That letter also found a place in the Beacon. Afterwards I received in all some half-a-dozen communications from the notorious bushranger, varying in details, but all of a similar purport—their object to correct some blunder or misrepresentation on the part of the public press. All these communications found a place in the paper. I saw no harm in thus inserting them. Some of my readers did not hesitate to accuse me of aiding and abetting the bushrangers by the publication of Frank Gardiner’s letters, alleging that they were merely blinds to lead the police off the real track. But I reasoned that, even if this were the case, the ruse was so simple and transparent a one, that the police were not in the least likely to fall into it. But I did not think that Gardiner had any such purpose in sending the letters. I believed that their meaning was on the surface, though it sometimes struck me that, over and above this, the bushranger was himself aware in some degree of the humour of the situation, and that his sense of this sometimes shaped the wording of his letters. Most of the townspeople took my view of the matter, and laughed at the thing; and the circulation of the Beacon in nowise suffered.
I had received, I say, about half-a-dozen of Mr Gardiner’s communications, covering a space of ten or twelve weeks, when an event occurred. I was sitting in my little room about eleven o’clock at night; I had just finished some correspondence-work connected with the paper, and had just lighted a cigar and settled back into my chair with a Homeric sigh of relief, when there was a knock at the door; and the next moment, without waiting for the least countersign of any sort, a figure entered. I tipped my chair back until I very nearly lost my balance at the unexpected aspect presented by my unceremonious visitor—a tall, athletic man with a shaggy, light-coloured beard, dressed in ordinary bushman’s garb, pistols in his belt, and a carbine at his back, his face hidden by a mask. Such outwardly was my visitor—a sufficiently awkward and disquieting figure thus suddenly to present itself at the dead of night to a harmless country editor armed with no fire-weapon more deadly than a cigar. My first thought was how the fellow had got into the house; but this and all other thoughts were quickly dispersed by my new friend addressing me: “Good-evening, Mr Fellgate.”
“Good-evening, Mr—— I beg your pardon; you have the advantage of me.”
“I’ve a little bit of business with you—never mind my name. I would have sent up my card, but I’ve forgotten my card-case.”
This symptom of a vein of humour—thin as it was—in my guest, reassured me a little.
“I am very much at your service, I am sure,” I replied. “Anything I can do to”——
“That’s it, boss. I was sure you wouldn’t cut up anyway rough about the business; and we on our side ’ll try to make it pleasant all round for you. Well, the business simply is that you’re to come along with me, Mr Fellgate; and the sooner we’re off, the better for all parties.”
I did not quite expect this, and my visitor’s proposal had no great charms.
“You mean that I am to accompany you, wherever you are going to, now—at once?”
“That’s it. That’s my order. So hurry up, Mr Editor; and just think of others besides yourself. My neck’s half-way in the halter at this blessed moment.”