Most of the bushrangers had dismounted to ease their jaded horses, whose heaving flanks and expanded nostrils spoke plainly enough of the great exertion they had made in the chase that was just ended. The men were standing about Starlight, who was leaning against the charred stump of a burnt tree, flicking the side of his shapely leg with the whip he carried. He looked up as the two men who had hold of Alec brought the boy before him, and with a winsome smile he turned to him and said—
"Well, young fellow, what do you think of yourself for having given us such a chase as this? Aren't you ashamed of yourself?"
Alec made no reply. He thought, and rightly so, that this sort of remark required no answer. Starlight did not seem to notice the omission, but went on in the same light, bantering tone—
"Don't look so sullen; you have done very well for a beginner. We have killed your brother—oh, you need not lock surprised, I know all about you, and besides you are as like as two peas—but you have killed two of my men in return, and that ought to satisfy you. Now one of you fellows there, just look about and see if you can find a little water for the horses. I suppose it is no use asking you where we can find it, Mr. Law, though it would only be hospitable of you on your own run to show us where there is some."
Although Starlight spoke so lightly and, seemingly, was so careless of what went on around him, he kept a keen watch over every one and everything, and the quick catch in the breath that Alec made when he spoke of Geordie did not escape his rapid glance. Like the brute that he was, he determined to torture the poor lad with references to his dead brother from a sheer love of cruelty. Whilst some two or three of the men went to search for water, giving the bridles of their horses to the others to hold, Starlight continued his cruel amusement. To see him, as he leaned so carelessly and gracefully against the burnt stump, with the moonlight falling on his young and handsome face, and lighting up the dimple that fluttered in his cheek when he smiled, one would have thought him some happy fellow talking with a friend instead of the cruel, heartless outlaw that he was.
"It was hardly a fair struggle, was it, for Pearson was so much stronger than your brother, who must have been tired too? It must be unpleasant to have one's brother killed before one's face. Do you find it so?" He looked up with a simple, inquiring glance at Alec as he spoke, and laughed to see how white the boy had grown.
Whilst he was speaking, one of the men who was holding the horses walked up to him and remonstrated with him for his brutal behaviour. He was a great, big, honest-looking fellow, with kind blue eyes and a short curly yellow beard, who looked strangely out of place in the company he was with, and whose reckless, dare-devil expression did not seem quite natural to him. Alec could not hear what he said, but he recognised the voice as being that of the man who had shouted out an answer to Keggs when he was boasting that he was equal with the boys at last.
Starlight listened to what this young fellow had to say, and then, without turning his head, he looked at him between his half-shut lids and said in a slightly sardonic voice—
"You don't seem to enjoy your new profession, Mr. Crosby. Don't you think you had better go back to that pleasant old fellow, your uncle, and act the prodigal nephew? But understand this, once for all, I don't put up with contradiction or allow interference. So let's have no more of these sanctimonious airs; remember you are just as much a bushranger—I'm not frightened of the word—as I am, although you have not tried your hand at sticking any one up yet, or anything else, as far as I can see, but eat and drink with the best of us."
"And never will do anything for you, Heaven willing, from to-night," said Crosby, as he stepped a pace or two to one side.
"Oh, he'll come round," whispered Starlight to Wetch, the man on his left, a trusty henchman this, who had no qualms of conscience, and who had sold himself body and soul to his leader.
A moment or two after this the men who had been looking for water came back and said that they could find none, and Starlight, who owed his success to the quickness of his movements, and to the fact that he never lost time in unnecessary halts during his forays, ordered a start. Whilst Alec was standing, guarded by the two men who had hold of him, Como came bounding to his side. The dog had rushed to Geordie when he was thrown to the ground by Pearson, but as the lad had made no responsive movement when he had licked his hands and face he had left him and sought Alec. The dog was wild with delight at finding one of his masters, and sprang up and licked Alec's white cheek and fawned upon him. One of the men kicked the dog to one side, and it howled with pain. Starlight, whose back had been turned for a moment, looked round and, seeing what it was, sang out—
"Quiet that dog; put a bullet through his head, some one."
But this was too much for Alec to bear passively. A passionate love for animals was one of his strongest feelings, and to hear the order given for Como's death was more than he could endure. With a sudden wrench he tore himself out of the grasp of the two men that held him, for he had been standing so quietly that their hold upon him had gradually grown slack. He knelt on the ground, and flung his arms round the dog that his brother had loved so much, and with his black brows drawn down he looked up at Starlight, and said, quite calmly—
"Don't shoot the dog."
"Yes, I shall. I can't have that noisy brute yelping about me."
"Then you'll shoot him through me," said Alec, in the same determined voice.
"I'm going to shoot you, I know, but not just yet," remarked Starlight in a casual tone.
"We want a dog up at Norton's Gap; why not take this one? It is a handsome brute," said one of the men.
"That alters the case," said Starlight, pleasantly. "I'm always open to conviction. Will he follow us?"
