 CHAPTER 17 I wasn't in the humor for talking, but sometimes anything's better than one's own thoughts. Goring threw in a word from time to time, he'd only lately come into our district and was sure to be promoted, everybody said. Like Starlight himself, he'd seen better days at home in England, but when he got pinched, he'd taken the right turn and had the wrong one, which makes all the difference. He was earning his bread honest anyway, and he was a chap as like the fun and dash of a mounted policeman's life. As for the risk, and there is some danger more than people thinks, now and then, he liked that the best of all. He was put out at losing Jim, but he believed he couldn't escape and told me so in a friendly way. He's inside the circle, and he can't get away. You mark my words, he said two or three times. We have every police station warned by wire within a hundred miles of here three days ago. There's not a man in the colonnade sharper looked after than Master Jim is this minute. Then you only heard about us three days ago, I said. That's as it may be, he answered, biting his lip. Anyway, there isn't a shepherd's hut within miles that he can get to without our knowing it. The country's rough, but there's word gone for a black tracker to go down. You'll see him in Bargo before the week's out. I had a good guess where Jim would make for, and he knew enough to hide his tracks for the last few miles if there was a whole tribe of trackers after him. That night we rode into Bargo a long day, too, we'd had. We were all tired enough when we got in. I was locked up a course, and as soon as we were in the cell, Goring said, Listen to me, and put on his official face, devilish, stern, and hard-looking he was then, in spite of all the talking and nonsense we had coming along. Richard Marston, I charge you with unlawfully taking, stealing, and carrying away, in company with others, one thousand head of mixed cattle, more or less the property of one Walter Hood, of Outerback, Mombera, in or about the month of June last. All right, why don't you make it a few more while you're about it? That'll do, he said, nodding his head. You declined to say anything well? I can't exactly wish you a merry Christmas. Fancy this being Christmas Eve by Joe, but you'll be cool enough this deucid hot weather till the sessions in February, which is more than some of us can say. Good night. He went out and locked the door. I sat down on my blanket on the floor and hid my head in my hands. I wonder it didn't burst with what I felt then. Strange that I shouldn't have felt half as bad when the judge the other day sentenced me to be a dead man in a couple of months. But I was young then. Christmas Day. Christmas Day. So this is how I was going to spend it, after all I thought, as I woke up at dawn and saw the gray light just beginning to get through the bars of the window of the cell. Here was I, locked up, caged, ironed, disgraced, a felon, and an outcast for the rest of my life. Jim, flying for his life, hiding from every honest man, every policeman in the country looking after him, and authorized to catch him or shoot him down like a sheep-killing dog. Father, living in the hollow like a black fellow in a cave, afraid to spend the blessed Christmas with his wife and daughter like the poorest man in the land could do if he was only honest. Mother half dead with grief, and Eileen ashamed to speak to the man that loved and respected her from her childhood. Gracie's store-field, not daring to think of me, or say my name after seeing me carried off a prisoner before her eyes. Here was a load of misery and disgrace heaped up together to be borne by the whole family, now and for the time to come, by the innocent as well as the guilty. And for what? Because we'd been too idle and careless to work regularly and save our money, though well able to do it like honest men. Because little by little we'd let bad dishonest ways and flash-manners grow upon us, all running up in account that had to be paid some day. And now the day of reckoning had come, sharp and sudden with a vengeance. Well, what call it we'd look for anything else. We'd been working for it, and now we'd got it, and had to bear it. Not for what a warning, neither. What had Mother and Eileen been saying ever since we could remember? Warning upon warning. Now the end had come, just as they said. Of course, I knew in a general way that I couldn't be punished or be done anything to right off. I knew law enough for that. The next thing would be that I should have to be brought up before the magistrates and committed for trial as soon as they could get any evidence. After breakfast, flour and water or harmony I forget which, the water told me that there wasn't much chance of my being brought up before Christmas was over. The police magistrate was away on a month's leave, and the other magistrates would not be likely to attend before the end of the week anyway, so I must make myself comfortable where I was. Comfortable? Had they caught Jim? Well, not that he'd heard of, but Goring said it was impossible for him to get away. At twelve he'd bring me some dinner. I was pretty certain they wouldn't catch Jim in spite of Goring being so cock-sure about it. If he wasn't knocked off the first mile or so, he'd find ways of stopping or steadying his horse and facing him up to where we had gone to join Father at the table-land of the Nullah Mountain. Once he got near there he could let go his horse. They'd be following his track, while he made the best of his way on foot to the path that led to the Hollow. If he had five miles start of them there, as was most likely, all the blacks in the country would never track where he got to. He and Father could live there for a month or so and take it easy until they could slip out and do a bit of Father's old trade. That was about what I expected Jim to do, and as it turned out I was as nearly right as could be. They ran his track for ten miles, then they followed his horse tracks to late the second day, and found that the horse had slewed round and was making for home again with nobody on him. Jim was nowhere to be seen, and they'd lost all that time, never expecting that he was going to dismount and leave the horse to go his own way. Now they searched Nullah Mountain from top to bottom, but some of the smartest men of the old-mounted police and the best of the stockmen in the old days, men not easy to beat, had tried the same country many years before, and never found the path to the Hollow. So it wasn't likely anyone else would. They had to come back and own that they were beat, which put goreng in a rage and made the inspector, Sir Ferdinand Morringer, blow them all up for a lot of duffers and old women. All together they had a bad time of it, not that it made indifference to me. After the holidays a magistrate was fished up somehow, and I was brought before him, and the apprehending constables' evidence taken, then I was remanded to the bench at Noma where Mr. Hood and some of the other witnesses were to appear. So away we started for another journey. Goreng and a trooper went with me, and all sorts of care was taken that I didn't give them the slip on the road. Goreng used to put one of my handcuffs on his own wrist at night, so there wasn't much chance of moving without waking him. I had an old horse to ride that couldn't go much faster than I could run for fear of accident. It was even betting that he'd fall and kill me on the road. If I'd had a laugh in me I should have had a joke against the police department for not keeping safer horses for their prisoners to ride. They keep them till they haven't a leg to stand on, and long after they can't go a hundred yards without trying to walk on their heads, they're thought good enough to carry packs and prisoners. Some day, Goreng said, one of those old screws will be the death of a prisoner before he's committed for trial, and then there'll be a row over it, I suppose. We hadn't a bad journey of it on the whole. The troopers were civil enough and gave me a glass of grog now and then when they had one themselves. They'd done their duty in catching me, and that was all they thought about. What came afterwards wasn't their look out. I've no call to have any bad feeling against the police, and I don't think most men of my sort have. They've got their work to do, like other people, and as long as they do what they're paid for and don't go out of their way to harass men for spite, we don't bear them any malice. If one's hit in fair fight, it's the fortune of war. What our sides don't like is men going in for police duty that's not in their line. That's interfering, according to our notions, and if they fall into a trap, or are I met with when they don't expect it, if they get it pretty hot, they've only themselves to thank for it. Goring, I could see by his ways, had been a swell, something like starlight. The good many young fellows that don't drop into the fortunes when they come out here, take to the police in Australia, and very good men they make. They like the half soldiering kind of life, and if they stick steady to their work and show pluck and gumption, they mostly get promoted. Goring was a real smart dashing chapa, good rider for an Englishman. That is, he could set most horses and hold his own with us natives, anywhere but through scrub and mountain country. No man can ride there. I don't care who he is, the same as we can, unless he's been at it all his life. There we have the pole. Not that it's so much after all, but give a native a good horse and thick country and he'll lose any man living that's tackled to work after he's grown up. By and by we got to Noma, a regular hot hole of a place with a log lockup. I was stuck in, of course, and had leg irons put on for fear I should get out, as another fellow had done a few weeks back. Starlight and Warrigal hadn't reached yet. They had farther to come. The trial couldn't come to the quarter-sessions. January and February, too, passed over, and all this time I was mewed up in a bit of a place enough to stifle a man in the burning weather we had. I heard afterwards that they wanted to bring some of the cattle over so as Mr. Hood could swear to him be in his property, but he said he could only swear to its being his brand, that he most likely had never set eyes on the cattle in his life and couldn't swear on his own knowledge that they hadn't been sold like lots of others by his manager. So this looked like a hitch, as juries won't bring a man in guilty of cattle-ceiling unless there's clear swearing that the animals he sold were the property of the prosecutor and known by him to be such. Mr. Hood had to go all the way to Adelaide himself, and they told me we might likely have got out of it all, only for that imported bull. When he saw him, he said he could swear to him point blank, brand or no brand. He'd no brand on him, of course, when he left England. But Hood happened to be in Sydney when he came out and at the station when he came up. He was stabled for the first six months, so he used to go and look him over every day and tell visitors what a pot of money he'd cost till he knew every hair on his tail, as the saying is. As soon as he'd seen him in Adelaide, he said he could swear to him as positive as he could to his favorite riding