The cobra looked sleepy, and averse to experiments being tried upon
him. He would not be stirred up, even when Thud poked him with a straw
introduced between the wires. The sulky snake would not open his jaws.

Thud dropped a little ammonia from the bottle through the wire cover;
it fell on the cobra’s head and on one of its glittering eyes. The
reptile was thoroughly roused, swelled out his hood, and twisted about
in angry contortions.

“I have not managed to get the ammonia on his fangs yet,” cried Thud;
“but he’s opening his jaws wide enough now.”

The young experimentalist, holding the bottle ready, and eagerly
watching for an opportunity, bent over the cage. The reptile evidently
saw him, for the cobra darted out his forked tongue, and seemed ready
to spring; but Thud felt no fear, for he knew that strong wire-work
effectually imprisoned the serpent. But whilst the philosopher held the
bottle in his right hand, he unconsciously let the left press heavily
on the wires, which were not so close as to prevent a small portion of
a finger being exposed to the enemy’s attack. There was a spring from
below, a cry from above.

“Oh, I am bitten!” cried Thud, staggering back from the cage and
dropping the bottle.

“Then you are a dead man!” ejaculated Champer.

The prognostication was too soon fulfilled: poor Thud had received his
mortal wound, and expired within half-an-hour of receiving the bite.
His end was in character with his career. There was no epitaph over
Thud’s grave, or it might have run thus: “Here lies Thucydides Thorn,
a victim to his own theories, a martyr to science, of which he spoke
so much and comprehended so little.”

                            CHAPTER XXVIII.

                         UNWILLING WITNESSES.

The confession of Oscar Coldstream received in London, and published in
all the papers, did indeed excite a great deal of interest in England.
It was the subject of articles in religious periodicals, was commented
on from pulpits, and was looked upon as an unprecedented instance of
the power of conscience.[4]

Nowhere was greater excitement caused than in a small sitting-room in
a second-class lodging-house in Dover, where two elderly ladies were
sitting together, one engaged in knitting. Miss Deborah was reading
aloud to Miss Betsy a newspaper lent to them by a neighbour, for the
sisters did not indulge in the luxury of taking one in for themselves.
Suddenly Deborah stopped short, and her mittened hands shook so
violently that she almost dropped the newspaper.

“What is the matter, Deborah?” asked her sister in alarm. “You look as
if you had seen a ghost!”

“Oh, it is all out――the murder is out! The wretched man has confessed
that it was he who threw poor young Manly down the cliff on that
terrible, terrible day!”

Betsy was usually slow and sedate, but she now almost snatched the
paper from Deborah’s hand, that her eyes might confirm the witness of
her ears. She read the paragraph headed _A Murderer’s Confession_ with
tears running down her cheeks.

To explain the cause of such strong emotion, we must recur to what had
happened more than a year before.

The reader may have inferred from silence on the subject that there had
been no witnesses of Walter’s fatal fall. Such, however, had not been
the case. It is true that Manly had purposely chosen for his difficult
and dangerous ascent a time when Dover was attracted by the “new and
astounding exhibition” of a conjurer who was going his rounds. Walter
felt that the presence of spectators would affect his chance of winning
his foolish bet――a shout of encouragement or a cry of alarm from
below might make him lose his foothold. But not every one cared for
the conjurer’s exhibition, and the Misses Demster could not easily
spare their shillings to see it, so they took an evening stroll on
the beach instead. They were the daughters of a deceased clergyman;
highly respectable ladies with moderate means, who tried to eke out a
slender patrimony by letting out furnished lodgings in the season, and
occupying them themselves when visitors were few. The Misses Demster
were specimens of a pretty numerous class of reduced gentlewomen, whom
poverty does not rob of a claim to respect. Both were of kindly nature
and pious character, and they were strongly attached to each other.
Miss Deborah looked on her elder sister as a model of perfection.
Deborah could not claim such merit for herself; she had the care
of the housekeeping, and housekeeping on slender means is often a
trial to temper. The good lady knew that she was often angry with the
butcher, and impatient with Lizzie, the dull-witted maid-of-all-work.
Miss Betsy, who was not exposed to such daily temptation, and who was
brought little in contact with any one but a sister who deemed her an
oracle of wisdom and a model of virtue, was rather disposed to accept
Deborah’s opinion as a correct one. Miss Betsy never put the thought
into words, was scarcely sensible that she harboured it, but her real
estimate of herself was not much unlike that of the Pharisee in the
parable: “Lord, I thank Thee that we are not as other women are. We, on
our narrow means, never run into debt, but give to charities a tithe of
all we possess. We go to church daily, fair weather or foul, and teach
in a Sunday school. We pay wages and bills with regularity; we harm
no one, and are useful to many.” Miss Demster set up her own standard
of perfection, and was honestly convinced that she had nearly if not
quite attained thereto. She taught Sunday scholars that our duty is to
love God with all our heart, soul, and strength, and our neighbour as
ourselves; but it never occurred to Betsy to test her own character by
a standard so high, so divine.

The two ladies were taking their walk beneath the cliffs on that
evening when Manly was attempting his perilous feat. Deborah saw him
climbing, and tightly grasped the arm of her sister.

