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Stingaree · Stingaree

• 0:00
  A voice in the wilderness, but one La parlate d'a mour o cari fiore
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  riccat emie sospiri larate eimee matiri ditele o cari fior. Miss Bouvarie ceased on
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  the hind note as abruptly as string that snaps beneath the bow, and revolved
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  with the music stool to catch but her echoes in the empty room. None
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  had entered behind her back. There was neither sound nor shadow in the deep
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  veranda through the open door for the startled girl at the open piano. Missus
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  Clarkson's sanctum was precisely as Missus Clarksonder lettered an hour before her own photograph.
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  In as many modes beamed from the usual number of ornamental frames, there was
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  nothing whatever to confirm a wild suspicion of the living lady's untimely return, yet
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  either guilty conscience where an ear as sensitive as it was true, had heard
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  an unmistakable step outside. Hilda Boovy loved to look magnificent when she sang,
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  her fine frame drawn up to its last inch, her throat a pillar of
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  pale coral, her mouth the perfect round, her teeth a noble relic of
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  barbarism, but sweeter she never was than in these days, or at this
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  moment of them, as she sat with lips just parted in teeth just showing
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  in a simple summer frock of her own unaided, making her eyes as the
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  one deep Tasmanian blue, were still open, very wide, but no longer
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  with the same apprehension. For a step. There was but a step that
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  jingled, Nor did they recognize the silhouette and top boots, which at length
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  stood bowing on the threshold. Please finish it, prayed a voice that Miss
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  Bovary liked in her turn, but it was too much at ease for one
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  entirely strange to her, and she rose little embarrassment and no hesitation at all.
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  Indeed, no I thought I had the station to myself, so you
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  had I have not seen a soul. Miss Bovy instantly perceived that honors were
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  due from her. I'm so sorry you've come to see mister and missus Clarkson,
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  she cried. Missus Clarkson has just left for Melbourne with her maid,
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  and mister Clarkson has gone mustering with all his men. But the Indian cook
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  is about somewhere I'll find him, and he shall make some tea. The
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  visitor planted himself with much gallantry. In the doorway was a man, still
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  young, with a single eye glass and a martial mustache, which combined to
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  give distinction to a somewhat swarthy countenance. At the moment, he had also
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  an engaging smile. I didn't come to see either mister or missus, Clarkson,
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  said he. In fact, I never heard their name before I was
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  passing the station, and I simply came to see who it was who could
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  sing like that. To believe my own ears, Miss Beouvorie was thrilled.
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  The stranger spoke with an authority that she divined the sincerity which she instinctively took
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  on trust. Her breath came quickly. She was a little nervous. Now,
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  if you won't sing to my face, he went on, I must
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  go back to where I hung up my horse and pray that you would at
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  least send me on my way, rejoicing you would do that. In any
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  case, I didn't know there was such a voice in these parts. You
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  sing a good deal. Of course, I haven't sung for months. He
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  was now in the room. It was no longer any necessity to bar the
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  doorway, and the light coming through fell full on his amazement. The girl
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  stood before him with a calm face, more wistful than ironic, yet with
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  hints of humor in the dark blue eyes. Her companion put up the eye
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  glass, which he had dropped at her reply, May I ask what you
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  were doing in these wilds? Certainly I am missus Clarkson's companion, and you
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  sing for the first time in months. The minute her back is turned,
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  as the lady knows soul from music, you had better ask the lady and
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  her visible humor reached the corners of Miss Bovarie's mouth. She sings herself,
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  perhaps, and I am here to play her accompliments. The eye glass focussed
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  the great smiling girl. Can she sing? She has a voice, but
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  you have never let her hear yours? Once I had not been here long
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  enough to know better, and I made my usual mistake. What is that?
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  I thought I had the station to myself? The questioner bowed to his
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  rebuke. Well, he persisted, none the less. I was told exactly
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  what my voice was like and fit for The gentleman turned on a heel,
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  as though her appreciation of the humor of her position was an annoyance to him.
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  His movement brought him face to face with the photographic galaxy of ladies in
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  varying styles of evening dress, with an equal variety in coiffures, but a
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  certain family likeness running through the series. Are any of these, Missus Clarkson?
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  All of them? He muttered, something in this mustache? And what's
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  this? He asked of a sudden the young man, for as such Miss
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  Bouvorie was beginning to regard him, was standing under the flaming bill of a
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  grand concert to be given in the township of yallow Rook for the benefit of
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  local charities. Oh that's missus Clarkson's concert, he was informed. She's been
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  getting it up and that's why she had to go to Melbourne. About her
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  dress, you know, he smiled sardonically through mustache and monocle. Her charity
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  begins near home, it need not necessarily end there. Yet she sings five
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  times her so true without the encores, and you don't sing at all.
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  But I accompany a bitter irony. But I say, what's this? Under
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  the distinguished patronage of Sir Julian Crumb Mus Doc D. C earl. Who
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  may he be director of the Royal College of Music in the Old Country.
