Day after day passed, and we were impatient to hear from Murden.  Mr. Brown had put his police to work to find out the accomplice of Follet, but all attempts to discover him had proved futile.

Follet still remained obstinate and defying; and to add to our misery, our patient was hovering between life and death, and it seemed as though a feather would turn the scale either way.

One night, soon after twelve o’clock, and while I was taking my turn watching by the bedside of Mr. Critchet, I heard a gentle tap at the door.  I paid no attention to the first summons; and not until a repetition warned me that some person was desirous of entering, did I cock my revolver, and without disturbing Fred, stole softly to the door, which I unlocked, and discovered a man with a long black beard and slouched hat, standing on the doorsteps, whistling, in a low key, the popular negro tune, just introduced into Australia from California, by a band of negro singers, of “Nelly Bly.”

“What is wanted?” I asked, bringing my revolver up so as to command his head, in case his visit was hostile.

“Can you tell me the time of night?” he demanded, in a tone so gruff and guttural, that I thought he must have slept in a mine for a week, and that the dampness had gone to his lungs.

“Ask the first mounted policeman that you come to,” I rejoined, and was about to slam the door to, when I heard a peculiar chuckle that arrested my attention.

“Veil, if this ’ere isn’t a go!” the man with the black beard said; “a feller comes hall the vay from Melbourne to see a friend, and gets the door shut in his face.”

I knew the voice, and should know it if I met its owner fifty years hence.  I seized the visitor by his collar, dragged him into the store, shut the door, tore off his black beard, and had revealed to my eyes the grinning countenance of Steel Spring!

CHAPTER LIV.

THE WAY THE COLONISTS OBTAIN WIVES IN AUSTRALIA.

“Vell, of all the jolly things in the world, if this don’t knock um,” Steel Spring said, with one of his most hideous grins.  “I told my friend, Murden, and I halso ’inted the same thing to ’is excellency the governor, the last time that I dined vid him, and just as he was axing me to take vine, that I would vager a stiff glass of viskey, vich you vill ax me to take by and by, that you vouldn’t know me on the first occasion of my visit.  ‘Steel Spring,’ said the governor, ’it can’t be did;’ and ven I pledged my vord as a gentleman and a man of probity, that I vould vrite to him the result, in a strict sense, he shook my ’and, and said I was a honor to the land wot give me birth, and that he ’oped he should never be called upon to part vid me.  Ven can I ’ave the viskey?”

I stood a few minutes surveying the ex-bushranger with admiration, and hardly knowing whether he most deserved a kicking or a word of praise for his falsehoods and perfect disguise.  While I was considering the matter, Fred joined us, being awakened by the shrill chuckling of our visitor.