“O Betsy! Betsy! look! look! that must be that hare-brained Walter
Manly, who won the steeple-chase, attempting to climb to the top! Oh,
mercy! I cannot bear to see him; he will fall, and be dashed to pieces!”

Miss Demster, with equal interest, watched the young man’s ascent.

“He’ll never do it,” exclaimed Deborah. “See what a place he has
reached; he will never get up that. What fools these boys are to risk
precious life for nothing!”

“He’s a wonderful climber!” cried Betsy, as she breathlessly watched
efforts which seemed to her almost superhuman.

“He’s nearly at the top now; he’s stopping to take breath; he dare
not look down or he’s lost!” exclaimed Deborah in nervous excitement.
“There――there――he has one hand on the top of the cliff!”

“Now the other; he will swing himself up!” cried Betsy. But even as
the words were on her lips her look of interest changed to one of
intense horror, and the next moment poor Walter fell, turning over head
foremost in the terrible fall. The once fine powerful climber lay a
corpse with a broken neck at the foot of the cliff.

The two ladies hastened to the spot, overwhelmed with horror and
distress.

“Dead, quite dead!” exclaimed Deborah in much sorrow. “We cannot carry
the poor corpse ourselves; we must hasten off for assistance.”

“Stop! stop!” gasped Miss Demster, shaking as if in a violent fit of
ague. “You saw it as well as I. He did not slip; he was flung down. Oh,
mercy! he was _murdered_! I saw the wretch who did the deed.”

“I saw some one too,” cried Deborah.

“I shall never forget the murderer’s face――the handsomest face that
ever I saw in my life, but fierce as a demon’s. I could swear to it in
a court of justice,” said Betsy.

“Oh, don’t talk of swearing or of courts of justice,” exclaimed the
younger sister nervously; “it would be too dreadful to think of.”

“Of course there will be an inquest,” said Miss Demster. “We shall be
called as witnesses.”

“I would not go for the world!” cried Deborah. “Besides, if we took an
oath to tell _all_ the truth, we should have to speak of the murder.”

Betsy’s thin lips turned white as she faltered out, “We might get a man
_hanged_!”

“Oh, horrible! horrible!” exclaimed poor Deborah; “I would almost
rather be hanged myself.”

“We had better hurry away then, and leave some one else to find the
body――some one who would not be mixed up in a murder case, as we should
be certain to be.” Seizing her sister by the arm, Miss Demster almost
dragged her away from the spot.

But the ladies had not gone far before they both stopped as by a common
impulse. “Are we doing right?” came almost simultaneously from the lips
of both.

“Suppose that through us a murderer escape?” said Miss Demster. “If
he commit another murder, shall we be quite clear of the guilt of the
crime?”

“Or the murder may be discovered, but not the right person, and an
innocent man be hanged.” Deborah’s terrible suggestion made both the
ladies shudder.

“I tell you what we’ll do,” said Miss Demster, after some minutes
of painful reflection: “we’ll hurry home and say nothing about the
matter, unless some innocent poor man be seized, and then we’ll come
forward and declare all that we saw, and give evidence that it was a
gentleman――I mean, one who looked like a gentleman――who committed the
murder.”

This was a compromise with conscience, and any compromise with
conscience is a dangerous thing. However, for the time it half quieted
the minds of the two poor ladies.

They hurried home, hardly heeding the furious blast which suddenly
rose, and which, had they been at the top of the cliffs, would almost
have blown them off their feet. Miss Demster opened the door of her
house with a trembling hand. There was a kind of hope in her mind that
once within the quiet little dwelling trouble, like the stormy wind,
could be shut out; but memory and consciousness of having evaded a duty
could not be excluded. Hard did the sisters try to persuade themselves
that they had only done what was natural and right. Betsy thought of
the history of Achan, and recalled other instances in Scripture of sin
being brought to light. Deborah remembered stories of murder having
been found out when there had seemed to be no clue by which to discover
who had committed the crime.

A neighbour dropped in just when the ladies were attempting to eat
their frugal supper, for which all appetite was gone. The storm by this
time had lulled.

“O Miss Demster, Miss Deborah, have you heard the shocking, shocking
news?” cried the visitor, throwing herself down on a seat. “Poor young
Manly has been found, with his neck and ever so many other bones broken,
at the bottom of a cliff!”

“Indeed!” exclaimed the sisters, their consciences pricking them sorely
for expressing such hypocritical surprise.

“He had evidently fallen when attempting an impossible feat. You
were intending to take a walk in that direction, I know. Did you hear
nothing, see nothing, of this dreadful accident?”

Miss Demster actually knocked over the tea-tray, smashed her cherished
china, and sent the boiling contents of the pot over the carpet and
her visitor’s feet. It was her desperate resource for avoiding giving
a reply.

The doctoring of the scalded feet, the picking up of the broken
fragments of china, did divert attention from the subject of poor
Walter. Betsy made many excuses for awkwardness――she who was never
awkward; Deborah ran for cotton-wool to put over the scald; the visitor
presently departed limping (her house was but two doors off), and the
Demsters had kept their terrible secret.

