Title:      The Swampers (1897)
Author:     Nisbet, Hume
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Date first posted:          July 2006
Date most recently updated: July 2006

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THE SWAMPERS
A Romance of the Westralian Goldfields

by

Hume Nisbet

TO DAVID CHRISTIE MURRAY, NOVELIST.
I BEG TO DEDICATE THIS ROMANCE
WITH PROFOUND ADMIRATION FOR HIS GENIUS.

PREFACE.

I HAVE to thank the following gentlemen for the prompt and hearty assistance which they have given me in books, maps, and personal information about West Australia and its Goldfields at the present hour. Having taken full advantage of such valuable information, I trust that the reader will find this romance correct in its local colouring and statistics. To Mr. Albert F. Calvert, M.E., F.R.G.S., &c., &c., Author of "The Exploration of Australia"; "Western Australia and its Goldfields"; Editor and Proprietor of The West Australian Review, for his magnificent and exhaustive works and maps. Also to those other friends, Messrs. Critchill; Ernest H. Gough; Graham Hill; Philip Mennell, F.R.G.S., &c., Author of "The Coming Colony," "Dictionary of Australian Biography," &c., &c., and Editor and Proprietor of The British Australasian; also to Mr. John Wilson, first Mayor of Kalgourlie. To all these gentlemen and others who have supplied me with information I beg to offer my most grateful thanks.

I must appeal to the good sense of my West Australian readers, and trust that they will not try to see real personages in my fictitious creations. Kalgourlie is as yet a small, if it is a rapidly-growing town, and each resident is known to his fellow-townsmen. The peculiarities of mankind are so mixed and generalized that it is not at all difficult for a reader to fix an original for my fancy study in any spot where men and women congregate. This habit, so unfair and crippling to an author's liberty of action, I must particularly warn you against indulging in. I built the "Chester Hotel" entirely at my own expense, and as my own speculation. The material was not Hessian, but a finer web of stuff which I spun from my own brain. Sarah Hall, Rosa Chester, Anthony Vandyke Jenkins, Bob Wallace, and my other characters, all came from the same source, and are as Mercutio says:

"The children of an idle brain, Begot of nothing but vain fantasy."

Therefore you must take them as such, and not localize or incarnate one of them. On this privileged ground I strictly take my stand.

Regarding any mild criticism that I may have written throughout these pages concerning the fair City of Sydney, I have no apology to make other than that perhaps my various visits may have been timed unfortunately when the inhabitants were suffering from some insensate epidemic. Perhaps they have lucid intervals between these public and social epidemics of folly and unreason, and that during these intervals they act like their neighbours, Victoria, Queensland, and South Australia, but if so, I have not had the good fortune to land amongst them at such happy intervals; therefore I can only speak as I find people, and the natives of Sydney have not impressed me so favourably as their neighbour colonials of Melbourne, Brisbane, and Adelaide have done, either for their probity, generosity, or common sense. As for that worm "Puffadder," with his blasphemous, brutal, and poisonous organ, I do not think any self-respecting colonial will care how much a reptile like this is criticised or censured. He may spit out his venom, but he would do that under any circumstances, particularly when his victim's back is turned upon him. His unsexed contributors may also snarl and yelp, while his senile admirers, who have debauched the little brains which originally they may have possessed, with his absinthe doses, doubtless will gnash their gums and cry for gore, but as "Walker, London," remarks: "That is noth ink."

My story is before you, sympathetic or hostile readers, and I trust it may interest you with all its faults. The characters are purely imaginative, but some of the incidents are drawn from facts, and in the descriptions I have done my utmost to be exact and realistic.

THE AUTHOR.

CONTENTS.

I.--THE DEN OF THE MODERN WIZARD
II.--A CONFIDENTIAL CONVERSATION
III.--THE NEW ESTABLISHMENT
IV.--TREASURE TROVE
V.--JACK MILTON AT HOME
VI.--JACK MILTON'S ESCAPE
VII.--THE INTERVIEW
VIII.--COUSINS
IX.--JACK MILTON WAITS
X.--AN UNPLEASANT DREAM
XI.--ON THE WALLABY TRACK
XII.--ANTHONY VANDYKE JENKINS
XIII.--THE PROSPERITY AND FALL OF JENKINS
XIV.--JACK MILTON MAKES FOR THE WEST
XV.--THE DREAM MINE
XVI.--ROSA'S SECOND MARRIAGE
XVII.--TRACKED
XVIII.--THE OLD, OLD GAME
XIX.--JACK MILTON IS TAKEN IN CHARGE
XX.--ROSA GETS INITIATED IN MINING PARLANCE
XXI.--JACK MILTON AND HIS COLOURED FRIENDS
XXII.--TO KALGOURLIE
XXIII.--THE SWAMPERS
XXIV.--CHESTER TAKES A MONTH'S LEAVE
XXV.--JACK MILTON'S DISCOVERY
XXVI.--THE COURTSHIP OF BOB WALLACE
XXVII.--MEETING OF JACK AND ROSA
XXVIII.--JACK MILTON AT KALGOURLIE
XXIX.--"WHERE THE WEARY CEASE TO TROUBLE AND THE WICKED ARE AT REST"

Chapter I. The Den of the Modern Wizard.

PROFESSOR MORTIKALI sat in his inner sanctum waiting for customers.

It was a hot day, during the early portion of the month of March, 1896, and although the Professor had all his blinds drawn down, and occupied the coolest corner of the Arcade, still he could not shut out those intense waves of Sydney heat that swept in, between the crevices of the doors and windows, although he managed to shut out a good deal of the intense light.

Never had such a hot season been in the memory of the oldest colonist as this heat wave of 1896. From January 1st to the 24th it had ranged from 112 degrees to 129 degrees in the shade in New South Wales, and people had dropped dead wholesale throughout the colony. In many of the inland townships the people had been panic-stricken, and fish were killed in the creeks and lakes by tons upon tons. It had cooled off a little by March, yet there were days, and this was one of them, when the heat fury of January seemed to repeat itself.

The Professor liked shadow, for he was a modern wizard and his business did not require much light; indeed the less light that was thrown upon it, the better it was conducted; therefore, it was not often that the green venetian blinds were drawn up.

The Professor was at present resting on his oars, for it was the slack hour of the day, the hour when no one, unless absolutely forced to come out, would care to face the terrific sun-glare of mid-day.

The Professor was of that peculiar craft which flourished so much during the earlier centuries, and has more or less flourished ever since under various disguises. He belonged to the tribe of the witch of Endor, that profession of seers and fore-tellers whom King Saul tried to put down in his vigorous and virtuous years, and afterwards weakly consulted in his decline; the same craft which that modern Solomon, King James I. of England, so rigorously hunted to death, and which might have died naturally only for the efforts of the Pschychological Society, and that able editor of Border-land, the discoverer of the fourth dimension.

It is not a profitable profession in merry old England, where the police imitate the tactics of Kings Saul and James, and take as much delight in making raids, as lively terriers do in hunting out rabbits. But in progressive New South Wales, where convict laws still hold sway, and men are hanged for attempted murder, while judges dictate to jurymen, as the celebrated Jeffreys used to do, where even the judges themselves consult the witches; fortune-telling and witchcraft thrive wonderfully, even in the midst of the universal depression which of late has fallen upon the. colonies.

In the Sydney of to-day you may see, amongst other closed places of business, the shutters up of many public houses and bars; the reason of this is that they have been raided by the police, because the proprietors have been selling poison undiluted to their customers, and although the colonised stomach can stand a good deal in the way of vitriol, and blue-stone, yet when the landlord omits to give his customers even the flavour of brandy, rum or whisky, then his fate as a landlord is decided.

They are a proud and conservative race, the New South Welshmen; they cannot stand the slightest approach to a joke about their country. You may abuse England or London as much as you are disposed to an Englishman, and he will only laugh unctuously, but you must not take the same liberty with a New South Welshman. His harbour is the most beautiful harbour in the world. If you admit this, yet suggest that the buildings might be just a little more classic, he will grow pale with passion and cut you dead. If you venture to hint that morality in its aesthetic quality is not so strictly observed amongst the politicians and tradesmen as it might be, he will consider it time to regard you as a dangerous person and a fit subject for the martial law that hangs first and tries afterwards, and is still in such active force in that sun-laved colony.

They aim to be very high-toned in Sydney, and imitate as nearly as they can the manners of fashionable London; therefore if an accomplished swindler or thief comes amongst them and knows his business thoroughly, he is nearly sure to be successful, for the veneer being all that they aspire to themselves, so are they satisfied with it in their visitors. In Victoria and Queensland the inhabitants are less conservative and much more level-headed.

Professor Mortikali was a wonderful man in his way, and pursued various branches as a livelihood. On his brass plate was written: "Professor Mortikali, Psychometrist, Pneumatologist, Futurist and Magneto-Electric Healer." He called his establishment the Egyptian-Mystic Hall and Health Sanatorium, and had on his bills a wide range of subjects, from character delineating by Phrenology and Physiognomy, Fortune-telling by Cards, Palmistry or Astrology, with the art of healing all diseases by Hypnotic treatment.

There are hundreds in the same line of business throughout Sydney, and all apparently flourishing more or less, despite the dull times. In the Arcade were three rivals, while along the principal streets every fifth or sixth shop bears the sign of a Futurist, or an Astrologer, with all the paraphernalia exhibited in the windows which one expects to witness in the windows of a wizard.

In the newspapers also of this enlightened and conservative country, along with singular gems of poetry, in the form of memoriam verses, you may read every day, advertisements like the following: "Wanted, a loving, clairvoyant, test-lady, with means preferred, as life partner, by Magnetic Healer, etc.," and yet no one laughs either at the verses or the advertisements, they have become so accustomed to both. But they get terribly vicious if any stranger attempts to criticise their politicians, or their professionals.

Professor Mortikali had his front window artfully set out, a plaster cast of the hand of Deeming the murderer, with casts and photographs of actors, clergymen, and other distinct types were displayed. A phrenological head stood on a stucco pillar, and the complete skeleton of a baby dangled inside a glass case, specimens of snakes and tape worms were coiled in bottles, or dried and stuffed, and grouped about, while the invariable alligator, which Hogarth has accustomed us to in his pictures of the Quack, was likewise displayed.

A curtain, half-drawn back from the doorway, revealed the image of a gipsy holding out her hand to be crossed with silver, while at a little counter sat an attractive-looking girl, costumed in black velvet, scarlet facings, and glittering metallic discs, such as we were used to gaze on at "fairs" in our youthful days. There was no attempt at advancement, or dressing up to date in this establishment. The old-fashioned arrangements appeared to answer the purpose perfectly, the same amount of rouge and powder on the face of this attractive handmaid to the wizard, the generous display of snowy neck, and the usual surroundings of curtains, herbs and stuffed monstrosities, they were all there, while inside waited the Futurist and Faith-Healer.

At this precise hour of mid-day the Professor and his handmaid were both similarly occupied in discussing their lunch. Hers was a slight refection, as befitted a Sydney nymph of her light and powdery nature. A couple of tarts, and an ice-cream, which she had procured at the next door. The ice she had finished first, before it became quite liquid, and now she was leisurely discussing the fruit and pastry.

Inside the sanctum the Professor was having a heavier meal, as befitted the nerve wear and tear of his occupation; an underdone beef-steak with a chunk of bread and a tankard of colonial beer, vulgarly called "swanky."

The Professor was a man well advanced in years, of an ordinary height and inclined to run to stoutness. He wore his iron-grey tresses long, so that they fell over his back in a lank and straggly fashion, his beard and moustache also were grey and mangy, while his rubicund complexion, commonplace features, and very small eyes, reminded one somehow of a mendicant friar of the Middle Ages.

His small eyes were crow-like and rather vacant in their expression, and what linen he displayed was of the dirtiest and most rumpled description. His garments also, although at one date black, had evidently been purchased at a second-hand establishment, and were both frayed and rusty as well as badly fitting, and being originally of the dress-suit order, gave him the appearance of a broken-down waiter at a poor restaurant.

He was not a wholesome-looking object, while he wolfed his steak as a dog might devour its meal; the steak was badly cut and indifferently cooked, the intense heat of the atmosphere, the perspiration running from the Professor's forehead and cheeks in dirty rivulets, and his dirty hands helping the fork. Ignorant, low-bred, square-pointed fingers, unclipped nails in deepest mourning, and, added to this, that vacuous mouth, with the slobbering lips taking in the steak with such evident unction, and the solitary unwashed tooth emphasizing that moist unction, rendered this hypnotic disciple of "Border-land" rather gruesome than pleasant.

