have to tie you
up."

"That's slow death!"

"It never has been yet, but you must take your chance. Get me that rope
that's slung over the gunyah. It's got to be done."

Kilbride obeyed with apparent apathy; but his heart was inflamed with a
sudden and infernal glow. Yes, it had never ended in death in any case
that he could recall of this time-honored trick of all the bushrangers;
on the contrary, sooner or later, most victims had contrived to release
themselves. Well, one victim was going to complete his release by
hanging himself by the same rope to the same tree! Meanwhile he
confronted his captor grimly, the coil in both hands.

"There's a loop at one end," said Stingaree. "Stick your foot through
it--either foot you like."

Kilbride obeyed, wondering whether his head would go through when his
turn came.

"Now chuck me the other end."

It fell in coils at the bushranger's feet.

"Now stand up against that blue gum," he continued, pointing at the tree
with Kilbride's revolver, his own being back at his hip. "And stand
still like a sensible chap!"

Stingaree then walked round and round the tree, paying out the long
rope, yet keeping it taut, until it wound round tree and man from the
latter's ankles to his armpits. Instinctively Kilbride had kept his arms
free to the last, but they were no use to him in his suit of hemp, and
one after the other his wrists were pinned and handcuffed behind the
tree. The cold steel came as a shock. The captive had counted on
loosening the knots by degrees, beginning with those about his hands.
But there was no loosening steel gyves like these; he knew the feel of
them too well; they were Kilbride's own, that he had brought with him
for Stingaree. "Found 'em in your saddle-bags while you were in my
gunyah," explained the bushranger, stepping round to survey his
handiwork. "Sorry to scar the kid--so to speak! But you see you were my
most dangerous enemy on this side of the Murray!"

The enemy did not look very dangerous as he stood in the dusk, in the
heart of that forest, lashed to that tree, with his finger-tips not
quite meeting behind it, and the blood already on his wrists.

"And now?" he whispered, hoarse already, his lips cracking, and his
throat parched.

"I shall give you a drink before I go."

"I won't take one from you!"

"I shall make you, if I have to be a bigger brute than ever. You must
live to spin this yarn!"

"Never!"

Stingaree smiled to himself