, which ordered
that none but the members of the "Three" should know who was the
"One." To have torn away the veil of secrecy which shrouded his
personality would have deprived him of his power. The Unknown is
always terrible.1
From the circle of "Nine" to the circle of "Seven"; from the circle
of "Seven" to the "Five"; from the "Five" to the "Three"; from the
"Three"; to the "One": so ran the grooves of communication.
What, pertaining to the business or the safety of the Ring, a member
of "Nine" circle heard, it was demanded from him, by his sworn duty to
the Society, that he should communicate to his colleagues of his
"circle." And the circle, or a majority, should decide whether the
facts or the suspicions should be passed on to "Seven" circle.
Reaching the circle of "Seven," the intelligence, if the circle by
majority so decided, would pass to the "Five." In like manner, the
"Fivers" would transmit it to the "Three"; and so the "Centre"--the
"One"--would hear of it only after long process of filtration and
examination.
At any stage of the routine a "circle" might send back a "report" for
further evidence and information; or, by refusing to pass it on, veto
and quash it. The complaint could not be again made by the lower
circle till after the lapse of so many weeks.
Should a matter be first set in motion by an intermediate circle,
that circle would communicate the essence of the business to the lower
rank, but the latter had no voice in referring it to the final
judgment of the "Centre." All vetoes were similarly communicated, so
that the effect was this: Every initiate member knew the nature of all
business which by ultimate transmission to "One" became the concern of
the Ring; but every member had not a voice in its determination. No
initiate could aid in the settlement of a matter originating in a
higher circle than his own.
The exceptions to this general law were two. For the denunciation of
an initiate member, the consent of the circle lower than his own was
necessary, as well as that of his own and the higher ranks. Such cases
were considered urgent, and the vote of one member of the lower circle
or circles was regarded as sufficing for the whole of that
denomination. And a "Three," invested with scarcely less awfulness
than the "One," could act independently of his co-"Threes" by "One's"
authority. It was this latter circumstance which originated the belief
amongst many uninitiate Ringers that there was no "One." They did not
necessarily believe that because the "Centre" was invisible, therefore
he did not exist, but they doubted his existence when they saw that
attributes they supposed to attach only to the dreaded "One" belonged
also to the "Three."
Doubts, however, of this kind belonged to the uninitiates--or
novices. The men of the lesser circles--the Nines and the Sevens and
the Fives--knew of the "One," and the Three knew him.
They were sufficient, these degrees of knowledge, for they sustained
during long years of maleficent working a dreadful society within an
accursed community--an empire of evil within an empire of horror. The
character of the System alone did not explain the System. You had to
take into account also the Ring, which constantly battled with the
System, and frequently defeated though it could not subjugate it.
* * * * *
It could not subjugate the System, but then neither could the System
destroy it.
The battle was a drawn one: the Ring ceased to exist as the
animating soul of all evil things on the Island, only when the System
acknowledged itself defeated by the "paralysing stroke of
circumstance,"1 and abandoned the spot which, designed by Heaven as an
earthly paradise, the Englishman had made into a hell. Yet, one
thinks, the result should have been different. There was the might of
England behind the System--the majesty of her law, the sanctity of her
State religion, the wisdom of her administrators. On the other side,
there were--what? Twenty-four felons, and the "One"! A feeble handful
of yellow-and-grey-garbed prisoners, most of them habitually in irons,
scarcely one that had not shivered as the curling "cat" kissed him!
Why, the System could have hanged them all any morning and not been
put to the slightest inconvenience other than doubling the number of
coffin-makers for a week!
Notwithstanding, for fifty years the Ring held its own. Its heads or
"Centres"--the "Ones"--must have been changed four times at least; the
"circles" were re-organized again and again as death came along, and
touched some "Niner" or "Sevener," or "Fiver" or "Threer," on the
shoulder, and gave him his passport of freedom; the "uninitiates" were
decimated by shootings and the Battle of the Bloody Bridge, by escapes
and hangings. Still, the Ring lived on. And it would have been living
to--day had the System survived.
Chapter II.
The ceremony of convening had been gone through, as we say, and the
"Centre" had approved of the conclave. So the Threes told the Fives,
and the Fives passed the notice on to the Sevens, and Sevens to the
Nines. Each "Niner" controlled a body of "novices," and to such of
these as, in all likelihood, would be in the exercise-yards on Sunday
afternoon, he "passed the word" for picket and guard duty.
And to one other person was the intimation conveyed that a Ring
session was to be assembled. The Commandant was so informed--by a note
pushed under his office-door! Young though he was in supreme
authority, he was at no loss to understand the significance of the
pen-printed letter:
"WE MEET ON SABBATH NEXT, THREE IN THE AFTERNOON, IN THE IRON YARD.
YOU ARE INVITED TO BE PRESENT TO CARRY OUT YOUR THREAT OF BREAKING US
UP."
It was the boldest challenge to his rule, and that he should not
doubt its authenticity, at the foot of the missive was stamped (in
candle-smoke) the symbol which formed the official signature of the
"One"--the four concentric circles surrounding the double-triangle
over the broad arrow.
* * * * *
Over the broad arrow--that stung Maconochie as it had stung Wright,
Fyans, Anderson, Ryan, and every other Commandant who had been
similarly challenged. For, interpreted, the signature meant that the
Ring was supreme over the System. Let the System order, it would be
for the Ring to say whether it should be obeyed.
The Commandant consulted the gaoler and such of the overseers as he
had divined were not quite enamoured of the old methods of brute force
which he was seeking to supersede with kindness, and showed them the
message. None could enlighten him as to what would eventuate at the
meeting.
"A Riot?" No; that was unlikely. The Ring had other methods of
working than to precipitate an outbreak unless it was thoroughly
prepared, and the chances were now against anything of the kind being
contemplated.
"Shall I stop it?" Well, his Honour might try, but it would be
useless. It would take the whole military force of the Island, and the
armed civil guard as well, to break up a Ring meeting; and even then--
"What?" They would communicate their business all the same, and rob
everybody of a night's rest.
"How?" Because the signalling would go on the whole night through.
The night-guards could hear the signals distinctly from cell to cell;
every Ringer keeps awake and passes on the signal to his right or left
as the case may be, though he might not himself understand the
significance of the signal.
"But how could the Ring, some members of which were in the gaol-
cells, others in the dormitories, others in the Iron Room,
communicate, seeing that the three classes of buildings were separated
by yards?" Heaven knows!--and the principal Ringers; nobody else!
"It surprises me!" So it did everybody else, the gaoler said.
"Do you think, Mr. Gaoler, the Ring would consent to my making an
experiment?" Perhaps so; how?
"If I wished for an illustration of their facility of communicating,
would they grant it?" No doubt; and laugh in his Honour's face while
communicating. "Would his Honour like to see a Ringer?" Every officer
nearly knew most of the outside Ringers (the uninitiates)--no secrecy
was maintained as to that class of membership--but really those
fellows knew next to nothing of the Ring proper. The men who formed
the outer circles were known also; but the actual participation of
each in the working of the Society, why, that could never be proved.
"Were there many regulations in force against the Ring?" Dozens!
"Any definite attempt at suppression?" Yes; and the Battle of Bloody
Bridge was the result.
The Commandant sickened at the reflection that here was a force never
taken into account by Right Honourable Secretaries of State and
honourable members of the House of Commons, or by Judges and
Governors. The System might rule by terror in one direction, and by
coarse and licentious favouritism in another, but here was a power
that defied the tremendous penal organization created by British
justice and British apathy. Buoyed though he was by his intense belief
in the truth of his theory, and inspired by his faith in the essential
goodness of human nature, he could not, for the moment, resist the
awful doubt which now assailed him as to whether it would not be
better to let the System proceed on its old lines. A power that
continued its machinations under the eye and in the teeth of
Authority, surely the only way to deal with it was to crush it by
force! These were his thoughts.
Fortunately, however, for his fame, Maconochie resisted the reaction.
When the Lady of Despair, whose breath fanned him for that instant,
had passed him, he felt it would be at least wise to wait and see what
Sunday would bring forth. He intended to accept the challenge.
