'Dick,' Fanny presently exclaimed, out of a brown study, 'what do you think you would do if—you ever met that bushranger again. I mean, if he was at your mercy, you know?'
Flint sighed, and prepared his spirit for heroics.
'No use thinking,' Dick answered. 'By this time he's a life—if they didn't hang him.'
Flint became suddenly animated.
'What?' he cried, sharply.
'Why, the last I heard of him—the day I sailed from Melbourne—was, that he was captured somewhere up in Queensland.'
'If you had sailed a day later you would have heard more.'
'What?' asked Dick, in his turn.
'He escaped.'
'Escaped?'
'The same night. He got clean away from the police-barracks at Mount Clarence—that was the little Queensland township. They never caught him. They believe he managed to clear out of the country—to America, probably.'
'By Jove, I'm not sorry!' exclaimed Dick.
'Here are some newspaper cuttings about him,' continued Flint, taking the scraps from his pocketbook and handing them to Dick. 'Read them afterwards; they will interest you. He was taken along with another fellow, but the other fellow was taken dead—shot through the heart. That must have been the one he called Ben; for the big brute who tried to knife you had disappeared some time before. When they were taken they were known to have a lot of gold somewhere—I mean, Sundown was—for they had just stuck up the Mount Clarence bank.'
'Yes, I heard that when I heard of the capture.'
'Well, it was believed that Sundown feared an attack from the police, and planted the swag, went back to it after his escape, and got clear away with the lot. But nothing is known; for neither Sundown nor the gold was ever seen again.'
'Mamma, aren't you glad he escaped,' cried Fanny, with glowing cheeks. 'It may be wicked, but I know I am! Now, what would you do, Dick?'
'What's the good of talking about it?' said Dick.
'Then I'll tell you what I'd do; I'd hide this poor Sundown from justice; I'd give him a chance of trying honesty, for a change—that's what I should do! And if I were you, I should long and long and long to do it!'
Flint could not help smiling. Dick's sentiment on the subject was sufficiently exaggerated; but this young lady! Did this absurd romanticism run in the family? If so, was it the father, or the grandfather, or the great-grandfather that died in a madhouse?
But Dick gazed earnestly at his sister. Her eyes shone like living coals in the twilight of the shaded room. She was imaginative; and the story of Dick and the bushranger appealed at once to her sensibilities and her sympathy. She could see the night attack in the silent forest, and a face of wild, picturesque beauty—the ideal highwayman —was painted in vivid colour on the canvas of her brain.
'Fanny, I half think I might be tempted to do something like that,' said Dick gently. 'I have precious few maxims, but one is that he who does me a good turn gets paid with interest—though I have a parallel one for the man who works me a mischief.'
'So it is a good turn not to rob a man whom you've already assaulted!' observed Flint ironically.
'It is a good turn to save a man's life.'
'True; but you seem to think more of your money than your life!'
'I believe I did four years ago,' said Dick, smiling, but he checked his smile when Flint looked at his watch and hastily rose.
Dick expostulated, almost to the extent of bluster, but quite in vain; Flint was already shaking hands with the ladies.
'My dear fellow,' said he, 'I leave these shores to-night; it's my annual holiday. I'm going to forget my peasants for a few weeks in Paris and Italy. If I lose this train I lose to-night's boat—I found out that before I came; so good-bye, my—'
'No, I'm coming to the station,' said Dick; 'at least I stickle for that last office.'
Mrs. Edmonstone hoped that Mr. Flint—her boy's best friend, as she was assured—would see his way to calling on his way home and staying a day or two. Mr. Flint promised; then he and Dick left the house.
They were scarcely in the road before Flint stopped, turned, laid a hand on each of Dick's shoulders, and quickly delivered his mind:
'There's something wrong. I saw it at once. Tell me.'
Dick lowered his eyes before his friend's searching gaze.
'Oh, Jack,' he answered, sadly, 'it is all wrong!'
And before they reached the station Flint knew all that there was to know—an abridged but unvarnished version—of the withering and dying of Dick's high hopes.
They talked softly together until the train steamed into the station; and then it was Dick who at the last moment returned to a matter just touched in passing:
'As to this dance to-night—you say I must go?'
