It all fitted in first-rate. We cracked on from the Hollow in the morning early, and found dad and Warrigal all ready for us. The horses were in great buckle, and carried us over to Bargo easy enough before dark. We camped about a mile away from the road, in as thick a place as we could find, where we made ourselves as snug as things would allow. We had brought some grub with us and a bottle of grog, half of which we finished before we started out to spend the evening. We hobbled the horses out and let them have an hour’s picking. They were likely to want all they could get before they saw the Hollow again.

It was near twelve o’clock when we mounted. Starlight said

“By Jove, boys, it’s a pity we didn’t belong to a troop of irregular horse instead of this rotten colonial Dick Turpin business, that one can’t help being ashamed of. They would have been delighted to have recruited the three of us, as we ride, and our horses are worth best part of ten thousand rupees. What a tent-pegger Rainbow would have made, eh, old boy?” he said, patting the horse’s neck. “But Fate won’t have it, and it’s no use whining.”

The coach was to pass half-an-hour after midnight. An awful long time to wait, it seemed. We finished the bottle of brandy, I know. I thought they never would come, when all of a sudden we saw the lamp.

Up the hill they came slow enough. About half-way up they stopped, and most of the passengers got out and walked up after her. As they came closer to us we could hear them laughing and talking and skylarking, like a lot of boys. They didn’t think who was listening. “You won’t be so jolly in a minute or two,” I thinks to myself.

They were near the top when Starlight sings out, “Stand! Bail up!” and the three of us, all masked, showed ourselves. You never saw a man look so scared as the passenger on the box-seat, a stout, jolly commercial, who’d been giving the coachman Havana cigars, and yarning, and nipping with him at every house they passed. Bill Webster, the driver, pulls up all standing when he sees what was in Starlight’s hand, and holds the reins so loose for a minute I thought they’d drop out of his hands. I went up to the coach. There was no one inside—only an old woman and a young one. They seemed struck all of a heap, and couldn’t hardly speak for fright.