Part 17 (1/2)

But theat the broken tumbler, ”what's this? Se, he's been hocussed!”

”Nonsense!”

”I see it,” slapping his thigh ”It's that infernal woed hi look)--”for anybody else ould be fool enough to let her do it

Daas right, sir She's in it; I'll swear she's in it”

”What! my wife's maid? Nonsense!” said Vickers

”Nonsense!” echoed Frere

”It's no nonsense That soldier as shot, what's his name?--Miles, he--but, however, it doesn't matter It's all over now” ”The ,” says Vickers, ”and we'll see” And he went off to his wife's cabin

His wife opened the door for hi to the firing, and waiting for her husband's return without a murmur Flirt, fribble, and shrew as she was, Julia Vickers had displayed, in tie which woh she would yawn over any book above the level of a genteel love story; atteirlishness, boys young enough to be her sons; shudder at a frog, and screahout a quarter of an hour of such suspense as she had just undergone with as est-minded woman that ever denied her sex ”Is it all over?” she asked

”Yes, thank God!” said Vickers, pausing on the threshold ”All is safe now, though we had a narrow escape, I believe How's Sylvia?” The child was lying on the bed with her fair hair scattered over the pillow, and her tiny handsrestlessly to and fro

”A little better, I think, though she has been talking a good deal”

The red lips parted, and the blue eyes, brighter than ever, stared vacantly around The sound of her father's voice seean to speak a little prayer: ”God bless papa and mamma, and God bless all on board this shi+p God bless irl, for Jesus Christ's sake, our Lord Amen”

The sound of the unconscious child's si awesome in it, and John Vickers, who, not ten minutes before, would have sealed his own death warrant unhesitatingly to preserve the safety of the vessel, felt his eyes fill with unwonted tears The contrast was curious From out the midst of that desolate ocean--in a fever-sues from land, surrounded by ruffians, thieves, and murderers, the baby voice of an innocent child called confidently on Heaven

Two hours afterwards--as the Malabar, escaped froh the rippling water--the mutineers, by the spokesman, Mr James Vetch, confessed

”They were very sorry, and hoped that their breach of discipline would be forgiven It was the fear of the typhus which had driven them to it

They had no accomplices either in the prison or out of it, but they felt it but right to say that the man who had planned the uessed from whom the information which had led to the failure of the plot had been derived, and this was his characteristic revenge

CHAPTER XII A NEWSPAPER PARAGRAPH

Extracted from the Hobart Town Courier of the 12th November, 1827:--

”The examination of the prisoners ere concerned in the attempt upon the Malabar was concluded on Tuesday last 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”