John Rex

“ In the emotion which the apparently disinterested conduct of John Rex had occasioned the exiles, all earnest thought of their own position had vanished, and, strange to say, the prevailing feeling was that of anxiety for the ultimate fate of the mutineers. But as the boat grew smaller and smaller in the distance, so did their consciousness of their own situation grow more and more distinct; and when at last the boat had disappeared in the shadow of the brig, all started, as if from a dream, to the wakeful contemplation of their own case. ”

“ John Rex, ever suspicious, and feeling repelled by the giant's strange eagerness, at first refused, but by degrees allowed himself to appear to be drawn into the scheme. He would urge these men to their fate, and take advantage of the excitement attendant on their absence to effect his own escape. "While all the island is looking for these eight boobies, I shall have a good chance to slip away unmissed." He wished, however, to have a companion. Some strong man, who, if pressed hard, would turn and keep the pursuers at bay, would be useful without doubt ”

“ Blunt, in desperate anxiety, determined to risk all upon one venture. “John Rex!” he shouted up through his rounded hands. The light flashed again at the eye-hole of the mountain, and on the point above them appeared a wild figure, holding in its hands a burning log, whose fierce glow illumined a face so contorted by deadly fear and agony of expectation that it was scarce human.
“Here! here!”
“The poor devil seems half-crazy,” said Will Staples, under his breath; and then aloud, “We're FRIENDS!” ”

“ Lady Devine—with a sense of relief for which she blamed herself—assented, and supplied with letters of credit, John Rex went to Paris.
Fairly started in the world of dissipation and excess, he began to grow reckless. When a young man, he had been singularly free from the vice of drunkenness; turning his sobriety—as he did all his virtues—to vicious account; but he had learnt to drink deep in the loneliness of the bush. ”

“ Smoking his cigar in his bachelor lodgings, or pausing in a calculation concerning a race, John Rex often wondered at the strange ease with which he had carried out so monstrous and seemingly difficult an imposture. After he was landed in Sydney, by the vessel which Sarah Purfoy had sent to save him, he found himself a slave to a bondage scarcely less galling than that from which he had escaped—the bondage of enforced companionship with an unloved woman. The opportune death of one of her assigned servants enabled Sarah Purfoy to instal the escaped convict in his room. ”

“ He had barely time to lift the seaweed curtain that veiled the entrance to the chasm, when the Eaglehawk boat rounded the promontory. Burgess was in the stern-sheets, and seemed to be making signals to someone on the top of the cliff. Rex, grinning behind his veil, divined the manoeuvre. McNab and his party were to search above, while the Commandant examined the gulf below. The boat headed direct for the passage, and for an instant John Rex's undaunted soul shivered at the thought that, perhaps, after all, his pursuers might be aware of the existence of the cavern. ”

“ John Rex flattered himself that he had usurped the name of one who was in fact no living man, and that, unless one should rise from the dead, Richard Devine could never return to accuse him. So flattering himself, he gradually became bolder, and by slow degrees suffered his true nature to appear. He was violent to the servants, cruel to dogs and horses, often wantonly coarse in speech, and brutally regardless of the feelings of others. Governed, like most women, solely by her feelings, Lady Devine had at first been prodigal of her affection to the man she believed to be her injured son. ”

“ Then you can endow a charity if you like, or build a church to the memory of the man you have displaced.”
John Rex burst into a laugh. “An excellent plan. I like the idea of the charity—the Devine Hospital, eh?”
“By the way, how did you find out the particulars of this man's life. He was burned in the Hydaspes, wasn't he?”
“No,” said Rex, with an air of pride. “He was transported in the Malabar under the name of Rufus Dawes. You remember him. It is a long story. The particulars weren't numerous, and if the old lady had been half sharp she would have bowled me out. ”

“ Richard Devine had suddenly returned from a mysterious absence of fourteen years, I set to work in earnest. I have spent a deal of money, Jack, but I've got you!"
"You have been clever in finding me out; I give you credit for that."
"There is not a single act of your life, John Rex, that I do not know," she continued, with heat. ”

