“Tell the jury all that you heard them say and all that you saw them do in the cave?”
“I had returned from exploring a long passage in the limestone rock, when I heard voices and saw a bright light in the main cave. For reasons of my own, I did not desire to be discovered; therefore, I crept forward till I lay on a sort of gallery which overlooked the scene. Four men were grouped round a fire at which they were drying their clothes, and by the light of the flames they divided a large quantity of gold which, from their conversation, I learned they had stolen from men whom they had murdered. They described the method of the murders; each man boasting of the part he had played. They had stuck up a gold-escort, and had killed four men, one of whom was a constable and another a banker.”
“That was how they described them?”
“That is so. The two remaining murdered men they did not describe as to profession or calling.”
“You say that you had previously met these fiends. What were their names?”
“They called each other by what appeared to be nicknames. One, the leader, was Dolly; another Sweet William, or simply William; the third was Carny, or Carnac; the fourth Garstang. But how far these were their real names I am unable to say.”
“Where did you first meet them?”
“In The Lucky Digger. I played for money with them, and lost considerably.”
“When next did you meet them?”
“Some weeks afterwards I saw two of them—the leader, known as Dolphin, or Dolly, and the youngest member of the gang, named William.”