At length, Moynihan looked up. He pressed his lips together for several seconds and said, “There is no corporeal reason why this man could not meet his fate tomorrow. There is some chronic contagion of the lungs. It is not severe. Has the priest been called?”

“Hear that?” said the gaoler. “You’ll face it straight then?”

Doyle rested against the wall and resumed biting at the ball of his thumb. In the brief silence, the woman’s shrieking intensified, piercing the stones. The surgeon shuddered and pulled at his own wrist. Doyle seemed unconscious of the sound, gazing out over the debtors’ yard at the parched sky.

“Detestable racket,” muttered Moynihan. Sweat darkened the top of his collar and beaded on the tip of his nose.

“I am putting you under the lock again,” announced Wilmot.

“At least let him have some water and clean air,” said Moynihan.

“By and by.”

“I shall report to the warder.” The surgeon stepped to the other side of the terrace to speak to Carver. “Eight stone, I should say,” he said softly.

“Five-foot, nine-inch drop,” returned the hangman. Only he saw the condemned man wince.

“Rather short,” suggested the surgeon.

“Not if you want to keep body and head together when he tumbles,” said Carver. “He’s thin as a straw.”

Wilmot prodded at Doyle and raised his keys. “No more of this sly business. Go in quietly.”

The prisoner blinked at the hangman.

Carver had not moved. “What? Out with it.”

“You won’t let me throttle, will you, mister? I seen me mate Dan Fisher choking on the rope. An awful long time.”

“I’m no mister,” growled the hangman, “but I won’t let you throttle. It will be quick.”

Wilmot secured the cell door. All three men kept their thoughts close in the walk around the cell block. The front wall reflected an implacable slab of sunlight and, faint and persistent, the woman’s screams from the other side.

“This business of his confession puzzles me, frankly,” said Moynihan, at the head of the steps.

Carver, stalking straight-legged a few paces behind, snorted.

“This does not trouble you?” said Moynihan.

“A confession does not surprise me. No folly surprises me.”

“He’d not confess if he had no part in it,” said Wilmot, with an air of affront.

“Bah—a man here will confess to anything that suits,” retorted Carver.

The surgeon tilted his head.

“I don’t take your point,” said Wilmot.

“He was not brought into the lock and put in a road gang for murder, though, was he?” said Carver.

Wilmot halted on the steps and looked back. “You guess right. He was stealing rum in nips from his master. And on that charge he was waiting for transfer to Van Diemen’s Land.”

“I don’t need to guess. See you his back? You can read the flogger’s work there. And then new cuts, like straw laid this way and that. All single lashes from a stick or horse-whip. This fellow lived peaceably enough for many years, long enough for the old marks of punishment to heal. And he was brought back for an infringement and set on a chain gang. And the overseer of this gang lays about him with a whip willy-nilly, and all the prisoners hate him and wish him dead.”

“That’s the tale. The ward here is too crowded. He would have been sent to Macquarie Harbour, eventually,” added Wilmot, lifting his cap a little.

“Aye, Macquarie Harbour. Hell’s Gate they call it, for penance and driving cruelty. And in mortal fear of a renewal of his old suffering, flogging, and back-breaking labour, he takes the blame for a murder that the whole gang no doubt contrived, and thereby makes an end to his troubles.”

“Takes the blame for the whole gang!” Wilmot shook his head. “Why this specimen?”

Carver shrugged. “He took a cough. He had a weak hand. He slowed them down.”

“There is naught in this but guesswork. Mischievous guesswork,” said the gaoler, squinting at Carver. “Drunken guesswork, perhaps.”

Carver betrayed no sign of present intoxication, but his clothes were permeated with the faint taint of rum. He spoke steadily: “I don’t drink before a hanging. Only afterwards. You know that.”

“What’s to be done?” murmured Moynihan, rubbing one hand at the bridge of his nose.

“There’s nothing to be done,” said Wilmot, not unkindly.

“That wretch in there chooses his own passage to Hell,” said Carver. “So none of this will trouble him after the morrow.”

The surgeon took a short, jerking step, shook his head, and looked sharply around the staring walls. “Will that banshee not give over!” he exclaimed. “What is the matter?”

“It has been like that since last night. The woman is confined separate from the others on a murder charge. Screams innocence and will not hear reason.”

Moynihan hacked on the word. “Murder?”

“Her master. A free convict by the name of Staines. By all accounts wealthy enough.”