“Oh, Tom,” she whispered, “oh, Tom—” “Hush, dear, hush—here they come.” They came trooping in with coarse jokes and rough horseplay, bearing with them spoils from Lydia Warner’s well-filled storeroom, among them an unopened case of battle-axe brandy. This was the centre of attraction. For a moment even the man on guard craned his neck to watch, as the leader of the gang, the man they called the Mopoke, produced a chisel and a hammer and proceeded to open it.
Their prisoners took the opportunity to whisper together, Mrs. Warner joining her stepdaughter and Hollis.
“What can we do, Tom, oh, what can we do? They are beginning to drink now, and—”
“Slip away if you can, you and Bessie.” “No, no, they will shoot you—besides, we can’t.”
Bessie was binding up his wrist, and Mrs. Warner, bending over it, seemed to be giving her advice. The bushrangers had opened the case and were knocking off the heads of the bottles and drinking the brandy out of tea-cups, but the Mopoke looked over his shoulder almost as if he had heard them, and briefly reminded them that he held Hollis responsible, and that if any of them “sneaked off” he ‘d shoot Hollis “an’ make no bones about it, for we ain’t a-come here to be lagged.”
“Nevertheless,” muttered Hollis, “one of you must go—Bessie, I think. They’ll be mad with drink soon, and once drink’s in them there’s no knowing what they ‘ll do to any of us—go, dear, go—”
“I can’t, I can’t.” The girl’s hands were trembling, as she bound her handkerchief round his wrist, and the tears were in her eyes. Creep away to safety and leave him to die—how could she!
He said again, “Go, Bessie, go, they’ll never miss you; it’s really our only chance—you don’t know what they’ll do by and by.”
“Lydia, you go.” Bessie slipped her hand into Hollis’s uninjured one and held it tight. Even in his anxiety and misery he felt in her clasp, he read in her eyes, a something that had not been there half an hour ago. Oh, to be safe once more, to be free to woo and win her.
“I can’t leave the children,” said Mrs. Warner; “the Campbell girls are no good, and besides, Tom wants you to go, don’t you, Tom?”