LINGER AND DIE

by Neil Brooka

Part eleven (chapters twenty-one and twenty-two) of my steemit weekly(ish) serial

And for those who came in late, click here and check my blog to start from the start.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE – THE PATRIOT

The bronzed forearm rippled to adjust a spyglass reflection nestled within the web of a heavily calloused hand. The image came into focus, but only for a second. Large dark eyes – set close and deep beneath a prominence of frontal development – shrivelled at an unseen irritant. Wiry fingers tucked a jaw-length curtain of hair behind a gristle of ear.

The red coated marine standing before the path leading down to the pier stepped forward. "Nothing doing, I'm afraid," the guard said, maintaining his belligerent gaze upon the opposite horizon. “The pier is closed this afternoon, under special circumstances.” In a second's moment the marine lashed his eyes upon the man before him. “Sorry, Mr Fawkner, sir.”

Fawkner collapsed his telescope with a twitch and turned to spy a slight fellow tip-toeing over the lip of the bank. The marine, being so focused upon that distant point of duty, noticed nothing. Projecting canny intelligence and hard-earned power, Fawkner's own two clear eyes turned upon a powerful stride to meet his weasel-like servant's flickering countenance.

"Nothing doing, Mr Fawkner. They won't let us near'em."

Mr J.P. Fawkner, editor ofThe Port Philip Patriot, gave the little fellow such a glancing stab of fatherly disappointment that the following silence acted as a command all on its own.

"I shall try again, Mr Fawkner, sir." The little man nodded to himself and turned back to his clandestine route to the craggy slope of the stone pier.

Fawkner checked his pocket watch before drawing up the telescope once more. A troop of marines had materialized upon the road and another group stood ready by a longboat at the pier. He swept back to the approaching mob of red jackets and bayonets. Before the glinting points of steel walked a man and a woman. These were the two convicts that were to be tried in Sydney, but the real prize ... He swept back to the throng of marines. They were clearly shepherding someone else. The tip – that Gipps had arrived in Melbourne with the new superintendent – was puzzling to him.. He peered back down his tube. The group was milling about the pier and the two prisoners were being herded into a longboat. Fawkner lowered his spyglass and cursed. There was nothing of any concrete detail to be seen from this distance. After a fashion the little chap returned, and Fawkner, still gazing upon his pocket watch, awaited his report without looking up.

"Have I got a story for you, Mr Fawkner and a right circus it was too."

"Go on, Maxwell. I'm all ears."

"The rumours are true," burst Maxwell, still breathing heavily. “Gipps is in town, but it's all very unofficial. There were special circumstances. It seems to me it was the governor's request to close down the public gallery for their hearing in Sydney. As far as I could tell it was on account of some libellous rumours being spread by the defendants in relation to the economy of the city of Melbourne.”

"You heard all that?"

"The marines sir, I heard them talking after the longboat was cast, but I definitely saw Gipps. There was also another man, all bearded and uncouth like, yet stuck into a Captain's uniform."

"Very curious indeed. These rumours ... were they gone into?"

"No sir."

"Confound it."

"But it looked like, from the marine's point of view, both Latrobe and Gipps seemed to be shielding the bearded man from people like us, sir."

Fawkner patted Maxwell as a master might pat a well behaved dog. "Good work – capital work."

"There's more," squeaked Maxwell. “When I was looking for a spot to hide as close to the pier as I could get, I ran into someone sir. I found a great rock that was within earshot and ... well ... I wasn't the only one to be taking perch at the eaves of Gipps's embarkation.”

Fawkner said nothing. Instead he turned to the longboat growing ever smaller in the shadow of her vast mother ship.

"There was another man lurking there sir. A negro."

Fawkner lowered his spyglass.

"When he saw the two convicts, sir, he became distraught – pacing around, pulling his hair. Naturally I made an enquiry upon his melody. I told him who I was – for whom I worked. It seemed to do the trick. When he understood I was a newspaper man he grabbed a hold of me."

"Go on."

"Had a letter in his hand, sir. It seemed he was having some kind of internal struggle as to whether he should part with it or not. Said it was in regards to the convicts. That he had been instructed to hand this letter to the press if they were sent for sentencing."

Maxwell waved the letter clutched in his hand before Fawkner, who made to take it just as Maxwell (blinded by the brilliance of his own story) removed it from reach in an illustrative flourish.

"And then it occurred to me who he was," continued Maxwell.“It was –”

"That savage, Caesar?" offered Fawkner as if it were no surprise.