Chapter III.
"O Day most calm, most bright.
The week were dark but for thy light--
Thy torch doth show the way!"
Thus had quoted the Rev. Thomas Taylor in his sermon at morning
chapel to the Protestant prisoners. His words had been in praise of
Sunday as a day which relieved for them no less than for their more
fortunate fellows in other places the labour of the week. Their irons
might still clank, but they did not fret and jar so painfully, for the
movements were those of rest and change, and were not demanded by
task-work. Their hands might still require to describe the salute, but
the obligation would be less frequent. And the freedom from labour
meant opportunity for reading and thought--for recollection of dear
ones far away--for indulgence of bright hopes for the future--and for
something of that intercourse with their brother-man which, in its
unrestricted and unreprieved fulness, would be the principal delight
to be conferred by freedom. Something after this manner spoke the
tender-natured chaplain, whose spirits had been greatly invigorated
since the advent of the new Commandant.
The chaplain's words had touched not a few hearts and had moistened
many eyes. Unlike his predecessor, A--, who was for ever throwing "The
Prodigal Son" at their heads; or Parson Ford, of Hobart-town, who was
chiefly solicitous that his hearers should prove the value of his
teachings by making a decent ending at the gallows rather than in
reformation of their lives, Chaplain Taylor invariably impressed the
prisoners by dwelling upon the few bright things of the present, and
the brighter things their earthly future might still have in store for
them. His tribute to the Sabbath was consequently highly appreciated,
and more than one out of the six hundred transports in his
congregation determined to spend the rest of the day peacefully--if
the Ring would let them. That contingency had to be faced, for the
knowledge was now general that it was a "Lodge Sunday."
The morning muster after chapel passed off without incident--unlike
the previous week's, when Convict Henry Reynell--the same who was now
accused by the Ring--had, at the bidding of that body, refused to
accept, for his comrades of the Iron Room, Maconochie's bribe of
tobacco. And the mid-day meal, of 16 oz. roast-meat, 12 oz. baked
potatoes, and the extra Sunday relish--to them who had not been under
punishment for the week--of 4 oz. of wheat and barley bread, was
unmarked by a quarrel. When the final "grace" was said, and the
Almighty thanked in mumbling, parroted parodies for the mercies so
amply showered upon them, the mass of the men in the yards felt they
were, indeed, deserving of the pleasure which was to be theirs that
afternoon. Not a single prisoner had been felled to the cobbled
floors, and not one had rushed to the warders with a complaint that
his cheek had been gashed open because he had been indiscreet enough
to object to the theft of his ration. The peace of the beautiful
Sabbath-day brooded, dove-like, on the resting throngs.
There were five yards, but we are concerned only with the one on
which the Iron Room opened, and the adjacent enclosure. These were the
pleasure-grounds of the aristocracy of crime; and the Ring membership
was most largely represented in them. A doorway, sometimes closed, but
on Sundays usually left open, furnished a means of communication
between No. 3 yard and the space devoted to the fettered fraternity.
From the elevated sentry-boxes--the "perches"--at the corners, armed
guards watched or patrolled the broad-"leafed" walls. Within the
radius of a biscuit-throw, two sentries of the military main-guard
moved, this one this way, that one the opposite way, from their post
at the entrance of a passage leading to the gaol.
At two o'clock the sentries were relieved, and a careful observer
might then have seen that a new interest was taking possession of the
throngs in both yards. Those who were reading closed their books,
talkers became less in earnest, laughers and jesters--these were not
wanting, for some men will laugh in hell--abated their merriment, and
others who had been nursing their thoughts in abject solitude, shook
off their taciturnity and joined one or other of the many knots. All,
seemingly, began to count the time.
At a quarter-past two the sentries changed beats. The movement was
noticed by the prisoners.
Fifteen minutes later, the soldiers rechanged. The prisoners knew the
half-hour had expired. Without any apparent concord of movement, the
men in either yard formed themselves into larger groups.
By the next change of "Go," talk had nearly ceased in the two yards.
Such laughter and sound of chat as were borne on the breeze were from
the other enclosures. And the careful observer aforesaid would
perceive that now the movements of the men were taking something of
the character of marching and counter-marching. He would have heard no
word of command; and yet he should have understood that some supreme
will was giving directions, for, in the two yards, though no more than
a few men in each could see what was going on in the other, there was
a simultaneity of movement and likeness of manoeuvring.
And by three o'clock, as the guards were re-adjusting themselves to
their original path, the 140 men in the ironed yard, and the 200 in
No. 3, were disposed something in this order.
Close to the north wall in the former enclosure stood two men. At
three paces distance from them, so placed that, had a cord been passed
through the hands of each to the others, a circle would have been
described, of which the first two men would have formed the centre,
stood three more transports. At five paces from these last were
another five prisoners. Connect these by a cord, and these five would
have surrounded the three. At seven paces, again, from the five
transports were a second five, likewise ranged in an imaginary circle
order. Nine paces away from this latter five was gathered a group of
twenty-two or twenty-three--an outer envelope, as it were, of the
inner rings. The mass of the ironed men stood by the south wall--and
their faces towards it; but a weak line of communication was kept up
by a string of pickets extending to this numerous group from the outer
circle.
Thus was arranged the Ring in day conclave. The central two men
represented the circle of "Three"; the three, the circle of "Five";
the first five, the circle of "Seven"; and the second five, that of
"Nine." Each circle was separated from its next lower one by as many
paces as there were members in the lower circle. And the twenty-two or
twenty-three "uninitiates" were divided by nine paces distance from
the "Nines." The pickets were recently admitted "uninitiates." If the
Ring had a message for the convicts in general or for the
"uninitiates" who, for purposes of intimidation, were thrust amongst
the transports who had refused or not been permitted to join the
Society, it was transmitted by the pickets.
The circles of the Ring, it will be seen, were short of their proper
number. It was seldom possible, indeed, to constitute a full Ring at a
day conclave. Of the twenty-four men making up the circles, fifteen
only were in the ironed yard. Of the rest, five were at the "mutual
responsibility" farm, and four were in the next--No. 3--yard.
In the latter yard, allowing for the smaller number of the Ringers,
the arrangement was the same. No Threer was included in this
enclosure, but a Five, three Nines, and a dozen uninitiates were
ranged at the proper gradations of distance. The convicts unassociated
with the Ring were crowded under the south wall, with their faces
turned from the Society group. Between the twelve uninitiates and the
mass stretched, as in the other yard, a line of pickets.
On the stroke of three o'clock, then, this was the order of array in
both enclosures. Save for a cough, a clearing of the throat, a
friction in the "irons," there was no sound among the transports. The
sentries walked to and fro--and looked to their primings. The armed
civil guards on the perches quickened their senses, but yet refrained
from directly scrutinizing the proceedings. They could see every face,
and yet no guard had ever been found who could, on a formal demand,
identify any leader of the Ring. That is to say, none since Major
Anderson's time. A warder then had declared to the Commandant he would
swear to a score of the inner circles. And within a week he lay on his
bed, a shattered lump of carrion. A thirst for information is not
always judicious.
Chapter IV.
The soldiers by the gaol-passage exchanged. And at that instant a
sharp, curiously-modulated whistle shrilled from the Threes in the
ironed yard, and was instantly answered by another whistle from the
next yard. "Lodge" was opened.
A Five broke from his circle, and passed to the group of
uininitiates. He paused a second before each man, who stooped and
whispered something into his ear. Then, from the uninitiates, he
passed successively to the Nines, the Sevens, to his comrades of the
Five, and finally, to the Threes. From all he gathered the password
save from the representatives of the innermost circles. To them he
gave it. During his progress there had been countless slightly noisy
movements among the massed transports, yet the tension of feeling was
so extreme, that many would have sworn there had occurred no sound
except that caused by the clink-clank of the irons.
When the Threes received the approving signal, one--Johnson--began to
recite the Ritual; the other--Gooch--to lead off the antiphonal
responses. Sometimes both the words of the reciter and the response
were in vigorous, resonant English; other passages were partly English
and partly in the Ring's own variety of the "flash" language;
sometimes both were in the argôt. It is unnecessary to say the secrets
of the Ring were conveyed in the last form of speech.
