Robbery Under Arms by Rolf Boldrewood (epub read online books TXT) 📕

us was. We didn’t wait long after we’d had a mouthful to eat before we laid ourselves on the cave floor and were soon as fast asleep as overtired men could be. We slept till the sun was high next morning, and then we had a general look over the plunder. It was an out and out good night’s work, in one sense⁠—we had more than a hundred pounds each clear. There had not been much hard work about it either; any fool almost could have done it as well as we did, barring the riding. We mightn’t always come off as well, of course, but there was no doubt we’d played our ace this time, and won the odd trick. What a row there would be all over the countryside when the news got into the papers. We felt quite keen to see all about it ourselves. It was rather a rum go, wasn’t it, taking it easy after breakfast at the Hollow, and reading the papers like swells, with a full, true, and particular account of how the “mail coach was stuck-up at Stony Pinch, Bargo Brush, by three mounted men, masked and armed; £500 in notes known to have been taken from the passengers and mailbags. How much more it was, of course, for the present, not possible to say?” We used to see things like this afterwards sometimes once a week. Many a pleasant queer morning’s reading they gave us at the Hollow. We didn’t go out, of course, for a, week or so. We were safer where we were than anywhere in Australia, as long as no one found out our secret. But we sent out Warrigal a day or two afterwards, and he managed to pick up a newspaper. Here was what they said⁠—

The mail coach stuck-up and robbed at Stony Pinch, Bargo Brush, by three armed bushrangers.

“Indeed,” says Starlight, “did they think we’d go unarmed? Now, for the rest of it,” and he read it out⁠—Jim and I standing by, and father smoking away as usual, with old Crib near his feet. He cocked up first one ear and then the other, as if he took it all in. He knew a lot, that old dog.

We regret to be compelled to inform our readers that another of those outrages which are not only a reproach to our country but a disgrace to civilisation took place on last Saturday morning. The southern mail was robbed near the top of Stony Pinch, a hill the gradient of which compels slow driving. The coach had nearly reached the summit when three men, splendidly mounted, and fully armed, called upon the driver, Mr. William Webster, to pull up, under pain of death. (“He only wanted one to tell him,” says Starlight, “and then he nearly dropped the reins.”) There being no alternative, Mr. Webster, who is well known on the Southern road as a resolute and skillful driver, complied, but retained control of his horses. He was then ordered to throw down the mail bags, which he refused to do. (“There’s a cracker. Well done, Master Bill, says Jim.”) Upon which the principal robber, as he appeared to be, ordered one of the others, addressing him as No. 1, to take the bags out, which was accordingly done, the other man riding up and keeping his revolver pointed at the passengers, who had been walking up the hill, and now arrived on the scene, much astonished at the position of affairs. They were all ranged up along the fence, and compelled to part with their loose cash, watches, and other valuables. No resistance appeared possible, as the robbers never relaxed their vigilance for a moment. Two ladies inside the coach were both deprived of their watches and purses: but we are informed that the leader returned one lady’s effects in the most polite manner. From this act of gallantry and from a certain Claude Duval mannerism exhibited by him on this occasion, we can have little hesitation in designating him as the notorious Starlight, who, with Richard Marston, made his escape from Berrima gaol a short time since. The third man will probably be James Marston, for whom a warrant is out, but who has hitherto eluded justice. The police are in pursuit.

“So they think they have found us out,” says Starlight, throwing down the paper. “It wasn’t much use being masked after all. They can’t be sure, though, and that’s the great point. We’ll get up a report that some fellows are taking up Starlight’s line, and that he and the Marstons got safe off to San Francisco. Well, we’re beyond the reach of want now; that’s one comfort. We’ll make a dash in another direction next time, so as to throw them off the scent. How one enjoys a cigar this morning! I really feel unequal to the smallest exertion now the excitement’s over.”

We might be able to take it easy, but the police were not, from all we could hear. They were abused in Parliament, and people said, which they felt worse than anything, that they were not half as good as the Victorian police. Then they were harassed by their officers, ordered to camp out for weeks, and do things they had not been used to⁠—to send in reports of what they had done day by day, till they were sick of the very name of bushrangers and mail robberies. What riled them most, there was a thumping big reward offered (five hundred pounds) for Starlight, and two hundred and fifty pounds for each of the two Marstons, or other men who might have been with him on the night of the said robbery, and no one could claim it. Then the weather broke, and it turned into one of the wettest and wildest seasons ever known in the country. The rivers were up bank high and over, while all the little creeks that were next to nothing to cross generally were like rivers themselves, and