"And you agreed with me?"
"I said I thought——"
"You said you thought! Well, never mind; I call him sane—practically; only under a delusion. But we will test him. You charge me with being a certain Australian bushranger, Mr. Edmonstone. Of course you have some evidence?"
An awkward sensation came over Dick: a consciousness that he had committed a mistake, and a mistake that was giving the enemy a momentary advantage. He choked with rage and indignation: but for the moment he could find no words. Evidence? He had the evidence of his senses; but it was true that he had no corroborative evidence at hand.
The bushranger's eyes glittered with a reckless light. He knew that the sides were too uneven to play this game long. He felt that he was a free man if he quietly accepted fate as he had accepted it before at this man's hands. The odds were overwhelming; but he was seized with a wild desire to turn and face them; to turn upon his contemptible foe and treat him as he should have treated him in the beginning. It might cost him his liberty—his life—but it was worth it! The old devilry had sprung back into being within him. He was desperate—more desperate, this half-hour, than ever in the whole course of his desperate existence. His life had seemed worth having during the past weeks of his cowardice; now it was valueless—more valueless than it had been before. He was at bay, and he realised it. His brain was ablaze. He had played the docile Miles too long. Wait a moment, and he would give them one taste of the old Sundown!
"At least," he sneered in a low, suppressed voice, "you have someone behind you with a warrant? No? Nothing but your bare word and the dim recollection of years ago? That, my friend, seems hardly enough. Ah, Colonel, I'm glad you are there. Is there any truth in this message that has been given me, that you have had enough of me?"
"I wish you to go," said Colonel Bristo, sternly. "I wash my hands of you. Why refuse a chance of escape?"
"What! Do you mean to say you believe this maniac's cock-and-bull yarn about me?" He pointed jauntily at Dick with his forefinger. But the hand lowered, until the forefinger covered the corner of white handkerchief peeping from Edmonstone's breast-pocket. For a moment Miles seemed to be making some mental calculation; then his hand dropped, and trifled with his watch-chain.
"I believe every word that he has told me," declared the Colonel solemnly. "As to warrants, they are not wanted where there is to be no arrest. We are not going to lay hands on you. Then go!"
"Go!" echoed Edmonstone hoarsely. "And I wish to God I had done my duty the night I found you out! You would have been in proper hands long before this."