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  The girl answered with a sigh, nor a college of music. That's something
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  used. It's my time, said the visitor, sighing. Also, what's
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  a man like that doing out here? He is a brother, a squatter
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  the next station, but one so Julian spending the English winter with him on
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  account of his health. So you've seen something of him. I wish we
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  had, But miss Clarkson has no not yet I see, and an enlightened
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  gleam shot through the eyeglass. So this is her way of getting to Knowapoor,
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  overworked wreck who came out to Patch's lungs and peace and quiet. She's
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  going to sing on one of his own songs. She's gone to Melbourne to
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  dress the part, and you're not going to sing anything at all. Miss
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  Bervery refrained her like from comment and confirmation, but her silence was the less
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  creditable, in that her companion was now communing chiefly with himself. She felt,
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  indeed, that she had already been guilty of a certain disloyalty to one
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  to whom she owed some manner of allegiance. But that was the extent of
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  Miss Berbery's indiscretion. In her own eyes, it caused her no qualms to
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  entertain an anonymous gentleman whom she had never seen before. Her colder course had
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  commended herself to the young lady fresh from London, to a colonial girl on
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  a station where special provision was made for the entertaining of strange travelers. Situation
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  was simply conventional. Might have been less onerous with host or hostess on the
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  spot, but then the visitor would not have heard her sing, and he
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  seemed to know what singing was. Miss Bouverie watched him as he leant over
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  the piano, looking through the songs which he had dared once more to bring
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  forth from her room. She might well have taken a romantic interest in the
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  dark and dapper man of the military eye, glass and mustache, the spruce
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  duck jacket and the spurred top boots. Twas her first meeting was such a
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  type. In the back blocks of New South Wales, the gallant ease,
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  the natural gaiety, the charming manners that charmed no less for a clear trace
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  of mannerism, were a peculiar refreshment after society. Racier of Riverina soil.
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  Yet it was none of these things which attracted this woman to this man.
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  And for the susceptible girl was dead in her for the time being, But
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  the desperate artist was alive again after many weeks, was panting for fresh life,
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  was catching at a straw. He had heard her sing. It had
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  brought him galloping off the track. He praised her voice, and he knew,
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  he knew what singing was. Who could he be not? Could that
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  be possible? Send me this, he said suddenly, and seating himself at
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  the piano, played the opening bars of a vocal adaptation of Handel's Largo with
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  a just, though unpracticed touch. Nothing could have afforded a finer hearing of
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  the quality and the compass of her voice, and she knew of old how
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  well it suited her. Yet at the outset from the sheer excitement of her
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  suspicion, Hilda Bouverie was shaky to the point of a pronounced tremolo. It
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  wore off with the lengthening cadences, and then a minute the little building was
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  bursting with her voice, while the pianist swayed and bent upon a stool with
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  the exuberant sympathy of a brother and art, And when the last rich note
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  had died away, he wheeled about and so sat silent for many moments,
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  looking curiously on her flushed face and panting, bosom, I can't place your
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  voice, he said, at last, it's both voices, the most wonderful
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  compass in the world. The world will tell you so when you go back
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  to it, as go back you must, and shell may I ask the
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  name of your master, my own name, Bovary, twas my father.
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  He is dead. Her eyes glistened. You did not go to another.
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  I had no money. Besides, he had lived for what you say.
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  When he died with his dream still a dream, I said I would do
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  the same, and I came up here. She had turned away. A
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  less tactful interlocutor had sought plainer, repudiation of the rash resolve. This one
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  rose and buried himself and wore songs. I've heard you in grand opera and
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  in something really grand. He said, Now I want a song, the
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  simpler, the best. Her behind his back, A daring light came in
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  to the moist eyes. It was one of missus Clarkson's. She said she
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  would never forgive me for seeing it. But I have heard it from her
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  so often, I know so well how it ought to go, And fetching
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  the song from a cabinet, she thrust it boldly under his nose. It
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  was called the Unrealized Ideal, and was a setting of some words by a
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  real poet then living, whose name caused this reader to murmur London lyrics.
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  The composer were Sir Julian Crumb, but his name was read without a word
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  or a movement of the strong shoulders and the tanned neck on which Missus Boovery's
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  eyes were fixed. You had better play this yourself, said he, after
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  peering at the music through his glass. Tis rather too many for me,
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  and strangely, crestfallen, Missus Boovery took his place. My only laugh is
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  always near, in country or in town. I see her twinkling feet.
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  I hear the whisper of her gown. She foots it ever fair and young.
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  Her locks are tied in haste, and wonders o'er her shoulder flung and
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  hangs below her waist. For that was the immortal trifle. How much of
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  its immortality it will owe to the setting of Sir Julian Crumb is a matter
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  of opinion. But here is an anonymous view, not like the words,
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  miss bervery. But the setting doesn't take me. It might with repetition,
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  seems lacking in go and simplicity. Technically I should say a gem, but
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  there can be no two opinions of your singing. Such a song. That's
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  the sort of arrow to go straight to the heart of the public, a
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  world wide public. And if I am the first to say it to you,
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  I hope you will one day remember it in my favor. Meanwhile,
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  tis for me to thank you from my heart and to say good bye.
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  He was holding out a sun burnt hand. Must you go, she asked,
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  withholding her own and frank disappointment. Unfortunately, Yes, my man is
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  waiting for me with both horses and the scrub. But before I go,
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  I want to ask a great favor of you. It is not to tell
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  a soul. I have been here for a singer and a woman of temperament.
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  Hilda Boovery had a wonderfully level head, She inquired as reason in no
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  promising tone. You will see it Missus Clarkson's concert. He would have started.
