Whilst Starlight was joking with Kearney, Alec got up from his seat by the table, and without taking any notice of Yesslett he strolled to the open window, at which, as was his frequent custom, Crosby was leaning out whistling softly to himself. Supporting himself carelessly against the warped frame, from which the paint had bubbled up and chipped away, and with his brown flushed face turned up to the stars, which now began to burn in the fast darkening sky, Alec said in a low voice to his friend—
"Go on whistling, don't look round. That fellow who has just come in is my cousin, Yesslett Dudley. He has come to try to get us off. They have had my letter. He says my brother is not dead; I could hardly help yelling with delight."
Alec spoke in a whisper, and Martin kept on whistling his tune as though in utter vacancy of mind, but, without looking at Alec, he nodded his head in time to the music to show that he heard him and understood.
"When he has had his supper—plucky beggar, how well he does it," Alec went on in the same low voice—"and goes out with that letter of Starlight's, you must follow him, and hear what he has to say."
Fearing to attract attention by remaining more than a minute or two at the window with Alec, Martin stepped back to the table, where Yesslett, with an appearance of great enjoyment, was pitching into a piece of cold meat and a great lump of damper.
People say there is such a thing as honour amongst thieves; there may be, but thieves seem very doubtful of it themselves, for living in a state of outlawry, and often with a price upon their heads, they grow exceedingly suspicious of each other, and are in constant fear of treachery from one member or another of the gang. This was the case just now. The letter that Starlight had just written, which he had hired Yesslett to take to Lingan's, was the present object of suspicion, and several of the men had whispered together about it. At last Yesslett, having finished his supper; pushed the seat back and rose from the table, and Starlight handed him the letter, saying—
"There now, be off. Mind you fulfil your part of the contract. I've given you the shilling and the supper; you therefore must deliver the letter, and say what I told you."
"Before the boy takes the letter, me and one or two wants to know what's in it," said Middance, a short, stout man, who was standing by the door rather sheepishly swinging one leg.
"Know what's in it!" said Starlight, turning towards him as quick as lightning, and speaking with an angry tone in his voice, which all the music of it failed to hide. "That's just like you. A miserable, sneaking lot of pickpockets that cannot trust me to do a single thing for your benefit and my own without doubting me and poking and prying into it. Stand out of the way there, Middance, and let the boy through," said Starlight, in a voice that somehow the man obeyed without a murmur. Then turning to Yesslett, he added, "and now, boy, be off, and don't let me catch you stopping to listen to what I say."
Martin Crosby had quietly slipped out of the room before Middance had placed himself in the doorway, so that when Yesslett, who was quickly outside the house, had crossed to the path, he found the great fellow awaiting him in the shadow of a mossed and stunted tree.
Directly that he thought Yesslett was out of hearing, Starlight turned again to the startled looking men.
"I will tell you what that letter contained, since you must know. Oh, never mind that fellow Law," said Starlight, impatiently, in answer to the nods and signals of one of the more cautious of the men, "we have got him safe enough, for some time at least, and he knows who and what we are, so it's no good our humbugging him. He knows we're thieves, so what's the use of our aping honest men. Well, that letter was one I have manufactured for the purpose of inducing Lingan and that lubberly son of his to go to Bateman to-morrow. They'll rise to the fly, I know. And this is the reason I've done it.
"We have made Norton's Gap our headquarters for some time past, and it is about time we flitted. I don't hold with keeping in one place too long, as you know, and I've a sort of notion that our whereabouts is suspected, and that won't do for us. What I mean to do is this. To-morrow both the Lingans will start early for Bateman, and when they are out of the way we'll just drop down there in a friendly way, make a clean sweep of everything in the house—I know there is a pile of dollars—and then quietly vamose the ranche."
This was such a piece of base ingratitude—for the Lingans had been invariably faithful and friendly to the bushrangers—that some of the men murmured a feeble dissent, but none of them had the moral courage to boldly oppose Starlight's determination. There is a sort of bravado in vice amongst a band such as this; none of the men likes to own himself feebler in evil-doing than his fellows. Besides this there was something so fiendish in Starlight's unblushing iniquity, in his total want of morals, and in the pride he seemed to take in his own infamy and degradation that it overpowered the men, whose sense of right and wrong was dulled, if not destroyed, by the life of crime that they lived.
"What about Big Eliza?" asked one of the men.
"Oh," said Starlight, with a smile that would not have disgraced an angel, "she'll squeal a bit, and perhaps call me some hard names, for the fool thinks that I like her just because she chooses to like me. She won't do us any harm. I verily believe I could tell her what I intend doing without her saying a word to her husband, or trying to stop us."
And so he truly might have done. He knew only too well what his influence over women was. He was aware of his own beauty, and recognised its power; he therefore never neglected his appearance, and was always becomingly dressed. "From no sense of vanity I can assure you," he once said to Crosby, smoothing down his breeches to the curves of his thighs as he spoke, "but I know the value of my stock-in-trade too well to let it deteriorate as long as I can help it."
"Don't be too sure of Big Eliza," squeaked Foster from somewhere in the background. "She've got a temper of her own."
"Did you never like or respect any one?" said a quiet voice from the window where Alec still was leaning.
