EXTRANEOUS ADVENTURES 291 



prisoner at Fremantle who had offered, on being sentenced for 

 treason, to betray others of his fellows: him they intentionally 

 left behind. The fugitives leaped into the wagons, covered 

 the prison uniforms with big coats that Breslin had provided, 

 and drove like the devil down the long road to Rockingham. 



On Rockingham beach one Thomas Brennan drove up to 

 Anthony with his horse at a dead run. With singular per- 

 versity Brennan, himself a member of the Clan-na-Gael in 

 America, had insisted on joining the Catalpa, against the orders 

 of the others, who desired to take no chance of arousing suspi- 

 cious by the presence of several Irishmen on board the whaler. 

 At New Bedford Brennan had planned to stow away, but had 

 arrived too late. He had followed the Catalpa to Fayal, but 

 Anthony had hastily left, to escape him. Then Brennan had 

 sailed from Fayal to England and from England to Australia 

 where he made himself known to Breslin and insisted on hav- 

 ing a hand in the escape; and at last, like the bad penny of the 

 proverb, he turned up on the beach, to make one more pas- 

 senger for an overloaded boat. 



Finding Captain Anthony in conversation with a stranger this 

 wild Brennan demanded to know who he was, and would have 

 shot him on the spot had not the captain intervened. 



From the trap that he drove, Brennan now began throwing 

 valises and bags. The mail steamer Georgette was in the offing, 

 and haste was urgent. At this juncture King rode up on horse- 

 back and, comprehending the peril in which the approaching 

 steamer placed them all, dashed off to urge the others to 

 greater speed. 



Soon after, the fugitives drove up in breathless haste, with 

 pistols showing under their long coats, whereupon the boat's 

 crew leaped at the notion that Captain Anthony had been 

 smuggling, and in their eagerness to defend their skipper from 

 arrest, nearly wrecked the whole plan by attacking them. 



In wild confusion the prisoners loaded their belongings into 

 the boat, scrambled in, stowed themselves on the bottom, with 

 Breslin, King, and Desmond in the stern, and Captain Anthony 

 at the steering oar. As Anthony roared at them in good whal- 