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  You were coming to that without fail to hear Missus Clarkson sing five songs,
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  your song among them, but it's hers. It has been the other
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  way about. The gay smile broadened on the swarthy face. A very bright
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  eye twinkled through the monocle into those of Miss Boovery. Well, will you
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  promise to say nothing about me? I have a reason which you will be
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  the first to appreciate in due season. Hilda hesitated, reasoned with herself,
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  and finally gave her word. The hands were joined an instant as he thanked
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  her with gallant smile and bow. Then he was gone, and as a
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  spurs ceased jingling on the verandah outside. Hilda Bouverie glanced again at the song
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  of the piano and clapped her hands with unreasonable pride. I do believe that
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  I was right, after all, said she Part two. Mister Clarkson and
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  his young men sat at meat that evening with a Miss Boovery hard to recognize
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  as the apparently austere spinster who had hitherto been something of a skeleton at their
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  board, coldly handsome at her worst, a single day had brought her forth
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  a radiant beauty, wreathed in human smiles. Her clear skin had a tinge,
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  which at once suggested and dismissed the thought of rouge. But beyond all
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  doubt she had done her hair with less reserve, and it was coppery hair
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  of a volatile sort that sprang into natural curls at the first relaxation of an
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  undue discipline. Mister Clarkson wondered whether his wife's departure had ought to do with
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  the striking change in her companion. The two young men rested mutually assured that
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  it had. The old girl keeps too close an eye on her, said
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  little mister Hack, who kept the books and hailed from Middlesex. Get it
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  to yourself, Ted, She's as larky as there made. Ted Radford,
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  the station overseer was a person as not to be dismissed in a relative clause.
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  He was a typical back blocker, dry and wiry, nasally copture,
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  insolently cool, her fearless hand with horse man or woman. It was a
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  good friend to Hack when there was no third person of his own kidney to
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  appreciate the overseer's conception of friendly chaff. They were by themselves now. Yet
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  the last speech drew from Radford a sufficiently sardonic grin. You see if she
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  is old man, said he in all stand by to collect your remains.
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  Not but what she hasn't come off the ice. It looks like thawing if
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  you'd take her the right way. Ted Radford was a confirmed believer in the
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  rightness of his own way with all mankind. His admirable confidence had not been
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  shaken by a long succession of snubs in the courter Under discussion as to Miss
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  Boovery was her practice to play off one young man against the other by discouraging
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  each in his turn. But this evening she was a different being. She
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  had a vague yet absolute conviction that her fortune was made. She could have
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  sung all her songs to the twain, but for the reflection that mister Clarkson
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  himself would hear them too and report the matter to his wife on her return.
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  And the next night, the male trio was strangely absorbed in some station
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  happening which did not arouse Miss Bovery's curiosity in the least. They were excited
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  and it constrained at dinner, and drew their chairs close together on the verandah.
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  Afterward, young lady caught at least one word of which she did not
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  know the meaning. She had the tack to keep out of ear shot after
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  that, nor was she very much more interested when she met the two young
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  men with revolvers in their hands the following day, Going to fight a duel?
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  She inquired, smilingly, for her heart was still singing Grand Opera and
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  oratorio. By turns more less returned the overseer, without his usual pleasantry,
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  We're going to have a match at a target behind the pines. The London
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  bookkeeper looked at anxious clerk. The girl was glad when she saw the pair
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  alive. At dinner, there seemed to be little doing. Though the summer
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  was already tropical, there had been plenteous rains, and mister Clarkson observed in
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  Hill's hearing that the recent day's mustering would be the last for some little time.
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  She was thrown much in his company, and she liked mister Clarkson.
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  When missus Clarkson was not there in his wife's hands, the good man was
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  wax, now a mere echo, now a veritable clerk in himself. He
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  pandered indefatigably to the multitudinous vanities of a ludicrously vain woman. But it was
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  soon Miss Boomery's experience that he could, when he dared, be attentatively considerate
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  of lesser ladies. In many ways, these were much the happiest days that
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  she had spent on the station. There were, however, days of a
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  consuming excitement for the caged and gagged nightingale that Hilda Boovery now conceived herself to
• 18:37
  be. She sang not another note aloud. Mister Clarkson lived in slippers on
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  the verandah, which hild her now associated chiefly with the stranger's spurs. For
• 18:47
  of the booted and spurred stranger, she was thinking incessantly, though still without
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  the emotions of an ordinarily romantic temperament. Would he be at the concert?
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  Or would he not? Would he turn out to be what she thought emly
• 19:00
  imagined him? Was she to find out her mistake? Might he not,
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  in any case have said or written some pregnant word for her? Was it
• 19:07
  beyond the bounds of possibility that she should be asked to sing? After all?
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  The last question was the only one to be answered before the time a
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  less a point blank inquiry of missus Clarkson be included in the category. The
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  lady had returned with a gorgeous gown, only less full of her experiences than
• 19:25
  of the crowning triumph yet to come. She had bought every song of Sir
• 19:29
  Julian's to be had in Melbourne, and his name was always on her lips.