Before Starlight had made the light reply that was on his lips as he turned his smiling face to the window, the mocking, sneering voice of Middance, who was striving to emulate his leader in cynicism, said—
"That shows you don't know much o' we wicked uns, or you wouldn't ask that question. Don't you know that the wust of us," here the blackguard assumed what he thought was a religious snuffle, "the very wust, al'ys loves one pussun. Starlight loves his mother."
Swift as the swoop of an eagle Starlight turned on the fellow, and, for the first time in the memory of the gang, livid with passion, struck him a crashing blow full on his jeering mouth. Middance fell like a log, for although Starlight was not tall his muscles and sinews were of steel. Standing over the prostrate man, Starlight said, in a voice that literally quivered with rage—
"Dare to mention her name again, and, as I live, I'll strangle you!"
Middance did not move or speak: he was awed by Starlight's unusual passion, for there was something grand about the anger of this generally unmoved man.
Starlight soon regained command of himself, and, as though ashamed of his display of emotion and anger, he moved to the window where Alec stood astonished at the sudden scene, and in his customary low tone, he said—
"I have surprised you, I see. You think a man is all good or all bad. Ah, wait a few years longer, and you will learn to take wider views. Men are many-sided cattle."
And then, as though to correct any false impression he might have created as to his possessing more than one side himself, he crossed the room and said something, in the same melodious voice, to one of the men, so blasphemous that, accustomed though he was to the not too choice language of a station, Alec flushed hot, as if the very hearing of it seared him.
Shortly after supper the men went off to bed. They did not sit smoking late that night, for a feeling of restraint was upon them after the unusual scene of that evening. Crosby had come in some time before, looking, Alec thought, eager and excited; he said in answer to one of the men that he had seen the boy go towards Lingan's and had then come in. Alec dare not court the attention of the men by crossing the room and speaking to Martin, and he had to wait till Starlight had put out the light and sprung into his hammock, which he had let down from the hooks in the ceiling to which it was fastened in the daytime.
Besides Starlight and Alec there were two other men sleeping in the room, which was a good sized one, and it was to the circumstance that he was thus so well guarded that Alec owed the fact of his not being secured in any way. These two men were Kearney and Martin Crosby.
Alec lay in a perfect fever of anxiety, his very flesh tingling. For some little time sounds could be heard about the place, as Foster, who was general factotum and drudge, moved in the passage or the other rooms, but at length these subsided and the house grew still. Gradually silence fell upon the room, and Alec could hear the breathing of the men grow rhythmical and deep. The night was very dark, for heavy clouds had rolled up from the sea, which lay beyond the eastern hills. As Alec lay gazing with wide open eyes at the dull grey square of the unclosed window he could not see a star. Every now and then warm puffs of air, heavy with the scent of the white jasmine growing wild and rampant in the ruined garden, came in from the outer night.
Alec could feel, he hardly knew how, that there was one person still awake in the room besides himself; he felt sure that it was Crosby, that he was watching his opportunity, and that he only bided his time till all the men had sunk to rest. It must have been nearly midnight. At last, when all the house was hushed in sleep, and when the very sighing of the trees outside seemed but the breathing of their slumber, Alec felt, before his quick ears had heard a sound, Crosby's warm breath upon his cheek. Martin had left his corner of the room, and, lying on the floor, had drawn himself, like a serpent, to where Alec lay. Knowing that the slightest sound broke Starlight's sleep, he placed his lips close to Alec's ear, and in the faintest whisper, he said—
"Your cousin has horses just beyond Lingan's. Get up and creep through the window. Don't make a sound. I'll follow."
Without a word, only grasping Crosby's great arm to show that he understood, Alec slowly rose up, and like a ghost began to steal across the room. He scarcely dared to breathe, and although his bare feet made not the least sound upon the floor he paused for a second after taking every step. As he passed by Starlight's hammock the bushranger turned in his sleep, and threw back the blanket from his throat. Alec felt the little draught of air it made. For a moment he stood quite still, fearing that Starlight might wake, but with a sigh he sank again into the depths of sleep. Alec reached the window, and leaning over the sill he glided, rather than climbed, through it without a sound.
The sweat was standing in beads upon his forehead, and the backs of his wrists were damp from anxiety and excitement as he stood out there in the scented darkness awaiting the coming of his friend. A moment passed, and another, still no Crosby. Had anything happened to him? Time passed so slowly to Alec in his agony of suspense that he thought something must have befallen his friend. He had made one step towards the window to see what was causing the delay when he saw Martin—for his eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness of the night—slowly rising to the window ledge.
For a moment not a sound was heard; then, just as Crosby was half through the window, the woodwork, unaccustomed to the strain, cracked, and with a loud noise a great piece of it gave way.
Without wasting a second, Martin rushed to where Alec was standing. He knew it was useless then to attempt any concealment, for the noise was enough to have roused the seven sleepers. He seized Alec by the arm and said, as he turned him towards the valley—
"This way. Come along. Speed is our only chance now."
