he said, smiling, "it tastes good. Nic, boy, you forgive me all
I have said?"

"Of course I do. But, I say, how have you managed to live?"

"The same as a black would. This is the first bread I have eaten since
I broke away and became a savage."

"Do you think they will manage to catch you?" said Nic, after a pause.

"Not alive, my lad. Well, let's have just a few words together, and
then you must go."

"You will stop about here, I suppose?"

The convict shook his head.

"Hunted beasts stay where they are safe. Hunt them, and they go farther
away."

"You have been hunted, but you have not gone farther away."

"No, boy, because this is my sanctuary. There, you see I trust you, and
I know that I am safe in your hands. Let's sit down."

Nic willingly did so, and the convict went on eating the bread cake,
talking quietly the while.

"There is no place I could find where I should be so safe, Nic," he
said; "and this is near human nature, which one likes, even if it is
unkind. I had often thought of breaking away and making for the bush,
feeling convinced that if I reached the place I could manage to live
where so many poor wretches who have escaped found their end. But I was
servant to a just man; your mother and sisters treated me when they saw
me as if they were sorry for me, and I could not go. Then you dame,
boy, and tied me tighter to the place, making all the petty troubles
caused by that overbearing brute seem like nothing."

"I tied you tighter to the place?" cried Nic.

"Yes. Why, the hours I spent with you when you found me out in the run
were the only happy ones I had had for years."

"Oh, I didn't do much," said Nic hurriedly. "I'm afraid it was because
I liked to talk to you about birds and things. But, I say, do you mean
to keep to this life?"

"Do you think I can give up and submit to that worst punishment of--to
be flogged?"

"No," cried Nic firmly; "you can't do that. You must wait. And look
here, I tell you what: try and find a way down into the gorge, and keep
it a secret. Why, you can build yourself a gunyah (bark hut) somewhere
below, and live there, and make your garden and keep fowls, and there
are sheep and cattle. I'll bring you a live chicken now and then, and
seeds and cuttings, and tea and sugar and flour when I come, and then we
can go fishing and hunting and collecting together. Why, it will be
capital."

The convict smiled.

"I don't see anything to lau