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  In a reckless moment, Miss Bovary had inquired his age. I really
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  don't know, said missus Clarkson, What can it matter, only wondered whether
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  he was a youngish man or not. Missus Clarkson had already raised her eyebrows,
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  and this answer there disappeared behind a toupey dating from her late descent upon
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  the Victorian capital. Really, miss Bovary, she said, and nothing more
• 20:03
  in words, But the tone was intolerable, and its accompanying sneer a refinement
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  in vulgarity which only the really refined would have resented as it deserved. Missus
• 20:15
  Boervy got up and left the room without a word, but her flaming face
• 20:19
  left a misleading tale behind. She was not introduced to Sir Julian, but
• 20:26
  that was not her prime disappointment. When the Great Knight came, or desire
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  for an introduction, all interesting the concert died a sudden death, and Hilda
• 20:34
  Bowery, at her first glimpse of the gentleman who was duly presented to Missus
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  Clarkson as Sir Julian Crumb. He was more than middle aged. He wore
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  a gray beard and the air of a somewhat supercilious martyr. His near sight
• 20:49
  was obviated by double lenses in gold rims. Hilda could have wept before the
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  world. For nearly three weeks she had been bowing in imagination to a very
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  different Sir Julian, bowing as though she had never beheld him in her life
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  before. And yet in three minutes she saw how little reason she had ever
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  had for the logical conclusion to which she had jumped. She searched for the
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  sprightly figure she had worn in her mind's eye. His presence under any other
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  name would still have been welcome enough now, But he was not there at
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  all. The patchy glare of the kerosene lamps against the bunting which lined the
• 21:29
  corrugated walls of Gullum's new iron store, among flower and weed of township and
• 21:33
  of station, did miss Bouverie seek in vain for a single eye glass and
• 21:38
  a military mustache. The concert began, Missus Bouvarie opened it herself with the
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  inevitably thankless pianoforte solo, in this case gratuitously meretricious into the bargain. Albeit
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  the arbitrary choice of no lesser judge than missus Clarkson twas received with perfunctory applause,
• 21:59
  through which disappear Stockman thundered thickly for a song. Miss Boovery averted her
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  eyes from Sir Julian ensconced like royalty in the center of the first row,
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  as she descended from the platform. She had not the hardihood to glance toward
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  the great man until the indistinct Stockman had had his wish, and missus Clarkson,
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  in her fine new raiment, had both sung and acted a koy ditty
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  of the previous decade, where an every line began with the word somebody.
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  It was an immediate success. The obstraperous Stockman led the encore, but Miss
• 22:34
  Boovery, who Julie accompanied, extracted solace from the depressed attitude in which Sir
• 22:41
  Julian Crumb sat looking down his nose. The township boasted its score of dwellings,
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  but few of them showed a light that evening. Not less than ninety
• 22:51
  of the round hundred inhabitants clapped their hands and mocked their foreheads. In Gullan's
• 22:56
  new store, it might have been run up for its present purpose. There
• 23:02
  was an entrance at one end for the performers, and that on the platform
• 23:06
  level, since the ground sloped a little, at the other end, was
• 23:08
  the only other entrance by which the audience were admitted. A makeshift lobby had
• 23:14
  been arranged behind the platform, and thither Missus Clarkson retired to await her earlier.
• 23:18
  On course, when the compliment became a recognized matter of course, she
• 23:22
  abandoned the mere form of a momentary retirement and stood patiently, smiling in the
• 23:27
  satin borders brought from Melbourne. For the nonce and for the brief intervals between
• 23:33
  her efforts. She descended to a throne especially reserved on the great musician's right.
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  The other performers did not dim her brilliance by reason of their own.
• 23:44
  There was her own dear husband, whose serious recitation was the one entertaining number.
• 23:49
  There was a rabbit inspector who wrapped out the scout in a defiant baritone,
• 23:55
  and a publican whose somewhat uneven tenor was shaken to its debts by the
• 23:59
  simple pathos of when sparrows build. Missus Clarkson could afford to encourage such tyros
• 24:07
  with marked applause. The only danger was that Sir Julian might think she really
• 24:11
  admired their untutored attempts. One must do it. She therefore took occasion to
• 24:18
  expanish. She clapped, they're so nervous. The hard thing is to put
• 24:22
  one's self in their place. It's nothing to me to sing a song,
• 24:26
  Sir Julian, So I can see, madam, said he the extreme end
• 24:33
  of the same row. Miss Bovy passed her unemployed moments between mister Radford and
• 24:37
  the wall, and was not easy. So she had signaled to little mister
• 24:41
  Hack to occupy the seat behind her. With the two together, she felt
• 24:45
  comparatively comfortable. Mister Radford's running criticism on the performers, always pungent, was
• 24:52
  often amusing, while mister Hack lost no opportunity of advancing his own ideals in
• 24:56
  the matter of musical entertainment. Only dance, said he again and again,
• 25:02
  with a more and more separable deviltry. The all and dance is what you
• 25:07
  want. You should have heard the sisters belting in their palmy days at the
• 25:11
  path. You don't get the best of everything out here, you know,
• 25:12
  Ted. No, let's hope they've got some better men than you, returned
• 25:18
  Radford, inspired by the coorum of three, to make mincemeat of his friend.
• 25:22
  It was the interval between parts one and two. The platform was unoccupied.
• 25:26
  A cool draft blew through the iron building from open door to open door.
