“It is merely this: The boat from Batavia, which arrived yesterday, brought a considerable amount of specie for the payment of the troops here. I know that you have been promoted to the rank of pay-sergeant, and that you have been ordered to sleep on a camp-bed in the office where the safe containing the money is placed.”
“What of that?” inquired Frederick.
“I want you to allow yourself to be surprised to-morrow night, when I and a few of my ‘pals’ will creep in by the window and take a look at the safe with some profit to ourselves. There will be no danger for you, as we shall tie you down to your bed and gag you, so as to convince the authorities that it was no fault of yours if the money is gone. The only thing I want for you to do is not to give an alarm when you hear us coming.”
Frederick began by firmly refusing to have anything to do with the matter. But upon Renier, who had nothing more to lose, threatening him to make public the fact that he was nothing more than an escaped convict under sentence to penal servitude for murder, and as such extraditable, he gave way and promised to do what he was asked in return for a share in the proceeds of the robbery.
On the following night some six or seven figures might have been seen creeping noiselessly through the gardens of the bungalow, on the first floor of which were located the paymaster's offices. The leader of the gang, having climbed up on the roof of the veranda, followed by two of his men, gently pushed open a window which had been left ajar. A moment later two pistol-shots rang out in rapid succession, followed by a loud cry. A second afterward another shot was heard.
HOW HE RID HIMSELF OF ONE BURDEN.
Immediately the whole place was in an uproar. On entering the room the officers found Frederick Gavard, the pay-sergeant, standing guard over the safe, while near the window lay stretched the dead body of the deserter, Charles Renier, and on the roof of the veranda outside lay another corpse, also of a deserter, shot through the head. In the garden and on the flower-beds were traces of numerous footsteps, showing that the house had been attacked by a large gang.
Six weeks afterward the troops at Padang were formed into a square, and the officer in command of the place summoned the pay-sergeant, Frederick Gavard, from the ranks, and pinned on his breast the silver cross which had been conferred upon him by the Governor-General of the East Indies for his gallantry in defending the treasure chest of the cantonment against heavy odds.