had the luck to confiscate
a musical-box which plays selections from _The Pirates_. I ought to have
had it with me in my swag."

So affable and even charming was the quiet voice, so evident the
appreciation of the last inch of the cigar which had thawed a frozen
palate, and so conceivable a further softening, that Guy Kentish made
bolder than before. He knew what he meant to do; he knew how he meant to
do it. And yet it seemed just possible there might be a gentler way.

"You don't always take things, I believe?" he hazarded.

"You mean after sticking up?"

"Yes."

"Generally, I fear; it's the whole meaning of the act," confessed
Stingaree, still the dandy in tone and phrase. "But there have been
exceptions."

"Exactly!" quoth Kentish. "And there's going to be another this
afternoon!"

Stingaree hurled the stump of his cigar into the scrub, and without a
word the villain was born again, with his hard eyes, his harder mouth,
his sinister scowl, his crag of a chin.

"So you come back to that," he cried, harshly. "I thought you had more
sense; you will make me tie you up before your time."

"You may do exactly what you like," retorted Kentish, a galling scorn in
his unaltered voice. "Only, before you do it, you may as well know who I
am."

"My good sir, do you suppose I care who you are?" asked Stingaree, with
an angry laugh: and his anger is the rarest thing in all his annals.

"I am quite sure you don't," responded Kentish. "But you may as well
know my name, even though you never heard it before." And he gave it
with a touch of triumph, not for one moment to be confounded with a
natural pride.

The bushranger stared him steadily in the eyes; his hand had dropped
once more upon the butt of his revolver. "No; I never did hear it
before," he said.

"I'm not surprised," replied the other. "I was a new member when you
were turned out of the club." Stingaree's hand closed: his eyes were
terrible. "And yet," continued Kentish, "the moment I saw you at close
quarters in the road I recognized you as----"

"Stingaree!" cried the bushranger, on a rich and vibrant note. "Let the
other name pass your lips--even here--and it's the last word that ever
will!"

"Very well," said Mr. Kentish, with his unaffected shrug. "But, you see,
I know all about you."

"You're the only man who does, in all Australia!" exclaimed the outlaw,
hoarsely.

"At present! I sha'n't be the only man long."

"You will," said Stingaree t