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Rh on the medicine chest, and keeps a carbine on his pillow. I warn any here who may be burglariously inclined that those diamonds are not to be filched without bloodshed."

"And my waking hours are made hideous by Lord Waveryng's reproaches for my carelessness," said Lady Waveryng plaintively: "and my dreams are haunted by troops of past and future Waveryngs bewailing the loss of those historic jewels."

"Are they really historic? and are they really so valuable, my lady?" put in Trant in that rather obsequious manner which had annoyed Elsie at first, and now jarred on Lady Waveryng.

"They are certainly historic," she answered, curtly; "though I can't say it is much to the credit of the family, since the finest of them were a present from Charles II. to a fair, but frail, Lady Betty, who was an ancestress of my husband's, and they are supposed to have been part of the Crown jewels. They are considered valuable by connoisseurs."

"Well," said Captain Macpherson, "if it will relieve your mind, my lady, I am expecting a company of four troopers from over the border to meet me here to night; and they'll take your diamonds in charge and start with them at daybreak to morrow for Goondi, where they will deposit them safe, in the Bank, till you go back to Leichardt's Town.—What is the matter, Trant?"

Trant had risen and was peering over the palisading of the high verandah out into the night, palely illuminated by a moon nearing its full.

"Only I thought I heard something in the creepers—a snake, perhaps. They are beginning to come out now. Are you quite wise, by the way, to talk openly about the diamonds and your plans for taking them to the Bank? How do you know, for instance, that Moonlight has not got a scout among the blacks that are hanging round for this corroboree?"

"Oh, nonsense!" exclaimed Captain Macpherson. "That isn't likely." But he looked startled by Trant's suggestion,