• 25:32
  There was no occasion to go outside. They had done so. However,
• 25:36
  at the lower end there was a sudden stampede of returning feet. A
• 25:40
  something in the scuffling steps, a certain outcry that accompanied them, caused Missus
• 25:45
  Boovery and her companions to turn their heads. They turned again at as sudden
• 25:49
  a jingle on the platform, and the girl caught her breath. There stood
• 25:56
  her missing hero, smiling on the people. Dapper swore the boot had spurred,
• 26:00
  and for one moment the man she had reason to remember exactly as she
• 26:06
  remembered him. The next his folded arms sprang up from the shoulders, and
• 26:11
  a brace of long barreled revolvers covered the assembly up with your hands, every
• 26:17
  man of you, he cried, No, not the ladies, that every
• 26:22
  man and boy who doesn't want a bullet in his brain. The command was
• 26:26
  echoed an uncouth accent at the lower door, where in fact a bearded savage
• 26:30
  had driven an all and sundry at his pistol's point, And in a few
• 26:33
  seconds the meeting was one which had carried, by overwhelming show of hands,
• 26:37
  a proposition which the ladies alone saw occasion to dissent. May have heard of
• 26:44
  me before, said the man on the platform, sweeping the forest of hands
• 26:48
  with his eye glass. My name Stingaree tis the word which held a boovery
• 26:52
  had heard on the veranda, and had taken for some strange expletor. Who
• 26:59
  is he? She asked in a whisper that bespoke excitement, agitation, but
• 27:03
  not alarm. The fancy bush ranger, the dande o law drawled Bradford in
• 27:08
  cool reply, who have been expecting him? He was seen on our run
• 27:12
  the day Missus Clarkson went down to Melbourne that memorable day for Hilda Bowery.
• 27:18
  And it was this manner of man who had been her hero ever since,
• 27:22
  a bush ranger, an outlaw, a common robber under arms. And you
• 27:30
  never told me, she cried in an indignant whisper, we never told missus
• 27:34
  Clarkson either. You must blame the boss. Hilda snatched her eyes from Stingery
• 27:41
  and was sorry for Missus Clarkson for the first time in their acquaintance. The
• 27:45
  new ball dress of bridal satin was no whiter than its wearer's face, which
• 27:49
  had aged several years in as many seconds. The squatter leant to water with
• 27:55
  uplifted hands, loyally concerned for no one and for nothing else Between the couple.
• 28:02
  Sir Julia might have been conducting without his baton, but with both arms.
• 28:07
  Meanwhile, the flashing eye glass had fixed itself on Miss Bouvory's companion,
• 28:11
  without resting for an instant. On Miss Bovary silence over there, cried Stingaree
• 28:18
  sternly, I am here in a perfectly harmless errand you know anything about me
• 28:22
  at all, You may know that I have a weakness of a music of
• 28:25
  any kind, so long as it's good of its kind. The eye glass
• 28:30
  dropped for a moment on Missus Clarkson on the front row, and the irrepressible
• 28:33
  Radford was enabled to continue his say, he has two from a mouth organ
• 28:40
  to a full orchestra. From all accounts, miss Boovery. My revolver is
• 28:44
  in the coat pocket next you. It is the music, continued Stingaree,
• 28:48
  looking harder than before in their direction, which has brought me here to night.
• 28:53
  I've come to listen, and for no other reason in the world.
• 28:57
  Unfortunately, when what a price upon one's head, one is to take certain
• 29:02
  precautions before venturing among one's fellow men. And although I am not here for
• 29:07
  again or bloodshed, if any man of you gives me trouble, I shall
• 29:11
  shoot him like her dog. It's one for me, whispered the intrepid overseer
• 29:17
  and lower key. Never mind, he's not looking at us now, I
• 29:19
  believe missus Clarkson's going to faint. You take what I told you, mus
• 29:23
  slip it under your shawl, and you'll save a second by passing it up
• 29:26
  to me. This instant, you see a sway, Hilda hesitated. A
• 29:32
  dead silence had fallen on the crowd and heated store, and in the silence
• 29:36
  Stingaree was already taking an unguarded interest in Missus Clarkson's appearance, which has certainly
• 29:41
  betokened to imminent collapse. Now whispered Radford, and Hilda hesitated no more.
• 29:49
  She was wearing a black lace shawl. Between her appearances at the piano,
• 29:55
  she had the revolver under it from a twinkling, and pressed it to her
• 29:56
  bosom with both hands while outside the shore, and one underneath. As who
• 30:00
  should hug a beating heart? Missus Clarkson said, Stingery, you've been singing
• 30:07
  too much. The quality of your song has not been equal to the quantity.
• 30:12
  Sounded a brutal speech enough, and to do justice to a portion of
• 30:15
  the audience not hitherto remarkable for its spirit. The young gallant criticism was audibly
• 30:21
  resented in the back rows. The Mardland stockman had indeed to be restrained by
• 30:26
  his neighbors from precipitating himself upon the barrels of Stingery. But the effect upon
• 30:32
  Missus Clarkson herself was still more remarkable, and revealed a subtle kindness in the
• 30:37
  desperado's cruelty. Her pale face flushed, her lackluster eyes blazed forth their indignation.
