“The impudent scoundrel!” was the general exclamation, and I think that the reader will agree with the guests, and pronounce the bushranger a bold man, and one of considerable address and nerve.

Of course, the mounted police were set in motion, and the country scoured for miles in extent, but no signs of Sam were discovered; and the mortification of my friend Murden may be better imagined than described when he was afterwards informed that Sam did not even take the trouble of leaving the city that night, but changed his clothes, and passed a large portion of his time with a lady who was somewhat noted for liberality towards the male sex; and when he was tired of a metropolitan residence, he dressed himself in female attire, and with a veil to conceal his face, passed soldiers and police, and rejoined his gang, who were fifty miles from Melbourne.

The story of the aide-de-camp was a curious one.  He said that the stranger requested time to pencil a note to a distinguished gentleman in town, who was to vouch for his respectability; that after he had finished writing and directing it, Sam approached him, as though to request permission to send it by a bearer, but before he was aware of his intentions Tyrell had garroted him in such a manner that all resistance was impossible, and when about half dead, he was laid upon the floor, bound with cords, and then had a handkerchief stuffed in his mouth, threats being made at the same time that death was certain if the least alarm was given.

The bushranger then waited until the guard turned his back, when he dropped from the window like a cat, and made his escape.  The officer was laughed at so outrageously, that he sold his commission and left the army.

Such was one of the exploits of the “gentlemanly” bushranger whose actions we were watching, and over whose head a reward of five hundred pounds was hanging.

“If you must call each other liars, and rush to a fight, why don’t you do so in a gentlemanly manner, at ten paces distant, and not shoot or cut each other down like dogs?  Can I never learn you manners, and be d——­d to you.”

The speaker, of whom Mr. Brown had whispered, was Tyrell—­he walked towards the young fellow, who had, but a moment before, killed the old pirate, and stopped in front of him.  From our place of concealment we could admire the athletic form of the leader of the gang, and as the flames from the camp-fire blazed up and showed us his features, we could not help being struck with their stern beauty.

“Well, captin, he began it,” cried the young assassin, in a snivelling, apologetic sort of tone; “I didn’t want to hurt him, sure, if he hadn’t told me I lied.  I don’t take that from nobody, you knows.”

“You lie, you dog, you know you do,” cried ‘gentleman Sam,’ in a tone expressive of profound contempt.  “You stabbed old Bill when his back was turned, and did not give him a fair chance.  I’ll have no more such doings.  A stop must be put to such kind of work.  Do you all understand me?”