At that moment the fire blazed up; a change, wonderful and dread, came over the face of the old stockman. He started up; his eyeballs glared like those of a maniac; every muscle, every feature was convulsed. ‘Who talks of murderers? They? He? _I_ did it. I, Bill Murdock, and the devil. _He_ was there; I see him grinning by the fire now. Ha, ha! I can hear _his_ screams, my God, my God! as I’ve heard ’em every day since. I hear ’em now. I shall hear ’em in hell! Look!’ So speaking, with eyes protruding, with every facial nerve and muscle quivering with horror and unspeakable dread, he pointed towards the fireplace, as one who sees the approach of a form, horrible, unavoidable, unearthly. Then, gasping and shuddering, he fell prone and heavily to the floor, without an effort to save himself. The landlord approached and loosened his handkerchief. ‘It’s partly the grog,’ he whispered to Ernest. ‘Nobody can say how much brandy and how much truth’s mixed up in this here yarn; but he’s seen some rough work in his day, has Ike—though I never see him like this before. Thank you, sir; I can get him to bed now.’ Mr. Neuchamp promptly sought _his_ couch, deciding that he had come in for a much larger dose of the sensational element than he had counted upon, and doubting whether he should repeat the experiment. When he awoke, after a heavy but perturbed slumber, the sun was up, and his first question was of the welfare of the strange old stockman. ‘Gone, hours ago, sir. He just slept till nigh hand daylight, and then he roused out his men, lets the cattle out of the yard, and off he goes.’ ‘And was he able to sit on his horse,’ was Mr. Neuchamp’s very natural question, ‘after drinking a bottle of brandy and having a fit?’ ‘A deal better nor we could, I expect, sir. He’s iron-bark right through, that old Ike. Takes a deal to kill the likes of him.’ ‘Apparently so,’ assented Ernest. ’What wonderful energy, what indomitable resolution must he possess! Used in a better cause, what results might such a man not have reached! “‘Tis pity of him,” as the Douglas said of Marmion, who in this century, instead of that in which Flodden was fought, might have adorned a colony too, if there had been any one to lay the information, “for that he did feloniously and unlawfully obtain the custody of one young lady,” etc. etc., anent that forged letter. Heigh ho! I don’t feel quite as much in the humour for walking to-day as I did yesterday. Still, it’s a case of Excelsior, I suppose. _En avant_, Neuchamp! St. Newbold inspire thy son and servant.’ CHAPTER VII