"Yes, he'll follow, if I tell him to," said Alec, unconsciously caressing the velvety ear of the dog, who stood quite still now that he had found his master.
"All right, let him go, I won't hurt him," said Starlight; and then, as Alec looked at him doubtfully, and still retained his hold on the dog, he added, "Oh, I'm not a liar as well as a thief."
"Stow that," growled one of the men.
Starlight laughed, and, with a wave of his hand towards his companions, he said to Alec, "Look at these fellows, they daren't call a spade a spade. They have taken to the bush for years some of them, and lived by robbing ever since, yet they have such tender feelings that they can't bear to be told so. They are not afraid of the substance, but they fear the shadow. I'm a thief and a murderer too, and I don't mind saying it. And so are all of you," said he suddenly, turning to the men, who were always silenced by his scorn. "What about the Denisons, and the Longs, and that man up at Menyp, eh, and others besides? How did they come by their deaths? So don't make fools of yourselves; you know as well as I do that what I say is the truth. I shall be shot or hanged some day, and so will every one of you. Deservedly too."
"We shall all be lagged, and scragged too, as you say, guv, if we stay here much longer," said one of the men with a laugh that was a coarse imitation of Starlight's own.
"That's the first sensible thing I've heard to-night. The horses are breathed by this time. I've only one more thing to do and then we can start." He was drawing his pistol from his belt as he spoke. "The whole affair has been a fool's errand, and I'm heartily glad that that brute Keggs has got what he deserved for telling us such a cock-and-bull story of gold and making us waste so much time."
"What's yer goin' ter do?" asked Middance, one of the two men who had again taken hold of Alec.
"Going to give the dingoes a feast, and to send that young person you've got hold of into the pleasant company of his dear departed brother. So perhaps you had better loose him. I don't suppose I shall miss him, but, being so nervous, I might."
This was enough for Middance and the other man who held Alec; they loosed the lad and nimbly sprang aside. For one awful second Alec stood like a statue in the dread presence of Death; he felt as though his heart were grasped in an icy hand which froze his blood within his veins. He could not stir, for the frightful thought of the sudden death he was threatened with had benumbed and deadened every limb.
Starlight cocked his pistol, raised it—Alec saw the moonlight gleam upon the polished barrel—took a rapid aim at the breast of the motionless boy, and, without a tremor of hesitation, fired full at him.
The loud explosion rang across the open moonlit plain.
But the smoke rolled away and the boy still was there, standing as he had stood before; for just as Starlight fired, Crosby, who had seen what he was about to do, sprang to his side and knocked up his arm. The bushranger leaped round, his eye flashing ominously, and in a voice that was unsteady with anger, he said—
"What now—what do you mean by that?"
"Why, I mean that you are a fool to think of killing your golden goose in that way. Do you think, just because he has no gold with him, that he does not know where it is to be found. I know better than that. Keggs' story was true enough, take my word for it. Don't let us lose all the benefit of our work by killing the only person who can help us in getting what we want. Let me ask the lad; I'll back he tells me."
Crosby spoke so naturally and assumed a manner of such keen interest in the affair that the astute Starlight himself was taken in. As the young fellow walked across to where Alec was standing alone, Starlight turned to Wetch, and said—
"Didn't I say he'd come round. He's just as mad after the gold as any of us. He has got his head screwed on right, too. Leave him alone to manage the boy."
Whilst Starlight was thus whispering to his lieutenant, Crosby had crossed over to Alec, and taking hold of his hand, and giving the lad a little shake to rouse him from the half stupefied condition he was in, he rapidly whispered in his ear in a low voice—
"You must say that you know where the gold is. It is your only chance. Trust to me, and I'll help you out of this mess if it costs me my life. Look me in the face, lad," said he, laying his two hands on Alec's shoulders, "so that you will know me again. Say something, anything, it doesn't matter what; only let them see that you are speaking."
"I shall know you again well enough," said Alec, looking deeply into the honest grey eyes before him, for the two men were of a level height. "I have not so many friends," he added, with a dreary sigh, "that I can afford to mistake one when he offers himself."
"All right, Boss," Crosby sang out aloud as he turned again and faced Starlight; and then, leaving Alec, he walked to the place where the men were clustered together, and with a wink and a knowing little nod of the head which satisfied Starlight that he was heartily one with them, he said, "He knows where the gold lies; I shall be able to get it all out of him, for he thinks I'm a friend, so if any of you fellows spot us talking very friendly, just hold your tongues and don't let on."
This last sentence was a bold stroke of policy on Crosby's part, for he knew that if the men saw him talking with Alec they would be sure to suspect something, so he thought he would disarm suspicion by telling them some part of the truth. He was a shrewd, clear-headed fellow enough, and knew that to tell the truth in part was the best way to conceal the whole truth from them.
"Ah," said Starlight, "that comes of having an honest face, and a pair of innocent-looking eyes. Now you, Wetch, could never have made the boy believe that you were anything but a villain."
