She folded her arms, and rocked her body to and fro, shaking her head, and muttering incoherent sentences, with her eyes fixed upon the ground intently, as though trying, amid the dirt, to discover the blood of her destroyer.

Poor Fred, who looked about as much like Black Darnley as the man in the moon, turned slightly red with mortification; and to this hour, an allusion to his wonderful likeness to the celebrated bushranger is sure to bring on a fit of the sulks that will last a day or two.

Fred retired as soon as he found that his presence irritated the unhappy woman, who, it was very evident, was slightly deranged by her accumulation of trouble.

“We are all friends here,” I said, at length, “and are willing to do your bidding.  See, here is your father; and do you think he would stand unmoved in the presence of a man who had wronged you.  You must surely recollect my face.  Look at me closely.”

“Ah, I do remember you now,” she cried.

“That’s right,” I said, encouragingly.  “I thought you would know the man you had leaned upon and talked with on the night—­”

Before I had a chance to finish my remarks, with a wild, mad cry, she sprang forward, and, with a movement like lightning, drew my bowie knife, which was stuck in a belt around my waist, and had not Smith intercepted the blow I should not now be writing sketches about my adventures.

In spite of his interference, however, the knife, sharp as a razor and ground to a point like a needle, fell upon my unprotected forehead and opened a gash two inches long, almost penetrating the brain.  The hot blood blinded me for a moment as it gushed from the wound.  I staggered back from the unexpected attack, but before the mad woman had an opportunity to repeat the blow, my faithful friend was by my side, and had wrenched the steel from her hand.

“Ha, ha!” she shrieked; “blood!—­blood!—­his blood flows freely, and I avenge my own wrongs.  Look at him bleed!—­’twas my hand that struck him, and now he’ll die like a dog.  I triumph—­I—­I—­”

She could say no more, but fell back in convulsions.  Smith caught her in his strong arms, and was about to bear her into the house, when he was interrupted by what appeared like so many apparitions.

Mounted upon strong, well-trained horses, were a dozen of the mounted police of Melbourne, who, during our interview with the convict’s daughter, had stolen upon us unperceived, and had formed a circle in which we were the centre, to prevent an escape had we been so disposed.  So quiet had they ridden, that it seemed as though they had sprung from the ground at the command of some genii of the lamp.

We did not form a very prepossessing group, and, at first, much less suspicious people than police officers would have imagined that something was wrong.

“Hello!” cried the man who appeared to command the squad, riding towards us; “what have we here—­a wounded man and a dead woman.  Whose work is this?”