“Deborah, we can’t stand this kind of thing!” exclaimed Betsy, as soon
as the outer door was shut. “Manly’s fall will be the talk of all Dover,
and I can’t break cups and saucers every time that an uncomfortable
question is asked. We’ll be off to London by the stagecoach to-morrow.”

And off the Demsters did go, though at great inconvenience. They could
ill afford the serious expense, and a journey in February gave severe
colds to both the sisters. They did not return till the nine days’
wonder was over; and a coroner’s inquest having been held on the body
of Walter, a verdict had been given――“Accidental death by a fall from
a cliff.”

It is a true saying that a little sin troubles more than a great deal
of sorrow, and its truth was proved by the amiable ladies in Paradise
Square. The quiet, even tenor of their lives was destroyed; they
felt almost like hypocrites when they taught Sunday scholars to be
straightforward and truthful; they took no pleasure in going to church;
they were half afraid to partake of Holy Communion.

“And yet what would every one say if we turned away?” cried Betsy.

“Oh, how wretched we should feel!” sighed Deborah. “Oh that we had
had the courage to do what was right! And yet I am afraid, should all
happen over again, that I should never dare to give evidence that might
cause a man to be hanged.”

A thorn in the flesh often brings a man nearer to God; a thorn in the
conscience severs from communion with God. The former may be endured
with patience; the latter must be drawn out, or the wound rankles and
festers.

The reader will now understand the emotion with which the Misses
Demster read of Oscar Coldstream’s confession.

“That poor sinner has some good in him,” observed the elder――“he has
had the courage to speak the whole truth. Perhaps he acted under great
provocation, and repented of the deed as soon as it was done.”

“He has done all he can to redeem the past,” said Deborah, wiping her
eyes. “I wonder what will be done with the poor gentleman. They will
hardly hang him for telling the truth.”

“You see that a commission is coming to Dover to inquire into the
matter,” observed Miss Demster, pointing to the end of the paragraph.
“Deborah, Deborah, ought we not even now to make clean breasts, and
confess all that we know?”

“That was just what I was thinking,” replied poor Deborah. “We have had
no peace since we hid that dreadful matter, and now our speaking out
will not cause any one to be hanged.”

“That Mr. Coldstream――whatever else he may be――is a brave and
conscientious man,” observed Betsy. “I think――though it would be an
effort, a horrible effort――that we ought to give evidence now.”

And the poor ladies did appear in court, their heads bowed down with
shame, and veils over their faces. They received meekly and with much
self-abasement the reproof of the eminent lawyer appointed to examine
into the case.

“Ladies, you may hitherto have suppressed facts, and tried to defeat
justice, from motives of humanity,” said he; “but know that he who
conceals another’s crime becomes an accessory after the deed; he who
shields a murderer from justice may be regarded as being, in some
measure, a partaker in his guilt.”

It was a consolation to the poor Misses Demster that Oscar Coldstream
was not to be hanged after all. His crime had been unpremeditated
and voluntarily confessed; he was therefore recommended to mercy.
Instructions were forwarded to the Indian Government that the murderer
of Walter Manly should be transported to the nearest penal settlement,
to remain there for the term of his natural life.

                             CHAPTER XXIX.

                             THE SENTENCE.

Banishment for life to the Andaman Islands――to the place which the
natives of India speak of as “beyond the black waters,” a kind of
Stygian pit into which the foul drains of guilt, the slimy streams of
vice throughout Hindostan, empty themselves; where there is the society
of murderers and thieves; a place of mysterious misery, like the
fabled infernal regions;――to Oscar Coldstream this was a sentence more
terrible even than that of public execution. Such banishment was a kind
of living death which, to one not yet thirty years of age, might endure
for forty years or more! What frightful consequences had been entailed
on Oscar by half a minute’s yielding to passion! When he received the
final sentence, Coldstream realized to the full extent what earthly
misery he had brought on himself.

By the same ship which carried the decision regarding Oscar’s fate,
came also a letter from his sister-in-law, Jane Thorn, addressed to
himself. Jane deplored Oscar’s miserable condition; but earnestly,
solemnly implored him not to let his innocent wife share in his exile.
The home which was about to be Jane’s should always, she wrote, be
shared by her dearly-loved sister. Let Io return to England and try
to forget the past.

“Yes, let her forget me――the unworthy, the guilty! Why should her
young life be blighted? I do not wish to be remembered in my living
grave!” And with the brief comment, “You had better do what your sister
desires,” Oscar handed the open letter to Io.

Her eyes streaming with tears, her hands clasped round the neck of her
husband, Io replied in the words of Ruth, “Entreat me not to leave thee,
nor to depart from following after thee; for where thou goest, I _will_
go; and where thou diest, I will die.” The last word was lost in a sob.

“But, my beloved, you have not permission to go with――a convict,” said
Oscar, scarcely able to command his voice.

“I will have it! I will have it!” cried Io.

