Miles did not speak.
'And your life is in my hands.'
Miles made no reply.
'The natural thing,' Dick continued, 'would have been to crawl away, when I heard who you were, and call the police. You see I have not done that.'
Still not a word.
'Another, and perhaps fairer, way would be to give you a fair start from this spot and this minute, and not say a word for an hour or two, until people are about; the hare-and-hounds principle, in fact. But I don't mean to do that either.'
Miles raised his eyes, and at last broke his silence.
'You are arbitrary,' he sneered. 'May I ask what is the special quality of torture you have reserved for me? I am interested to know.'
'I shall name a condition,' replied Dick firmly—'a single condition—on which, so far as I am concerned, you may impose on the public until some one else unmasks you.'
'I don't believe you!'
'You have not heard my condition. I am in earnest.'
'I wouldn't believe you on oath!'
'And why?'
'Because you owe me a grudge,' said Miles, speaking rapidly—'because it is in your interest to see me go under.'
'My condition provides for all that.'
'Let me hear it, then.'
'First tell me how you came to know the Bristos.'
Miles gave Dick substantially the same story that he had already learned from Alice.
'Now listen to me,' said Dick. 'Instead of squatter you were bushranger. You had been in England a day or two instead of a month or two, and you had set foot in Sussex only; instead of masquerading as a fisherman you wore your own sailor's clothes, in which you swam ashore from your ship.'
'Well guessed!' said Miles ironically.
'A cleverer thing was never done,' Dick went on, his tone, for the moment, not wholly free from a trace of admiration. 'Well, apart from that first set of lies, your first action in England was a good one. That is one claim on leniency. The account you have given me of it is quite true, for I heard the same thing from one whose lips, at least, are true!'
These last words forced their way out without his knowledge until he heard them.
'Ah!' said Miles.
An involuntary subdual of both voices might have been noticed here; it was but momentary, and it did not recur.
Dick Edmonstone took his hands from his pockets, drew nearer to Miles, slowly beat his left palm with his right fist, and said:
'My condition is simply this: you are to go near the Bristos no more.'
If this touched any delicate springs in the heart of Miles, their workings did not appear in his face. He made no immediate reply; when it came, there was a half-amused ring in his speech:
'You mean to drive a hard bargain.'
'I don't call it hard.'
'All I possess is in that house. I cannot go far, as I stand; you might as well give me up at once.'
'I see,' said Dick musingly. 'No; you are to have an excellent chance. I have no watch on me: have you? No? Well, it can't be more than one now, or two at the latest, and they keep up these dances till dawn—or they used to. Then perhaps you had better go back to the house now. Button-hole the Colonel; tell him you have had a messenger down from town—from your agent. You can surely add a London agent to your Queensland station and your house in Sydney! Well, affairs have gone wrong on this station of yours—drought, floods—anything you like; you have received an important wire; you are advised, in fact, to start back to Queensland at once. At any rate, you must pack up your traps and leave Graysbrooke first thing in the morning. You are very sorry to be called back so suddenly—they are sorrier still to lose you; but Australia and England are so close now, you are sure to be over again some day—and all the rest of it; but you are never to go near them again. Do you agree?'
'What is the alternative?'
'Escape from here dressed like that if you can! You will breakfast in gaol. At best you will be hunted for a week or two, and then taken miserably—there is no bush in England; whereas I offer you freedom with one restriction.'
'I agree,' said Miles, hoarsely.
'Very good. If you keep your word, Sundown the bushranger is at the bottom of the sea, for all I know; if you break it, Sundown the bushranger is a lost man. Now let us leave this place.'
Dick led the way from the plantation, with his hands again deep in his pockets.
Miles followed, marvelling. Marvelling that he, who had terrorised half Australia, should be dictated to by this English whelp, and bear it meekly; wondering what it all meant. What, to begin with, was the meaning of this
