'Did you not know that I had come straight from Ballarat when I rode up to the camp at Balooka?' 'I am not in a position to state where you came from. I saw you ride up with Kate Lawless, in whose company I have repeatedly seen you. On this occasion you and she were in possession of three horses--all stolen property--the one she rode, the one she led, and the horse you rode.' 'How could I know that the horse I bought from Ned Lawless was stolen? He did not know, I believe, or he would not have sold it to me, I am sure.' 'That you will have to explain to the court,' returned the sergeant, with pitying contempt. 'Good God! Did I look like a guilty man when you arrested me?' exclaimed Lance, in a tone which had an echo of despair as plank by plank he felt his defence foundering, as it were, at every cold and sinister answer of this relentless foe. 'You made a most violent resistance,' replied the sergeant calmly, 'of which my face still bears the mark. I don't know whether that is to be taken as a proof of your innocence.' 'I appeal to your worship,' exclaimed the unfortunate accused as a nameless terror stole over him--such as Quentin Durward may have experienced when Tristan L'Hermite and Petit André were about to attach him to the fatal tree--lest, ignorant of all legal forms, he should be tried and condemned before he had a chance of exculpation. 'I appeal to your worship to permit my case to be adjourned, in order that I may bring witnesses who can prove my innocence, and also that I may obtain legal assistance. Surely you cannot sit there and see an innocent man wrongfully condemned. Though a miner, I am a gentleman of good, indeed ancient family; an act such as I have been accused of is, therefore, impossible to me. For God's sake, permit me an adjournment!' The magistrate's face was impassive. His nature was probably not less compassionate than that of other men. But long familiarity with crime, long official acquaintance with every variety of villainy, had indurated his feelings to such an extent that but little trust in human nature, as ordinarily displayed within the precincts of his court, had survived. No doubt this young fellow looked and spoke like an innocent man; but how many criminals had looked and spoken likewise? The wholesale stealing of miners' and squatters' horses--now worth from fifty to a hundred pounds each in the Melbourne market--had reached such a pitch that the miners had declared their intention to shoot or lynch any future 'horse thieves,' as the American miners called them, if justice was not done them by the Government. Mr. M'Alpine had this in his mind at the time, and, with all proper respect for the rules of evidence, had come fully to the conclusion that it was high time that an exemplary sentence should be passed upon the very next culprit caught 'red-handed'; he therefore made no reply to the passionate appeal of the unlucky prisoner.