Tom Gerrard by George Lewis Becke (fastest ebook reader TXT) 📖

has a just grievance against you for not coming to see him when you were only eighty miles from us. Almost every day for the past year he has been expecting to see you. But I suppose that washing out gold is too fascinating a pursuit, and that you could not drag yourself away."

Aulain smiled. "You are quite right in one way, Mrs Westonley, but wrong in another. I should have come to Ocho Rios six months ago, but all our horses died from eating poison bush, and it was only a few weeks ago that my mates and I were able to buy some from a drover, who was taking a mob down to Cooktown."

During lunch the ex-inspector brightened up somewhat, and once smiled when Mrs Westonley, in alluding to the several visits made by Kate Fraser to Ocho Rios, said that Jim had fallen violently in love with her, whereupon the lad laughed, and said he was only as much in love with her as were Uncle Tom and Mary. Gerrard, who of course knew of Aulain's rejection by Kate, was at that moment wondering whether his friend meant to again "try his luck" or had quite got over the affair, and joined heartily in the general laugh that followed Jim's remark.

"I think she is a delightful girl, Mr Aulain," said Mrs Westonley; "and I am looking forward to her next visit. She spent a fortnight with us the last time, and we felt quite dull and humdrum after she had gone home to her father."

Aulain raised his brows slightly, and enquired if Miss Fraser had come all that distance alone. Surely she would not be so rash!

"Oh, no! She knows how bad these Cape York blacks are, and would not be so reckless of her life as to come alone. Mr Fraser came with her the first time, then one of her father's mates was her next escort, and the last time Tom and Jim went to the Bluff for her, and also went back with her."

A fleeting shadow crossed the dark handsome face, but beyond saying that the blacks were now not so bold as they were two years ago, he apparently did not take much interest in Miss Fraser's visits to Ocho Rios. But already his ever suspicious mind was at work about her and Gerrard.

After lunch, as there was more branding to be done, Gerrard went back to the stockyard. Aulain wished to come and help.

"Indeed you shall not, Aulain. I'll tell you what you ought to do. You were saying that you felt inclined for a sea bathe when you camped last night and heard the surf beating on the beach. Now, you and Jim go and have a jolly good swim in the surf. Jim will show you a place safe from sharks."

"I can't resist that," said Aulain eagerly. It was just the very thing he wished--to have a talk with Jim. "But I know the place you mean, Gerrard. My troopers and I have often bathed there when I was in charge of the N.P. Camp at Red Beach."

Jim ran off to catch and saddle a couple of horses, for although the bathing place was only three miles distant, no Australian would walk so far (except to catch a horse) when he could ride.

"Take your fishing-line, Jim," said Mrs Westonley, when he returned leading the horses, "and catch some bream for supper. No, Mary, certainly not--you cannot go. No, not even to help Jim to catch and clean the fish. This is a terrible girl, Mr Aulain," and with a smile she drew Mary to her, "I know exactly what she wants to do--ride into the surf and get wet through."

"Aunt, you _are_ a wonder. However did you guess?" and Mary, now almost as tall as Jim, hugged Mrs Westonley's slender waist; "that's exactly what I did mean to do. But I also meant to catch fish as well."

"Then you can 'catch' me some guinea-fowl eggs instead, to make egg and bread-crumb to fry the fish. Mr Aulain, do you know that Tom brought some guinea-fowl from Port Denison, and now we have hundreds of them? They are horrid things, though. Instead of laying in the fowl-house in an ordinary Christian fowl-like way, they go miles away, and of course the carpet snakes and iguanas, and kookaburras,{*} get most of the eggs and chicks--except those which Jim and Mary find."


* Laughing jackasses.


Aulain laughed as he swung his light, wiry figure into his saddle, and then he and Jim cantered off.

A few hours later, as he and the lad were returning to the station, he lit his pipe and said:

"So your aunt doesn't care about the beach, and the sea, and the old Dutch ship buried in the sand, eh, Jim?"

"No, Mr Aulain. She says she cannot look at the sea without shuddering--it always makes her think of her father and mother, and the wreck of the _Cassowary_. But Uncle Tom and Miss Fraser like the beach, and always went there in preference to anywhere else when they went for a ride."

Poor Jim, never for one moment imagining the cause of Aulain's interest in Miss Fraser's movements, was then led on by him to relate nearly everything that had occurred at the station during her last visit. "Was she fond of fishing?" Aulain asked. "Oh, yes, and so was Uncle Tom. They would go out nearly every day either to the beach for bream, or up one of the creeks for spotted mullet."

