He took a hundred mortal wounds;

As mute as fox mid mangling hounds.

And when he died, his parting groan

Had more of laughter than of moan!

The loud baying of a dog awoke the desperadoes concealed in the cavern. It was broad daylight, and they quickly discovered that the outlet to their retreat was beset. In the intervals of the clamour made by their canine assailants, they could hear many human voices, whose expressions denoted their certainty that they had at last tracked the ruffian Foxley and his bloodthirsty band to their harbourage, while the tone of one, who seemed to be in authority, was now distinguishable; who, after stilling the fierce baying of his four-footed allies, demanded if any man present knew what sort of a cave it was. Another voice replied to this enquiry, that it was very large, but had only this one outlet.

Directly afterwards the leader shouted out, “Foxley, we know you are here, and you may as well come out, for we will carry away the hill by handfuls, but what we will have you!”

To this invitation the person addressed made no reply, but busily occupied himself in loading all his fire-arms, in which example he was imitated by his companions, and the whole three now took up positions on one side commanding the entrance, which, it will be remembered, was so low that a man must creep upon all fours to come in.

Again and again the garrison of the cave was hailed, but still preserved an obstinate silence. At last a figure appeared at the opening, worming its way in. The head was hardly well in sight when the reports of three muskets resounded with terrific effect through the cavern. The cap fell off the intruder, which now proved to be merely a long pole, dressed up for the nonce to ascertain the impediments which might offer to freedom of ingress. A loud shout greeted the success of this stratagem by the assailants, and once more Foxley was hailed, to tell him if he did not come out and surrender they would smother him and all his companions with smoke, as they did the rats on board ship.

“You may try that and be damned,” growled the dauntless ruffian m reply.

Nor was it long before dense volumes of smoke filled the hold, rolling in thick, yellow, suffocating masses into every nook and cranny, until the inmates had no resource to preserve their lives; save by lying down flat on their faces and placing mouths and nostrils to the ground. The women were in great fear, but restrained themselves from making any noisy demonstrations of it, and they at length found a spot much more free from this suffocating vapour than any other part of the cavern. Owing to its being placed far back, beyond the narrow slit before mentioned as serving the bushrangers for a chimney, they were much more at ease.

For two hours the fire was kept up. It was then slackened, and voices could again be heard outside: they were speculating upon the probability of any of the marauders being still alive. Presently the former stratagem was repeated; but this time it produced no effect, the bushrangers being apparently determined now not to throw away a charge of ammunition until they should be certain of their mark, and the pole was in consequence shortly withdrawn. A volley of musketry was next discharged through the opening; but the balls rattled idly against the rocky roof of the bushrangers’ fortress, as the latter, being all lying on the floor, and the pieces apparently elevated at their muzzles in firing, all the shot passed harmlessly over them.

Three of the assailants now came creeping in, one of whom was rather before the other two. Foxley sprang to his feet, placed himself beside the entrance without noise, and the instant the man’s head was within his reach, the brass-bound stock of the ruffian’s musket descended upon it with such force that the skull was shattered as absolutely as if it had been but a walnut shell, the blood and brains of the victim flying in the faces of his two compeers, who both uttered cries of pain as McCoy and Smith discharged their pieces at them. But these two either withdrew from the opening immediately or were pulled back by their associates outside, for they disappeared directly, while the dead body of their comrade still cumbered the entrance.

The bushrangers, having now reloaded their pieces, discharged all three of them together at random through the orifice after the fugitives, which served at least to clear their immediate front. The voices were not so distinctly heard any more; but fire was renewed, and the smoke reappeared in greater volume than ever. After some time Foxley went to the split or rift that had as yet proved their salvation by allowing part of the smoke to escape. After looking at it for some time, he motioned McCoy to him, and they both began to fashion some pegs out of the remains of their firewood, and these they drove into various parts of the side so as to form a rude kind of ladder on which the leader soon got. These enabled him to reach a projecting pinnacle that concealed portion of the orifice above them, and he quickly afterwards threw down a quantity of rubbish into the cave and got still higher. At last he was seen or heard no longer for some minutes.

When Foxley made his reappearance he seemed in great joy, and Ralph heard him, addressing one of the girls, say, “Thanks to old Nick, Sophy, we can all get out of this smothering hole as easy as kiss your hand. I’ve been right up to the top, seen all them beggars below, busy heaping more wood on to the fire. But they could not see me, and there’s a gully within a hundred yards of the mouth of the hole. If we could only get there unseen, they might bid us good-bye.”

