The words were not long familiar. They quickly became detestable. The farther they went, of course, the more they appealed to Simons, Bill, and the singer himself. As for Engelhardt, obviously he was in no position to protest; nor could mere vileness add at all to his discomfort, with that noose still round his neck, and the rope-end still tight in Bill's clutch. Then the refrain for every other line was no bad thing in itself; at all events, he joined in throughout, and at the close stood at least as well with his persecutors as before.
It now appeared, however, that sailors' chanties were the Bo's'n's weakness. He insisted on singing two more, with topical and impromptu verses of his own. As, for instance:
Or again, and as bad:
These are but opening verses. There were many more in each case, and they were bad enough in all respects. And yet Engelhardt chimed in at his own expense—even at Naomi's—because it might be that his life and hers depended upon it. He was beginning to have his hopes, partly from the delay, partly from looks and winks which he had seen exchanged; and his hopes led to ideas, because his brain had never been clearer and busier than it was now become. He was devoutly thankful not to have been twice forced to sing. The second time, however, was still to come. It was announced by a jerk of the rope that went near to dislocating his neck.
"This image is doing nothink for 'is living, an' yet we're letting 'im live!" cried Bill, in a tone of injured and abused magnanimity. "Sing, you swine, or swing! One o' the two."
"What sort will you have this time?" asked Engelhardt, meekly. His meekness was largely put on, however. The black bottle had been going round pretty freely; in fact, it was quite empty. Another had been broached, and the men were both visibly and audibly in their cups.
"Another comic!" cried Simons and the Bo's'n in one breath.
"No, something serious this trip," Bill said, contradictiously. "You know warri mean, you lubber—somethin' soothin' for a night-cap—somethin' Christy-mental. Go ahead an' be damned to ye!"
Engelhardt had no time to consider, to reflect, to choose. The signal to start instantly was given by a series of sharp, throttling jerks at the rope. Almost before he was himself aware of it, he was giving them the well-known "Swannee River." It was the first "Christy-mental" song that had risen to his mind and lips. Moreover, he gave it with all the pathos and expression of which he was capable, and that, as we know, was not inconsiderable. They did not join in the chorus. This made it the easier. He tried to forget that these men were there, and, throwing his gaze aloft, sung softly—even sweetly—to the stars. Doubtless it was all acting, and by a cunning instinct that he went so slow in the final chorus:
And yet one knows that it is possible to act and to feel at one and the same time; and, incredible as it may seem in the circumstances, Engelhardt found it so just then. He did think of the dear old woman at home; and being an artist to his boots, he gave his emotions their head, and sang to these blackguards as he would have sung to Naomi herself. And the effect was extraordinary—if in part due to the whiskey. When the young man lowered his eyes there was the maudlin Bo's'n snivelling like a babe, and the other two sucking their cigars to life with faces as long as lanterns.
"Lads," said Bill, "the night's still young. What matter does it make when we tackle the station? It'll keep. We on'y got to get there before mornin'. 'Tain't midnight yet." His voice was thickish.
"If the moon gets much higher," hiccoughed the Bo's'n, "we'll never get there at all. We'll never find it!" And he dried his eyes on his sleeve.
Bill took no notice of this. But he shook up his companions, linked arms between the two, and halted them in front of Engelhardt. They all three swayed a little as they stood, yet all three were still dangerously sober; and the second bottle was empty now; and there was no third. Engelhardt confronted them with hope, but not confidence, and listened, more eagerly than he dared to show, to Bill's harangue.
"Young man," said he, "you're not such a cussed swine's I thought. Sing or swing, says I. You sings like a man. So you sha'n't swing at all—not yet. No saying what we'll do in an hour or two. P'r'aps we're going to take you along with us to the station, to show us things, an' p'r'aps we ain't. You make your miseral life happy, to go on with. You bloomin' beggar, you, we respite you! Bo's'n, take the same rope an' lash the joker to that tree."
Bill stopped to see it done. He was quite sober enough to be sufficiently particular in this matter; as was Bo's'n, to perform his part in sailor-like fashion. In five minutes the thing was done.
"What do you think of that?" cried the seaman, with a certain honest sort of deep-sea pride.
"It'll do, matey."
"By cripes, he'll never get out of that!"
In fact, from his chin to his knees, the poor piano-tuner was encased in a straight-waistcoat of rope—the rope that had been round his neck for the last half-hour. Even the injured arm was inside. Nor could he move his feet, for they were tied separately at the ankles. Otherwise there was only one knot in what was indeed a masterpiece of its kind.
"I hope you'll be comfortable," said the Bo's'n, with a quaint touch of remorse, "for split me if you didn't sing like a blessed cock-angel! And never you fear," he added, under his breath, "for we ain't agoin' to hang you. Not us! And if there's anything we can do for you afore we take our spell, say the word, messmate, say the word."
The piano-tuner shook his head.
"Then so long and——"
"Stop! you might give us a cigar."
It was given readily.
"Thanks; and now you might light it."
This also was done, with a brand from the dying fire.
"Good-night," said Bo's'n.
"And thank you," added Engelhardt.
The sailor stopped to give a last admiring glance at his handiwork; then he joined his companions, who were already spread out upon the broad of their backs; and Engelhardt was left to himself at last—unable to move hand or foot—with a corpse at hand and the murderers under his eyes—with the risen moon shining full upon his face, and the vilest of vile cigars held tight between his teeth.
And he was no smoker; tobacco made him sick.
Nevertheless, he kept that bad weed alight, and very carefully alight, for ten minutes by guess-work. Then he depressed his chin, knocked off an inch of ash against the top-most coil, applied the red end to the rope, and sucked and puffed for his life and Naomi's.
