She was frightened, and argued with him, and begged him to let her bring Nick, but he roughly refused.
She had to come alone—to his hut up the gully—after dusk that evening, and he pledged himself to give her the proof of Nick’s innocence. Then they parted, and I went on to the claim, a good deal disturbed in my mind.
I was afraid, that if I told Nick, there would be murder done, but I was determined Nan should not go to that villain’s hut, without my being somewhere within earshot.
I skulked about the Postmaster’s house till after sunset, and it was almost dark when I saw Nan come out, looking very pale and very frightened, but with the steadfast, resolute look in her face, that I knew meant she wasn’t to be turned from her purpose. I felt easier about things when I saw her stop and take a little pistol from her belt, look at it, and hide it away again under her jacket. Nan was a brave woman, but she was not blindly foolhardy.
I followed her to Rummles’ hut. I knew he had a mate, and he was by way of working hard, but I felt pretty sure he would have got rid of his mate that evening, and it turned out that he had.
He met Nan outside his hut, and he tried to make her go in, but she refused. She was very quiet and gentle, and she talked to him, as she might have done if she had been his sister.
He must have had a bad heart, indeed, not to be touched by the way she begged him, to be true to anything that was good in him, and to turn over a new leaf, and lead a worthy life. And then she promised him that she would always be his friend, and that she and Nick would do everything in their power to help him.
He listened to her for a bit, and then, when she begged him to give her the proofs he had promised her, he came closer to her, and broke out into a wild declaration of love; he told her he couldn’t live without her, abused Nick, and implored her to throw Nick over and run away with him.
I don’t know what idea he had in his mind about carrying her off.
Anyhow, he wasn’t given the chance of trying the experiment. Directly his arm went out to draw Nan to him, there was a dash and a scuffle, and before I could fling myself forward, as I had been about to do on Nan’s behalf, I saw that another man had darted from the shadow of the hut, on the opposite side to where I had hidden myself, and that it was Nick who was wrestling with his enemy, and who finally flung him to the ground.