from?"

"Yes," she said.

"From the Island," his head was jerked in the direction of the sea. "You're the first soul I've spoken to since we escaped except him, and he's been raving mad most of the time. You and I've got to do some talking, ma'am."

He looked about the room, lifted Donald's chair and set it before her. He had recovered his self-possession, was readjusting his plans.

"Yes?" she said.

"You know, we meant to get all the food and clothes we wanted from this hut," he said harshly. "We watched you all day from the trees and thought a man would be coming home after sundown. We didn't mean to let you off if you screamed and brought him before we'd got what we wanted.... The dog's dead. Did you know? I killed him, caught him by the throat behind the shed?"

"But that was a pity!" she cried, a note of distress in her voice.

"Pity?" He leaned forward. "But we can't afford to have pity. I saw you sitting spinning in the sun, singing to the child. My heart turned in me to see you like the women at home. But that would not have saved you. Starving men, fighting for our lives we were. Wild beasts. Pity? What pity's been shown to us? Do y' know what it means to have felt the lash, and made your escape from Port Arthur, swimming the bay at Eaglehawks' Neck, wrapped in kelp, cheating the bloodhounds chained a few yards from each other across the Neck, and the sentry who'd shoot you like a dog if he saw you? Do y' know what it was like, crawling from one end of the Island to the other in the bush at night with only a native to guide you ... not knowing whether he was going to spear you, or run you into the tribe ... making your way in a cockle-shell of a boat in the open sea without any mariner's tools at all, and only a keg of water and a bit of 'possum skin to chew to keep the life in you?

"No, you don't know! How could you?" He paused a moment, and continued desperately: "And it's no good my trying to tell you; Steve got a crack on his head the night we escaped. He was mad with thirst in the boat. I was near it myself ... and I had all the work to do, pulling and straining my eyes for the land. We had to keep out of sight of other boats too, and the Government sloop going between Port Southern and Hobart Town, for fear we'd be seen, picked up and sent back. Months of scheming it took to get so far! I'd picked up the lay of the land near the Port and the way to get about in the country beyond, from sailors. It was a man who'd got as far as the coast and had been sent back told me to look for the muddy river-water in the sea and get up the river at night. We wanted to make the Wirree because there is a man—lives near the river—we'd heard would give us food and shelter, or help us to get away to the hills.

"We got to the river and had to be low in the bush all day till night came again. Then I went up through the trees to a wooden house we could see among other houses that were all mud, or mud and stones. It was McNab's shanty. We'd got a sailor to take a letter through to him, saying we were coming and to be on the look out for us. And I'd got a message from McNab telling us how to get to him, what sort of man he was to look at, and saying he was willing to help us get away on condition that when we got on our feet we'd make it up to him—of course we had to pay on the spot too. And we'd got a bit to do it with. I've heard them say on the Island he's making his fortune, McNab....

"They say there are men in this country now—well off, holding big positions—who pay McNab what he likes because he helped them to get away. They pay because if they don't—no matter who they are, what they're doing—a word from him against them, and back they'd go to the darbies and the cells. But there's a new game now. A reward is out for the capture of escaped convicts."

The weary bitterness of his voice took a sharper edge.

"It was a hot night; I lay low near McNab's, waiting for the chance to tell him we'd come and get the food and clothes he'd promised to have ready for us. It was late.... I waited until there didn't seem anybody about the bar and the lights went out—all but the one in a room at the side. Then I got tired of waiting and crept up to the shanty and lay flat against the wall, hoping to see if the way was clear and I could get a word with McNab.... The wall was not thick, and there was a crack in it. I could see into that room with the light. McNab was there, and the trooper from Port Southern with him. Under his coat, I could make out his uniform. A bottle of rum made the talk go easy between them, and I heard the plan they were making. It was that M'Laughlin should not keep too close a watch for 'travellers' from the Island—be too keen on their scent—and McNab should play friendly to them and tell M'Laughlin of their whereabouts when they thought they were getting off finely. He was to arrest them, and the pair of them would share the reward. Steve and I were expected. We were to be first victims."

Mary's exclamation of pity and horror comforted him. The compassion of her eyes banished the evil, mirthless smile from his.

"I got back to Steve," he said more quietly. "He was almost too ill to walk. He understood though that we would not be troubling McNab, when I told him what had happened, and was quiet—though he had been moaning and crying all day. It was because of his fever I was afraid to leave him again, or to try to get food in the township. So we started for the ranges. But we hadn't gone far when he gave out and I had to carry him. I wanted to get him away from the tracks where the sound of his raving could be heard, and so we've been in the hills ever since—nearly ten days it must be. This was the first clearing we sighted since we saw the Wirree and we had to get what we could out of it, or die in our tracks. I'm talking sane enough now, but I was almost as mad as Steve—with hunger and rage at the thought of being taken again and serving to get reward money for McNab, when we came to the door, here...."

He hesitated.

"It was the sight of you ... looking like the Mother of God with the child in your arms ... saved me."

"I'll give you all the food and clothes I can," she said.

"Ma'am "—his voice trembled. Then he said roughly: "You're not playing the Thad McNab game?"

Her eyes met his.

"Do you think so?" she asked. "Davey and I, a fine pair we are to play a game with you."

"You think it's the easiest way to get rid of us—to give us what we ask for?"

She nodded, smiling.

"You are afraid, then?"

"Not for myself—but for you."

There was no wavering in her eyes. "I was not wanting my husband to find you here. He might think it was his duty to send word back to the Port. He might...."

"He'd try."

"Yes, he'd try. But you've got a sick man to think of and you're at the end of your strength yourself. Donald's a strong man, and he has no love for desperate characters." A flickering smile played about her mouth. "You must be gone before he returns. You can rest here to-morrow and then you would be better going. You can read the stick by the door. The cross marks the day he went, it will be five days since then to-morrow, and he may be back on the sixth, or the seventh day."

The man looked from her to the sapling pole by the door, counted the notches on it and his eyes returned to her.

"You've heard naught good of convicts that you should be treating me so," he said.

"No, it's terrible tales, I've heard of the things they do, and the things that are done to them."

A shadow had fallen on her face.

"None too terrible for the truth," he said.

"They tell me—it was a man in Melbourne told me—it is the life makes them desperate," she cried. "Men who have been sent out for quite little things, become—"

"Dead to shame," he said, "men who would kill a woman who has served them as you have served us, for fear when they'd gone she would betray them—send her men and the black bloodhounds