CHAPTER XIV THE RAID ON THE STATION
Those same dark hours of this eventful night were also the slowest and the dreariest on record in the mind of Naomi Pryse. She too had waited for the moon. At sundown she had stabled her horse, and left it with a fine feed of chaff and oats as priming for the further work she had in view. This done, she had consented, under protest, to eat something herself; but had jumped up early to fill with her own hands a water-bag and a flask of which she could have no need for hours. It made no matter. She must be up and doing this or that; it was intolerable sitting still even to eat and drink. Besides, how could she eat, how could she drink, when he who should have shared her meal was perhaps perishing of hunger and thirst in Top Scrubby? It was much more comforting to cut substantial slices of mutton and bread, to put them up in a neat packet, and to set this in readiness alongside the flask and the water-bag. Then came the trouble. There was nothing more to be done.
It was barely eight o'clock, and no moon for two hours and a half.
Naomi went round to the back veranda, picked up the book she had been reading the day before, and marched about with it under her arm. She had not the heart to sit down and read. Her restless feet took her many times to the kitchen and Mrs. Potter, who shook her good gray head and remonstrated with increasing candor and asperity.
"Go to look for him?" she cried at last. "When the time comes for that, you'll be too dead tired to sit in your saddle, miss. If you start before the moon's well up, there'll be no telling a hoof-mark from a foot-print without getting off every time. You've said so yourself, Miss Naomi. Then why not go straight to your bed and lie down for two or three hours? I'll bring you a cup of tea at half-past eleven, and you can be away by twelve."
Naomi sighed.
"It is so long to wait—doing nothing! He may be dying, poor fellow; and yet what can one do in the dark?"
"Lie down and rest," said Mrs. Potter, dryly.
"Well, I will try, but not on my bed—on the sitting-room sofa, I think. Will you light the lamp there, please? And bring the tea at eleven; I'll start at half-past."
Naomi took a short stroll among the darkling pines—the way that she had taken the piano-tuner in the first moments of their swift friendship—the way that he had taken alone last night. She reached the sitting-room with moist, wistful eyes, which startled themselves as she confronted the mirror over the chimney-piece whereon stood the lamp. She stood for a little, however, looking at herself—steadfastly—inquisitively—as though to search out the secrets of her own heart. She gave it up in the end, and turned wearily away. What was the use of peering into her own heart now, when so often aforetime she had seemed to know it, and had not? There was no use; and as it happened, no need. For the first thing her eyes fell upon, as she turned, was the pile of music lying yet where Engelhardt had placed it, on the stool. The next was his little inscription on the uppermost song. She knelt to read it again; when she had done so the two uncertain, left-handed, pencilled lines were wet and blotched with her tears, and she rose up knowing what she had never known before.
At eleven-thirty—she had set her heart upon that extra half hour if let alone—Mrs. Potter rattled the tea-tray against the sitting-room door and entered next moment. She found her mistress on the sofa certainly, but lying on her back and staring straight at the ceiling. Her face was very white and still, but she moved it a little as the door opened. She had not slept? Not a wink. Her book was lying in her lap; it had never been opened. Mrs. Potter was not slow to exhibit her disappointment, not to say her disgust. But Naomi sprang up with every sign of energy, and finished her tea in five minutes. In ten she had her horse saddled. In twelve she had cantered back to the veranda, and was receiving from Mrs. Potter the water-bag, the flask, and the packet of bread and meat.
"Have his room nice and ready for him," said the girl, excitedly, "and the kettle boiling, so that we may both have breakfast the instant we get in. It will be a pretty early breakfast, you'll see! Do you think you can do without sleep as long as I can?"
"Well, I know I sha'n't lie down while you're gone, miss."
"Then I'll be tremendously quick, I will indeed. I only wish I'd started long ago. The moon is splendid now. You can see miles——"
"Then look there, Miss Naomi!"
"Where?"
"Past the stables—across the paddock—toward the fence."
Naomi looked. A black figure was running toward them in the moonlight.
"Who can it be, Mrs. Potter? Not Mr. Engelhardt——"
"Who else?"
"But he is reeling and staggering! Could it be some drunken roustabout? And yet that's just his height—it must be—it is—thank God!"
Her curiosity first, and then her amazement, kept Naomi seated immovable in her saddle. She wondered later why she had not cantered to meet him. She did not stir even when his stertorous breathing came painfully to her ears. It was only when the quivering, spent, and speechless young man threw his arms across the withers of her horse, and his white face fell forward upon the mane, that Naomi silently detached the water-bag which she had strapped to her saddle, and held it to his lips with a trembling hand. At first he shook his head. Then he raised his wild eyes to hers with a piteously anxious expression.
"You have heard—that they are coming?"
"No—who?"
"You have heard, or why are you on horseback?"
"To look for you. I was on the point of starting. I made sure you must be bushed."
"I was. But I got to a camp. They looked after me; I am all right. And now they are coming in here—they're probably on their way!" Each little sentence came in a fresh gasp from his parched throat.
"But who?"
"Those two tramps who came the other day, and Simons, the ringer of the shed. Villains—villains every one!"
"Ah! And what do they want?"
"Can't you guess? The silver! The silver! That fat brute who insulted you so, who do you suppose he is? Tigerskin's mate—just out of prison—the man whose finger your father shot off ten years ago! You remember how he kept his hands in his pockets the other day? Well, that was the reason. Now there isn't a moment to lose. I listened to their plans. Half an hour ago—or it may be an hour—they lay down for a spell. They were drunk, but not very. They only meant to rest for a bit; then they're coming straight here. They left me tied up—they were going to bring me with them—I'll tell you afterward how I got loose. I daren't stop a moment, even to cut adrift their horses. I just bolted for the moon—I'd heard them say the station lay due east—and here I am. Thank God I've found you up and mounted! It couldn't have been better; it's providential. Now you mustn't get off at all; you must just ride right on to the shed."
"Must I?" said Naomi, with a tight lip and a keen eye, but a touch of the old banter in her tone.
