"And I would rather know the worst ... or perhaps the best, for I swear my experiences of the last months have led me to expect no haven of rest ... nothing indeed but misery and starvation and humiliation.”

"I know little," said Marcus, "but I will tell you what I do know. An advertisement announcing your arrival will be sent out "A cargo of females ..." and those who want servants will come aboard and choose.”

"There will be no alternative but to be chosen for a servant?”

"There will be other alternatives.”

"Do you think they will try to separate us?”

"You may be lucky and keep together.”

"And if we are not chosen?”

"Well, then you will be sent to the factory a sort of clearing house.

You will be put to work sooner or later.”

"For seven years!" said Carolan.

"I shall be twenty-four before I am free ... it seems a lifetime.”

"Bah!" said Marcus.

"What is seven years!”

"When I think how different my life might have been, had I never run away from Haredon...”

"Bah!" said Marcus again.

"How different all our lives might have been, had we not done this and that!”

"Mine could not have been more wretched!" said Carolan bitterly.

He let his fingers touch her wrist.

"Never despair, Carolan. How do you know what is waiting?”

She turned her head and looked into his eyes. They were burning with desire for her. She looked away quickly, but she was thrilled. No!

She was not despairing. It was good to know that Marcus was her friend.

She shaded her eyes against the glare of the sun.

Esther said: "Good and evil are so oddly mixed. But for the heat we should not be together again, the three of us!”

"Oh, Esther! How sweet you are! Then it means something to you, if not to this hard-hearted Carolan. that I am here to talk with you!”

Carolan said: "Marcus, tell us what happened to you when you got there before.”

"I was a fool in those days. I was over-bold, not cautious enough. I got myself into a deal of trouble. I spent three months in the hulks before I sailed. I loathed the hulks. Why, here you do feel you are getting somewhere; you are moving all the time; you come on deck; you see the sea; you are aware-of the motion. But a prison hulk is belli It was for me. I was a rebel in those days, and looked upon as a troublesome prisoner. One day, dear Carolan, and you too. sweet Esther, if you can bear the sight. I will show you the scars across my back. I could not count the lashes I have had.”

Esther was blushing; Carolan scowled at him. and his answer to the scowl was a mischievous smile.

"Solitary confinement in total darkness! It drove some of them insane.

I survived it. Oh, God! What a fool I was in my young days! And then I arrived and immediately planned escape. Oh. my youthful folly! Now hope is good when there is some sound possibility to support it, but when it is propped up by folly it is disastrous. Never nurture that sort of hope. Carolan. nor you Esther! I do not think you would, Esther, but my sweet Carolan who is so like what I was at her age might be tempted to do so.”

"Oh, I am a fool of course!" said Carolan.

"With the devil's own temper. Odd ... how one loves these foibles!”

"You were telling us.." said Carolan.

"Yes, my lady, I was telling you. I tried to escape. I was brought back. I was given a thousand lashes ... and I was put alone on an island outside the bay from which escape was impossible. The sea was infested with sharks. There was no shade from the sun, nor shelter against the cold night. My food was bread and water, towed out to me each week. I thought I died a thousand deaths on that island, dear children, but it was only one foolish boy who died, and in his place was born a wiser man. I was brought back from there, and worked in a road party -which meant that I lodged in barracks and tramped daily to work. I worked hard and became an overseer. I earned a little tobacco. But the devil was in me and was not sufficiently caged, so I tried escape once more; and when I was caught, I worked in a chain gang, and that, my dears, was a living hell if ever there was one! The chains about my legs were never removed for an instant. I still bear the scars of those days about my body: but I learned much that was profitable.”

"And the next time you escaped you were successful!”

"Third time lucky. But you see, here I am... and this time it is a lifer!”

Esther said earnestly: "You would not try again?”

He smiled at her lazily, and tenderly.

"I do not know, Esther. But this I can say. There would have to be a very good chance of escape before I took it I am wiser now, but perhaps not really as wise as I shall be in five years time. That is the compensation of growing old, is it not? Wisdom accompanies the grey hairs, the flagging steps.”

"What a moralizer you are." said Carolan.

"Tell us about the chain gang.”

"It is ugly telling.”

Esther shivered.

"Nevertheless," said Carolan, "I wish to know the truth. I never want anything dressed up to look pretty any more. Tell us, Marcus.”

"No," he said.

"Not before Esther.”

"Oh, Esther is too squeamish! It is her way of looking at life. God is good! she says, when she sees the beauties in the world. When she sees the squalor and the wickedness, she looks the other way or forgets God had a hand in that too!”

"Don't be harsh with Carolan, Esther; try to understand our Carolan.

She has suffered much; it hardens her...”

"Be silent!" cried Carolan fiercely.

"But I thought you wanted to hear my adventures with the chain gang!”

"But you prefer not to tell in front of Esther.”

"Ah!" He laughed a little, and his eyes were burning in his face.

"I am between two fires, you see. How I long to please you both! And Dammed, I will. Carolan, we will leave Esther dozing here, and we will move just out of earshot, and I will talk to you of what you want to know." His hand was about her wrist, burning hot.

"Come," he said.

"Come on.”

"I am not all that eager to hear.”

