re it be too late."

Again the prison door closed, and Tom Brixton was left, with this
thought turning constantly and persistently in his brain:

"Bought and the price paid!" he repeated to himself; for the fiftieth
time that night, as he sat in his dark prison. "'Tis a strange way to
put it to a fellow, but that does not alter the circumstances. No, I
won't be moved by mere sentiment. I'll try the Turk's plan, and submit
to fate. I fancy this is something of the state of mind that men get
into when they commit suicide. And yet I don't feel as if I would kill
myself if I were free. Bah! what's the use of speculating about it?
Anyhow my doom is fixed, and poor Flinders with his friends will lose
their money. My only regret is that that unmitigated villain Gashford
will get it. It would not be a bad thing, now that my hands are free,
to run a-muck amongst 'em. I feel strength enough in me to rid the camp
of a lot of devils before I should be killed! But, after all, what good
would that do me when I couldn't know it--couldn't know it! Perhaps I
_could_ know it! No, no! Better to die quietly, without the stain of
human blood on my soul--if I _have_ a soul. Escape! Easy enough,
maybe, to escape from Pine Tree Diggings; but how escape from
conscience? how escape from facts?--the girl I love holding me in
contempt! my old friend and chum regarding me with pity! character gone!
a life of crime before me! and death, by rope, or bullet or knife,
sooner or later! Better far to die now and have it over at once;
prevent a deal of sin, too, as well as misery. `Bought, and the price
paid!' 'Tis a strange way to put it and there is something like logic
in the argument of Paddy, that I've got no right to do what I like with
myself! Perhaps a casuist would say it is my _duty_ to escape. Perhaps
it is!"

Now, while Tom Brixton was revolving this knotty question in his mind,
and Bully Gashford was revolving questions quite as knotty, and much
more complex, and Fred Westly was discussing with Flinders the best plan
to be pursued in the event of Tom refusing to fly, there was a party of
men assembled under the trees in a mountain gorge, not far distant, who
were discussing a plan of operations which, when carried out, bade fair
to sweep away, arrest, and overturn other knotty questions and deep-laid
plans altogether.

It was the band of marauders who had made the abortive attack on Bevan's
fortress.

When the attack