"We could follow on foot. Meanwhile you would rouse them out at the shed——"
"And my silver?"
Engelhardt was silent. The girl leant forward in her saddle, and laid a hand upon his shoulder.
"No, no, Mr. Engelhardt! Captains don't quit their ships in such a hurry as all that. I'm captain here, and I'll stick to mine. It isn't only the silver. Still my father smelt powder for that silver, and the least I can do is to follow his lead."
She slid to the ground as she spoke.
"You will barricade yourself in the store?" said Engelhardt.
"Exactly. It was fixed up for this very kind of thing, after the first fuss with Tigerskin. They'll never get in."
"And you mean to stick to your guns inside?"
"To such as I have—most certainly."
"Then I mean to stick to you."
"Very well."
"But think—think before it's too late! They are devils, Miss Pryse—beasts! I have seen them and heard them. Better a hundred times be dead than at their mercy. For God's sake, take the horse before they are upon us!"
"I stop here," said Naomi, decidedly.
"Yet Mrs. Potter and I could hold the store as easily as you could. They shall not get your silver while I'm alive."
"My mind is made up," said the girl, in a voice which silenced his remonstrances; "but I agree with you that somebody ought to start off for the shed. I think that you should, Mr. Engelhardt, if you feel equal to it."
"Equal to it! It's so likely I would ride off and leave two women to the mercy of those brutes! If it really must be so, then I think the sooner we all three get into the store——"
It was Mrs. Potter who here put in her amazing word. While the young people stood and argued, her eyes had travelled over every point of the saddled horse. And now she proposed that she should be the one to ride to the shed for help.
"You!" the two cried in one breath, as they gazed at her ample figure.
"And why not?" said the hardy woman. "Wasn't I born and bred in the bush? Couldn't I ride—bareback, too—before either of you was born? I'm not so light as I used to be, and I haven't the nerve either; but what I have is all there in the hour of need, Miss Naomi. Let me go now. I'm ready this minute."
Naomi had seemed lost in thought.
"Very well!" cried she, whipping her eyes from the ground. "But you don't know the way to the shed, and I must make your directions pretty plain. Run to the back of the kitchen, Mr. Engelhardt, you'll see a lot of clothes-props. Bring as many as you can to the store veranda."
Engelhardt darted off upon his errand. Already they had wasted too many minutes in words. His brain was ablaze with lurid visions of the loathsome crew in Top Scrubby; of the murderous irruption imminent at any moment; of the unspeakable treatment to be suffered at those blood-stained hands—not only by himself—that mattered little—but by a woman—by Naomi of all women in the world. God help them both if the gang arrived before they were safe inside the store! But until the worst happened she need not know, nor should she guess, how bad that worst might be. Poor Rowntree's fate, and even his own ill-usage by those masterless men, were things which Engelhardt was not the man to tell to women in the hour of alarm. He was clear enough as to that; and having done up to this point all that a man could do, he jumped at the simple task imposed by Naomi, and threw himself into it with immense vigor and a lightened heart. As he dropped his first clothes-prop in the store veranda, Naomi and the housekeeper were still talking, though the latter was already huddled up in the saddle. When he got back with a second, both women were gone; with a third, Naomi was unlocking the store door; with the fourth and last, she had lit a candle inside, and was sawing one of the other props in two.
"That'll do," she said, as her saw ran through the wood. "Now hold this one up for me."
She pointed to another of the stout poles. She made him hold it with one end inside, and the other protruding through the opening. Then she made a mark on the prop at the level of the door, sawed it through at her mark, and cut down the other two in the same fashion. In less than five minutes the four poles had become eight, which cumbered the floor within. Then Naomi rose from her knees, flung the saw back into the tool-box, and made a final survey with the candle. A few flakes of sawdust lay about the shallow veranda. She fetched a broom from a corner of the store and whisked them away. Then she removed the key to the inside, and was about to lock the door upon herself and Engelhardt when he suddenly stopped her.
"Hold on!" he cried. "I want your boots."
"My boots?"
"Yes, those you've got on—with the dust on 'em, just as they are. They must be left outside your door, and your door must be locked; you must keep the key."
Naomi gave him a grateful, an admiring smile.
"That is a happy thought. I'll get it myself. While I'm gone you might fetch in the axe from the wood-heap; I'd almost forgotten it."
They ran off in different directions. Next minute they were both back in the store, Engelhardt with the axe. Naomi took it from him, and set it aside without a word. Her face was blanched.
"I heard something," she whispered. "I heard a cry. Oh, if they've seen me!"
"We'll lock the door as quietly as possible."
This was done.
"Now the props," said Naomi.
Engelhardt had guessed what they were for. He helped her to fix them, with one wedged between floor and counter, and the other pressing the heavy woodwork of the door. It now appeared how craftily Naomi had cut her timbers. They met the door, two at the top, two at the bottom, and four about the centre. Still the brave engineer was distressed.
"I meant to hammer them down," she murmured. "Now I daren't."
"We'll put all our weight on them instead," said Engelhardt. They did so with a will, until each prop had creaked in turn. Then they listened.
"Out with the light," said Naomi. "There are no windows to give us away—but still!"
He blew it out. As yet his own ears had heard nothing, and he was beginning to wonder whether Naomi had been deceived. They listened a little longer. Then she said:
"We're provisioned for a siege. Did you see the flask and things on the counter?"
"I did. How in the world did you find time to get them ready?"
"I had them ready before you came. They were for you."
The two were crouching close together between the props. It was a natural though not a necessary attitude. The moon was shining through the skylight upon one of the walls; the multifarious tins and bottles on the shelves made the most of the white light; and faint reflections reached the faces of Naomi and the piano-tuner—so close to each other, so pale, so determined, and withal so wistful as their eyes met. Engelhardt first looked his thanks, and then stammered them out in a broken whisper. Even as he did so the girl raised a finger to her lips.