horse. So he was brought over in a steamer from Adelaide and then drove all the way up to Noma. I wish he'd broken his neck before we ever saw him. Next thing I saw was Starlight being brought in, handcuffed between two troopers, and looking as if he'd ridden a long way. He was just as easy going and devil-make here as ever. And he said to one of the troopers, Well, here we are at last, and I'm duly glad of it. It's perfectly monstrous, you fellas have better horses, nor to make me remount-atrant, and I'd show you the sort of horses that ought to be bought for police service. Let me have a glass of beer, that's a good fellow, before I'm locked up. I suppose there's no tap with speaking of inside. The constable laughed and had one brought to him. It'll be some time before you get another, Captain. Here's a long one for you, make the most of it. Where in the devil's name was that waracle? I thought to myself, has he given them the slip? He had, as it turned out. He had slipped the handcuffs over his slight wrists and small hands, buried his time, and then dashed into a scrub. There he was at home. They rode and rode, but waracle was gone like a rock wallaby. It was a good while before he was as near the gaol again. All this time I'd been wondering how it was they came to drop on our names so pat, and to find out that Jim and I had a share in the Moombara cattle-racket. All they could have known was that we left the back of Boree at a certain day, and that was nothing, saying that for all they knew we might have gone away to a new country or anywhere. The more I looked at it, the more I felt sure that someone had given to the police information about us somebody who was in it, knew all about everything. It wasn't Starlight. We could have depended our life on him. It might have been one of the other chaps, but I couldn't think of any one, except waracle. He would do anything in the world, despite me and Jim I knew, but then he couldn't hurt us without drawing the net tight around Starlight. Sooner than hurt a hair of his head he'd have put his hand into the fire and kept it there. I knew that from things I'd seen him do. Starlight and I hadn't much chance of a talk, but we did manage to get news from each other a bit at a time. That can always be managed. We were to be defended, and a lawyer fetched all the way from Sydney to fight our case for us. The money was there. Father managed the other part of it through people he had that did every kind of work for him, so when the judge came up we should have a show for it. The weary long summer days, every one of them about twenty hours long, came to an end, somehow or other. It was so hot and close, and I was that miserable I had two minds to knock my brains out and finish the whole thing. I couldn't settle to read as I did afterwards. I was always wishing and wondering when I'd hear some news from home, and none ever came. Nomo was a bit of a place where hardly anybody did anything but idle and drink, and spent money when they had it. When they had none they went away. There wasn't even a place to take exercise, and in the leg irons I wore night and day began to eat into my flesh. I wasn't used to them in those days. I could feel them in my heart, too. First of all I got ill, and for a while was so weak and low they thought I was going to get out of the trial altogether. At last we heard that the judge and all his lot were on the road and would be up in a few days. We were almost as glad when the news came as if we were sure of being let off. One day they did come, and all the little town was turned upside down. The judge stopped at one hotel, they told us, the lawyers at another. Then the witnesses in ours and other cases came in from all parts and made a great difference, especially to the publicans. The jurors were summoned and had to come unless they had a fancy for being fined. Most of this I heard from the constables. They seemed to think it was the only thing that made any difference in their lives. Last of all I heard that Mr. Hood had come, and the imported bull, and some other witnesses. There were some small cases first and then we were brought out, Starlight and I, and put in the dock. The court was crammed and crowded every soul within a hundred miles seemed to come in. There never were so many people in the little courthouse before. Starlight was quietly dressed, and looked as if he was there by mistake. Anybody would have thought so the way he lounged and stared about as if he thought there was something very curious and hard to understand about the whole thing. I was so weak and ill that I couldn't stand up and after a while the judge he told me to sit down and Starlight too. Starlight made a most polite bow and thanked his honor as he called him. Then the jury were called up and our lawyer began his work. He stood alongside of Starlight and whispered something to him after which Starlight stood up. And about every second man called out, Challenge. Then that juror had to go down. It took a good while to get our jury all together. Our lawyer seemed very particular about the sort of jury he was satisfied with. And when they did manage to get twelve at last, they were not the best looking men in the court by a very long way. The trial had to go on and then the crown prosecutor made a speech in which he talked about the dishonesty which was creeping unchecked over the land. And the atrocious villainy of criminals who took a thousand head of cattle in one lot made out the country was sure to go to destruction if we were not convicted. He said that unfortunately they were not in a position to bring many of the cattle back that had been taken to another colony. But one remarkable animal was as good for purposes of evidence as a hundred. Such an animal he would produce and he would not trespass on the patience of jurors and gentlemen in attendance any longer but call his first witness. John Dawson, sworn, was head stockman and cattle manager at Mombara. Knew the back country and in a general way the cattle running there. Was not out much in the winter, the ground was boggy, and the cattle were hardly ever mustered till spring. When he did go, with some other stock riders, he saw at once that a large number of the Mombara cattle, branded HOD and other brands, were missing. Went to Adelaide a few months after, saw a large number of cattle of the HOD brand, which he was told had been sold by the prisoner now before the court and known as Starlight and others to certain farmers. He could swear that the cattle he saw, or Mr. Hood's brand, could not swear that he recognized them as having been at Mombara in his charge, believed so, but could not swear it. He'd seen a shorthorn bull outside of the court this morning. He last saw the said bull at the stations of Messers Fordham Brothers near Adelaide. They made a communication to him concerning the bull. He would and could swear to the identity of the animal, with the 15th Duke of Cambridge, and imported a shorthorn bull, the property of Mr. Hood. Had seen him before that at Mombara, knew that Mr. Hood bought a said bull in Sydney, and was at Mombara when he was sent up, could not possibly be mistaken. When he saw the bull at Mombara, nine months since, he had a small brand like H on the shoulder. Mr. Hood put it on in witness's presence. It was a horse brand. Now it resembled J. E., the brand had been faked or cleverly altered. Witness could see the original brand quite plain underneath. As far as he knew, Mr. Hood never sold or gave anyone authority to take the animal. He had missed him some months since, and always believed he had strayed, knew the bull to be a valuable animal worth several hundred pounds. We had one bit of luck in having to be tried in an out of the way place like Noma. It was a regular outside bush township. And though the distance oughtn't to have much to say to people's honesty, you'll mostly find that these far-out, back-of-beyond places have got men and women to match them. Except for the squatters and overseers, the other people's mostly a shady lot. Some's run away from places that were too hot to hold them. The women ain't the men's wives that they live with, but somebody else's, who's well rid of him, too, if all was known. There's most likely a bit of horse and cattle stealing done on the quiet, and the publicans and storekeepers know who are their best customers. The square people, or the cross ones. It ain't so easy to get a regular up and down straight ahead jury in a place of this sort. So Starlight and I knew that our chance was a lot better than if we'd been tried at Bargo or Duckton Forest, or any steady going place of that sort. If we'd made up our minds from the first that we were to get into it, it wouldn't have been so bad. We'd have known we had to bear it. Now we might get out of it. And what a thing it would be to feel free again, and walk about in the sun without anyone having the right to stop you. Almost, that is. There were other things against us. But there wasn't so much of a chance of their turning up. This was the great stake. If we won, we were as good as made. I felt ready to swear I'd go home and never touch a shilling that didn't come on us again. If we lost, it seemed as if everything was so much the worse and blacker than it looked at first, just for this bit of hope and comfort. After the bull had been sworn to by Mr. Hood and another witness, they brought up some more evidence, as they called it, about the other cattle we'd sold in Adelaide. They'd fetched some of the farmers up that had been at the sale. They swore straight enough to have bought cattle with certain brands from Starlight. They didn't know, of course, at the time whose these brands were. But they could describe the brands fast enough. There was one fellow that couldn't read or write, but he remembered all the brands about a dozen in the pen of steers he bought and described them one by one. One brand, he said, was like a long-handled shovel. It turned out to be a Bardee. TD, Tom Dawson's of Mungary. About a hundred of his were in the mob. They'd drawn back from Mungary, as was nearly all frontage and cold in the winter. He was the worst witness for us of the lot, very near. He'd noticed everything and forgotten nothing. Oh, in the original text, the horizontal bar is represented by a capital I. Rotated ninety degrees and a bit lower than center. But from the description, Bardee may be better, where the bar represents the upright of the T and TD. Do you recognize either of the prisoners in the dock? The witness was asked. Yes, both of them, says he. I wish I could have got at him. I see this well chap first. Him, as made out, he was the owner, and gammoned all the Adelaide gentlemen so neat. There was a half-cast chap with him, as followed him about everywhere. And there was another man, as didn't talk much, but seen by letting down slip brails and what not to be in it. I heard this starlight, as he calls himself now, say to him, You have everything ready to break camp by ten o'clock, and I'll be there tomorrow and square up. I thought he meant to pay their wages. I never dropped, but what they was his men, his hired servants, as he was going to pay off or send back. Will you swear, our lawyer says, that the young good prisoner is the man you saw at Adelaide with the