"Why yes, sir, yes, it was he! Naturally I asked if he killed that Duffy family Tulip was all clammed up about. Said it was this Lynch chap – just as our source told us Mary Draper had claimed."

"Lachlan is not the most reliable of sources for intelligence, Maxwell," said Fawkner. “The Ship Inn, of which he is the proprietor, is loyal to the law in most respects. If Lonsdale and his new dog Latrobe wished the goings on within to be kept secret, I doubt our man would spill too much of the truth.”

"I asked him, this Caesar negro, how it felt to be on the lamb under jeopardy of death. He said it didn't matter any more. I asked him why he thought they only had warrants issued for the shenanigans at St. John's Tavern, and why the press might have been told it was all speculation, but he seemed under the impression that there was a twenty gallon rum reward on offer."

"The letter?" clicked Fawkner.

"Here, sir," said Maxwell, remembering himself and handing over the crumpled ball.

As soon as Fawkner had it smoothed open to read, Maxwell's features betrayed disappointment that he himself had not done the same. So now he bobbed about on the balls of his feet, this way and that, attempting to catch a few sentences over Fawkner's shoulder. The bunched scrawl he managed to spy provided no such opportunity.

"Well, what's it say sir?" Maxwell finally burst.

A sunlit dawning had come over his masters being – a radiance reflected by the golden setting light upon the paper.

After a time, Fawkner said: "Well I'll be blowed."

"What sir? What's it say?"

To Maxwell's horror a hand reached out from nowhere. It whipped the paper from Fawkner's hands, folded it neatly up and began to methodically tear it into smaller and smaller pieces.

"Ah. And you must be the new superintendent? Mr Latrobe is it?" said Fawkner warmly.

Latrobe released the fragments of paper so that they exploded upon a gust of wind. Maxwell squawked and capered after his desecrated prize.

"I see you've received your letter. I thought we might talk of it."

The smallest corner of Fawkner's mouth jumped with a smirk. The rest of his face looked positively angelic with pleasure.

"I take it you've read the thing?" said Latrobe, thrusting his hands into his pockets and looking out to the ember-red horizon.

"I heard quite recently," began Fawkner, “that Governor Gipps had tasked an eccentric geologist – a man by the name of Strzelecki – to go gallivanting about the bush in search of minerals.” Fawkner put the spyglass back to his eye and looked down upon the longboat. It's passengers were now clambering up the sides of the mother ship. “What resources could this barren land possibly afford, I thought to myself ... no story there.”

Latrobe said nothing.

"But now –" began Fawkner.

"How much would it be worth to Mr Short to come to a compromise?"

"Oho, Mr Latrobe. Is that some mischief I hear playing about your lips?"

"Come, come, Mr Fawkner. I'm sure Mr Short and I could be friends. Acquaintances at the very least?"

Fawkner lowered his spyglass, closed his eyes and let the setting sun warm his face. "I hear Mr Short has a steep fee for the management of crown secrets."

---

Mary and Johnny remained silent while the oars ground against their fixtures and the waves thumped against the prow. Two bayonets were aimed upon their chests and were rocking back and forth dangerously at their hearts with each pull. At the back of the boat by the rudder, sat Gipps, every now and then making to glance at the two marine guards as if they were children hovering about a powder keg.

"Move it!" wheezed the marines.

The coarse fibre netting of the scramble nets creaked as the two prisoners climbed up the side of the ship. By the time they had alighted the decks, sailors were already adjusting ranks to greet the captain. Before Mary and Johnny knew what was happening they were being pulled into file. The boatswain's whistle slurred from low to high to low again and Gipps's boots bounced on deck. Puffing out his chest he looked over the rigging and his men and smiled. Johnny leant to Mary's ear:

"Don't worry," he whispered beneath the wind. “I've escaped from a ship once before.”

Mary jerked away from Johnny's deluded council. Gipps was approaching.

"Welcome to my ship, my good prisoners," he said. “Enjoy the fresh air while you can.”

"The press will be chattering by now," Mary began. “If you let us free we might be able to stop –”

"Hush, hush, my dear, it's all been taken care of."

Johnny puffed out his corrugated chest in the shadow of Mary's courage.

"If you expect us to hold our tongues before Justice Willis," he warbled, “...you've another thing coming.”

Gipps's eye clapped upon Johnny's portentous expression and a sailor stepped forward with a club raised. Gipps stayed the blow with a gesture, but he kept his eyes upon Johnny's own quivering squint.

