hing-lines hanging over
the catheads.

So far the appearance of the vessel differed in no wise from that of an
ordinary transport. But in the waist a curious sight presented itself.
It was as though one had built a cattle-pen there. At the foot of the
foremast, and at the quarter-deck, a strong barricade, loop-holed and
furnished with doors for ingress and egress, ran across the deck from
bulwark to bulwark. Outside this cattle-pen an armed sentry stood on
guard; inside, standing, sitting, or walking monotonously, within range
of the shining barrels in the arm chest on the poop, were some sixty men
and boys, dressed in uniform grey. The men and boys were prisoners of
the Crown, and the cattle-pen was their exercise ground. Their prison
was down the main hatchway, on the 'tween decks, and the barricade,
continued down, made its side walls.

It was the fag end of the two hours' exercise graciously permitted each
afternoon by His Majesty King George the Fourth to prisoners of the
Crown, and the prisoners of the Crown were enjoying themselves. It was
not, perhaps, so pleasant as under the awning on the poop-deck, but
that sacred shade was only for such great men as the captain and his
officers, Surgeon Pine, Lieutenant Maurice Frere, and, most important
personages of all, Captain Vickers and his wife.

That the convict leaning against the bulwarks would like to have been
able to get rid of his enemy the sun for a moment, was probable enough.
His companions, sitting on the combings of the main-hatch, or crouched
in careless fashion on the shady side of the barricade, were laughing
and talking, with blasphemous and obscene merriment hideous to
contemplate; but he, with cap pulled over his brows, and hands thrust
into the pockets of his coarse grey garments, held aloof from their
dismal joviality.

The sun poured his hottest rays on his head unheeded, and though every
cranny and seam in the deck sweltered hot pitch under the fierce heat,
the man stood there, motionless and morose, staring at the sleepy sea.
He had stood thus, in one place or another, ever since the groaning
vessel had escaped from the rollers of the Bay of Biscay, and the
miserable hundred and eighty creatures among whom he was classed had
been freed from their irons, and allowed to sniff fresh air twice a day.

The low-browed, coarse-featured ruffians grouped about the deck cast
many a leer of contempt at the solitary figure, but their remarks were
conf