As he sat, he scratched his head sometimes with his dirty nails, sometimes with his greasy fork; he also fumbled suggestively about his half-opened waistcoat as one is used to see tramps do when they fancy themselves unobserved; altogether, this Sydney interpreter of "Border-land" lore gave one the decided impression of that drawing in Punch, by Harry Furness, of the man who wrote about Pears' Soap. "Two years ago I used your soap, since when I have used no other." Harry Furness's model was attentuated and unkempt, but fancy a professor of mystic lore, in a badly-fitting waiter's dress-suit; the knees baggy, and the vest over tight. The angry buttons threatening to sever. Burly as a friar of old and soft as a retired bantam boxer, with a vacuous countenance, and crow-like eyes, always on the goggle, and you have the Professor, or ancient wizard up to date.

Supplement this with the awful heat of a Sydney mid-summer day, an underdone steak cut in colonial fashion, and cooked ditto; the natural perspiration and fumes of an unwashable tramp, decked up in an old dress suit, and you may realise the picture of this High Priest of the temple of mystery without further description.

He had just finished his gorge and imbibed his last drop of colonial "swanky," when the hand-maid popped in her head, and shedding a tiny stream of pearl powder, which after all sweetened the apartment a little, announced in brassy tones: "Are ye done, Perfessor, for there's a laydy a-waiting ter consult yer?"

The Professor bundled his plates and beer-mug to a side table, where he covered them with an old newspaper, then dusting the crumbs aside with his hand, and wiping his hands again on the tails of his coat he produced a greasy pack of cards, and said with calm dignity: "Yes, Matilder, show the party in."

The party entered, a young woman of about twenty-five, fashionably dressed and according to the season, in virgin white, with a Donna-like bunch of snowy ostrich feathers in her hat, and a cloud or dust-veil about her face; she was slim-built and graceful in figure, and the Professor, who loved the fair sex, took notice that she had a wealth of golden-brown hair under the drooping feathers.

"Sit down, my dear," he said with a smirk on his sweaty and greasy red face, and the party sat and silently looked at him through her cloud. "Is it your fortune ye want to know? By the cards or by the hand?--or are you in any other trouble that a man of my experience can help you? Girls will be girls, you know, my dear, therefore you may safely give me your confidence, for it won't be abused."

He bared his lonely tooth and regarded her with a senile smile, while his crow-like, vacant gaze tried to get behind the cloud.

The visitor laughed softly yet enjoyably, then after a pause she replied, removing her white gloves at the same time:

"No, old man, I don't want any confidence business. I only want you to tell my fortune by my hands and by the cards."

"It's unlucky, they say, to do both at one sitting, yet, if you turn round and go to the door and cross back again, that will break the charm. Which will you have first?"

"My hand, Professor; tell me what I've done and what I'm going to do, and then I can ask you other questions when we come to the cards."

She held out her hands, palms upward, to him, while he took a magnifying glass, and after giving himself a preliminary hitch and scratch, he stooped over them to examine.

Shapely hands they were, with tapering long fingers and fleshy palms, which had hard and well-defined lines running across them. "You are married," the Professor said after a pause. "Well, what of that?"

"No more than you think of it yourself, my dear. You have had some troubles in the past, and have had some adventures; but your marriage has not been a happy one, there are no children, and you'd like to be free of your bond." "Yes, and shall I?" "I see a death here, and a little trouble, but your line of life is clear." "Shall I be married again?" "Yes, and have much prosperity in the future." "That'll do, when will it come off?" "How old are you?" "Twenty-six." "You'll be married again before you are twenty-eight." "Budgerrie for you, old man; now let's try the cards." She rose abruptly and went to the door, returning in a moment, while the Professor arranged his cards.

"There's an old fellow waiting for his fortune, at the door, Professor. Will you take him or me first?" she asked as she returned.

"Ladies first, of course," answered the Professor gallantly, again baring his solitary tooth. "Drive ahead then, for I am in a hurry," said the young woman curtly. "Shuffle and cut." After she had done so, he began to read:

"There is a dark man here close beside you, your husband, I should say, but you turn your back on him--you take hearts, do you not?" "Yes," replied the young woman. "There's a diamond man facing you, that is the one you fancy." "Go on."

"You'll get that diamond man, but the club man will cause you some trouble; there's a death here----" "To the club man?" eagerly. "I don't know yet. Shuffle again and I'll tell you."

Thrice did the cloud-veiled woman, with the strong white hands, shuffle the cards, and then he answered her curiosity and desires.

"Yes, the club man will pass from your path, and the diamond man is the winner." "Thank Heaven for that!" as she paid him his fee and went forth, brushing by the white-haired customer who was waiting his turn.

She did not look at the white-haired customer, and she was too closely veiled for any one to see her features, yet he glanced after her through his blue glasses in a curious way as she went out of the doorway, then he sought the Professor.

A tall and singularly powerful-looking man he was, this second visitor, dressed in thin grey serge, smooth faced, and with a shock of white hair that fell about his shoulders after the style of the ex-Premier of New South Wales--that leonine and doggerel verse writer, Sir Henry Parkes. Indeed for a moment the Professor thought that this much-married politician must have shaved, and mounted blue glasses as a sort of disguise, but he soon recovered himself, with the assurance gained from knowledge that this eminent man would never sink his personality, no matter what position he chose to take up, therefore he became composed and ready for his visitor. "I want my future read," said the stranger. "By the palm, or by the cards?" "The hand will do." He stretched a sinewy hand out to the Professor's magnifying glass. "You've experienced troubles in the past." "Yes."

"But you have a singularly open and confiding as well as a generous nature. I may say that you are a man who has been imposed upon by false friends, and may be again if you are not particularly careful. You----" "What a confounded old fraud you are to be sure, Jeremiah Judge."

The stranger, as he uttered these words, his left hand still lying under the Professor's magnifying glass, removed with his right hand the blue spectacles and snowy wig, and revealed a hard-faced but handsome young man, with short cropped black hair, and glittering black eyes. "Fancy me being sucked in by anyone!"

The Professor fell back on his chair, confounded, his crow-blue eyes almost starting out of his head as he uttered the feeble cry: "Jack Milton, by George!"

Chapter II. A Confidential Conversation.

"YES, you genial old humbug, I've come back once more to do some business in Sydney."

As he spoke, Jack Milton, as he had just been called, leaned back in his chair and regarded the pneumatologist with a benevolent, yet contemptuous air of patronage.

"Still trying your best in your small way to do the public, I see, Jeremiah, and doing it shabbily at that, per usual."

The psychometrist got upon his ambling legs, with a gushing air of welcome illuminating his steaming face, and parting his vacuous mouth.

"My dear, dear boy, who'd have expected to see you here? I thought your time wasn't up for another twelve months; how have you done it?" "Ah! I behaved myself and kidded the sky-clerk, therefore got my ticket." "What was the little item?"

"A mere trifle in the past, something I did in Melbourne long ago, and which I had forgotten, or I should not have gone there quite so openly, but the 'Tecks'remembered me and laid me up by the heels for a spell; however, it wasn't an unmixed evil, for being in lavender gave me the repose that I required, and put the Sydney scenters quite off my track."

"Good--very good," chuckled the Professor, rubbing his hands together and gazing admiringly on the powerful figure before him. "You'll find hosts of friends who are glad to see Jack Milton amongst them again, and none more so than your 'umble servant."

While the old humbug was speaking, the young man carefully replaced his white wig and blue spectacles, and became once more a kind of benevolent replica of a clean-shaved Sir Henry Parkes.

"I have made an appointment with my lawyer to meet me here, Jeremiah--or as you call yourself now, Professor Mortikali. I thought it safer than at his own office." "Much safer, and more secluded." "So I thought." "But how did you find me out, Jack, eh?"

"Well you are not exactly the kind of coon to give an 'agent'much trouble, if he wanted to get on your tracks; I knew you'd be up to some business of this kind where spirits or mesmerism had a share in it----" "Call it hypnotism, Jack, or psychometry." "Yes, that's exactly how I spotted you, old boy. I looked out all the sign-boards, as I came along, for the most jaw-cracking words. I knew your weakness for that sort of thing. Palmist or Futurist wouldn't be good enough for you, therefore when I came to Professor Mortikali, Psychometrist, Pneumatologist, &c., I felt sure I had run my fox to his hole, and I wasn't far out."

"No, Jack, you'd make a first-rate detective, if you wasn't better than that, a first-class----"

"Crib-cracker, eh? It takes a thief to catch a thief, but I don't belong to that race who can utilize their experience to snare their own kind. I have always been and always shall be grit to my pals. Is this much of a trade?"

He looked about him with a little disgust, and at the shabby Professor with a humorous air of pity.

"Fairly," observed the pyschometrist. "I hold my own; this is the slack time of the day, but at night they come up wonderful, considering."

"You haven't got a fashionable class of customers I can see, or you'd be better togged up. Never mind! I'll put you up to something good before many days are over our heads."

"No, Jack, no, I'd rather not!" cried the Professor nervously. "I don't mind helping you when the game is safe, but you are so reckless, my dear boy, and don't at all consider personal safety. Now you see, I'm doing small things, and the police don't touch me at 'em, but one never knows where he'd land, if this business spread out into many more new branches."

"Bah! The business I'm going to set you up is strictly in your own line, Psychometry and the other P. H.'s. You're too cramped here. You want bigger and more fashionable premises, and to get yourself togged up more like an orthodox medical Professor, and less like a broken-down waiter, and I've spotted the shop that'll suit you to a nicety. Do you know that place where 'Brisco'the jeweller used to be, in George Street?" "With the bank on one side, and the pawn-broker on the other?"

"Exactly. Would those diggings suit you to open a branch establishment of the Faith Healing and Fortune-telling fake?"

"What d'ye mean, Jack Milton? D'ye know them 'ere premises will cost in rent and taxes near to a thousand a year?" "Well!"

"And the fixing of them up properly, with furniture, carpets and sofas, &c., &c., will come to nigh five hundred quid."

"You've hit it pretty nearly, I should say, to do it properly," replied Jack calmly. "You'll want some attractive-looking girls, with a little more style than this one here, and some respectable toggery for yourself Yes, you'll need all that money, and more perhaps, till business comes in." "Yes, and who's a-going to pay for all this outlay."

"I will, my sage psychometrist. I think there are vast possibilities in this business of yours if properly worked in this city, and as I happen to have the sponduloux, or will have if my lawyer, who'll be here presently, isn't a fool as well as a rogue, I'll set you up and be your sleeping partner. I'm going to make a boom in the prediction business. We'll take in the national 'sports'and give the 'juggins'tips from spirit land; we'll pitch our placards and bills about like snow-flakes and make the press-men our serfs by advertising; but, you must try to acquire the art of washing yourself and changing your linen at least three times a week while the hot weather lasts, or it'll be all bunkum. Do you savy, my odoriferous psychometrist--don't you see what I mean? Plenty of water, Pears' soap, fresh linen, and a trifle of Jockey Club or Cherry Blossom for the sake of business, also a nail brush and a little attention to the nails, at present in deepest mourning for your rubbishy sins, which ain't worth so much respect; lemons are first-class articles for cleaning the hands and nails; and the Sydney waterworks are lavish with their supply."

"I ain't at all averse to washing in the warm weather," observed the Professor with an injured air. "I likewise like a frequent change of shirts and collars, and feel kindly drawn to clerical neck-cloths, if I had the articles to work on."

"You'll have them. Meantime, I want you to keep out your customers, or read their fortunes at your outside counter, this afternoon while my man of business is engaged with me, and we'll arrange all that afterwards. By Jove! you'd be a great man, Professor, if you had a fair chance, and I'm going to give you that chance."

"Will you have anything to drink now?" said the Professor respectfully, for Jack Milton had spoken to him in the lordly manner of one who has means at command, and the panderer reverenced him accordingly.

"Not at present, I have a lawyer to talk to and I bet he won't imbibe until he has finished this interview, and neither shall I. I say, do you know anything about my wife?" "I don't know exactly where she lives, of course, but I have seen her." "Lately?" "Yes, just recently, I may say." "Yes--yes; and is she looking well--my Rosa, my darling?"

