Page:Australian Emigrant 1854.djvu/162

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140
THE AUSTRALIAN EMIGRANT.

himself, that must be your revenge, so lay down." Obedient to her master's word Lady reluctantly complied, but in such a position that every action of the bushranger was under her observation.

As Dodge was endeavouring to force a little spirit into the mouth of the gasping man, he shrieked, "Poison! poison!—hellfire! poison!—poison me, what for?—I'm nothing—I'm a——what am I?" As Hugh Raymond was stooping over, Jarrol fixed his eyes upon him in a peculiarly earnest manner and momentarily recognised him. Transient as was the impulse given, it was sufficiently lasting to bend Jarrol's wandering thoughts in the direction so much desired. Drawing Hugh towards him with his manacled hands he whispered "Don't marry her, she is a beggar: I made her so years and years ago.—I tell you Annie Raymond is a beggar." Hugh and Slinger looked on but remained silent, hoping that in his wanderings some useful information might unwittingly escape him; but a long season of incoherency gave place to a morose silence. They were beginning to despair, and were whispering together, when Jarrol, looking hard at them, cried out "It's a lie—a conspiracy, you are plotting against me; the deeds were not put there by me, but they are safe, very safe.—There, open the pannel.—So, so, as I left it. Now look beyond.—Open that one, the deeds are there, but you can't touch them, they belong to my son—she is his wife, and so Master Hugh Raymond see to what your plotting has come at last.—Ha! ha!!" Slinger carefully noted on paper every word as it fell from the bushranger's lips, and when he ceased speaking, turned to Dodge. Although nothing was said, Dodge nodded his head mysteriously, and remarked, that it was "a subject requiring to be well smoked over" before he could venture to give an opinion worth anything.—"The deeds and the pannel!