In the Roaring Fifties by Edward Dyson (best classic books TXT) 📖

and he was subject to pains in the head. His missed Mike more than ever now, and permitted the idea that he had blasted Aurora's happiness to worry him a good deal. He remembered the blithe heartiness of the girl in the early days of their acquaintance, and the image of the pale, worn face he had last seen haunted him with an abiding reproach. He could not enjoy the life, the scenes, and the companionship that had delighted him, and believed the capacity would never come back to him.

He had been on Blanket Flat less than a fortnight when one morning Harry thrust his head into the tent.

'Blowed if there ain't a lady here to see you, Jim!' he said.

'A lady?' Jim's first thought was of Aurora. 'Don't you know her?'

He stepped from the tent as he spoke, and was astonished to find that his visitor was Lucy Woodrow. She was riding a splendid bay horse, and leading a small, sturdy-looking chestnut, and was dust-stained and tired. Her face was gray with anxiety. She did not smile as he approached her, but held a letter towards him.

'Read,' she said. 'He says you will understand.'

'But, Lucy, won't you dismount? You are tired.'

'For pity's sake, waste no time! Read!'

He unfolded the note, and read:

'DEAR MISS WOODROW,

'I am seriously wounded, and lying helpless. My life is in danger. There is one man who will save me; there is one woman whom I can trust to go to him. You are that woman. I appeal to all that is good, kind, and merciful in you to help me. Believe nothing you have heard. I am the victim of circumstances--circumstances of the most terrible kind. Only be the sweet, tender woman you have always seemed to me. Ride to Jim Done at Blanket Flat as soon as possible in the morning; bring him to me. I know he will not hesitate when he knows that I am crippled in the Bush, and at the mercy of my enemies. The boy will explain the rest.

'Your unfortunate friend,

'WALTER RYDER.'

'The half-caste boy at the station, who knows where Mr. Ryder is hidden, brought that to me,' Lucy said. 'He met me at a gorge leading into the range this morning with this horse. The boy is to meet us at the mouth of the gorge and take us to him. He escaped from Boobyalla when the troopers came, and hid in the Bush. He was seen and shot in the neck, but found another hiding-place, and is waiting for you. You will come?'

She had spoken in a hard, unimpassioned voice, as if repeating a lesson; only her eyes betrayed the intense feeling that possessed her.

'I will go,' he answered. 'Hadn't you better have some tea and something to eat? It is a long ride.'

'No, no,' she said; 'we cannot spare a moment.'

'I insist.' He put up his hands to help her. His words were quiet, but his tone was masterful. She looked into his face, and obeyed him. 'Better rest a while now than break down later--and I do not know the way. Harry,' he called, turning to his mate, 'will you give the horses a drink? You have not pressed them?' he said to Lucy.

'No; I was afraid, knowing they would have to carry us back.'

'My mate will change the saddles. I must ride the stronger horse. Meanwhile, get something to eat. We have just breakfasted; there is tea in the billy.'

He showed neither hurry nor agitation, he displayed no feeling, but, watching him narrowly, Lucy was convinced of his great earnestness, and the strain of anxiety that had gripped her heart like a band of steel relaxed. She breathed freely. Part of the burden had gone to him, and he would bear it.

Jim felt himself strong again in the face of this great need. Apart from the tie of blood, he owed Ryder the best service of which he was capable--his very life, if need be--but he did not question the matter, even in his own heart, and it was not till Blanket Flat lay four or five miles behind them that he sought further information from his companion. They had ridden in silence, Lucy overwrought, thinking only of the wounded man hunted like a beast, perhaps dying in the Bush, Jim endeavouring to decide upon a plan of action. The news had not greatly surprised him; ever since Ryder's declaration of his identity Done had foreseen some such possibility.

'Do you know the reason of the attempt to arrest Ryder?' said Jim, breaking the long silence.

'The troopers called him Solo. I have heard of a notorious gold robber of that name. Mrs. Macdougal says a new shepherd called Brummy recognised him.' She gave Done a concise account of the arrest and Ryder's escape. 'That is Wallaroo you are riding,' she said in conclusion, 'and Mr. Macdougal is furious over his loss. I believe it was he who shot Mr. Ryder.'

'If Ryder dies, I'll kill Macdougal!'

Lucy turned sharply, and looked at Jim. He had spoken the words in a tone sounding almost casual, curiously incongruous with their grim significance. She knew that he meant what he had said, and her heart sank.

'You would not be so mad,' she said.

'Let us push on,' he replied, disregarding her comment.

Lucy had experienced no difficulty in finding Jim. Since his visit to Boobyalla she had been three times to Jim Crow with parties on horseback, and knew the country well.

