e axe."

When Baldy turned towards the fire, Nosey grasped the axe and held it
behind him. He waited a moment, and then entered the hut; but Baldy
either heard his step, or had some suspicion of danger, for he looked
around before takingup a firestick. At that instant the blow,
intended for the back of the head, struck him on the jaw, and he fell
forward among the embers. For one brief moment of horror he must
have realised that he was being murdered, and then another blow
behind the head left him senseless.

Nosey dragged the body out of the fireplace into the middle of the
floor, intending, while he was doing a man, to do him well. He
raised the axe to finish his work with a third blow, but Julia gave a
scream so piercing that his attention was diverted to her.

"Oh, Nosey," she said, "what are you doing to poor Baldy? You are
murdering him."

Nosey turned to his wife with upraised axe.

"Hold your jaw, woman, and keep quiet, or I'll do as much for you."

She said no more. She was tall and stout, had small, sharp, roving
eyes; and Nosey was a thick-set man, with a thin, prominent nose,
sunken eyes, and overhanging brows. He never had a prepossessing
appearance, and now his look and attitude were so ugly and fierce
that the big woman was completely cowed. The pair stood still for
some time, watching the last convulsive movements of the murdered
Baldy.

Nosey could now pride himself on having been "game to do his man,"
but he could not feel much glory in his work just yet. He had done
it without sufficient forethought, and his mind was soon full of
trouble.

Murder was worse than sheep stealing, and the consequences of his new
venture in crime began to crowd on his mind with frightful rapidity.
He had not even thought of any plan for hiding away the corpse. He
had no grave ready, and could not dig one anywhere in the
neighbourhood. The whole of the country round his hut was rocky--
little hills of bare bluestone boulders, and grassy hollows covered
with only a few inches of soil--rocks everywhere, above ground and
below. He could burn the body, but it would take a long time to do
it well; somebody might come while he was at the work, and even the
ashes might betray his secret. There were shallow lakes and swamps,
but he could not put the corpse into any of them with safety: search
would be made wherever there was water, on the supposition that Baldy
had been drowned after drinking too freely of