is done, and I promise I’ll see you again.’

‘But Da—’

‘Not another word,’ he says softly. ‘You don’t know me.’

Your heart is burning and fizzing like water on a hot pan. You can see the sense in what Da’s saying – if you go with him, you would become an outlaw; if you stay and work, you’ll earn legitimate freedom. But can you really take the chance of never seeing him again?

‘Who are you?’ the master asks. ‘I demand to know your true identity!’

‘Who is Captain Shadow?’ Da chuckles. ‘Oh, all the redcoats with their nooses and guns would love to know too, as would the journalists, and the Governor himself. I’m a dead man. I’m a free man. That is all you need to know.’

You suddenly realise that you know how you can force Da to take you with him – by threatening, here and now in front of everybody, to reveal his true identity!

It would be an irreversible choice. This life would be over, and you would live the rest of your life in defiance of the system, always fighting to stay one step ahead of the hangman’s noose.

Or you can say nothing, and have the life you planned: a ticket of leave, and eventually a house, job and family of your own choosing.

Will you threaten to reveal the identity of Captain Shadow and force Da to kidnap you?

If you threaten to reveal Da’s identity so that you can join the Shadow Gang, go to scene 33.

If you keep working towards your ticket of leave and let Da go for now, go to scene 35.

To read a fact file on Matthew Brady, a real-life Tasmanian bushranger who escaped from Macquarie Harbour click here, then return to this page to make your choice.

You take a deep breath, and say loudly from the floor, ‘I know who you are, Captain Shadow.’

Sarah gasps and wriggles next to you. Your da whirls on his heel. The other bushrangers raise their guns and take aim at you. The master looks gobsmacked.

‘Take me with you, or I’ll reveal who you are right now,’ you demand. You hear the click of muskets preparing to shoot.

‘Hold your fire!’ orders your da.

The other bushrangers glance at each other, bewildered.

‘It’s a rough life,’ says Da, his blue eyes steadily meeting yours. ‘Not one I’d wish for anyone’s daughter.’

Da doesn’t want to reveal his relationship to you, as it would give away his identity, but you know he’s warning you of the hardships to come.

‘It’s what I want,’ you say clearly. ‘To hell with them and their chains.’

Your da sighs audibly, but his blue eyes crinkle with his proud Irish grin. ‘We’re taking your servant-girl,’ he announces to the master as he unties you from the others and hauls you to your feet. ‘And I’ll wager she’s braver, faster and smarter than the whole Shadow Gang combined. So if any of you mugs think you can track her down, that’ll be the last thought ever to pass through your mind. If you’re quiet, the Shadow Gang takes only your gold – but speak of this to anyone, and we return to take your life.’

You leave the house, and it feels like you’re stepping out from under a heavy shell you’ve been made to carry. You hitch up your weighty skirts, and your petticoat with the bracelet still sewn into its hem, and you swing your legs over the hot, dusty flanks of Da’s horse.

Oh, the feeling of a horse cantering beneath you! It’s as if, since you arrived in Van Diemen’s Land, you’ve been living a half life – an obedient, paper-cut-out life – but now, riding with Da’s arm around you, your heart floods, your body comes back to life, and you remember. You remember the fresh fields of Ireland, the flowers, your sister, and the songs your granny used to sing. You can’t help but sing one aloud as you ride:

‘Oh, the girl, she was brave, and bright as the sun …

‘… and none who tried could catch her.

‘For her heart, it was filled with the song that it sung …

‘… of freedom, freedom forever.’

DA’S CAMP IS deep in the bush, three hours’ ride from Bothwell. Your bed will be a hessian sack stuffed with grass; your bath, the cold stream; and your only friends for now, Da and the six bushrangers in his gang.

You wish you could have brought Sarah with you, but you don’t know if she’d like this tough life, and you know that eventually – in eight more years, when she’s eligible – she will gain her ticket of leave and marry her beau Mike from Wapping. You hope that she will be happy. She certainly deserves to be.

Da’s horse comes to a halt, and he swings you down from the saddle. ‘This is it, at least for the next few days until we move on,’ he says, as he leads you through the trees towards some canvas tents and a circle of rocks, where one of the bushrangers has begun to light a fire. ‘Home of the Shadow Gang.’

To continue with the story, go to scene 34.

Da sits you down by the fire and introduces you to the bushranging gang. They seem delighted to learn that you are their captain’s long-lost daughter.

‘This boy here is Jimmy McMahon,’ says Da, gesturing. The bushranger sitting nearest you tugs down his red handkerchief to reveal a boyish face barely old enough for shaving, framed by a shock of raven-black hair. ‘Jimmy’s a wiry little runt, but he can run like the wind. We call him Dash.

‘This here’s Stephen Everett, or Wombat, as he’s known. What he doesn’t know about survival in the bush isn’t worth knowing. We owe our escape from Macquarie Harbour to him – and of course to Lewis “One-Shot” Fletcher here, who needs only one

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