's their own fault for being prisoners, and
that's the last word."

"It is very terrible," said Moya again.

"Ah, but you little know how bad it is; and I'm not going to tell you.
It's worse than your worst dreams, and that must do for you. The
floggings, the irons, the solitary confinement in your irons with the
blood running down your back! No, I said I wouldn't, and I won't. But
it's hard to hold your tongue when you're talking to a lady for the
first time in thirty years. And to think of a young lady like you coming
all this way, alone too, to say a kind word to a double-dyed old rogue
like me! It's the most wonderful thing I ever heard of in all my days. I
can't think why you did it, for the life of me I can't!"

"It was to tell you about your son," Moya reminded him.

"Ah, poor fellow! God help him, for I can't."

"Are you quite sure?" said Moya gently, and for once rather nervously as
well.

"Sure? Of course I'm sure! Why, what can I do?" cried the other, with
sudden irritation as suddenly suppressed. "Hiding--hunted--with every
hand against me but yours--I'd help him if I could, but I can't."

"So he's to go to prison instead of you?"

Moya spoke quietly, but with the more effect; indeed, she was herself
beginning to feel surprised at her success with a desperate man in vital
straits. He was more amenable than she had imagined possible. That he
should parley with her at all was infinite encouragement. But now there
came a pause.

"I see what you're driving at," he cried savagely at last. "You want me
to give myself up! I'll see you--further."

The oath was dropped at the last moment--another strange sign--but the
tone could not have been stronger. Yet the mere fact that he had seen
her point, and made it for her, filled Moya with increasing confidence.

"I don't wonder," she had the tact to say. "How could you be expected to
go back--to that--of your own free will? And yet what can be worse than
waiting--waiting till----"

"I'm taken, eh? Is that what you want to say? They shall never take me
alive, curse them; don't you trouble about that!"

The tone was stubborn, ferocious, blood-curdling, but at least it was in
keeping with the blazing eyes and the great jowl beneath. Moya looked
steadily at the bushranger, the mutineer, the indomitable criminal of
other days; more remained of him than she had fancied. And to think that
he had soft answers for her!

She made haste to earn another.

"Please-