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282 “Dear me!” again remarked the major, whose expression was rendered inscrutable by the rich shade of the gigantic umbrella without which he rarely ventured abroad. His small, shrewd eyes glanced from the visitor to Tom, who was still looking down, and fidgeting with his pick, the speaking image of sullen guilt. More repulsive to the major was the gloating ruffian in the saddle; but he signed to the sentry to take away Tom’s pick, and then favoured the other with a slow, contemplative stare.

“A very singular thing, I’m sure,” he resumed, with a sarcastic intonation that punctured even Nat’s thick skull. “Very singular indeed. Upon my word, Mr. Sullivan,” exclaimed the major, “I find it difficult to believe what you say!”

“Sir!”

“Or, if you like, to understand it.”

“If you will allow me to say the rest, and to say it elsewhere—”

“No, sir. Here!” cried Major Honeybone. “Here or nowhere, which you please. This man absconds one night—so I gather—and the next night you are attacked by bushrangers. This man is found the morning after that, and I understand you to suggest he was one of the band that attacked you. Yet you never recognised him at the time! Come now, did none of you?”

“Not then; but he threatened my sister and a female whom we have since returned, and Miss Sullivan remembers hearing him call the female by her name. Now this man and that woman kept company,” snarled Nat, in a perfect flame of rage and spite; “and Miss Sullivan will swear he called the woman by her name. He fell in with the thieves when he absconded, it’s perfectly