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Pounce, however, with more determination than I gave him credit for, kept his ground, and insisted that so flagrant a breach of discipline should not be suffered to pass unnoticed. Thus urged, Mr. Troke pushed through the crowd, and made for the spot whither the man had withdrawn himself. The yard was buzzing like a disturbed hive, and I momentarily expected that a rush would be made upon us.
Troke, with devilish malice, suggested that, if the tortured wretch would decline to see the chaplain, some amelioration of his condition might be effected; but his suggestions were in vain. Fully believing that his death was certain, Dawes clung to North as the saviour of his agonized soul, and rejected all such insidious overtures.
His back was like a bloody sponge, while in the interval between lashes the swollen flesh twitched like that of a new-killed bullock. Suddenly, Macklewain saw his head droop on his shoulder. "Throw him off! Throw him off!" he cried, and Troke hurried to loosen the thongs. "Fling some water over him!" said Burgess; "he's shamming." A bucket of water made Kirkland open his eyes.
The flogging proceeded in silence for ten strikes, and then Kirkland gave a screech like a wounded horse. "Oh!...Captain Burgess!...Dawes!...Mr. Troke!...Oh, my God!... Oh! oh!...Mercy!...Oh, Doctor!...Mr. North!...Oh! Oh! Oh!" "Ten!" cried Troke, impassively counting to the end of the first twenty.
Rufus Dawes no sooner saw the hated face of Warder Troke peering over his hammock, then he sprang out, and exerting to the utmost his powerful muscles, knocked Mr. Troke fairly off his legs into the arms of the in-coming constables.
A desperate struggle took place, at the end of which the convict, overpowered by numbers, was borne senseless to the cells, gagged, and chained to the ring-bolt on the bare flags. While in this condition he was savagely beaten by five or six constables. To this maimed and manacled rebel was the Commandant ushered by Troke the next morning. "Ha! ha! my man," said the Commandant.
The prisoner's cap was lying on the edge of the little cliff, but the prisoner himself had disappeared. Pulling back to the Ladybird, the intelligent Troke pondered on the circumstance, and in delivering his report to Vickers mentioned the strange cry he had heard the night before. "It's my belief, sir, that he was trying to swim the bay," he said.
"What can one do with such a fellow?" "I'd flog his soul out of his body," said Frere, "if he spoke to me like that!" Troke and the others, hearing the statement, conceived an instant respect for the new-comer. He looked as if he would keep his word. The giant raised his great head and looked at the speaker, but did not recognize him. He saw only a strange face a visitor perhaps.
Kirkland jumped for the jetty, missed his footing, and fell into the arms of the chaplain. "You young vermin you shall pay for this," cries Troke. "You'll see if you won't remember this day." "Oh, Mr. North," says Kirkland, "why did you stop me? I'd better be dead than stay another night in that place." "You'll get it, my lad," said Gabbett, when the runaway was brought back.
Under pretence of watching more carefully over the property of the chaplain, he directed that any convict, acting as constable, might at any time "search everywhere and anywhere" for property supposed to be in the possession of a prisoner. The chaplain's servant was a prisoner, of course; and North's drawers were ransacked twice in one week by Troke.
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