Pulling up his well-bred horse rather suddenly, he fixed a keen and searching glance upon the pair. His features gradually relaxed into a familiar and disrespectful expression as he addressed Mr. Broughton. ‘Why, Captain! what’s come to you? Here’s the whole force in a state of mobilisation from Hartly to the Bogan about the last little plant of yours—and now here you are, a-walking into our very arms, like a blessed ‘possum into a blessed trap—-why, I’m ashamed of you; hold up your hands.’ Mr. Neuchamp gazed upon the face of his illustrious friend as this vulgar exordium was rattled off by the flippant but practical man-at-arms, in wonder, consternation, sorrow, and expectancy. Could it be anything but the most annoying and inexplicable of mistakes, and would not this noble-minded victim of blind fortune repudiate the shameful accusation with scorn in every line of the stern sad features? He gazed long and fixedly into that face; a deeply graven expression _was_ there. But it was an alien, unsatisfactory expression. It showed slight contempt, but habitual deference to that branch of the civil power mingled with a sardonic, half-stoical, half despairing resignation to ignoble circumstance. Puzzled, doubtful, but by no means dismayed, Mr. Neuchamp indignantly asked the trooper what he meant by speaking insolently to his friend, Mr. Broughton—in stopping him without a warrant upon the highway? ‘Mr. Howard, alias Captain, alias the Knight of Malta, alias the Aide-de-Camp, alias John Lulworth Broughton, is as much my friend as yours; leastwise we know one another better; don’t we, Captain?’ Mr. Broughton, upon whose wrists the handcuffs were safely adjusted, merely nodded, upon which the trooper requested Mr. Neuchamp to permit his hands to be similarly fettered. ‘What?’ said Ernest, flushing so suddenly, at the same time making a stride forward, that the wary official backed his horse, and taking out his revolver, presented it full at his head. ‘What for?’ said the trooper; ‘why, on suspicion, of course, of being concerned with the Captain here, in the Barrabri Bank robbery the other night, that all the country is going mad about.’ Here the Captain found his tongue. ‘You’re going mad yourself, Taylor; the reward and the mobilisation, as you call it, have been too much for you. There’s no evidence against me this time, nothing that you could call evidence worth a rap; and don’t you see that this is a gentleman just out from home, and green as grass; or he wouldn’t go on foot with a thundering big knapsack on his back, picking up with—ahem—shady characters like me.’ ‘That’s all very well, Captain,’ assented the trooper; ‘but the cove’s hair and complexion, and height, and age, as was with you in the plant, and _Police Gazette_, corresponds with the other prisoner’s.’ Ernest’s face, at this description of himself, was a study; so sharply engraved were the lines which indicated wrath, disgust, and horror.