345
Guided by him the police forthwith set out, for the
hotel only one hundred yards off. It was about three o'clock on the Monday
morning.
It must have been a trying moment for the bushrangers
when they heard the train stop. The game had become desperate and their own
capture far from improbable. Probably the best they could have done would have
been to take horse at once for the bush. But in that case the " black
trackers", who accompanied the police, would have had a hot scent, and it
is certainly doubtful if they could have escaped. Even if they had done so,
their position would then have been worse than ever, inasmuch as the police
would now be more than ever wary. They came to the fatal decision to stand their
ground in the hotel. They must, as Superintendent Hare thinks, have calculated
on killing every one of the policemen before fresh forces could arrive, for to
attempt to stand a siege without such a hope would have been mere insanity.
Superintendent Hare seems to have had considerable
difficulty in getting together the party of police and " black trackers"
with which he had set out from Benalla, since it was past midnight when his
special train reached Glenrowan.
He has unfortunately omitted to give the numerical
strength of his party, but it is clear that the bushrangers
were heavily outnumbered.
Jones's Hotel was a long, low, wooden building with a
verandah running the whole length of the front. All lights had been put out
inside when the police arrived. Behind the hotel the moon shone brilliantly,
throwing the advancing police into full light and the hotel front into deep
shadow. From the darkness of the verandah they were fired on as they approached;
and a voice, supposed to be Ned's, shouted: "Fire away, you (language)
beggars; you can do us no harm." For a quarter of an hour the firing was
hotly kept up, and a fearful shrieking arose from the crowd of unlucky captives
within. Then the outlaws retreated into the house.
The police now surrounded the hotel. Telegrams were
sent in all directions asking for reinforcements, and Con-