Starlight little thought that it was the pure and kindly soul that shone from Crosby's eyes which made his whole face good and honest, or that Wetch himself, ugly brute though he was, might have looked as honest as Crosby had but his spirit been as guiltless and bright. It is not noses and features and colour that mark a man's face as that of an upright, honourable fellow; but it is the steady light that shines from the eyes and the pleasant expressive lines of the honest mouth that show the character of a man, and these things no knave or rogue can imitate, stare though he may and smirk as he will.
"Well, bring the boy along, then. Let him have Pearson's horse; it seems he knows how to ride that beast," said Starlight, laughing as he thought of the way Alec had stuck on the horse, "and his own has bolted, more's the pity, for I should have liked that chestnut myself."
"Now, then, look sharp, you fellows," said Wetch, impatiently; "the moon has begun to sink, and it is a blarmed dark ride to Norton's Gap."
Without further delay they all sprang to horse. One of the men brought up Pearson's horse to Alec, and at a glance from Crosby he mounted it without a word. Giving the signal to start, Starlight placed himself at Alec's off-side, and drawing his pistol from his belt and showing it him, he said—
"Look here, my young friend, if you try to make a bolt of it, I'll let daylight—or, rather, Starlight—into that headpiece of yours; but if you don't make a fool of yourself, and come along quietly, why you'll be all right, and shall have something to eat in an hour or so into the bargain."
Without more ado the whole party set in motion, and, casting a last look to the place where poor Geordie lay all white and still in the moonlight, with a choking throat Alec turned his back upon Wandaroo, and rode off at a good round pace southwards.
The lamps were lighted at Wandaroo, and all the people about the station had come in for the night; the men had finished their tea, and were sitting about the place smoking their short, black pipes, and the horses were all turned out and were cropping the young, sweet grass of the paddock. Man and brute alike were aware that work for the day was ended, and in their different ways each was enjoying his well-earned rest. The large general room of the house at the head station was quiet, for tea was cleared away, and, the kerosine lamp having been turned up, Mrs. Law and Margaret were sitting with their sewing in that busy idleness which women find so restful after a long day's work. Yesslett Dudley was in the room, quiet, too, for a wonder, for he was making one more attempt to finish a long delayed and often interrupted letter to his old home. Every now and then sounds of life could be heard from the kitchen, and the work of the ladies made slight rustlings as they moved it, but otherwise, except an occasional word from Mrs. Law and Margaret, the room was quite quiet. Yesslett went on with his writing steadily for five or ten minutes, an unprecedented period of repose for him; the ladies could hear him dipping his pen savagely into the ink-pot, and then he would go on writing again. At last, between his impatience at the ink and his distaste to silence, he had to speak.
"I say, Margaret, this beastly ink-pot has dried itself up again. I never saw such a place for ink as Australia is. I believe the flies drink it as well as bathe in it," said he, fishing out the body of a drowned house-fly on the end of his pen.
"You must remember that it is more than a week since you last wrote, Yess, and that you didn't put the top on the ink-pot when you left off."
"Oh, how you do notice things, Maggie," said the boy, looking up with a smile. "Is it a week really since I wrote this page?"
"Yes, it is, Mr. Restless, and if you don't go on it strikes me it will be another week before you get that one done."
This speech of Margaret's was prophetic, for it was much more than a week before Yesslett ended that letter.
"Why, what is the day of the month, Maggie? I never can remember since I've been here; there is nothing to remind one."
"The 16th."
"Is it! By Jove, we shall have the boys back in a day or two. They said that they should not be gone more than a month or five weeks at most."
"I wish they would come," said Mrs. Law, letting her hands fall on to her lap; "I am beginning to get so anxious about them. Those horrid myall blacks in the north-east country are so cruel and savage."
"Oh, don't trouble about them, aunt," said Yess leaving his place and sitting down on the edge of the table by the side of Mrs. Law, where he instantly began what he called "arranging" her work-basket. "Both Alec and Geordie are careful fellows, and they are well armed and well mounted. And those two black chaps, Prince Tom and What's-his-name, aren't bad fellows, and will look after them."
Ever since his cousins had gone away Yesslett had assumed the position of the man of the house. He was Macleod's right hand man in the working of the run, and had developed qualities of diligence and trustworthiness that astonished those who had only known him as the rollicking boy he had been aforetime. The two ladies grew to love him very dearly in these anxious weeks, and began to place confidence in him and rely upon him, as women will do, unconsciously perhaps, upon a man, however young a one he may be, if only he show signs of trustworthiness and steadiness. He was just the same gay, light-hearted fellow that he had been before, but under this there was a budding manliness of purpose and temper that spoke well for his future character. Chief of all his functions was that of comforter to his aunt, and right well did he fill it, for his heart was in the work. His dead father had filled the boy's mind with generous thoughts of deference and courtesy to women, and these good old-world notions of kindness and chivalry, which none appreciate more keenly than women, had gained Yesslett the name of Chevalier, with which the two ladies had dubbed him.
