"From the bottom of my heart."
"Suppose you were wrong?"
"I would move heaven and earth."
"Then jump on your horse!"
"Why?"
"I'm coming with you—to the police-barracks!"
It was like a dream. Moya could have rubbed her eyes, and soon had to do so, for they were full of tears. She sobbed her thanks; she flung out both hands to press them home. The convict waited grimly at her horse's head.
"Better wait and see what comes of it," said he. "And think yourself lucky worse hasn't come of it yet! I'm not thinking of myself; do you know where you are? Do you know that this is Blind Man's Block? Haven't you heard about it? Then you should thank your stars you've a good old bushman to lead you out; for it's like getting out of a maze, I can tell you; and if you'd been warned, as I was, I don't think you'd have ventured in."
Moya had never realised that it was into Blind Man's Block she had plunged so rashly. Nor did the discovery disturb her now. She was too full of her supreme triumph to dwell for many moments upon any one of the risks that she had run for its accomplishment. Neither did she look too far ahead. She would keep faith with this poor creature; no need to count the cost just yet. Moya set her mind's eye upon the reunion at the police-barracks: her advent as the heroine of a bloodless victory, her intercession for the father, her meeting with the son.
The prospect dazzled her. It had its gravely precarious aspect. But one thing at a time. She had done her best; no ultimate ill could come of it; of that she felt as certain as of the fact that she was sitting in her saddle and blindly following an escaped criminal through untrodden wilds.