Cirrus@Austlit

Set in the late 1800s, Robbery Under Arms is the story of bushranger Captain Starlight, told from the perspective of young Dick Marsden. Dick and his brother Jim follow their father's footsteps, on the wrong side of the law. After they succumb to the impetuosity of a tossed coin and participate in the theft and subsequent sale of fifteen hundred head of cattle, the pair team up with the mysterious Starlight (the renegade son of a British noble family), and evolve from petty criminals to outlawed bushrangers, terrorising the countryside, often in partnership with their father Ben and Starlight's Aboriginal offsider Warrigal. Throughout this story, the brothers find themselves at odds with both their mother and sister and with the lives they could have otherwise led.