"True that. Not much I can really do is there?" Gipps whipped his hands behind his back and took a step to peer down into the heaving black water. “And still the sea's cold grip beckons. A dangerous place – a ship.”

"When we get to Sydney –" began Mary.

"Ready the ship, boys," came a cry from the boatswain. “We sail first thing in the morning.”

Gipps leaned in closer to Mary beneath the hullabaloo of action. "And what makes you think you'll make it to Sydney alive?"

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO – TWO ROADS FROM SORENTO

While the rest of the ship slept silent and dead, Mary and Johnny sat wondering if they might make it through the night alive. The small brig was simple in its design, not as heavily fortified as the cell wards on the big prison hulks, but sturdy enough to leave Mary stumped in discovering a way to break free of its timbers. Johnny, too, sat brooding upon the floor, hugging his knees to his chest while his fingers played about his mouth. Eventually he seemed to come to a decision in his thinking:

"I think I know a way out," His eyes moved up to Mary's dull figure in the wavering light of the single candle. He drew a thick, wooden rigging peg from the arm of his shirt.

"Where'd you get that?" said Mary, genuinely surprised and slightly afraid at the wild look in his eyes.

"It's a belaying pin. Grabbed it on deck. I can use it to –" Johnny had just been twisting the peg in his hands when they heard the creeping squeak of the door leading down to the store room in which their brig was located. With a set of disturbingly insect-like movements, Johnny stood and moved to the lee of the door with his weapon poised for murder.

The spy-hole slapped open and from the dark rectangle came a low tobacco-scoured croak: "Up against the wall, face first. The both of yeh."

They saw a lamp-cast shadow change beneath the threshold. A key slid into the lock. Then nothing.

"Go on," urged the voice. “Nobody's going to get hurt.”

They did as they were told, Johnny seemingly coming to his senses and stashing his weapon in the dark corner of the brig. The door opened and a number of men piled through. The boots sounded disciplined yet independent in their movements. Mary tensed her back muscles and waited for the knife, or the searing hot powder burn of a shot. Instead she felt a pair of rough hands bringing her own behind her back. It was not steel that touched her wrists but rough hemp cord. Without so much as a word the men grasped their bonds and forced them forward. Mary caught sight of one of the figures as she passed over the threshold; he was not wearing a uniform.

"Who are you?" she rasped.

"Move."

Mary went first. Following in the gloom, Johnny strained to make out the men that pushed her up the narrow step, but it was too dark to make out any of their faces. Even back on deck it was hard enough to see a few feet in front of him. Eventually, through the muddy waters of night, the waves glinting at their peaks with silver moonlight became visible.

"I'm not getting on that boat," came Mary's voice. It was loud and brave.

Johnny heard a thud followed by a series disturbing, unladylike snores. The men struggled to move her knocked-out frame down the side of the ship and into the waiting black chasm that broke the oily waves. Her body landed in the boat with a sickening thud.

"What are you doing?" squeaked Johnny. He really had thought they were being rescued. From somewhere in the dark he heard Mary moan as she came to. The screams that followed echoed in Johnny's memory. His skin bristled and burned. His heart pummelled at his ribcage. Johnny found his hands cut free, but still he could not move. The fear spread across his body and smothered his pores and ran down his throat. It reminded him of the time he had spent four months in solitary confinement. Instead of hardening him, the stress had taken layer after layer until all that was left had been a pink, quivering, varicose mess. Finding himself still standing on the deck, high above the waves, his body seemed to telescope up into the night.

"Get on the boat," croaked a voice.

Johnny did not argue. Hands shaking, head bobbling, he half climbed, half fell down the scramble-net to land jarringly in the boat. "Where are we going?" he managed to stutter out, sounding more like a scolded child than a man.

"Hush."

Their captors were content to leave Johnny kneeling awkwardly at the bottom of the boat while they themselves took up positions to row. In the darkness Jonny sensed them watching him. With a combination of the periodical lurching motions and the heavily rolling ocean, Johnny's concentration was soon completely dedicated to the task of keeping his balance. It required, in his state of mind, all the concentration of a tight-rope walker above some great canyon.

When they landed, Johnny found himself forced into shin-deep water. Despite this, it was still a struggle to remain upright. He stumbled forward, skipping and slipping like a drunkard in a direction he hoped would lead to the beach. Finding his knees digging into cold sand, his mind gave him permission to relax, but his body had other ideas. Wave after wave of vibrating shivers coiled themselves about his chest and lungs so that he had to pant like a dog. This suffocating effect was not aided by the creeping column of sick making its way up his throat. He vomited loudly, and what remained of his breath became replaced by a hard vacuum of pain.

