The Catalpa Expedition/Chapter 7
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 trained "trackers," natives with a keener intelligence and skill in tracking men than the bloodhounds of the South, the only alternative was death from hunger and thirst.
Yet O'Reilly reached a point of desperation where death seemed almost preferable to the awful associations and weary routine which made the life a horror to the poet. But when he told his plans to Rev. Father McCabe, whose parish was the bush country, and whose life work among the prisoners is a precious memory of good influence, the thoughtful man said, "It is an excellent way to commit suicide. Don't think of that again. Let me think out a plan for you."
After dreary months the good priest sent a man named Maguire, who promised to arrange with one of the New Bedford whaling captains who were expected with their vessels at Bunbury in February—it was then December—to secrete him aboard. Two months went by, and O'Reilly had now become so impatient that, hearing that three whaleships had put into Bunbury, he had determined to venture alone. That day Maguire came to him again with the information that Captain Baker of the whaling bark Vigilant of New Bedford had agreed to take him on board if he fell in with him outside Australian waters.
On an evening in February O'Reilly started for a hiding-place in the woods, and lay down beneath a great gum-tree at the woodside to await Maguire and another friend. At about midnight he heard "St. Patrick's Day" whistled.
It was the sweetest music he ever heard, for it was the signal of the men who had come to release him from a horrid captivity.
They rode for hours until they reached a dry swamp near the sea. Then they waited until a boat was brought. At daylight sturdy oarsmen had carried him almost out of sight of land, and in the afternoon they had reached the farther shore of Geographe Bay, near the place where they had arranged to await the Vigilant.
They had no water, and suffered horribly from thirst. Through the hot day which followed, O'Reilly lay on the sand, tortured with blistering pains and hunger. Maguire brought him food and water at last, and that night he slept on the boughs. In the afternoon the white sails of the whaleships were seen and the company put out, but to their amazement the Vigilant sailed away, never heeding their signals.
O'Reilly's heart was bitter. The men returned to the shore and resolved to leave O'Reilly in hiding while they returned home and arranged for his escape by one of the other whaleships. They left him in the secluded sand valley, promising to return in a week.
But O'Reilly could not wait. The next morning he put to sea alone in a dory, and at night he was on an unknown sea. The next noon he sighted the Vigilant again, and once more she sailed away. It should be said that Captain Baker did not see his boat on either of these occasions.
O'Reilly rowed all night, and in the morning reached the sand hills on the headland of Geographe Bay once more. Exhausted with fatigue and anxiety, he cared for nothing but sleep, and this he could have without stint in the secluded valley. Five days later his friends returned, having arranged with Captain Gilford of the whaling bark Gazelle of New Bedford to pick him up. In order to insure the fulfillment of this agreement, good Father McCabe had paid the captain ten pounds.
The next morning O'Reilly and his friends once more rowed out toward the headland. He was leaving Australia forever. Toward noon he was picked up by bark Clarice and subsequently was transferred aboard the Gazelle.
This is only the chief incident, briefly told, of the escape of O'Reilly. It suggested some years later a means to a more brilliant accomplishment, for the bravery and ingenuity of the ofFicers of the New Bedford whaleship in a subsequent event, when an attempt to secure possession of the escaping prisoner at Roderique made a strong impression upon O'Reilly.