"Escape from here dressed like that if you can! You will breakfast in gaol. At best you will be hunted for a week or two, and then taken miserably—there is no bush in England; whereas I offer you freedom with one restriction."
"I agree," said Miles, hoarsely.
"Very good. If you keep your word, Sundown the bushranger is at the bottom of the sea, for all I know; if you break it, Sundown the bushranger is a lost man. Now let us leave this place."
Dick led the way from the plantation, with his hands again deep in his pockets.
Miles followed, marvelling. Marvelling that he, who had terrorised half Australia, should be dictated to by this English whelp, and bear it meekly; wondering what it all meant. What, to begin with, was the meaning of this masterly plan for an honourable exit? which was, in fact, a continuation of his own falsehood. Why had not this young fellow—who had every reason to hate him, independently of to-night's discovery—quietly brought the police and watched him taken in cold blood? There would have been nothing underhand in that; it was, in fact, the only treatment that any criminal at large would expect at the hands of the average member of society—if he fell into those hands. Then why had not this been done? What tie or obligation could possibly exist between this young Edmonstone and Sundown the Australian bushranger?
The night was at its darkest when they reached the avenue; so dark that they crossed into the middle of the broad straight road, where the way was clearest. Straight in front of them burned the lamps of the gateway, like two yellow eyes staring through a monstrous crape mask. They seemed to be walking in a valley between two long, regular ranges of black mountains with curved and undulating tops—only that the mountains wavered in outline, and murmured from their midst under the light touch of the sweet mild breeze.
They walked on in silence, and watched the deep purple fading slowly but surely before their eyes, and the lights ahead growing pale and sickly.
Miles gave expression to the thought that puzzled him most:
"For the life of me, I can't make out why you are doing this" (he resented the bare notion of mercy, and showed it in his tone). "With you in my place and I in yours——"
Dick stopped in his walk, and stopped Miles also.