This news being communicated to Smith and McCoy, the flight began, with Foxley getting up first to help the women, that followed him closely. McCoy was after them, to render any assistance that might be required. Rashleigh came next, loaded with food, and Smith closed the retreat. After the pinnacle or ledge which served them for a landing-place was once gained, the difficulty in ascending was really but very slight, the chasm being wide enough to allow even Ralph, burdened as he was, to squeeze along it; and the angle of inclination was not by any means too steep to walk up.

When Rashleigh reached the top, their female companions were already gone, and the thick shrubs, coupled with the smoke that rolled over the face of the hill and the natural inequalities of the place, effectually concealed them from the view of those beneath, whom they could however hear plainly enough stimulating each other to increased exertion and venting many a bitter execration upon the heads of Foxley and his ruffian fellows.

The bushrangers did not long remain to remark the proceedings of their foes, but took their way to the gully, along which they rapidly passed, nor paused an instant in their headlong haste, until they had placed the hill between themselves and their assailants, whom they soon left far behind them.

They pursued their hurried flight westward with the greatest speed they could exert, nor did they see a single living thing during the whole of that day. At nightfall, deep in the recesses of a darksome and rocky ravine of the mountain, they at length halted and stretched themselves upon the ground to rest, not daring to light any fire for the preparation of food even in this solitude, as fear urged upon them that they might be close pursued, and the gleam of a light in such a waste would immediately attract the attention of those whom they most desired to shun.

In the dead of the night Foxley roared out, “Help! Murder! I am choking . . . Take his hand from my throat. Oh!”

Upon his comrades’ going to his assistance, they found him in a kind of fit, with his eyes wide open, foaming at the mouth, raving incoherent muttering sounds and gnashing his teeth. They obtained some water, by the application of which he partially revived; but he was no sooner able to stand than he got up and ran off at full speed. McCoy directed Smith to look out after our adventurer, and follow them. He then hastened on the tracks of the other, whom they all thought had gone mad.

Smith now, by blows and curses, compelled Rashleigh to get up and renew the flight, stumbling in the darkness over fallen trees, at times falling into cavities worn by mountain streams, yet not allowed to stay for a single instant by his brutal companions, to whom fear lent wings, because they believed the avengers of blood to be at their heels. Our unhappy adventurer was hurried along for four and twenty hours more through the heart of the mountains; and when, at last, they deemed themselves in a slight degree of safety, they halted on the edge of the valleys of the Comnaroy, at least 140 miles distant from the scene of their last outrage.

As if to add to the discomfort of these guilty wretches, the weather, which had been variable for some time, now settled into a perfect deluge of wet. The loudest peals of heaven-born artillery reverberated through the sky. The forked lightnings played around them upon every side in broad and vivid sheets of flame. The loftiest trees were crashed to the earth, and the rain descended in such torrents that every small level spot was converted into a standing pool.

The houseless wretches, who did not even possess the means of stripping a sheet of bark, the ordinary resource of bushmen in Australia upon such occasions, were now perfectly miserable. Overpowered with the fatigue of their superhuman exertions in the hurried flight, they yet could only rest in a miry pool or snatch brief and dangerous repose by leaning against trees, liable every instant they did so to be hurried into eternity by an explosion of the electric fluid. Firing, of course, was beyond their reach, for had they even succeeded in lighting a scanty flame, it could endure but few moments beneath such torrents of rain as continually were falling. Their scanty clothing was quickly drenched and all their food spoilt, but these they felt to be minor evils compared to the want of repose, which they one and all so much needed. The vilest hovel which could afford them shelter would have been hailed with heartfelt joy as superior to that experienced in the possession of a palace.

There has been an idea prevalent in almost all bygone ages and nearly every country under heaven, that men whose crimes have been so atrocious that they actually seemed to cry aloud to heaven for vengeance, have at length been utterly cast off as unworthy the divine mercy, and that they appear even in this world to feel a foretaste of those torments to which they are doomed, the anguish of which deprives them of reason and renders their ruin more easy and certain.

The Scottish language has at this day a word expressive of the national belief in such a doctrine. It is fey, and is used to designate the conduct of a man who rushes, as it were, upon destruction; and the old Romans used to say, quem deus vult perdere, prius dementat.

To this notion Ralph Rashleigh ever inclined in his after life from having witnessed the conduct of the villain Foxley during those dreadful three days they spent in the Comnaroy swamps. This ruffian, who had by his own account been repeatedly guilty of every crime that stains the decalogue and of others so atrocious that they are not named among Christians, in short, whose soul was so despoiled with blood-stained guilt that it might have dyed the waters of the vast ocean, was here delivered up a prey to the sharpest pangs of remorse. Twenty times in a day would he now exemplify the truth of the sacred word which states that “the wicked flee when no man pursueth”. Often he would seem to have his staring eye-balls fixed on vacancy, until a strong, fierce shuddering came over his whole frame, and he fell to the earth, raving ever that he was being choked, or that dogs were tearing him piecemeal. Then, after the humble means his colleagues in crime possessed had been effectually used for his resuscitation, he would start to his feet and run with frantic speed until his strength was exhausted or his failing limbs struck against some obstacles that hurled him headlong to the ground.