• 30:47
  Her very clay was on fire for all the room to see. I
• 30:52
  don't sing for criminals and cutthroats, the indignant lady cried out. She glanced
• 30:57
  at Sir Julian as one for whom she did sing, And so Julian's eyes
• 31:02
  twinkled under the bush ranger's guns. To be sure you don't, said Stingaree,
• 31:07
  with as much sweetness as his character would permit. You sing for charity
• 31:11
  and spend three times as much as you were ever likely to make an arraying
• 31:15
  yourself for the occasion. Well, we must put up with some song bird
• 31:18
  without fine feathers, for I mean to hear the programe out. His eyes
• 31:23
  rained the front rows till they fell on Hilda Boomery in her corner. You
• 31:29
  young lady over there, you've been talking since I called for silence. You
• 31:33
  deserve to pay a penalty. Be good enough to step this way. Hilda's
• 31:37
  excitement may be supposed it made her scandalously radiant in that company of humiliated men
• 31:44
  and women, but did not rob her of her resource. Removing her ashore
• 31:49
  with apparent haste, but with calculated deliberation, she laid it in a bunch
• 31:53
  upon the seat which she had occupied, and stepped forward with a courage that
• 31:57
  won a cheer from the back rod. Stingaree stood to hand her up to
• 32:02
  the platform, and his warm grip told a tale. This was what he
• 32:07
  had come for, to make her sing, To make her sing before Sir
• 32:12
  Julian Crumb, to give her a start unique in the history of the platform
• 32:16
  and the stage. Criminal was he than the dearest, kindest, most enchanting,
• 32:22
  most romantic criminal the world has ever seen. But she must be worthy
• 32:25
  of his chivalry and her chance, and from the first her artistic egoism assisted
• 32:31
  that she was Stingaree had picked up a program and dexterously mounted it between hammer
• 32:37
  and cartridge of the revolver, which he had momentarily relinquished, much as a
• 32:42
  corner player mounts his music under his nose. With both weapons once more leveled,
• 32:46
  he consulted the program. Now, the next item, ladies and gentlemen,
• 32:52
  he said, is another piano forte solo by this young lady. We'll
• 32:55
  let you off that, miss Boovery, since you've got to sing. Next
• 33:00
  song of the program is called the Unrealized Ideal, and the music is by
• 33:05
  our distinguished visitor and patron, Sir Julian Crumb. In happier circumstances, it
• 33:09
  would have been sung to you by missus Montgomery Clarkson. As it is,
• 33:15
  I call upon this Bovary to realize her ideal in ours, and on Sir
• 33:20
  Julian Crumb to accompany her if he will. At missus Clarkson's stony side,
• 33:25
  the great Man dropped both arms at the superb impudence of the invitation. Quite
• 33:31
  right, Sir Julian, let the blood run into them, said Stingree.
• 33:36
  It is a purer oversight that you were not exempted in the beginning. Comply
• 33:38
  with my entreaty, and I guarantee that you shall suffer no further inconvenience.
• 33:44
  Sir Julian wavered in London. He was a clubman and a diner out And
• 33:49
  what a tale for the Athenaeum, What a short cut to every ear at
• 33:53
  a Kensington's dinner table. In the end it would get into the papers.
• 33:58
  That was the worst of it. But in the midst of Sir Julian's hesitation,
• 34:01
  his pondering eyes met those of Miss Boovery on fire to sing him his
• 34:07
  own song alight with the ability to do it justice, and Sir Julian was
• 34:15
  lost. How she sang, it may be guessed. Sir Julian bowed and
• 34:19
  swayed upon a stool. Stingaree stood by with a smile of personal pride and
• 34:23
  responsibility. But with both revolvers still leveled and one of them cocked. It
• 34:30
  was a better song than he had supposed. It gained enormously from the composer's
• 34:35
  companiment. The last verse was softer than another would have made it, and
• 34:39
  yet the singer obeyed inaudible instructions as though she had never saw it Otherwise,
• 34:45
  it was more in a tuneful whisper than in hushed notes that the last words
• 34:49
  left her lips lightly. I spared when hope was high, and youth beguiled
• 34:54
  the chase I follow follow still, but I she'll never see her face.
• 35:04
  The applause when it came was almost overwhelming. The bushranger watched and smiled,
• 35:08
  but cocked a second pistol and let the program fluttered to the floor. As
• 35:14
  for Sir Julian Crumb, the self contained, the cynical, he was seen
• 35:19
  for an instant wheeled about on the music stool, grasping the singer by both
• 35:22
  hands, But there was no hearing what he said. The girl herself heard
• 35:27
  nothing until he bellowed in hurr ear, they'll have their own care. What
• 35:31
  can you give them? Must be something they know home sweet Home. The
• 35:36
  last rose within a mile the first day, very well to leaf out of
• 35:40
  Patty's book, But so were they all, and he struck the opening bars
• 35:46
  and the key of his own song. But for some moments Hildo Bovarie sat
• 35:52
  bereft of her great voice, a leaf out of Patty's book, in that
• 35:57
  up country township, before a room full, held in terror, and yet
• 36:00
  unmindful of the loaded pistols of two bloodthirsty bush rangers, the singer prayed for
• 36:07
  power to live up to those golden words, a leaf out of Patty's book.
