The usual clanking and hammering was prevalent upon the stone jetty of Port Arthur when the schooner bearing the returned convict, Rufus Dawes, ran alongside. On the heights above the esplanade rose the grim front of the soldiers’ barracks; beneath the soldiers’ barracks was the long range of prison buildings with their workshops and tan-pits; to the left lay the Commandant’s house, authoritative by reason of its embrasured terrace and guardian sentry; while the jetty, that faced the purple length of the “Island of the Dead,” swarmed with parti-coloured figures, clanking about their enforced business, under the muskets of their gaolers.

Rufus Dawes had seen this prospect before, had learnt by heart each beauty of rising sun, sparkling water, and wooded hill. From the hideously clean jetty at his feet, to the distant signal station, that, embowered in bloom, reared its slender arms upwards into the cloudless sky, he knew it all. There was no charm for him in the exquisite blue of the sea, the soft shadows of the hills, or the soothing ripple of the waves that crept voluptuously to the white breast of the shining shore. He sat with his head bowed down, and his hands clasped about his knees, disdaining to look until they roused him.

“Hallo, Dawes!” says Warder Troke, halting his train of ironed yellow-jackets. “So you’ve come back again! Glad to see yer, Dawes! It seems an age since we had the pleasure of your company, Dawes!” At this pleasantry the train laughed, so that their irons clanked more than ever. They found it often inconvenient not to laugh at Mr. Troke’s humour. “Step down here, Dawes, and let me introduce you to your h’old friends. They’ll be glad to see yer, won’t yer, boys? Why, bless me, Dawes, we thort we’d lost yer! We thort yer’d given us the slip altogether, Dawes. They didn’t take care of yer in Hobart Town, I expect, eh, boys? We’ll look after yer here, Dawes, though. You won’t bolt any more.”

“Take care, Mr. Troke,” said a warning voice, “you’re at it again! Let the man alone!”

By virtue of an order transmitted from Hobart Town, they had begun to attach the dangerous prisoner to the last man of the gang, riveting the leg-irons of the pair by means of an extra link, which could be removed when necessary, but Dawes had given no sign of consciousness. At the sound of the friendly tones, however, he looked up, and saw a tall, gaunt man, dressed in a shabby pepper-and-salt raiment, and wearing a black handkerchief knotted round his throat. He was a stranger to him.

“I beg yer pardon, Mr. North,” said Troke, sinking at once the bully in the sneak. “I didn’t see yer reverence.”

“A parson!” thought Dawes with disappointment, and dropped his eyes.

“I know that,” returned Mr. North, coolly. “If you had, you would have been all butter and honey. Don’t trouble yourself to tell a lie; it’s quite unnecessary.”

Dawes looked up again. This was a strange parson.

“What’s your name, my man?” said Mr. North, suddenly, catching his eye.

Rufus Dawes had intended to scowl, but the tone, sharply authoritative, roused his automatic convict second nature, and he answered, almost despite himself, “Rufus Dawes.”

“Oh,” said Mr. North, eyeing him with a curious air of expectation that had something pitying in it. “This is the man, is it? I thought he was to go to the Coal Mines.”

“So he is,” said Troke, “but we hain’t a goin’ to send there for a fortnit, and in the meantime I’m to work him on the chain.”

“Oh!” said Mr. North again. “Lend me your knife, Troke.”

And then, before them all, this curious parson took a piece of tobacco out of his ragged pocket, and cut off a “chaw” with Mr. Troke’s knife. Rufus Dawes felt what he had not felt for three days — an interest in something. He stared at the parson in unaffected astonishment. Mr. North perhaps mistook the meaning of his fixed stare, for he held out the remnant of tobacco to him.

The chain line vibrated at this, and bent forward to enjoy the vicarious delight of seeing another man chew tobacco. Troke grinned with a silent mirth that betokened retribution for the favoured convict. “Here,” said Mr. North, holding out the dainty morsel upon which so many eyes were fixed. Rufus Dawes took the tobacco; looked at it hungrily for an instant, and then — to the astonishment of everybody — flung it away with a curse.

“I don’t want your tobacco,” he said; “keep it.”

From convict mouths went out a respectful roar of amazement, and Mr. Troke’s eyes snapped with pride of outraged janitorship. “You ungrateful dog!” he cried, raising his stick.

Mr. North put up a hand. “That will do, Troke,” he said; “I know your respect for the cloth. Move the men on again.”

“Get on!” said Troke, rumbling oaths beneath his breath, and Dawes felt his newly-rive............