He was right, for as they stumbled blindly across the broken ground of the garden, tripping over some obstacle at every other step, and travelling very slowly for all their haste, they heard Starlight spring from his hammock and strike a light. Although only just aroused from his first deep sleep the bushranger had all his wits about him at once, and he seemed to know instinctively what had happened. Whilst still quite close to the window, the fugitives heard him shout out in a clear, loud voice—
"Kearney, Kearney, Crosby, wake up! Look alive! The boy has gone!"
But Starlight was a man of action; he was never one to wait for others when he could do a thing for himself. Before Alec and Martin, with all their eagerness, had travelled forty yards, he was leaning out of the window holding the candle above his head. The flame never flickered in the still and sultry air. In an instant he had seen them; either the light had fallen on them from the window or else their white clothes showed up against the line of dark trees beyond them. Anyway Starlight saw them, and Alec heard him sing out—
"There he is—why, there are two!"
Crosby also had heard it, and judging from the sound of Starlight's voice he knew he was at the window. He turned for one second and saw the light gleaming on the bright barrel of the pistol that Starlight was pointing at them. He just had time to lay his powerful hands on Alec's shoulder and swing the lad in front of him that he might cover him with his own great body from Starlight's fire.
Alec did not know what he meant by this, and half looked round, but Crosby urged him on. That moment Alec heard two reports of a pistol follow each other in instantaneous succession, and feeling his shoulders gripped with a convulsive clutch he heard Martin say in a broken voice—
"I'm shot!"
He understood then what his friend had done for him; he knew that to screen him from Starlight's fire he had interposed his own body, and to save his life Martin had risked his own. He could not say anything of this just then; his feeling of his friend's devotion was too deep for words, and all his thoughts and all his energy were at once centred on getting Martin safely away. There was no time to waste in talking, for Alec heard answering shouts from the men in the other part of the house, and he knew that in a moment they would be in full pursuit. All that he said was—
"Can you keep up?"
Martin just said, "I'll try," and seizing Alec's right arm, partly to guide him and partly to support himself, he tore along again. Although his right arm hung broken and useless by his side, and although he could feel the hot blood pouring down his body from the wound in his broad breast, where the bullet had struck him after passing through his arm, he never faltered. For one brief second when he was struck the world seemed to swim before him, but clenching his strong teeth together he regained command of himself and resolved, with the noble obstinacy of natures such as his, that he would hold out until he had taken Alec to the place where the horses were, or die attempting it.
"TO SCREEN HIM FROM STARLIGHT'S FIRE HE HAD INTERPOSED HIS OWN BODY." (p. 256.)
As they rushed down towards Lingan's they plainly heard the men leaving the house and starting after them. There was some confusion at first, which gave them a little advantage, but Starlight, who remained quite cool at this crisis, calmly gave instructions to the men, and said that it was towards Lingan's that Alec and Crosby were running. Directly after this they heard two or three men start in pursuit, with the directions to shoot the runaways if they were unable to catch them. The rest of the gang, with Starlight at the head of them, rushed to the little paddock to saddle their horses.
Both Law and Crosby were barefooted, as Alec had left the house without thinking to bring his shoes, and Martin, although he had had his in his hand, had been unable to put them on. Both of them badly cut and bruised their feet against the sharp stones of the valley, but neither of them stopped, or even slackened speed, for that; indeed, in the great dread of being caught before they could reach the horses, neither of them so much as felt the pain.
At last they reach the entrance to the valley, and behind them, not far off, they hear the heavy tramping of the men. Neither of them speaks, but Alec feels that Martin is leaning more heavily each moment on his arm. One thing only is in their favour; their bare feet fall noiseless on the coarse rough grass on to which they now have turned, and their pursuers cannot tell which way they go. At this moment heavy drops of rain begin to fall from the lowering clouds above them—great, heavy drops of water that the heated air has warmed. Now they pass by Lingan's. The house is dark and wrapped in sleep. A sheep-dog hears the footsteps of the men, as they tear down the hill, and barks once. How strange it sounds with all else so still. As they reach the little open space of ground, on the other side of which the long low line of black bush stretches, where Yesslett and the horses await them, they hear behind them the laboured breathing of the men. It is evident that they are gaining fast upon them. Crosby, growing faint from loss of blood, goes slower every moment; he feels he cannot maintain this killing pace. Alec hears his breath grow short. At last, when they have almost reached the place where Yesslett stands waiting with the horses, he says—his words are broken and his voice is faint—
"I can't—keep—up. Run on. He's waiting—horses—little way—straight ahead."
For answer Alec takes Crosby's arm that holds his own, places it round his shoulders, and putting his strong right arm about Martin's waist, half lifting him, he helps him forward. As he does so he feels the poor fellow's shirt is warm and thick with blood. Close behind him now Alec hears the men in pursuit. Kearney—he knows him by his voice—growls an oath as he kicks his foot against a stone. Crosby hears nothing, he is too faint.
Now the men wander away from them, a little to one side, and now—"Thank Heaven!—here are the horses!"
Yesslett stands between them, holding both. He has stood so long, gazing with aching eyes into the darkness, that when at last he suddenly sees the two figures before him, he almost shrieks aloud.
"Oh, Alec—" he begins.
"Hush, don't speak. Keep Amber still; he must bear two of us to-night. Now, Crosby, mount," he says, in an intense, low whisper.