"Hark! There they are."
"Yes, I hear them. They won't hear us yet a bit."
"They mustn't hear us at all; but off with your boots—we may have to move about."
She had already kicked off her shoes, and now, because he had only one of his own, she pulled off his boots with her two hands.
"You should not have done that!"
"Why not?"
"It's dreadful! Just as though you were my servant."
"Mr. Engelhardt, we must be everything to each other——"
She shot up her hand and ceased. The voices without were now distinguishable.
"To-night!" he muttered, bitterly, before heeding them.
Naomi, on the other hand, was at the last pitch of attention; but not to him. She inclined her head as she knelt to hear the better. The voices were approaching from one side.
"Ay, that's where he dropped—just there!" said one. It was Tigerskin's mate, Bill.
"Take the key from the door!" Engelhardt whispered to Naomi, who was the nearer it. They had forgotten to do this. For one wild moment the girl hesitated, then she cautiously reached out her hand and withdrew the key without a scratch.
"So this is the crib!" they heard Bo's'n say.
"The same old crib," said Bill. "Same as it was ten years ago, only plastered up a bit. I suppose it is locked, mate?"
The handle was tried. The door shook ever so little. The two inside gazed at the props and held their breath. If one of them should be shaken down!
"Ay, it's locked all right; and I reckon it's true enough about the girl sleeping with the key under her pillow, and all."
"Blast your reckonings!" said Bill. "Make sure the key ain't in the door on t'other side."
The thimbleful of starlit sky which Naomi had been watching for the last minute and a half was suddenly wiped away. She heard Bo's'n breathing hard as he stooped and peered. The key grew colder in her hand.
"No, there ain't no key, Bill."
"That's all right. They're both in their beds then, and that little suck-o'-my-thumb hasn't got here yet. When he does, God 'elp him!"
The voices were those of Bill and Bo's'n. For the moment these two seemed to be alone together.
"Ay, ay, we'd string the beggar up fast enough another time!"
"String him up? Yes, by his heels, and shoot holes through him while he dangled."
"Beginning where you don't kill. Holy smoke! but I wish he'd turn up now."
"So do I—the swine! But here comes the ringer. What cheer, matey?"
"It's right," said Simons. "The little devil's locked her door; but there are her boots outside, same as if she was stoppin' at a blessed 'otel. A fat lot she cared whether her precious pal was bushed or whether he wasn't! We thought you was telling us lies, mother, but, by cripes, you wasn't!"
"I should think not!" said a fourth voice. "She wouldn't believe he was lost, but I knew he was; so I just saddled the night-horse after she was in bed and asleep, and was going straight to the shed to raise a search-party!"
The pair within were staring at each other in dumb horror. That fourth voice was but too well known to them both. It was Mrs. Potter's.
CHAPTER XV THE NIGHT ATTACK
"See here, mother!" said Bill. "There's one or two things we want to know. Spit out the truth, and that'll be all right. Tell us one lie, and there'll be an end of you. Understand?"
"I ought to."
"Right you are, then; now you know. What about this key?"
"She keeps it in her room."
"Under her pillow, eh?"
"That I can't say; but she will tell you."
"So we reckon. Now look here. Will you take your oath there's not another soul on the premises but you and her?"
The pair within again held their breath. They must be discovered; but the longer they could postpone it the shorter would be their danger. Mrs. Potter's heart was stout, however, and her tongue ready.
"I swear it," she cried, heartily.
"What makes you so cussed sure?"
"Why, it stands to reason. By rights there ought to be four of us. That's with Sam Rowntree and Mr. Engelhardt. Sam's gone off on his own hook somewhere"—Bill chuckled—"but nobody knows where. Mr. Engelhardt's lost, as I told you. So there's nobody left but mistress and me. How could there be?"
"I don't know or care a curse how there could be. I only know that if there is, you'll have a pill to take without opening your mouth for it. About this chap that's lost; you'll take your oath he didn't turn up before you left the station just now?"
"I told you he hadn't, as soon as ever you overtook me."
"You've got to swear it!" said Bill, savagely.
"I swore it then."
"So she did," said Simons, who had been grumbling openly during this cross-examination. "What's the good of going over the same track twice, mate? Let her give us the feed she promised, and then let's get to work."
"And so say I!" cried the Bo's'n.
"You shall have your supper in five minutes," said Mrs. Potter, "if you'll let me get it."
"All right, missus," said Bill, after a pause. "Only mind, if we catch you in any hanky-panky, by God I'll screw your neck till I put your face where your back-hair ought to be. Don't you dare get on the cross with us, or there'll be trouble! Come on, chaps. You show the way to the dining-room, mother, and light up; then we'll...."
The rest sounded indistinct in the store. The low crunching of the foot-falls in the sandy yard changed to a crisp clatter upon the homestead veranda. Naomi waited for that sign; then with a white face and eager hands she began to tear down, prop by prop, the barricade on which their very lives depended.
"She shall not suffer for this, whoever else does," she muttered. "At least she sha'n't suffer alone."
"You mean to open the door?"
"Yes, and catch her as she passes. To get to the kitchen she must pass close to the store. We'll open the door, and if she's wise she'll pass three or four times without turning her head; she'll wait till they're well at work; then she'll come back for something else—and slip in."
As she spoke Naomi went round to the gun-rack, took down the Winchester repeating-rifle, loaded it and came back to the front of the store. Then she directed Engelhardt to unlock the door, she helping him to be gentle with the key. The lock was let back by degrees. A moment later the door was wide open, with Naomi standing as in a frame, the Winchester in her hands.
