nst Juniper; you may be mistaken,
after all. Let us take the charitable side, and forget what's past.
There, shake hands; and as we're to be all fellow-voyagers, let us all
be friends."

But Jacob drew back.

"No, mayster; I'll not grip the hand of any man, if my heart cannot go
with it. Time'll show. By your leave, I'll go and get the dog-cart
ready; for I suppose you'll be going back to Adelaide directly?"

His master nodding assent, Jacob went to fetch the vehicle, and on his
return found his master in earnest conversation with Juniper.

"Good-bye, then, Juniper, till we meet next Thursday on board the
_Sabrina_," he cried.

"Good-bye, sir; and many thanks for your kindness."

Jacob, of course, uttered no word of farewell; but just looking round
for an instant, he saw Juniper's eyes fixed on him with such a look of
deadly, savage hatred, as assured him--though he needed no such
assurance--that his intended murderer was really there.

"I think, Jacob, you're rather hard on Juniper," said his master, as
they drove along. "He has done wrong; but I am persuaded he has still a
strong attachment to me, and I really cannot think he can have been the
person who tried to murder you. Why should you think it, Jacob? He's
never done you any harm before."

"Mr Frank, you must excuse me; but I'm sure I'm not mistaken. He's
always hated me ever since the day I spoke out my mind to you at the
cottage. Take my word for it, Mr Frank, he's no love for you; he only
wants to make a tool of you, just to serve his own purposes."

"Nay, nay, Jacob, my good fellow; not so fast. He cannot be so utterly
selfish, or he never would have offered me the extra ten-pound note and
the nuggets, over and above the fifty pounds, if he hadn't really a love
for me, and a true sorrow for what he has done wrong."

"I cannot see that," was the reply. "Of course, he knowed he was likely
to meet you when he came to Adelaide; and he was pretty sure what'd
happen if you gave him in charge to the police. He knowed well enough
they wouldn't listen to his tale; so, just to keep clear of the prison,
he gave you the money, and made up his story just to save hisself. He
knowed fast enough as you'd never take more nor your fifty pounds."

"Ah, but Jacob," said his master, "you're wrong there. He had made up
the parcel, nuggets and all, and directed it to me long before he saw
me. Don't that show that he intended it all for me, whether he met m