kettle? Yes, I'll swear. I looked at him pretty sharp, and nothing likely to make me forget him. He's the man, and that I'll swear to. Were there not other people there with the kettle? Yes, there was an oldish, very quiet, but determined like man. He had a stunning dorg with him, and a young man, something like this gentleman, I mean, the prisoner. I didn't see the other young man or the half-cast here in court. That's all very well, says our lawyer, very fierce. But will you swear, I said, that the prisoner, Marston, took any charge of ownership of the kettle? No, I can't, says the chap. I see him drafting him in the morning, and he seemed to know all the brands and so on, but he done no more than I've seen hired servants do over and over again. The other witnesses had done when someone called out, Herbert Faulkland, and Mr. Faulkland steps into the court. He walks in quiet and a little proud. He couldn't help feeling it, but he didn't show it in his ways and talk, as little as any man I ever saw. He's asked by the crown prosecutor if he's seen the bull outside of the court this day. Yes, he has seen him. Has he ever seen him before? Never to his knowledge. He doesn't then know the name of his former owner? Has he heard generally that he belonged to Mr. Hood of Monbera, but does not know it of his own knowledge? Has he ever seen, nor does he know, either of the prisoners? Knows the younger prisoner who has been in the habit of working for him in various ways. When was prisoner Marston working for him last? He with his brother James, who rendered his family a service he shall never forget, was working for him after last, sheering, for some months. Where were they working? At an outstation at the back of the run. When did they leave? About April or May last. Is it known to you in what direction they proceeded after leaving your service? I have no personal knowledge, I should think it improper to quote hearsay. Had they been settled up with for their former work? No, there was a balance due to them. To what amount? About twenty pounds, each were owed. Did you not think it curious that ordinary laborers should leave so large a sum in your hands? It struck me as unusual, but I did not attach much weight to the circumstance. I thought they would come back and ask for it before the next sheering. I am heartily sorry that they did not do so, and regret still more deeply that the two young men worthy of a better fate should have been arraigned on such a charge. One moment, Mr. Faulklin, said our counsel, as they call him. And the first-rate counselor ours was. If we'd been as innocent as two schoolgirls, he couldn't have done more for us. Did the prisoner must and work well and conduct himself properly while in your employ? No man better, says Mr. Faulklin, looking over to me with that pitying kind of look in his eyes, as he made me feel what a fool and rogue I'd been ten times worse than anything else. No man better. He and his brother were in many respects according to my overseers' report, the most hard-working and best-conducted laborers in the establishment. CHAPTER XVIII Mr. Runnamal, the auctioneer, swore that the older prisoner placed certain cattle in his hands, to arrive, for sale in the usual way, stating that his name was Mr. Charles Carrasforth, and that he had several stations in other colonies, had no reason for doubting him. Prisoner was then very well-dressed, was gentlemanly as manors, and came to his office with a young gentleman of property whom he knew well. The cattle were sold in the usual way for other high prices as the market was good. The proceeds in cash were paid over to the prisoner whom he now knew by the name of Starlight. He accounted for there being an unusual number of brands by saying publicly at the sale that the station had been used as a depot for other runs of his, and the remainder lots of store cattle kept there. He had seen a short horned bull outside of the court. This day branded J.E. on the shoulder. He identified him as one of the cattle placed in his hands for sale by the prisoner Starlight. He sold and delivered him according to instructions. He subsequently handed over the proceeds to the said prisoner. He included the purchase money in a check given for the bull and other cattle sold on that day. He could swear positively to the bull. He was a remarkable animal. He had not the slightest doubt as to his identity. Had he seen the prisoner Marston when the cattle were sold and now alleged to belong to Mr. Hood? Yes, he was confident that prisoner was there with some other men whom he, witness, did not particularly remark. He helped to draft to the cattle and to put them in pens on the morning of the sale. Was he prepared to swear that prisoner Marston was not a hired servant of prisoner Starlight? No, he could not swear. He had no way of knowing what the relations were between the two. They were both in the robbery. You could see that. How could you see that? said our lawyer. Have you never seen a paid stockman do all that you saw prisoner Marston do? Well, I have, but somehow I fancy this man was different. We have nothing to do with your fancies, sir, said our man, mighty hot, as he turns upon him. You are here to give evidence as to facts, not as to what you fancy. Have you any other grounds for connecting prisoner Marston with the robbery in question? No, he had not. You can go down, sir, and I only wish you may live to experience some of the feelings which fill the breasts of persons who are unjustly convicted. This about ended the trial. There was quite enough proof for a moderate dose of transportation. A quiet, oldish-looking man got up now and came forward to the witness-box. I didn't know who he was, but Starlight nodded to him quite pleasant. He had a short, close-trimmed beard and was one of those nothing-particular-looking old chaps. I'm blessed if I could have told what he was. He might have been a merchant, or a squatter, or a head clerk, or a wine-merchant, or a broker, or lived in the town, or lived in the country. Any of half a dozen trades would suit him. The only thing that was out of the common was his eyes. They had a sort of curious way of looking at you as if he wondered whether you was speaking true and yet seeing nothing and telling nothing. He regularly took in Starlight. He told me afterwards by all was talking about the China seas. He'd been there, it seems, he'd been everywhere. He'd last come from America. He didn't say he'd gone there to call her a clerk that had run off with two or three thousand pounds, and to be ready to meet him as he stepped ashore. Anyhow, he'd watched Starlight in Canterbury when he was riding and flashing about, and had put such a lot of things together that he took a passage in the same boat with him to Melbourne. Why didn't he arrest him in New Zealand? Because he wasn't sure of his man. It was from something Starlight led out on board ship. He told me himself afterwards that he made sure of his being the man he wanted. So he steps into the witness-box, very quiet and respectable looking, with his white Westcott and silk coat. It was hot enough to fry beef steaks on the roof of the courthouse that day, and looks about him. The crown prosecutor begins with him as civil as you please. My name is Stephen Stillbrook. I am a sergeant of detective police in the service of the government of New South Wales. From information received I proceeded to Canterbury in New Zealand about the month of September last. I saw there the older prisoner, who was living at a first class hotel in Christchurch. He was moving in good society, and was apparently possessed of ample means. He frequently gave expensive entertainments, which were attended by the leading inhabitants and high officials of the place. I myself obtained an introduction to him and partook of his hospitality on several occasions. I attempted to draw him out in conversation about New South Wales, but he was cautious, and gave me to understand that he had been engaged in large squatting transactions in another colony. From his general bearing, and from the character of his associates, I came to the belief that he was not the individual named in the warrant, and determined to return to Sydney. I was informed that he had taken his passage to Melbourne in a mail steamer from something which I, one day, heard his half-caste servant say, who, being intoxicated, was speaking carelessly, I determined to accompany them to Melbourne. My suspicions were confirmed on the voyage. As we went ashore at the pier at Sandridge, I accosted him. I said, I arrest you on suspicion of having stolen a bird of cattle, the property of Walter Hood of Monberra. Prisoner was very cool and polite, just as any other gentleman would be, and asked me if I did not think I had made a most ridiculous mistake. The other passengers began to laugh as if it was the best joke in the world. Starlight never moved a muscle. I've seen a good many cool hands in my time, but I never met anyone like him. I had given notice to one of the Melbourne police as he came aboard, and he arrested the half-caste known as Warrigal. I produced a warrant, the one now before the court, which is signed by a magistrate of the territory of New South Wales. The witnessing part was all over. It took the best part of the day, and there we were all the time standing up in the dock with the court crammed with people staring at us. I don't say that it felt as bad as it might have done nigh home. Most of the Noma people looked upon fellas stealing cattle and horses, and small lots are big, just like most people look at boys stealing fruit out of an orchard, or as they used to talk of smugglers on the English coast, as I've heard father tell of. Any man might take a turn at that sort of thing, now and then, and not be such a bad chap, after all. It was the duty of the police to catch him. If they caught him well and good, it was so much the worse for him. If they didn't, well, that was their look out. It wasn't anybody else's business, anyhow. And a man that wasn't caught, or that got turned up at his trial, was about as good as the general run of people, and there was no reason for anyone to look shy at him. After the witnesses had said all they knew, our lawyer got up and made a stunning speech. He made us out such first-rate chaps that it looked as if we ought to get off flying. He blew up the squatters in a general way for taking all the country and not giving the poor man a chance, for neglecting their immense herds of cattle and suffering them to roam all over the country, putting temptation in the way of poor people and causing confusion and recklessness of all kinds. Some of these cattle are never seen from the time they're branded to their mustard, every two or three years, apparently. They stray away hundreds of miles, probably a thousand, who's to know? Possibly they're sold. It was admitted by the prosecutor that he had sold ten thousand head of cattle during the last six years, and none had been rebranded to his knowledge. What means had he of knowing whether these cattle that so much was said about had not been legally sold before? It was a most monstrous thing that men like his clients, men who were an honor to the land they lived in, should be dragged up to the very center of the continent upon a