"Keep quiet," barked a voice “or you'll end up like the lady.” Johnny felt a hand at his shirt heave him back to his feet while he continued to cough and splutter bile down his front. Through his streaming eyes he saw the distant glow of a fire upon the beach grow closer with every skidding leap under his captor's power. Johnny sensed a body falling in front of him. Soon he himself was left discarded upon the sand. A large pile of driftwood and scrub crackled in the flames. Collapsing upon his chest he attempted to absorb as much of the heat as possible from the toasty sand – to revive his senses and to catch his breath.

Mary awoke to the sounds of crackling wood and dog-like panting to her left. The muscles in her neck felt as if they'd been pulverised with a meat tenderiser. A deep burning pain throbbed across her back where she'd been dropped into the boat. She rolled herself over to the sky, but there were no stars; just glowing embers rising and tumbling like a flock of sparrows on the wind. A man stepped over her body to hold out a hand. As the wind picked up to fan the flames, his face became illuminated.

"Good evening, Mary," said Morgan, turning to the panting body beside her, “Johnny.”

Johnny pulled himself to his knees. He was still struggling to recover from his panic attack.

"Come and warm yourselves by the fire," said Morgan, now with a softness in his voice. “Come on.”

Mary made it to her knees, but the pain in her shoulder had an overbearing weight that was enough to carry sitting down.

"Hurt yourself?"

"She screamed, sir," explained the raspy voiced man from the darkness.

"That keen to see me, were you?" Morgan lowered himself to a more neutral sitting position. He crossed his legs like a yogi and placed his chin upon his half praying hands.

"I didn't know it would be you," said Mary quietly. “I wouldn't have screamed –”

Morgan gave a cynical twitch, narrowed his eyes and bit his bottom lip as if repressing a boiling rage.

"This is no rescue mission, I can assure you of that," he said.

"When we were caught," began Mary, “neither of us mentioned your involvement –”

Morgan ignored her: "Indeed, it appears the governor of Australia himself wants you both dead and out of the hair of the law." He turned to look at Mary. The creases across his forehead betrayed pain, confusion and anger. “But he would have achieved your deaths in Sydney, would he not? It certainly seems strange he'd riskthis underhanded business.”

Johnny swung from Mary to Morgan and back again, trying to understand.

"So why?" Morgan continued. “Why me? And what a coincidence, is it not? That I should be asked to dispose of my own – asset. What happened out there Mary?”

His reflection flashed and burned in her scrambling eyes.

"You had my heart – you still have my heart barbed with those eyes."

Morgan moved across the sand to where Mary sat cut with his own shadow. And now he leaned in for the kiss, but Mary, taken by the turn in his actions, was unable to adjust into the hustle she'd played over him so easily before. Morgan moved his head back to view her face in the firelight and clamped her chin between thumb and forefinger.

"And I actually convinced myself you felt the same way. The oldest whore trick in the book." Morgan leapt to his feet. “Because that's what you are, are you not? A whore?” He started to pace. “Those tricks ... I should have known. What a young stud blunder. True I learned something – but –”

Mary felt a spray of sand and a rush of wind as Morgan's boot arced past her face. When she opened her eyes he was leaning over her, pointing down with a hooked finger, tense with anger.

"You indulged my fantasies – trapped me in my own dream, true, but you indulged me none the less." He dug a hand in his pocket and lashed out toward her.

Mary instinctively protected her face with her arms. Instead of a punch she felt the cold hail of coppers raining down upon her head. One or two found their way under her collar.

"For that, at least, I thank you." He took her by the hair, “I-Thank-You”, and discarded her back upon the sand. Morgan's pacing resumed while he opened and closed his fists full to burst with bloody revenge. “A poison variety,” he said and picked up what looked to be a stick from the fire. But the stick looked far too straight and far too heavy to be natural. “Hold her, and let us see if we cannot milk her of the poison.”

Mary felt unwilling hands grip her shoulders.

"You were in the bush for two weeks. I hope you were being busy. Hmm? Making lots of shillings for father?"

Mary felt the the heat of the red-hot iron poker come up under her chin and over her face –

"Did you?"

– to linger between her eyes.

"It's time to wake up, Mary."