Very solemn the liturgy sounded. If the words were sometimes ribald,
there was nothing ribald in the manner of their utterance. Except in a
Catholic service, no such respectfulness of tone and decency of
demeanour were ever voluntarily exhibited by the transports as in a
Ring meeting. Any unseemliness was visited with a punishment the more
to be feared that its precise measure was unknown to the culprit till
the moment of its infliction, but the solemnity of its proceedings was
at once the cause and the effect of the Society's influence. The
portions of the Ritual which were recited in the vernacular were
resonantly worded specifically for the purpose of impressing such of
the convicts not enlisted in the strange companionship who might be in
hearing. Singular though the statement may appear, it was the
religious character given to its ceremonies that made it the weapon it
was in the service of the devil. Appeals to occult powers, the element
of mystery in gesture and language, the measured intonation, the
employment of symbolism, the frequent invocation of dread punishment
upon men who violated their oath--all were calculated to inspire awe
of and devotion to the Society that used it.
The temporary leader of the Ring, who was reciting, reached that
passage in the blasphemous liturgy:
Is God an officer of the establishment?
And the response came solemnly clear, thrice repeated:
No, God is not an officer of the establishment.
He passed to the next question:
Is the Devil an officer of the establishment?
And received the answer--thrice:
Yes, the Devil is an officer of the establishment.
He continued:
Then do we obey God?
With clear-cut resonance came the negative--
No, we do not obey God!
He propounded the problem framed by souls that are not necessarily
corrupt:
Then whom do we obey?
And, thrice over, he received for reply the damning perjury which yet
was so true an answer:
The Devil--we obey our Lord the Devil!
In a corner, by the south wall, a youth of twenty, in irons for a
freak, dropped his face on his hands and stifled a sob. He had been
trying since sermon-time to fix indelibly on his memory the sweet
melody of George Herbert's hymn:
"O Day most calm, most bright.
The week were dark but for thy light--
Thy torch doth show the way!" and now that music was jostled from
his mind by the demons' Litany. Johnson had arrived at the "prayer":
Render us, O Satan, always flourishing in thy work, always happy in
obeying thy law, thou who art eternal, who art always young, who never
lackest worshippers and servants to do thy will, who art always rich,
and never forgettest those who place their offerings at thy altar--
when from No. 3 yard came a long, involved whistle: and in the
instant following a murmur ran along the line of pickets.
Captain Maconochie had accepted the challenge.
Chapter V.
He walked through No. 3 yard unattended. His predecessor had never
entered it on a Sunday afternoon without an escort of two soldiers. As
he passed he acknowledged pleasantly the few salutes he received, and
gave no sign that he noticed the majority of the enclosure's occupants
declined to recognize his presence. They were waiting to see what the
Ring would do.
And the Ring? Save for that murmur of the pickets the session
expressed no consciousness of the visitor. The reciter finished the
prayer in an even tone:
"Render unto us the rewards of them who obey thee always and God
never."
And then suddenly changing his tone from the key of religious
solemnity to a simple announcement, said, "The Com'dant!"
In the same instant he saluted and smiled--smiled derisively in
Captain Maconochie's face, as the latter, appalled at the abominable
import of the Ritual's words, stood still, showing his distress very
plainly.
"Good heavens, men! Did I hear aright? Did I hear you blaspheming
your Maker so dreadfully?"
"Wot, sir?" asked Johnson. "This is the first degree of a Ring
meetin', y'r know! We but say wot we're tol' to say. It's all in the
Ritooal, sir!"
"You are in Ring Lodge now?"
"Yessir! First degree!"
"And you blaspheme like this in all your degrees?" Maconochie
stammered and stuttered in his horror.
"Wud yer like to know, sir?"
"Yes."
"Then that's jest wot yer won't get to know from me, y'r Honour!"
replied Johnson, and the retort provoked a roar of laughter, half-
timid, half-defiant, from the circle. Sunday or no Sunday the laughers
would have been tied to the triangles by any other Commandant for that
outrage, but Maconochie, albeit severely tempted, overlooked the
insult.
"When do you hold your other degrees?"
"In present session, at wunst--unless yer a-goin' to break us up!"
Again the fellow laughed.
"I am not going to break you up to-day--"
"Nor any other time!" exclaimed the leader.
"'Ear, 'ear!" seconded some "Fives" and "Sevens."
Chapter VI.
"Go on with your Ritual!" said the Commandant, after a pause.
"That's wot we intend to do, yer Honour," Johnson, with measured
insolence, responded. "An' d'yer mean to stop and 'ear us?"
"I do!"
"I 'opes as yer Honour'll be vastly interested!" And once more the
Commandant was compelled to listen to a laugh that was a jibe. He let
it go by, like the others.
Then the leader resumed his devil's business, and gave, in the next
half--hour, the Captain a lesson as to the ingenuity of felonry that
he never forgot. Better versed than any Penal Commandant, before or
since (save Price), in the "flash" slang or thieves' language, he yet
scarcely comprehended a word of the many concluding parts of the
ceremony brought to his ears.
For, as there were grades in the Ring, there were varieties in its
speech. There was the variety understood by all novices as well as
initiates--the variety known to "Nines" and all above--another
familiar to "Sevens" and "Fives" and "Threes"--one in which only the
"Fives" and "Threes" were educated. All these forms of argôt were used
that afternoon, accordingly as the "Three" in charge addressed himself
to a higher circle or a lower.
And, not content with that patent offence to the Spirit of the
System, the Ring perpetrated yet another. It held communication with
its gesture--language--when a movement of the limbs or head expressed
a number, and the number indicated a word or phrase in its "initiate"
code--and in its dumb-talk and its whistling vocabulary. These two
last were provisions for use when the legs were ironed and the hands
in "bracelets." And of all the "talk" and signalling, the Commandant
understood next to nothing. All he knew was that the proceedings
shaped themselves something like those in a court of justice.
There were addresses from the leader "Three" and his colleagues--
slowly and impressively delivered; there were steppings forth from the
outer rings of men who evidently gave testimony of some sort with
right hand uplifted; and there was a brief and apparently impassioned
speech from a "Seven"--the prisoner's feelings prompted him in his
excitement to drop into a phrase of plain English, which he corrected
instantly upon being checked by Johnson. And, finally, there was the
pronouncement of a verdict. Amidst a grim silence, broken only by the
shuffling and rubbing of the second "Three's" irons as he moved from
rank to rank of the Circles to gather the judgment, the decision was
come to. The whole mass by the north wall heaved a sigh of relief as
Johnson lowered his head to receive the announcement.
By the laws, to condemn a "Nine" a bare majority of all present
sufficed; to "settle" a Seven, an absolute majority of the Circles
present or absent was necessary; for a "Five" or "Three" was required
a majority of his own circle as well as the majority of the lower
ranks. Proxies were used for absentees, if the latter knew of the
business. Reynell was represented by proxy.
Now, of the fifteen chief Ringers present in this Iron Yard but seven
voted for Reynell's condemnation. On that vote he would have been
discharged of the accusation, for it required thirteen to convict him.
But, as we have said, five (including the accused) were at the "mutual
responsibility" farm, and four were in Yard No. 3 adjacent to the Iron
Yard. Two out of the five voted, by proxy, "guilty," making nine!
Would the other four go the same way?
There was a lull in the "talk" and dumb show, while "Threer" Johnson
pondered an ingenious--but quite satanic--notion that came into his
head. He guessed Maconochie would wish for some indication of the
Ring's mysterious power to communicate at long distances. That
singular capacity had irritated and defeated his predecessors, and
naturally he would think with them on that point, however he might
disagree on others. Johnson communicated his notion to his brother
"Three" in a whisper, and the other applauded it. Whereupon, "Wud yer
like to see, y'r Honour," Johnson questioned very respectfully, "'ow
we send messages?"
"Yes!" cried Maconochie. If he could but gain some insight into the
Ring's methods he would defeat them, he thought. "Yes--yes!"
"Then y'r Honour'll give us yer word as a gen'elman that yer won't
use the knowledge yer gain wi'out formal information on oath from
other parties?"
