At daylight the next morning, Mr. Troke, landing on the prison rock, found it deserted. 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. "He must ha' gone to to the bottom anyhow, for he couldn't swim five yards with them irons."

Vickers, busily engaged in getting under weigh, accepted this very natural supposition without question. The prisoner had met his death either by his own act, or by accident. It was either a suicide or an attempt to escape, and the former conduct of Rufus Dawes rendered the latter explanation a more probable one. In any case, he was dead. As Mr. Troke rightly surmised, no man could swim the bay in irons; and when the Ladybird, an hour later, passed the Grummet Rock, all on board her believed that the corpse of its late occupant was lying beneath the waves that seethed at its base.

で

CHAPTER VII.

THE LAST OF MACQUARIE HARBOUR.

R

UFUS DAWES was believed to be dead by the party on board the Ladybird, and his strange escape was unknown to those still at Sarah Island. Maurice Frere, if he bestowed a thought upon the refractory prisoner of the Rock, believed him to be safely stowed in the hold of the schooner, and already half way to Hobart Town; while not one of the eighteen persons on board the Osprey suspected that the boat which had put off for the marooned man had returned without him. Indeed the party had little leisure for thought; Mr. Frere, eager to prove his ability and energy, was making strenuous

exertions to get away, and kept his unlucky ten so hard at work that within a week from the departure of the Osprey was ready for sea.

Ladybird the Mrs. Vickers and

the child, having watched with some excusable regret the process of demolishing their old home, had settled down in their small cabin in the brig, and on the evening of the 11th of January, Mr. Bates, the pilot, who acted as master, informed the crew that Lieutenant Frere had given orders to weigh anchor at daybreak.

At daybreak accordingly the brig set sail, with a light breeze from the south-west, and by three o'clock in the afternoon anchored safely outside the Gates. Unfortunately the wind shifted to the north-west, which caused a heavy swell on the bar, and prudent Mr. Bates, having consideration for Mrs. Vickers and the child, ran back ten miles into Wellington Bay, and anchored there again at seven o'clock in the evening. The tide was running strongly, and the brig rolled a good deal. Mrs. Vickers kept her cabin, and sent Sylvia to entertain Lieutenant Frere. Sylvia went, but was not entertaining. She had conceived for Frere one of those violent antipathies which children sometimes own without reason, and since the

memorable night of the apology had been barely civil to him. In vain did he pet her and compliment her, she was not to be flattered into liking him. "I do not like you, sir,” she said in her stilted fashion, “but that need make no difference to you. You occupy yourself with your prisoners; I can amuse myself without you, thank you." "Oh, all right!" said Frere, "I don't want to interfere;" but he felt a little nettled nevertheless. On this particular evening the young lady relaxed her severity of demeanour. Her father away, and her mother sick, the little maiden felt lonely, and as a last resource accepted her mother's commands and went to Frere. He was walking up and down the deck, smoking.

"Are you

"Mr. Frere, I am sent to talk to you." ? All right―go on.” "Oh dear no. It is the gentleman's place to entertain. Be amusing!"

"Come and sit down then, and we'll talk," said Frere, who was in good humour at the success of his arrangements.

we talk about?"

"What shall

"You stupid man! As if I knew!

It is

Tell me a fairy story."

Beanstalk?" suggested

"I can't," he said. I never did such a

thing in

my life."

"Then why not begin? I shall go away

if you don't begin."

Frere rubbed his brows. "Well, have you read-have you read 'Robinson Crusoe?' -as if the idea was the most brilliant one in the world.

"Of course I have," returned Sylvia, pouting. "Read it?-yes. Everybody's read

'Robinson Crusoe!"

"Oh, have they. Well, I didn't know ; let And pulling hard at his pipe,

me see now."

he plunged into literary reflection.

Sylvia sitting beside him, eagerly watching for the happy thought that never came, pouted and said, “What a stupid, stupid man you are! I shall be so glad to get back to papa again. He knows all sorts of stories, nearly as many as old Danny."

Danny knows some, then?"

'Danny!"-with as much surprise as if she said "Walter Scott!" "Of course he does. I suppose now," putting her head on one side, with an amusing expression of supe