There was a slight pause, after which the foreman, a burly digger who had been a 'forty-niner' in California, and had seen the first rush at Turon, uttered the word 'Guilty!' The effect of the announcement was electrical. A tumult seemed imminent. The great crowd swayed and surged as if suddenly stirred to unwonted action. Groans mingled with hisses were heard; women's cries and sobs, above which rose a girl's hysterical shriek, thrilling and prolonged, temporarily in the ascendant. The deep murmur of indignation seemed about to swell into riotous shouting, when an additional force of police appeared at the outer entrance, by whom, after vigorous expostulation, order was restored. The judge proceeded to pass sentence, contenting himself with telling the jury that 'they had proved themselves scrupulous guardians of the public welfare, and had not allowed themselves to be swayed by considerations of mercy. Their grasp of the facts of the case was doubtless most comprehensive. It was their verdict, not his. They had accepted the sole responsibility. Launcelot Trevanion, the sentence of the court is that you be imprisoned in Her Majesty's Gaol at Ballarat, and kept to hard labour for the term of two years. Edward Lawless, the sentence of the court is that you be imprisoned in Her Majesty's Gaol at Pentridge, and kept to hard labour for the term of five years. Let the prisoners be removed.' Then the disorder of the crowd, previously restrained, burst all bounds, and appeared to become ungovernable. Tessie Lawless fell forward in a faint and was carried out. Mrs. Polwarth shook her fist in the direction of the sacred judgment-seat, and declared in resonant tones that more would come of this if things were not mended. Snatching Tottie up, she and Mrs. Delf followed in the wake of Mr. Stirling and Hastings, continuing to impeach the existing order of things judicial, and declaring 'that an honest man and a gentleman had no show in a country like this, where straight folks' oaths counted for nought; where policemen and lying jades had power to shut up in prison a man whose shoes in England they wouldn't have been allowed to black.' 'End of first act of the melodrama,' said Hastings to Charlie Stirling, with grim pleasantry. 'Audience gone out for refreshment. "What may happen to a man in Victoria!" as the Port Phillip _Patriot_ said the other day. Poor Lance! it makes me feel revolutionary too.' * * * * *