• 36:15
  It was over. The last poignant note trembled into nothingness. The silence,
• 36:21
  absolutely dead for some seconds, was then only broken by a spirituous sob
• 36:27
  from the incorrigible stockman. There was never any applause at all. Ere it
• 36:32
  came even as it was coming. The overseer, Radford, leaped to his
• 36:36
  feet with a raucous shout. The bushranger had vanished from the platform. The
• 36:40
  other bushranger had disappeared through the other door. The precious pair of them had
• 36:45
  melted from the room, unseen, unheard. What time every eye doated on
• 36:50
  handsome Hilda Bouvary, and every ear on the simple words and moving cadences of
• 36:54
  Home, Sweet Home. Ted Radford was the first to see it. By
• 37:00
  the end of the brief song, he had his revolver uncovered and cocked at
• 37:02
  last, and no quarry left for him to shoot. With a bound he
• 37:06
  was on the platform. Another carried him into the canvas, anteroom, a
• 37:08
  third and a fourth out into the moonlight. It was as bright as noon,
• 37:13
  and a conservatory of smoke glass, and in the tinted brightness. One
• 37:16
  man was already galloping away, but it was Stingeree, who danced with one
• 37:22
  foot only in the stirrup of a milk white near. Radford rushed up to
• 37:25
  and fired point blank, again and again. A series of metallic clicks was
• 37:30
  all the harm he did, for Stingaree was in the saddle before the hurled
• 37:35
  revolver struck the mare in the ribs, and set the pair flying through the
• 37:38
  moonlight with a shout of laughter, a cloud of sand, and a dull
• 37:43
  volley of thunderous hoofs. The overseer picked up his revolver and returned crestfallen to
• 37:50
  examine it in the lights of the emptying room. Who could have sworn I
• 37:52
  loaded it said he if one had, he'd bit a dead man six times
• 37:58
  over. Missus Boovery had been talking to Sir Julian Crumb on Radford's entry.
• 38:04
  She had grown distraught, but at Radford's speech she turned back to Sir Julian
• 38:08
  with shining eyes. My wife wants a companion for the voyage, she was
• 38:14
  saying, So that will cost you nothing, that if anything the other way,
• 38:17
  And once in London, I'll be answerable. I have adjudicated these things
• 38:22
  for years to voices not in the same class as yours. But the worst
• 38:25
  of it is you won't stay with us. I will no, They'll want
• 38:31
  you a Covent garden before we know where we are. When you are ready
• 38:35
  to go to them, go you must. I shall do what you tell
• 38:39
  me. Then speak to missus Clarkson. At once Hildo Boovery glanced over her
• 38:45
  shoulder, but her employers had left the building. The smile was less roguish
• 38:51
  than demure. There is no need, Sir Julian. Missus Clarkson has already
• 38:55
  spoken to me, though only in a whisper. But I am to take
• 39:00
  myself off by the next couch. End of chapter one, The Black Hole
• 39:05
  of Glenn Runald, and was coming up amon Ambidgie that Fergus Carrick first heard
• 39:10
  the name of Stingaree with the cautious enterprise of his race. The young gentleman
• 39:15
  had bought steer it on a river steamer whose solitary passenger he proved to be.
• 39:20
  Accordingly, he was not only permitted to sleep on the saloon settee at
• 39:22
  nights, but graciously bidden to the captain's board by day. It was there
• 39:28
  that Fergus Carrick encouraged tales of the bush Rangers, as the one cleanly topic
• 39:32
  familiar in the mouth of the elderly engineer who completed the party. And it
• 39:37
  seemed that the knighthood of the up country road had been an extinct border from
• 39:40
  the extirpation of the Kellys to the appearance of this same Stingaree, who was
• 39:46
  reported a man of birth and mystery, with an ostentatious passion for music,
• 39:51
  and as romantic a method as that of any highwaymen of the old world from
• 39:55
  which he hailed the Calloh Fergus had been spared the romantic temperament, and was
• 40:01
  less impressed than entertained with what he heard on his arrival at glen Ranold.
• 40:07
  However, he found that substantial township shaking with laughter over the outlaw's latest and
• 40:13
  least discreditable exploit at the back block hamlet of Yallook. Then it was that
• 40:19
  young Carrick first conceived an ambition to open his colonial career with the capture of
• 40:24
  Stingaree, For he was a serious immigrant who had come out in his teens
• 40:30
  to stay out if necessary for the term of his natural life. The idea
• 40:36
  had birth under one of the many pine trees which shaded the skeleton streets of
• 40:38
  budding glen Ranold. On this tree was now a placard offering high reward for
• 40:45
  the bushranger's person, alive or dead. Fergus was making an immediate note in
• 40:51
  his pocket book when a hand fell on his shoulder. Would you like the
• 40:55
  half of yon, inquired a voice in his own tongue, And there at
• 41:00
  his elbow stood an elderly gentleman, whose patriarchal beard hid half the buttons of
• 41:05
  his alpacker coat, while a black skull cap sat somewhat jauntily on his head.
• 41:10
  What d'ye mean, asked Fergus bluntly. For the old gentleman stood chuckling
• 41:15
  gently in his venerable beard to lay hold of him, replied the other with
• 41:21
  a hopressome, younger, enabler bodied man, and you're the very one I
• 41:25
  want. The raw youth stared ingenuously, But what can you know about me?
• 41:31
  I saw you land at the wharf, said the old gentleman, nodding
• 41:36
  his approval of the question. A swers, I that's my man. As
• 41:39
  soon as ever I clapped eyes on ye, so had a crack wi the
• 41:43
  captain or yon steamer. He told me you had no billet, but were
• 41:46
  just on the look out for the best ye could get, and that's all
• 41:50
  he'd been able to get out of ye in a five days voyage. That
• 41:53
  was enough for me. I want a man who can keep his tongue behind
• 41:57
  his teeth, and I wanted you before I knew you were a brother Scott.
