there was the harbour sparkling above the roofs of the convict city.
“We had better drop the ‘Erichsen’ now,” said Daintree, as they drove up to the turnpike gate. “I suggest that ‘Thomas’ will suffice both for Christian name and surname. I think it would be preferable for the present. What say you?” Tom consented with perfect readiness and indifference; and he looked behind him for the last time, as much as to say what was the only thing on earth about which he was not as indifferent as the dead.
They drove down Brickfield Hill, over the spot where Nat Sullivan had tumbled off his horse, and past the notorious inn where he had lain; it flourished still. And still the doleful felon music filled the air, striking more staccato in this crisp weather than six months since in the heavy heat; but it struck to Tom’s heart no more. On the quay there was a crowd, and a fresh shipload of convicts disembarking, but Tom felt no pity for them either. And now, when his indignation was aroused, it was by the lounging laziness of a road-gang, whose overseers were smoking and chatting with the convicts, while the latter moved neither hand nor foot, and the sentries yawned at their posts.
“They want the major there,” said Tom grimly. “He’d have that peck of stones about their ears if they stood looking at it much longer!”
Daintree turned and regarded him with a particularly pleased and kindly smile; then Tom knew that he had just volunteered his first remark since leaving the stockade; and he thought he knew with what sympathetic patience his first voluntary remark had been waited for, though he only now suspected this from Daintree’s smile. His heart swelled a little. They put up at an