A wonderful change took place in the disguised housebreaker as he asked these questions; he was no longer cynical nor supercilious, but eager and boyish, while by contrast the Professor seemed to become ill at ease and constrained. "You are proud of her yet, I see, Jack." "Of course, why should I not be?--my wife, the woman I love and have always kept as well as I could. She doesn't know what I have had to do for a living and to keep her comfortable, unless my lawyer has proved a traitor; which I hope he hasn't for his own sake--tell me, what do you know about her?" "Did you see the young lady in white who went out of here as you entered?" "Yes." "That was your wife."

"I thought there was something familiar in her figure and walk, but what was she doing here?" "She came to have her fortune read."

"I know, the little stupid, she wanted to learn when her husband would be home again, eh?"

The Professor looked at the eager face before him as if he were making up his mind to say something difficult, and then he replied: "Yes, that was what she wanted to know."

"Of course, and you gave the little jade a lot of idle promises and sent her away happy?"

"Yes, in the usual fashion. I promised her a lot according to her desires, and sent her away fairly well pleased." "Good! I'll make you a true prophet this time, you old scoundrel, ha, ha, ha!" At this moment the hand-maid put in her head, and said: "There's a gent outside as have called by appointment."

"That's my man," cried Jack cheerily. "Show him in, Molly, my darling, and you," to the Professor, "clear out till I'm done with him."

As he spoke, there entered a well set-up man of about thirty-three, with a blonde moustache and close-cropped fair hair, blue eyes a trifle closely set together, and a vulture-like nose. He was a keen-looking, business-like man, well dressed and well groomed, and one who would not be likely to let scruples stand in the way of personal advantage.

At his watch chain he carried, as an appendage, a pair of compasses and square, his neck-tie pin was also adorned with the same quaint design, while on the fourth finger of his left hand he wore a plain gold signet-ring with the same device; evidently showing to all the world that he was not at all ashamed of the society to which he belonged.

As he entered, he looked at the white wig and blue spectacles, with an air of perplexity for an instant, until the wearer of these gave him a quick sign, then he advanced smilingly, and said: "How do you do, Mr. Milton?" "All right, my friend, sit down." The Professor had cleared out of the sanctum by this time, dropping the heavy curtain behind him, and leaving the lawyer and his client together. "Well, Mr. Chester, have you carried out my instructions?"

"Yes, Milton, I have carried out your instructions to the letter, and, I need not tell you, at considerable risk to myself."

The lawyer, now that they were alone, spoke in a severe tone of voice, as one might use to a criminal whose case is in hand, but who has placed himself beyond the reach of ordinary courtesy, while the ticket-of-leave man listened meekly and without appearing to observe the curtness.

"I have invested your money, as you desired, in my own name. I do not ask you how it was made, I have no desire to know, and I am happy to say it is yielding fair returns, even in these depressed times. Your wife is under the impression that you are still in the South Seas, treasure-seeking, and I have delivered regularly to her the letters you forwarded to me." "You have been a true friend to me, Chester. Where is my wife now living?" "With her parents; they have removed lately to the Glebe; this is her address." He handed an envelope over as he spoke, and waited further enquiries. "Is--is Rosa well?"

"Yes; last time I saw my cousin, she was very well indeed. Do you intend to visit her at once? For candidly, I don't think it would be advisable if you desire to keep your past a secret from the poor girl."

"No; I have some business to do before I can see her, or let her know I am in Sydney. When I am ready I should like you still to act as my friend and break the tidings of my arrival to her gently, as I don't want to agitate her. We have been so long separated that it mightn't do to jump in on her all of a sudden."

The lawyer looked at the blue spectacles demurely for a moment, and then he said:

"That is only a right resolve on your part, and I will do all I can to help you, not to startle Rosa."

"I am dying to see the darling, but when I next come to her I hope to be beyond the necessity of leaving her any more. I have a little speculation on hand which, if it comes off successfully, will enable me to retire and live comfortably. Meantime----"

"Yes?"

"I require some ready money to enable me to carry out this speculation." "How much do you require?"

"Fifteen hundred pounds for a few weeks only, and with it I hope to clear fifty times that amount." "It is a large sum to get hold of at so short a notice, for your property is all tied up at present; still, if you can assure me that it is only for a few weeks and the return is sure, I think it might be managed."

"Within a fortnight from the time I get this advance I shall be able to place in your keeping perhaps a hundred times the amount."

"Very well; to-morrow night, I'll give you an open cheque, and an introduction to the bank. Have you any choice of banks?" "Yes, I should like to open an account at the 'Fiji Limited,'George Street." "Very good, I'll see to that--what name shall I make the cheque payable to?" "John Williams." "Any further instructions?"

"No--only, if you are near the Glebe at any time, you may say to Rosa that you expect me back soon."

"I shall make it a point to call upon my uncle and aunt to-night, and will deliver your message to my cousin at the same time."

"You are a good fellow, Chester, to befriend me, like this after what I've done, and believe me, whatever happens to me I trust to be able to keep the knowledge of it from your cousin."

"I hope so--indeed I expect so much from you, for that is only your duty towards your innocent wife and her relations."

"Don't fear for me, I'll be secretive and game enough, Does--does Rosa speak much about me?"

"Of course the poor child misses you dreadfully, but as I have paid her income regularly, she is comfortable enough and not under the same anxiety regarding ways and means as are some wives here. She looks forward to your return as a wealthy man, and she is anticipating a good time in England and the Continent, when that comes off."

"She'll have it too, the angel, whoever suffers, by George! That puts new blood into me, and my next diving operation will be a big success, you bet."

"Good-bye for the present," said the lawyer with a smile, as he rose briskly. "I'll come here with the cheque to-morrow night about nine o'clock--you'll be here?" "Yes--Good-bye."

Mr. Chester took up his slate tinted kid gloves with his stick and hat, and quitted his companion with a quick step, without shaking hands with him or looking back, while the disguised man watched his retreat with eyes that showed a little moisture behind his darkened spectacles.

"He is a fine fellow, if a bit cold and stiff with me; many a one in his position would have plundered me wholesale, with all that money at his discretion, while I'd only have had to grin and bear it; but Arthur Chester wouldn't do that. I expect he thinks one thief is enough in the family; besides, he is too fond of Rosa to do her a wrong."

His strong and resolute head drooped for a moment on his hand, as he thought on the Sydney girl, whose love he had won under false pretences, and away from this same cousin. True, the family had been poor enough when he first came amongst them as a man with an assured income, a fiction he had managed to keep up, with the aid of Arthur Chester, ever since. Arthur Chester, who had only been a subordinate until, with those ill-gotten gains, he was able to begin business for himself, for Jack Milton had been a daring and successful disciple of the late Charles Peace, except for that slight mistake of his in Victoria. He had been prudent enough to work alone as much as possible and confide a few of his secrets and what money he stole to this cousin of his wife, only when forced to do so.

"I wonder if it is principle that makes Chester so stand-offish with me; he was glad enough to borrow my money when he was a clerk, and the receiver isn't much better, if any, than the thief; I hadn't been in jail then though, at least he didn't know it if I had, and he pretends, rarely, not to know where my money comes from. Perhaps he is jealous of me with Rosa, and I cannot blame him if he is, for who could help being in love with that little angel?"

The Professor broke in here upon the cogitations of the housebreaker, and instantly his careless mocking manner returned.

"Well, you old scarecrow, I've settled matters with my lawyer and we are to have the supplies needful for taking those premises, so now I am off to arrange with the landlord about terms and occupation. You keep out of it for the present until I can make you look respectable, if that is possible, and brace up your tottering mind to be in possession and a fashionable soothsayer by the end of the week."

With these bantering remarks, he put on his soft hat and sauntered out to the blazing sunshine leaving the foolish psychometrist in a rapture of admiration and rosy visions.

Chapter III. The New Establishment.

IF the Professor had reason to be a proud man, four days afterwards, he could hardly be said to be a completely happy one. He was possessed of vanity and ignorance enough to have accepted any post, but the position wanted grappling with and getting accustomed to. These daily ablutions were decidedly irksome, and after being accustomed to limp linen, to be imprisoned in stiffly-starched shirts and collars was a trial, to say nothing about the soft carpets, and the flashy furniture, all on the hire system, which awed his silly soul. The habit of scratching was an ancient one and not easy to set aside, still he did his best to live up to his new surroundings and forego that luxury.

Jack Milton, in his character of John Williams, had engaged the servants and young ladies to wait upon expected clients. The Professor found them all on the spot when he arrived, with his bran new wardrobe, to take possession. Attractive and exceedingly sharp-looking girls, in sedate and well-fitting costumes, and a page-boy to open the door, with a face like a knife newly ground and eyes like a snake; not many page boys, even of the keenest colonial produce, would have had a chance with this remarkable boy, for activity, wide-awakeness and composure. He was a demon page, who could anticipate an order before it was half thought out, far less expressed.

The cook and housemaid were not beautiful, but they were agile and wonderfully constructed; quiet, freckled-faced women, who performed their duties deftly, and moved about the house like Malays or Chinamen. There was also a man kept on the premises to split wood in the cellar and look after the horse and dog-cart in the yard, for the Professor was stinted in nothing by his liberal patron; this man likewise had been chosen for his strength of muscles rather than his good looks, and he was very modest, for he seldom went out to the street. His duties lay solely in the back kitchen, cellars, and yard.

The sleeping partner and financier of the business took up his abode on the premises, and had his meals with the Professor, and generous meals they were, both as regards viands and liquors. The Professor for the first time in his chequered career had the delight of quaffing champagne and burgundy with his tucker, and like the hero he was, he went into those delights with heart-felt pleasure and thirsty energy when the daily duties were over. Each night after the hours of consultation, supper came on, and he never rose from that supper, but drank on, until he found the soft carpet sufficient as a couch for the night. Jack Milton had been correct in his estimate of the gullibility of the Sydney people when the bait is presented to them with a blaze and glitter. In his small and mean way the Professor had been able to keep himself going, with the low fees asked for his priceless services, but he was astonished now at the crowds who waited in his ante-rooms, and the golden offerings which poured in during the fashionable hours of consultation. As soon as the fashionables grasped the fact that such an establishment had opened in the locality, and columns of advertisements made them suppose that there must be money at the back of the concern, they at once patronized it. And because it looked genuine and like a success, the public made it so, with their generous fees. Psychometry became a theme of conversation from Potts' Point to Botany Bay, and the Psychometrist a decided boom. Of course this peculiarity of encouraging and bending down to apparent success is not altogether confined to Sydney, although in other places the public may not be quite so quickly got at by such shams, nor so candid in their contempt for failure or poverty.

"Make hay while your sun shines," Jack would say as he roused up the Professor from his hog-like repose each morning and superintended his bath and dressing. "Get as drunk as you like when business is over, but you must look capable to use the rake during the day."

Yet although he was so strict with Mortikali, the sleeping partner, after he had braced up and set the fraudulent machine going, would prove his position in the firm by going off to his own bed and sleeping for the best part of the day. It was astonishing what a quantity of sleep he could do with. He said that he did not sleep well at nights, and that was why he took so much of it during the day. Certainly in the mornings he did look worn and wearied enough to justify his assertion that he could not sleep well at nights.

"I'll have to put you under my magnetic treatment, my boy, if you don't get better. Let me give you a few passes now," remarked the Professor when he had picked himself up from the floor and cleared his muddled faculties somewhat with a shower-bath. "Them wines do pour the illectric force into a sensitive like me; I felt all of a tingle this morning, just see how my arms and hands are a-shaking; it's the healing power a-filling me to bursting point, that's what it is; my old mother, who was a rare mejum, used to tell me, I had the god-like gifts to make my fortune as a healer, and, by George! I begin to believe she was in the right."

He was engaged, while gabbling on, in making hypnotic passes round the recumbent head of his stalwart friend, who had pitched himself wearily upon one of the couches in their private dining room. "So your mother was a mejum, was she?" sleepily answered the drowsy Jack. "Ay, one of the right old school, and no gammon about her; she wouldn't give a séance for nothink, not she, like as some of them blooming fools do now. Her familiar spurruts only worked for the £ s. d."

"Good old party, and what about your wife and family--where have you left them? Eh?"