The station-yard lay bathed and purified in the sweet moonlight. The well-palings opposite, and the barracks beyond, were as though newly painted white. The main building Naomi could not see without putting out her head, for it ran at right angles with the store, and she was standing well inside. But the night wind that blew freshly in her face bore upon it the noise of oaths and laughter from the dining-room, and presently that of footsteps, too. At this Naomi laid a finger on the trigger and stood like a rock, with the piano-tuner, like its shadow, at her side. But it was only Mrs. Potter who stepped into the moonlight. So far all was as Naomi had hoped and calculated.
But no further. When the poor soul saw the open door she stopped dead, hesitated half a second, and then ran like a heavy doe for it and Naomi. The latter had made adverse signals in vain. She drew aside to let the woman in, and was also in time to prevent Engelhardt from slamming the door. She shut it gently, turned the key with as much care as before, and with a sternly whispered "hush!" kept still to listen. The other two stood as silent, though Mrs. Potter, in the moment of safety and of reaction, was heaving and quivering all over, shedding tears like rain, and swaying perilously where she stood. But she kept her feet bravely during that critical minute; it was but one; the next, a shout of laughter from the distance made it clear that by a miracle the incident had passed unobserved and unsuspected.
"We may think ourselves lucky," said Naomi, severely. Next moment she had thrown her arms round the old woman's neck, and was covering her honest wrinkled face with her tears and kisses.
The practical Engelhardt was busily engaged in replacing the props against the door. His one hand made him slow at the work. Naomi was herself again in time to help him, and now there was sturdy Mrs. Potter to lend her weight. The supports were soon firmer than ever, with gimlets and bradawls driven into the door above those at the greatest slant, which were thus in most danger of being forced out of place. Then came a minute's breathing-space.
"I had just got through the first gate," Mrs. Potter was saying, "when I heard a galloping, and they were on me. Nay, Miss Naomi, it isn't anything to be proud of. I just said the first things that came into my head about you both; there was no time to think. It's only a mercy it's turned out so well."
"It was presence of mind," said Naomi. "We have scored an hour through it, and may another if they are long in missing you. If we can hold out till morning, someone may ride in from the shed. Don't you hear them talking still?"
"Yes; they're more patient than I thought they'd be."
"They think you're busy in the kitchen. When they find you're not, they'll waste their time looking all over the place for you—everywhere but here."
"Ay, but they'll come here in the end, and then may the Lord have mercy on our souls!"
"Come, come. They're not going to get in as easily as all that. And if they do, what with the Winchester——"
"Hush!" said Engelhardt. He was kneeling among the props, with his ear close to the bottom of the door.
All three listened. The voices were louder and more distinct. The men had come outside.
"I don't believe she's there at all," said one. "I see no light."
"Go you and have a look, Bo's'n. Prick the old squaw up with the p'int o' your knife. But if you find her trying to hide, or up to any o' them games, I'd slit her throat and save the barney."
"By cripes, so would I!"
"Ay, ay, messmates, but we'll see—we'll see."
All the voices were nearer now. Naomi had taken Mrs. Potter's hand, and was squeezing it white. For some moments they could make out nothing more. Bo's'n had evidently gone over to the kitchen. The other two were talking in low tones somewhere near the well-palings. Suddenly a muffled shout from the kitchen reached every ear.
"She's not here at all."
"Not there!"
"Come and look for yourselves."
"By gock," cried Bill, "let me just get my grip on her fat neck!"
A moment later the three could be heard ransacking the kitchen, and calling upon the fugitive to come out, with threats and imprecations most horrible to hear even in the distance; but as they drew nearer, working swiftly from out-building to out-building, like ferrets in a rabbit-warren, the ferocity of their language rose to such a pitch that the hunted woman within fell back faint and trembling upon the counter. Naomi was quick as thought with the flask; but her own cool hand and steady eyes were as useful as the brandy, and the fit passed as swiftly as it had come. While it lasted, however, the only one to follow every move outside was the assiduous Engelhardt. He had not yet risen from his knees; but he raised himself a little as Mrs. Potter stood upright again, supported by Naomi.
"It's all right," he whispered. "They've no idea where you are. Simons has had a look in the barracks, and Bo's'n in the pines. But they've given you up now. They're holding a council of war within five yards of us!"
"Let's listen," said Naomi. "Their language won't kill us."
They had quite given up Mrs. Potter. This was evident from the tail-end of a speech in which Bill bitterly repented not having "stiffened" both her and Engelhardt at sight.
"As for getting to the shed," said Simons, who was the obvious authority on this point, "that'll take her a good hour and a half on foot. It'd be a waste of time and trouble to ride after her, though I'd like to see Bill at work on her—I should so! If she had her horse, it'd be another thing."
"Ay, ay," cried the Bo's'n. "Let the old gal rip."
Bill had been of the same opinion a moment before; but this indecent readiness to be beaten by an old woman was more than he could share or bear. He told his mate so in highly abusive terms. They retorted that he was beaten by that same old woman himself. Bill was not so sure of that; what about the bedroom with the boots outside? Nobody had looked in there.
A brisk debate ensued, in which the voice of Simons rose loudest. Bill, on the other hand, spoke in a much lower tone than usual; his words did not penetrate into the store; it was as though they were meant not to. And yet it was Bill who presently cried aloud:
"Then that's agreed. We all three go together to rouse her up anyhow, whether the old gal's there or whether she isn't. Come on!"
Apparently they went then and there.
"Nice for me!" whispered Naomi. "Nice for us both, Mrs. Potter, if we weren't safe——"
A bovine roar seemed to burst from their very midst. It was Bill outside the door.
"Tricked 'em, by God!" he yelled. "Here they are. Never mind that room. I tell you they're here—both of 'em; I heard 'em whispering."
"Bill, you're a treat," said the Bo's'n, running up. "I never saw such a man——"
"Where's Simons?"
"He was bound to have a look for hisself. Here he comes. Well, messmate, where is she?"
"Not there," cried Simons, with an oath. "The room's as empty as we are. There's been no one in it all night."
Bill laughed.
