My Friend The Murderer | Page 3

scamp he was, too! Spawn of the devil,
both of them! This tattooed one is a murderous ruffian, and he swore to
have my blood after that trial. It's seven year ago, and he's following
me yet; I know he is, though he lies low and keeps dark. He came up to
me in Ballarat in '75; you can see on the back of my hand here where
the bullet clipped me. He tried again in '76, at Port Philip, but I got the
drop on him and wounded him badly. He knifed me in '79, though, in a
bar at Adelaide, and that made our account about level. He's loafing
round again now, and he'll let daylight into me--unless--unless by some
extraordinary chance some one does as much for him." And Maloney
gave a very ugly smile.
"I don't complain of him so much," he continued. "Looking at it in his
way, no doubt it is a sort of family matter that can hardly be neglected.
It's the government that fetches me. When I think of what I've done for
this country, and then of what this country has done for me, it makes
me fairly wild--clean drives me off my head. There's no gratitude nor
common decency left, doctor!"
He brooded over his wrongs for a few minutes, and then proceeded to
lay them before me in detail.
"Here's nine men," he said; "they've been murdering and killing for a

matter of three years, and maybe a life a week wouldn't more than
average the work that they've done. The government catches them and
the government tries them, but they can't convict; and why?--because
the witnesses have all had their throats cut, and the whole job's been
very neatly done. What happens then? Up comes a citizen called Wolf
Tone Maloney; he says, 'The country needs me, and here I am.' And
with that he gives his evidence, convicts the lot, and enables the beaks
to hang them. That's what I did. There's nothing mean about me! And
now what does the country do in return? Dogs me, sir, spies on me,
watches me night and day, turns against the very man that worked so
very hard for it. There's something mean about that, anyway. I didn't
expect them to knight me, nor to make me colonial secretary; but, damn
it! I did expect that they would let me alone!"
"Well," I remonstrated, "if you choose to break laws and assault people,
you can't expect it to be looked over on account of former services."
"I don't refer to my present imprisonment, sir," said Maloney, with
dignity. "It's the life I've been leading since that cursed trial that takes
the soul out of me. Just you sit there on that trestle, and I'll tell you all
about it, and then look me in the face and tell me that I've been treated
fair by the police."
I shall endeavor to transcribe the experience of the convict in his own
words, as far as I can remember them, preserving his curious
perversions of right and wrong. I can answer for the truth of his facts,
whatever may be said for his deductions from them. Months afterward,
Inspector H. W. Hann, formerly governor of the jail at Dunedin,
showed me entries in his ledger which corroborated every statement
Maloney reeled the story off in a dull, monotonous voice, with his head
sunk upon his breast and his hands between his knees. The glitter of his
serpentlike eyes was the only sign of the emotions which were stirred
up by the recollection of the events which he narrated.
*****
You've read of Bluemansdyke (he began, with some pride in his tone).
We made it hot while it lasted; but they ran us to earth at last, and a trap

called Braxton, with a damned Yankee, took the lot of us. That was in
New Zealand, of course, and they took us down to Dunedin, and there
they were convicted and hanged. One and all they put up their hands in
the dock, and cursed me till your blood would have run cold to hear
them--which was scurvy treatment, seeing that we had all been pals
together; but they were a blackguard lot, and thought only of
themselves. I think it is as well that they were hung.
They took me back to Dunedin Jail, and clapped me into the old cell.
The only difference they made was, that I had no work to do and was
well fed. I stood this for a week or two, until one day the governor was
making his rounds, and I put the matter to him.
"How's this?" I said. "My conditions were a free pardon, and you're
keeping me here against the law."
He gave a