The door of the cell opened; the jailer was bringing in the prisoner’s
meal. Io availed herself of the opportunity of quitting the place in
which she had been locked up with her husband. Repeating, “I will have
it; I will not return without it,” she ran――she almost flew――down the
long corridor, like a bird escaping from a snare. Until the rebound
came, Io had scarcely realized how heavy had been the pressure of a
weight on her heart――the fear, the secret dread that Oscar’s might
be a capital sentence. Relieved from that weight, the poor wife’s
spirit rebounded almost into joy. “He is safe――his precious, precious
life is safe!” Io kept repeating to herself, as she quitted the dark,
dismal prison. “The Lord can make him happy yet; and as for me, it is
happiness to be with him.”

Io did not find the palanquin at the entrance, for no one had expected
her to quit the prison so soon. She stopped the first empty conveyance
which she saw. “To Government House” was the direction which she gave
to the driver. She had entered that lordly building but once before――on
her arrival as a bride at Calcutta. Io had gone in goodly apparel,
and her beauty had attracted much admiration. “Coldstream has drawn a
prize,” had been the Governor-General’s remark to a friend. How changed
was all now! And yet Io was fairer in the dark weeds which she wore for
her mother, nobler in the devotion which she showed to a husband ruined
and disgraced, than she had been at her presentation at a semi-regal
court.

On her arrival at the stately palace in which the ruler of India
resided, Io found that her humble vehicle could not be driven up to
the handsome entrance. Before the pillared portico stood a splendid
carriage drawn by tall camels with trappings of scarlet and gold,
preceded by outriders on gaily-caparisoned steeds. The Governor-General
was going out to attend a review.

“I am just in time,” thought Io, as she threw open the door of her
conveyance and sprang out. Through the little crowd of gaping Orientals
waiting to see the Lord Sahib “eat the air,” past outriders, and all
the glittering paraphernalia of princely state, glided Io Coldstream,
too intent on her errand to heed anything around her.

The Governor-General was at the top of the flight of broad steps, which
he was about to descend, conversing with one of the _aides-de-camp_ who
were in attendance on the great man. Io rapidly mounted the steps, all
gazing at her, but no one hindering. She fell at the Governor-General’s
feet, clasped her hands, and in a voice of passionate entreaty
exclaimed, “Oh, grant me leave to share my husband’s exile!”

“Mrs. Coldstream! my dear lady!” exclaimed the Governor-General,
raising the suppliant, whom he had at once recognized, “is it possible
that you can wish to go to the settlement, where all the surroundings
will be so utterly uncongenial?”

“I care not for surroundings; I have but one desire, one favour to
implore――to be allowed to go with my husband. You cannot, you will not,
refuse that one little boon!” cried Io.

“Madam, I honour your devotion; I sympathize with your sorrows; I
cannot refuse your petition,” said the Governor, visibly affected.

Mrs. Coldstream was not suffered to depart in the humble vehicle
in which she had come, gladly as she would have escaped from the
uncongenial glare and glitter; for, now that her petition was
granted, Io realized her position as the wife of a felon. A handsome
carriage was placed at her disposal, and the highest officer in the
Governor-General’s suite would have been proud to act as her escort. Io
was impatient of delay, for the vessel which was to bear its sad cargo
of criminals to the place of punishment was to sail in two days. There
were preparations to be made for the voyage and the life-long exile.
Io very gratefully thanked the Governor-General for all his kindness;
but it was with a sigh of relief that she found herself at last on the
way to the missionary’s house in which, through all the long months of
suspense and waiting, she had found a quiet home.

The missionary’s wife received her guest in the veranda. Mrs. Leveson,
like the rest of the Calcutta world, had heard of Mr. Coldstream’s
sentence. She took the weary young wife into her motherly arms.

“Oh, dear Mrs. Leveson, I have so much, so very much to do and to
think of!” cried Io. “I so need to have the quiet waiting spirit of a
Mary, but I must do the work of a Martha. I have so much purchasing and
packing before me, that I shall hardly have time to-morrow even to go
to my husband.”

“I will do the purchasing and packing, dear child,” said the
kind-hearted lady. “You have nothing to do but to give me a list of
what you require.”

Very thankfully was this kindness accepted. Io would scarcely wait
to throw off her bonnet, tired and heated as she was, before sitting
down to draw up her list of requirements. As she was completing it,
Mrs. Leveson glanced over her shoulder. “My dear child, ‘a _colour-box_
and a supply of _cardboard_!’” she read out in a tone of surprise.

“Yes, my Oscar paints beautifully; he will need every resource. I am
taking his flute also. Alas! he has not touched it since our marriage!”

“And you have forgotten a waterproof cloak for yourself when going to a
place noted for dampness,” said Mrs. Leveson. “Dear Mrs. Coldstream, I
shall have to revise your list, as well as to execute your commissions.”

                             CHAPTER XXX.

                             CONSOLATION.

As soon as Io quitted the prison cell of her husband, Oscar gave
vent to the anguish which he had hardly been able to restrain in her
presence. Leaving the loathed food untouched, the unhappy criminal
paced up and down the narrow space in which he was confined, with hands
tightly clasped and raised towards heaven with a gesture of something
like despair.

