the sea. I was never seen in Chisley again. I
walked all that night. In London I read of the arrest of Done on a charge
of murder. They had found my hat and my coat and the knife. The girl had
told her story. Done was condemned to death; and then I stowed away in an
Australian boat, and was allowed to work my passage out I thought Richard
Done had been hanged till I saw him that night at the camp in the Bush.
The man sitting there is Richard Done.'

Stony fell back upon his grimy pillow again, and was silent; his eyes
were fixed upon Ryder, but at that moment he had more to fear from Jim,
who looked down upon him, fierce with disgust, his fingers itching to be
at the thin neck of the brute.

'Let us get out of this!' he gasped.

'Have you no questions to ask?' said Ryder quietly.

'None, none! And when I think of what this dog has brought upon me and
mine I feel murderous.'

Ryder left the tent without another word, and Jim followed him. As they
walked away, Done was stirred with deep sympathy for his companion.
Ryder's reiteration of the words, 'I have been in hell!' recurred to him.
He felt that there were years of suffering and a fathomless hatred behind
the phrase, and his blood ran hotly.

'I wonder you have not killed that man!' he blurted after a few minutes'
silence. 'I regret ever having raised a hand to prevent it.'

'I needed him,' answered Ryder.

'You intend to establish your innocence?'

For the first time that night a smile moved Ryder's stark lips--a hard,
mirthless smile.

'No,' he said; 'where's the use?'

'How is it you are free?' asked Jim with surprise. This view had not
occurred to him before.

They were standing between the stunted and twisted gums. The Bush here
was spare and dwarfed, and the moonlight shone clearly upon Ryder's face.

'I am an escaped convict!' he replied

A bitter curse leapt from Done's tongue. He felt himself bound to this
man by a common wrong, a wrong that had clouded with misery the greater
part of their two lives.

'You may be retaken,' he said.

'I may, but I do not think it likely.'

At that moment recollection flashed upon Jim. He recalled the adventure
with Long Aleck in the Bourke Street bar, and the robbery of Brigalow,
the gold-buyer, at Diamond Gully. His hand was upon Ryder again: he gazed
at him with a new apprehension.

'Sit,' he said. Ryder seated himself on a stump by the side of the young
man, and Jim continued:

'You say Miss Woodro