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"[The novel] introduced the character Stingaree, an Oxford-educated, Australian gentleman thief, in a way that ""casts doubt on conventional responses"" to a positive criminal character, according to Hornung's biographer, Stephen Knight.
Irralie never forgot the wild voices or the wilder scene. As one man they had dashed at him. He turned and ran for the tethered horse. Irralie saw his gestures without hearing a word; but when they cut him short with a roar and a dash, and struck at his head with their spears and boomerangs, she saw the hand become a fist, and the fist planted in the middle of the first shirt-front to breast the wires. Next moment they were scaled by all, and the many fell headlong upon the one. Again and again he shook and hit and hacked them off; he fought like a wounded tiger; and now he tugged out his injured hand, and began fighting with that...."