The Last of the Bushrangers: An Account of the Capture of the Kelly GangHare, Francis Augustus
History
The Last of the Bushrangers: An Account of the Capture of the Kelly Gang
Hare, Francis Augustus
Brigands and robbers -- Australia; Kelly, Ned, 1855-1880
On the last morning of my stay there, Aaron, who had been watching
with us all the night, came into the camp with us. It was a Sunday
morning. After we had our meal, each of us lay down in the spots we
had selected and fell asleep. I was the highest up the hill, and could
look down upon all the others; near me sat the sentry, and Aaron had
lain down the furthest down the hill, in a hollow below a large rock.
At about eight o'clock in the morning the sentry, without moving from
his post, called me, and said the old woman, meaning Mrs. Byrne, was
in the camp. I sat up in my cave and looked out, and saw her stealing
up. She stood for a moment, saw articles lying about the camp, then
came a few steps further on, looked down in the direction of where one
of the men was lying, then halted for a moment, and retreated. The
camp was so situated that unless a person got within a yard or two of
it, he could not be seen. I watched her, and did not even let her know
that we had seen her. Directly she left I jumped up and went to see who
it was she had seen, and to my horror I found it to be poor Aaron. I
called him up. He was lying partly on his side, and I was not certain
she could have recognized who it was. I told Aaron what had happened,
and he turned deadly pale, and huge drops of perspiration broke out on
his face. He could scarcely speak, and gasped, "Now I am a dead man."
I told him the best thing he could do now was to be off as hard as he
could, and go and show himself to some of his friends, so that if Mrs.
Byrne had recognized him he could prove an _alibi_, and convince her
she was mistaken.
Aaron always wore a peculiar dress, and would have been known by any
one at any distance. His dress consisted of a white shirt, a pair of
trousers and long boots, with his trousers tucked inside. The first
thing I did before I let him leave the camp was to send a sentry over
the hill to see if anything could be seen of the old woman. He returned
in a few minutes and pointed her out on a hill opposite to us.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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