wn before I'm done and gone--if it's not to
glory--I'll run some lead through you! You'll be the first!"

Oswald perched reflecting on this final threat; and the scene soon
enacted before his eyes was viewed as usual through the aura of his own
egoism. He longed all the time to be taking part in it; he could see
himself so distinctly at the work--save for about a minute in the
middle, when for once in his life he held his breath and trembled for
other skins.

There had been no unusual feature. The life-size coach-lamps had shown
their mountain-range of outside passengers against moonlit sky or trees.
A cigar paled and reddened between the teeth of one, plain wreaths of
smoke floated from his lips, with but an instant's break when Stingaree
rode out and stopped the coach. The three leaders reared; the two
wheelers were pulled almost to their haunches. The driver was docile in
deed, though profane in word; and Stingaree himself discovered a
horrifying vocabulary out of keeping with his reputation. In incredibly
few minutes driver and passengers were formed in a line and robbed in
rotation, all but two ladies who were kept inside unmolested. A flagrant
Irishman declared it was the proudest day of his life, and Oswald's
heart went out to him, though it rather displeased him to find his own
sentiments shared by the vulgar. The man with the cigar kept it glowing
all the time. The mail-bags were not demanded on this occasion.
Stingaree had no time to waste on them. He was still collecting purse
and watch, when Oswald's young blood froze in the stiffening limbs he
dared not move.

One of the ladies had got down from the coach on the off side, and
behold! it was a man wrapped in a rug, which dropped from him as he
crept round behind the horses. At their head stood the lily mare, as if
doing her own nefarious part by her own kind. In a twinkling the mad
adventurer was on her back, and all this time Oswald longed to jump
down, or at least to shout a warning to his hero, but, as usual, his
desires were unproductive of word or deed. And then Stingaree saw his
man.

He did not fire; he did not shift sight or barrel for a moment from the
docile file before him. "Barmaid! Barmaid, my pet!" he cried, and hardly
looked to see what happened.

But Oswald watched the mare stop, prick her ears under the hammering of
unspurred heels, spin round, bucking as she spun, and toss her rider
like a bull. There in the moonlight he lay like lead