atic.

They were coarse-looking fellows, but dressed better than bushrangers
usually were, and I accounted for it by supposing that they had made a
successful plundering expedition, and got new suits from their victims;
and such I afterwards found to be the case.

I endeavored to get a view of the faces of the women, and by changing my
position I succeeded. The youngest one was not more than twenty-five
years of age, but she looked careworn and weary, and seldom removed her
hands from her face, except, to answer a question addressed to her by
her companion, who seemed about forty years of age, and by the
flickering light of the fire I read determination upon every line of her
countenance, weather-beaten and grim as it was.

The bushrangers were broiling their meat upon sticks, and eating it with
a relish that smacked of a long fast; and while the women were seated
near the fire on saddles taken from the horses, which were tied to a
tree, and were browsing upon the tender branches, the men did not offer
them food, until one fellow, whose appetite seemed sated, offered the
younger one his stick, upon which was a huge lump of flesh nearly raw.

She declined the tempting morsel with a shudder, and the action produced
an oath from the ruffian, and an insulting gesture, so vile that I could
hardly keep my hand from seeking the lock of my revolver and shooting
him on the spot.

"O, well, Miss Dainty, you'll come to your appetite one of these days,
see if you don't. Mark what I tell you;" and the other ruffians smiled
at their companion's wit.

"There's blood on the hand that offered her food--her husband's blood.
How do you suppose she can touch what you feel disposed to give?" cried
the elderly woman, who was called Nancy.

"Hullo, old croaker, I thought that you were asleep," the bushranger
said; but still I noticed that he glanced at his hand, and wiped it on
his clothes, as though the stain was burning his flesh like a coal of
fire.

CHAPTER LXXVII.

CAPTURE OF THE BUSHRANGERS.

"I've not been asleep, but still I've had a dream," Nancy replied to the
insulting taunt of the robber.

"Hullo, here's a go. An old woman can dream with her eyes open. Tell us
what it was all about, old Tabby."

The woman looked sternly at her tormentor, but did not deign to reply;
but the robbers were not disposed to have her rest in peace.

"Come, Tabby, tell us the dream," cried the first speaker.

"You would know it,