e
played with the pistol nervously, while all remained stupefied. Frere
stood, without withdrawing his hands from the pockets into which they
were plunged.

"That's a fine pistol, Jack," he said at last.

Kavanagh, down whose white face the sweat was pouring, burst into a
hideous laugh of relieved terror, and thrust the weapon, cocked as it
was, back again into the magistrate's belt.

Frere slowly drew one hand from his pocket, took the cocked pistol and
levelled it at his recent assailant. "That's the best chance you'll ever
get, Jack," said he.

Kavanagh fell on his knees. "For God's sake, Captain Frere!" Frere
looked down on the trembling wretch, and then uncocked the pistol, with
a laugh of ferocious contempt. "Get up, you dog," he said. "It takes a
better man than you to best me. Bring him up in the morning, Hawkins,
and we'll give him five-and-twenty."

As he went out--so great is the admiration for Power--the poor devils in
the yard cheered him.

One of the first things that this useful officer did upon his arrival
in Sydney was to inquire for Sarah Purfoy. To his astonishment, he
discovered that she was the proprietor of large export warehouses in
Pitt-street, owned a neat cottage on one of the points of land which
jutted into the bay, and was reputed to possess a banking account of no
inconsiderable magnitude. He in vain applied his brains to solve this
mystery. His cast-off mistress had not been rich when she left Van
Diemen's Land--at least, so she had assured him, and appearances bore
out her assurance. How had she accumulated this sudden wealth? Above
all, why had she thus invested it? He made inquiries at the banks, but
was snubbed for his pains. Sydney banks in those days did some queer
business. Mrs. Purfoy had come to them "fully accredited," said the
manager with a smile.

"But where did she get the money?" asked the magistrate. "I am
suspicious of these sudden fortunes. The woman was a notorious character
in Hobart Town, and when she left hadn't a penny."

"My dear Captain Frere," said the acute banker--his father had been one
of the builders of the "Rum Hospital"--"it is not the custom of our bank
to make inquiries into the previous history of its customers. The bills
were good, you may depend, or we should not have honoured them. Good
morning!"

"The bills!" Frere saw but one explanation. Sarah had received the
proceeds of some of Rex's rogueries. Rex's letter to his father and
the ment