The Commandant felt he was justified in saying he would not.
"Then, sir, there are four Ringers in nex' yard--standin' by this
'ere north wall. I'll send 'em a message so you can see 'ow it goes,
an' if yer like, sir, yer can bring the answer!"
Should he do it? Was it a trap for his dignity? The Captain
reflected, and decided to take the risk.
"I will bring the answer!"
"Then, sir, I'm going to send this message!" Johnson clanked to a
foot's distance from the Commandant, and lowered his voice: "Do yer
vote as the majority 'ere? The reply, sir, as yer'll get 'll convince
yer jest that question and no other's gone through. Now, sir, watch!"
The pickets, we have mentioned, stretched from the cluster of the
novices to the south wall. At a sharp word from Johnson, they moved,
as quickly as their irons would permit, to continue the line to the
gate opening into No. 3.
"Now, sir," went on Johnson, "that there message is a-goin' to the
end of that line. Yer follow it from man to man. Then, sir, do you,
please, join this line to the picket inside No. 3. They will pass the
message on, an' yer'll get the reply!"
Anxiously Maconochie watched the procedure. Johnson, in dumb-talk,
"spoke" to a Nine; the fellow passed the message to a novice or
"uninitiate" by a gesture; he, turning, repeated it in their slang to
a picket. So it went to the line's end. Each man, as he received it,
revolved on his heel, and transmitted it to the next, the Commandant
pacing by their side down to the last picket. Some of these novices
trembled because of his proximity; others simply grinned; the sentries
and armed civil guards, in their amazement, grew more positive than
ever that the Commandant was "looney."
The Commandant--and the message--entered the next yard. The pickets
took it up. Man by man, with repetitions of slang, passed it to the
group of uninitiates, and then to the three "Nines." Then the solitary
"Five" in that yard received it. Maconochie would have sworn that
nothing passed from man to man save a few syllables of gibberish. And
yet, within a minute, he had been given the reply.
"Yes, sir!" said the "Five," saluting, "we four here votes with the
majority!"
* * * * *
Grieving deeply over this misapplication of ingenuity, and wondering
how he should meet it and defeat it, Maconochie walked back to where
the leader of the Ring awaited him in silence at his proper station.
"Well, sir?" questioned, as deferentially as one could wish, Johnson.
"The prisoner said the four would vote--"
"How--how?" came in hard-breathed exclamations from among the
circles.
"With the majority!" The Commandant finished the sentence.
Some laughed at the news; some laughed at the exquisitely humorous
notion of making the Commandant the bearer of the fatal decision; and
one man--a "Niner," a friend of Reynell--said snarlingly (to his own
hurt at a later time), "Yer've given Reynell over to his doom!"
Indeed he had done so, though in all ignorance. How the doom fell we
shall tell you later.
III.--The Conclave Of Doom.
Chapter I.
NIGHT in the Iron Room. The majority of the men we saw in the Ironed
Yard on last Sunday, when at the "Session of Denunciation," are lodged
here. Perhaps a hundred seek the phantasm of repose on the low
platforms of its floors; the rest, some forty or fifty, are privileged
to slumber in a smaller dormitory adjacent. And, save by the utterly
reckless (ever, alas! all too numerous among the ironed men) the
privilege of sleeping in the smaller room was highly valued for
several reasons, only a few of which, however, dare be stated. The
transports there accommodated were the first to be let out in the
morning--that was one reason; consequently they enjoyed the earliest
use of the towels--this was a second reason. And a third, and even
more important one, was that they were not liable to be disturbed
after midnight by a Ring conclave. It was one thing to enjoy the
solemnity of the Society's proceedings in the daytime; a lodge broke
the tedium of the monotony; but it was quite another to lose the
superior distraction that came in the shape of sleep, simply because
the "One" and the "Three" desired to pursue with adequate rite and
ceremony their machinations against the System. Sleep, so precious to
all, was trebly precious to the "Black Norfolker." To the felon
denizens of the Iron Room sleep was almost as welcome as his "twin-
brother," death.
And so, when it became known in the Iron Room the Wednesday evening
after the Sunday of Denunciation, that in all likelihood a Ring
conclave would be held that midnight, the members of the outer circles
and the novices of the Ring, no less than the miscellaneous criminals
who were not associated with the Society, were somewhat troubled. The
day had been marked by one of those hurricanes which, springing with
suddenness from the surface of the Pacific, die as suddenly after
spending their tropical rage disastrously upon every object within
their scope; and most of the men, having been exposed to its violence,
were suffering from bodily exhaustion. Maconochie had excelled himself
and desecrated the sacred traditions of the Island by ordering warm
tea to be supplied to every man engaged in outdoor employment, and in
some cases, indeed, he had granted hot rum, and had, further,
shortened the evening muster by withholding "prayers," so that the
prisoners might seek their blankets the earlier. And now the
Commandant's solicitude was to be partially neutralized by the mandate
of the "One." Yet remonstrance, audible and overt, was never once
thought of. Had the cases been reversed and it had been the
authorities who had with apparent wantonness interfered with the
transports' poor comfort, a disturbance would have arisen that would
not have been readily quelled. Almost the solitary remark uttered with
reference to the Ring's action was that of a wretch, Sam Ward, who
from a certain eccentricity of habit--he was for ever speaking to
himself--had been refused the greatly coveted honour of admission to
the Circles. When the signal went round that a Conclave was to be held
and that their rest would be disturbed, he said--"Ah, well--'tis a
pity, Sammy! You're always free when you're asleep, and you're so
tired to-night, Sammy, freedom'd be all the sweeter!" Beyond these
words, the mandate of the Ring met no impediment.
Chapter II.
At six o'clock, when the last padlock clinched its hold on the doors,
and the bolts shot in the iron shutters of the two windows, the
hundred men ceased communication with the outer world till twelve
hours later. So the System judged and ordered.
But at twelve o'clock the Secret Society intervened. A careful
grinding of a key in a padlock was followed by an almost noiseless
drawing of bolts and the dropping of chains. And then the door the
System had closed and virtually sealed was opened by the authority of
the Ring. The "One" entered--followed by Peake, the accuser of Convict
Henry Reynell per Coquette, the prisoner lying under condemnation of
the Ring.
The night's conclave was to pronounce Reynell's doom. You may
remember that Reynell had been appointed by Captain Maconochie leader
of the "mutual responsibility" sub-gang attached to 5 B farm, and that
Peake had been one of the four hardened, reckless criminals whom
Reynell had selected to accompany him. "Barrington," an exforger;
Osborne, a gentleman who, to his brother felons' surprise, judges
resolutely refused to hang--all rules have exceptions--and Bill Felix,
a stubborn, country-bred half-brute, were the others of the gang. And
you may remember further that Peake had denounced Reynell to the Ring
because the latter, an ex--soldier, had been so impressed by Captain
Maconochie's unforced kindliness of heart as to defy the Ring and
promise "to be true man" to the Commandant. According to the canons of
the Society, Reynell had thereby grievously offended, and at his
resulting trial had been condemned, Peake and Osborne alone of his
colleagues of the farm voting to remit him to the "Conclave of Doom."
On this Wednesday night, then, Reynell's fate was to be decided, and
Peake, being a member of the dread innermost circle of the "Three,"
had resolved to be present. There was no difficulty in the way of his
attendance. The "mutual responsibility" gangs were free within limits.
By eight o'clock (instead of six as in the dormitories and cells) they
turned in. To be out of their hut after that hour was an offence
against the Regulations, and a violation of the conditions on which
they held the farms. But Mr. Peake reflected that no one would be
likely to know of his breach of good faith except those who would not
"peach." The essence of Maconochie's mutual responsibility plan was
that for an offence of one member of a gang all the other members
suffered, the idea being that while a man would not be deterred from
wrong action by fear of his own punishment, he would be restrained by
regard for his fellows. Even over rascals of Peake's stamp this idea
held sway, and that lump of moral and physical deformity, under
ordinary circumstances, would have gone to the death rather than have
brought Reynell under the whip of the authorities. A defiance of the
Ring was, however, another matter, the wretch reasoned, and
notwithstanding his personal debt to the man he denounced, who had
obtained for him freedom from irons and comparative immunity from
supervision, his stunted intellect perceived but the one duty of
denouncing the fellow who had insulted their noble Society, and of
pursuing him, if the "One" permitted, to the doom. It was for this he
was present.