paltry charge like this, a charge which rested upon the flimsiest evidence it had ever been his good fortune to demolish. With regard to the so-called imported bull, the case against his clients was apparently stronger, but he placed no reliance upon the statements of the witnesses who have heard that they knew him so thoroughly that they could not be deceived in him. He distrusted their evidence and believed the jury would distrust it too. The brand was as different as possible from the brand seen to have been on the beast originally. One short horn was very like another. He would not undertake to swear positively in any such case, and he implored the jury as men of the world, as men of experience in all transactions relating to stock—here are some of the people in the court grinned—to dismiss from their minds everything of the nature of prejudice and looking solely at the miserable, incomplete, unsatisfactory nature of the evidence to equip the prisoners. It sounded all very pleasant after everything before had been so rough on our feelings, and the jury looked as if they had more than a half made up their minds to let us off. Then the judge put on his glasses and began to go all over the evidence, very grave and steady like, and read bits out of the notes which he taken very careful all the time. Judges don't have such an easy time of it as some people thinks they have. I've often wondered as they take so much trouble and works away so patient trying to find out the rights and wrongs of things for people that they never saw before and won't see again. However, they try to do their best, all as I've ever seen, and they generally get somewhere near the right injustice of things. So the judge began and read, went over the evidence bit by bit and laid it all out before the jury, so as they couldn't but see it where it told against us and again where it was a bit in our favor. As for the main body of the cattle he made out that there was strong grounds for thinking as we'd taken and sold them an adulate and had the money too. The making of a stockyard at the back of Monberra was not the thing honest men would do, but neither of us prisoners had been seen there. There was no identification of the actual cattle branded HOD alleged to have been stolen, nor could Mr. Hood swear positively that they were his cattle, had never been sold, and were a portion of his herd. It was in the nature of these cases that identification of live stock roaming over the immense solitudes of the interior should be difficult, occasionally impossible. Yet he trusted that the jury would give full weight to all the circumstances which went to show a continuous possession of the animals alleged to be stolen. The persons of both prisoners had been positively sworn to by several witnesses, as having been seen at the sale of the cattle referred to, they were both remarkable-looking men and such as if once seen would be retained in the memory of the beholder. But the most important piece of evidence, here the judge stopped and took a pinch of snuff, was that afforded by the short horn bull, 15th Duke of Cambridge. He had been informed that was his name. That animal in the first place was sworn to most positively by Mr. Hood and claimed as his property. Other credible witnesses testified also to his identity and corroborated the evidence of Mr. Hood in all respects. The ownership and identity of the animal are thus established beyond all doubt. Then there was the auctioneer, Mr. Runymall, who swore that this animal had been with other cattle placed in his hands for sale by the older prisoner. The bull is accordingly sold publicly by him and in the prisoner's presence. He subsequently receives from the witness the price about two hundred seventy pounds for which the bull was sold. The younger prisoner was there at the same time and witnessed the sale of the bull and other cattle, giving such assistance as would lead to the conclusion that he was concerned in the transaction. He did not wish to reflect upon this or any other jury, but he could not help recalling the fact that a jury in that town once committed the unpardonable fault, the crime, he had almost said, of refusing to find a prisoner guilty against whom well-confirmed evidence had been brought. It had been his advice to the Minister for Justice, so glaring was the miscarriage of justice to which he referred, that the whole of the jurymen who had sat upon that trial should be struck off the roll, this was accordingly done. He the judge was perfectly convinced in his own mind that no impropriety of this sort was likely to be committed by the intelligent, respectable jury whom he saw before him, but it was his duty to warn them that, in his opinion, they could not bring in any verdict but guilty if they respected their oaths. He should leave the case confidently in their hands again impressing upon them that they could only find one verdict if they believed the evidence. The jury all went out. Then another case was called, and a fresh jury sworn in for to try it. We sat in the dock. The judge told Starlight he might sit down, and we waited till they came back. I really believe that waiting is the worst part of the whole thing, the bitterest part of the punishment. I've seen men when they were being tried for their lives, haven't I done it, and gone through it myself? Waiting there an hour, two hours, half through the night, not knowing whether they was to be brought in guilty or not. What a hell they must have gone through in that time. Doubt and dread, hope and fear, wretchedness and despair over and over and over again. No wonder some of them can't stand it, but keeps twitching and shifting and getting paler and turning faint when the jury comes back, and they think they see one thing or the other written in their faces. I've seen a strong man drop down like a dead body when the judge opened his mouth to pass sentence on him. I've seen him faint, too, when the foreman of the jury said, not guilty. One chap he was an innocent up-country fella in for his first bit of duffin. Like we was once, he covered his face with his hands when he found he was let off and cried like a child. All sorts and kinds of different ways men takes it. I was in court once when the judge asked a man who'd just been found guilty if he'd anything to say, why he shouldn't pass sentence of death upon him. He killed a woman, cut her throat, and a regular right down-cruel murder it was. Only men'll kill woman and one another, too, for some causes as long as the world lasts. And he just leaned over the dock rails as if he'd been going to get three months and said, cool and quiet? No, Your Honor, not as I know of. He'd made up his mind to it from the first, you see, and that makes all the difference. He knew he hadn't the ghost of a chance to get out of it. And when his time came, he faced it. I remember seeing his worst enemy come into court and sit and look at him, then just to see how he took it. But he didn't make the least sign. That man couldn't have told whether he's seen him or not. Starlight and I wasn't likely to break down, not much. Whatever the jury did, or the judge said, all the same. After an hour it passed, and we, still weeding there, it began to be a sickening kind of feeling. The day had been all taken up with the evidence in the rest of the trial, all long dragging hours of a hot summer's day. The sun had been blazing away all day on the iron roof of the courthouse and the red dust of the streets that lay inches deep for a mile all around the town. The flies buzzed all over the courthouse and round and round while the lawyers talked and wrangled with each other. And still the trial went on. Witness after witness was called and cross-examined and bullied and confused and contradicted till he was afraid to say what he knew or what he didn't know. I began to think it must be some kind of performance that would go on forever and never stop. And the day, and it never could end. At last the sun came shining level with the lower window, and he knew it was getting late. After a while the twilight began to get dimmer and grayer. There isn't much out there when the sun goes down. Then the judge ordered the lamps to be lighted. Just at that time the bailiff came forward. Your honor, the jury has agreed. I felt my teeth shut hard. But I made no move or sign. I looked over at starlight. He yawned. He did, as I'm alive. I wished to heaven they'd make more haste, he said quietly. His honor and we are both being done out of our dinnows. I said nothing. I was looking at the foreman's face. I thought I knew the word he was going to say. And that word was guilty. Sure enough, I didn't hear anything more for a bit. I don't mind owning that. Most men feel that way the first time. There was a sound like rushing waters in my ears, and the courthouse and the people all swam before my eyes. The first I heard was starlight's voice again just as cool and leisurely as ever. I never heard any difference in it, and I've known him speak in a lot of different situations. If you shut your eyes you couldn't tell from the tone of his voice whether he was fighting for his life or asking you to hand him the salt. He said the hardest and fiercest thing, and he could be hard in fierce. He didn't raise his voice. He only seemed to speak more distinctly. His eyes were worse than his voice at such times. There weren't many men that liked to look back at him, much less say anything. Now, he said, that means five years of barima dick, if not seven. It's cooler than these infernal logs, that's one comfort. I said nothing. I couldn't joke. My throat was dry, and I felt hot and cold by turns. I thought of the old hut by the creek, and could see mother sitting rocking herself and crying out loud, and I leaned with a set dull look on her face as if she'd never speak or smile again. I thought of the days, months, years that were to pass under lock and key with irons and shame and solitude all for company. I wondered if the place where they shut up mad people was like a gaol, and why we were not sent there instead. I heard part of what the judge said, but not all, bits here and there, and the jury had brought in a most righteous verdict, just what he should have expected from the effect of the evidence upon an intelligent, well-principled enoma jury. We heard afterwards that there were six to six, and then agreed to toss up how the verdict was to go. The crime of cattle and horse-stealing had assumed gigantic proportions. Sheep as yet appeared to be safe, but then there were not very many within a few hundred miles of enoma. It appeared to him that the prisoner known as Starlight, though from old police records his real name appeared to be—here he drew himself up and faced the judge in defiance. Then like lightning he seemed to change and said, Your Honor, I submit that it can answer no good purpose to disclose my alleged name. There are others. I do not speak for myself. The judge stopped a bit, then hesitated. I do not know whether there is any necessity to make public a name which many years since was not better known than honored. I say the prisoner known as Starlight has, from the evidence, taken the principal part in this nefarious transaction. It is not the first offense, as I observe from a paper I hold in my hand. The