Page:Life of John Boyle O'Reilly.djvu/124

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JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY.

water, in that heavy sea, the terrible strain overcame him when relief arrived. He fainted away after seeing that O' Reilly was safe, and lay insensible for four hours.

Two months later the Gazelle put into the harbor of Eoderique, a small British island in the Indian Ocean, to take in a supply of fresh water. O'Reilly's escape had been telegraphed to that and other quarters. Just before sunset on the day of her arrival, a boat came alongside with the Governor of the island and a guard of police on board. Hathaway was on the ship's deck; beside him stood O'Reilly.

"Have you a man on board named John Boyle O'Reilly?" was the officer's first question. Hathaway knew nobody of that name, but, on the official's describing him, remembered that a man answering such a description, but named Brown, had been on board, and died two months before in the Straits of Sunda. "Brown" was the name by which O'Reilly went, on board the Gazelle.

The Governor thereupon demanded that the crew be mustered for inspection, and the men were accordingly drawn up in a row. One stowaway was promptly recognized as a fugitive from justice, and put under arrest, but the officers found nobody answering to the description of No. 9843. The convict Martin Bowman would have escaped, too, but for his own savage conduct. Ever since his arrival on the ship he had been the bully of the forecastle.

Among the sufferers from his brutality was a young English sailor who could not lose so good a chance of getting rid of, and even with, his tormentor. The officers had passed Bowman by when this young sailor, with a jerk of his thumb and a knowing look, indicated him as a suspicious character. He was accordingly subjected to a closer examination, recognized, put under arrest and taken to the gangway. As he went over the side he turned to O'Reilly, and with a wicked leer said, "Good-by, shipmate." The action and words were marked. O'Reilly well knew what they meant,—that Bowman had singled him out so that the officers would remember him, when, after reaching