And if you ask how the "One," and Peake the Three, obtained access to
the Iron Room when the keys were under lock and key in the
Superintendent's office, all we can tell you is that there were but
few prison-locks the "One" could not open.
* * * * *
The great chamber, as the chief rulers of the Ring entered it, was
curtained in darkness that might be felt. In some of the other
dormitories a light was permitted after lock-up, but by virtue of
their superior distinction the gentry and nobility of the Iron Room
were left without a glimmer.
Undeterred by the darkness, the One and his companion passed from the
doorway down the middle of the room, as though they were familiar with
every inch of the planking. Nor was it till some moments later that a
strong, vivid flash from a bull's-eye lantern shot, meteor-like, from
the end furthest from the door. The brilliant beam projected its
penetrating stroke through the massy blackness, to the distant corners
and along the walls that were decorated only with "Abstracts of
Regulations," and Forms of Prayer. For a full minute it played on the
occupants of the room, and then, apparently satisfying the person who
held it that all was right, the light was closed again by the lantern-
slide. The mysterious business of the Four might be proceeded with,
for there were no eavesdroppers or unauthorized persons near enough to
hear.
The bulk of the transports were crowded together in the corners
nearest to the doors, with their faces turned to the walls, and
between them and the upper end of the room the members of the circles
of "Five," "Seven," and "Nine" patrolled noiselessly in stockinged
feet and "blanketed irons."1 These guards, sentries of a very hell,
crossed the room from bed-place to bed-place. Not a soul was asleep;
and, save the guards, not a body was in motion.
A short space of twelve paces separated the nearest line of guards--
the "Fives"--from the group of four men who supplied the infernal
motive--power to the machinery of the Ring. Thus, as the "One" and the
"Three" communicated only in their "cant" or "flash" dialect,
excepting in the rare cases when the subject matter of their
deliberation passed beyond its far from narrow vocabulary, the
Conclave was held practically in private. Shut in the Four were, by
the conditions which exalted them to their "bad eminence." The "One"
was masked. It would have been the easiest thing for the transports
generally to have discovered his identity. They had but to rush in a
body from the lower end of the room, and, overpowering the guards,
seize the man who exercised over them an authority less questioned
than that of the System. An inclination to such an act, indeed, had
more than once been expressed by a more than ordinarily defiant spirit
among the outsiders, but it had never found general favour. The mass
of convicts felt that the Ring, though occasionally a hard taskmaster,
gave them ample compensation for the tribute of obedience it exacted.
It furnished material for their cramped imaginations and ambitions to
work upon--it supplied an outlet for their sense of natural justice so
consistently outraged by the authorities--it checked and thwarted the
System--it had revenged many of the System's wrongful acts. Nothing to
weaken or endanger the rule of the Ring would ever spring from the
transports generally: of that the "One" and the "Three" felt quite
sure. And so they did not hesitate to exact penances and institute
forms which the legally--constituted authorities dare not have
imitated save at the risk of rebellion. Had the System sent a masked
man into the muster-yard of the ironed men and declared that death
should be the lot of the bold villain who tore the mask from the face,
a score of hands would have clutched at it. What odds the yard had
been turned into an Aceldama, if the System had been defied? Yet the
Ring sent its masked leader, whom nobody but the "Three" knew, and for
the secret of whose identity the System was prepared to pay the price
of an absolute pardon, kept all ready signed and sealed in the
Commandant's desk: no paltry ticket-of-leave--not even the desirable
conditional pardon which conferred liberty within Australian
boundaries; but an absolute gift of freedom and a present of money
besides to carry the informer "home" and to start him in a new life--
the Ring sent this man into the midst of vassals, and they, burning to
know who he was, and tacitly demurring oftentimes to his rule, yet
crushed their curiosity and obeyed him. "The Ring is wonderful!"
exclaimed Dr. Ullathorne to Major Anderson, who had just described the
Ring (from less information than we have) to the young priest.
"Wonderful, sir!" ejaculated the choleric but conscientious
Commandant. "It's damnably annoying besides being wonderful!"
Chapter III.
The masked man knew the "Three"--Johnson and Gooch, inmates of the
Iron Room, and Peake, of 5 B farm gang. Nevertheless, from each he
demanded the password of his circle and the sign of his membership of
the supreme rank but one. At the word being given in a low murmur that
stirred the darkness like a witch's spell, he began the brief Liturgy
of the Conclave.
"For whose service do we meet?" asked the "One."
"In the service of the Devil--the Devil our Lord!" responded the
"Three."
"But the Devil our Lord is Invisible!"
"Aye, as invisible as death!"
"Yet is death visible?"
"Aye, to those who can see!"
"Then, is our Lord visible?"
"Aye, to those who can see!"
"Then how appeareth he?"
"In thee, O One! O Mighty One! O Thrice Mighty One!"
"Turn thou then, O men of the Circles, men of the mighty Ring, whose
meaning is Unity in Infinity, and do homage to thy chief, to the
vicegerent of thy Lord! Turn thou! Turn thou!"
The men of the Circles, the noiseless patrol, faced the Conclave, and
in the next instant cried as with one voice:
"To thee our Lord Satan do we homage!"
As they cried their hands were upraised. That much could have been
observed, for in that same moment a lurid illumination blazed suddenly
upon the scene and hung a garland of flame upon the brows of these
human demons.
Through the eye-orbits of a human skull apparently suspended in mid-
air, through the opened jaws, through the nasal cavities, and from
every fragment of the bony box that had once held the secrets of a
human brain, grinned a phosphorescent glare. A mere bit of theatrical
mummery, it had a diabolic effect upon weakened nerves already
prepared by an incantation muttered in the solemn hush of midnight to
be sympathetically impressed. It stamped the seal of supernaturalism
upon the ceremonial, and in the perversion of moral sense which
characterized the "Black Norfolkers" as it has marked no other
community these hundreds of years, it was welcomed with a thrill that
had more in keeping with a sensual pleasure than a retributary terror.
Chapter IV.
With the fading of the light the Conclave passed into its most secret
stage.
The formal report of the voting in the "Session of Denunciation" was
delivered to the "One" by Johnson, the leader who had presided. And
the "One" required of the "Three" by their oath to him and the Ring,
whether the condemned Henry Reynell had had a fair trial according to
the Society's usage?
And two of the "Three" affirmed that he had. Peake, the third man of
the "Three," as the accuser, was silent.
"Had the accused been notified that he had been condemned after the
trial and in due form?"
Peake affirmed he had borne the message of condemnation "with truth,
without prejudice, without fear, and without favour." The message had
been of necessity sent through Peake, although he was Reynell's
prosecutor, because Peake was the "Threer" having earliest access to
the condemned.
"And the condemned! Does he appeal?"
"No. By his oath to the Society, admits he forfeited allegiance by
promising to be true man to an Establishment officer, but craves, if
the doom be death, one favour."
"What?"
"That he may not be drowned or strangled, but that having been a
soldier, he may be shot or stabbed."
Then, after a pause, which held possession of this temple of damned
souls as does the tragic interval before the anathema claim the vast
spaces of a cathedral of the Church in the hour of excommunication,
the "One" pronounced the Doom.
"By the power that is mine, by the authority conferred upon one by
our dread Society of the Ring, do I issue my fiat to and make order of
doom upon Brother Henry Reynell under bond to the Crown, upon the
Crown's register No. 37-889 per colonial ship Coquette, and upon the
roll of the Society for this year current, No. 12 of our Circle of
'Seven.'
"And the Doom is, That he shall die the death!"
"So be it, O One! So be thy fiat obeyed, O Mighty One! So be thy
order of Doom completed, O Thrice Mighty One!" Thus, in their argôt,
responded the "Three"; and when their murmur had been swallowed by the
silence, the "One" went on:
"Who, of his brethren of the Ring, stands nearest to the condemned
Henry Reyne'l in brotherly affection--to whom is he most dear?"
