I nodded.
"Go on," Moira urged. "You came to tell us about your father, Mr. Abel c.u.mshaw."
"That"s right," said the young man with amazing alacrity. "You"re all right too. I wasn"t sure at first, but now I see you"re in the game with me. From what I know of it we"re all like pieces of a jig-saw puzzle. We all fit in, and none of us is any use without the others. That being so, I fancy that we had better all place our cards on the table. Now which of you has got the cypher?"
Moira looked at me for guidance. I was pleased to see that she was learning that she couldn"t do without me. I was pleased--no, I wasn"t pleased at all, for it didn"t matter now what Moira thought of me.
"What cypher is that?" I enquired innocently.
"There is only one cypher, Mr. Carstairs," Mr. c.u.mshaw stated. He seemed so sure about it that my curiosity was aroused.
"Indeed?" I said politely. I knew better than to contradict him outright, so I did it by implication.
"There"s only the one," the young man repeated. "You should know, because Mr. Bryce left it to you."
If I had had any doubts before as to the genuine character of my visitor they all vanished at that last remark of his. It was one of those things that a man could not have guessed, however clever he might be. He must have had inside knowledge. Hitherto I had been indulging in that pleasant pastime that is known in boxing circles as "sparring for wind,"
but now I dropped the pose completely and answered him as straightforwardly as was consistent with reasonable caution.
"Yes, he did leave a cypher to me," I admitted. "But what do you know about it?"
"Only what Mr. Bryce wrote me. I"m sorry I can"t show you the letter, but Mr. Bryce had an invariable rule that all correspondence from him must be burnt as soon as read."
"I guess I"ve got to accept you at your face value, Mr. c.u.mshaw," I said. "You"ll pardon me for doubting you at first, but it pays to be cautious in a game like this. Now I"d like to know just how we are going to a.s.sist each other."
"That"s more than I can say," the young man smiled. "If I tell you the story from start to finish, maybe you"ll get a better idea of what we"re after."
"Would it take long?" I said diffidently. "It"s fairly late now."
"If Mr. c.u.mshaw would stop to tea," Moira suggested, and looked to me for approval of her proposition. Under the circ.u.mstances there was only one thing for me to do, so I did it.
"You"ll greatly oblige us if you stop," I said. "That is if it won"t be causing any inconvenience?" I added questioningly.
"None at all," he said cheerily. "Nothing of this sort ever inconveniences me"--this latter with a glance at Moira.
"So that"s the game, is it, young man?" I said to myself. "Well, here"s luck to you."
Aloud I said, "I am pleased to hear it." The funny part of it all was that I really meant it. There was something open and honest about the man himself, there was a healthful glow in his dark eyes, and he had a way of looking at one that was the very essence of frankness itself.
Without knowing more of him than I had learnt in the few minutes we had been conversing, I felt that he was as open as the day. In this case at least my first impressions were more than justified by the course of events.
Mr. c.u.mshaw stopped to tea and made himself very much at home, and afterwards he told us the story of the gold escort. I have not set out his tale as we heard it that evening. For one thing he only related what he happened to know about the matter, and as a result there were many little blanks he had to leave unfilled. But with the completion of our enterprise many additional facts have come to light, and so it is that, with Mr. c.u.mshaw"s aid and at his suggestion, I give here a fuller and more comprehensive version of the affair than he related to us that evening.
PART II.
_THE ADVENTURES OF MR. ABEL c.u.mSHAW._
CHAPTER I.
NIGHTFALL.
Far away to the west the fiery globe of the setting sun dropped lazily down to rest behind the quaint goblin peaks of the Grampians. Its last lingering rays touched their summits with a crimson glow, flooded the valleys with garish light, and even penetrated into the recesses of the nearby woodlands until the whole place seemed to blaze as with the red fire of h.e.l.l. It was not a peaceful sunset; it did not even hold the promise of peace. It was alive and active, in the sense that light can live, and one could but feel that its potency was malignant and a.s.sured.
