He read it, shaking all over as he read.

The tract was simply written.  It began with a story of instances, some of them drawn from the histories of prisoners, and it ended with an earnest exhortation and a terrible warning.  When the renegade came to this part, his heart beat violently; for along with the earnest, straightforward, unmincing words of sacred fire there seemed to rise from the paper the eloquent voice, the eye rich with love, the face of inexhaustible intelligence and sympathy that had so often shone on Robinson, while just words such as these issued from those golden lips.

He read on, but not to the end; for as he read he came to one paragraph that made him fancy that Mr. Eden was by his very side.  “You, into whose hands these words of truth shall fall, and find you intending to do some foolish or wicked thing to-morrow, or the next day, or to-day, or this very hour—­stop!—­do not that sin! on your soul do it not!—­fall on your knees and repent the sin you have meditated; better repent the base design than suffer for the sin, as suffer you shall so surely as the sky is pure, so surely as God is holy and sin’s wages are death.”

At these words, as if the priest’s hand had been stretched across the earth and sea and laid on the thief’s head, he fell down upon his knees with his back toward the scene of burglary and his face toward England, crying out, “I will, your reverence.  I am!—­Lord, help me!” cried he, then first remembering how he had been told to pray in temptation’s hour.  The next moment he started to his feet, he dashed his lantern to the ground, and leaped over a gate that stood in his way, and fled down the road to Sydney.

He ran full half a mile before he stopped; his mind was in a whirl.  Another reflection stopped him.  He was a sentinel, and had betrayed his post; suppose his pals were to get into trouble through reckoning on him; was it fair to desert them without warning?  What if he were to go back and give the whistle of alarm, pretend he had seen some one watching, and so prevent the meditated crime, as well as be guiltless of it himself; but then, thought he, “and suppose I do go back what will become of me?”

While he hesitated, the question was decided for him.  As he looked back irresolute, his keen eye noticed a shadow moving along the hedge-side to his left.

“Why, they are coming away,” was his first thought.  But looking keenly down the other edge which was darker still he saw another noiseless moving shadow.  “Why are they on different sides of the road and both keeping in the shadow?” thought this shrewd spirit, and he liked it so ill that he turned at once and ran off toward Sydney.

At this out came the two figures with a bound into the middle of the road, and, with a loud view-halloo, raced after him like the wind.

Robinson, as he started and before he knew the speed of his pursuers, ventured to run sidewise a moment to see who or what they were.  He caught a glimpse of white waistcoats and glittering studs, and guessed the rest.