“ I have my own plan for escape, which is easy if rescue be at hand. All depends upon placing a trustworthy man in charge of the vessel. You ought to know a dozen such. I will wait eighteen months to give you time to make all arrangements." The eighteen months had now nearly passed over, and the time for the desperate attempt drew near. Faithful to his cruel philosophy, John Rex had provided scape-goats, who, by their vicarious agonies, should assist him to his salvation. ”

“ Carr, as the boat ranged alongside the Dido, gaunt and grim, in the early dawn of a bleak May morning.
"What's the matter?" asked the officer of the watch, perceiving the bustle in the boat.
"Gentleman seems to have had a stroke," said a boatman.
It was so. There was no fear that John Rex would escape again from the woman he had deceived. The infernal genius of Sarah Purfoy had saved her lover at last—but saved him only that she might nurse him till he died—died ignorant even of her tenderness, a mere animal, lacking the intellect he had in his selfish wickedness abused. ”

“ Richard," cried Tomkins, aghast, attempting to bar the passage to the upper regions.
"Then let's have her out o' bed," cried John Rex, plunging to the door.
Tomkins, attempting to restrain him, is instantly hurled into a cabinet of rare china, and the drunken brute essays the stairs. The other servants seize him. He curses and fights like a demon. Doors bang open, lights gleam, maids hover, horrified, asking if it's "fire?" and begging for it to be "put out". The whole house is in an uproar, in the midst of which Lady Devine appears, and looks down upon the scene. Rex catches sight of her ”

“ Richard."
"Here's a sovereign for you, Tomkins. Did I say anything?"
"You cussed a good deal, Mr. Richard. Most gents do when they've bin—hum—dining out, Mr. Richard."
"What a fool I am," thought John Rex, as he dressed. "I shall spoil everything if I don't take care." He was right. He was going the right way to spoil everything. However, for this bout he made amends- money soothed the servants' hall, and apologies and time won Lady Devine's forgiveness. ”

“ Really,” she added, with a laugh, “the male intellect is very dull. You have already told ten thousand lies about this affair, and yet you don't see your way to tell one more.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why, my dear Richard, you surely cannot have forgotten that you married me last year on the Continent? By the way, it was last year that you were there, was it not? I am the daughter of a poor clergyman of the Church of England; name—anything you please—and you met me—where shall we say? Baden, Aix, Brussels? Cross the Alps, if you like, dear, and say Rome.” John Rex put his hand to his head. ”

“ Indeed, it had been his scouting for athletic material that had brought Rex Kingdon to the school.
"About as much chance of the coach developing a comer out of that bunch as you have of developing a love for mathematics, Sunset," responded Rex.
"There isn't a natural born pitcher among 'em, and if there's no natural talent, what can we expect of the coach? It isn't his fault."
"I'm going right to work with John and Applejack, here. If there's a level spot on this whole island——"
"I've found it," interposed Cloudman. ”

“ I shall tell Rex—I mean Mr. de Courcy—I wish him to come, and he just won’t pay any attention to John. He will come all the same, I am sure,” said Fairy, not at all alarmed by John’s threat.
“I doubt it, Fairy. You have always done as you liked with John up to now, but now he has taken it into his head it is his duty to stop these visits, he will do it; even you won’t be able to stop him. And if Mr. de Courcy should come this afternoon, you had better tell him John won’t allow him to come to this house, because he is certain his relations would not approve of it if they knew. ”

“ I started and recognised Rex Campion. I also said “Hallo!” and shook hands with him. We had not met since the days when, having heard of my Monte Cristo lavishness, he had called at the Albany and had beguiled me into giving a thousand pounds to his beloved “Barbara's Building,” the prodigious philanthropic institution which he had founded in the slums of South Lambeth. In spite of my dead and dazed state of being I was pleased to see his saturnine black-bearded face, and to hear his big voice. He was one of those men who always talked like a megaphone. ”