younger prisoner, Marston, has very properly been found guilty of criminal complicity with the same offense. It may be that he has been concerned in other offenses against the law, but of that we have no proof before this court. He has not been previously convicted. I do not offer advice to the elder criminal, his own heart and conscience, the promptings of which I assume to be dulled, not obliterated. I feel convinced, have said more to him in the way of warning, condemnation, and remorse than could be the most impressive rebuke, the most solemn exhortation from a judicial bench. But to the younger man, to him whose vigorous frame has but lately attained the full development of early manhood, I feel compelled to appeal with all the weight which age and experience may lend. I adjure him to accept the warning which the sentence I am about to pass will convey to him, to endure his confinement with submission and repentance, and to lead during his remaining years which may be long and comparatively peaceful, the free and necessarily happy life of an honest man. The prisoner Starlight is sentenced to seven years' imprisonment. The prisoner Richard Marston do five years' imprisonment, both in Berimah Gowl. I heard the door of the dock unclose with a snap. We were taken out. I hardly knew how. I walked like a man in his sleep. Five years, Berimah Gowl. Berimah Gowl kept ringing in my ears. The day was done. The stars were out. As we moved across the courthouse to the lock-up, the air was fresh and cool. The sun had gone down, so had the sun of our lives. Never to rise again. Morning came. Why did it ever come again, I thought? What did we want but night? Black as our hearts, dark as our fate, dismal as the death which likely would come quick as a living tomb, and the sooner the better. Mind you, I only felt this way the first time. All men do, I suppose, that haven't been born in gallows and work-houses. Afterwards, they take a more everyday view of things. You're young and soft, Dick, Starline said to me, as we were rumbling along in the coach next day with hand and leg irons on and a trooper opposite to us. Why don't I feel like it? My good fellow, I've felt it all before. But if you sear your flesh or your horses with a red-hot iron, you'll find the flesh hard and callous ever after. My heart was seared once, twice, and deeply too. I have no heart now, or if I ever feel it all, it's for a horse. I wonder how old Rainbow gets on. You were sorry, Father, let us come in the first place, I said. How do you account for that, if you've no heart? Really. Well, listen, Richard, did I? If you guillotine a man, cut off his head, as they do in France, with an axe that falls like the monkey of a pile-driver, the limbs quiver and stretch and move almost naturally for a good while afterwards. I've seen the performance more than once, so I suppose the internal arrangements immediately surrounding my heart must have performed some kind of instinctive motion in your case from Jim's. Oh, by the way, where the two says Jim been all this time? Clever James. Better ask Evans here if the police knows, it's not for what of trying if they don't. By the Lord Harry knows, said the trooper, a young man who saw no reason not to be sociable. It's the most surprising thing out where he's got to. They've been all round him, regular cordon-like, and he must have disappeared into the earth, but gone off in a balloon to get away. CHAPTER XIX It took us a week's traveling or more to get to Burima. Sometimes we were all night in the coach as well as all day. There were other passengers in the coach with us, two or three Bushmen, a station overseer with his wife and daughter, a Chinaman, and a lunatic that had come from Noma, too. I think it's rough on the public to pack madmen and convicts and irons in the same coach with them, but it saves the government a good deal of money and the people don't seem to care, at least they stand it anyhow. We would have made a bolt for it if we'd had a chance, but we never had night or day nor half a one. The police were civil, but they never left us and slept by us at night. That is, one watched while the other slept. We began to sleep soundly ourselves and to have a better appetite. Going through the fresh air had something to do with it, I dare say, and then there was no anxiety. We'd played for a big steak and lost. Now we had to pay and make the best of it. It was the tenth day—there were no railways, then, to shorten the journey—when we drove up to the big gate and looked at the high walls and dark, heavy lines of Barima Gaol, the largest, the most severe and the most dreaded of all the prisons in New South Wales. It had leaked out the day before, somehow, that the famous Starlight and the other prisoner in the great Maumbara cattle robbery, where it would be brought in this particular day, there was a fair-sized crowd gathered as we were helped down from the coach. At the side of the crowd was a small mob of blacks, with their dogs, spears, possum rugs, and all complete. They and their gins and picaninis appeared to take great notice of the whole thing. One told us, gen darker than the others, and with her hair it tucked under an old bonnet, wrapped her possum cloak closely round her shoulders and pushed up close to us. She looked hard at Starlight, who appeared not to see her. As she drew back, someone staggered against her. An angry scowl passed over her face so savage and bitter that I felt quite astonished. I should have been astonished, I mean, if I had not been able by that very change, to know again the restless eyes and grim-set mouth of Warrigal. It was only a look, and he was gone. The lock creaked, the great iron door swung back, and we were swallowed up in a tomb. A stone vault where men are nonetheless buried because they have separate cells. They do not live, though they appear to be alive. They move and sometimes speak and appear to hear words. Some have to be sent away and buried outside. They've been dead a long time, but have not seemed to want putting in the ground. That makes no change in them. Not much. I mean, if they sleep, it's all right. If they don't sleep, anything must be happiness after the life they have escaped. Happy or the dead is written on all prison walls. What I suffered in that first time, no tongue can tell. I can't bear now to think of it and put it down. The solitary part of it was enough to drive any man mad that had been used to a free life. Day after day, night after night, the same and the same and the same over again. Then the dark cells, I got into them for a bit. I wasn't always as cool as I might be. More times that mad with myself that I could have smashed my own skull against the wall, let alone anyone else's. There was one of the orders I took a dislike to from the first, and he to me, I don't doubt. I thought he was rough and surly. He thought I wanted to have my own way. And he made it up to take it out of me and run me every way he could. We had a goodish spell of fighting over it, but he gave in at last. Not but what I'd had a lot to bear and took a deal of punishment before he jacked up. I'd needn't have had it. It was all my own obstinacy and a sort of dogged feeling that made me feel I couldn't give in. I believe it done me good, though. I do really think I should have gone mad, else, thinking of the dreadful long months and years that lay before me without a chance of getting out. Sometimes I take a low fit and refuse my food and very near give up living altogether. At least a bit more, and I'd have died outright. One day there was a party of ladies and gentlemen come to be shown over the gowl. There was a lot of us passing into the exercise-yard. I happened to look up for a minute and saw one of the ladies looking steadily at us, and oh, what a pitying look there was in her face. In a moment I saw it was Miss Falkland. And by the change that came into her face, the she knew me again, all her desire was. I wondered how she could have known me. I was a different-looking chap from when she had seen me last, with a beastly yellow-gray suit of prison clothes, his face scraped smooth every day like a fresh-killed pig, and the look of a free man gone out of his face forever. How any woman, gentle or simple, ever can know a man in Gowl beats me. With her or no, she knew me. I suppose she saw the likeness to Jim, and she told him true enough, she'd never forget him nor what he'd done for him. I just looked at her and turned my head away. I felt as if I'd make a fool of myself if I didn't. All the depth down that I'd fallen since I was shearing there at Boree rushed into my mind at once. I nearly fell down, I know. I was pretty weak and low, then. I'd only just come out of the doctor's hands. I was passing along with the rest of the mob. I heard her voice quite clear and firm, but soft and sweet too. How sweet it sounded to me, then. I wished to speak a few words to the third prisoner in the line, the tall one. Can I do so, Captain Wharton? Oh, certainly, Miss Faulkland, said the old gentleman, who had brought them all in to look at the wonderful neat garden and the baths and the hospital, and the unnatural, washed-up, swept-up barracks that make the cleanest Gowl feel worse than the roughest hut. He was the visiting magistrate and took a deal of interest in the place, and he believed he knew all the prisoners like a book. Oh, oh, certainly, my dear young lady, is Richard Marston an acquaintance of yours? He and his brother worked for my father at Boree, she said, quite stately. His brother saved my life. I was called back by the warder. Miss Faulkland stepped out before them all, and shook hands with me. Yes, she shook hands with me, and the tears came into her eyes as she did so. If anything could have given a man's heart a turn the right way, that would have done it. I felt again as if someone cared for me in the world, as if I had a soul worth saving, and people may talk as they like, but when a man has the notion that everybody has given him up as a bad job, and has dropped troubling themselves about him, he gets worse and worse and meets the devil halfway. She said, Richard Marston, I cannot tell how grieved I am to see you here. Both Papa and I were so sorry to hear all about those Mambera cattle. I stammered out something or other, I hardly knew what. She looked at me again with her great beautiful eyes like a wondering child. Is your brother here, too? No, Miss Faulkland, I said. They have never caught Jim yet, and once more I don't think they will. He jumped on a barebacked horse without saddle or bridle and got clear. She looked as if she was going to smile, but she didn't. I saw her eyes sparkle, though, and she said softly, Poor Jim! So he got away. I'm glad of that. What a wonderful rider he was. But I suppose he will be caught some day. Oh, I do so wish I could say anything that would make you repent of what you have done and try to do better by and by. Papa says you have a long life before you, most likely, and might do so much with it yet. You will try for my sake, won't you now? I'll do what I can, Miss, I said. And if I ever see Jim again I'll tell him of your kindness. Thank you, and good-bye, she said, and she held out her hand again and took mine. I walked away, but I couldn't help holding my head higher and