"No one here but myself," replied the other. "I"m hut-keeping here for one Bill Lee, but he is away. He was one of the right sort once himself, I have heard; but he"s been on the square for twenty years, so I don"t like to trust him."
"You are about right there, Moody, my lad," said Hawker. "I"ve just looked up to talk to you about him, and other matters,--I"ll come in.
When will he be back?"
"Not before night, I expect," said the other.
"Well," said Hawker, "we shall have the more time to talk; I"ve got a good deal to tell you. Our chaps are all safe and snug, and the traps are off. Only two, that"s you and Mike, stayed this side of the hill; the rest crossed the ranges and stowed away in an old lair of mine on one of the upper Murray gullies. They"ve had pretty hard times, and if it hadn"t been for the cash they brought away, they"d have had worse.
Now the coast is clear, they"re coming back by ones and twos, and next week we shall be ready for business. I"m going to be head man this bout, because I know the country better than any; and the most n.o.ble Michael has consented, for this time only, to act as lieutenant. We haven"t decided on any plans yet, but some think of beginning from the coast, because that part will be clearest of traps, they having satisfied themselves that we ain"t there. In fact, the wiseacres have fully determined that we are all drowned. There"s one devil of a foreign doctor knows I"m round though: he saw me the night before you came ash.o.r.e, and I am nigh sure he knew me. I have been watching him, and I could have knocked him over last week as clean as a whistle, only, thinks I, it"ll make a stir before the time. Never mind, I"ll have him yet. This Lee is a black sheep, lad. I"m glad you are here; you must watch him, and if you see him flinch, put a knife in him. He raised the country on me once before. I tell you, Jerry, that I"d be hung, and willing, to-morrow, to have that chap"s life, and I"d have had it before now, only I had to keep still for the sake of the others.
That man served me the meanest, dirtiest trick, twenty years ago, in the old country, that ever you or any other man heard of, and if he catches sight of me the game"s up. Mind, if you see cause, you deal with him, or else,----" (with an awful oath) "you answer to the others."
"If he"s got to go, he"ll go," replied the other, doggedly. "Don"t you fear me; Moody the cannibal ain"t a man to flinch."
"What, is that tale true then?" asked Hawker, looking at his companion with a new sort of interest.
"Why, in course it is," replied Moody; "I thought no one doubted that.
That Van Diemen"s Land bush would starve a bandicoot, and Shiner and I walked two days before we knocked the boy on the head; the lad was getting beat, and couldn"t a" gone much further. After three days more we began to watch one another, and neither one durst walk first, or go to sleep. Well, Shiner gave in first; he couldn"t keep his eyes open any longer. And then, you know, of course my own life was dearer than his"n."
"My G.o.d! That"s worse than ever I did!" said Hawker.
"But not worse than you may do, if you persevere. You promise well,"
said Moody, with a grin.
Hawker bent and whispered in his ear; the other listened for a time, and then said,--
"Make it twenty."
Hawker after a little consideration nodded--then the other nodded--then they whispered together again. Something out of the common this must be, that they, not very particular in their confidences, should whisper about it.
They looked up suddenly, and Lee was standing in the doorway.
Hawker and he started when they saw one another, but Lee recovered himself first, and said,--
"George Hawker, it"s many years since we met, and I"m not so young as I was. I should like to make peace before I go, as I well know that I"m the chief one to blame for you getting into trouble. I"m not humbugging you, when I say that I have been often sorry for it of late years. But sorrow won"t do any good. If you"ll forgive and forget, I"ll do the same. You tried my life once, and that"s worse than ever I did for you.
And now I"ll tell you, that if you want money to get out of the country and set up anywhere else, and leave your poor wife in peace, I"ll find it for you out of my own pocket."
"I don"t bear any malice," said Hawker; "but I don"t want to leave the country just yet. I suppose you won"t peach about having seen me here?"
"I shan"t say a word, George, if you keep clear of the home station; but I won"t have you come about there. So I warn you."
Lee held out his hand, and George took it. Then he asked him if he would stay there that night, and George consented.