"Don't mention them," replied the Psychometrist with vicious emphasis. "I have cast them out of my heart for ever, leastways they chucked me out, the unnatural mob. That woman, my wife, fell to religion--the Methodists took her in hand and spoilt a first-rate trance mejum. She'd have nothink to do with me afterwards, and said that my gifts came from the devil, and what d'ye think my eldest son had the impudence to tell me?" "I give it up."

"That I was as ignorant as an unweaned pig--there, now, what d'ye think of that from a man's own son?"

Jack Milton, who had been gradually succumbing under his protégé's passes, or from his own fatigue, rallied a little at this, and burst into a hearty laugh, which however he qualified by saying: "It was cheek, and no mistake."

"What d'ye think, my boy, but that wasn't all, for he followed this nasty remark by taking me by the scruff of my neck and pitching me into the street, telling me never to darken the door or disgrace them again with my lousy presence. Ah! if they could see me now, though, wouldn't they feel ashamed."

"It's quite likely they would," murmured the patient, as he succumbed and fell asleep.

Barney, the stable hand and wood-chopper, was like his master during these hot mornings, and did a considerable amount of sleeping among the straw in the stable, after he had attended to the pony and split what wood was needed for the kitchen; however, as these were nearly all the duties yet asked of him, no one complained about his drowsy habits. The weather was too oppressively hot for anyone to work much, except the Professor, until the night came, and his work was not over-taxing either to the mind or muscles. He knew the formula of the cards, and how to prattle about the lines of life, girdle of Venus, and mount of Mars, with the breaks and crosses in between. His customers were also fairly credulous and not over critical either about the predictions or manners of the predictor. He was now well-dressed, his hair and beard were tidily trimmed, and his surroundings were flashy, and those completed the illusion. Each victim came to him desirous of listening, and with wishes to be gratified, and they gave him the key to those wishes quickly enough, therefore he sent them away happy, for he predicted exactly what they wanted to come to pass. His fees had been raised to suit his new surroundings, one guinea for the future, revealed either by card or palm; four guineas if the stars were consulted, and a chart drawn out. He generously threw in a little phrenology, palmistry, and card shuffling along with the astrology for the same fee. His massage and magnetic treatment was a ten-guinea per visit affair, and a course, or series, of visits were required before success could be promised.

As we have said, the Professor became an instant and pronounced success, for although the establishment had only been opened for six days, he had hardly time at this stage to bolt his lunch, through the flux of customers, while the sovereigns and shillings rolled into his coffers in a perpetual stream. It was better than a gold mine while it lasted.

"A pity these booms are so soon over," murmured Jack Milton regretfully to himself, as he took charge of the money each night, allowing the Professor just enough for his daily expenses. "I might have settled down comfortably in this business and dropped the other, but it can't go on."

Perhaps one cause of this rapid success was that this knavish and foolish fraud of a Futurist had as firm a belief in the spirits, the cards, palmistry and the stars as his customers had, or pretended to have. He had before now paid his half-sovereigns to get his own future divulged by other professors in his own craft, and they in return came to him, now that he was successful, to see how he did it, and learn a trick, or out of good faith, and it was his bona fide air of faith and credence which helped to impose on others. A man must be in earnest even in roguery, to become a success. Cynics are never successful money-makers.

The new branch which had been added to the business, the selling of certain "tips" for the coming races and sports, caused the Professor a good deal of uneasiness and feeble remonstrance before he would consent to take it up, for he knew nothing about horses, cricket adepts, or other gambling transactions, and he said "the spurruts" were not always to be depended on in such mundane matters. "They are tricky and play larks at times, and then where will we be?--busted!"

But Jack was confident about the success of this branch. He knew all the tricks of the turf and would not admit of failure. He could tell when the spirits were likely to give false information, he said, and put them on the right track, "so plunge, my sage, philosopher and friend, for plunging is our game now."

The Professor yielded, as he generally had to do when the daring Jack commanded. The first race would be over in eight more days, and this was Friday of their second week in possession, and that must either "bust" them up, or else draw the whole colony swarming into their net. The Psychometrist trembled, but accepted the position, and braced up his courage by sundry glasses of brandy and soda, while the sporting victims came in and paid lavishly for the "certain tips," promising him the fate of the welsher if he proved a false prophet. Each night also, while the wearied Futurist drank himself into a blissful state of unconsciousness with the generous juices of old France, Jack sat smoking hard, and concocting fresh advertisements for the newspapers in the name of "Mortikali the Great." Florid and humorous compositions, regardless of expense, these were of Jack's, which filled whole columns, and delighted both the readers and proprietors of the different papers, and the editors proved their gratitude by giving the Professor and his establishment constant pars. extra, and appreciative interviews.

"Won't all them advertisements swamp our profits, mate?" the Professor would feebly ask.

"Not a bit of it, our arrangement is to pay at the end of the month, as we do the furniture establishment, and we'll have lots of money by that time." "How did you manage it?"

"Easy enough; in these dull times people are only too pleased to give credit. I paid our landlord a month in advance, and got him down to the Marble Hall to speak about it and my bank account which I showed him. Free drinks at the same Marble den of Tattersall's and the 'Australian,'with a little discreet bounce, fluency of gab and display of jewellery, drew the blinders over the eyes of the Press. They can only see the road I lead them into now. Do you savy, old sage and psychometrist, eh?" "You're a big man, Jack, and ought to die a millionaire." "I ought, and I hope to live one also."

A short time afterwards, as soon as the Professor had found his customary couch on the carpet, Jack Milton, attired in his white wig and blue spectacles, took his usual prowl round the newspaper offices, handing in his copy, and shouting drinks; afterwards visiting the fashionable places of resort and paying his money like a man, amongst both dudes and capitalists; then, on his way back, he dropped a letter into a post pillar for Mr. Arthur Chester, solicitor.

On his return he put on an old suit and woke up the strong-armed Barney, and went with him for an hour or two of real hard labour in the cellar, for when they came from those underground regions, they were covered with dirt and sweating profusely, yet both appeared satisfied.

"That job's ready at last, Barney, my boy, and to-morrow night we'll all have to lend a hand."

"It'll be as clean a job as I ever was in, captain; when you take a thing in hand you does it neatly."

Jack smiled at the compliment from his henchman, and after a drink of brandy and soda, they both went like brothers into the bath-room, and, after a good wash, for the first time during those past six days sought their beds before daylight.

On Saturday forenoon Jack paid an early visit to the bank next door, paying in a good number of sovereigns, and enjoying a pleasant half hour's chat with the genial manager in his private den. The letter which Mr. Chester received ran as follows:

"Tell Rosa and her people that I have landed in Melbourne, and will be home on Sunday night.

"I shall also be at your house very early on Sunday morning, with the treasure I spoke about; leave your back yard and stable doors open for me, so that I needn't disturb the neighbours getting in, and be prepared for me.

"Jack."

"We shall all be prepared for you, Mr. Jack," murmured Mr. Chester, with a sinister smile, as he read and destroyed this interesting epistle.

Chapter IV. Treasure Trove.

ONE o'clock Sunday morning, and four resolute men are assembled in the dining-room discussing steaks underdone and strong tea, for they are different from the Professor, who lies in a hoggish state of stupor beneath them. They have much to do to-night that will make or mar them, and they require no wines nor spirits to brace their courage up to the sticking point for daring robbery, or cold-blooded murder. They are colonial born and the grandsons of convicts, inured to the sport of hunting from their earliest years, and astute as savages on the war-path; besides, they would rather gain their livelihood in this way, with its deadly risks, than live by any other means. They cannot help themselves, they are wild beasts, with a coating of craft and cunning, bred from convict fathers and mothers, and gifted with only the one ambition, to excel in this business.

There is not one of them who has not been state-school trained, and educated as highly as the standards can make them. They can all spell fairly, and can write with a flowing hand. They don't make any mistakes in grammar, they know their geography and some have even advanced in Euclid, but they are one and all hunters and sons of sportsmen. They like the excitements of the chase, and they will have it, even at the risk of their necks. Their present sports are a pawn-broker's shop and a colonial bank that has not yet failed.

Jack Milton is the only one amongst them who has no convict antecedents. He had become a master criminal, as Cromwell became a soldier, through the force of circumstances, but now he dominated them. They wanted fresh blood and a leader, for although they were wicked enough and false enough, yet the creative and inventive genius seemed to be destroyed. New South Wales seems always to want a leader, yet never to find one who does not swindle the country. There are no patriots amongst them. They cannot hit upon patriots, simply for the reason that patriots come plainly and simply costumed and without ostentation, whereas they want a flourish of trumpets, as the ancient Jews did when they looked towards a Messiah. Perhaps also it is the warmth or some other degenerating quality in the atmosphere that may be the cause of this deplorable decadence, but although the children of the second and third generation are wonderfully sharp, false, and crafty, they have not the quality to grasp greatness of soul, nor that grandeur of simplicity which stamps the hero. They can appreciate the smartness of a swindler after they are swindled, and indeed they seem to admire this sharpness, but they cannot comprehend an honest man. Jack Milton was a big fellow amongst them, he could plan and execute grand coups, and he had, what they could not exactly comprehend, a staunch interest in his friends, therefore they appreciated his talents to plot out schemes, and get them out of the scrapes, and they instinctively bent to the principle which they could not understand, his good faith. Each man of that small gang would have sold Jack Milton if it had been made worth his while, yet each man knew that he could trust Jack Milton to a pennyweight. It takes a lot of personality to persuade state-school trained savages to trust in anyone.

The women were there, the smart handmaids whom Jack had chosen. They were the keenest criminals in Sydney, who had managed to escape, for six full days, the supervision of the colonial detectives. The page boy was a young imp who had served him on former occasions, and who could be trusted as a setter. The cook and housemaid had discarded their petticoats and now appeared daring young, callous cornstalks, and sun-freckled demons who would pause at nothing.

"Girls," observed Jack when supper was finished, "you know your duty while we work. Cecil, my son, every three minutes, when you see the policeman approach, give us the hint, he passes and looks into the open pawnshop every three minutes, six minutes will do our business there if all goes well. The bank is guarded by a watchman, a housekeeper and a confidential clerk; a dog was also there an hour ago, but Barney has silenced him. I'll undertake to silence the watchman, the housekeeper and the clerk. Do you require any more grub or liquor?" "No, boss, we have had enough. We are ready."

"Come along then, get to your posts, Cecil and you girls: three quarters of an hour are all I need to do the whole business in, the biggest in my life."

"What about the Professor?" enquired Barney, looking down on that prostrate hero.

"Oh, he is all safe, I dosed his last glass of Burgundy," replied Jack. "Come on, boys, and brace yourselves up for work. The pawnshop first."

They all put crape masks over their features, by way of precaution, not that they expected to be seen, yet still it was best to be on the safe side.

Silently they followed one another downstairs and into the commodious cellars of the establishment, the Professor still sleeping the sleep of unconscious infancy, while the girls and the page boy crept outside. It was with some pride that Barney showed them the excavations he had made on the one side, from the cellar to the bank, and on the other from the cellar to the pawnshop. They had the game clear before them if they could escape the watchful gaze of the police on the one side and the inmates on the other. Jack and Barney were the mechanical engineers of the concern; they had bored the hole, and in a few seconds made the trap door to admit them to the premises of the pawnbroker, then they were all through and in the full glare of the gas light, and the open windows to whoever passed, for the pawnbroker had no shutters.

Jack and Barney waited a second and then they rushed forward, pulling down and piling up boxes and packages between them and the windows. In two minutes exactly, the barricades were raised in a natural fashion, and they could lie panting behind, while the policeman made his usual survey.

The next portion of the work was easy as far as detection went, although requiring immense presence of mind and personal strength.

Three great safes were standing by the walls filled with valuables and money; but Jack Milton had his plans arranged beforehand, therefore, getting all the clothing and soft pledges he could from the shelves, he pitched them on the floor and then, with their crow-bars and levers they overturned the safes, and rolling them one after the other, shot them down into their excavated shaft, where they could break them open and examine them at their leisure. It took the four burglars nine minutes to remove these iron safes, that would have taken expert workmen a couple of hours, such is the effect of sport or excitement on the spirits and muscles of men. The other business was simple after this exploit, to dart to the till and rifle it between the visits of the police and to take what else was of value, leaving the show-cases untouched in the windows. In fifteen minutes from the time they had entered the pawnbroker's premises, the deed was completed and the pledges were their property.

Jack Milton left Barney and the other two men to break open the safes in the cellars while he penetrated the bank.