“The brand of Cain is upon me!” he groaned; “and like Cain, I am driven
forth a vagabond on the earth. Like him, I cry, ‘My punishment is
greater than I can bear!’ Is it sinful to pray that this misery may not
be a prolonged one? Is it sinful to implore to be soon released from
the worse than Egyptian bondage to which my mad wickedness has brought
me, and to which I am dragging down with me my sweet, innocent wife?”

The unexpected sound of footsteps in the corridor, then that of the
key grating in the lock of his cell, startled the prisoner, for no one
usually came at that hour. The heavy, nail-studded door slowly unclosed,
the jailer entered to introduce a visitor, and then himself retired.

“Lawrence!”――“My friend!” The brief greetings were exchanged, and the
chaplain and the prisoner embraced, as brothers might embrace who were
never again to meet in this world.

For some minutes no other word was spoken. Oscar was the first to break
the silence.

“How came you to see me here――in my prison?” he asked.

“I could stay away no longer,” was the chaplain’s reply. “I felt that
I must see my friend once more.”

“You call me _friend_,” said Oscar gloomily.

“Friend――yes, brother!” cried Lawrence.

“You forget _why_ I am here,” said the criminal.

“No, I do not forget that you are here because you had the courage
to confess your deed; because you preferred punishment and disgrace
to honour and ease; because _you dared to pluck out the right eye_.
Coldstream, do you repent having made a confession?”

“Never!” was the emphatic reply. “I would rather suffer any earthly
misery than the terrible separation from God which I once had to
endure.”

“Then indeed you are my brother in Christ,” said the chaplain. “Are we
not both sinners redeemed by grace?”

Lawrence’s coming was to Oscar as a draught of cool and sweet
refreshing water to one perishing of thirst. The friends sat down
together, and long was the conversation which ensued. Coldstream spoke
more freely to Lawrence of his grief than he had done to Io, for he was
less afraid of inflicting pain. Lawrence gave heart-felt sympathy, and
he gave consolation besides. The chaplain spoke of the tears of a David
and the penitence of a Peter. He touched on the story of the woman
deeply sunken in sin, who was offered freely the water of life by Him
who was to die to procure it. Was not that woman to become a missionary
to her own people? Was not David to prepare for the building of the
Temple? Was not Peter to live an apostle and die a martyr?

“God may have some work for you to do even in the place of your
exile,” said Lawrence. “The Lord asks not, ‘Hast thou ever sinned
greatly against Me?’ but He says, ‘Lovest thou Me?’ You can give the
same answer as did the penitent Peter.”

“I can, I can,” murmured Coldstream under his breath.

“Then, though severed from country and friends, you have a Home and a
Father on high.”

After a few minutes of silent thought, Oscar said, in a hesitating tone,
“Do you think that it would be sinful presumption in me to partake once
more of the Supper of the Lord?”

“One of my chief objects in coming to Calcutta was to see if you could
receive from me Holy Communion,” said Mark.

“It would be a great comfort, a great privilege,” said Coldstream; “one
from which sin has for long shut me out.”

The prison authorities put no difficulties in the way; they had from
the first treated their unhappy charge with consideration. On the
following morning the dreary cell became, as it were, a chapel. Over
the rude table, on which former criminals had carved their names, a
spotless white cloth was spread, covering every mark and unsightly
stain. Before it knelt Oscar and his wife, with their missionary
friends. It was a holy, peaceful service. Oscar felt that there
was a blessing even for a sinner such as he. _Blessed is he whose
transgression is pardoned, and whose sin is covered; blessed is the
man to whom the Lord imputeth not sin._

                             CHAPTER XXXI.

                              THE VOYAGE.

Away, away over the wide waters; farewell, a long, a last farewell to
the civilized world! Coldstream’s parting with Lawrence is over; both
felt that they should never look on each other’s face on this side the
grave, but that they should meet on the other side. The breeze fills
out the swelling sails; the vessel bounds over the waves. The smell of
the sea, the glitter on the waters, the sense of having only the blue
sky above, exercised a sensible influence on both the Coldstreams. A
slight tinge of colour came to Oscar’s pale, thin cheeks, and Io’s dark
eyes brightened with something like pleasure.

“It is nice to be again on the free billows,” she said; and she
mentally added, “These so-called black waters are wondrously blue.”

There were other convicts on board besides Coldstream, but with most
of them no communication could be held, such a diversity of tongues is
found in the vast extent of India. There were, however, one Burmese man,
and a woman who was a Bengali. Some knowledge of the language of the
latter Io had picked up during her weary stay in Calcutta.

The Burmese looked with curiosity on the fair, youthful lady, bound,
like himself, to the Andaman Islands. Oscar heard the man muttering to
himself, “I wonder what bad thing _she_ has done? She doesn’t look like
one of our sort.”

“The lady has done nothing bad,” said Coldstream; “she only goes into
exile because she will not desert her husband.”

“My boy’s mother is not like that,” observed the Burmese with a gloomy
smile; “she would never go across the black waters for me, though it
was through her that I got into all this trouble.”

“What did you do?” asked Oscar, who saw that the manly-looking fellow
seemed inclined for conversation.