But Martin only shakes his head; he has no strength left.
"For Heaven's sake, try!"
No, he cannot do it. But Alec, though almost in despair, for every second he expects to feel the hands of the bushrangers upon him, will not give in. He pushes Crosby to the horse. "Stand still there. Whoa there, Amber!" and placing one bare heavy foot of the fainting man in the stirrup, he stoops, and half lifts, half pushes Martin into the saddle. Then, springing up behind, he holds him up with one rigid arm—he seems to have the strength of ten to-night—and grasps the reins with the other.
"Now, Yesslett—quick!" he says, and puts his horse in motion.
As he starts a figure wildly crashes through the bushes, and, grasping Yesslett's bridle, Kearney, in a triumphant voice, yells out—
"Not so fast, my master."
That very moment Starlight, who, with the mounted men of the gang, had followed them at a break-neck pace from the house, dashes on to the open ground, and dimly catching sight of something moving at the edge of the bush, draws his fatal pistol from his belt and fires.
A blinding blaze, a crash, one wild shriek of agony, and Yesslett feels his bridle free; for Kearney falls by the hand of his own leader.
The instant Yesslett felt that his bridle was free, he leaped upon his horse; how he managed to scramble up he could not tell, but grasping the pommel of his saddle, and with it a good handful of his horse's mane, he succeeded somehow in hauling himself to his seat. Alec turned as he heard the report of the pistol; he knew not what new misfortune had happened to them.
"What's that? Are you hurt, Yess?"
"No, no, ride on!" rang out Yesslett's clear boy's voice. "They've shot one of their own men who tried to stop me."
And now the rain began to fall in earnest. Whilst in the bush they were sheltered from it, though they could hear the rustling and the pattering of it on the leaves as it fell on the dense mass of the foliage overhead. Out in the open, when they had passed the belt of bush, they were wet to the skin in a moment. Their shirts clung close about their bodies, and as Alec and Martin were hatless, the rain streamed and trickled from their hair.
Notwithstanding his double load Amber kept up nobly, though Alec well knew that their present pace could not be maintained, but as long as he could hold out Alec did not mean to give in. Trusting entirely to his horse, for the darkness was profound in the depth of the bush, Alec tore madly along the rough and treacherous path. Wet leaves and twigs lashed his face as he passed, and once Amber stumbled and almost fell over a smooth bare root that lay exposed across the track. But fortune was kind, and no accident befell them. Yesslett followed close behind him, riding as recklessly as he.
At first it was as much as Alec could do to keep Martin in the saddle, for the half-swooning fellow swayed and lurched terribly from side to side. Once he lost consciousness entirely, and his heavy head fell back upon Alec's shoulder, and his body became inert and helpless. But the pouring rain which beat upon his upturned face when next they crossed a stretch of open ground seemed to revive him, for with a mighty effort he pulled himself together and sat up.
They had lost all trace of path by this time, having left the better marked bush track behind them, and neither Alec nor Yesslett had any idea which direction to take; but here Crosby came to their assistance, for dark though it was, he was able to recognise some landmarks, and could guide them aright. They were now close to the Dixieville road, he said, and they struck it shortly afterwards some good distance below Badger's Creek, and to the westward of it.
"Here, collar the reins," Alec had said, as soon as he found that Martin had recovered a little, and knew where they were. "I can't see where we are going, and my left arm is quite stiff, and as I don't mean to loose my hold of you, old fellow, my right arm is employed. I wish I could ease you, for you must be suffering agonies with that broken arm of yours."
"I can bear it," said Crosby, in a low voice.
"Shall we go slower now that we have distanced them?" said Alec. "Amber is about knocked up, and no wonder, poor old chap, with two great men on his back."
"Distanced them! What do you mean?" said Yesslett, who was now riding alongside of Alec. "Listen! Can't you hear the galloping of their horses? They are not a hundred yards behind!"
"I hear them if you can't," said Martin, faintly. "This horse of yours cannot carry two of us, and still keep up his speed. Let me slip off, you could outstrip them then. They'd pass me by without seeing me. It doesn't matter if they don't, for I'm nearly done for."
Alec did not waste breath in contradicting him; he only turned his head sideways to Yesslett, clasping Crosby's body even tighter than before.
"Yes, I hear them now. I thought we had left them far behind. Give me back the reins, I can manage. Our work is not all done yet. Yesslett, it again depends on you. We will dash on ahead a little way, and then I'll turn Amber off the road. You tear on at full gallop towards Bateman; let them hear you, they may not notice that one of us has dropped behind. Which horse is it you have?"
"Herring."
"He'll carry you well enough. Take it out of him. They dare not follow you into Bateman. Now then for a dash."
Amber answered to Alec's voice and heel, for the horse had as brave a spirit as his master, and, although labouring terribly, managed a very quick burst of a hundred yards or so. Saying to his cousin, "Now Yesslett, keep on; ride like mad; don't spare the horse," Alec then suddenly wheeled to one side, and quietly pulled up some little way from the road. He could hear Yesslett tearing along, and a moment after, like the gust of a storm, three or four horses dashed madly past.