feeling a different man, somehow. I ain't much of a religious chap, wasn't then, and I'm farther off it now than ever, but I've heard a power of the Bible and all that read in my time, and when the parson read our next Sunday about Jesus Christ dying for men and wanting to have their souls saved, I felt as if I could have a show of understanding it better than I ever did before. If I'd been a Catholic like Eileen and Mother I should have settled what the Virgin Mary was like when she was alive and never said a prayer to her without thinking of Miss Falkland. When I was dying one week and getting over it another and going through all the misery every fellow has in his first year of gull, Starlight was just his old self all the time. He took it quite easy. Never gave anyone any trouble, and there wasn't a soul in the place that wouldn't have done anything for him. The visiting magistrate thought is a most interesting case, and believed in his heart that he had been the means of turning him from the error of his ways. He and the chaplain between them, anyhow. He even helped him to be allowed to be kept a little separate from the other prisoners, lest they should contaminate him, and in a lot of ways made his life a bit easier for him. It was reported about that it was not the first time that he'd been in a gull, that he had done time, as they call it, in another colony. He might or he might not. He never said, and he wasn't the man with all his soft ways you'd like to ask about such a thing. By the look of it you wouldn't think he cared about it a bit. He took it very easy, read half his time, and had no sign about him that he wasn't perfectly satisfied. He intended, when he got out to lead a new life, the chaplain said, and be the means of keeping other men right and straight. One day we had a chance of a word together. He got the soft side of the chaplain who thought he wanted to convert me, and take me out of my sulky and obstinate state of mind. He took a good care that we were not overheard or watched, and then said rather loud for fear of accidents. Well, Richard, how are you feeling? I'm happy to say that I have been led to think seriously of my former evil ways, and I have made up my mind, besides to use every effort in my power to clear out of this infernal collection of tombstones, when the moon gets dark again about the end of this month. How have you taken to become religious? I said. Are you quite sure that what you say can be depended upon? When did you get the good news? I have had many doubts in my mind for a long time, Starlight said, and have watched and prayed long and listened for the word that was to come. And the end of it is that I have at length heard the news that makes the soul rejoice, even for the heathen, the boy Waragel, who will be waiting outside these walls with fresh horses. I must now leave you, my dear Richard, he said, and I hope my words will have made an impression upon you. When I have more to communicate for your good I will ask leave to return. After I heard this news I began to live again. Was there a chance of our getting out of this terrible tomb into the free air and sunshine once more? However it was to be managed I could not make out. I trusted mostly to Starlight, who seemed to know everything, and to be quite easy about the way it would all turn out. All that I could get out of him afterwards was that on a certain night a man would be waiting with two horses outside of the gaol wall, and that if we had the luck to get out safe, and he thought we should. We would be on their backs in three minutes, and all the police in New South Wales wouldn't catch us once we got five minutes' start. This was all very well if it came out right, but there was an awful lot to be done before we were even near it. The more I began to think over it the worse it looked. Once I quite lost heart and believed we should never have a half a chance of carrying out our plan. We knew from the other prisoners that men had tried from time to time to get away. Three had been caught. One had been shot dead. He was lucky. Another had fallen off the wall and broke his leg. Two had got clear off and had never been heard of since. We were all locked up in ourselves every evening, and at five o'clock too. We didn't get out till six in the morning, a long, long time. Cold enough in the bitter winter weather that had then come in, and a long, weary wretched time to wait and watch for daylight. Well, first of all, we had to get the cell door open. Well, that was the easiest part of the lot. There's always men in a big gal that all kinds of keys and locks are like large print-to. They can make most locks fly open like magic. What's more, they're willing to do it for anybody else or show them how. It keeps their hand in. They have a pleasure in spiting those above them whenever they can do it. So the getting out of the cell was easy enough, but there was a lot of danger after you had got out. A passage to cross where the warder with his rifle walked up and down every half hour all night, then a big courtyard, then another smaller door on the wall, then the outer yard for those prisoners who were allowed to work at stone-cutting or out-of-door trades. After all this, there was the great outer wall to climb up and drop down from on the other side. We managed to pick our night well. A French convict, who liked that sort of thing, gave me the news of undoing the cell door. It was three o'clock in the morning when in winter most people are sleepy that haven't much on their minds. The warder that came down the passage wasn't likely to be asleep, but he might have made it up in his mind that all was right and not taken as much notice as usual. This was what we trusted to. Besides, we'd got a few five-pound notes smuggled into us, and though I wouldn't say that we were able to bribe any of the gowlers, we didn't do ourselves any harm in one or two little ways by throwing a few sovereigns about. I did just as I was told by the Frenchman, and I opened the cell door as easy as a wooden latch. I had to shut it again for fear the warder would see it and begin to search and sound the alarm at once. Just as I'd done this, he came down the passage. I had only time to crouch down in the shadow when he passed me. That was right. Now he would not be back for half an hour. I crawled and scrambled and crept along like a snake until little by little I got to the gate through the last wall but one. The lock here was not so easy as the cell door and took me more time. While I stood there, I was in a regular tremble with fright, thinking someone might come up, and all my chance would be gone. After a bit the lock gave way and I found myself in the outer yard, I went over to the wall and crept along till it came to one of the angles. There I was to meet Starlight. He was not there, and he was to bring some spikes to climb the wall with and a rope, with two or three other things. I waited and waited for half an hour which seemed a month. What was I to do if he didn't come? I could not climb that thirty-foot wall by myself. One had to be cautious too, for there were towers at short distances along the wall. In every one of these a water armed with a rifle, which he was sure to empty at any one that looked like gall-breaking. I began to think he had made a mistake in the night. Then that he had been discovered and caught the moment he tried to get out of the cell. I was sure to be caught if he was prevented from coming and shutting up would be harder to bear than ever. Then I heard a man step coming up softly. I knew it was Starlight. I knew his step, and thought I would always tell it from a thousand other men's. It was so light and firm, so quick and free. Even in a prison it was different from other men's. And I remembered everything he had ever said about walking and running, both of which he was wonderfully good at. He was just as cool as ever. All right, Dick, dig these spikes. Yet half a dozen stout bits of iron, however he got them, I know no more than the dead, but there they were. And a light, strong coil of rope, as well. I knew what the spikes were for, of course, to drive into the wall between the stones and climb up by. With the rope we were to drop ourselves over the wall the other side. It was thirty feet high, no fool of a drop. More than one man had been picked up disabled at the bottom of it. He had a short stout piece of iron that did to hammer the spikes in, and that had to be done very soft and quiet, you may be sure. It took a long time. I thought the night would be over and the daylight come before it was all done. It was so slow. I could hear the tick-tack of his iron every time he knocked one of the spikes in. Of course, he went higher every time. They were just far enough apart for a man to get his foot on from one to another. As he went up he had one end of the coil of the rope round his wrist. When he got to the top he was to draw it up to fasten to the top spike and lower himself down by it to the ground on the other side. At last I felt him pull hard on the rope. I held it and put my foot on the first spike. I don't know that I should have found it so very easy in the dark to get up by the spikes. It was almost blackfella's work when they put their big toe into a notch cut in the smooth stem of a gum-tree that runs a hundred feet without a branch and climb up the outside of it. But Jim and I had often practiced this sort of climbing and we were boys and were both pretty good at it. As for Starlight he had been to sea when he was young and could climb like a cat. When I got to the top I could just see his head above the wall. The rope was fastened well to the top spike which was driven almost to the head into the wall. Directly he saw me, he began to lower himself down the rope and was out of sight in a minute. I wasn't long after him, you may be sure. In my hurry I let the rope slip through my hands so fast they were sore for a week afterwards. But I didn't feel it then. I should hardly have felt it if I had cut them in two for as my feet touched the ground in the darkness I heard the stamp of a horse's hoof and the jingle of a bit. Not much of a sound but it went through my heart like a knife. Along with the thought that I was a free man once more, that is free in a manner of speaking. I knew we couldn't be taken then bar accidents and I felt ready to ride through a regiment of soldiers. As I stood up a man caught my hand and gave it a squeeze as if he'd have crushed my fingers and I knew it was Jim. Of course I'd expected him to be there but wasn't sure if he'd be able to work it. We didn't speak but started to walk over to where two horses were standing with a man holding him. It was pretty dark but I could see Rainbow's star and Justin his forehead it was, the only white he had about him. Of course it was Warragall that was holding them. We must double bank my horse, whispered Jim, for a mile or two till we're clear of the place. We didn't want to bring on a lot of horses about. He jumped up and I mounted behind him. Starlight was on Rainbow in a second. The half-caste disappeared. He was going to keep dark for a few days and send us the news. Jim's horse went off as if he'd only ten stone on his back instead of pretty nigh five and twenty. And we were free, Lord God, to think