"Carolan." he said.

"Come, please. At any moment now we shall be sent back to our holes.

Carolan... please ...”

"And you are eager that I should know of all the horrors that await us on our arrival?”

"I think it is better to have your eyes open... if you are strong enough to bear what you see.”

He drew her a little along the deck. The exertion of the movement was exhausting.

"Carolan, I had to speak to you alone.”

"Of the chain gang?”

"That is past history. I had to talk of us.”

"Oh. Why?”

"All these months I have longed to talk with you. I cannot talk in front of Esther.”

"And yet, when she is there, you look at her as though you could bare your soul to her!”

"You are jealous, my sweet child.”

"Jealous! I? I was about to say you may practise your acts on whom you will, but I will not have them practised on Esther! Do you not recognize innocence when you see it? Esther is a romantic little fool.

She does not see you as you are, nor does she see me as I am. You are a sort of Robin Hood... the sort who robs the rich to help the poor.

What poor did your thieving eve: help?”

"William Henry Jedborough, alias Marcus Markham of course! He was excessively poor.”

"You put on a different personality for different people, do you not?

To Esther you are the philosopher. To me you are the charming rogue.

At least you think you are charming.”

"And you do not?”

"I only know you for the rogue you are! Oh, Marcus... I did not mean that... not entirely. It was so good of you to buy us that room in Newgate.”

"Even though you would not enter into a bargain with me, eh?”

"To me you pretend to be very, very bad, and to Esther you try to appear a sinner struggling towards righteousness. I do not believe you are either one or the other. Why did you try to make that stupid bargain, and then show dearly that you did not mean it?”

"I hoped you would fall into temptation.”

"And what satisfaction would you have had from it?”

"Enormous satisfaction. I love you. Carolan.”

"And you thought that your miserable money..." '... would have brought your submission! Come, Carolan, you know you hesitated.”

"I did not!”

"You did. I saw it in your eyes. And how hope leaped in my savage breast!”

"I would rather you did not joke about the matter.”

"Often a joke will hide our most serious feelings.”

"Please do not be so sententious. I am not Esther!”

"No darling Carolan. The time is passing, and we are wasting precious moments in quarrelling. I love you, Carolan. I want... some hope that some day. on the other side... you and I...”

"What?”

"Convicts whose conduct is exemplary are allowed to marry.”

"You are suggesting that I should marry you!”

"Please do not look as though the idea is repugnant to you, Carolan.”

"I should be sorry for your wife. You would not be faithful to her for a week.”

"If she were you, Carolan, I should be faithful to her for the rest of my life.”

"Your conversational powers are truly miraculous, Marcus! I doubt whether you have ever been at a loss to say the right thing. Still, I fear long practice in the art of deceiving poor females who want to be deceived has made you such an expert.”

"The last months have made you cruel.”

"Did you expect them to make me soft? Children go into Newgate innocent; they come out criminals. I went in, soft and foolish, I emerged hard, perhaps cruel. It is what life has done to me.”

"Carolan, my sweetheart...”

She turned her face to him; tears were streaming down it. She burst out fiercely, because she could not bear the tenderness that leaped into his eyes: "You know I loved him. You know what his desertion has meant. You know it has cut deeper than those irons, than all the horrors of prison. And yet you..." He put his hand on her shoulder.

"Carolan, do not look back. Look forward. You are young; you are beautiful. You were never meant to spend your life grieving for an unworthy lover." His hand slipped down to her breast.

"You are beautiful, Carolan ... my Carolan. You are vital; you are trembling now because you need me as I need you. Make no mistake, we were meant for each other!" She tried to control her trembling limbs.

She longed to lie against him, to lift her face to his. There was in his eyes that which she had tried to arouse in Everard; she had tried to make a man of Everard, the saint.

"Carolan." he said.

"Carolan! Darling, what is prison, what is transportation, what are chains? We can overcome them all.

Promise, my darling. Promise to come to me ...”

Her body urged her to lift her head, to let her brilliant eyes tell him of her response to the passion in him. But she could see Everard, his young face so different from that of Marcus, so beautiful, so saintly.

What had prevented Everard from coming to her? How could she know what? Suppose he came? Suppose, when she landed on the other side, he was there waiting for her! Miracles could happen. In seven years' time she would be a free woman. She would be twenty-four. Was that so very old? She fought against the almost overwhelming power of her senses. Because Marcus appealed to her body so strongly, she must guard against her body. What had Aunt Harriet slyly hinted? She was like her mother, like her grandmother ... she had that in her, that immodesty, that sensuous desire which could, while it lasted, seem so important that it could lure one into ruining one's life just for a momentary satisfaction. There he lay beside her, this man whom she knew to be a thief; he was unkempt; he was dirty; he was a convict sentenced to transportation for life! And because of that indefinable attraction he had for her, she had been ready to give herself up to the sensuous dream of living beside him for the rest of her life, loving him, hating him, finding pleasure in him.

She said: "I love Everard. Who knows, he may come to me! I do not believe he has deserted me; doubtless his mother prevented his coming to Newgate ... We must go back to Esther; whatever will she think?”

 She got up, and went back to Esther.

"Was it very bad?" Esther asked.