His jaw dropped, and he couldn't get a word out.

His throat seemed quite dry.
'Now, gentlemen,' says Starlight, quite cool and cheerful-like, 'you understand her Majesty's mail is stuck up, to use a vulgar expression, and there's no use resisting.

I must ask you to stand in a row there by the fence, and hand out all the loose cash, watches, or rings you may have about you.

Don't move; don't, I say, sir, or I must fire.' (This was to a fidgety, nervous man who couldn't keep quiet.) 'Now, Number One, fetch down the mail bags; Number Two, close up here.' Here Jim walked up, revolver in hand, and Starlight begins at the first man, very stern-- 'Hand out your cash; keep back nothing, if you value your life.' You never saw a man in such a funk.

He was a storekeeper, we found afterwards.