that men could be such fools as ever to do anything of their own free will and guiding that puts their liberty in danger when there's such a world outside of a gall wall, such a heaven on earth as long as a man's young and strong, and as all the feelings of a free man in a country like this. Would I do the first crooked thing again if I had my life to live over again and knew a hundredth part of what I know now? Would I put my hand in the fire out of laziness or greed, or sit still and let a snake sting me knowing I should be dead in twelve hours? Any man's fool enough to do one that'll do the other. Men and women don't know this in time. That's the worst of it. They won't believe half they're told by them that do know and wish them well. They run on heedless and obstinate too proud to take advice till they do as we did. The world's always been the same, I suppose, and will to the end. Most of the books say so, anyway. CHAPTER XXV What a different field from prison air the fresh night breeze had as we swept along a lonely outside track. The stars were out, though the sky was clouding now and then, and the big forest trees looked strange in the broken light. It was so long since I'd seen any. I felt as if I was going to a new world. None of us spoke for a bit. Jim pulled up at a small hut by the roadside. It looked like a farm, but there was not much show of crops or anything about the place. There was a tumbled-down old barn with a strong door to it and a padlock. It seemed the only building that there was any care taken about. The man opened the door of the hut and looked out. Look sharp, says Jim. Is the horse all right and fit? Fitting up to go for the hawks' break in his arms up and fed him three hours ago. He's bringing out and be hanged, he has said, Jim. We've no time for chat. The man went straight to the barn and after a minute or two brought out a horse, the same eyed ridden from Gippsland, idled and bridled and ready to jump out of his skin. Jim leaned forward and put something into his hand which pleased him, for he held my reign and stir up and then said, Good luck and a long reign to you, as we rode away. All this time Starlight had sat on his horse in the shade of a tree a good bit away. When we started he rode alongside of us. We were soon in a pretty fair hand gallop and we kept it up. All our horses were good and we bowled along as if we were going to ride for a week without stopping. And what a ride it was. It was a grand night, any way I thought so. I blessed the stars, I know. Mile after mile instill the horses seemed to go all the fresher and farther they went. I felt I could ride on that way forever. As the horses pulled and snorted and snatched at their bridles I felt as happy as ever I did in my life. Mile after mile it was all the same. We could hear rainbows snorting from time to time and see his star move as he tossed up his head. We had many a night ride after together but that was the best. We laid it out to make for a place we knew not so far from home. We durst go there straight, of course, but nigh enough to make a dart to it whenever we had word that the coast was clear. We knew directly we were missed the whole countryside would be turned out looking for us and that every trooper within 100 miles would be hoping for promotion in case he was lucky enough to drop on either of the Marston's or the notorious Starlight. His name had been pretty well in everyone's mouth before and would be a little more before they were done with him. It was too far to ride to the Hollow in a day but Jim had got a place ready for us to keep dark in for a bit in case we got clear off. There's never any great trouble in us chaps finding a home for a week or two and somebody to help us on our way as long as we've the notes to chuck about. All the worse in the long run. We rode hardish, some people would have called it a handgallop most of the way, up hill and down across the rocky creeks through the thick timber. More than one river we had to swim. It was mountain water and starlight cursed and swore and said he'd catch his death of cold. Then we all laughed. It was the first time we'd done that since we were out. My heart was too full to talk, much less laugh, with the thought of being out of that cursed prison and on my own horse again, with the free bush breeze filling my breast and the free forest I'd lived in all my life once more around me. I felt like a king and as for what might come afterwards I had no more thought than a schoolboy has of his next year's lessons at the beginning of his holidays. It might come now. As I took the old horse by the head and raced him down the mountainside I felt I was living again and might call myself a man once more. The sun was just rising, the morning was misty and drizzling, the long sour grass, the branches of the scrubby trees, everything we touched and saw was dripping with the night dew as we rode up a gap between two stiffish hills. We'd been riding all night from track to track, sometimes steering by guesswork. Jim seemed to know the country in a general way, and he told us Father and he had been about there a good deal lately, cattle dealing and so on. For the last hour or so we'd been on a pretty fair beaten road, but there wasn't much traffic on it. It was one of the old mail tracks once, but new coach lines had knocked away all the traffic. Some of the old inns had been good big houses, well kept and looked after, then. Now lots of them were empty with broken windows and everything in ruins. Others were just good enough to let the people who live in them make a living by cultivating a bit and selling grog on the slide. Where we pulled up was one of these places, and the people were just what you might expect. First of all there was the man of the house, Jonathan Barns, a tall, slouching, flash-looking native. He'd been a little in the horse racing line, a little in the prize-fighting line, enough to have his nose broken, and was fond of talking about pugs as he'd known the intimate, a little in the farming and carrying line, a little in every line that met a good deal of gassing, drinking and idling, and mighty little hard work. He'd a decent industrious little wife about forty times to good for him, and the girls, Bella and Maddie, worked well, or else he'd have been walking about the country with a swag on his back. They kept him and the house, too, like many a live man, and he took all the credit of it and ordered them about as if he'd been the best and straightest man in the line. He made a few pounds now and then he'd drop it on a horse race before he'd had it a week. They were glad enough to see us anyhow and made us comfortable after a fashion. Some had brought fresh clothes, and both of us had stopped on the road and rigged ourselves out so that we didn't look so queer as men just out of the jug mostly do, with their clothes shaved, faces, cropped heads, and prison clothes. Starlight had brought a false moustache with him which he stuck on, so that he looked as much like a swell as ever. Warrigal had handed him a small parcel which he brought with him just as we started, and with a ring on his fingers, some notes in gold in his pocket, he ate his breakfast and chatted away with the girls as if he'd only ridden out for a day to have a look at the country. Our horses were put in the stable and well looked to, you may be sure of that. The man that straps across cove's horse don't go short of his half-crowned two or three of them, maybe. We made a first-rate breakfast of it, what with the cold and the wet not being used to riding lately. We were pretty hungry and tired, too. We intended to camp there that day and be off again as soon as it was dark. Of course we ran a bit of risk, but not as bad as we should by riding in broad daylight. The hills on the south were wild and rangy enough, but there were all sorts of people about on their business in the daytime. And of course any of them would know with one look that three men, all on well-bred horses, riding right cross country and not stopping to speak or make free with anyone, were likely to be on the cross, all the more if the police were making particular inquiries about them. We were all armed, too, now. Jim had seen to that. If we were caught, we intended to have a flutter for it. We were not going back to Barima if we knew it. So we turned in and slept as if we were never going to wake again. We'd had a glass of grog or two, nothing to hurt, though, and the food in one thing and another made us sleep like tops. Jim was to keep a good look out and we didn't take our clothes off. Our horses were kept saddled, too, with the bridles on their heads and only the bits out of their mouths. We could have managed without the bits at a pinch. Everything ready to be out of the house in one minute and in saddling off, full split the next. We were learned that tricked pretty well before things came to an end. Besides that, Jonathan kept a good look out, too, for strangers of the wrong sort. It wasn't a bad place in that way. There was a long stony track coming down to the house, and you could see a horseman or a carriage of any kind nearly a mile off. Then in the old times the timber had been cleared pretty nigh all around the place, so there was no chance of anyone sneaking up unknown to people. There couldn't have been a better harbor for our sort and many a jolly spree we had there afterwards. Many a queer sight that old table in the little barler saw years after, and the notes in gold and watches and rings and things I've seen the girls handling would have stunned you. But that was all to come. Well, about an hour before dark, Jim wakes us up and we both felt as right as the bank. It took a good deal to knock either of us out of time in those days. I looked around for a bit and then burst out laughing. What's that about, Dick, says Jim, rather serious? Blessed if I didn't think I was in the thunder and old cell again, I said. I could have sworn I heard the bolt snap as your foot sounded in the room. Well, I hope we shan't any of us be shopped again for a while, says he rather slow like. It's bad work, I'm afraid, and worse to come. But we're in it up to our neck and must see it out. We'll have another feed and be off at sundown. We've the devil's own ride before daylight. Anybody called us, says Starlight, sauntering in, washed and dressed and comfortable looking. You told them we were not at home, Jim, I hope. Jim smiled in spite of himself, though he wasn't in a very gay humor. Poor old Jim was looking ahead a bit, I expect, and didn't see anything much to be proud of. We had a scrumptious feed that night, beef steaks and eggs, fresh butter and milk, things we hadn't smelt from months. Then the girls waited on us, a good-looking pair they was, too, full of larks and fun of all kinds, and not very particular what sort of jokes they laughed at. They knew well enough, of course, where we'd come from and what we laid by all day and traveled at night for. They thought none the worse of us for that, not they. They'd been bred up where they'd heard all kinds of rough talk ever since they was little kitties. And you couldn't well put them out. They were a bit afraid of Starlight at first, though, because they'd seen at once that he was a swell. Jim they knew a little of. He and