Sometimes he (Jim) and Mary would go with them, and then it would be a regular all-day sort of fishing and shooting picnic Miss Fraser used to shoot too, and Uncle Tom was teaching her to shoot from the left shoulder as well as the right--like he could. Then he went on to say that next time Kate came to Ocho Rios she, Gerrard and Mary and himself were all going to Duyphen Point, where there was a small coco-nut grove.

"It will be grand, won't it, Mr Aulain? You see we are going to take two pack-horses, and our guns and fishing-lines, and will camp there for three or four days and come back with a load of coco-nuts."

"It ought to be splendid, Jim. When is it to be?"

"In about a month. Miss Fraser is coming to stay with aunt for three whole months. Uncle Tom and I are going to Black Bluff Creek for her, if Mr Fraser can't spare the time to come with her. You see, it's ninety miles, and you can't do it in one day, because some of the country is very rough, and none of our horses have ever been shod. Look at this colt's hoofs," and he pointed to them; "ain't they an awful size?--real 'soft country' hoofs, and no mistake."

Aulain gave a short nod, and then became silent, scarcely noticing Jim's further remarks concerning such interesting subjects as kangarooing, alligator-shooting, the big tribe of cannibal niggers on the Coen River, who had killed and eaten sixteen Chinamen diggers, etc., etc.

For the rest of the day he was, Gerrard and Mrs Westonley noticed, very restless, and the former observed with some surprise that he helped himself freely and frequently to the brandy; hitherto he had known him as a somewhat abstemious man in the matter of liquor.

He left soon after daylight, declining Gerrard's pressing invitation to stay for breakfast on the ground of wishing to "do a good twenty miles before the cursed sun got too hot," and somehow the master of Ocho Rios was not sorry to say good-bye to him, for his manner seemed to have undergone a very great, and not pleasant change.

"Take care of the niggers, Aulain," he said as they parted.

The ex-officer smiled grimly, and he touched the Winchester carbine slung across his shoulder. Then leading his pack-horse, he rode away.


CHAPTER XXV


"Oh, men who have, or have had fever as badly as Aulain has, often act very queerly, Lizzie, so don't be too hard on him."

"I know that, Tom. But at the same time there is something about him--those strange eyes of his--that made me afraid of him. When I told him last night that Kate Fraser was coming here on a long visit, he did not answer; his eyes were fixed on your face in such a strange, intense look that it made me feel quite 'creepy'."

Gerrard laughed. "Were they? I didn't notice it."

"No, of course not. You were too busy showing Jim how to unscrew the nipples of his gun, and perhaps did not even hear what I was saying."

"Oh, I did. But I didn't make any comment, as I noticed that at supper, whenever you or I spoke of the Frasers, he answered in curt monosyllables."

"Did you tell him she was coming here next month?"

"No. I daresay I should have done so if I had thought of it."

"Tom, I am not a female Lavater, but when I saw him looking at you like that, I disliked and distrusted him."

"Poor Aulain! Why, Lizzie, he's one of the straightest fellows that ever lived, and I am sure he has a sincere regard for me. You must never take notice of the queer looks and actions of men who have had fever badly."

"Tom! I'm a woman, and I know. He was thinking of Kate Fraser--and you. And he is suffering from another fever--the fever of violent jealousy."

Gerrard looked up--they were at breakfast. "Well, if that is the case, it is a bad complication of diseases, and I am sorry for him. He has no earthly reason to be jealous of me."

"He _is_ jealous, Tom, 'deadly jealous,' as Jim would say, and I dislike him, dislike him intensely for it You have been so good to him, too."

"Only keeping things quiet about Big Boulder Creek, as I promised him I should. And then, you see, Lizzie, his not getting the Government reward of five thousand pounds, as he thought he should, has been a big disappointment to him."

Mrs Westonley rose, came over to him, and placed her two hands against his bronzed cheeks.

"Thomas Gerrard, Esquire?"

"Mrs Elizabeth Westonley!"

"You are to marry Kate Fraser!"

"Am I, old woman? You're a perfect jewel of a sister to find me such a charming wife. But you see there are one or two trifling formalities to be observed. First of all, I should have to ask her her views on the subject."

"You ought to have done that a year ago."

"And have met with a refusal like poor Forde and Aulain."

"No, you would _not_ have been refused. I know that much," was his sister's emphatic observation. "But you are letting the time go by, Tom. And I am sure she is wondering why you don't ask. I know that she loves you."

"Do you really?" and he shook his head smilingly.

"Yes, I do. I'm certain. And I know you are fond of her."

"Been long in the clairvoyant business, Lizzie?"

"Don't talk nonsense, Tom. I am very serious--and it would make me very happy. Ask her this time, Tom. You must--else you have no right to be with her so much. It is not fair to the girl."

"We are very great friends, Lizzie. I like her better than any woman I have ever met. And I have sometimes thought--but anyway, I'm not in a