You know how much worse than animals
some brutes treat their children in the bush. And he was an
'adopted.' You know what that means. He was idiotic with
ill-treatment when I got hold of him. He's sensible enough when away
with me, and true as steel. He's about the only living human thing
I've got to care for, or to care for me, and I want to win out of this
hell for his sake."
He paused, and they were all silent. He was measuring time, as his
next words proved: "Jack must be nearly ready now." Then he took a
packet from some inside pocket of his blue dungaree shirt. It was
wrapped in oil-cloth, and he opened it and laid it on the table; there
was a small Bible and a packet of letters--and portraits, maybe.
"Now, missus," he said, "you mustn't think me soft, and I'm neither
a religious man nor a hypocrite. But that Bible was given to me by my
mother, and her hand-writing is in it, so I couldn't chuck it away.
Some of the letters are hers and some--someone else's. You can read
them if you like. Now, I want you to take care of them for me and dry
them if they are a little damp. If I get clear I'll send for them
some day, and, if I don't--well, I don't want them to be taken with
me. I don't want the police to know who I was, and what I was, and
who my relatives are and where they are. You wouldn't have known, if
you do know now, only your husband knew me on the diggings, and
happened to be in the court when I got off on that first
cattle-stealing charge, and recognized me again to-night.
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