g to be thankful for,
and in it the broken captive fell into a fine semblance of natural
slumber. Cairns watched with alternate envy and suspicion; for him there
could not be a wink; but most likely the fellow was shamming all the
time. No ruse, however, succeeded in exposing the sham, which the
Superintendent copied by breathing first heavily and then stertorously,
with one eye open and on his man. Stingaree never opened one of his:
there was no change in the regular breathing, in the peaceful expression
of the blood-stained face: asleep the man must be. The Superintendent's
own experiments had gone to show him that no extremity need necessarily
keep one awake in such heat. He stifled a yawn that was no part of his
performance. His pipe was out; he struck a match noisily on his boot;
and Stingaree just stirred, as naturally as any infant. But Stingaree's
senses were incredibly acute. He smelt every whiff of the rekindled
pipe, knew to ten seconds when it went out once more, and listened in an
agony for another match. None was struck. Was the Superintendent himself
really asleep this time? He breathed as though he were; but so did
Stingaree; and yet was there hope in the fact that his own greatest
struggle all this time had been against the very thing he feigned.

At last he opened one eye a little; it was met by no answering furtive
glance; he opened the other, and there could be no more doubt. The
terrible Superintendent was dozing in his place; but it was the lightest
sort of doze, the eyes were scarcely closed, and all but watching
Stingaree, as the cocked revolver in the relaxed hand all but covered
him.

The prisoner felt that for the moment he was unseen, forgotten, but that
the lightest movement of his body would open those terrible eyes once
and for all. Be it remembered that he was lying under them lengthwise,
on the bound arm, with the arm in the sling uppermost, and easily to be
freed, but yet the most salient part of the recumbent figure, and that
on which the hidden eyes still seemed fixed, for all their lids. To make
the least movement there, to attempt the slowest withdrawal of hand and
arm, was to court the last disaster of discovery in such an act. But to
lie motionless down to the thighs, and to execute a flank movement with
the leg uppermost, was a far less perilous exploit. It was the leg with
the bare foot: every detail had been foreseen. And now at last the bare
foot hovered over the revolver and