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74 "No, it won't," said Lord Horace. "I shall drag the voters in—your voters at least."

Elsie ate her breakfast listlessly. Hallett looked at her with anxious eyes.

"You look as if you hadn't slept. And you don't seem so tremendously interested in Moonlight as I thought you would be."

"Yes," she answered, "I am—tremendously interested. Was anybody hurt?"

"Moonlight has never yet shed blood," said Hallett; "and as for the bushrangers, Etheridge says that the bullets glanced off them. He let the police fire. They weren't prepared, and before they had time to reload, Moonlight and his men had closed in on them, and the whole thing was up. They were found gagged and tied to gum-trees by a selector who started early this morning to vote. The gold had gone, and there wasn't a trace of the bushrangers to be seen."

Outside the hotel the mob had become uproarious.

"It's Blake holding forth. You'll hear 'The Wearing of the Green' presently. Come along, Horace. Let us see what they are up to," said Hallett. He was very pale. Elsie went out with Ina into the balcony. It was the same voice that she had listened to the evening before.

"Yes—it's Blake haranguing his wild Irishmen," Hallett said.

Elsie could hear the voice, but she could not see the man. She could tell by the murmurs of the crowd that it was a large crowd and deeply interested. The sensation was curious and intense. The hush was something almost painful during each sentence of the speaker, and then the wild shriek of applause seemed as if it broke irrepressible out of the very heart of the listeners.

"Blake won't let his fellows forget all about the election, even in the excitement about Moonlight and the robbery," Hallett quietly observed. "He's a better tactician than we are." This was the very thought that had been passing through Elsie's somewhat distracted mind.