ne, and that
hope was dead. The Captain had an easier prey than he had anticipated.
Hawker threw up his arms, and ere he could fully appreciate his
situation, he was chained fast to Desborough's saddle, only to be
loosed, he knew, by the gallows.

Without a word on either side they began their terrible journey.
Desborough riding, and Hawker manacled by his right wrist to the
saddle. Fully a mile was passed before the latter asked, sullenly,--

"Where are you going to take me to-night?"

"To Dickenson's," replied Desborough. "You must step out you know. It
will be for your own good, for I must get there to-night."

Two or three miles further were got over, when Hawker said abruptly,--

"Look here, Captain, I want to talk to you."

"You had better not," said Desborough. "I don't want to have any
communication with you, and every word you say will go against you."

"Bah!" said Hawker. "I must swing. I know that. I shan't make any
defence. Why, the devils out of hell would come into court against me
if I did. But I want to ask you a question or two. You haven't got the
character of being a brutal fellow, like O----. It can't hurt you to
answer me one or two things, and ease my mind a bit."

"God help you, unhappy man;" said Desborough. "I will answer any
questions you ask."

"Well, then, see here," said Hawker, hesitating. "I want to know--I
want to know first, how you got round before me?"

"Is that all?" said Desborough. "Well, I came round over Broad-saddle,
and got a fresh horse at the Parson's."

"Ah!" said Hawker. "That young fellow I shot down when you were after
me, is he dead?"

"By this time," said Desborough. "He was just dying when I came away."

"Would you mind stopping for a moment, Captain? Now tell me, who was
he?"

"Mr. Charles Hawker, son of Mrs. Hawker, of Toonarbin."

He gave such a yell that Desborough shrunk from him appalled,--a cry as
of a wounded tiger,--and struggled so wildly with his handcuffs that
the blood poured from his wrists. Let us close this scene. Desborough
told me afterwards that that wild, fierce, despairing cry, rang in his
ears for many years afterwards, and would never be forgotten till those
ears were closed with the dust of the grave.

Chapter XLIV

HOW MARY HAWKER HEARD THE NEWS.

Troubridge's Station, Toonarbin, lay so far back from the river, and so
entirely on the road to nowhere, that Tom used to remark, that he would
back it for being the wors