Through this whole narrative Robinson had coolly and delicately to curl live hair with a beating heart, and to curl the very man who was relating all the time how he had hunted him and caught his comrades.  Meantime a shrewd woman there listening with all her ears, a woman, too, who had certain vague suspicions about him, and had taken him up rather sharper than natural, he thought, when, being off his guard for a moment he anticipated the narrator, and assumed there were two burglars in the house.

Tom, therefore, though curious and anxious, shut his face and got on his guard, and it was with an admirable imitation of mere sociable curiosity that he inquired, “And what did the rascals say for themselves?”

“What could they say?” said Jenny, “they were caught in the fact.”

“To do them justice they did not speak of themselves, but they said three or four words too—­very much to the point.”

“How interesting it is!” cried Jenny—­“what about?”

“Well! it was about your friend.”

“My friend?”

“The peaceable gentleman the two young ruffians had chased down the road.”

“Oh! he was one of them,” said Jane, “that is plain enough now in course.  What did they say about him?”

“‘Sold!’ says my one to Tom’s.  ‘And no mistake,’ says Tom’s.  Oh! they spoke out, took no more notice of us four than if we had no ears.  Then says mine:  ‘What do you think of your pal now?’ and what do you think Tom’s answered, Jenny?—­it was rather a curious answer—­multum in parvo as we say at school, and one that makes me fear there is a storm brewing for our mutual friend, the peaceable gentleman, Jenny—­alias the downy runner.”

“Why, what did he say?”

“He said, ’I think—­he won’t be alive this day week! ’”

“The wretches!”

“No! you don’t see—­they thought he had betrayed them.”

“But, of course, you undeceived them,” said Robinson.

“No!  I didn’t.  Why, you precious greenhorn, was that our game?”

“Well, sir,” cried Robinson cheerfully, “any way it was a good night’s work.  The only thing vexes me,” added he, with an intense air of mortification, “is that the worst scoundrel of the lot got clear off; that is a pity—­a downright pity.”

“Make your mind easy,” replied Mr. Miles calmly, “he won’t escape; we shall have him before the day is out.”

“Will you, sir? that is right—­but how?”

“The honorable thingumbob, Tom Yates’s friend, put us up to it.  We sent the pair down to Sydney in the break and we put Yates’s groom (he is a ticket-of-leave) in with them, and a bottle of brandy, and he is to condole with them and have a guinea if they let out the third man’s name, and they will—­for they are bitter against him.”

Robinson sighed.  “What is the matter?” said his master, trying to twist his head round.

“Nothing! only I am afraid they—­they won’t split; fellows of that sort don’t split on a comrade where they can get no good by it.”