I maintained an attitude of fierce revolt, then, recognising my
helplessness, I brought cunning into play, and practised dissimulation
night and day. This saved me in some measure, but the ghastly life
continued year after year, and I was thirty-eight before a reasonable
chance of escape presented itself. My plans had been perfected, and when
the opportunity came I seized it, with the resolution of a man for whom
there was only one alternative to liberty--death.'

Jim never took his eyes from Ryder's; he sat as if fascinated by the
ivory-pale face of his companion.

'I had one friend in Hobart Town, a freed convict named Wainewright. He
provided me with the clothes of a gentleman. The beard I wore, and which
has since served me as a disguise in my many enterprises, was given to me
in the first place by Wainewright. To perfect that beard and destroy
every semblance of artificiality, I had worked at it for three years in
the cunning, patient way old prisoners toil at such a task. Wainewright
helped me to get to the mainland, and I was safe, with a forged
ticket-of-leave in my pocket in case the marks of the chains should be
discovered by prying official eyes.'

'Did you make any effort to live honestly?' asked Jim.

'Almost my first action on reaching the neighbour hood of Melbourne was
to bail-up a prominent resident, whom I robbed. That act afforded me
absolute joy. He was a decent, orderly citizen, a pillar of the State, a
powerful upholder of the law. No robbery I have since committed has given
me quite the same delight. I stole then because I needed money. I rob now
because I am a keen sportsman, and that is the particular sport I affect.
Possibly you would not appreciate the pleasure of the game; you have not
had the humbug of the world eaten out of your heart with live flame.
Having wilfully exposed itself to me, and translated my respect for it
into a magnificent hatred, society cannot reasonably expect to find me
docile. I prey upon society.'

'It will avenge itself.'

'True, it may. Robbery under arms is a hanging matter, but I have
graduated in a marvellous school for cunning, and have perfect
confidence.'

'Yet you place yourself in my hands. What can the ties of blood count for
between us two? For as long as I can remember I've thought of you only as
something evil hovering over the door, silencing the home, darkening
life.'

'I counted on finding in you a mind not wholly at variance with my own.
Wh