Again Father McDougal caught at Reeve’s arm, this time with surprising strength. “There’s nothing you can do now. Let them go.”

Jamie gave Reeve a nod and a half smile that would linger in his brother’s memory for a long time. Then the soldiers dragged him away between them, the fat grocer tottering behind, raving on and on about his own obvious innocence of any crime.

Reeve sank against a tree, and at last he wept—for his mother and for Ireland, for Jamie and for himself.

At home he ate the last of the mutton and the bread and drank the tea. The landlady, a shrill widow, had new tenants for the cottage, so he couldn’t stay, and there was nothing to pack, for all Reeve McKenna had in the world were the clothes on his back. Finding the beggar’s badge on the floor, he dropped it into his pocket, for even though the talisman was an object of shame, it was a possession, something to own.

For the next few days Reeve tried in vain to see Jamie, but Dublin Gaol was not a place where compassion was practiced, and he was repeatedly refused. Nights, he slept in doorways and alleys.

The day of Jamie’s trial—he was called to the docket from among a hundred others like him—Reeve was there in the crowd of spectators. His brother stood proudly, with his chin high and a dancing light in his eyes that seemed not only to ask for trouble but to court it.

The magistrate, who had probably never been hungry a day in his life, made a lofty speech about thievery’s inherent evil and sentenced Jamie to be transported for a period of not less than seven years.

Stunned, and half sick with hunger and desperation, Reeve staggered out of the courtroom and into a pouring rain, making his way toward the docks. He could only hope that the Sally Dee hadn’t sailed without him.

The whaler was still in port, though she was slated to sail within the hour. After one last look around him at the cobbled streets and the crowded taverns and the hovels hunched close together, Reeve turned his back on Dublin forever.

As for Jamie, he’d found his own way to New South Wales, peculiar though it was, and Reeve was sure he’d find his brother again on the streets of Sydney Town.

Chapter 1

Brisbane—February 1887

EMIGRANTS AND FIRST-CLASS PASSENGERS ALIKE STOOD AT the starboard rail of the S.S. Victoria, agape at the destruction that greeted them. Gone were the wharves that might have held eager friends and family members waiting to welcome the travelers; cargo, washed away from the docks, bobbed in the sun-spattered blue-green waters. Lavatories floated past, along with what appeared to be an upended cottage, and innumerable rabbits shivered on the few patches of land still visible.