“He laughed triumphantly as he spoke, and thought of the long chase that he had given the police of Sydney.

“’You are a strong man, much stronger than myself, and if I am upon an equal footing with you, could crush me as easily as an eggshell.’

“I still retained my hold of the gun, but I no longer covered his huge body with its barrel.

“‘Look at me!’ he said, baring his arms, which were shrunken, and holding them up for my inspection.  ’For three days I’ve not tasted food, or closed my eyes in sleep.  I’ve run and skulked from tree to tree during that time, and heard the tramping of horses as the policemen strove to follow my trail.  I am weak, exhausted, and a child could overcome me now.’

“’But after your strength is recruited, you may act the part of a serpent, and sting the one that warmed you into life,’ I answered, half resolved to trust him.

“‘I don’t blame you for your suspicions,’ he cried, moodily, seating himself by the fire again, and holding his hands towards the blaze to dry his ragged shirt.  ’I am defenceless, and you hold a loaded gun.  Discharge its contents into my body, and then go and obtain a full pardon from government for the murder of Black Darnley.’

“He bowed his head and sat scowling at the fire, as though he cared not what became of him, and was rather anxious, than otherwise, that I should end his career of crime.

“‘I’ll trust you,’ I said, replacing my gun over the bed and taking a seat beside him, and I did so with perfect confidence.

“‘Your clothes are wet and ragged,’ I remarked, after a few moments’ silence, during which he did not remove his eyes from the fire.

“‘A starving man cares but little about his dress,’ he answered, glancing over his ragged suit, and stooping to wipe the gravel from his bloody feet.

“‘You shall have all that you want to eat,’ I answered; and I hastily put a kettle of water upon the fire to make him a cup of tea, and then laid upon the table nearly the whole carcass of a lamb which I had roasted that day.  He still sat by the fire and gazed at the flames as though he read his past life amid the coals that glowed upon the hearth, and was trying to read the future.  I went to my small stock of clothing and took out a flannel shirt and pair of trousers, much the worse for wear, but still warm and dry.

“’Strip off your wet garments,” I said, ‘and accept of these.’

“He started, and looked me full in the face, as though reading my thoughts.

“‘I have wronged you,’ he cried, while doing as I directed.  ’I thought when I proposed to take the ship, that you were a coward, because you refused to join me.  You are a braver man than myself.’

“’It was because I knew that certain death not only awaited you and I, but half of those who were not aware of the plot.  The innocent and guilty would have been massacred without mercy by our taskmasters.’