“Knock off his irons quick,” says Mr. Fairleigh, the parson; “he will not want them again just yet.”

“I didn’t think you would make a joke of that sort, sir,” says I. “It’s a little hard on a man, ain’t it? But we may as well take it cheerful, too.”

“Tell him all, Mr. Strickland,” he says to the head gaoler. “I see he can bear it now.”

“Prisoner Richard Marston,” says the gaoler, standing up before me, “it becomes my duty to inform you that, owing to representations made in your favour by the Hon. Mr. Falkland, the Hon. Mr. Storefield, and other gentlemen who have interested themselves in your case, setting forth the facts that, although mixed up with criminals and known to be present when the escort and various other cases of robbery under arms have taken place, wherein life has been taken, there is no distinct evidence of your having personally taken life. On the other hand, in several instances, yourself, with the late James Marston and the deceased person known as Starlight, have aided in the protection of life and property. The Governor and the Executive Council have therefore graciously been pleased to commute your sentence of death to that of fifteen years’ imprisonment.”

When I came to I was lying on my blankets in a different cell, as I could see by the shape of it. The irons didn’t rattle when I moved. I was surprised when I looked and saw they were took off. Bit by bit it all came back to me. I was not to be hanged. My life was saved, if it was worth saving, by the two or three good things we’d done in our time, and almost, I thought, more for poor old Jim’s sake than my own.

Was I glad or sorry now it was all over? I hardly knew. For a week or two I felt as if they’d better have finished me off when I was ready and ha’ done with me, but after a while I began to feel different. Then the gaoler talked to me a bit. He never said much to prisoners, and what he said he meant.

“Prisoner Marston,” says he, “you’d better think over your situation and don’t mope. Make up your mind like a man. You may have friends that you’d like to live for. Pull yourself together and face your sentence like a man. You’re a young man now, and you won’t be an old one when you’re let out. If your conduct is uniformly good you’ll be let out in twelve years. Settle yourself to serve that—and you’re a lucky man to have no more—and you may have some comfort in your life yet.”