“A rascally Mussulman pulled off the veil of my boy’s mother. I was not
going to stand that, so I stuck my knife into him. But he did not die,”
added the Burmese.

“Are you not glad that he did not die?” asked Oscar.

“Not I,” was the fierce reply. “I would as soon be hanged as sent
across the black waters. If the thing came over again, I’d do just the
same as I did.”

Io, in the meantime, had gone up to the Bengali woman, who, in her
soiled _sari_, was crouching on the deck in an attitude of hopeless
dejection.

Io made the most of her little stock of Bengali; her gentle, winning
manner went further than her words. She at length made the convict look
up, and, after a considerable time, drew from her something like the
following tale:――

“The children’s father[5] did not love me. He wanted a boy, and only
girls came――one, two, three, _four_ girls! The last was very little; I
could carry her in my hand――like that. I could give her no nourishment;
baby was thin――you could count all her bones. She cried all day and all
night. Baby’s father was angry at the crying; he said he would throw
her into the Ganges. So I put her under water; and a sahib saw it, and
gave me into the charge of the sepoys. If I had put a little poison
into baby’s mouth, no one would have known anything about it.”

“How horrible!” exclaimed Io, intuitively drawing back. “How could you
hurt your own baby?”

“I did not hurt her; I put her to rest,” said the woman, who was
utterly unconscious of having committed a sin.

Io went and compared notes with her husband, who had had a long talk
with the Burmese convict.

“Neither of these poor creatures has any sense of the heinousness of
their guilt,” observed Oscar. “The man acted from an idea of honour;
the woman thought it no cruelty to still the wailings of a miserable,
unwelcomed babe.”

“O Oscar, if these be specimens of our future companions in banishment,
you have a grand, a glorious work before you!”

The same thought had flashed across the mind of Coldstream. Was it
not possible that the Lord was indeed guiding by His eye one unworthy
of the least of all His mercies, and guiding to a position of greater
usefulness than Coldstream had ever occupied before?

The Coldstreams, during the rest of the voyage, devoted much time to
teaching their convict companions, and, both with Burmese and Bengali,
the seed of the Word appeared to fall into ground softened by sorrow.
Poor Lachmi, who had been down-trodden by man, and terrified by legends
regarding demon-like deities, clung to the thought that there was one
religion of love. The Burmese received the truth in simplicity, and
rejoiced to hear that there was One who would stand his Friend, though
the world had cast him off. Nor was this all. Coldstream found ready
listeners in the Lascars who manned the vessel, and who had never
before had any one to speak to them of a Saviour. The captain, a rough,
honest Englishman, watched with surprise the quiet but earnest work
which was turning his ship into a floating Bethel.

“I don’t know how such as you ever found your way into a penal
settlement,” observed Captain Partridge to Coldstream on the evening
before they landed. “I think I’ve a Jonah on board.”

“One brought from lower depths than ever was Jonah,” was Oscar’s reply.

“And going to preach to worse sinners than those of old Nineveh,” said
the captain. “I see that you’ve brought your gourd with you,” he added,
as he glanced at Io, who was standing gazing in the direction of the
land from which “the spicy breezes” were already wafted over the ocean.

“God grant that I may not love her too well or lose her too early,”
thought Coldstream; “she is all that is left to me upon earth.”

                            CHAPTER XXXII.

                              CONCLUSION.

“O Oscar! this can be no penal settlement; it is a paradise, a perfect
paradise of beauty!” was Io’s delighted exclamation as, aided by her
husband, she stepped on shore. Imagination had pictured the Andamans as
some hot waste of sand, or some burning rock, fit abode for criminals
driven forth from their fellow-men; but perhaps the whole earth holds
no fairer spot, none more favoured by nature, than these beautiful
Eastern islands――“emeralds set in the ring of the sea.” There plants
grow in the richest luxuriance; there verdure clothes the forest, and
flowers spangle the earth. Where the green waves gently lap the shore,
corals of marvellous beauty may be seen through the transparent depths.
Well worthy of artist’s pencil or poet’s lay are the dreaded Andaman
Isles.

Oscar, rapt in admiration, gazed on the scene around him.

“Strange――most wonderful!” burst from his lips. “Adam was for one sin
banished from paradise, and my sin, far more detestable than his, has
brought me into another Eden.”

“Not your sin, beloved one, say not your sin!” exclaimed Io; “rather
your repentance, the brave sacrifice which you made in indeed plucking
out the right eye.”

“And what gave me courage to make the sacrifice?” asked Oscar, looking
gratefully at his wife. “Was it not my Io’s brave words when, at the
crisis of my life, she said, ‘Do what you think is right’?”

The Andaman Islands are governed in a humane and liberal spirit. There
is no dungeon there――no chains, unless it be in Viper’s Island, to
which only the most desperate ruffians are transported to be kept under
stricter ward. The chief commissioner has indeed the power of life
or death, and soldiers to carry his orders into effect; but when the
Coldstreams arrived they found themselves under the sway of a wise and
beneficent ruler. The commissioner received Oscar with grave politeness,
his wife with chivalrous courtesy.

“I am afraid, Mr. Coldstream,” said the commissioner, “that I must make
no exception in your favour. Our people here have small allotments of
land, and are expected to cultivate them with their own hands.”

