“If you please, sir, Jim Gulpin is dying, I think, and wishes to speak to you,” said one of the policemen, with a military salute.

I found Jim breathing with extreme difficulty, and already the moisture of death was on his brow.  His eyes were set, and presented the peculiar appearance characteristic of a sudden demise.

A cloud of insects was hovering around the poor fellow’s head, and many of them had alighted upon his face, and were sucking his blood as eagerly as though they knew they must improve their time.  Gulpin was too weak, or else unconscious of their stings, to make an effort to drive them from their feast; and as for the police, they were too busy in dividing the gold found in the secret cellar to pay any attention to the dying robber.

I sent one of the men for a pail of fresh water from the spring near the house, and the only place where water could be had within a circle of twenty miles, and then with a wet towel I bathed the dying man’s face, and wet his parched lips.  He appeared revived, and grateful for the attention which I bestowed upon him, and murmured some words, the meaning of which I did not comprehend.  I thought his mind wandered, and remained seated by his side, fanning his heated face, and listening to his respiration, which appeared to become more difficult at every breath.

All at once the robber chief roused himself from his lethargic state, and carefully scanned my face with his lack-lustre eyes.  I met his gaze without flinching, and perhaps the bushranger read pity in my looks, for he merely uttered a sigh, and I heard him moan.

“Pardon me,” he hoarsely whispered, extending his hand, “I have been harshly used during my life, and what I am the laws of England have made me.  Once I was honest, and free from sin as a child, but an unjust accusation and an unjust conviction made me a bandit.  The laws warred against, me, and I turned on them and have vented my spite against not only those who framed the laws, but every body who lived under them.”

He paused for a moment, and I again moistened his mouth with the wine and water.  It revived him, and he continued, although in a subdued tone,—­

“I will tell you why I feel this bitter hatred for my enemies, and then you can judge whether I am entirely in the wrong.  Raise my head slightly, for I feel that I am sinking fast.”

I propped his back against some spare blankets, and heard the bushranger’s story.  I thought he told me the truth at the time, and a few subsequent inquiries convinced me that such was the fact.

“I was born in the west of England,” Gulpin began, “and although you may doubt my story when I tell you that my family is rich and honored, and the only blot upon the name was when I was accused of crime, yet such is the fact.  I am the youngest of three sons.  My brothers are in the army, and hold commissions, and are no doubt, by this time, if alive, high in rank and power.  My wish was to enter the army also, but my father thought he could not afford to purchase me a commission, and he had exhausted his favor with the ministry in providing for his eldest sons.  Accordingly I was sent to a banking house in London, with which my father had correspondence, and was admitted as a clerk.