‘Well, of course,’ said Brandon, ‘it was strictly legal to endeavour to arrest either an aboriginal or a white man upon the charge of “cutting and wounding with intent to kill,” or even “to do grievous bodily harm.” If such a prisoner resisted the police, they were authorised to fire upon him. In this case, it was impossible to take him alive. However that may be, he paid in full of all demands for his crime. I fancy we may as well turn in.’ ‘So the nigger is dead at last!’ exclaimed the awakening Parklands. ‘Good-bye, Neuchamp; you may not be up when I start. Aymer, your story is really grand. Too short, if anything. You don’t know a little more, just to top up with? The worst of these interesting yarns, they keep you awake so. If I am late at starting to-morrow, it might be a loss of five hundred pounds to me―you wouldn’t like me to send in a bill for half. Why don’t I go to bed now? I feel too much excited. Besides, I am afraid I missed some. You wouldn’t mind beginning again? Well, sir, I’m off now. Never mind throwing a boot at me―one of your boots is no joke, remember. But look here―if it takes three hours to kill one blackfellow, how long――’ Here Mr. Parklands disappeared suddenly, simultaneously with the evolution of a missile of some sort discharged wrathfully by the narrator. Mr. Neuchamp also departed, and being rather tired slept until past sunrise. When he came forth only Brandon was visible, who told him that Parklands had left at dawn, and was now many a mile on his way. CHAPTER XVIII Mr. Neuchamp of Rainbar had now reached a very important position in his career. He had gained a fulcrum for that lever by the aid of which he trusted to move the Australian world,―to raise or to cause to tremble―and finally to impel upon the incline of undoubted and social improvement―the hitherto inanimate mass of colonial society, strong in the _vis inertiæ_ which rules primitive or unenlightened communities. Before this happy moment of proprietorship he could but enunciate principles and theories. Now he was enabled to demonstrate them by practice. He would have comrades, neighbours, dependents, workmen of his own. And concurrently with the most effective and successful working of the station, he would show New South Wales, Australia, and the world generally, what an Englishman of culture, with a purpose, could effect in the way of reform. Captain Cook had discovered the continent―proconsuls of greater or less intelligence had governed it. It was left for him, Ernest Neuchamp, to raise it to that point of social and industrial eminence which should make it a Pharos, a wonder-sign, an exemplar throughout all the civilised world.