“I wish for no exception in my favour, sir,” was the convict’s reply;
“I deserve none, for there is no one in these islands who has sinned so
grievously against the laws of God and man as myself.”

To Oscar Coldstream his manual labour became a pleasure. No land was
better cultivated than his; and he made his hut a bower of beauty, in
which the bird of paradise was Io.

But the principal labour of both the Coldstreams was amongst the
convicts of either sex. The English couple were earnest missionaries
without the name. Year by year souls were won for the Master, and out
of the chaos of misery and crime a little church of lowly believers
gradually rose. Oscar had no children. This was to him not a matter
of regret, for he could not have endured to leave to his offspring
a heritage of disgrace, the name of the sons of a felon. But the
Coldstreams were granted many spiritual children, and the ties formed
in the Andaman Islands were to Oscar and Io so close and so dear, that
even had a pardon come they would have declined leaving their place
of exile, or rather their sphere of work. Oscar was known amongst the
people as the _pir_, or saint――a title which he always repudiated, but
which clung to him still.

Letters connected the Coldstreams with the outer world, and not
unfrequently the chief commissioner lent newspapers to read. Oscar
knew when a fair young queen ascended the throne which this worthy
descendant of Alfred still fills. He received from Mark Lawrence the
glad news that after years of loneliness his home was to be brightened
by the presence of a wife. The chaplain’s former disappointment had
been in itself a blessing, for without it he would have been linked to
one who would not have made him happy.

With one scene in the life of the Coldstreams, about eight years after
their arrival in the Andaman Islands, my little story concludes.

“There is a vessel in the offing, my Oscar,” said Io one morning;
“shall we go down and see the arrivals?”

Oscar was just putting the last touches to a beautiful water-colour
picture which was to be a birthday present to Io; but he rose at once,
put down his brush, and prepared to accompany his wife.

“Formerly,” observed Oscar, “it was with sadness that we saw new-comers
arriving; now hope counterbalances pity. We look upon prisoners coming
to the Andaman Islands less as sinners to be punished than as souls
that may be saved.”

“But these are not prisoners; they come in the commissioner’s yacht.
There are nice white English faces,” exclaimed Io joyfully, quickening
her pace, “and one is a lady! O Oscar, Oscar!” she continued in the
excitement of pleasure, “I am certain that yonder is Mark Lawrence, and
she who leans on his arm must be his wife!”

Oscar hurried on so fast at the word that Io had to run to keep up with
his pace. Here was a great and unexpected pleasure indeed! In a few
minutes the friends who had deemed that they were parted for ever as
regards this world were greeting each other with cordial delight.

“You never thought――I never thought of my being appointed chaplain
to the troops in the Andaman Islands!” cried Mark, after having
with pleasure and pride introduced his young wife. “Why, Coldstream,
the climate of the place must suit you, for you look little changed
after so many years of residence, only more strong and a little more
sunburnt.” Lawrence might have added, “and a great deal more happy,”
for Coldstream’s fine countenance now wore an expression of peace.

And Io was blooming still, not a silver thread in the auburn hair, not
a wrinkle of care on the white smooth brow. The water-lily had again
opened its chalice to the sunshine, and was smiling in the light which
came from heaven, and was reflected by very many objects around her.

That day was one of the happiest which the Coldstreams had ever known.
No stranger seeing the group that sat eagerly chatting over old days
would have dreamed that the one gentleman was a chaplain, the other
a convict. Oscar himself was the only one to whose mind came the
recollection of his great crime; in his heart of hearts was written,
“Jesus Christ came to save sinners, _of whom I am chief_.”

A party to visit a spot of singular beauty was arranged for a later
hour of the day. The distance was so short that in the evening even the
ladies could walk.

“I have a double object in selecting Palm-tree Point,” observed
Coldstream: “I have just received notice that a Karen is lying in a hut
there with a broken leg. I have not seen him yet, for he is a recent
arrival.”

“I could almost wish that it were our old friend Ko Thah Byu,” said
Lawrence.

“One would hardly find him _here_,” rejoined Coldstream.

In the softened light of a rich sunset the Lawrences and Coldstreams
made their way to the beautiful spot. They found the Karen, not in the
hut, but stretched on a _churpai_ under a tree. None of the visitors
had ever seen the man before, but the fact of his being a Karen
awakened additional interest.

After kindly salutation, and making inquiries after the injury which
the convict had received, Coldstream, taking a seat on a mat, opened
his Karen Bible. The ladies rested themselves luxuriously on a mossy
bank garlanded with rare ferns.

“Ah, that is the book which Ko Thah Byu so loved!” observed the Karen.

“Did you know him?” asked Oscar.

“I knew him well,” said the sufferer. “Ko Thah Byu often came to our
village to give the good tidings of great joy. If I had minded all that
he said I should never have come to this place.”

“I must try to find out where he is,” observed Lawrence, “and give him
news of you.”

The convict shook his head sadly. “Ko Thah Byu is where news cannot
reach him,” said the Karen. “Our brother has gone to be with the Lord.
I was at his side when he died.”

