dose of transportation. A quiet, oldish-looking man got up now and came
forward to the witness-box. I didn't know who he was; but Starlight
nodded to him quite pleasant. He had a short, close-trimmed beard, and
was one of those nothing-particular-looking old chaps. I'm blessed if
I could have told what he was. He might have been a merchant, or a
squatter, or a head clerk, or a wine merchant, or a broker, or lived in
the town, or lived in the country; any of half-a-dozen trades would suit
him. The only thing that was out of the common was his eyes. They had a
sort of curious way of looking at you, as if he wondered whether you was
speaking true, and yet seein' nothing and tellin' nothing. He regular
took in Starlight (he told me afterwards) by always talking about the
China Seas; he'd been there, it seems; he'd been everywhere; he'd last
come from America; he didn't say he'd gone there to collar a clerk that
had run off with two or three thousand pounds, and to be ready to meet
him as he stepped ashore.

Anyhow he'd watched Starlight in Canterbury when he was riding and
flashing about, and had put such a lot of things together that he took a
passage in the same boat with him to Melbourne. Why didn't he arrest him
in New Zealand? Because he wasn't sure of his man. It was from something
Starlight let out on board ship. He told me himself afterwards that
he made sure of his being the man he wanted; so he steps into the
witness-box, very quiet and respectable-looking, with his white
waistcoat and silk coat--it was hot enough to fry beefsteaks on the roof
of the courthouse that day--and looks about him. The Crown Prosecutor
begins with him as civil as you please.

'My name is Stephen Stillbrook. I am a sergeant of detective police
in the service of the Government of New South Wales. From information
received, I proceeded to Canterbury, in New Zealand, about the month
of September last. I saw there the older prisoner, who was living at a
first-class hotel in Christchurch. He was moving in good society, and
was apparently possessed of ample means. He frequently gave expensive
entertainments, which were attended by the leading inhabitants and high
officials of the place. I myself obtained an introduction to him, and
partook of his hospitality on several occasions. I attempted to draw him
out in conversation about New South Wales; but he was cautious, and
gave me to understand that he had been engaged in large squatting
transa