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Updated: June 2, 2025
"Hullo!" says Troke, running to the heap of clothes, "the young 'un's slipped his wind!" Kirkland was dead. "Throw him off!" says Burgess, aghast at the unfortunate accident; and Gabbett reluctantly untied the thongs that bound Rufus Dawes. Two constables were alongside him in an instant, for sometimes newly tortured men grew desperate.
This man held between his knees a basin containing gruel, and was apparently endeavouring to feed the mass on the pine logs. "Won't he eat, Steve?" asked Vickers. And at the sound of the Commandant's voice, Steve arose. "Dunno what's wrong wi' 'un, sir," he said, jerking up a finger to his forehead. "He seems jest muggy-pated. I can't do nothin' wi' 'un." "Gabbett!"
Troke, by way of experiment in human nature, perhaps, placed him next to Gabbett. The day was got through in the usual way, and Kirkland felt his heart revive. The toil was severe, and the companionship uncouth, but despite his blistered hands and aching back, he had not experienced anything so very terrible after all.
About six weeks ago he made another attempt together with Gabbett, the man who nearly killed you but his leg was chafed with the irons, and we took him. Gabbett and three more, however, got away." "Haven't you found 'em?" asked Frere, puffing at his pipe. "No. But they'll come to the same fate as the rest," said Vickers, with a sort of dismal pride. "No man ever escaped from Macquarie Harbour."
The four ringleaders, Dawes Gabbett, Vetch, and Sanders, were condemned to death; but we understand that, by the clemency of his Excellency the Governor, their sentence has been commuted to six years at the penal settlement of Macquarie Harbour."
He had been flogged before. Troke appeared with Gabbett grinning. Gabbett liked flogging. It was his boast that he could flog a man to death on a place no bigger than the palm of his hand. He could use his left hand equally with his right, and if he got hold of a "favourite", would "cross the cuts".
So all that night the miserable wretches crouched fireless together. Morning breaks clear and bright, and free for the first time in ten years they comprehend that their terrible journey has begun. "Where are we to go? How are we to live?" asked Bodenham, scanning the barren bush that stretches to the barren sea. "Gabbett, you've been out before how's it done?"
He recognized the number imprinted on the coarse cloth as that which had designated the younger of the two men who had escaped with Gabbett. He was standing on the place where a murder had been committed! A murder! and what else? Thank God the food he carried was not yet exhausted! He turned and fled, looking back fearfully as he went. He could not breathe in the shadow of that awful mountain.
Mangles, have you any more questions to ask the witness? But Mr. Mangles not having any more, someone called, "Matthew Gabbett," and Rufus Dawes, still endeavouring to speak, was clanked away with, amid a buzz of remark and surmise. The trial progressed without further incident.
Gabbett tore a cutlass from a soldier, shook his huge head, and calling on the Moocher to follow, bounded up the ladder, desperately determined to brave the fire of the watch. The Moocher, close at the giant's heels, flung himself upon the nearest soldier, and grasping his wrist, struggled for the cutlass.
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