Quaking, shiveringly, Peake made answer: "William Felix, under bond
to the Crown, and on the Crown's register No. 39-204, on our roll No.
20 of Circle of 'Nine,' stands nearest to the condemned."
"Speaketh the deponent truly?"
"The deponent brother speaketh truly within our knowledge," confirmed
the others of the "Three."
"Then let the warrant of doom go forth to Brother William Felix, No.
20 of our Circle of 'Nine,' that he shall do the deed of death within
the circling of a moon's orbit upon his brother the condemned by act
of shooting or by act of stabbing, though the testimony be true that
the condemned is near to him and dear to him--aye, though the
condemned be bone of his bone, blood of his blood, flesh of his flesh,
let him do the deed, on peril of his suffering like doom. And from
this fiat shall there be no appeal, because--"
The "One" waited for the antiphon. It came solemnly from the "Three":
"Our Society has been wounded, and it heals its hurt by blood."
"So cut we off all traitors! So doom we all that ally themselves to
the Law which persecuteth us--the Law which hath given us over to the
living death!"
"So cut we off all traitors! So doom we all that ally themselves to
our persecutors!"
Chapter V.
Then proceeded to its conclusion this mummery. Its rites and
ceremonies--the devices of ingenious and fertile minds compelled by
Fate to that most Sisyphian of all tortures, the working upon
themselves for want of an outlet for their inventive and imaginative
faculties; or of souls capable of forging thunderbolts and of venting
forked lightnings, but condemned by society to the unrelieved,
hopeless misery of petty taskwork--were, as yet, incomplete.
The "One" had to travesty in blasphemous syllables the prayer
commonly used at Norfolk Island executions when a Protestant was to be
hanged. The original prayer was this--
"Oh, Almighty God, who according to the magnitude of Thy mercies
dost so truly put away the sins of those which truly repent, that Thou
rememberest them no more, Open Thine eyes upon this Thy servant who
most earnestly desireth pardon and forgiveness. Remember him, most
Loving Father; whatsoever hath been declared in him by the fraud and
malice of the Devil or by his own carnal wilfulness, do Thou
forgive."...
The infamous parody of that pathetic appeal as recited by the "One"
dare not be quoted. Invert every petition of the original; substitute
the name of the Adversary for that of the Deity; invoke as the cause
of the victim's ruin and death the loving-kindness of God and the
benignity of British Justice, and you will have a faint idea of the
prayer he used. The parody was the richest fruit of the System. Were
you to clothe with literary form the mouthings of the creatures led by
Hébert, as they danced round Lais and Phryne enthroned as Goddesses of
Reason on the desecrated Church altars of Revolutionary Paris, you
would scarcely parallel it in point of blasphemous horror.
The recitation ended, the "One" and "Three" commended themselves and
the Ring to the care of the Lord of Evil, and finally--the Circles
being once more bade to do homage--the Convict Oath was chanted in
chorus. With foot against foot and palm meeting in palm, the Bond of
Obligation was renewed.
Only, there was no drinking of blood from one another's pin-pricked
veins. Was it because of the darkness that the libation was omitted?
Was it because time was passing?
No; the blood was not drunk because, in the presence of a superior
infamy, an inferior shame is superfluous.
* * * * *
A "Conclave of Doom," at which was marked the period of some Ringer's
life, fulfilled yet another awful function. It at once elected some
one to the newly-created vacancy. There were always waiting aspirants
for admission to each circle from the grade below it. The man eligible
for promotion from the novices or uninitiates was almost invariably in
attendance, but if his presence could not be secured--say, because he
was in gaol, in Longridge Barracks, or at the Cascades--he was
admitted by proxy, the proxy, one of the initiates, being compelled to
administer the rite to the newly-elected at the earliest opportunity.
Now, Reynell being a "Sevener," the vacancy in "Seven" Circle had to
be filled by the appointment of a "Niner."
Felix, the nominated executioner, was chosen. This step followed the
usage. The executioner, having at supreme risk obeyed the Ring, was
worthy of promotion if the deed of death created a vacancy.
To fill Felix's place and thus complete "Nine" Circle, a novice was
called up by name from the silent, wearied, but docile throng by the
door. As the wretch stumbled in the darkness up the length of the
uneven boards towards the first line of patrols, his movements were
followed by a plaintive wail from Sammy Ward.
"Ain't you going to elect me? It's my turn!" And he was hardly
stopped by the smothered exclamations which burst from those equally
unprivileged with himself. "Hush, you fool! hush!"
The newly-honoured convict reached the first patrol. There he was
stripped--and passed on.
When he came within arm's reach of the "Three," the flash of the
bull's--eye blazed into his face, and, for an instant, blinded him.
This was done to identify him. Once, two years before, when a man had
been called from the outsiders to be graced with his new honours he
grew, at the last moment, craven. The man next him whispered that he
would go in his stead. He did so, and--up to that night the lantern
had not been used for that last flash of identification--was initiated
beneath the cloak of darkness. The next day he claimed, as he was
entitled to do by his rights of admission, instruction in the "cant"
language from an elder member of the Ring. Then he stood revealed as
one who had fraudulently obtained admission to their mysteries. The
morning following he was found dead in his bed-place; obviously
strangled. "But what was the use of an inquiry?" questioned the
Acting-Commandant Bunbury. "To hand the murderer we should have had to
hang one hundred and twenty men!" So the flash of identification
became necessary.
The man passed the scrutiny--he was the right one, the one who had
been called and chosen, and he was initiated.
Gagged in the moment when the light blazed in his face, he could but
writhe in the grasp of two "Fivers," and utter throat noises as the
"One" thrust a hand against his chest, and punctured its skin with, it
seemed, a hundred needle-points. In the shock of pain the neophyte
scarcely knew what followed. Into the hundreds of minute wounds, as
soon as the needles had been withdrawn, was rubbed a handful of
gunpowder. When healed, the scar would describe a solitary circle.
Thus was the symbol of the "Niners" impressed upon its new member.
The impression of the symbol was, however, only the first part of the
ceremony of initiation. What completed it may not be described, nor
even hinted.
Suffice it to say that if by any lucky chance--it was all a business
of pure chance--the neophyte had not to the moment of his initiation
into the Ring committed any capital offence, the completion of the
ceremony placed the rope round his neck. Every member of the Ring was,
by virtue of his membership, liable to be hanged. It was really an
organization of the condemned. And so absolute was the moral ruin of
"Black Norfolkers," that that terrible fact was considered the most
brilliant trophy wrested by the Secret Society from the Law.
Chapter VI.
It was three in the morning before Peake reached the hut on 5 B farm.
His hut-mates--Reynell, Osborne, "Barrington," and Felix--were waiting
for him in a weird, Rembrandtesque half-light--waiting for the news of
the doom. In his walk from the Iron Room to the farm he had passed
three sentry-posts; but the "One" had given the countersign at each,
and the quiver of trepidation with which Peake had come within range
of each soldier's musket had proved quite unnecessary.
Not so, perhaps, the spasm which shook him when he re-entered the
hut. The exhilaration of the ceremony had evaporated, and his sense of
duty to the Ring was overlain by his awakened remorse that he had
betrayed to the death the man who had become surety for his good
conduct, and had thereby obtained for him comparative freedom. From
the remorse sprang the dread that Reynell--already on his way to the
grave--might avenge his betrayal on the betrayer. What would Reynell
do?
For some moments after Peake entered no one spoke. Then the condemned
broke silence.
"Is it--doom, Peake?" he asked.
Peake nodded.
"Who," stammeringly questioned Osborne, "who is the Ketch?"
Peake, with a trembling forefinger, pointed to Felix.
Felix, great hulking lout, bent himself in the shadows, and covered
his face with his gnarled hands.
"An' I'ad promised to be true man for ever an' a day, 'Arry! Yo
brought me here, 'Arry, an' rid me o' the domned clinks, an' it's me
that's to kill tho. I'udn't do it!" He half said, half groaned these
words.
"Then, if yer don't, it's yer doom too, yer know!" breathed Osborne.