"I knew that, matey. You might have saved yourself the trouble when I sang out. She's—in—here." And he kicked the store door three times with all his might.
"Who is?" said Simons.
"Both on 'em. What did I tell you? They started whisperin' the moment they thought we'd sheered off."
"They're not whisperin' now," said Simons, at the keyhole. "By cripes, let's burst the door in!"
"Hold on," said Bill. "If they're not born fools they'll listen to reason. Out o' the light, matey. See here, ladies, if you walk out now you may live to spin the yarn, but if you don't—" He broke away into nameless blasphemies.
The cruel voice came hoarse and hot through the keyhole. Engelhardt opened his mouth to reply, but Naomi clapped a warm palm upon it, and with the other hand signalled silence to Mrs. Potter.
"We've given 'em their chance," said Bill, after a pause. "Come on, chaps. One, two, all together—now!"
There was a stampede of feet in the shallow veranda, and then a thud and a crash, as the three men hurled themselves against the door. But for their oaths outside, in the store it was as though nothing had happened. Not a timber had given, not a prop was out of place. Naomi's white face wore a smile, which, however, was instantly struck out by a loud report and a flash through the keyhole.
Engelhardt crouched lower, picked something from the floor, and passed it up to Naomi in his open hand.
She carried it into the moonlight. It was a wisp of the musician's long hair, snipped out by the bullet.
They stood aside from the keyhole. More bullets came through, but all at the same angle. The women caught up a sack of flour, rolled it over the counter, and with Engelhardt's help jammed it between the props, so that the top just covered the keyhole. Next moment there was a rush against the door, and for the second time all the harm was done to the besiegers, not the besieged.
"We'll be black and blue before we've anything to show for it!" they heard the Bo's'n groaning.
"There's more than women in this," said Bill. "There's that spawn that I should have strung up if it hadn't been for you two white-feathers. It's yourselves you've got to thank for this. I might have known it the moment I caught sight o' that lump o' lard on horseback. The swine's been in here all the time!"
"He has!" shouted Engelhardt at the top of his excited voice; "and it's where you'll never get, not a man of you! You take that from me!"
For a short space there was a hush outside. Then arose such a storm of curses and foul threats that the women within put their fingers in their ears. When they withdrew them, all was silence once more, and this time it lasted.
"They must have gone for something!" exclaimed Naomi.
"They have," said the piano-tuner, coolly. "A battering-ram!"
"Then now's our time," cried the girl. "It's absurd to think of our being cooped up here with any quantity of fire-arms, and no chance of using one of them! First we must light up. Chop that candle in two, Mrs. Potter. It'll see us through to daybreak, and there's nothing to keep dark any longer, so the more light now the better. Ah, here's the tool-box, and yes! here's the brace and bits. Now this is my little plan."
She took the brace, fitted it with the largest bit, and was making for the door.
"What are you going to do?" said Engelhardt.
"Make a loop-hole to fire through."
"And for them to fire through, too!"
"Well, that can't be helped."
"Excuse me, I think it can. I've been puzzling the thing out for the last hour. I've a better plan than that!"
"Let me hear it."
"A tomahawk!"
She gave him one from the tool-box.
"May I hack the roofing a bit?"
"As much as ever you like."
"Now a pile of boxes—here—just at the left of the door—and four feet high."
The women had it ready in a twinkling. They then helped him to clamber to the top—no easy matter with an arm that was not only useless, but an impediment at every turn. When he stood at his full height his head touched the corrugated iron some twenty inches from the obtuse angle between roof and wall.
He reached out his hand for the tomahawk, and at the height of his eyes he hacked a slit in the iron, prising the lower lip downward until he could see well out into the yard. Then, a handbreadth above the angle, he made a round hole with the sipke of the tomahawk, and called for a revolver. Naomi produced a pair. He took one, and worked the barrel in the round hole until it fitted loosely enough to permit of training. Then he looked down. There was no sign of the thieves.
"Have you plenty of cartridges, Miss Pryse?"
"Any amount."
"Well, I don't expect to spill much blood with them; but, on the other hand, I'm not likely to lose any myself." The work and the danger had combined to draw his somewhat melancholy spirit out of itself. Or perhaps it was not the danger itself, but the fact that he shared it with Naomi Pryse. Whatever the cause, the young man was more light-hearted than was his wont. "They'll fire at the spot I fire from," he explained, with a touch of pride; "they'll never think of my eyes being two feet higher up, and their bullets must strike the roof at such an angle that no charge on earth would send them through. Mind, it'll be the greatest fluke if I hit them; but they aren't to know that; and at any rate I may keep them out of worse mischief for a time."
"You may and you will," said Naomi, enthusiastically. "But still we shall want my loop-hole!"
"Why so?"
"The veranda!"
For some moments Engelhardt said nothing. When at last he found his voice it was to abuse himself and his works with such unnecessary violence that again that soft warm palm lay for an instant across his lips. His pride in his own ingenuity had been cruelly humbled, for he had to confess that he had entirely forgotten to reckon with the store-veranda, a perfect shelter against even the deadliest fusillade from his position.
"Very well," he cried at last. "We'll drill a hole through the door, but we must drill it near the top, and at an angle, so that they can't put a bullet through it at a distance."
"Then let me do it," said Naomi. She sprang upon the flour-bag, and the hole was quickly made. Still the men did not return. "Lucky thing I remembered the axe in time!" she continued, remaining where she was. "They would have hacked in the door in no time with that. I say, Mr. Engelhardt, this is my post. I mean to stick here."
"Never!" he cried.
"But you can't work both revolvers."
"Well, then, let us change places. You'll probably shoot straighter than I should. I'll stand on the flour-bag with the barrel of the other revolver through the hole you've made. If any one of them gets in a line with it——well, there'll be a villain less!"
"And Mrs. Potter shall load for us," cried Naomi. "Do you know how?"
"Can't say I do, miss."