In a few minutes afterwards, thundering and splashing along the muddy road, Yesslett reached Badger's Creek. He recognised it as the place where he had turned off the road to ride to Norton's Gap that afternoon. Plunging along, at times fetlock deep in mud, he was passing Badger's Creek at racing speed, when a body of horsemen, coming in the opposite direction, managed to catch his foaming horse and pulled him up short. Yesslett, of course, could recognise no one of them, but he hoped they might be honest men, and hardly giving himself time to take breath, he began—
"I don't know who you are, but will you help me? My name is Yesslett Dudley; my cousin, Alec Law, and a wounded man are just behind, and Starlight and his men are after us. Here they come, here they come!" said the boy, mad with excitement.
"A' richt, Yasslutt. Ye're amang frens."
As Macleod spoke—for it was he, with a little band of police and friends which he had collected in Bateman for the purpose of seizing Starlight and his gang at Norton's Gap—the four bushrangers came rushing to their doom. As they dashed up quite close to where he and his friends were standing, Yesslett heard Starlight say to the men, for he had to raise his voice to make himself heard above the noise of the horses—
"Where on earth have those plucky young beggars got to? I can't hear them. If they escape us I shall think my luck has gone at last."
As he spoke, the leader of the capturing party—Collman, the chief store-keeper of Bateman—sprang out from the side of the road, and snatched at his bridle, saying—
"Your luck has gone at last. We've got you this time, Starlight."
But the bushranger was too quick for him. He instantly saw the trap he had tumbled into, and pulling his mare up suddenly and lifting her head round by sheer strength he put her straight at the fence which divided the road from the edge of the precipitous side of the creek. As the beautiful grey rose to the leap, Starlight shouted out, with a laugh—
"No, not you; you haven't got me yet!"
They could hear him crashing down the steep, rocky side of the ravine, brushwood and dead scrub cracking before him, and loosened stones leaping down, and then, at last, a great sudden splash as the horse and rider plunged into the swollen stream of the flooded creek. No one dared risk his neck by following; indeed, it would have been useless to seek him that night, it was so dark.
When a search was made the following morning no trace of Starlight or his horse could be found, though the party sought him far down the creek. Thus, as mysteriously as he had lived—for no one knew who he really was or whence he came—Starlight vanished from the country side which he had infested and plundered for so long with impunity. As his body was not found they could not even tell whether he was really dead or whether he had added another to his long list of daring escapes. He disappeared without a sign, leaving no one to mourn him but Mrs. Lingan—for Big Eliza's heart was womanly and tender if her exterior was masculine and hard—and she, poor soul, could only weep for him in secret, She never learned his intended treachery towards herself.
The three other men, who had not been quick enough, or who had not had the courage to follow Starlight's bold example, were quickly captured by Macleod and the party with him. Although they fought like demons, they were soon overpowered, and with their hands secured behind their backs they were ignominiously led into Bateman, a couple of hours afterwards, in the charge of the valiant Collman. These three were Wetch, Middance, and a German named Schnadd. They were sent down by the police to Bowen, where they were tried, some weeks after, and hanged for murders they had committed in the spring of that year. Thus Starlight's gang was broken up, the only two members of it remaining, Foster and one other man, decamping before the raid was made next day upon Norton's Gap.
When the three bushrangers had been secured and sent off in safe custody to Bateman, Yesslett at once led Macleod, and the one or two men of the band that remained, to the place where Alec and Crosby had turned off from the road, but though they spent some little time looking for them they were unable to find them.
"Don't fash yoursel' aboot it, Yasslutt," said Macleod. "Alec knows verra weel whaur he is, an' he's joost gan hame ower Taunton's auld roon. If we ride back shairply we wull be theer befure him."
It had happened just as Macleod had suspected; not knowing of the relief party that was coming to their rescue, and believing that Yesslett would ride into Bateman without stopping, Alec had determined to turn away from the road, so that crossing Taunton's and getting on to their own run he could reach home quicker than by following the road. He had become terribly anxious about Crosby, for when he next spoke to him, after the bushrangers had dashed past, he gained no reply. The man had fainted from loss of blood. Amber, full of spirit though he was, could no longer go at more than a foot pace; the last wild burst, with his double burden on his back, had quite exhausted him; thus Alec was compelled to slowness when more than ever he wished for speed. He still managed to keep Martin from falling from the horse, but the strain upon him was growing very severe, for the inert body of the man swayed with every movement of the horse, and he had by sheer strength to sustain his whole weight. Crosby's broken arm hung limp and useless by his side, and his heavy head fell back on Alec's shoulder.
In his impatience it seemed to him that they did not more than creep; how slowly the night rolled past; it must surely soon be day. He felt that Martin's body began to grow cold in his arms, his wet clothes clinging about him, and chilling him to stone. He feared that he might slip from insensibility to death before the help, that was now so near at hand, could be reached. The horror of those long hours, in the silence and the darkness, with the dead or dying man, he knew not which, lying inertly in his stiffening arms, he never forgot.
