“Give him another cut, Maurice, for telling the last lie,” cried Murden, coolly.

“Don’t do that,” shouted the long-legged wretch, as the blow fell with awful distinctness upon his back.  “Darn it all, you hurt.”

“I intended that the blow should,” replied Maurice, making preparations to repeat it.

“Don’t strike, for God’s sake don’t.  I’ll tell the truth this time,” he yelled.

“How much money did the men have, and what was your share?” repeated Murden.

“I don’t know how much they had, but I does know that I got a hundred pounds for my share in the affair.  But I didn’t kill the men.  ’Pon honor I didn’t”

“I believe you on that point.  Wait a moment, Maurice; I have another question or two.”

“I vish that you’d let me hanser ’em vithout bein’ tied up,” groaned the wretch.

“What became of that young girl who was on her way with a party of friends to join her father at Ballarat, and who was carried off by a gang of bushrangers?” questioned the lieutenant.

“She’s dead,” replied Steel Spring, dropping his voice and looking around anxiously, as though fearful he should see her ghost in the darkness.

“Who claimed her as a prize?”

“Nosey took charge of her, and threatened to kill any one vot spoke to her; but I believe that she got a knife and stabbed herself, sooner than submit to his vishes.”

“This is horrid,” I said, hardly knowing whether to believe all that I heard, or consider it the effect of imagination.

“Nevertheless, it is true.  You have never heard all the cruelties that the gangs commit; if you had you would be ready to exclaim, Give them no quarter, for they deserve none!”

“Now that I’ve hanswered all you vant to know, you von’t vip me any more, vill you?”

Murden was about to speak, but just then a new subject engrossed his attention, and he had no longer an opportunity to inflict chastisement upon the begging wretch.

CHAPTER XXIX.

Revenge of the bushrangers.—­Firing of the forest.

The punishment of Steel Spring was suspended, and the stout sword belt remained in the hands of Maurice, inactive, while all eyes were directed towards the heavens, from whence a bright light proceeded, which illuminated the open space where we stood, so that even the ghastly faces of the dead and dying could be observed with awful distinctness.

For a few minutes’ time, even the busy tongue of Steel Spring ceased to wag and each turned to the other, and asked the reason of such a bright light at that time and place.

“I think it’s the moon just rising,” one of the men ventured to say.

“There’s no moon to-night,” was the brief rejoinder.

“Then what is the meaning of the light?” was the inquiry; but no one seemed to fathom it.