"Yes, the boys can take care of themselves, and I trust they are all well," said Mrs. Law, taking up her work again and resuming it with that pathetic patience which women, forced to inactivity, often show. "They may be safe, but I want my boys back again for more reasons than one." Mrs. Law was referring to the debt on the run, which had to be paid in less than two days from that time, or the mortgage would be foreclosed by Crosby, and the run would pass out of their possession.
Knowing of what her mother was thinking, Margaret tried to divert her thoughts to the business of the present hour, so she said—
"Where has Macleod gone to-day, mother?"
"To Bateman. He left soon after breakfast. He wants to find a man in the place of that Keggs. I always disliked that man, and Macleod says that he is sure he has been out all night several times lately, riding one of the horses. He doesn't know what it means, but it looks suspicious, and we want to get rid of him."
"I saw him leaving the bachelor's hut with a bridle on his arm as though he were going to catch one of the horses, an hour or so ago," said Yesslett.
"Did you?" asked Mrs. Law. "I wonder what he is after. I wish the lads were back."
"Surely, mother, you don't think that Keggs' going out with a bridle on his arm is likely to do them any harm?" said Margaret.
"No. Oh, no, certainly not. But I should like them to be here, or else I should like to be with them sharing their dangers," said Mrs. Law, turning to Yesslett, a little flush mounting to her cheeks as she spoke. "You did not think your old aunt had so much spirit, did you, Chevalier mine?"
"I always thought you were everything that a brave lady should be," said Yess.
"Ah, you don't know mother yet," said Margaret. "Did you never hear how, when father was away once, she defended Wandaroo from the myalls, soon after she first came here, and when the station was quite a tiny place?"
"No, I've not heard about that. You ought to have told me, aunt."
"It is so many years ago, before Margaret was born, and you know what an old lady she is getting," said Mrs. Law with a smile, "that I begin to forget all about it."
"But I don't," said Margaret. "Just you listen to this, Yess, and you will hear how brave and calm a woman can be in the very midst of danger."
Margaret had drawn her thread through her work, and was, in her excitement at the memory of the story, holding it tightly stretched out to its full limit. She looked very beautiful as she turned her brown richly-coloured face towards Yesslett, with the bright lamp-light falling on her shapely head with its regal coils of black hair, and Mrs. Law, with that unselfish pride which mothers feel in their daughters' beauty, was thinking more of her comeliness than of what she was saying. Yess, too, noticed how the girl's fine eyes glowed with her enthusiasm, and was a little surprised to find how strong and bold a spirit burned in these two women, whom he had only seen when engaged in the quiet round of their daily toils.
Perhaps he guessed then whence his own greater courage flowed. Daily in the presence of these brave-souled ladies he had grown valorous and more strong. Their intrepidity had slain the old nervousness he once had felt. No man, or boy either, could live with two such women without being raised to their high level, more especially when he felt that he was their defender and protector, and was called upon to make every effort on their behalf.
"The myalls were very numerous and wild about here when mother first came to Wandaroo, and once, when father had to leave her for two days quite alone, they began collecting in large numbers about the head station. The natives had not been dispersed in those days, and they were——"
Here the girl's low voice suddenly ceased, and for a moment a startled silence fell upon the room. The two windows were thrown wide open to the night, and the cool odorous breeze just stirred the light curtains that hung before them.
What was it they had heard?
From far away, from beyond, the end of the great paddock, there came the sound of a single pistol shot. It was the shot that Starlight had fired at Alec when Crosby had knocked up his arm. The noise of the two barrels that Alec had emptied at Keggs had not reached the house. The report was faint, but the night was so still that sound could travel far. They all looked up. For a moment no one spoke.
"What was that?" said Mrs. Law, in a low, intense whisper, laying her work down, and with the palm of her right hand unconsciously drawing off the thimble from her finger, as though preparing for action.
In two silent strides Yesslett reached the window, and was leaning out intently listening. Far away down the gully a morepork was calling. Nothing more. Then came a muffled laugh from the kitchen, and the sound of a chair pushed back. They had not heard it there.
Both the ladies had grown pale, but on neither face was seen the shadow of a fear.
"It was a pistol shot, I'm sure," said Yess.
"It cannot be the boys," said Mrs. Law; "they would know it would alarm us too much."
"What about Keggs?" said Margaret, making one of those intuitive leaps at the truth which are so characteristically feminine. "You know that Yess said he owed them a grudge."
And now had come Yesslett's time for action. He certainly felt one pulsation of his old nervousness at his heart, but the new courage that came of his new strength and spirit instantly repressed it, and he himself was surprised to find how calm he felt. He was standing at the window where the moonshine fell into the room and mingled with the yellow lamp-light. His fair, fluffy hair, moved by the tiny breeze, shone like a halo where the light glowed in it. One hand rested on the low window-sill as he turned and said quickly, but in a quiet voice—
"They may be in danger. I feel sure it is the boys. I will go straight on across the paddock. Margaret, you run round by the bachelor's hut and tell any of the men that are there to follow me as quickly as possible to 'the Dip,' just beyond the end of the paddock; that's where the sound came from."