The rain had ceased, and above the dark outline of the distant hills the late rising moon rode slowly through the sky. Dimly, through the widening rifts between the clouds, she shone upon them, tinging the drifting vaporous edges with a dull ochreous yellow. By her pale light Alec saw that Martin's wound still bled. This gave him some faint hope, for he saw that life was not extinct. Pulling up a handful of his blood-stained shirt, and crumpling it into a ball, Alec placed it over the wound and firmly pressed it there to stop the bleeding. He was very tender with him, and he almost felt, despite his anxiety to get his friend safely home, that there was something akin to happiness in thus being the one to minister, however roughly, to his wants; and to feel that he alone, with his right arm, upheld him on the horse, added a sort of suppressed exultation to his love for the man who had sacrificed so much to his friendship for him.
As the night cleared, familiar sounds awoke in the bush, the edge of which he was skirting; the very voices of the night birds seemed to give him welcome home to Wandaroo. At last he reached the fence of the great home paddock, and managed with his one arm to move the top rail of the slip panels. He passed through, Amber neatly stepping the bottom rail. How near he felt to home at last. The very fragrance of the moistened earth seemed different from any other in his loving nostrils. At length the last hill was climbed, and the house, with many windows ablaze with lights, was in full view.
With a wildly beating heart, Alec crossed the yard and reached the door. He could not get off his horse without some help, so sitting where he was he called to those within. The door was flung open, a blaze of light poured out and fell upon the foam-flecked, sweating horse, the blood-stained, hatless, and white-faced rider, and the apparently lifeless burden that he held in his arms. Half terrified, the woman who appeared drew back, and Margaret, beautiful, calm Margaret, took her place.
"Alec! Is it you? Thank God!"
For a moment Alec tried to speak; but in vain. The words would not come. Margaret saw his trouble, and guessed its object.
"All goes well," she said.
Others then came rushing out from the house and took Alec's burden from him, and helped him from the horse, but it was Margaret who first caught Martin in her brave strong arms; it was Margaret who helped to carry him into the house; and when she stooped over the bed on which they laid him to see if still he breathed, it was Margaret who, with her warm red lips, kissed life back again to the cold pale ones of her lover.
It was the morning of the second day after Alec's return to Wandaroo with his senseless burden in his arms. The sun was stealing into the room through the half drawn curtains of the open windows, the scent of the garden flowers was in the morning air, and from his cage in the verandah a bird was pouring out its heart in song. Breakfast was over two hours ago, and Mrs. Beffling was already coming to inquire "whether the poorly gentlemen were ready for a little lunch." The room was full of pleasant sounds of life and happy talking, for now that Alec, his brown face ruddy with the glow of the sun, came in through the window, all the family was assembled.
Geordie had been allowed to leave his room that morning; he was pale and a little less noisy than was his wont, but, excepting a slight tendency to stagger when he walked, he was otherwise much his old self. He only wanted what Mrs. Beffling called "cockering up a bit," to be as strong and hearty as ever. Yesslett was by his side, proud to be employed by such a hero of romance as Geordie was. He himself was very modest of his own share in the late adventures, though when his aunt had kissed him and thanked him for the service he had rendered them all by helping Alec to escape, he certainly felt a glow of pride and happiness in his heart. He and Macleod had reached home, on the night of the escape from Norton's Gap, only half an hour or so before Alec arrived.
And who is that with one of Alec's coats slung loosely over his bandaged arm? He is standing by the window talking earnestly with Margaret, who, with parted, half smiling lips and downcast eyes, plays with a fragile pink rose from the garden as she listens to his low words. Martin looks pale, and, although standing squarely on his feet, he leans against the window as though he still felt weak. He had lost enough blood, the doctor said, to kill an ordinary man and had been ordered to lie in bed, for some days at least, but Martin was too happy to waste his time a-bed. He thought he had recognised in his sweet nurse's face that which he longed to see there, and had, weak though he was in body, that morning put to the test the question he had not dared to ask when strong and well in his uncle's house, some months before, in Brisbane. He had no ring or gage of love to give when they plighted troth in the garden, but he had pulled a rosebud from the creeping bush that grew against the house and gave it to Margaret.
"It is like the flower of love," he said, "that is daring now to blossom in my heart."
As Alec came in through the open window, and looked from one to the other of them, Margaret slowly blushed from throat to forehead, but raised her honest eyes to his and looked him frankly in the face. She was ashamed of nothing, but was proud of the great gift she gave and took. Crosby laid his hand affectionately on Alec's shoulder, and looked as though he were about to speak, but Alec, who, from what Martin had told him before, knew something of all this, said—
"I understand. Margaret, I am very glad. Shall I tell mother?"
She shook her head.
"No, it will come best from myself. I will tell her at once."
"Margaret," said Mrs. Law at this moment from the other side of the room, "here's Beffling been asking Mr. Crosby three times what he would like for his lunch."
"There's some o' my beef-tea, sir, reel kind, which I can hot it in a minnut. With a strip or two of toast it do relish of a mornin'. I'm sure, sir, if I may mek so bold as t' say, you wants a little something to bring back the colour to your cheeks. Or a chop now, done rare, but brown o' the outside," said the buxom old creature, holding up one fat finger to emphasise her description and smiling a seductive smile.
"Thank you, Mrs. Beffling, I should like them both, I'm sure," said Crosby, stepping forward with a beaming face from the window, "but I feel as though I had everything I want on earth, and therefore am not hungry."
