Robbery Under Arms - Rolf Boldrewood (most important books of all time .TXT) 📗

since⁠—the fight on the plain and the end of it all. Just like a picture it comes back to me over and over again, sometimes in broad day, as I sit in my cell, in the darkest midnight, in the early dawn.

It rises before my eyes⁠—the bare plain, and the dead men lying where they fell; Sir Ferdinand on his horse, with the troopers standing round; and the half-caste sitting with Starlight’s head in his lap, rocking himself to and fro, and crying and moaning like a woman that’s lost her child.

I can see Jim, too⁠—lying on his face with his hat rolled off and both arms spread out wide. He never moved after. And to think that only the day before he had thought he might see his wife and child again! Poor old Jim! If I shut my eyes they won’t go away. It will be the last sight I shall see in this world before⁠—before I’m⁠—

The coroner of the district held an inquest, and the jury found a verdict of “justifiable homicide by Sir Ferdinand Morringer and other members of the police force of New South Wales in the case of one James Marston, charged with robbery under arms, and of a man habitually known as ‘Starlight,’ but of whose real name there was no evidence before the jury.” As for the police, it was wilful murder against us. Warrigal and I were remanded to Turon Court for further evidence, and as soon as we were patched up a bit by the doctor⁠—for both of us looked like making a die of it for two or three weeks⁠—we were started on horseback with four troopers overland all the way back. We went easy stages⁠—we couldn’t ride any way fast⁠—both of us handcuffed, and our horses led.

One day, about a fortnight after, as we were crossing a river, Warrigal’s horse stopped to drink. It was a swim in the middle of the stream, and the trooper, who was a young chap just from the depot, let go his leading rein for a bit. Warrigal had been as quiet as a lamb all the time, and they hadn’t a thought of his playing up. I heard a splash, and looked round; his horse’s head was turned to the bank, and, before the trooper could get out of the river, he was into the river scrub and away as fast as his horse could carry him. Both the troopers went after him, and we waited half-an-hour, and then went on to the next police station to stop till they came back.

Next day, late, they rode in with their horses regularly done and knocked up, leading his horse, but no Warrigal. He had got clear away from them in the scrub, jumped off his horse when they were out of sight, taken off his boots and made a straight track for the West Bogan scrub. There was about as much chance of running him down there as a brumbie with a day’s start or a wallaroo that was seen on a mountain side the week before last. I didn’t trouble my head that much to think whether I was glad or sorry. What did it matter? What did anything matter now? The only two men I loved in the world were dead; the two women I loved best left forsaken and disgraced; and I⁠—well, I was on my way to be hanged!

I was taken along to Turon and put into the gaol, there to await my trial. They didn’t give me much of a chance to bolt, and I wouldn’t have taken it if they had. I was dead tired of my life, and wouldn’t have taken my liberty then and there if they’d given it me. All I wanted was to have the whole thing done and over without any more bother.

It all passed like a dream. The court was crowded till there wasn’t standing room, everyone wanting to get a look at Dick Marston, the famous bushranger. The evidence didn’t take so very long. I was proved to have been seen with the rest the day the escort was robbed; the time the four troopers were shot. I was suspected of being concerned in Hagan’s party’s death, and half-a-dozen other things. Last of all, when Sub-Inspector Goring was killed, and a trooper, besides two others badly wounded.

I was sworn to as being one of the men that fired on the police. I didn’t hear a great deal of it, but ’livened up when the judge put on his black cap and made a speech, not a very long one, telling about the way the law was set at naught by men who had dared to infest the highways of the land and rob peaceful citizens with arms and violence. In the pursuit of gain by such atrocious means, blood had been shed, and murder, wilful murder, had been committed. He would not further allude to the deeds of blood with which the prisoner at the bar stood charged. The only redeeming feature in his career had been brought out by the evidence tendered in his favour by the learned counsel who defended him. He had fought fairly when opposed by the police force, and he had on more than one occasion acted in concert with the robber known as Starlight, and the brother James Marston, both of whom had fallen in a recent encounter, to protect from violence women who were helpless and in the power of his evil companions. Then the judge pronounced the sentence that I, Richard Marston, was to be taken from the place whence I came, and there hanged by the neck until I was dead. “And might God have mercy upon my soul!”

My lawyer had beforehand argued that although I had been seen in the company of persons who had doubtless compassed the unlawfully slaying of the Queen’s lieges and peace officers, yet no proof had been brought before the court that day that