Moreton Bay by F.W. Mole — Read

And so the days went by and the lash held sway until the day arrived when the commandant decided to carry out his scheme of marrying the women to the men. Trees had been felled and split, huts built, barracks and stockades completed, and the settlement assumed the aspect of a village.

The sun rose over Gnoorganpin and the day in its gladness awoke. From river and forest and scrubland came the call and the song of the birds, as they in the joyousness of their limitless freedom, mocked the felons at their superhuman tasks. The land, clothed with its vestment of burgeoning trees, was fanned by the winds of the morning, tempering the heat of a cloudless day. All nature seemed to speak of a glorious, exquisite ease, when the peace that overhung the settlement on this new-born day was rudely shattered by a bugle call at the barracks. The soldiers assembled, the warders mustered the convicts, men and women, the Commandant and his staff rode into the barrack square, orders were issued, and the convicts wearing their clanking irons, guarded by soldiers and warders, were marched to Pine Tree Square. The stage was set for the great marriage ceremony. Like a columned colossus, the pine tree stood in the centre of the clearing. All around, save where paths were cut, leading to different parts of the settlement, was a riot of scrub and bracken and tangled undergrowth. Nature in her lavishment had hemmed in the settlement with a wall of bush and scrub.