'I'm afraid that would do no good, Jack,' said Hastings, whose concern, not so freely expressed, was as deep and sincere as that of Lance's faithful partner. 'I see no reason though, Trevanion, why you shouldn't be out in a week. However, all this is deucedly annoying and vexatious. Still we must be patient. Queer things happen on a goldfield. You remember my plight when first we made acquaintance?'

'Annoying!' replied Trevanion, slowly turning his frowning face, in which the lurid passion-light of his gloomy eyes had commenced to burn. 'Why in the world should I have been selected by Providence for this damnable injustice? I feel already as if I was disgraced irrevocably. How can I ever show my face among my equals again after having been arrested, handcuffed, charged with felony, locked up like a criminal? Great God! when I think of it all I wonder why I don't go mad!'

'It's no use getting excited over it,' said Hastings. 'The thing is to do all that we can, not to think or talk about it over-much. Stirling will be here to-morrow. He could not come to-day, but will leave his bank before the stars are out of the sky to-morrow, and will be here by breakfast-time. He could not come to-day because of business. We will see about your witnesses and manage to get a lawyer up from Melbourne in time. Keep up your spirits. There are dozens of men, and women too, that can prove an alibi. If my claim was as good as yours I'd swap places cheerfully with you.'

'Don't be too sure of that,' returned Lance with a sardonic smile. 'I have a kind of presentiment that evil will come of this business. Why, I know not, but still the feeling haunts me. Well, Jack, we never thought of this on board the Red Jacket when we were so jolly, eh?'

'Just to think of it,' exclaimed Jack, with the tears running down his honest face. 'And never a Trevanion in a prison before since that king—I can't mind his name—shut up one of them in the old Tower of London and cut his head off. But that was dying like a gentleman—that ever I should have lived to see this! I could never show my face at Wychwood or St. Austell's again.'

'Why, Jack, you're about as foolish as your—master, I was nearly saying—as your mate there, at any rate. Why, Lance is not even committed for trial. All sorts of things may happen in the meantime. Must happen; must happen. Now, we must say good-bye, Lance. I'll send you in some books. I don't see many about. For God's sake, keep up your spirits.'

The time fixed for the remand having expired, Lance and his fellow-prisoner, Ned Lawless, were brought up for their preliminary trial. All necessary arrangements had been completed; no further reason existed for delay either on the part of the Crown or of the prisoners.

The sergeant was quite ready with his witnesses; Stirling and Hastings had secured the services of the celebrated Mr. England, the great criminal lawyer, about whose capacity the general miners' opinion, as expressed on the occasion, ran thus: 'Well, if England don't get him off, nobody will.'

These important preliminaries having been settled, the crowd waited with impatience mingled with a certain satisfaction that so important a trial was really to come off and not to be strangled in its infancy, like many promising legal melodramas to which they had looked forward. There would be no mistake about this one at any rate. Sergeant Dayrell had come down in full uniform from the camp at an early hour. The show would be on soon after the clock struck ten.

At that hour punctually Mr. M'Alpine took his seat upon the bench. In five minutes the court was crowded. After the ordinary business two men were marched in with a policeman on either side and placed in the dock. They were Lance Trevanion and Edward Lawless. The latter looked calmly around at the crowd as if there was no particular occasion for seriousness of mien. His mental attitude was easily comprehended by those of his compatriots who were present, whatever might be thought by the emigrant miners who were so visibly in the majority. Ned had played for a heavy stake—he had staked his liberty on the hazard and lost. If he had won there was a matter of two or three thousand pounds—indeed more—in the pool. That would have set him up in a decent-sized cattle station capable of indefinite development. It was a fair risk. He had taken it knowingly and with his eyes open. Now that he had lost, as the cards had been against him, there was nothing for it but to pay up. It would be three years' gaol, or perhaps five at the outside.