CHAPTER VII
O'REILLY'S ESCAPE
The men to whom reference has been made in the preceding chapter were not the only Irish political prisoners. In 1876 there were seventeen still in prison for the attempted revolution of 1866 and 1867. The leaders had been pardoned, but this fact only emphasized the injustice to the men who had been swayed by love for Ireland to follow, and who were still paying the penalty of their devotion.
Some of them, and the number included Michael Davitt, were in prison in England. Some had been pardoned, some had been released by death. John Boyle O'Reilly had escaped. He had been in the convict settlement rather more than a year, and had been granted a few poor privileges on account of his ability and good conduct. He assisted one of the officers in his clerical work, and was appointed a "constable," with the duty of carrying dispatches from station to station and conducting refractory convicts in the road-gang to the prison.
But there was no promise of escape in this liberty, for there were but two avenues open, the trackless bush and the ocean. Suicide was better than flight to the bush; for if the convict could hide from the