They reached the mouth of the gorge at about eleven o'clock, and had ridden only about two hundred yards along the bed of the creek, when Yarra arose from a clump of scrub-ferns at Lucy's side.

'Come longa me,' he said. 'Boss Ryder plenty sick.'

Yarra had left the outlaw two hours earlier. Ryder was then tossing feverishly on his rough couch. The small cave in which he lay was situated some thirty yards up the side of the gorge, and the hot morning sun reached it early, converting it into an oven of stone. The wounded man was suffering acutely; his wound had become a burning agony that had no longer a limit: the pain of it penetrated his whole being. Soon after the black boy's departure Ryder ceased to toss and turn, movement only increasing his torment. He now lay very still on the floor of the cave; his eyes had a feline lustre in the dim light, his face was as white and hollow as that of a corpse, saving for the fever spot that burned in either cheek. Gradually his mind was drifting from his danger and his sufferings--it was fashioning strange images, mere dreams, but startlingly realistic. From the first one or two he reverted to sanity and to a fleeting sense of his position, and then the images trooped in again, the visions reappeared--beautiful visions of coolness, and sweetness, and shade that, it seemed later, only came to tantalize him. He was now a soul in hell, tortured with the sight of clustering green trees and flowing streams. Through all these dreams one sweet sound prevailed. He recognised it at length: it was the music of falling water--beautiful, cold, clear water, falling in thin sheets from the high rock and breaking into snow on the edge of the deep stone basin. He lifted himself upon his hands and listened. Yes, there was a waterfall below him, so near that he might almost reach and dip his fingers into it, and he was set in flame that lapped him round, licking his face, dipping its forked tongue into the hollows of his eyes, penetrating to his heart, and coursing in all his veins. He was mad to stay there and suffer, when he might slip from the grip of the fiend, and lave his limbs in the pool and drink from the cascade. Ryder dragged himself from the cave, upsetting the water the half-caste had placed near his bed as he did so. The water ran over his fingers, but he did not heed it. Outside he raised himself to his feet with the help of a tree, and, staggering a few paces down the slope, pitched on his face, cutting his mouth badly on the stones. The wound in his neck opened, and the blood oozed from the bandages, smearing his hands as he dragged himself along.

It was like some wild beast with a mortal wound in its breast slowly crawling to the water to die. Every few yards he thought the stream was reached and dipping his mouth to drink, cut his lips oh the granite. He had come to the level ground banking the creek, and was almost at the edge of the basin, when a figure appeared on the brink of the waterfall above him. The figure looked hardly human, bent down, watching Ryder's movements in the attitude of a curious ape.

Macdougal sprang down the rocks with an agility in keeping with his apelike appearance, and interposed between the creeping man and the water.

Ryder turned aside, and again Macdougal interposed. Three times this happened, and the squatter had a grin on his small terrier's face; he was deriving malicious amusement from the bewilderment of the fever-stricken wretch at his feet. In his left hand he held a revolver.

Ryder raised a hand, and, clutching Monkey Mack, made an effort to regain his feet. The other helped him, and clinging to his enemy for support, the outlaw looked at Macdougal. The latter thrust his face forward, and again there was a red gleam under the shadows of his heavy brows.

'Ye know me, man,' he said.

Ryder was staring with eyes in which there was a dawning of consciousness, and, steadying him with one hand, the squatter dipped some water in his hat, and dashed it in the other's face.

'Ye know me!' he said with fierce eagerness. 'Ye know me! Man, ye must know me--Macdougal! Look at me. Ay, ye know me well!'

There was recognition in Ryder's eyes; they were intent upon those of his foe, and, clutching him by the shoulder, Macdougal continued:

'Well ye know me, and well ye know what I mean to do by ye. I'm about to kill ye, Mr. Walter Ryder, an' no harm will come to me for the killin'. Man, man, but it's a sweet thing to kill your enemy, an' to be paid well for the doin' of it! Ah, I'm right sure ye know me now. I would na' have ye die by another hand, for 'tis me ye wronged most. I know my wrongs, ye foul villain, an' it's in my mind to carry your carrion head to Melbourne for the money they've set upon it. Ye mind me! ye mind me! Good! good!'

Macdougal's face was literally convulsed with the fury of his hate; he spat at Ryder as he spoke, and then, with the swiftness and the strength that had marked them in health, the outlaw's fingers fastened upon his hairy throat. The long, thin hands clamped themselves upon his neck, and for a moment Monkey Mack was helpless in the agonies of suffocation. Then his left hand pointed the revolver at Ryder's ear; there was a sharp report, and the outlaw fell limply, and rolled back upon the flat water-worn rock, his shattered head to the stone, his arms out thrown, his lifeless face turned up to the blue sky.


XXIII

MONKEY MACK stood for a few seconds gazing down upon the dead man, unconscious of the fact that at the