'It's no use getting excited over it,' said Hastings. 'The thing is to _do_ all that we can, not to think or talk about it over-much. Stirling will be here to-morrow. He could not come to-day, but will leave his bank before the stars are out of the sky to-morrow, and will be here by breakfast-time. He could not come to-day because of business. We will see about your witnesses and manage to get a lawyer up from Melbourne in time. Keep up your spirits. There are dozens of men, and women too, that can prove an _alibi_. If my claim was as good as yours I'd swap places cheerfully with you.' 'Don't be too sure of that,' returned Lance with a sardonic smile. 'I have a kind of presentiment that evil will come of this business. Why, I know not, but still the feeling haunts me. Well, Jack, we never thought of this on board the _Red Jacket_ when we were so jolly, eh?' 'Just to think of it,' exclaimed Jack, with the tears running down his honest face. 'And never a Trevanion in a prison before since that king--I can't mind his name--shut up one of them in the old Tower of London and cut his head off. But that was dying like a gentleman--that ever I should have lived to see this! I could never show my face at Wychwood or St. Austell's again.' 'Why, Jack, you're about as foolish as your--master, I was nearly saying--as your mate there, at any rate. Why, Lance is not even committed for trial. All sorts of things may happen in the meantime. _Must_ happen; _must_ happen. Now, we must say good-bye, Lance. I'll send you in some books. I don't see many about. For God's sake, keep up your spirits.' The time fixed for the remand having expired, Lance and his fellow-prisoner, Ned Lawless, were brought up for their preliminary trial. All necessary arrangements had been completed; no further reason existed for delay either on the part of the Crown or of the prisoners. The sergeant was quite ready with his witnesses; Stirling and Hastings had secured the services of the celebrated Mr. England, the great criminal lawyer, about whose capacity the general miners' opinion, as expressed on the occasion, ran thus: 'Well, if England don't get him off, nobody will.' These important preliminaries having been settled, the crowd waited with impatience mingled with a certain satisfaction that so important a trial was really to come off and not to be strangled in its infancy, like many promising legal melodramas to which they had looked forward. There would be no mistake about this one at any rate. Sergeant Dayrell had come down in full uniform from the camp at an early hour. The show would be on soon after the clock struck ten.