It was not difficult to enter, for he had undermined the place and silenced the watchdog. He also knew where the confidential clerk and housekeeper slept, and where he was likely to find the watchman.

One of the young men who had acted as a servant went with him, and together they stole upon the watchman, who was fortunately nodding by his table in an ante-room, a chloroform-saturated handkerchief soon settled him, and then they proceeded upstairs.

Fate had gone well with Jack Milton up to now. The housekeeper was easily managed, for she was asleep when they entered her bedroom, so that she never knew what caused her to sink into a deeper and more peaceful slumber, but with the confidential clerk it was otherwise.

A toothache had kept him awake that Sunday morning, so that, as the crape-masked burglars entered the room, he leapt from his bed and confronted them with a loud cry. Then it was all over for the confidential clerk, for without a pause Jack rushed upon him and pinning him up against the wall, gave him the garrotter-grip, one grasp first on the shoulder and the elbow driven with sudden and savage force against the larynx, silencing his voice and breaking the apple. With a gurgling sound the poor man sank to the ground and all was quiet. Jack Milton was a murderer.

He looked at his victim for a second with horror in his eyes, then with a heavy groan he dragged his accomplice away and made towards the loot. It would be time enough to think of his crime afterwards, at present his blood was fired up for the sport.

* * * * *

The dying cry of the clerk had not reached the policeman outside, and all the streets were peaceful on this Sabbath morning. Only Jack Milton knew that one life had been sacrificed on this raid, and he kept that secret to himself, so as not to disturb the unholy glee of his confederates over their winnings.

It has been a rich loot, all in all, with the pawnbroker's pledges and the bank hoardings, and he may now retire and exist in love and comfort on his lion's share of the proceeds. He is a wealthy man now, with what he has made to-night and what he had before. But that poor confidential clerk's death has to be avenged.

It does not take long to win a battle, kill a stag, or break into a bank; by three o'clock in the morning the confederates had divided their loot and made all their arrangements to part company. Jack Milton has his share, all in coins, jewels, and ingots, in his dogcart ready to drive off, and the others are satisfied with theirs.

A boat at the wharf waits to take them off to a ship ready to sail, and a couple of cabs, already arranged for, hang about a side street. They are taking a parting cup, and Jack stands amongst them silently, and thinking of that dead clerk, whom the others know nothing about yet. The clerk who will hang him, if he is not careful. "Well, mates, you are satisfied, I hope?" says Jack, quietly.

"Thoroughly, boss. You have carried out the contract like a man. We may now leave old Sydney for a spell, but won't there be a blooming racket on Monday morning?"

"I expect there will be, but you'll be out of it, and I can cover my tracks. Mates, I have been a good pal to you, have I not?" "The best going!"

"Then do me a favour. Take this drunken sot, the Professor, with you, and land him somewhere, for it won't do to leave him here."

"You are right, mate, he might split on us," said Barney. "We'll land him in America, where he is sure to prosper in that business of his." "That will do, Barney, take him with you, and here, give him these five hundred quids. We couldn't have done without him, and it's only right we should look after a chum."

"Particularly if he is dangerous, as this one happens to be; here, boys, hoist the carcase along with the property."

They raised the intoxicated and drugged Psychometrist and dragged him off to the cabs at the corner along with the loot, while Jack watched them going with an abstracted air.

Half an hour afterwards the Psychometric establishment was minus servants, attendants and Professor, then Jack turned with a heavy sigh, and led the pony, with the laden dog-cart, into the street.

He locked up the back-yard gate and no one checked his course as he went along. The policeman at the corner touched his hat to him when he passed by. He thought nothing of the eccentric movements of the white-haired partner of the Fashionable Fortune-teller, for he had become used to his ways; often had that pony taken an early morning exercise during the past week.

As he drove along he looked at the stars and tried to console himself with the reflection that no one could foretell what might happen in a campaign. Warriors go out to battle and kill for their country, and no one thinks of blaming them.

A life had been taken that night accidentally. On Monday morning there would be wild excitement, and a big reward for the murderer, but he would be with his faithful and lovely Rosa then, with all his traces covered and an assured future before him; that surely was worth the candle he had burnt, the risks he had run.

Four o'clock and he was at Mr. Chester's house, the bachelor's establishment which this astute lawyer kept.

Jack Milton knew very well that the housekeeper would have a holiday on this morning, therefore he felt safe as he led his horse and trap inside the back gate, and when he had shut that, he knocked at the kitchen door softly. A moment, and then the door opened gently and a voice asked: "Who is there?" "Jack, with some baggage." "Bring it inside."

Mr. Chester did not help the housebreaker with his burden, and the packages were lifted from the dog-cart and carried indoors in the dark; then, when the door was closed and fastened, Mr. Chester struck a light and looked at his visitor with a scrutinizing gaze. "What is this you have brought in these bags?"

"Fifty thousand pounds in gold," replied Jack Milton quietly. "Put them away for me and invest them."

"All right, leave them there for the present."

"Have you told Rosa I'll be home to-night?"

"Yes, she expects you," replied the lawyer.

"Good, I'll go now."

"Good morning."

"Good morning."

They parted with these words and Jack led his pony and empty dog-cart out of the gate, which the lawyer closed and barred after him. After which he drove away into the country at a furious pace.

Chapter V. Jack Milton at Home.

THEY had a small tea-party at Trumpet Tree Cottage on the Sunday night when Jack Milton came back after his two years' absence.

It is only right and proper for a man to apprise his wife and friends of his home-coming, whether he has been absent for a short or long period--particularly if for a long period.

Surprises are seldom pleasant either to the receiver or the one who gives them; some men in Jack's position might have felt inclined to play the romantic and time-honoured joke of entering the Cottage suddenly and disguised in rags, just to see how darling Rosa and her parents would receive him. Jack could hardly do this, even if he had been disposed, since he had entrusted a considerable sum of money to Rosa's cousin before he went away. He was not disposed however to this sort of romance. He had always liked to pose as a rich man; he liked also to be entertained and made much of by his friends, and did not care how much he spent to gain this end.

He loved his wife Rosa with all the reasonless intensity of his lawless nature, and to have doubted her so far as to have tested her truth was beyond his strength. She had said she loved him, and she had married him, which seemed proof sufficient for his vanity and his desires. She seemed delighted with his presence. Therefore, like a good husband, he took it for granted that she mourned his absence as good wives ought to do. The lamps were lighted and all the stars were out when he drove up to the front gate, not this time in the dog-cart, or with his white wig on, but in a cab, with portmanteau and bag beside him, as if he had just come from a journey.

Rosa was on the look-out for his arrival, and ran eagerly from the verandah up the little walk to the gate, and here she flung herself into his arms, regardless of the grinning driver. "At last, you old darling Jack."

"At last, my fairy," replied her husband fondly, as he clasped her to his heart; and then they went indoors like true lovers.

Rosa Milton lived with her father and mother, or it would be more correct to say, since it was the money of Jack which had furnished and kept the home going, that the parents of Rosa lived with her.

Her father had been a draper's book-keeper, before his daughter's marriage enabled him to throw up his occupation and retire upon the bounty of his flash son-in-law. This he had promptly done, for few cornstalks of the second generation care for working if they can get out of it. The Sydney climate is too enervating for much exertion, and the example of other husbands and fathers is too infectious to be long resisted. It is almost the universal rule now for the women to keep their men, and this is what most of these young colonials enter the holy state of matrimony for.

The sire of Rosa was a genial, old, and gentlemanly loafer for all that, and looked quite a respectable father, as he sat in his arm-chair, with the Sunday papers before him, his spectacles on his well-shaped nose, and his silver-grey beard floating over his black vest. Mrs. Mulligan, his good lady, also bore out the appearance of a highly respectable matron as she sat beside the tea-pot and dishes, and, altogether, there was a decided air of home-like comfort about the lamp-lighted and well-furnished front parlour.

Rosa was like the generality of her Sydney sisters, creamy-complexioned, with features almost classic in their regularity, strongly defined eyebrows and clear, grey-blue eyes, with a plentiful supply of golden-brown hair. She appeared small alongside of her tall husband, yet she was above the average height of women, and possessed a figure which for symmetry would have won the approval of the most exacting lover of the beautiful. Clearly the road to Jack's heart had been by the eye.

They were a magnificent couple, and most people would have agreed that they were well matched. Jack with his strong, dark face, square jaw and powerful frame, and Rosa with the seductive wiles and graces of a Helen. A disciple of Lavater might have found characteristics in both these attractive faces to make him pause and ponder, as indeed he could have done in the other faces gathered round this festive board, Mr. and Mrs. Mulligan and Mr. Arthur Chester. But Cupid's glamour had blinded Jack, and what the others thought did not interfere with the warmth of their welcome to the new arrival.

The viands were lavish and well enough cooked, for most colonial women are adepts at home work. A couple of fowls, with a ham, and a prime joint of beef, flanked by roasted Kiameres, pumpkins mashed, and mounds of tempting tea-cakes. Mr. Chester carved the fowls and ham, while the gentlemanly father cut the joint, and the mother poured out the tea, thus leaving Jack and Rosa with nothing to do except eat, drink, and look tenderly at each other.

After tea was cleared away, at Jack's request, Rosa and her cousin went to the piano and sang duets. Jack was fond of singing, though he could not sing himself, and Rosa had a clear, if somewhat metallic voice; she did not play, but Arthur Chester managed to accompany her and himself with a creditable "vamp," therefore that part of the evening passed away very well.

Then, when the whisky decanter had been put upon the table and pipes were lighted, Jack began to tell his adventures of the past two years, in the South Seas, and in this he proved himself a perfect master of fiction. Othello could not have done better, nor could Desdemona have listened with more rapt admiration and devotion than did Rosa as she sat on a low stool at his feet, her pretty teagown falling in graceful folds about her, and her white arms bare to the elbows as the wide sleeves dropped back. She rested these white and shapely arms on his knee, with her chin on her ring-covered hands, and those steadfast, clear, blue-grey orbs fixed on his black eyes. Occasionally, however, she shifted her head slightly to glance with a kind of wonder at her attentive parents, or the quietly observant cousin. When she glanced at Arthur Chester and caught his eye, a slight flush tinted her creamy cheeks, and a tiny curl lifted her upper lip, revealing her white teeth and the redness of her full and moist lower lip. At these times only a gleam shot between the eyes of the two cousins, and then she turned her face once more with touching admiration towards the fertile-minded Jack.

"I shall call round to-morrow evening after office hours and have a business talk with you, Milton," said the lawyer as he rose to his feet about nine o'clock and prepared to take his departure.

"Do," answered Jack, also getting up, "I intend to spend to-morrow at home and take it easy."

"I expect you'll be interested in the newspapers, after being so long without them."

"Yes, I'll put in my time that way--you get the papers, I suppose, Mr. Mulligan?"

"Yes, the Herald. I'll bring it up to your bedroom," replied the father-in-law.

Rosa now proposed, as the night was warm, that they should see her cousin a little way towards his house, and as Mr. and Mrs. Mulligan were not inclined for the exercise, the three young people went out together, Rosa in the centre, with a hand through the arms next to her of each companion. In this fashion they went, linked together, into the night.

* * * * *

Jack Milton did not venture out of doors the next day, but Rosa like a dutiful wife brought him all the newspapers. The Town and Country, the Australasian, the Guillotine, and the dailies, to amuse himself with, while she went about her household duties. Rosa liked to work in the kitchen with her mother and the servant, and had some favourite dishes to cook for Jack, therefore he had to yield, and do without more than a flying visit now and again from her, and a fugitive kiss, while he helped his father-in-law to "loaf."

The papers interested both men very greatly, for they were filled with the account of the great robberies which had been discovered on Sunday morning. Jack groaned inwardly as he read about the dead body of the confidential clerk being discovered. It was the first man's taking-off which could be laid to his charge, and it made him feel uncomfortable, even although he tried to persuade himself that it was an accident. He had, however, great command over his features and feelings, and read the account quite calmly out to his wife and his father-in-law.

Mr. Mulligan listened with the interest such a sensation raises in one, while Rosa, with a slight shiver of horror, hurriedly left the room for a moment, and then as quickly returned.

"I expect there will be a big reward offered for the murderer, Jack," she said, fixing her clear blue-grey eyes on him.

"I expect so, little woman," replied Jack with his glance still on the paper.