During all this time he spoke not one reasonable word, and if either Smith or McCoy went near him would fix his unspeakably wild eyes upon their faces as if he knew them not. But when they began to speak kindly to him, he would glare wildly for a few seconds and at last would get up and run, or endeavour to strike them to the earth. On the evening of the third day Ralph overheard a conversation between McCoy and Smith, from the terms of which it seemed they were at last agreed that their leader had become hopelessly mad, and they now deliberated whether they had better kill him. Smith suggested for them to toss up who should do this, and then, cutting off Foxley’s head, go in and deliver it, telling a plausible tale of the hardships he had perforce to sustain to capture the ruffian, by which means as this both, or at any rate one of the two, might at least earn pardon for himself, with the hope of a reward of freedom or promotion besides.

McCoy did not appear much to relish this plan; but Smith urged so many cogent arguments in its favour that at last it was mutually agreed to think over the scheme until morning, and the ruffians withdrew to the scanty covert of boughs which they had put up to shelter them in some measure from the pelting of the pitiless storm, which still continued unabated, and indeed appeared likely to last for many days yet.

Rashleigh had contrived a kind of lair for himself by breaking up a number of boughs, which he laid on the earth, the larger sticks downwards, confining them in their places by stakes set upright on each side, This he roofed with other bare boughs first, and at length thatched with small leafy twigs tied up in bundles. This very meagre shelter, however, he did not complete until the evening of the third day, for it was very troublesome, as he had only a small knife for a stock of working tools. Yet when completed, the loose sticks beneath permitted a passage for the water under his body, while the leafy thatch — the leaves being carefully placed all one way — kept him a little dry overhead. He proceeded to take an immeasurable quantity of repose, which was so very needful, especially after the long fatigue and continual drenching he had received.

It was late on the morning of the fourth day when a great commotion induced our adventurer to peep out of his bothy. He saw Foxley down, bleeding profusely, and doubted not that his two compeers had indeed made up their minds to sacrifice him as they had spoken of doing the previous night; but he quickly found out it was an accident, induced by the chief’s having started madly up, as before, and fallen over a root. His head had come in contact with a sharp-pointed stone, cutting a deep gash above his temple, which his companions were now vainly endeavouring to close so as to stanch the bleeding, which indeed was profuse; nor was it until Foxley must have lost nearly two quarts of blood that their rude bandage produced its wished-for effect.

The wounded bushranger lay nearly three hours in a torpid state; and when he at length unclosed his eyes, it was evident that reason had returned, for he spoke in a soft and very low voice, asking McCoy, whom he addressed by name, where they were; and he seemed much surprised when he was told the distance they had travelled. After taking a drink of water, Foxley went once more to sleep, and as the rain had now gone completely away, the others were enabled to do so likewise, on some drier part, more agreeably than they had yet done since they left Richmond. The next day, being the fifth of their sojourn here, during which time they had had but one meal, Foxley was very hungry; and as his fellow-marauders felt the assaults of the same enemy, they determined to set about robbing some settlement in order to obtain provisions. They therefore followed the banks of the Comnaroy rivulet, not doubting but that they would discover some stock — or sheep-station, of which there were a good many to the right of the Bathurst country.

They now turned southwards along the edge of the brook; but it was not until the forenoon of the next day that they at last descried a small hut and stockyard, which occupied the centre of a little natural clearing. The door of the dwelling was open, and smoke was ascending the chimney.

The bushrangers deliberated together how they might best approach it without being perceived by the inmates, until they should be too close for any of them to escape. At length they all made a circuit, by which they gained the back of the place, still keeping among the trees. Here Foxley and Smith disencumbered themselves of all their burdens, taking only a gun in the hand, and pistols in the belt of each; and throwing themselves on their faces, began to crawl through the grass in that manner. Rashleigh who was left in the charge of McCoy, was lying down behind a log, but could see the space around the hut without any difficulty. He observed that just as the two desperadoes had reached one corner of the stockyard, a man came out of the dwelling with a whip in his hand, and now approached a small shed built against the end of it, from which he led forth a horse ready saddled and bridled. He had his foot in the stirrup and was apparently about to mount when the two bushrangers stood up and presenting their pieces at him, ordered him to halt on peril of death. But the man, just casting one glance at them, vaulted lightly into the sadd............