"An' I'd take it 'fore I'd break my oath to 'Arry yonder. I'm his
sworn man."
"Yer the Ring's man first!" insisted Osborne.
"Ay, that war I; but there's a way to obey th' Ring an' keep my oath
to 'Arry too!"
Chapter VII.
On the morrow--rather, at a late hour the same day--while the sub-
gang were absent at maize-hoeing, an Establishment officer visited the
hut. Save him, no man entered the hut between the time of the gangers
leaving it and their return. Yet when they came back for their noon-
tide food, one and all of them--fellows who would have laughed at
death had it come from Law and the authorities--changed colour as they
saw on the stone table a scrap of folded paper.
On the outside of the paper was inscribed a single circle, with the
figures "20" in its centre.
On the inside there was no word; only there were inscribed two
circles, so--
In the common centre of these was the roll-number of Henry Reynell--
"No. 12."
And below this symbol of the personality of the condemned was,
stamped in candle-smoke, this--
It was the "One's" signature to his order of doom upon Henry Reynell,
"No. 12" of Circle "Seven," and the warrant was addressed to "No. 20"
of Circle "Nine"--William Felix. It was his roll-symbol which was
marked on the outside of the paper.1
* * * * * How Felix obeyed the warrant, and yet
kept faithful to his vow to be sworn man to Reynell, will be told
presently.
IV.--The Falling Of The Doom.
Chapter I.
THE Secret Society of the Ring had, in regular conclave, ordered that
Brother William Felix, No. 20, of "Nine" Circle, should, within one
lunar month, stab or shoot to the death Brother Henry Reynell, No. 12,
of "Seven" Circle. Reynell's offence was (as already related) the
promising "to be true man" to Civil Commandant Maconochie. Convict
Bill Felix was a member of the sub-gang of which Convict Henry Reynell
was the leader; and, inasmuch as Reynell had chosen Felix to be a
member of 5 B farm sub-gang, thus freeing him from the constant
wearing of fetters and conferring upon him a desirable degree of
freedom, Felix had sworn to be his (Reynell's) man "for ever and a
day." The tie of fraternity which linked Reynell and Felix thus was
sadly complicated with the obligation of obedience which bound the
latter to the Ring. Let Felix obey the Ring, and he would have to
enact the doom upon the one soul for whom he cared. Let him refuse to
execute the death-warrant issued under the seal of the "One"--the
dread head or "Centre" of the Society--and the doom he refused to
Reynell would be his own. The Ring having given over some one to the
doom, would demand the life of the appointed executioner if he failed
within the specified time to complete his task. In rare instances a
regulation or law of the Society might be modified or altered in
effect. But never in its history had there been known a case where a
death-warrant had been left unfulfilled and the stated executioner had
continued to live. The idol would demand appeasement for its lust, if
not in the person of one victim, in another's.
There is an impressive story as to the working of this Medean law.
Before the existing "One" it is believed three men had filled the
awful office. The second in the administration had been ordered to
murder the then Commandant, Captain Wright. He had acquiesced in the
need for the crime--otherwise the order would not have been ratified.
And, as the "One," it was his duty to perform the doom on the
Commandant. It was a minor but still immutable law of the Ring that
the "old man" should only die by the "One's" hands. The honour was
accorded to him as a privilege of his dignity. Yet Captain Wright
lived to be Major and to give evidence before the Select Committee on
Transportation of the House of Commons. How was that?
Wright had been suddenly recalled to Sydney. The vessel which brought
the summons of recall could not lie off the harbourless island in the
storm--season for longer than a week, and instant preparations for his
departure were set on foot by the Commandant. The news spread--and
twice within the week was his life attempted in vain. He got on board
the vessel safe; thus unknowingly he committed the "One" to the wrath
and vengeance of the Ring; and the Ring demanded its vicarious
sacrifice.
Three days after Wright's sailing the body of one of the most
intelligent of the "free" constables was found suspended from a tall
pine. The dead man was supposed to have been in pretty general favour
with the transports and his fellow-officers; hence it was not believed
that he had been murdered, and his death was attributed to suicide.
The military surgeon, who made an examination of the corpse, drew the
attention of the subaltern of the guard to a curious symbol burnt or
tattooed into the flesh of the chest and freshly cut across with a
knife. The scarification was, however, only skin-deep, and had been
done after death. The officers did not recognize at the moment the
significance of the scar.1
It was the symbol of the "One."
Not even the dreaded Head of the Society was free of its penalties.
Chapter II.
Civil Commandant Maconochie, it will be remembered, had, in his
anxiety to acquire a knowledge of the Ring's methods of communication,
been trapped into conveying the report of how certain Ringers had
voted at the trial of Reynell. "Condemnation or Acquittal?"--the
question hung thus in the balance when Maconochie had appeared in the
yard where the Ring Lodge was in "Session of Denunciation." Nine were
for condemnation--for sending on the accused to the "Conclave of
Doom"; but thirteen votes were required by the law of the Secret
Society before the condemnation could be passed. And four votes
Maconochie had been trapped into conveying.
Without knowing the precise bearings of his action, he had learnt
enough to understand that he had given Reynell over to the doom. An
interjection by a Ringer who was a loyal friend to Reynell--strange,
how in this accursed community of felonry, which a noble member of the
House of Lords stated to be deficient in every human attribute,
feelings of affection refused to absolutely die out, and thus prove
his lordship right!--had informed Maconochie of so much. What was the
doom: death, mutilation, or a simple "sending to Coventry"? Maconochie
asked several of the officers of the Establishment, but could gain no
satisfactory answer. "Most likely death!" he was told by the gaoler.
"The Ring didn't think much o' death!"
Herein the gaoler was subject to that tendency to error which
infected all thoughts and beliefs, of whatever nature, held in the
University of Depravity.1 The Ring thought a good deal of death when
that Mighty Leveller was enlisted on their behalf. It was only when
Death acted for the authorities that they snapped their fingers in his
face and jested pleasantly with him. When the Ring used him, he was to
its members an instrument of terror, and they surrounded him in their
imaginations with every ghastly, every agonizing, every horrific
attribute of which the distorted culture of the Society's founders, or
the dark fancies of the most ignorant Ringers--such as those who ever
trembled at the verge of madness--could invent and adapt. But, so
momentous is the alteration in human feeling, which can be effected by
changing the point of view, Death had but to draw his fees from the
Establishment to be sneered at, ridiculed, and derisively welcomed.
Black Norfolkers went sardonically to the grave at the Establishment's
orders, just because the Establishment wished them to do differently.
Chapter III.
Maconochie sent for Johnson, leader at the "Session of Denunciation."
"Have you any objection, sir, to relate the precise significance of
the condemnation which you understand the Ring has passed on prisoner
Reynell?"
"'Eaps!" was the laconic rejoinder.
"I beg your pardon! What did you say?"
"'Eaps! I sed I 'av 'eaps of objecshuns."
"Oh!" Then, after a pause, "I believe, Johnson, you have been a
prisoner under the Crown for many years?"
"More'n can count!"
"Yes? Then you must have heard read many times the regulation as to
answering truly and explicitly, and without prevarication or evasion
or denial, all questions put by persons in properly-constituted
authority?"
"Can't say as I 'av, yer Honour!"
"Johnson!"
"Yes, yer Honour?"
"I mean to deal fairly and kindly with every man on the Island--but I
will have truth-speaking. I never forgive a lie, except it is uttered
under the influence of terror!"
"In wot 'av I lied, yer Honour?"
"You said you had never heard the regulation enforcing--"
"Savin' yer Honour's presence, I said nothink o' the kind! Yer
arsked me 'ad I 'erd it read. Well, I never did! I've 'erd it mumbled
ev'ry Sunday since I was a kinchin--but never 'erd it read wunst.
There ain't no 'Stablishment orf'cer as can read--unless it's
yerself." The rascal grinned in enjoyment of his own satire.
"You know the meaning of the regulation--what it enforces--however?"
"O'course: to answer th' truth, th' 'ole truth, an' nothink but th'
truth w'en 'terrogated by 'Stablishment orf'cer."