"Lucky bargee," said Yesslett to Geordie, who answered with an impudent grin, for he had begun to suspect what turn things were taking.
"Which both it shall be," said Mrs. Beffling, accepting the first part of Martin's sentence, but utterly ignoring the latter half of it. "Also the hegg beat up in milk for you, Mr. George; yes, you must, the doctor says so, and I shall send it in whether you drinks it or no, and every drop is expected to be took." Quite breathless after this, but smiling on the invalids as though they conferred a personal favour on her by being ill, the kind-hearted old soul retreated to her fortress, where she instantly set about preparing these few trifles for the interesting convalescents.
To see her beaming face when she brought in a tray was better than any doctor's stuff; and often and often have patients taken her nourishing things when they loathed the very idea of food, sooner than disappoint her or wound her feelings by refusing them.
"Yess," whispered Geordie, "you'll have to help me out with my jorum; I haven't got over my breakfast yet."
"All right," said Yesslett, in the most obliging manner. He ought to have ridden over to the South Creek Station that morning, but he had struck, and nothing would induce him to go before to-morrow he said, for he had not heard any of the boys' adventures yet, as Geordie had not been allowed to talk much till that morning, and Alec had spent nearly all yesterday either in Geordie's or Martin's room. Now, at last, he had both of them, and Crosby as well, to question and to listen to, "and that's what I mean to do," he said.
He did not do it then, however, for almost directly after Mrs. Beffling had left the room the door was flung wide open and Macleod appeared, in what, for him, was a white heat of indignation and anger, for the sincere, cold-blooded, but affectionate old Scotsman rarely expressed any emotion whatever.
"Did ony mon iver heer tell o' sich doen's? Ah've joost ridden uver fra' Bateman, an' theer ah've seen, 'deed leddies it's true, that foul, whamsie scrappit, Crosbie o' Brisbane. He's got a bit of a lawyer chap wi' him, as a whitnuss, I suppoose, as all his doen's are legal accordin' to law. He says he's coomin' to Wandaroo to put a mon in legal possession o' the roon; and that unless we can produce £4,887 18s. 7d.," here the precise Macleod looked at a strip of paper, torn from the edge of some journal, on which he had written the amount, "this verra dae we all must pack; for this is the last o' the daes o' grace agreed to i' the deed, and time is oop at twalve the dae. He says he'll be heer at haif-past eleven to gie us time to make payment in coin o' the realm or gould as agreed upon. He lached as he said it, the black souled scoondrel, an' I rhode back streicht awa'. It's aboon eleeven noo. What mun we do?"
Mrs. Law shook her head. She could do nothing. Although all her fears were now being brought to pass she could not feel wholly unhappy or wholly crushed; she had dreaded a greater loss, and now that her sons were both restored to her, after so nearly losing both, she could not help feeling that everything else was small compared with that great mercy.
"I suppose we must go," she said. "The blow is harder coming from one we trusted as a friend."
Geordie sprang up as Macleod finished speaking. His pale face was brilliant with excitement. Alec had told him that as yet he had said nothing of the gold, and that he meant to wait till George was strong enough to go with him to rescue it from its hiding-place. His voice was vibrating with triumph and delight as he said—
"Go, mother? Not we, indeed! What must you do, Macleod? Why, start off with Alec and see what he thinks about matters. Alec, you know. Take two or three men, and just look sharp about it. I wish I were strong enough to go. I believe I am; I feel quite right."
But he found his strength was not equal to his courage when he came to try.
"Yesslett, you go with Alec. It is more exciting than anything Crosby or I can tell you. And now I am not going to say another word about it till Alec comes back."
He was quite resolute, and notwithstanding the entreaties of Mrs. Law and Margaret and Martin he would not give them any further clue to his meaning.
Alec darted from the room, followed by Macleod and Yesslett, and a moment afterwards they saw them from the verandah, riding towards "the Dip" in the paddock, accompanied by Willetts and Howard from the Yarrun Station, who happened to be ready mounted in the yard.
Rather more than half an hour after Alec's departure to "the Dip" there was a great commotion amongst the dogs about the yard; they ran barking to the other side of the house, as they never did but when strangers rode up to the station. A moment or so afterwards Mrs. Beffling came in, all floury as to her arms, and said that two gentlemen, "leastways, ma'am, they wears coats and cloth trousers," had ridden up to the house, and that they wished to see Mrs. Law.
"Yes, I expected them. Show them in here, Beffling," said Mrs. Law, quite calmly.
Geordie was surprised to see how quietly his mother awaited her unwelcome guests. He was alone in the room with Mrs. Law, as Crosby and Margaret had gone into the garden just before.
It rather astonished George to find that Mr. Crosby, when he came in the next moment, was not a cruel, miserly-looking man, for he had depicted him in his imagination as a little, thin, and eager-faced man, with hungry eyes and bird-like claws. Old Crosby was small, to be sure, and had thin, tightly pursed-up lips, but the general expression of his face was kindly, almost benign. His voice, when he spoke, matched it, for it was smooth, insinuating, and false in every tone of it. He came in smiling and settling his yellow, unwholesome-looking neck in his limp shirt collar. His friend followed close behind him.