For an instant a single tear drop of heat exploded against her skin. She had not expected him to be so quick in exercising his cruelty. As her head snapped back she heard a few sharp intakes of breath from Morgan's cronies in the darkness beyond the glow of the flames. When she turned to face Morgan, some disturbing aspect seemed to have become unchained – some pure sadistic energy. It was this, more than the pain, that induced her to say something.

"I'll tell you where your stuff is –"

"Oh I know you will Mary. What do you thinkthis is for?" Morgan flagged his poker gently by his face. “There's just a few things I'd like to straighten out before the main event. Would that be acceptable?”

Mary said nothing so Morgan turned to replace the poker at the base of the fire, to regain its heat lost in the cold night air.

"Questions like: why ishe still with you?" Morgan did not look at Johnny who was stuck fast in the sand where he had fallen. “I mean – you were so keen to go it alone. You wouldn't put up withthat repugnant member, would you? I had you down as a cluey type for sure, but it doesn't take much thought to figure out that crossing me is not the best of moves. You gave me your word. You gave me your hand.”

"I didn't cross you, Morgan. It's true that I can't force myself to love you, but –"

"We were caught before we could make contact," blurted out Johnny.

"We?" crooned Morgan, turning upon the wretched convict like a shark.

"I can explain," shot back Mary, trying desperately to take the reigns back from Johnny's shot judgment.

"No, no, no, Missy. Just let's take these lies on one by one shall we? You were caughtbefore you could make contact. They got you in Williamstown. Why not come straight back to Melbourne?"

"We were wanted –"

"Oh, come now. That mob couldn't catch a chicken in a hen house. No. You were in Williamstown to hoof it withmy money. So I ask you:" and now Morgan's voice became soft, “what was Johnny doing being caught with an ingot of pure gold?”

Mary positioned herself to speak, but as Morgan's words sank in they seemed to carry her breath away. Johnny had told her he'd dumped the ingot at the pier; Tulip and Latrobe had not mentioned it to her.

"Oh yes, I know about that. Funny thing – only a moment ago I learned of something else, too. Those sovereigns you insisted were tin wolfram slag? Well apparently they were the real deal. Now fancy that!"

"So the whole world knows about the gold –" she began.

"What do you mean 'the world?' Why should theworld know?"

"The Patriot; was there not an article?"

Morgan let loose a volley of laughter.

"What's – so – funny?" Johnny stuttered.

"Who was it, do you think, that backed Mary to turn out those pewter shillings? Eh? Little old me?" Morgan laughed again, more for dramatic effect than from any genuine humour.

"You were working for someone?" said Mary. “Who?”

"I never told you about old Uncle Short?"

"That name," said Johnny, his mind drifting back. He knew that name.

"Where did we first meet?" continued Morgan.

"The Shakespeare," whispered Mary. Then she remembered: Latrobe and Gipps had discussed how the wolfram story had made it intoThe Patriot. It had not been Tulip that had leaked after all, nor Newcombe. It had been Morgan. Because that is what she had told him herself.

"Aye. In bobby's hotel; his ears to the city."

"Fawkner's Hotel," said Johnny simply.

With a rush and a fleshy smack, Morgan punched Johnny hard in the nose.

"We call him Mr Short, and if you so much as –"

"Quench that temper, boy. It makes you brittle."

Into the light of the flaring fire, from the shadows of the woolly foreshore, stepped Fawkner.

"Mr Short, I –"

"Are they secure?" Fawkner surveyed the scene as if it were a poorly organized tea party.

"Yes Mr Short," said Morgan from the dark.

"Boys ..." Fawkner addressed the men standing back in the shadows, “I'd like you all very much to take a walk.”

"But sir –"

"I'm quite well equipped to take care of my hide, but before you despatch with our spoiled investments I would like a private word with them alone."

"Aye sir. We'll take a stroll." Morgan motioned for his men to move and thrust his hands in his pockets and glared at Mary before dissolving into the folds of darkness.

"I'm afraid they're out of my control now," said Fawkner, when the sounds of Morgan's men had become swamped by the ocean's cadence. “You must understand, it is not my money that will burn your lungs in those flames,” he nodded toward the fire.

Johnny looked at the heavy logs and understood; it had not been built so high for dramatic effect. The fire had been built to burn hot. The fire had been built to incinerate.

"Gipps has paid Morgan for our heads? Or was it Latrobe?" Mary filled in the blanks.

"This matters not." Fawkner swatted the air and went on with what he really wished to talk about. “You know ... you and I have more in common than you might imagine. And you too.”