The tidings were received with sorrow. How apt are we to grudge the
victor his crown, the weary labourer his rest! We grieve to think
that a familiar voice shall never again on earth proclaim God’s truth,
though we believe that it is swelling the chorus of His praise in
heaven.

Inquiries elicited a few particulars of the last days of the first
Karen convert and apostle. Ko Thah Byu had latterly been afflicted with
painful sickness, and blindness had quenched the light of his piercing
eyes. The evangelist had had to close his long itinerancies, and wander
no more amongst the heathen. Yet as long as Ko Thah Byu could preach,
he preached, bearing fruit even in old age. Then, as a ripe sheaf meet
for the Master’s garner, the saint fell asleep amongst his own people,
honoured, beloved, and lamented.

“Of the Karen apostle it may well be said,” observed the chaplain,
“that he will have many stars in his crown.”

“May I, unworthy as I am, be reckoned amongst them!” said Oscar
Coldstream with emotion. “I should, humanly speaking, never have known
peace on earth or glory in heaven had I not been taught by the Karen
the force of the inspired words: _Blessed is he whose transgression is
forgiven, whose sin is covered.... I acknowledged my sin unto Thee, and
mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions
unto the Lord; and Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin._”

                               APPENDIX.

Whilst some readers will skip the appendix altogether, to others it
may appear the best part of my book, as it will give some information
regarding the present state of the Karens, and will show what sorts of
fruit now grow on the tree planted by the devoted American missionaries
and their first convert, Ko Thah Byu.

I will not dwell long on the fact mentioned in secular newspapers, that
when the English took possession of Burmah those of the inhabitants
_trusted with arms_ were loyal Karens, as they would defend the laws.
Such courage was displayed by the Karens that they were given by the
English Government a large reward.

It is more interesting to know how the Christian Karens have honoured
the memory of their apostle, Ko Thah Byu. I will give some extracts
from his memoir, to which I have been already indebted:――

“On the 16th of this month, May 1878, occurred the fiftieth anniversary
of the baptism of the first Karen convert, Ko Thah Byu. He was not only
the first in time. As a humble, persistent, and prayerful teacher of
the gospel to his heathen countrymen, he ranks easily first amongst the
hundreds of faithful men who have succeeded him.”

A school and building fund was raised, not only with a view to
usefulness in the growing church, but to erect a worthy monument to
Ko Thah Byu. To give another extract:――

“It was voted, in view of the exigency and the jubilee, to make a
special thank-offering, that the missionary hall might be dedicated
without delay. It was the hottest time of the year, but every man,
woman, and child stayed at his post. An enthusiasm for giving fell
on the people. On the day of dedication our new building fund, which
we had set at the modest figure of 20,000 rupees (less than £2,000),
reached the sum of 42,342 rupees. The debt was extinguished; there was
abundance of material on hand, and over 8,000 rupees in cash.... To sum
up, since 1868 the Karens of Bassein alone have sent 43,050 rupees for
the erection of permanent and substantial buildings.”

Then follows a detailed description of the opening of the Ko Thah Byu
Mission Hall, the winding up of which we will give to our readers:――

“On the wall of the south veranda we have carved in large gilded
Burmese characters――

                      1828. KO THAH BYU. 1878.

And our prayer is that the building may long stand, and do its part
towards training and sending forth hundreds of men and women far better
equipped for the service of the Master than Ko Thah Byu, and with a
spirit no less fervent and devoted.”

To bring the account of the Karens to a still later date, I give an
extract of a comparatively recent speech made by a lady, the only
Karen missionary at a large conference.[6] Speaking of the interesting
people amongst whom she laboured, she said: “Without any literature,
they had a tradition about some old book which had been taken from them,
but which some day the white men would bring back to them. They were
therefore ready to receive the gospel, and when it reached them they
yielded readily to its power. Now there are _over 450 parishes, with
their own pastors and schools_. They also send out missionaries to the
regions beyond. _There are 30,000 Church communicants._ Many of the
young men have gone with their wives across the hills far north amongst
strange peoples, and are there preaching the gospel.... There is a
Women’s Karen Missionary Society.”

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                              Footnotes.

    1 – The legend is copied almost word for word from a most
        interesting work which I procured from Calcutta, “The
        Karen Apostle, or Memoir of Ko Thah Byu,” by the Rev.
        Francis Mason, D.D., missionary to the Karens. I am
        indebted to this work for the information contained in
        this story regarding a very remarkable race, as well
        as regarding the singular man who is the subject of the
        memoir.

    2 – It is a remarkable fact that when the English, many
        years after the date of my story, took possession of
        Upper Burmah, they trusted Karens with weapons, and found
        them do good work as gallant police in bringing that
        troublesome district into order.

    3 – Ko Thah Byu’s account of himself is strictly authentic.

    4 – If unprecedented then, not a solitary instance now, as
        Constance Kent voluntarily confessed herself guilty of
        murder, and was sentenced to imprisonment for life in the
        present reign.

    5 – It would be deemed very improper for a woman to say “my
        husband.”

    6 – Held, I think, in 1888, but it may have been in the
        previous year.