"Then I'll show you."
This was the work of a moment. The old bush-woman was handy enough, and cool enough too, now that she was getting used to the situation. It was her own idea to bring round the storekeeper's tall stool, to plant it among the props, within reach of Naomi on the boxes and of Engelhardt on the flour-bag, and to perch herself on its leather top with the box of cartridges in her lap. Thus prepared and equipped, this strange garrison waited for the next assault.
"Here they come," cried Naomi at last, with a sudden catch in her voice. "They're carrying a great log they must have fished out from the very bottom of the wood-heap. All the top part of the heap was small wood, and I guess they've wasted some more time in hunting for the axe. But here they are!" She pushed her revolver through the slit in the roof, and the sharp report rang through the store.
"Hit anybody?" said Engelhardt next moment.
"No. They're stopping to fire back. Ah, you were right."
As she spoke there was a single report, followed by three smart raps on the sloping roof. The bullet had ricochetted like a flat stone flung upon a pond. Another and another did the same, and Naomi answered every shot.
"For God's sake take care!" cried the piano-tuner.
"I am doing so."
"Hit any one yet?"
"Not yet; it's impossible to aim; and they've never come nearer than the well-palings. Ah!"
"What now?"
"They're charging with the log."
Engelhardt slipped his revolver into his pocket, and grasped the shelf that jutted out over the lintel. He felt that the shock would be severe, and so it was. It came with a rush of feet and a volley of loud oaths—a crash that smashed the lock and brought three of the clothes-props clattering to the ground. But those secured by gimlet and bradawl still held; and though the lower part of the door had given an inch the upper fitted as close as before, and the hinges were as yet uninjured.
"One more does it!" cried Bill. "One more little rush like the last, and then, by God, if we don't make the three of you wish you was well dead, send me to quod again for ten year! Aha, you devil with the pistol! Very nice you'd got it arranged, but it don't cover us here. No, no, we've got the bulge on you now, you swine you! And you can't hit us, neither! We're going to give you one chance more when we've got our breath—just one, and then——"
By holding on to the shelf when the crash came Engelhardt had managed to stand firm on the flour-bag. Seeing that the door still held, though badly battered, he had put his eye to the loop-hole bored by Naomi, and it had fallen full on Bill. A more bestial sight he had never seen, not even in the earlier hours of that night. The bloated face was swimming with sweat, and yet afire with rage and the lust for blood. The cross-eyes were turned toward the holes in the roof, hidden from them by the veranda, and the hairy fist with the four fingers was being savagely shaken in the same direction. The man was standing but a foot from the door, and when Engelhardt removed his eye and slipped his pistol-barrel in the place, he knew that it covered his midriff, though all that he could see through the half-filled hole was a fragment of the obscene, perspiring face. It was enough to show him the ludicrous change of expression which followed upon a sudden lowering of the eyes and a first glimpse of the protruding barrel. Without a moment's hesitation Engelhardt pressed the trigger while Bill was stupidly repeating:
"And then—and then——"
A flash cut him short, and as the smoke and the noise died away, Engelhardt, removing the pistol once more and applying his eye, saw the wounded brute go reeling and squealing into the moonshine with his hand to his middle and the blood running over it. To the well-palings he reeled, dropping on his knees when he got there, but struggling to his feet and running up and down and round and round like a mad bull, still screaming and blaspheming at the top of his voice, and with the blood bubbling over both his hands, which never ceased to hug his wound. His mates rushed up to him, but he beat them off, cursing them, spitting at them, and covering them with blood as he struck at them with his soaking fists. It was their fault. They should have let him have his way. He would have done for that hell-begotten swine who had now done for him. It was they who had killed him—his own mates—and he told them so with shrieks and curses, varied with sobs and tears, and yet again with wild shots from a revolver which he plucked from his belt. But he dropped the pistol after madly discharging it twice, and clapping his hand to his middle, as though he could only live by pressing the wound with all his force, he rushed after them, foaming at the mouth and squirting blood at every stride. At last he seemed to trip, and he fell forward in a heap, but turned on one side, his knees coming up with a jerk, his feet treading the air as though running still. And for some seconds they so continued, like the screws of a foundering steamer; then he rolled over heavily; his two companions came up at a walk; one of them touched him with his foot; and Engelhardt stepped down from the flour-bag with a mouth that had never relaxed, and a frown that had never gone.
Naomi was no longer standing on the boxes; but she was sitting on them, with her face in her hands; and in the light of the two candle-ends, Mrs. Potter was watching her with a white dazed face.
"Cheer up!" said Engelhardt. "The worst is over now."
"Is he dead?" said Naomi, uncovering her face.
"As dead as a man can be."
"And you shot him?"
She knew that he had; but the thing seemed incredible as she sat and looked at him; and by the time it came fully home to her, the little musician was inches taller in her eyes.
"Yes, I shot the brute; and I'll shoot that shearer, too, if I get half a chance."
Naomi felt nervous about it, and sufficiently shocked. She was dubiously remarking that they had not committed murder, when she was roughly interrupted.
"Haven't they!"
"Whom have they murdered?"
"You'll see."
"I know!" cried Mrs. Potter, with sudden inspiration; but even as they looked at her, a voice was heard shouting from a respectful distance outside.
"We're going," it cried. "We've had enough of this, me and Simons have. Only when they find that chap in the paddock, recollect it was Bill that hung him. But for us he'd have hung you, too!"
They listened very closely, but they heard no more. Then Naomi stood up to look through the slit in the roof.
"The yard is empty," she cried. "Their horses are gone! Oh, Mr. Engelhardt—Mr. Engelhardt—we are saved!"