"Very sorry to have to come on unpleasant business, ma'am. Perhaps you expected us? It gives me great pain to have to resort to extreme measures, great pain, I assure you. I hope you have the money ready," said Crosby, hypocritically.
Here he tried to smile, and wiped his flushed and swollen looking face, for he lied, and he knew that he did it clumsily, and he felt the contemptuous eyes of Mrs. Law and Geordie upon him. It was the one wish of his heart to get Wandaroo into his greedy clutches, and he felt that it was his already. Still Mrs. Law did not speak, and, feeling the silence very confusing, old Crosby continued—
"You see I'm in sad want of money, sad want, or I should never dream of foreclosing. No one but a friend would have lent you so much on the place."
"No one but a friend, like you, would have extorted 15 per cent. upon the sum that was lent us," said Mrs. Law, quietly.
"Oh, it's a sad business, a sad business. Women never understand these things. Women ought never to meddle in business."
"Men ought never to take advantage of them if they do," said Geordie, hotly.
"Who's that?" said the old man sharply. "Oh I see; very like his father, very. Just what he would have said. What do you make the time, Mr. Tuckle?" said Crosby, nervously fingering his watch, which he had pulled from his pocket with a shaky hand.
"Twenty minutes to twelve, sir."
"Then you still have twenty minutes to pay me in," said Crosby, with an oily cackle of laughter. "I'm sorry to have to insist upon strict punctuality, but I must. Times are so hard, and I've had such a capital offer made me for Wandaroo by a rich Englishman, just out—Harrison Tait. Mr. Harrison Tait, that's his name. Up till twelve Wandaroo is yours, ma'am, and then—unless, of course, you pay—it's mine. I think I'm right, Mr. Tuckle?"
"Yes, to-day is the last day of grace, and it ends at twelve," said the lawyer, who did not seem to greatly like the part he had to play in this painful scene. He had been sent up by Mr. Tait to report to him upon the estate, the title-deeds of which old Crosby had agreed to hand over to him at once.
"Won't you gentlemen take seats?" said Mrs. Law, in her most dignified way; and then, to keep up the reputation for hospitality which Wandaroo had always possessed, she added, "And may I offer you any refreshment? I suppose I can do so for, at least, the next twenty minutes."
As Mrs. Law was speaking Martin and Margaret stepped into the room. Mr. Crosby grew even more flushed and purple than before when he saw his nephew.
"Hey, you fellow! Confound you, what are you doing here?" he said, in the most insulting manner.
"You will kindly remember, sir," said Mrs. Law, waxing indignant, "that this is not your house as yet, and that this gentleman is my guest."
"Gentleman, indeed! He is my nephew."
"The two things certainly are not very compatible," said Mrs. Law, quietly.
"What am I doing here?" said Martin, with an amused look on his face. "Why, I am wooing my wife. This lady, notwithstanding the fact that she will thereby become your niece, which is a drawback, has consented to marry me."
"Marry her!" almost shrieked the elder Crosby. "Why, she is a beggar."
"And so am I, and a very lucky beggar, too. Now, don't put yourself about, or you'll have an apoplectic fit as sure as fate. You know what the doctor said. You do look as though you were going to have one this morning."
"Martin!" roared the passionate old man, "if you marry—"
"Don't go on. I know exactly what you are going to say. You will disinherit me. Eh? For goodness sake do it, and have done with it at once. That threat is quite worn out. Don't foam at the mouth, it's unseemly."
"Hush," said Margaret, laying her hand on Martin's arm. "Remember he is your uncle after all."
As the minutes sped by and no Alec appeared, Geordie began to grow terribly anxious lest, after all, Alec could not get at the gold in time, and that Wandaroo would, as it were, slip through their very fingers for the want of a single hour's work. He could not sit still, but fidgetted about the room in a state of sickening suspense. Every half minute he went out on to the verandah to see if the party were yet returning, and, as the minutes passed, and no Alec came, an awful feeling of despair began to creep over him. It was too cruel to be borne, that after all their labour, all their dangers, and all their sufferings, the gold they had won should yet be too late for its purpose. Margaret and Mrs. Law, having given up all hopes, and not understanding Geordie's excitement or Alec's sudden departure, were quite calm now that the hour had come.
Ten minutes to twelve; nine minutes to; eight minutes to; still no sign of Alec. Geordie was on the verandah, gazing eagerly across the paddock. Not the sound of a hoof could he hear. He could have yelled from the intensity of his distress and mortification; as it was he only thrust his hands deep into his trousers pockets, and grimly clutched their contents.
Seven minutes to twelve!
"We may as well go," said old Crosby, mopping his perspiring face. "It is no use our waiting."
"It isn't twelve yet," cried George, rushing into the room.
"Well, six minutes won't do much for you, I expect," said Tuckle.
George hurried back to the verandah. Was that the sound of horses madly galloping up the hill? Yes, yes, it was! Hurrah! He could see them now rising over the ridge and entering the yard. He rushed along the verandah, weak though he was, and shrieked—
"Make haste. Bring it in, bring it in. You'll be in time yet."
For he saw that the riders held the muddy, black and streaming bags of gold.