Mr. Chester came after the lamps were lit, with the evening papers in his pocket. "Have you seen the account of that big robbery and murder in George Street?" he asked as he entered.

"Yes," replied Jack and Rosa together, "any more about it?"

"The Bank people have offered a reward of five hundred pounds for any information that may lead to the capture of the principals."

As he spoke he turned for a moment from Jack and cast a straight glance at Rosa, who looked down at the table-cloth and began to smooth it out.

"The police head-quarters will receive the information and pay the reward," continued Mr. Chester, and then they all sat down to the usual high, or dinner, tea, and began talking about other topics. After tea Rosa said to her husband:

"I am going out to-night, dear, to see a girl friend in town, Mrs. Grey, you remember; and as Arthur has come to discuss business with you, I'll leave you alone for an hour or so. I won't be late, darling; will you stay till I come back, Arthur?"

"No, Rosa, I must be going soon, as I have a host of letters to get through to-night."

He did not look at her this time, but she looked at him, a lingering look, in which blended a little con tempt with some other emotion.

"Very well, I shall say good night. Now I'll leave you gentlemen alone to discuss business. Depend upon me, dear Jack, I'll not be late."

She rose and left them with these words, Jack smiling fondly on her as she quitted the room, then the two men sat down squarely to business, for Mr. and Mrs. Mulligan had gone early to their own apartments.

When the business was gone through Mr. Chester rose to leave.

"This is a serious affair, this murder as well as robbery, isn't it, Milton?" "Yes, very serious, and to be regretted," replied Jack.

"I can depend on your promise made to me, I suppose?"

"Yes, no one shall ever say that Jack Milton did not keep his promise."

"Good! and good-night."

After Chester had departed and until Rosa returned, Jack experienced a singular fit of dejection. Everything had gone right with his schemes. The horse and dog-cart were over the cliffs and his wig and spectacles and clothes were destroyed. He had left no traces that he could think about. His companions were clear away, for they had arranged that beforehand, and yet the spirit of that confidential clerk seemed to be haunting him.

He went to the sideboard and took as many whiskies as he dared to take, to brace up his courage, and give him some of his lost pluck. He dare not take much drink, in case he might talk and get reckless. He looked at his revolver and found that in good order, and then, before he got quite too desperate with himself, darling Rosa came back, beautiful and tender.

His wife took him straight away to bed and said she would shut up the place after she had seen him comfortable; she even went the length of going to the kitchen and brewing him a glass of whisky hot, as a night-cap, but although he felt he had taken enough, he did not like to refuse the dear girl, therefore he made some excuse to get her out of the room long enough to enable him to throw the stuff out of the open window, and pretend he had taken it.

She laid her creamy soft cheek against his for a moment when she had brought him what he wanted, and gently kissing him on the lips, said:

"Now, dearest, let me go and see that all is safe in the house, and then I'll come to bed."

She left him with these loving words, and stole gently down the stairs in her stockings, taking the lamp with her and leaving him in darkness.

For a moment he lay thinking fondly about her and planning out the future, then his acute and trained ears heard sounds outside, which banished sleep and woke up his faculties.

He stole softly to the open window and peered out, to see forms of men surrounding the house. He knew what that meant to him.

Down the stairs he crept like a phantom, with his revolver in his hand. Whispering voices in the dining parlour lured him on, and he turned in that direction and listened by the open door.

"You must be patient yet a little while, for he is a strong man, but in a few minutes he must be asleep, for I have given him a strong dose of chloral." This was the voice of his darling Rosa, and another replied:

"I'll wait, missis; hadn't you better go and stay beside him till he drops over?" "Yes, I'll go and see him now." He did not wait for the lovely traitress to come out of the parlour, the revulsion was too great for his wild, untrained and passionate nature. Without a pause, he planted the revolver to his brow and pulled the trigger.

Chapter VI. Jack Milton's Escape.

"CALL no man happy until he is dead," said Solon, that wise man of Salamis.

There is an instinct of insatiable discontent planted in the heart of every human being, which ever urges us towards the consummation of our desires, and this only more or less strong in its attraction than the horror of death in its repelling powers, according to the lives we live and the passions we indulge in.

Those who, like Socrates, or such saints as Thomas à Kempis, accustom themselves to self-denial, have fewer promptings towards suicide and less horror of death. Their unambitious and eventless lives satisfy their modest cravings. They have learnt to find enjoyment in the passing phases of the seasons, and, living outside their passions, they are drawn into the all-satisfying heart of Nature and exist for the moment that is with them. This is the nearest approach to happiness on the earth side of death, yet even that is not complete. Death is the only panacea for humanity.

As Hans Andersen says in one of his fairy tales, each human being hides under his cloak a beast of some kind. It may be a ruthless tiger, a poisonous snake or scorpion, a fox, or even only a timid hare, or peacock. I fancy, however, that most of us hide more than one beast under our jerkins, indeed that we are animated Noah's Arks, and while we parade the lambs and doves on our upper decks, the swine, snakes and other wild animals are all there under the hatches, only waiting their opportunity to show themselves.

The beasts that Jack Milton had encouraged mostly were of the scorpion and prey-like species. It had been his occupation to prey upon Society for many years, and gratify the passion of the moment without reflection. Yet the one passion, which, if it did not ennoble him very much, had been the nearest approach to devotion and simplicity that he could feel, had been his affection for this female Judas.

As with many criminals, who do not recognise the laws made by Society or Morality, fidelity to his own kind was the one point of honour which chained his wild and lawless nature. He could not "peach upon a pal," no matter what he suffered in consequence, so long as that pal acted right towards him, yet if the "pal" turned traitor, then his next natural craving was for revenge.

His wife Rosa had been more to him than all the pals in the world, for up to the last few seconds of time his trust in her love had been infinite. Had any other tongue told him that she was false, he would have killed the traducer and brushed the slander aside like a fly. He was not an Othello in his love, possibly because having youth and strength as well as full consciousness of his own powers of pleasing, he could not have believed that the woman lived, who was so loved, that could resist responding.

But the only tongue which could shatter his faith had spoken, and it had the paralysing effect of a lightning stroke.

When roused, he was like a tiger in his rapidity; he only meditated when he was planning out a robbery or an escape from prison, and he acted now on the scorpion's instinct of despair.

Six almost noiseless clicks, almost like one sound, broke the silence as the betrayed man sent the chambers of his revolver spinning round, and in that second of time his heart stood still and his mind was a blank. The weapon was in such perfect condition and so finely made, that the clicks were no louder than the ticks of a watch, so that only he could hear them.

Then, as he realized that the cartridges had been extracted by the traitress, the temptation for self-destruction passed like a flash, and the animal instinct of life preservation woke and braced him up. He even laughed silently and grimly as he thought almost admiringly of the adroitness and quickness Rosa had displayed in emptying the revolver. "What a pickpocket the jade would make with a little training," was the quaint fancy that crossed his mind, as he clutched his revolver by the barrel and crept close to the wall, for he had heard the rustle of her dress as she moved to the door, leaving the detective inside.

Five minutes before, that quaint fancy would have seemed sacrilege in the mind of this robber and murderer, if applied to his wife, but now it was the most appropriate idea he could think of respecting her. She was still beautiful and had proved her cleverness, but never again would she be a thing to respect and adore. If a bullet had dashed out his brains, his love could not have been more surely slain than it was at this moment of recovered life. He was now the trapped wild beast, with all his craft and resolution in full force.

He felt her glide past him as he crouched by the wall of the lobby leading to the kitchen, she touching the other side of the wall to guide herself towards the staircase. He heard her soft breathing as he held his own, and he grinned again, thinking how easily he could have strangled her at that moment, but for the man inside that parlour, with the necessity that he should himself escape. No, not for these cogent reasons only would he let her go by in safety. A dull pain crushed on his heart and made him pity her for what she had lost. He would not hurt her for her perfidy. He would only quit her for ever, but he must escape and punish her that way. She reached the top step before he moved, then noiselessly and rapidly he glided through the kitchen into the wash-house at the rear, where there was a door leading to the yard, and a window on the shingle roof. The door was barred, but the window had been left open, and it was large enough for him to get through.

He planned it all as he ran along, with the lightness of a cat, for he was a man of as rapid mind as he was swift of action.

The police were in the yard, and Rosa would give the alarm in another moment; then lamps and pistols would flash out simultaneously and he would be seen.

In the yard grew a large almond tree, that spread its branches over the shed roof and overlooked the narrow lane which divided them from their neighbour's back yard. In his mind's eye he saw Rosa pause at the bedroom door to recover herself before entering, for she wasn't yet hardened enough to be able to face her victim without some little preparation.

She would listen for a little time to hear if he slept, to still the beatings of her excited heart, and to call up to her pretty face that false and tender smile, and he laughed again bitterly as he calculated his chances.

With his soft touch he cleared away the pans from the top of the wash-boiler, then gripping up a billet of wood, with a light spring on the boiler, he was through the window and on to the thickest limb of the almond tree, with a thick covering of leaves between him and the watchers below.

He had studied that almond tree during the day-time as a mode of escape, for he never neglected any details in his surroundings, wherever he was. A housebreaker of his experience and acumen, resembles a great general, who regards every landscape as a probable battlefield and each corner or building as a spot to be utilized for his own particular business of war.

Jack Milton had now all his wits about him and was too cool to spoil his chances by undue haste. A snake could not have glided along that branch more noiselessly than he did, or with less disturbance of the leaves and twigs. He felt each inch of the way and moved as if he had the whole night before him, while under him the policemen stood watching the lighted bedroom and waiting on the signal, all the while his ears were also on the alert for that signal.

He reached the trunk and swung himself up to another thick limb which led from it and rested on the high fence. He could not see those below, but in front of him, that portion of the fence and branch came within the radius of light from the bedroom window, while, as the leaves grew thinly here, he knew he could be seen if any one chanced to be looking in that direction.

This was the point of danger, yet he got just behind the verge of light, and then raising himself, he stood clearing the leaves in front of him, while he waited to take the leap. If his wife had been his best friend, he could not have waited more anxiously on her coming cry of alarm. He calculated exactly how she would act when she found the room empty; she would rush to the open window with a shriek, and the police would look in that direction in their first surprise, and that would be his chance to leap along the line of light, then if he managed to get hold of the branch beyond without attracting notice, he could laugh at them for the time.

He seemed to see her turning the handle, with that false smile on her lips, then----

Yes, there was the expected scream sent out to the night from the window above, with a sudden darkening of the light on the branch which he knew to be the shadow of her figure, and that made his path much easier.

He had been prepared to leap, but he changed his intention and walked easily along the branch to the fence, then over that again to the fence on the other side of the lane, after which he looked back before taking the drop.

"What a racket they are making, the stupid owls, waking all the dogs in the neighbourhood," he muttered, as he saw the flashing of the lanterns on every side but the one where he was. He saw the darkened form of his wife, with the detective beside her looking out, while their voices rose in a loud chorus. With a muttered curse he dropped quietly into his neighbour's yard, still grasping that heavy billet of wood.

A large dog rushed at him barking loudly, and letting him know by the sound where to strike. Waiting till it was almost on him he brought down the billet with his full force, and that antagonist was settled for the time.

Across the yard he sprang, through the little gate that led to the front garden and verandah; the people here were as yet asleep; so that he had no trouble in getting to the other side, which was only protected by a low fence, yet covered by tendrils and bushes. When he crossed this he was a couple of lanes from his own house with the road clear as yet in front of him.

The lane he was now in led to two different streets and he paused for a moment to think which was best for him to take, then, having decided, he walked quietly away, leaving the din behind him.

He was at present an object of suspicion if any one had seen him, for he was hatless, and clad only in his nightshirt and trousers, these he had hurriedly drawn on before leaving the bedroom. Yet that could not be helped, the one thought that now engrossed him was where he was to turn to find shelter.

Mr. Chester--yes, yet if Rosa was false her cousin was likely in the plot also. No matter, courage had freed him so far, and courage must do the rest. He would walk to Chester's house and bluff him for what he wanted. It was a warm starlight night and the street he was in was deserted, so that he did not find much inconvenience walking along bare-foot and hatless. He moved swiftly along keeping his keen eyes about him so as to avoid chance policemen and inquisitive pedestrians. He was also examining the houses he passed, wondering if he could not do a little business and rehabilitate himself on the way, only that he did not wish to waste valuable time.