Father had called there a good deal the last season, and had done a little in the stock line through Jonathan Barnes. They could see I was something in the same line as Jim. So I suppose they had made it up to have a bit of fun with us that evening before we started. They came down into the parlor where our tea was, dressed out in their best and looking very grand, as I thought, particularly as we hadn't seen the sight of so much as a woman's bonnet and shawl for months and months. Well, Mr. Marston, says the oldest girl, Bella, to Jim, we didn't expect you'd travel this way with friends so soon. Why didn't you tell us, and we'd have had everything comfortable? Wasn't sure about it, says Jim, and when you ain't it's safest to hold your tongue. There's a good many things we all do that we don't want talking about. I feel certain, Jim, says Starlight, with his soft voice and pleasant smile, which no woman as I ever saw could fight against long, that any man's secret would be safe with Miss Bella. I would trust her with my life freely, not that it's worth a great deal. Oh, Captain, says poor Bella, and she began to blush quite innocent like, you needn't fear there ain't a girl from Sholehaven to Albury that wouldn't let on which way you were heading if they were to offer her all the money in the country. Not even a diamond in necklace and earrings. Think of a lovely pendant across all of Britain's, and a brooch to match my dear girl. I wouldn't come it unless I could get that lovely horse of yours, says the youngest one, Maddie. But I'd do anything in the world to have him. He's the greatest darling I ever saw. Wouldn't he look stunning with a side saddle? I've got a great man to duff him myself one of these days. I shall have a ride on rainbow next time we come, says Starlight. I've sworn never to give me a where to sell him, that is as long as I'm alive, but I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll leave him to you in my will. Well, how do you mean, says she, quite excited like? Why, if I drop one of these fine days and it's on the cards any time, you shall have rainbow. But mind you, you're to promise me. Here he looked very grave. That you'll neither sell him nor lend him nor give him away as long as you live. Oh, you don't mean that, says the girl, jumping up and clapping her hands. I'd sooner have him than anything I ever saw in the world. Oh, I'll take such care of him. I'll feed him and rub him over myself. Only I forgot I'm not to have him before you're dead. It's rather rough on you, isn't it? Not a bit, says Starlight. We must all go when our time comes. If anything happens to me soon he'll be young enough to carry you for years yet, and you'll win all the ladies acne prizes at the shows. Oh, I couldn't take him. But you must now. I've promised him to you, and though I'm a well and indifferent character, I never go back on my word. Haven't you anything to give me, Captain, says Bella? You're in such a generous mind. I must bring you something, says he. Next time we call, what shall it be? Now is the time to ask. I'm like the fellow in the Arabian Nights, the slave of the ring, your ring. Here he took the girl's hand and pretended to look at a ring she wore, took it off, and kissed it. It wasn't a very ugly one, neither. What will you have, Bella? I like a watch and chain, she said, pretending to look a little offended. I suppose I may as well ask for a good thing at once. Starlight pulled out a pocketbook and, quite solemn and regular, made a note of it. It's yours, he said, within a month. If I cannot conveniently call and present it in person, I'll send it by a shorthand, as they used to say. And now, Jim, boot and saddle. The horses were out by this time. The groom was walking rainbow up and down. He put a regular French polish on his coat, and the old horse was arching his neck and shawing as bit as if he thought he was going to start for the Bargo Town Plate. Jonathan himself was holding our two horses, but looking at him, my word, he said, that's a real picture of a horse. He's too good for a, well, these roads. He ought to be in Sydney carrying some swell about never known what a day's hardship feels like. Isn't he a regular out-and-outter to look at? And they tell me his looks is about the worst of him. Well, here's luck. Starlight had called for drinks all round before we started. Here's luck to roads and coaches, and them as lives by him. They'll miss the old coaching-systems, own day, mark my word. I don't hold with these railways they're talking about. All steam and hurray scurray, it starves the country. Quite right, Jonathan, says Starlight, throwing his leg over Rainbow, and chucking the old groom as sovereign. The times have never been half as good as in the old coaching days before we ever smelt a funnel in New South Wales. But there's a coach or two left, yet, isn't there? And sometimes they're worth attending to. He bowed and smiled at the girls, and Rainbow sailed off with his beautiful, easy springy stride. He always put me in mind of the deer I once saw at Mulgoa near Penrith. I've never seen any before. My word, how one of them sailed over a farmer's wheat-paddock fence. He'd been in there all night, and when he saw us coming, he just up and made for the fence and flew it like a bird. I never saw any horse have the same action, only Rainbow. You couldn't tire him, and he was just the same the end of the day as the beginning. If he hadn't fallen into Starlight's hands as a colt, he'd have been a second-class racehorse and wore out his life among touts and ringmen. He was better where he was. Off he went. What a ride we had that night. Just as well we'd fed and rested before we started, else we should never have held out. All that night long we had to go and keep going. A deal of the road was rough near the Shoalhaven country, across awful deep gullies with a regular climb up the other side, like the side of a house, through dismal ironbark forests that look as black by night as if all the tree trunks were cast iron, and the leaves gunmetal. The night wasn't as dark as it might have been, but now and again there was a storm, and the whole sky turned as black as a wolf's throat, as Father used to say. We got a few knocks and scrapes against the trees, but partly through the horses being pretty clever in their kind of way, and having sharpish eyesight of our own, we pulled through. It's no use talking, sometimes I thought Jim must lose his way. Starlight told us he'd made up his mind that we were going round and round, and would fetch up about where we'd started from and find the moss-veiled police waiting there for it. All right, Captain, says Jim, don't you flurry yourself. I've been along this track pretty often these last few months, and I can steer by the stars. Look at the Southern Cross there. You keep him somewhere on the right shoulder, and you'll pull up not so far off that black range over old rocky flat. You're not going to be so mad as to call it your own place, Jim, are you? Goring sure to have a greyhound or two ready to slip in case the hare makes for her old form. Trust old dad for that, says Jim. He knows Dick, and you are on the grass again. He'll meet us before we get to the place and have fresh horses. I'll bet he's got a chap or two that he can trust to smell out the traps if they're close handy the old spot. They'll be mighty clever if they get on the blind side of Father. Well, we must chance it, I suppose, I said, but we were sold once, and I'm not much fancy for going back again. They're all looking for you the other way. This blessed minute I'll go bail, says Jim. Most of the coves the boat from Burima takes down the Southern Road to get across the border into Port Phillip as soon as they can work it. They all was fancy there, safer there. So they are in some ways. I wouldn't mind if we were back there again, I said. It's worse places than Melbourne. But once we get to the Hollow, and that'll be some time to-day, we may take it easy and spell for a week or two. How they'll wonder what the deuce has become of us. That night was long and that cold that Jim's beard was frozen as stiff as a board, but I sat on my horse I declared a heaven and never felt anything with pleasure and comfort to think I was loose again. You've seen a dog that's been chained up, well, when he's let loose. Don't he go shivvying and racing about over everything and into everything that's next to an iron? He'll jump into water or over a fence and turn aside for nothing. He's mad with joy in the feeling of being off the chain. He can't hardly keep from barking till he's hoarse, and rushing through and over and everything till he's winded and done up. Then he lies down with his tongue out and considers it all over. Well, a man's just like that when he's been on the chain. He may not jump about so much, though I've seen foreign fellows do that when their collar was unbuckled. But he feels the very same things in his heart as that dog does. You take my word for it. So as I said, though I was sitting on a horse all that long cold winter's night through and had to mind my eye a bit for the road and the rocks and the hanging branches, I felt my heart swell that much and my courage rise that I didn't care whether the night was going to turn into a snowstorm like we'd been in Chien-Dre way, or whether we'd have a dozen rivers to swim like the headwaters of the McAllister in Gypseland as nearly drowned the pair of us. There I sat in my saddle like a man in a dream, letting my horse follow gyms uphill and down-dale, half the time letting go his head and give him his own road. Everything too I seemed to notice and to be pleased with somehow. Sometimes it was a rock wallaby out on the feed that we'd come close on before we saw one another, and it would jump away almost under the horse's neck, taking two or three awful long springs and licking square and level among the rocks after a drop, leap of a dozen feet, like a cat jumping out of a window. But the cats got four legs to balance on in the kangaroo only, too. How they manage it measured the distance so well God only knows. Then an old possum would swing out under a Blackford flying squirrel, Pongo's the blacks call him, would come sailing down from the top of an ironbark tree with all his stern sail spreadin' as the sailors say, and into the branches of another, looking as big as an eagle-hawk. And then we'd come round the corner of a little creek flat and be into the middle of a mob of wild horses that had come down from Mount Defeat at night. How they'd scurry off through the scrub and up the range, where it was like the side of a house, and that full of slate bars all upon edge that you could smell the hooves of the Brumbies as the sharp stones rasped and tore and struck sparks out of them, like you do with pairings in a blacksmith's shop. Then just as I thought daybreak was near, the great mop oak flits closed over our heads without any rustling or noise, like the ghost of a bird, and begins to hoot in a big, bare hollow tree just ahead of us. Hoo-hoo! Hoo-hoo! The last time I heard it, it made me shiver a bit. Now I didn't care. I was a desperate man that had done bad things and was likely to do worse. But I was free of the forest again and had a good horse under me. So I laughed at the bird and rode on.