Johnny looked back to Mr Fawkner, who was sporting a funny little smile somewhere between amusement and pity.

"See, I'm different from Latrobe, or Gipps. Or even Captain Lonsdale. True it's never I've been a government man in the one sense, but a government man can also refer to those on the other side of the bars. In that sense, I suppose, I've more in common with that pig-headed Tulip."

Mary said: "You were a convict?"

"I was the child of a convict. I did have one scrape with the law though. Sheltering some runners like yourselves." Fawkner crouched before Johnny. “I'm surprised you haven't recognised me. It took me a little while, but when I heard your name – well – I only ever knew of one Johnny English who was an Irishman all my life. And that was a long time ago.”

Johnny's face was a barren wasteland.

"You too, were a child over there," Fawkner implored, “at Sorento.”

"You were in Sorento?"

"The first true Melbournians!" Fawkner slapped Johnny on his back and shook his limp hand with gusto. “My father got done for receiving stolen goods. Do you know what he did?”

Mary had a vision of her son.

"He was a metal refiner," came Fawkner's voice. “So we've got something in common, Miss Draper – or was that a lie you told Morgan to make him sweet?”

Mary said nothing.

We take our own paths, don't we? You and I and Johnny – didn't we Johnny? I of honest toil, you two of –fantasy."

Mary began to speak, but he was already turning to address her again.

"When I heard of the death of your child – what was his name again?"

"Brendan."

"When I heard of your loss, a part of me couldn't help but wonder: Upon the one hand we've got all that snuffed opportunity, and upon the other, all this rotten criminality." Fawkner noticed the tears beading upon Mary's jaw and crouched into the sand. “How do you think Brendan would have fared on his mother'sfaerie logic?”

She wanted to jump to her feet, to lash out at the man standing before her, but it was the truth. It would all be over soon enough. She would be reunited with her son for good. For eternity.

"You actually thought I'd publish your silly little letter?" That look of pity faded. I bet you never expected old Gippsie to call your bluff, eh? He snapped his fingers: “Maybe Iwill spark a rush. Ha! But not before I make my own survey of the prospects. Naturally.” Fawkner crouched before the two of them, rubbing his hands and eyeing them both back and forth with greedy exhilaration. “You will tell me where you went and you will show me what you found. Then I will pay Morgan his bounty myself – for your life – and you will have another son, and you will show him the path to propriety under my protection.”

"What's to stop Morgan," squawked Johnny with all the paranoia in the world, “from killing us later and collecting two rewards?”

"Morgan is my dog. He'll do as I command."

But Mary had already made up her mind. Since learning of the death of her son – since The Angel Inn, she had been putting off the final decision. Morgan was right. She'd been sucked straight back to a fantasy world so easily. All it had taken was a little of Tulip's dogged interrogation to spike her pride. Nothing more. Pride and riches. They had been her undoing from the beginning.

"I'd rather die," she said. Her voice was as sharp as a knife upon the silenced wind.

"Speak for you too – does she?" Fawkner turned to Johnny, who was already gawking at Mary in disbelief. “Don't tell me those harlot eyes have made a trick of you too, my boy?”

The fatherly words had sparked a vague feeling of camaraderie in Johnny. He look at Mary then turned back to Fawkner who was shaking his head. "It's different with us," Johnny said lamely.

But Fawkner was already working out his contingencies. "Of course, we'll have to find the nigger. He could really put a rat in our barrel."

"He doesn't know," yapped Johnny, “where our diggings are buried. Why the only reason he sent that letter was because he thought it would secure our release.”

"Funny how these things work out," said Fawkner, cultivating a fatherly tone. “And you, Mary, you really want to die? Makes no difference to me.” Fawkner leapt to his feet, dusted off his hands and withdrew a heavy purse from his pocket. He weighed it in his hand before looking off into the darkness. “Now,” he said, “I'll pay off Morgan. Gipps need never know. I hear by pronounce you both dead.”

"There's just one thing," said Mary , her eyes burning with fire. “You wanted to meet Caesar?”

"All in good time," crooned Fawkner. A black hand came down heavily upon his shoulder.

"Caesar?" Johnny looked on while Caesar's menacing figure crushed a meaty forearm into Fawkner's neck.

The businessman went down like a rock. Far off, down the beach, they heard shouts from Morgan's men, but Caesar stood his ground, eyes aflame, a pistol in each hand. A rapport broke the silence of the night and a plume of sand exploded by Mary's leg.