This was the end—the end—the end! I used to call it out some times louder and louder, till the warder would come in to see if I had gone mad.

Bit by bit I came to my right senses. I almost think I felt sharper and clearer in my head than I had done for ever so long. Then I was able to realise the misery I had come down to after all our blowing and roving. This was the crush-yard and no gateway. I was safe to be hanged in six weeks, or thereabouts—hanged like a dog! Nothing could alter that, and I didn’t want it if it could.

And how did the others get on, those that had their lives bound up with ours, so that we couldn’t be hurt without their bleeding, most in their hearts?—that is, mother’s bled to death, at any rate; when she heard of Jim’s death and my being taken it broke her heart clean; she never held her head up after. Aileen told me in her letter she used to nurse his baby and cry over him all day, talking about her dear boy Jim. She was laid in the burying-ground at St. Kilda. As to Aileen, she had long vowed herself to the service of the Virgin. She knew that she was committing sin in pledging herself to an earthly love. She had been punished for her sin in pledging herself to him she loved, and she had settled in her mind to go into the convent at Soubiaca, where she should be able to wear out her life in prayer for those of her blood who still lived, as well as for the souls of those who lay in the little burying-ground on the banks of the far Warrego.

Jeanie settled to stop in Melbourne. She had money enough to keep her comfortable, and her boy would be brought up in a different style from his father.

As for Gracey, she sent me a letter in which she said she was like the bird that could only sing one song. She would remain true to me in life and death. George was very kind, and would never allow any one to speak harshly of his former friends. We must wait and make the best of it.

So I was able, you see, to get bits of news even in a condemned cell, from time to time, about the outside world. I learned that Wall and Hulbert and Moran and another fellow were still at large, and following up their old game. Their time, like ours, was drawing short, though.