Chance, assisted by the god Bacchus, served him before he had got very far, for, as he was passing a gate he almost stumbled over a man who evidently had been overcome by the Sydney whisky, and now lay on the foot-path in that deep and dreamless slumber which even good whisky will produce when too freely indulged in.

This chance benefactor to the hunted man was well-dressed, and near enough his own size to serve his purpose. With the gentleness of an expert valet, Jack Milton drew the drunkard through the gate into the garden, finding him more comfortable quarters under some shrubs, and there he made his toilet, leaving the other as he had been himself, in shirt and trousers.

The boots were a little too large, and the soft felt hat a degree too small, but the coat and vest fitted him fairly well, the gold watch which he likewise borrowed served to show him the time at the first lamp-post he came to, and the loose change he found scattered about the different pockets came in handy.

"A regular boozer that," Jack muttered as he counted about ten shillings in threepenny bits, mixed with copper pieces, other silver and several gold coins. "He has been visiting many pubs on the way and will need the half-crown I left him, in the morning, I guess."

He looked at the watch and found that the time was ten minutes to one o'clock, also that the watch which gave him this information was a good one. "Fortune favours the bold--now for my noble Chester."

This little adventure raised his spirits wonderfully, for it seemed a prognostic of good fortune in the future, so that he walked along with a light heart, and in about half an hour afterwards reached his destination.

Chapter VII. The Interview.

MR. CHESTER had either a great deal of work to get through on this early morning, or else expecting tidings of some importance, he was sitting up to receive them, for the light still burned in his office when Jack reached the house.

Jack stood outside looking at the illumined blind, with folded arms and a sinister smile on his dark features; he guessed why Mr. Chester was not yet in bed.

"So, my friend, you expect to have me trapped in my sleep or perhaps kindly knocked on the head, while you and your precious cousin play the surprised innocents. Dead I could tell no tales, alone and a prisoner, yet believing in your good faith, I'd have gone to the scaffold in silence. Ay, so I would, had I fallen asleep and not known what I do, therefore you only did me justice, but now that the blinders are off I'll make you serve me, whether you like or not, you infernal hypocrite; you were my master yesterday with your accursed cant, but I'll be boss this morning."

He muttered these words bitterly, with savage hatred in his heart, then stepping forward resolutely, he tapped smartly on the lower pane. In a moment he heard the lawyer rise from his chair, and drawing the blind back he opened the window. "Who is it?"

"I, Jack Milton," answered the housebreaker harshly, as he sprang to the window and entered that way with a sudden leap and force that made Mr. Chester stagger back, then quickly closing the window and readjusting the blind so that no one could see them from the outside, he faced round, his revolver in his hand pointed at the confused and astonished lawyer. "Hands up, Chester! I know your little game right to the core." "What do you mean, Mr. Milton?"

"That I was to be sold to the traps last night, so that you and that artful jade, my wife, might enjoy my loot without me--don't deny it, or I'll blow out your brains. I heard it all with my own ears." "I assure you----"

"Hang your assurances, the time is past for words of that sort. Listen to mine instead, for I must be quick. I have managed to get out of that net, Trumpet Tree Cottage, and now you must help me to get safe out of Sydney, or I'll make a clean breast of it and give you away--damme if I'll be the only one to suffer in this business."

"What of your promises?" said the lawyer, who not yet understanding what Jack knew, thought to play on his generosity. "I don't keep promises made to traitors." "I did not betray you."

"Didn't you?--well, the woman whom I robbed and murdered for, did, and you hold the stakes. I want money enough to take me out of the country and shelter while you get me a disguise." "How much do you require?" asked the lawyer sullenly.

"Three hundred pounds in gold will be as much as I can carry until I reach a place of safety, then you can send me more. I won't be too hard on you nor require any strict account of your stewardship, and I think, now that you know my intentions, I can trust you for your own sake. The bargain between us now is faith for faith, you be my banker as I require coin. There, decide quickly, for the police may be here at any moment."

Mr. Chester stood gnawing his sandy moustache and looking very much like Brer Fox when he was caught; however, he now recovered himself, and pointing to a chair, he took one himself while he said:

"I don't suppose the police will be likely to come here after you unless they followed you."

"Neither do I, since I took due care not to be followed, yet they may come to report progress to you, eh?" Mr. Chester looked at his boots and shook his head a little sadly.

"Then it wasn't the traps you were expecting so early this morning? Was it Rosa?" His black eyes looked searchingly at the other's, who replied quickly, yet without looking up: "I was expecting no one. It was work kept me up so late. These briefs."

He waved his hand with the masonic ring upon it towards the table covered with papers, and resumed:

"Besides, I cannot understand, since you have told me nothing yet. I am sure my cousin--your wife, Rosa, could have no hand in the police surprising you; indeed, such a thing must have been a terrible shock to her, poor girl."

"Still harping on the affectionate and trusting wife fiction, Chester," said Jack weariedly. "Haven't I told you that I heard the poor girl bargaining for my life with the detective, Billy Jackson? She wanted the reward to put to her other stores, sweet innocent that she is. No, I forgot to tell you that she prepared a dose for me to send me off to sleep, and that she----did another thing, which made doubt out of the question."

He had almost mentioned the extraction of the cartridges from his revolver, when he remembered that Chester had likewise a weapon of the same sort in his possession--one that he had presented to him--and he thought he had better omit that piece of evidence of his wife's perfidy. "What else did she do, Milton?"

"Something I don't mean to tell you, Chester--at least, not now. Some other time perhaps I will. Well, have you decided to help Justice as represented by Law, and know what transportation, if not hanging, is like--or at the least have to give up that fortune you hold of mine, for of course you can't expect to keep that if you turn Queen's evidence--or do you decide to stick to the plunder, give me a small whack out of it and help me to get clear?"

"Of course I'll help you all I can, Milton, if you show me how. By this time I daresay the telegraph has been at work and all the ports closed. You cannot take ship from the colony, for every man going away, unless he is well known, will be subject to the strictest scrutiny, so that no disguise will serve you. The trains likewise are impossible, for at every station the same scrutiny will take place; how then do you think to escape?"

"I'll tell you, Chester; first, because I cannot do it without your help, and second, because it is to your interest to get me out of this. I mean to ride overland to Westralia, and lose myself on the gold fields there."

"What! Go over that infernal track where so many have perished? Milton, my boy, plucky as you are, you'll never do it."

"Yet I mean to try. See here, Chester, I'll speak fair to you, although I believe you have been an accursed beast to me--there, don't protest. I gave Rosa up last night between eleven and twelve--she is no more to me now than the commonest street-walker, and I want nothing to do with her in future. I don't know what she is to you, and cuss me if I care, now that I have whistled her down the wind. In old times men risked their lives over a woman of this kind. I'm not that sort. I'm the product of the new Era." He grinned a ghastly grin and continued:

"I guess she'll have a divorce from Judge Jeffreys. He is a sympathetic cuss with grass widows of her description, and then you two will marry for the sake of the plunder, for you will be both too much skeared to let each other go in single harness, therefore you need not care much what comes of a coon like me. I'll go on the Wallaby track across the continent. If you hear no more of me, you'll know that my bones are bleaching on the plains. If I get across I shan't trouble you more than I can help, for, by the Lord! I don't like the scent of you, and, robber and murderer as I now am, I'd rather the crows picked my bones out yonder than know anything more of your family--I'll have a drain of your whisky all the same, though!"

He rose, and lifting the decanter, poured himself out a stiff glass, then, tossing it off, he returned quietly to his seat. "You can stay here till I get what you want," said the lawyer coldly.

"Three hundred quid in gold--a good, serviceable horse--a wig, and some other articles I may want to start with." "Yes, I'll get you these," said Mr. Chester, still stiffly.

"That is all I want; say, where are your cartridges, I have only what my weapon holds at present?" "You'll find them in that table drawer." "Thanks."

Jack went over to the drawer and found there not only the cartridges but the revolver of his host. "I'll borrow this weapon for to-day," he said quietly. "All right." At that moment a key was heard inserted in the front door.

As Mr. Chester heard the sound he started to his feet to go out, when Jack stopped him with a frightful contortion of his face.

"God Almighty! don't go from this room, or I shall be tempted to blow both your brains out. Be open with me now that I know so much--I'll not harm either of you. Let me get behind this screen and see the last of the farce."

He grinned like a devil, as he passed behind a Japanese screen, leaving his host standing in the centre of the room.

Another moment the door opened and Rosa darted inside. She was in a wild state of agitation, and without pausing she rushed forward, and flinging her arms round the lawyer's neck she kissed him loudly on the mouth before he could prevent her. "Ah, Arthur, darling, what are we to do? The villain has escaped."

Brer Fox Chester fell limply in his chair, while she, thinking that her news had overcome him, went on in a feminine torrent:

"Yes, my pet, it is all true. I gave him the dose you got for me, and saw him drink it. I removed the cartridges from his revolver as you directed--everything seemed right--yet he made his escape." "Good God!" gasped Chester. "Don't mention that name," said Jack Milton coming from his retreat. "He must have left you both long ago, and the Devil, our master, looks after his own." As Chester sank down Rosa had gone with him, still embracing him, but at the sight of her husband, she started up with a savage cry.

"What are you mooning there for, Arthur Chester? That revolver he holds is harmless--shoot him like the dog he is." Chester's head sank down on his breast helplessly while he moaned feebly: "He has got my weapon and my ammunition."

"Sit down, Rosa, and compose yourself; I like grit, and if you are not the woman I thought you were, at least you are consistent in your own way," said Jack Milton quietly as he came forward. "Don't mind me in the least. If you prefer his knee to the couch, then take it by all means, for I won't object. You settled that as far as I am concerned two hours ago--sit where you please and let us talk over our concerns."

The young woman rose with a scowl on her brows and sat on a chair; she was now facing Jack, yet she looked at him remorselessly and defiantly.

"Well, Jack Milton, you know the truth at last, and I don't care what more you know." Jack shrugged his shoulders as he replied gently:

"There's no more for me to know, Rosa. I made a mistake, or you did, so what is the good of talking about that? It is past now, and I am not such a cur as to cry over spilt milk. The only thing now to consider is what is best for us three. Chester there will explain to you my proposition. I fancy it will be more to your interest than if you gave me away to the hangman."

Jack went once more over to the spirit decanter and helped himself to another glass, while Rosa looked at Chester as he lay limply in his arm-chair. It was one of these positions where the cuckold comes out the best.

A pause ensued while Jack lifted the glass to his lips and drank, then suddenly, before he had quite finished, he pitched the glass from him with disgust.

"Oh, dash it, Chester, take her out of this and explain matters to her outside. You know my ultimatum. Sell me if you like, but for pity's sake leave me to myself now."

Arthur Chester rose to his feet, and giving his cousin his arm led her from the room, leaving the housebreaker behind.

Chapter VIII. Cousins.

"GOODNESS gracious, Arthur, why couldn't you have given me a hint that the monster was with you?" asked Rosa angrily, when they reached the street, "and not let me blurt everything out like that?"

She was not ashamed of herself, such women seldom are when discovered. The sneakish sensation gets over the men now and again, when they meditate upon their actions, or a nasty wind blows the flaps of their cloaks aside, for they know the animal they are carrying. The woman is different, however, for she makes a pet of her beast and decks it up with so many ribbons, that she is rather glad when her mantle falls off and reveals the ape she is carrying. To her it always looks a beauty and well worth the carrying.

She does not like her mantle to be rudely plucked away from her shoulders, however--rudeness always wounds her feelings. Neither does she like to dwell upon the idea that it was through her own clumsiness and want of tact that she has lost her cloak. This makes her angry, and when a woman is enraged she has little enough to do with conscience or self-reproach, some one else has to bear the blame of that fault.

As this wretched pair left the study while Jack Milton watched them depart, his glittering black eyes fixed upon them, and Chester's loaded revolver held loosely in the hand that lay passively on the legal documents, the lawyer felt his position keenly. There was no nobility or assertion of manhood in his walk, but with bent back and weak legs he led out his guilty partner, as spiritless and dejected a cur as one could have met anywhere. Deceit and falsehood, when discovered, generally have this effect even upon the most degraded of men. Add to this that he felt like a mouse creeping out of the den of an infuriated lion, who seems all the more dangerous because he crouches quietly, and the reader may somewhat realize the sensations of Arthur Chester. Until he had closed the door of that study the nerves of his back had been quivering with the anticipation of a bullet being sent after him, and that feeling is not nerve-bracing as a rule.