Without another word Yesslett leaped through the window, and dashing across the garden scrambled over the fence into the yard; crossing that at a run, he got into the paddock without losing time by going round to the bachelor's hut. As he entered the paddock he saw Margaret's white figure darting diagonally across the yard to the men's quarters. He hurried along at a break-neck speed over the dewy grass, the startled horses looking up and moving away as the boy dashed past. He had travelled half-way across the paddock without slackening speed, for his healthy out-door life in Australia had given him all the strength of limb he wanted when he was in England, and he now was as long winded as either of his two cousins. He was just on a level with a little patch of wooded shade, called the "Gum clump" on the station, when he saw a figure, a thin, black figure, running towards the house as swiftly as he himself was from it.
It was useless for him to attempt to hide, for he had been seen; so he stood where he was till the man came up. It was a black boy; but Yess could not tell whether it was one from the blacks' camp or a myall; he did not know Murri well enough to recognise him in the deceptive moonlight. He was not left long in doubt, for the man rushed up to him and said in the most excited voice and in so great a hurry that Yess could hardly understand him—
"Make um great haste, Missa Yessley. Come along o' me. Plenty much white fellow ride quick, cotch us. Um chewt Missa Law dead bong; um take Alec along ob um."
All this was unintelligible to Yesslett, but it sounded very terrible, and he could see that the man was in deadly earnest; so, without a second's delay, he said that he was ready to go with him. He knew, directly that the man began to speak, that he must be one of the two black fellows that had gone with Alec and George, but he could not tell which one.
Murri turned at once, and started again at a swift pace to run towards "the Dip," as it was called, at the end of the paddock. Yesslett managed with difficulty to keep up with him. They climbed over the fence together, and, straight as an arrow to its mark, Murri led the way to the charred tree trunk, across the roots of which George had fallen. Murri had had the sense to move the boy's body from the awkward position in which it had fallen, and to raise his head a little.
Yesslett darted to what seemed to be the lifeless body of his cousin. Geordie's eyes were closed as though in a heavy sleep; his face was deadly white, except where the blood that had poured from his nostrils, when he was flung to the ground, had stained it with its awful stain. At first Yesslett could detect no signs of life in the motionless body before him, but slipping his hand beneath Geordie's open shirt, and placing his hand above his heart, he thought he could detect a faint, faint fluttering there. Yes; hurrah! there was a tiny movement, and bending his cheek down to Geordie's pale lips he could just feel the lightest breathing on it.
"You get um water?" he said, with excitement ringing in every tone of his voice, as he turned to Murri.
"Bail water bong along o' this place," said Murri; shaking his head. "All um water up at station." Then, as a sudden idea seemed to strike him, he sprang up and said, "Mine go cotch um yarroman. Plenty much water in um bockle."
When Alec had ridden up alongside of Pearson, and leaped from his horse on to the bushranger's, Amber had turned, and getting out of the mêlée had joined the horse from which Murri had so quietly slipped at the beginning of difficulties. The bushrangers had not stayed to catch them, but had swept on to overtake Alec and Pearson, and the two Wandaroo horses had stopped not very far from where Geordie lay, and were quietly grazing as well as they could with their bits in their mouths.
Murri succeeded in catching Amber without much difficulty, and brought a tin bottle of water to Yesslett, who opened it and found that there was a little water swilling about at the bottom of it. With this the boy wetted George's lips and sprinkled his face, and he had the satisfaction of seeing a faint look of life return to the face that gleamed so white and ghastly in the moonlight. Fearing that the sight of blood would alarm Margaret and his aunt when they got back to the house, he washed it away with the rest of the water.
A few minutes afterwards Yesslett heard the welcome sound of voices and hurrying footsteps, and in another moment three or four men from the station and the white-clad figure of Margaret, who had managed to keep pace with the men, her awful anxiety giving her strength, were with him.
Margaret's great force of character stood her in good stead just then. She turned deathly pale when she saw her brother lying there, but she repressed all other expression of her emotion. The girl threw herself down by the side of the senseless boy, and raising his head laid it against the heart that was beating so strongly with love for him. She chafed his hands, and lifting back the moist hair from his forehead fanned him with a fold of her white skirt; but as his eyes remained closed and he gave no further sign of life she turned to her cousin, and in an agonised voice cried out—
"Oh, Yesslett, is he dead? Geordie, my poor Geordie!"
"No, he is not dead, I think he is only stunned. We must get him back as quickly as possible to the house. Aunt will know best what to do. I think he must have fallen from his horse, for I can find no sign of a wound about him."
"Where is Alec? What does it all mean?" asked Margaret, who now seemed to remember that her other brother was not present. "It is something very terrible, I'm sure, for Alec would never leave Geordie in this way. He must be dead, for as long as he drew breath he would never desert his brother."