There were clouds aplenty in the sky, light clouds looking as if they had been trailed through red ink, but there was nothing about them to suggest that a storm was brewing, or that even the slightest change in the weather could be expected. Nevertheless the air contained a hint of evil, so much so that an imaginative person would have peopled the hills with gnomes and the woods with devils. Even had fairies existed in the glades, one would have instinctively known them to be bad fairies. Yet one could not say offhand whence or from whom the evil that was to be, would originate; all earth and sky seemed somehow to be in the dread conspiracy.
The lurid hues of the sunset flared and faded into the drabber colors of twilight, the shadows swept down in phalanxes from the hills, and the still lifeless trees, stirring in the evening breeze, became black mocking shapes of infamy. The yellow disc of a moon, climbing up over the woods, took on the semblance of the leering face of a drunken man.
The two men who presently came riding along through the tangled fastnesses of what a couple of score years or more ago were the untenanted and, to a great extent, the unexplored depths of a Victorian forest, were very evidently unaffected by the grim fancies of the evening. They were not laughing certainly, and when they spoke it was in whispers, but the younger man hummed a music-hall tune under his breath.
There was something rakish, not to say reckless, in the way the elder sat his mount. They went carefully, though, taking every possible precaution against making needless noise. Once the horse of the elder man stumbled and set a stone rolling down a declivity. Both men reined in instantly and listened until the echoes died away in the distance.
"You"re as nervous as a rabbit, Jack," the younger man remarked when presently they resumed their journey. "Every little sound seems to startle you."
"There"s no sense in taking chances, man," said the one called Jack.
"If it comes to that there"s no chances to take."
"Only that of being caught and hanged, Abel."
"There"s not much hope of that," Abel c.u.mshaw replied. "Gentry like ourselves are rather out of fashion now since they"ve squashed the Kellys. The country"s quietened down a lot, and a "ranger"s supposed to be a thing of the past. As it is, there"s never been bushrangers in this part of the State, and what hasn"t been is the least likely to happen in most people"s estimation."
"I"m with you there, Abel," Jack said. "But even that"s no reason why we shouldn"t go carefully. You must remember that we don"t know this part of the State too well. That"s the beauty of it, I suppose. n.o.body knows it very much."
"It"ll make pursuit difficult," the other suggested. "But what I can"t understand is why the banks should send so much gold across country when there"s the railway."
"The railway, friend c.u.mshaw, isn"t the safest route. There"s just as clever men working that as used to be working the stages. Moreover, this cross-country route"s much the quicker way of the two."
"For which we may thank the Lord," said Abel c.u.mshaw, with cheerful impiety.
"Time enough to thank the Lord," the other retorted, "when we"ve finished the job successfully. All the same, I wish we had a pack horse."
"If we had brought a pack-horse," said c.u.mshaw, "we"d have had half the country-side wondering what the deuce was up. Like as not they"d think there was a new gold-strike on."
"And they wouldn"t have been wrong in that," the other answered with grim humor. "But let"s get to the business of the evening, Abel. I"ve got a good idea to put the pursuers off the scent, that is, if there"s any pursuit."
"Out with it, then," said c.u.mshaw.
The elder man reined in his horse, and, leaning over, whispered in his companion"s ear. As the tale proceeded a cheerful grin spread over c.u.mshaw"s face.
"That"ll do fine," he said gleefully. "You almost make me wish they do pursue us just for the fun of seeing them fall in."
"There"s nothing to be gained by being foolhardy," the elder man warned him. "Now we can"t afford to waste time. Let us get to work at once."
Without more ado he led the way down through the tangle of forest and across the open glades until they reached the narrow track that wound like a monstrous brown ribbon through the enormous gums. At the edge of the road they both dismounted and tethered their horses to convenient trees. Then, stepping very gingerly, and taking extreme care not to leave any footprints on the dusty surface of the track, they groped about on the roadside. Presently they both returned to the horses, each of them carrying an armful of heavy stones which they loaded carefully into the enormous saddle-bags that dangled one on each side of the saddle-flaps.