The watch was easily seen, as part of the chain was visible, but much marvelled Ernest Neuchamp that the robber, or any other man, should know that he had money with him. It was indeed a chance shot. The young marauder, having judged him to be a gentleman not long in the country, who was fool enough to travel on foot when he had plenty of money to buy a good hack, also decided that he must have a five-pound note or two wherewith to negotiate in time of need. Ernest Neuchamp was brave. The action of his heart was unaltered. His pulse quickened not as he stood before an armed and lawless man. He did not, of course, particularly care to lose a valuable family gold watch, or ten pounds sterling. But far more deeply than by personal loss or danger was he impressed by the melancholy fact that here was a fine intelligent young fellow, physically speaking, one of the grandest specimens of Caucasian type anywhere procurable, dooming himself, merely by this silly act, with, perhaps, another, to long years of lonely, degrading, maddening prison life. He did not look like a hardened criminal. It may be that a single act of sullen despair, derived from others’ guilt, had driven him to this course, which, once entered upon, held no retreat. There were few cooler men than Ernest. He became so entirely possessed with a new idea, that circumjacent circumstances, however material to him personally, rarely affected him. ‘My good fellow,’ he commenced, sitting down deliberately, ‘of course you can have my watch and a tenner, that I happen to have about me. I don’t say you are welcome to them, either. But what principally strikes me is, that you are an awful fool to exchange your liberty, your youth, your good name, your very life, for trifles like these. Did this ever occur to you?’ asked Ernest with much gravity, handing out the watch and one five-pound note, and feeling anxiously for the other, as if he hoped he hadn’t lost it. ‘Why, hang it all, man, you put me in mind of a savage, who sells himself for a few glass beads, a tomahawk, and a Brummagem gun. Surely you _can’t_ have considered this view of the subject, so deeply important to you?’ ‘It’s devilish important to you too,’ said the bushranger grimly, though he looked uneasy. ‘You’re a rum cove to go talking and preaching to a chap with a revolver at your head.’ ‘I don’t suppose that you would shoot a man in cold blood for giving you good advice! A watch and a few pounds are no great loss to me, but the taking of them means death and destruction to _you_—a living death, worse a hundredfold than if you were lying there with a bullet through your heart. That’s what I really feel at this moment. You are taking _your own life with your own hand_! Think, do think, like a good fellow, before it is too late!’ ‘That you may go straight back to the Nubba police station as soon as I slope,’ said the robber. ‘I could stop that, you know.’