“ Here, with their backs to the beating rain, they were quite out of earshot of the others. "Listen. Didn't you see those fellows up there on the island?"
"What fellows?" demanded John Midkiff. "You told us the island was uninhabited, and that nobody would be allowed to camp there but us."
"Ke-rect! The Manatee Company's mighty strict, too. Just the same, my eagle eye perceived several figures on the heights on the other side of the island just as the squall broke," Kingdon declared earnestly.
"How many? Men or boys?" ”

“ A few days later, chancing to encounter John Weeks, on his way across the Isthmus, he recalled Kirk's mention of his first experience at Colon. By way of an experiment he led on the consul to speak of his former guest.
"Anthony? Oh yes," wheezed the fat man. "I see you've got him at work."
"You and he are friends, I believe. I thought you'd be interested to know he's getting on well. In fact, he's the best collector I have."
"We're hardly friends," said the consul, cautiously. "I suppose he's all right—must be or Cortlandt wouldn't have taken him up ”

“ Roy took Rex’s dinner up to him, and the twins had an hour to themselves, during which Rex went more into detail concerning his experiences with Harrington and his crowd. They compared notes on Harry Atkins, and then fell to talking of Miles Harding.
“He’s something more than a common tramp,” Rex insisted. “He can read a little and write some. Isn’t it funny how much he thinks of me, when I haven’t done a thing for him? Mrs. Raynor lets him come up and sit with me every evening when his work is done. ”

“ This centre group was surrounded by men and boys carrying torches and screaming, “Down with popery!” at the top of their voices.
“That group will have a row before they are satisfied,” said Rex, turning away, and looking in the opposite direction, as the group passed on to the Market-place. “But look, Fairy, who is this good-looking man masquerading without a mask as a shepherd? See, he is looking up here,” said Rex. ”

“ Oh, I don’t think he can hurt anybody. He’s just an old man.’
Rex secured the sticks and came back to the entrance of the cave, where he stopped and looked at the sky. The buzzards were coming for their breakfast; a whole cloud of them, zooming down, like a great fleet of black aeroplanes. Rex called Nan to the entrance to watch the birds. Some of them sailed within a few yards of them, croaking harshly. One tried to alight on the sandstone shelf, where Rex had wasted his stone on a lion, but caught sight of the two human beings, and went away with a great flapping of wings. ”

“ It was Harrington. He had circled about and caught up with him.
Rex was so overwhelmed that he nearly lost his balance. But he recovered himself in an instant, and his natural repose of manner asserted itself.
“Yes, indeed,” he answered. “I was wondering if you had a wheel. Most fellows have one nowadays.”
“Oh, this isn’t mine. It’s one I hired. I keep mine at New Haven.”
“Oh, you’re a Yale man then,” exclaimed Rex, prouder than ever at having formed this acquaintance. ”

“ He decided to go home. He wanted to get warm, and yet it seemed as if the air of a room would stifle him. However, once more he crossed the Seine, and as he turned in at his own gate he met Clifford, who said something, but Rex pushed past without trying to understand what it was.
He climbed the dreary old stairs and came to his silent studio. He sat down by the fireless hearth and gazed at a long, slender glove among the ashes. At his feet her little white satin slippers lay half hidden in the long white fur of the rug. ”

“ The crowd from the incoming boat began to unload into the ferry-house, and Rex placed himself anxiously by the entrance. Three or four thin men scurried in advance, then a bunch of stout and middle-aged persons straggled along puffing. Then came a set of young people in theater array, chattering and laughing as they hurried, and another set, and another—the main body of the little army was Page 23upon him. Rex scanned them for a girl alone or a girl with her mother. ”

“ If she sees us looking on the dark side it’ll make it so much the harder for her.”
“That’s it,” returned Rex. “Life is something you must go ahead with. You can’t lay it down when you get tired. All right; I’ll remember what you say, Roy, but it’s an awful come down.”
Rex, however, “came up to the scratch,” as he himself would have expressed it, nobly the next day.
Nobody went to church, and about half past eleven the door bell rang and “Mr. Darley and son” were announced.
Miles, as we shall continue to call him, sent up word to know if he could come up to Rex’s room. ”