"Then answer me, sir." (Not imperatively, but with a studied
politeness, did Maconochie now speak.) "What judgment--what 'doom' as
you call it--has your Society ordered upon Reynell?"
Johnson gazed reflectively at the ceiling. He passed his right hand
over the corrugations of his forehead, and drew it down the scarred
and weather--blighted cheeks to the stern, square jowl that had
gripped numberless groans of agony in their utterance, and bid them be
dumb. Then he said:
"Mr. Com'dant, Pa'son Taylor tells us that w'en th' higher law
conflicts wi' th' lower, we must allus obey th' higher--allus th'
higher. Do th' pa'son's views meet wi' yer approval, sir?"
The Commandant, already once trapped by Johnson, was dubious of the
fair seeming of the interrogation, and declined to answer directly.
"Answer my question!"
"Wi' orl respecks, y'r Honour, I can't till I know wot to obey--that
as is th' higher law or that as is th' lower!"
"There is no question of higher or lower law here, my man--none. It
is merely a matter of answering my question. What is Reynell's doom?"
"That's w'ere yer an' me jest differ, y'r Honour. 'Tis orl a matter
o' higher an' lower law. If I answer th' question, I obey th' law o'
th' System. If I don't answer it, then I obey th' law o' th' Ring, an'
I'd 'av y'r Honour know as fur me an' sech as me 'tis th' Ring's law
as is highest law."
Again the fellow's lips parted and his cheeks wrinkled in a gleeful
defiance of authority.
"You're talking foolishly," rejoined the Commandant, bearing the
implied taunt with a patience of tone and manner that, if he had only
known it, was more likely to penetrate to Johnson's better nature than
any number of authority-phrased words; "you're twisting Mr. Taylor's
sayings to suit your own purpose. Mr. Taylor meant, no doubt, that
when human law conflicts with the moral law of conscience or revealed
law, then the latter, as the higher law, must be obeyed."
No more unfortunate admission could have been made by a System's
officer; and the ingenious Johnson, whose naturally sharp wits the
attrition of adversity had ground to remarkable keenness, while
wearing away the moral part of him, eagerly seized the opportunity
thus offered of making an embarrassing criticism on the System.
"That's jest it, y'r Honour--that's th' very identical thing as I
mean. Now, th' System's laws an' reg'lashuns is th' lower law, an' our
laws an' reg'lashuns--th' Ring's laws, that is--they're th' higher,
'cos--But will yer 'ear th' reason, yer Honour?"
"Go on--though you are talking insubordinate nonsense. I will hear
what you have to say!"
"This is th' reason. Th' Ring's law is th' moral law 'cos it's
founded on justice!" He stooped, and, placing his hands on his knees,
crooked his head so as to glare impishly into the Commandant's face to
watch the effect of his words, or rather of those he left unsaid.
For not what the wretch said but what he left unsaid stung the
Commandant. The implication was clear. The System was not founded upon
justice. And in his heart of hearts Maconochie knew the accusation was
true. Penalties British law justly provided for those who offended
against it, but then British law proposed only to punish, and not to
give over the offenders to "unusual punishment" and utter corruption.
The System did this, however--and the taunt went home. But, what could
Maconochie do? Argument imperilled his authority, and, after all, he
did not invent the System. So--
"You decline to answer what is Reynell's doom?"
"Aye, y'r Honour, 'cos th' Ring forbids me!"
"You know I can inflict penalties upon you for refusing to answer my
plain interrogatory?"
"Short o' puttin' me into an 'oss' necklace, yer can, sir. But yer
won't punish me!"
"Why?" Against his judgment, the Commandant put the inquiry. Similar
remarks had been made to him before by men up for punishment, but
invariably they had been uttered in suppliant or cringing tones. This
fellow, however, spoke with the confidence of knowledge.
"W'y? 'Cos yer know wot I ses is true. An' 'cos, although yer an
orf'cer o' th' Systum, yer 'art ain't in the Systum's way o' doin'
things. That's w'y, sir. Yer ain't been long 'nuff 'ere to 'a changed
th' 'art o' a man fur th' 'art o' a beast. Yer know who said that, y'r
Honour?"
Maconochie nodded.
"Yes, o' course yer do. It struck th' 'ol man, 'im as was jest a-
chuckin' o' us into Jack Ketch's mouth like so many sweeties--lor, 'e
did love to keep th' carpenters an' gravediggers a-goin', did Billy
Burton!--it struck even him orl o' a 'eap! But 'e was wrong 'bout it--
an' so is Taylor, an' so are yer, an' everybody else as 'erd o' wot
poor Kavenagh said!"
"Wrong--how do you mean?"
"Wot did Kavenagh say? 'When I landed 'ere I 'ad th' 'art o' a man,
but yer 'av plucked it out an' planted a brute's 'art instead!' That's
wot he ses, an' th' jedge an' everybody thinks it's true o' th'
pris'ners only. But, man"--he gathered breath to hurl at Maconochie,
with greater emphasis, a bitter conclusion--"them words war truer o'
th' 'Stablishment orf'cers. Th' System finds orl its orf'cers men, an'
leaves 'em orl brutes! Orl o' we don't get 'ardened, but there ain't
one o' yer wot doesn't!"
Chapter IV.
Foiled by Johnson in his attempt to discover the fate in store for
Reynell, Maconochie met with no more success when he interrogated the
members of the farm sub-gang to which Reynell and Felix belonged.
Peake, Osborne, and "Barrington" each frankly enough declared he knew
quite well about the order of doom, but as for telling his Honour--
well, the Ring wouldn't allow him.
"If anything happens to Reynell, I shall charge you as an accessory,"
said the Commandant to each. And the threat was laughed at. Better the
vengeance of the System than the vengeance of the Ring. The former
could only hang them--the latter could do more: it could kill them
after a ceremony of execration. They were frightened of the last.
From Felix the Commandant received his one fragment of consolation.
"I be 'Arry Reynell's sworn man, y'r Honour! An' no harm 'ud 'appen
unto him if Bill Felix can stop ut wi' life nor limb." And, somewhat
reassured, Captain Maconochie went then to Reynell himself.
The man was hoeing. He had stopped for a moment to rest, and stood
gazing towards the sea and over the township, which was semi-veiled in
a lustrous mist, as though Nature would hide from the eye of Heaven
the halls where the devil and the System held their joint revels. On
the soft earth the Commandant's steps were inaudible, and the
transport did not know of the official's approach till he was
addressed.
"Reynell!"
The convict started, and turned round. He "capped" instantly, and, in
the same gesture, Maconochie saw that he had dashed away a tear from
his eyes.
"Good-morning, Reynell! The gang making satisfactory work?"
"Yes, sir. I think so! With a fair crop, the Com'sariat 'll have to
pay them a good many marks."1
Them--why not "us"? Maconochie was quick to notice the substitution
of the word.
"Why 'them,' Reynell? Why don't you, who are the leader and director
of the gang, join yourself with the others?"
"Oh," with a marked hesitation, and a quivering of the lips that told
of an inward agitation, "'twas a slip, sir!"
Maconochie stepped forward and laid a hand, with kindly pressure, on
the transport's shoulder.
"No, Reynell, it was no slip! It meant that already you are
separating yourself in thought from your fellow-gangers--it meant that
you are under doom of death from the Ring!"
The condemned flamed out into sudden anger. Such strange tricks does
the fancy play with a certain order of superstitious minds, that he
was jealous that the secret of the Society he thought so much of as to
submit himself quietly to its fatal will, should be thus known to an
outsider, and that outsider one of the accursed Establishment. "Who
told you that?"
"No one. I inferred it--partly from what passed last Sunday--you
heard I was present?--and partly from what you say was a 'slip.' Come,
Reynell--Harry--"
All the patience, all the forbearance, all the tenderness that it was
possible for one man--a superior--to extend to his inferior,
Maconochie caused to vibrate in his voice. The prisoner, bringing
himself in the sudden impulse of surprise to face the Commandant,
showed in the workings of his features how the "Harry" had stirred
him.
"Tell me," Maconochie went on, "if not the doom, how I can help you
to escape it. Remember, my friend, that I brought this on you!