"We thinks it is rather terrible, Miss," said Balchin, one of the men who had been questioning Murri whilst Margaret was attending to her brother, "From what we can make out of this black chap, Miss—it's Murri, Miss, as went with Mr. Alec and George—they've been set on by them bushrangers. He says, Murri do, that there was 'plenty much' of 'em, and that Mr. Alec shot wone of 'em dead, he was that mad like at seeing of Mr. George being throwed, and that then they ups—yes, Miss, the bushranger fellers—and takes Mr. Alec off along with them. That was the way he says they went, Miss," ended Balchin, pointing with a rough, red hand to the south.
"Yew can see there's bin a many 'osses 'ereabouts, by the way the gress is cut up," said one of the other men, pointing to the trampled turf.
"Yes," said Yesslett, "but we can't do anything in the matter of following them till morning, and we must get George home as quickly as possible."
As Yesslett spoke, two or three of the men stooped and picked up the senseless boy. These great rough fellows showed the utmost gentleness and care in the work, for they all were fond of the bright, cheery lad; indeed, Balchin, who had been on the run for many years, and had known him from the time he was a tiny child, could not make his voice steady as he spoke, try as he might.
Just before they came to the boundary fence of the paddock, Margaret's quick eyes saw something lying quite motionless, at some little distance away, in the shade of the great green tree. She pointed it out to Balchin, and fearing, she hardly knew what, she asked him to go and see what it was that lay so strangely there.
"You stay here, Miss, don't you move," said the man, fearing that the sight might be too awful a one for her to see; "I'll come back and tell you, Miss."
He started off at the heavy, slouching trot that was peculiar to him, which looked so slow and ungainly, but which covered the ground so quickly. Two snarling dingoes started up and sneaked away from the body as the man approached. He rolled the dead man over with his foot, looked once at the face, and returned to where the little party waited for him by the gleaming fence.
"It be that thief Keggs, Miss, he've got what he deserves; yes, sir," said he, turning to Yesslett to include him in his remarks, "a bullet through the heart. He it were as brought them bushrangers here, I'll swear."
Slowly and sadly the little procession moved on its way to the house. Margaret was quite quiet; she walked along, dry-eyed, by the side of her brother, holding in her warm one his cold and heavy hand. Yesslett had dropped behind, and was trying to get every bit of information about Alec's capture that he possibly could from Murri. The black boy had not seen or understood all that had taken place, and his account of what had happened to, and been done by, the elder Law was so confused as to be of little assistance to them in forming plans for Alec's rescue.
One of the men had caught Amber and the horse that Murri had been riding, and had taken them to a place, a little way along the fence, where there were slip-panels, and getting them into the paddock, followed the rest of the party to the yard. Vaulty, Geordie's horse, was found next day, by one of the men on the station, a mile or two away from the place where his rider had been thrown.
The night was very calm, so calm that Mrs. Law, standing at the entrance to the paddock from the yard, could hear the steps of the horses and the low voices of the men before she could see the party that was approaching her. She could not rest in the house, and had felt compelled to come out of doors, though her limbs were trembling beneath her to such an extent that she could not stand without support. She could do nothing, for her agony of mind was not mitigated by activity of body; all that she could do, poor soul, was to wait until the search party came back, whilst all the time her mother's heart was torn and racked with an agony of fear. The first words that she heard were these—it was Margaret who spoke.
"Run on, Yesslett, and try to prepare poor mother."
Hearing those words she seemed to know the worst. She could not cry out, her parched lips refused to move, but she grasped the top rail of the fence with her icy hand to support herself. She could not get her breath, and the warm air, that was heavy with the aromatic scent of the gum trees, seemed to suffocate her. When Yesslett came upon her, as she stood near the gate to the yard, she could not speak; she only lay her trembling hand upon his shoulder and waited for him to begin.
"It is Geordie, aunt; he is not dead but badly hurt," stammered poor Yess, who was quite unprepared for seeing his aunt so soon.
"Oh, thank Heaven for that," gasped the poor lady, bursting into tears, natural tears, that relieved her from the strain of her suspense.
Yesslett let her sob for a moment, and then, knowing that the best way to soothe her was to call for her assistance, he said—
"But it all depends upon you, aunt. You must be calm and tell us what to do, for Geordie is insensible, and we don't know how to act for the best."
"You are right, Chevalier. I am glad no one but you has seen me in my weakness," said Mrs. Law resolutely, and making a determined effort she became her own calm self again, and by the time the men carrying Geordie arrived at the gate she was composed and gave her orders with a steady voice.
In this way, senseless, powerless, and death-like, George Law returned to the home he had left so full of life and brightness and hope only a few short weeks before.
Leaving Geordie lying for dead, Alec turned his back upon Wandaroo, and surrounded by the gang of bushrangers, with whom he knew it was useless for him to attempt to cope, he rode along he knew not whither. At first he hardly noticed which way he was being taken; his grief was so keen at the loss he had just undergone, and his chagrin at the frustration of all their hopes, when so near their fruition, so bitter, that all other feelings seemed withered up. A little later came the remembrance of those at home, and with the desire of being useful to them and helpful in the now quickly approaching time of their difficulties came a new wave of feeling which seemed to rouse him from the mental apathy into which he had fallen.