Day was fast sinking behind the trees, and making golden boughs overhead. Lee stood at the hut door watching the sun set, and thinking, perhaps, of old Devon. He seemed sad, and let us hope he was regretting his old crimes while time was left him. Night was closing in on him, and having looked once more on the darkening sky, and the fog coldly creeping up the gully, he turned with a sigh and a shudder into the hut, and shut the door.
Near midnight, and all was still. Then arose a cry upon the night so hideous, so wild, and so terrible, that the roosting birds dashed off affrighted, and the dense mist, as though in sympathising fear, prolonged the echoes a hundred fold. One articulate cry, "Oh! you treacherous dog!" given with the fierce energy of a dying man, and then night returned to her stillness, and the listeners heard nothing but the weeping of the moisture from the wintry trees.
The two perpetrators of the atrocity stood silent a minute or more, recovering themselves. Then Hawker said in a fierce whisper,--
"You clumsy hound; why did you let him make that noise? I shall never get it out of my head again, if I live till a hundred. Let"s get out of this place before I go mad; I could not stay in the house with it for salvation. Get his horse, and come along."
They got the two horses, and rode away into the night; but Hawker, in his nervous anxiety to get away, dropped a handsome cavalry pistol,--a circ.u.mstance which nearly cost Doctor Mulhaus his life.
They rode till after daylight, taking a course toward the sea, and had gone nearly twelve miles before George discovered his loss, and broke out into petulant imprecations.
"I wouldn"t have lost that pistol for five pounds," he said; "no, nor more. I shall never have one like it again. I"ve put over a parrot at twenty yards with it."
"Go back and get it, then," said Moody, "if it"s so valuable. I"ll camp and wait for you. We want all the arms we can get."
"Not I," said George; "I would not go back into that cursed hut alone for all the sheep in the country."
"You coward," replied the other; "afraid of a dead man. Well, if you won"t, I will: and, mind, I shall keep it for my own use."
"You"re welcome to it, if you like to get it," said George. And so Moody rode back.
Chapter x.x.xVIII
HOW DR. MULHAUS GOT BUSHED IN THE RANGES, AND WHAT BEFEL HIM THERE.
I must recur to the same eventful night again, and relate another circ.u.mstance that occurred on it. As events thicken, time gets more precious; so that, whereas at first I thought nothing of giving you the events of twenty years or so in a chapter, we are now compelled to concentrate time so much that it takes three chapters to twenty-four hours. I read a long novel once, the incidents of which did not extend over thirty-six hours, and yet it was not so profoundly stupid as you would suppose.
All the party got safe home from the picnic, and were glad enough to get housed out of the frosty air. The Doctor, above all others, was rampant at the thoughts of dinner, and a good chat over a warm fire, and burst out, in a n.o.ble ba.s.s voice, with an old German student"s song about wine and Gretchen, and what not.
His music was soon turned into mourning; for, as they rode into the courtyard, a man came up to Captain Brentwood, and began talking eagerly to him.
It was one of his shepherds, who lived alone with his wife towards the mountain. The poor woman, his wife, he said, was taken in labour that morning, and was very bad. Hearing there was a doctor staying at the home station, he had come down to see if he could come to their a.s.sistance.
"I"ll go, of course," said the Doctor; "but let me get something to eat first. Is anybody with her?"
"Yes, a woman was with her; had been staying with them some days."
"I hope you can find the way in the dark," said the Doctor, "for I can tell you I can"t."
"No fear, sir," said the man; "there"s a track all the way, and the moon"s full. If it wasn"t for the fog it would be as bright as day."
He took a hasty meal, and started. They went at a foot"s pace, for the shepherd was on foot. The track was easily seen, and although it was exceedingly cold, the Doctor, being well wrapped up, contrived, with incessant smoking, to be moderately comfortable. All external objects being a blank, he soon turned to his companion to see what he could get out of him.
"What part of the country are you from, my friend?"
"Fra" the Isle of Skye," the man answered. "I"m one of the Macdonalds of Skye."
"That"s a very ancient family, is it not?" said the Doctor at a venture, knowing he could not go wrong with a Highlander.