John Boyle O'Reilly

“ He saw by the moonlight a dark object on the sand. The long, weak cry hurried him on, till he stood beside the poor throat whence it came, and was smote with pity at the dismal sight.
On the sand lay two horses chained at the neck—one dead, the other dying in an agony of thirst and imprisonment. Beside the dead horse almost buried in the sand, as he had fallen from the saddle, lay a man, seemingly dead, but whose glazing eyes turned with hideous suffering as Moondyne approached. The wretched being was powerless to free himself from the fallen horse ”

“ The sergeant back dead.
Moondyne knew that his last breath was contrition, and his last dumb cry, "Pardon."
Then, too, the strength went from the limbs and the light from the eyes of Moondyne—and as he sank to the earth, the great Thought that had come to him filled his heart with peace—and he lay unconscious beside the dead.
The sun rose on the desert, but the sleeper did not move. Before the day was an hour old, other forms rapidly crossed the plain—not wanderers, but fierce, skin-clad men, in search of vengeance.
They flung themselves from their horses when they reached the scene ”

“ The moon sank, and the sun rose, and still the lonely man held his straight and aimless road—across mountains and through ravines, until at last his consciousness was recalled as he recognized the valley in which he stood as one he had travelled two days before, on the way to the gold mine. ”

“ Death is on the trail of every man; but we have grown used to him, and heed him not. Crime and Sin are following us—will surely find us out, and some day will open the cowl and show us the death's-head. But more terrible than these Fates, because more physically real, is the knowledge, ever present, that a relentless human enemy is on our track. ”

“ Before he'd had taken a hundred paces he stopped suddenly, turned at right angles down the valley, and strode on with a purpose, that though rapidly, almost instantaneously formed, had evidently taken full possession of his will.
Sometimes persons of keen sensibility lie down to sleep with a trouble on the mind, and an unsettled purpose, and wake in the night to find the brain clear and the problem solved. From this process of unconscious cerebration Moondyne awoke with a complete and settled resolution. ”

“ He closed his eyes again and seemed to sleep for a little while. Then he looked up and met the face of Te-mana-roa kindly watching him.
"I am free!" he only said. Then turning to the sisters: "I am not accursed;" and Koro and Tapairu. answered with kind smiles. ”