Without showing signs of his awakened observation, he began to take note of their route. He knew the whole country about Wandaroo so well that he recognised his position almost at once, although it was night. They had left the Wandaroo run behind them, and were then on Taunton's run, a great tract of land that had been allowed to slip back to a state of wildness years before, when the owner and his only son had been murdered by the myalls. Many of the outlying stations had been permitted to revert in this way some years ago when times were at their worst in Queensland, and when the unprotected pioneer families were often butchered by the blacks.
The party must have been riding for fully an hour when Alec shook off the cloud of lethargy that had enveloped him, for they were then many miles from Wandaroo. For some time past Alec had heard the sound of the men's voices as though he were in a dream, and without paying attention to them, but at last he distinguished Starlight's voice; he was speaking to Wetch, his worthy lieutenant.
"They'll be tracking us to-morrow, and as there is no reason that we should let on where we are to be found, I think we had better get on to the Dixieville road, where our traces will be trodden out by the next flock of sheep that passes along."
This plan was carried out, and with the result that Starlight hoped for, as it was at this very place that the Wandaroo black boys, who tracked them next day, were thrown off the scent.
After riding for some distance along the rough, dusty, and ill-made track that did duty for a road between Bateman and the decaying little township of Dixieville, the party turned aside again, and continued its southerly direction. The appearance of the country began to be wilder again, and the fences, and whatever signs there were that the land had at one time been occupied, were broken and rotting away. These signs of decay and failure of purpose made the scene more desolate than it would have been had it never been touched, for there are few things sadder than to see a tract of country that has once been under cultivation, or turned to some useful purpose, reverting to its former state of wildness.
Alec judged from the talk and behaviour of the men that they were approaching the place that, for the time being, they considered their headquarters, and which they dignified with the name of home. They had now been riding continuously for more than two hours since they had left the neighbourhood of Wandaroo, and this part of the country was new to Alec, although he had ridden once or twice along the Dixieville road. The land had evidently been thickly wooded at one time, and in places there were still great belts and patches of bush standing in all its primeval majesty and gloom. Once or twice their road lay through these wooded depths, and there the path was so dark that Alec did not attempt to guide his horse. The moon had not yet set, but the silver radiance which flooded all the topmost boughs failed to penetrate to the depths below, and the track lay all in darkness, which was the more profound in contrast with the patches of starlit sky that sometimes could be seen through openings in the roof of shade above. Alec was an old enough bushman to know that his horse would best find the way for itself; indeed the creature seemed to know the road well enough without guidance.
Shortly after passing through one of these stretches of bush they came upon a low, rambling building, from the open door of which a feeble light shone out. Alec had long given up hopes of seeing any signs of habitation thereabouts, and noticing this light, he instinctively turned his head to look at it, thinking that perhaps there was a chance of rescue for him there. Starlight, who was always near him, seemed to divine his thoughts, for he laid his hand on Alec's arm to attract his attention, and with a backward nod of his head towards the house, he said—
"You needn't look there. It is no go. They are friends of ours—and neighbours too, for we have nearly come to the end of our journey—not openly friends, you know, but in a quiet way. They have given us many a useful hint and timely warning before now, and we, on our part, have been able to do many things for them. They often dispose of things for us that we have stolen. You see I make no stranger of you."
The cool way in which he talked, and the perfect openness of his speech—hiding nothing of his own villainy, and not trying to make himself out anything but what he was—might at another time, and under different circumstances, have amused or interested Alec, but he could not think of him in any other light than that of the murderer of his brother, and every time that he spoke he raised Alec's anger and hatred again to boiling point.
Very soon after passing this building, which Alec heard one of the men speak of as "Lingan's," the party, at a slackened pace, began to climb the slightly ascending opening between two dark hills which gave the name of Norton's Gap to the place. The ground was covered with coarse tall grass, and the young scrub that springs up over all lands that are deserted for any length of time. Towards the end of this flat and open sort of valley, in a very dreary-looking corner, out of sight of Lingan's, and shut in from the world of men by the black and low bare hills, were the crumbling ruins of a once large homestead.
The outer timbers of which the house was built were still standing, and some sort of door hung between the heavy, rough-hewn posts, but in many places the shingle roof had fallen in, pieces of the weather boarding were torn away, and the one chimney was tottering to its fall. Here and there great pieces of the bark which had once covered the walls were flapping backwards and forwards in the soft night breeze, like the dark wings of some foul carrion bird. No smoke rose from the wide, old chimney, and no light shone out a welcome to them from the crazy doors or windows. The whole place was the picture of squalid discomfort and neglect; yet this house was the nearest approach to a home that any of these wretched men could ever expect to possess. For a life of danger, discomfort, wickedness, and squalor, with an occasional spell of foul indulgence and debauch, had these men outlawed themselves from the society of their fellows.