CHAPTER XVI IN THE MIDST OF DEATH
The candle-ends had burnt out in the store; the moon no longer shone in through the skylight; but the latter was taking new shape, and a harder outline filled with an iron-gray that whitened imperceptibly, like a man's hair. The strange trio within sat still and silent, watching each other grow out of the gloom like figures on a sensitive film. The packet of meat and bread was reduced to a piece of paper and a few crumbs; the little flask was empty, and the water-bag half its former size; but now that all was over, the horror of the night lay heavier upon them than during the night itself. It was Naomi who broke the long silence at last.
"They have evidently gone," she said. "Don't you think we might venture now?"
"It is for you to decide," said Engelhardt.
"What do you think, Mrs. Potter?"
"If you ask me, Miss Naomi, I think it's beneath us to sit here another minute for a couple of rascals who will be ten miles away by this time."
"Then let us go. I will take the Winchester, and if they are still about we must just slip in again quicker than we came out. But I think it's good enough to chance."
"So do I," said the piano-tuner, "most decidedly."
"Then down with the props. They have served us very well, and no mistake! You must keep them in your kitchen, Mrs. Potter, as a trophy for all time."
The old woman made no reply. Of what she was thinking none ever knew. Her life had run in a narrow, uneventful groove. Its sole adventure was probably the one now so nearly at an end. Ten years ago she had been ear-witness of a somewhat similar incident. And now she had played a part, and no small part, in another and a worse. At her age she might have come out shaken and shattered to the verge of imbecility, after such a night. Or she might have felt inordinately proud of her share in the bushrangers' repulse. But when at last the battered door stood wide open, and the keen morning air chilled their faces, and the red morning sky met their eyes, the old woman looked merely sad and thoughtful, and years older since the day before. Her expression touched Naomi. Once more she threw her young arms about the wrinkled neck, and left kisses upon the rough cheek, and words of grateful praise in the old ears. Meanwhile Engelhardt had pushed past them both and marched into the middle of the yard.
"It's all right, I think," said he, standing purposely between the women and the hideous corpse by the well-palings. "Yes, the coast is clear. But there's the horse you rode, Mrs. Potter, and Bill's horse, too, apparently, tied side by side to the fence."
"May God forgive them all," said Mrs. Potter, gravely, as she walked across the yard at Naomi's side.
They were the last words she ever uttered. As she spoke, the crack of a rifle, with the snap of a pistol before and after, cut the early stillness as lightning cuts the sky. Naomi wheeled round and levelled her Winchester at the two men who were running with bent backs from a puff of smoke to a couple of horses tethered among the pines beyond kitchen and wood-heap. She sighted the foremost runner, but never fired. A heavy fall at her side made her drop the Winchester and turn sharply round. It was Mrs. Potter. She was lying like a log, with her brave old eyes wide open to the sky, and a bullet in her heart.
"Take me away," said the girl, faintly, as she got up from her knees. "I can bear no more."
"There are the horses," answered the piano-tuner, pointing to the two that were tied up to the fence. "I should dearly like to give chase!"
"No, no, no!" cried Naomi, in an agony. "Hasn't there been enough bloodshed for one night? We will ride straight to the shed. They have taken the very opposite direction. Let us start at once!"
"In an instant," he said, and ran indoors for something to throw over the dead woman. The girl was again kneeling beside her, when he came back with a table-cloth. And she was crying bitterly when, a minute later, he slipped his left hand under her foot and helped her into the saddle.
They never drew rein until the long, low wool-shed was well in sight. The sun was up. It was six o'clock. They could see the shearers swarming to the shed like bees to a hive. The morning air was pungent as spiced wine. Some color had come back to Naomi's cheeks, and it was she who first pulled up, forcing Engelhardt to do the same.
"Friday morning!" she said, walking her horse. "Can you realize that you only came last Saturday night?"
"I cannot."
"No more can I! We have been through so much——"
"Together."
"Together and otherwise. I think you must have gone through more than I can guess, when you were lost in Top Scrubby, and when you fell in with those fiends. Will you tell me all about it some time or other?"
"I'm afraid there will be no opportunity," said Engelhardt, speaking with unnatural distinctness. "I must be off to-day."
"To-day!"
Her blank tone thrilled him to the soul.
"Of course," he said, less steadily. "Why not? I did my best to get away the night before last. Thank God I didn't succeed in that!"
"Why did you go like that?"
"You know why."
"I know why! What do you mean? How can I know anything?"
"Very easily," he bitterly replied, staring rigidly ahead with his burning face. "Very easily indeed, when I left you that letter!"
"What letter, Mr. Engelhardt?"
"The awful nonsense I was idiot enough to slip into your book!"
"The book I was reading?"
"Yes."
"Then I have never had your letter. I haven't opened that book since the day before yesterday, though more than once I have taken it up with the intention of doing so."
"Well, thank Heaven for that!"
"But why?"
"Because I said——"
"Well, what did you say?"
She caught his bridle, and, by stopping both horses, forced him to face her at last.
"Surely you can guess? I had just got to know about Tom Chester, and I felt there was no hope for me, so I thought——"
"Stop! what had you got to know about Tom Chester, please?"
"That he cared for you."
"Indeed! To me that's a piece of news. Mind, I care for him very much as a friend—as a hand."
"Then you don't——"
"No, indeed I don't."
"Oh, Naomi, what am I to say? In that letter I said it all—when I had no hope in my heart. And now——"
"And now you have called that letter awful nonsense, and yourself an idiot for writing it!"
She was smiling at him—her old, teasing smile—across the gap between their horses. But his eyes were full of tears.
"Oh, Naomi, you know what I meant!"
"And I suppose it has never occurred to you what I mean?"
He stared at her open-eyed.
"Will you marry me?" he blurted out.
"We'll see about that," said Naomi, as he took her hand and they rode onward with clasped fingers. "But I'll tell you what I am on to do. I'm on to put Taroomba in the market this very day, and to back you for all that it fetches. After that there's Europe—your mother—Milan—and anything you like, my dear fellow, for the rest of our two lives."