Rosa Milton, however, had none of these sensations, as she had no consciousness of shame. Her husband had always been gentle and indulgent to her whims, therefore she had learnt to despise him as a "softy." That he had yielded his claims so quietly did not at all astonish her, yet somehow it angered her, for it stung her vanity and she was now writhing under this seeming lack of appreciation. Jack had never been so much an object of interest to her as he was at this moment of renunciation.

"I did my best to stop you, Rosa," replied her cousin dejectedly. "But it was no use, you were in on me like a tornado, and the complete tale exposed with a brevity and graphic force worthy of that Scottish poet, Robert Burns. The embrace would have done it to the watching eyes without words, knowing what he did--in fact the latch-key was revelation enough without even the greeting that followed, but when those terse sentences fell upon my ears, I morally and physically collapsed. The play was over with a bang. Only one thing surprised, while it robbed me of the few remaining atoms of brains that I had left, knowing Jack Milton as I do--and as you don't, sweet cousin." "What was that?"

"That we two are walking along the street this balmy early morning instead of weltering in our mutual gore on the floor of my study." "He would never have dared to do that, surely?"

"It isn't too flattering to either of us that he hasn't done so," replied her companion quietly. "However, here we both are, safe and sound, with our fiasco on our hands, and the present master of the position to manage." "What do you mean?"

"Only that we shall have to do our best to put the detectives off the scent and get Jack safely away. We cannot afford to let him be caught now, for he has sworn that he will speak up and give me away, if he is taken, and you know what that spells?"

"The mean, spiteful wretch," cried inconsistent Rosa savagely. "As if it could matter to him after he was hanged who had the money."

"That is just it, Rosa; and as he considers that he is no longer bound to provide for us, he makes this condition--his liberty or the giving up of his savings." "But haven't you secured them where they cannot be touched?"

"That is impossible if he tells his story. We shall both be as poor as we were before he crossed our lives, and worse, for if we escape transportation, I shall be degraded and under suspicion all the rest of my life, while you will be lost utterly. No, he must get away, or we are both ruined beyond redemption." "But Arthur, what of us, if he gets away?"

"Oh, he is reasonable enough. He only wants three hundred pounds for the present, and meditates taking the overland journey to Westralia, and that ought to finish him as surely as the hangman could do. As the wife of a condemned outlaw, you'll get a divorce easily enough, and a lot of sympathy besides, as no one will suspect that you know anything about his plunder, then we can marry and clear out of the Colonies, so that even if he reaches his destination, which isn't at all likely, he can never trace us out." "But the reward for his capture?" "You'll have to lose that five hundred, since he was not caught."

"Eight hundred pounds clear lost. Ah, that is too bad. Could you not poison or shoot him, and then deliver up his body?"

They were passing a lamp-post as Rosa made this suggestion, and she looked up in his face with the anxious expression of a prudent wife who wanted to avert a business loss to her husband. Her pretty features were puckered with this anxiety, and her blue eyes looked troubled as she peered into those of her cousin.

Arthur Chester, like Rosa, belonged to the fourth generation of cornstalks--those weeds who have grown up with white corpuscles in their blood, instead of red; lustful, yet lacking stamina; malignant, and sceptical of all that tends to raise humanity; devoted to pleasure, and regardless of the responsibilities of morality. Intrigue and wickedness were to them the necessities of existence. Jibing mockery and cold-blooded jests at all which the older generations reverenced were the ordinary subjects of their conversation. Such papers as the Guillotine served them as the springs from which they drew their wit; crude, indecent and viperish, without a spark of true humour or kindly instinct.

They were both on a slightly more elevated stratum than the hyena Larrikin, but their appetites and instincts were no better.

It has been stated that the absinthe drinking in France is reducing the coming race to the condition of beastdom. The coming race of cornstalks as represented in Sydney do not drink absinthe. They are even a fairly temperate race in intoxicants, and yet poetry, principles, affection and morality are almost dead amongst them; they only aspire to be smart.

Arthur Chester was not at all horrified at this suggestion from the milky-skinned Rosa; indeed, had it been at all possible he might have taken it up and discussed it, for it appealed to his acquisitiveness, the predominant passion of a cornstalk, as it likewise did to the depravity of his taste. But he was not altogether devoid of common sense, and he knew that the man who had planned and carried out successfully so many robberies, now that his eyes were opened, was not at all likely to be made an easy victim either to poison or any other form of treachery, so that he shook his head gravely while he thought, with the cunning of an Asiatic or a Sydneyite, "Ho! ho! Rosa, my girl, you would fain polish off your husband because he is your husband, would you, to save these dimes? I am of value now because we are not yet linked, since I hold the cash, but after that you'd serve me out the same. Not for this juggins, if I know it." He thought this, but said aloud in his tender and caressing way:

"It won't do, cousin, we must make up our minds to act on the square or we may lose it all. Let us get him away, and then we can plan out our future."

"If you think that the best way, I am agreeable, yet as long as he lives, I'll be in such dread of him betraying us and getting us into trouble."

"Oh, I think that he is safe enough in that respect so long as we humour him now. He has some strange notions for a thief--at least as far as my experience of our Sydney thieves go, as they would give away their own mother for a cigarette, but Jack Milton is quite a maniac about keeping his word--that is one of his cracks."

"He is cracked in more parts than one, the fool. He was downright daft to think that a girl like me would stick to a housebreaker," said Rosa, disdainfully.

"Ah! I think he has got over that mania by this time," replied her cousin reflectively.

"Don't be nasty, Arthur. I bet you I could make him as dead gone on me as ever he was," said Rosa daringly.

"Well, perhaps you might, Cousin. Samson was deluded by Delilah three times, therefore I'll not take up the bet, yet I think you had best not try to make it up, or he might drag you through the interior with him, and I don't fancy that would suit your books."

"God forbid!" ejaculated Rosa, with a shudder of dread. "I want to see no more of him."

"Well, cousin, you stay at home till I get him out of the road and call upon you, and I'll manage all the disagreeable business for you meantime." "What about the police, though?"

"You know nothing about him, so that they must scent about for themselves. You have done your duty as a respectable citizeness in giving them the word, therefore you'll be exonerated--and of course you kept my name strictly out of the business."

"Ah, yes, Arthur, I always look after your interests," she answered with a fine accent of scorn in her tones.

"Our mutual interest you mean," he said quietly. "As long as I am kept in the back-ground, I can work for you as I have done."

"I know--I know, dear," she replied hastily, and putting her arm round his neck, she drew down his head and kissed him. "You are cold, to-night, Arthur; here we have been walking and talking like a blasé married couple and never a fond word."

"Forgive me, dearest, this contretemps has worried me, and by Jove! that reminds me, how foolish you were to come to my place this morning." "You knew I was coming, Arthur?"

"Yes, if all had gone right it would have been perfectly safe, but now--suppose you have been followed?" "I don't think so," she replied hesitatingly. He glanced round quickly and was just in time to see the figure of a man on the opposite side, yet some distance behind, dart back into the shadow of a trumpet-tree overhanging a fence.

"Ah, don't you think so?" he whispered mockingly. "But you have been shadowed for all that, so let us hurry on. I must go with you to the Cottage, and put them off the scent if possible. We must now be open with our love affairs, and that will serve as the best motive for selling Milton." "Oh, Arthur, what shall we do?"

"Keep cool. Our shadower is too far away to have heard what we were speaking about; let us go on as we are doing, and when we reach the gate do a little spoon there. He will likely get close to us then, so that what I say to you will be for his benefit. Remember you only came to tell me of the escape and nothing else." "I drop," she replied, in the slang which ladies of her class love to indulge in. After this they looked no more behind, but kept on until they reached the gate.

Here the farce of sweethearts saying good-night was gone through elaborately, while the spy crept up to hear what they said in this supposed unguarded moment.

It was a farce to both of them by this time, this lingering at the gate. When a woman possesses the latch-key of her lover's house, the necessity for gate-lingering has gone past, yet with some the folly is still kept up for the sentiment of the thing. So thought the watcher as he saw the embracing and heard the good-night uttered several times over before they finally went inside together, and he chuckled even while feeling disappointed that his shadowing had only brought out this result. He thought he knew now why the false wife had betrayed her husband, and felt it much more natural in a Sydney girl than any flimsy sentiment about horror of the murderer or Spartan desire for justice.

"Keep up your pluck, my girl," said Arthur, as they stood at the gate. "It isn't possible for him to get away."

"But suppose he should be about and return now that the police are away. He'll murder me, Arthur, for what I have done."

"Don't be afraid, Rosa, he won't return here. He cannot possibly make his escape, so be easy, you'll be a widow soon enough now."

"I hope so, but I'm desperately afraid. Come inside, Arthur, and see father and mother."

They went indoors and had not been long there before the man knocked, and when he was admitted and saw the family up, he told them that he had called to say that they need not be alarmed, for the house was still watched on all sides, so that they might retire with perfect security. "This is my cousin, Mr. Chester, the solicitor. I went to his house to get his advice," said Rosa, introducing her cousin to the detective, who shook hands and said calmly:

"Quite natural on your part, ma'am, under the circumstances, only he need be under no fear of your safety, as you are well guarded."

Arthur Chester took his leave soon after this, and went out with the detective, while those inside locked up the door. "Miserable affair this. I was the last man to have suspected Jack Milton."

"He is a cute card, but he has reached the end of his tender this time, I guess. She is a fine woman that wife of his, poor girl; how did she find him out?"

"Well, from what I can gather, he got talking in his sleep about the murdered bank clerk on Sunday night, and then he was so anxious for the papers next day, that she worked it all out in her own mind and was horrified. She'd have forgiven him anything short of murder. That did for her."

"It mostly does with the women, although they are not all so game as she is. They are more apt to act like the mother of Barnaby Rudge. Does she know anything about the plunder, do you think?"

"No, he has doubtless planted that. He was always reticent about his income, but he has left his traps at the Cottage, so something may be discovered amongst them. This is a devilish unfortunate affair for all of us, to be connected with such a scoundrel. It will make such a scandal, you know."

"Yes, but the prompt behaviour of Mrs. Milton must counteract a good deal of the scandal." "I hope so. Good-night." "Good-night, sir."

The detective looked after him, placidly satisfied in his own mind that Jack Milton had not much chance of escape if Arthur Chester could spoil it, after what he had seen.

The lawyer, however, went along the victim to a thousand fears for his own safety, and cursing the imprudence of his cousin, whereas he ought to have been more grateful.

As for Rosa, now that the way seemed clear, she went to bed strangely discontented and dissatisfied with her cousin. The charm of secrecy was over, and with it had departed the only romance that her vicious heart had pulse to thrill over.

Chapter IX. Jack Milton Waits.

JACK MILTON watched the guilty pair pass from the study with a sardonic grin on his lips that drew them back and bared the strong white teeth, so firmly locked together. A grim humour possessed him at the moment, and held his hand, which was toying with the revolver, and forced him to laugh as he heard the outer door close.

Was that white-faced traitress the witch who had beguiled his thoughts in jail, and made him feel almost religious? "Oh, Lord! oh, Lord!" he uttered, while he laughed softly; "what a miserable fool a man can be, and all for a fancy."

He thought on a past fancy--a female pick-pocket, who would have gone through fire and water for him. She was a handsomer woman by a long chalk than this flimsy chit who had only brains enough to sell him, and the other woman had both grit to the backbone and talents that this sham was utterly devoid of. He had thought her possessed of the one quality which the poor pickpocket couldn't boast about.

Ah, ye gods! Was there a woman in the world who possessed that charm who wasn't ready to fling it away at the first chance? And yet, for this imaginary virtue he had hitherto staked his happiness.

He somehow felt no anger against Arthur Chester, who, indeed, was now in his estimation too poor a tool for any man to be angry about. If it hadn't been Chester, it would have been someone else. Possibly Chester was only one of a crowd of hounds who ran baying after this Sydney beauty.

When a man has worn a bit of paste in his breast-pin, under the impression that it was a diamond of the first water, he does not care much who wears it after he has discovered its real value and cast it from him. The price it has cost him may give him a slight twinge, but that will only be momentary, unless he is a weak fool who mourns over things lost.

Jack Milton was no fool, although under the influence of a mad impulse he had nearly consumm