Tongues of Serpents Page 0,10

here for anything; Sodom and Gomorrah are nothing to it."

Three subsequent weeks in the colony had done very little to improve Laurence's opinion of its present or its former management. There was nothing in Bligh himself which could be found sympathetic: in language and manner he was abrupt and abrasive, and where his attempts to assert authority were balked, he turned instead to a campaign of ill-managed cajolery, equal parts insincere flattery and irritated outbursts, which did little to conceal his private conviction of his absolute righteousness.

But this was worse than any ordinary mutiny: he had been the royal governor, and the very soldiers responsible for carrying out his orders had betrayed him. Riley and Granby continuing obdurate, and likely soon to be gone, Bligh had fixed upon Laurence as his most promising avenue of appeal, and refused to be deterred; daily now he would harangue Laurence on the ill-management of the colony, the certain evils flowing from permitting such an illegitimate arrangement to continue.

"Have Temeraire throw him overboard," Tharkay had suggested laconically, when Laurence had escaped to his quarters for a little relief and piquet, despite the nearly stifling heat belowdecks: the open window let in only a still-hotter breeze. "He can fish him out again after," he added, as an afterthought.

"I very much doubt if anything so mild as ocean water would prove effective at dousing that gentleman's ardor for any prolonged time," Laurence said, indulging from temper in a little sarcasm: Bligh had gone so far today as to overtly speak of his right, if restored, to grant full pardon, and Laurence had been forced to quit him mid-sentence to avoid taking insult at this species of attempted bribery. "It might nearly be easier," he added more tiredly, the moment of heat past, "if I did not find some justice in his accusations."

For the evils of the colony's arrangements were very great, even witnessed at the remove of their shipboard life. Laurence had understood that the convicts were generally given sentences of labor, which being accomplished without further instance of disorder yielded their emancipation and the right to a grant of land: a thoughtful design envisioned by the first governor, intended to render them and the country both settled. But over the course of the subsequent two decades, this had remained little more than a design, and in practice nearly all the men of property were the officers of the New South Wales Corps or their former fellows.

The convicts at best they used as cheap labor; at worst, as chattel. Without prospects or connections to make them either interested in their future or ashamed of their behavior, and trapped in a country that was a prison which needed no walls, the convicts were easily bribed to both labor and their own pacification with cheap rum, brought in at a handsome profit by the soldiers, and in such a way those who ought to have enforced order instead contributed to its decay, with no care for the disorder and self-destruction they thus engendered.

"Or at least, so Bligh has argued, incessantly, and everything which I have seen bears him out," Laurence said. "But Tenzing, I cannot trust myself; I fear that I wish the complaints to be just, rather than know they are so. I am sorry to say it would be convenient to have an excuse to restore him."

"There is capot, I am afraid," Tharkay said, putting down his last card. "If you insist on achieving justice and not only convenience, you would learn more from speaking with some local citizen, a settled man, with nothing to complain of in his treatment on either side."

"If such a man is to be found, I can see no reason he would willingly confide his opinion, in so delicate a matter," Laurence said, throwing in, and gathering the cards up to sort out afresh.

"I have letters of introduction to some few of the local factors," Tharkay said, a piece of news to Laurence, who wondered; so far as he knew, Tharkay had come to New South Wales merely to indulge an inveterate wanderlust; but of course he could not intrude upon Tharkay's privacy with a direct question.

"If you like," Tharkay had continued, "I can make inquiries; and as for reason, if there is discontent enough to form the grounds for your decision, I would imagine that same discontent sufficient motive to speak."

The attempt to pursue this excellent advice now having ended in public ignominy, however, Bligh was only too eager to