Camas Prairie chronicle. [volume] (Cottonwood, Idaho) 1901-1917, 1906-04-13
CHAPTER II

less, the shadow of the Malabar lay
solitary on the surface of the glittering
sea.
The sun had just got low enough to
peep beneath an awning and awaken
young man, in an undress military uni
form. who was doing on coil of rope.
Hang it!' said he, rising with the
weary sigh of man who has nothing
to do. II must have been asleep" and
then, holding by a stay, he turned about
and looked down into the waist of the
ship.
Save for the man at the wheel and
the guard at the quarter railing, he was
alone on the deck. On the forecastle
some half-dozen soldiers were playing
at cards, or watching the fishing lines
hanging over the cat heads
So far the appearance of the vessel
differed in nOwise from that Of an ordi-
nary transport. But in the waist a
curious sight presented itself. 1t was
as though one had built cattle pen
there. At the foot of the foremost
and at the quarter deck, strong bar
ricade, loop-holed and furnished with
doors for ingress and egress, ran across
the deck from bulwark to bulwark Out
side this cattle pen an armed sentry
stood on guard; inside, standing, sitting
or walking mOnotOnously, within range
OF the shining barrels in the arm-chest
were some sixty men and boys, dressed
In uniform gray. The men and boys
were prisoners and the cattle pen was
their exercise ground. Their prison was
down the main hatchway, and the bar
ricade, continued down, made its side
walls.
1t was the fag-end of the two hours
exercise, graeiOusly permitted each af-
ternoon, and the prisoners were enjoy
ing themselves. 1t was not, perhaps, so
pleasant as under the awnings, but that
sacred shade was only for such great
men as the captain and his officers, Sur
geon Pine, Lieut.. Maurice Frere and,
most important personages of ALL Cap
tain Vickers and his wife.
That the convict leaning against the
bulwarks would like to have been able
to get rid of his enemy, the sun, for a
moment, was probable enough His com
panions, sitting on the cOmbings of the
main hatch, or crouched in careless
fashion on the shady side of the barri-
cade were laughing and talking, with
merriment hideous to contemplate; but
he, with cap pulled over his brows. and
hands thrust into the pockets of his
coarse gray garments, held aloof from
their dismal joYiality.
The lOw-browed, coarse-featured ruff
fans grouped about the deck cast many
a leer of contempt at the solitary figure.
but their remarks were confined to ges-
lures only. There are degrees in crime,
and Rufus Dawes, the convicted felon,
who had but escaped the gallows to toll
for all his life in irons, was a man of
mark. He had been tried for the rob-
berry and murder of Lord BelIasis. The
friendless vagabond's lame story of find
ing on the Heath a dying man would
not have awaited him but for the Curl
Gus fact sworn to by the landlord of the
Spaniards' Inn, that the murdered mo-
bleman had shaken his head when asked
II the prisoner was his assassin, The
vagabond was acquitted of the murder,
but condemned to death for the rob
berry, and London, which took some in
terest in the trial, considered him for
tunate when his sentence was committed
to transportation for life.
The young man on the deck caught
sight of the tall figure leaning against
the bulwarks, and it gave him an excuse
to break the mOnOtony of his employ
'ment
Here. your he called out, get out
of the gangwayw
Rufus Dawes was not in the gang
way-was. In fact, a good two feet from
it-but at the sound of Lieut.. Frede's
vOive he started, and went obediently
toward the hatchWay.
''I'll make some Of you fellows smart.
II you don't have a care" went on the
angry Frere. ''Ins0lent bIackeuardsr'
And then the noise Of the sentry. on
the quarter deck below him, grounding
arms, turned the current Of his thoughts.
A thin, tall, soldier-like man, with
cold blue eye, and prim features. came
out Of the cuddy below, handing out a
fair-haired. affected, mincing lady of
middle age, Captain Vickers, Of Mr..
Frere's regiment. ordered for service An
Van Diemen's Land, was bringing his
lady on deck to get an appetite for din
ner.
Mrs. Viekers was forty-two, and had
been a garrison belle for eleven weary
years before she married prim John
Vickers. The marriage was not a happy
one Viekers found his wife extrava.
CANT, vain, and shappisb, and she found
him harsh, disenchanted, and common
place. A daughter, born two years af-
ter their. marriage, was the only link
that bound the ill-assorted pair. Vickers
idolized little Sylvia, and upon the rec
ommendation Of long sea voyage for his
failing health, he insisted upon bringing
the child with him. Mrs Viekers fol-
lowed her husband with the best grace
she could muster. When fairly out to
sea she employed the intervals between
seolding her daughter and her maid. In
fascinating the boorish young lieutenant
Maurice Frere.
Fascination was an integral portion of
Julia Vickers' nature. admiration -