"Here we are, back again, minus two of our number, Pearson and Kearney, but I expect Kearney will turn up again. I don't think he was hurt," said Starlight, as the gang, having crossed what had once been the paddock, passed through a gap in the rotting fence into the yard.
"Yes, and a beastly hole it is to come back to," grumbled one of the men. "Not a soul about the place, and not a spark of fire alight. I wonder where that idiot Foster is."
It was evident that the men were sullen and out of humour at the ill success of their expedition, on which they had been absent for several days. They dismounted in silence, and each man, after unsaddling his horse, led it to a small paddock, the fence of which had been repaired in a hasty, untidy way, and turned it loose.
Starlight led Alec to the house, and kicking open the ill-hung door, shouted out—
"Foster!"
They were standing in a dark, close sort of passage, very unlike the usual entrance to a Queensland squatter's house, and Alec could see absolutely nothing but Starlight's black figure outlined against the grey space of sky that feebly shone through the open doorway. Como had followed him into the house, and he could feel the dog close by him. The presence of the dog, which kept quite close to his master, was a comfort to Alec; he could not feel quite alone as long as the faithful creature was there to thrust his cold muzzle into his hand, or to lay his great paw up on his knee from sheer love of companionship. Upon Starlight calling out a second time, they heard some one moving in a room close by them, then the sound of a match being struck, and the next minute a door was thrown open, and a blowsy, dishevelled-looking man appeared, holding a flaring tallow candle above his blinking eyes.
"I didn't hear you. I was asleep. So you've got back, have you?" said he, in a high, thin voice.
"Bless the man! I should think you could see that for yourself. Look alive now, we are all hungry, and want something to eat in less than no time."
Starlight led the way into the room as he spoke, and Alec followed, and all the men speedily were collected there, for Australians do not trouble themselves about grooming their horses or making them comfortable. They soon had a fire blazing, for there was a stack of dry wood in one corner of the room, and it was not unpleasant, though the night was far from cold. Foster brought in damper and part of a sheep, which some of the men proceeded to cut up and cook in a rough and ready method at the fire. A short time served for this, and when it was ready, Starlight turned to Alec with an air of the greatest politeness, and said—
"May I offer you a little of your own mutton, Mr. Law? It comes from Wandaroo, as we all of us prefer your strain of sheep to any other about here. Not so large as some, but of a finer flavour."
Although so sick at heart, and so thoroughly wretched, Alec could not help smiling at the cool impudence of the man, and he accepted a piece of his own sheep in a thankful spirit, for it was long since he had eaten, and he was completely worn out. Directly that supper was finished—it did not take Foster long to clear away—pipes were lighted, and a small keg of whisky being brought out from underneath a sort of rough side table, on which were piled the men's hats, pistols, and whips, the men began to smoke and drink and, what they called, "enjoy themselves." It appeared to Alec to be a poor sort of enjoyment that they experienced, for there was a furtive look of watchfulness on the faces of all of them, although they tried to hide this expression, and to wear a look of ease. He could see this eager look intensified if there were any unusual or sudden noise. Once when the faint sound of a dog barking down at Lingan's was carried to them on the quiet night air, two or three of the men sprang quickly to their feet and looked out in a way that spoke plainly enough of the constant state of painful strain their minds must be in.
Very little more was said to Alec that night about the gold seeking he was known to have been away upon. Starlight was trusting to Crosby's powers of persuasion to get the information that he wished for from the boy, so that he had not questioned him again himself. Since Crosby had spoken his little message of friendship to Alec he had not dared to talk to him again; he had, indeed, studiously avoided approaching him so that the men might have no cause for suspicion.
Although he tried hard to keep awake, nature was too strong for Alec, as she is for all of us, and soon after he had ended his supper he nodded where he sat. The grief and excitement that he had suffered that day, and the enormous fatigue he had endured, had quite worn him out, and he felt that if his life depended upon it he could not keep awake. Wetch, whose gloomy face was brightened for a time by the combined influence of whisky and tobacco, was the first to notice Alec's condition, and in, for him, a not unkind voice, he said—
"That chap there, Law, 'll be rollin' over into the fire before long if he don't go and lie down. Where shall we putt him, Boss?"
"'E can hev' my room on t'other side of the pessage," said one of the men, a little fellow, sallow and thin, whom they called "the cobbler," or "snob," indiscriminately.
"Thank you," said Starlight, in his most affable tone, "but I prefer to have that rather slippery young gentleman under my own eye. You can have that corner of the room if you like," said he, turning to Alec, who was blinking like an owl. "There is a blanket there, and perhaps you will excuse us going on with our conversation."
The poor lad was only too glad to accept this offer, and rising from the overturned box on which he had been sitting, he stumbled across the room to the corner that Starlight indicated, and throwing himself down on the dirty blanket which was lying there, he instantly fell into a profound, deep sleep.