A light flashed through the trees into his eyes: a tongue of flame from some camp-fire.
Tom listened. No voices reached his ears save those of the nocturnal bush. The fire was farther off than he had thought.
He got up, and first walked, then crept, towards the light. The colony was infested with bands of bushrangers. What if here were one, and this corpse their handiwork? Now Tom thought of it, one particular and most notorious band had been depredating this very part of the country ever since the New Year. He had heard envious reports of the villains in the convicts’ huts at Castle Sullivan, and especially had he heard of their terrible Italian chief, said to be an outlawed brigand come to seek fresh fortunes in New South Wales. Of the merciless ferocity of this free alien the most horrifying stories were afloat. Yet the worst of these but feebly expressed one who shot men from behind, stripped their corpses, and tore the very rings from their ears.
Tom crept near the fire in a personal fright curiously exhilarating in its intensity. He might almost have been a free man once more—worth robbing—worth murdering for his money. The novel sensation brought back a momentary whiff of unconscious self-respect. It was just the little thought of having a life worth taking once more; of being anything to anybody but a beaten dog; and it came and went and was forgotten in the same moment.
The next, he was gazing on a curious scene; and his fears were also at an end.
In the light of the camp-fire four men were sitting solemnly at whist; and three faces more innocently