• 42:00
  Had he a squatter, sir? The young man asked, a little
• 42:05
  overwhelmed, No, sir, and branch manager of the Bank of New South
• 42:07
  Wales, the only bank with an arm of miles where we stand, and
• 42:12
  I cannot hear a better billet than any squatter in the colony. Indeed,
• 42:16
  I'm share a very kind sir, But he wanted to get on the station,
• 42:21
  protested Fergus with all his tact And as a matter of fact, i've
• 42:23
  introductions to one or two stations further back, though I saw no reason to
• 42:28
  tell our friend the skipper. So quite right, quite right, you like
• 42:32
  a man who can keep his tongue and its kennel, cried the bank manager,
• 42:37
  rubbing his hands. But wait, well, I tell you you'd need
• 42:39
  to work for your rations on any station I have ever told of, and
• 42:44
  I keep the accounts of enough to know now you me, ye'd get two
• 42:47
  pounds a weight till your share of the reward was wiped off, And if
• 42:51
  we had no look for a year, you'd be no worse off. But
• 42:53
  could go and try your squatters, then that's a promise, and I'll keep
• 42:57
  it as sure as me. Name's Andrew mc bean. But how do you
• 43:00
  proposed to catch this fellow, mister mac bean? The bank manager looked on
• 43:05
  all sides likewise behind the tree, before replying under his breath by setting a
• 43:12
  weed trap for him. A bank's a bank, and Stingery hasn has stuck
• 43:15
  one up since he took to his trade. But I'll tell you no more.
• 43:20
  Did he give me your answer? Yes, sir, No, I'm
• 43:22
  afraid I don't even write an off his hand. And as for figures,
• 43:28
  mister MacBain laughed, artright, did I say it's going to take you into
• 43:30
  the bank? Man? Cried he. There's three of us all ready to
• 43:35
  do the right, and the cipher and threes enough can you ride? I've
• 43:39
  ridden, and you'll do any rough job I set you too. The rougher
• 43:44
  the better, that's all I ask. There's a boggy and pair for yet
• 43:49
  to mind, and maybe drive though with horseback errants you do most of And
• 43:52
  an old widdower living alone with an aged housekeeper, the cashier and the clerk
• 43:58
  dig in the township. And I need to have a man of some sort
• 44:00
  about the place, but I have one, but I get rid of him
• 44:04
  if fuel come instead. Understand you'll live in the house we meet, just
• 44:07
  like the Jacker rules and the stations, and like the Jacker ruse, you'll
• 44:10
  do all the odd jobs and dirty work that no one else will look at.
• 44:14
  But unlike them, you'll get two pounds a week from the first for
• 44:16
  doing it. Mister Andrew mc bean had chanced upon a magic word. It
• 44:22
  was the position of jack a row or utility parlor man on one or other
• 44:28
  of the stations to which he carried introductions that his young countryman had set before
• 44:31
  him as his goal. True, a bank in a bush township was not
• 44:37
  a station in the bush itself. On the other hand, his would be
• 44:39
  friend was not the first to warn Fergus against the futility of expecting more than
• 44:44
  a nominal salary as a babe in suckling in colonial experience, and perhaps the
• 44:49
  prime elements of that experience might be gained as well in the purlieus of a
• 44:52
  sufficiently remote township, as in realms unnamed on any map. It will be
• 44:59
  seeing that the so stripling was reduced to arguing with himself that his main argument
• 45:04
  was not to be admitted in his own heart. The mysterious eccentricity of his
• 45:07
  employer, coupled with the adventurous character of his alleged prospects, was what induced
• 45:13
  the lad to embrace both in defiance of an unimaginative hard headedness which he aimed
• 45:17
  for rather than possessed with a characteristic prudence. He had left his baggage on
• 45:24
  board the river steamer, and his own hands carried a piecemeal to the bank.
• 45:30
  This was a red brick bungalow with an ample verandah, standing back from
• 45:34
  the future street that was as yet little better than a country road. The
• 45:38
  verandah commanded a long perspective of pines that no further bricks and mortar, and
• 45:45
  but very few weather board walls. The yard behind the house was shut in
• 45:50
  by as many outbuildings as clustered about the small homesteads which Fergus had already beheld
• 45:54
  on the banks of the Murham Bidgy. The man in charge of the yard
• 46:00
  was palpably in liquor, a chronic condition from his general appearance, and mister
• 46:05
  Macbean discharged him on the spot with a decision which left no loophole for appeal.
• 46:10
  The woman in charge of the house adorned another plane of civilization. She
• 46:15
  was very deaf and very outspoken on her introduction to the young gentleman, whose
• 46:21
  face she was pleased to approve, with the implied reservation that all faces were
• 46:24
  liars. But she served up the mutton of the country hot and tender,
• 46:30
  and Fergus Carrot, leaning back after an excellent repast, marveled for the twentieth
• 46:35
  time that he was not to pay for it, indeed, told Marie,
• 46:38
  ye, said mister Macbean, mixing a third glass of whiskey with a scull
• 46:44
  cap on the back of his head. And so why was it your age?
• 46:46
  But you're my very nun. There are sum it says talking. Wait
• 46:51
  until the old lady turns in, and then you shall see what you shall
• 46:53
  see. Fergus waited in increasing excitement. The day's events were worthy of a
• 47:00
  dream to have set foot in Glen Ranold without knowing a soul in the place,
• 47:05
  and to find one's self comfortably housed at a good salary before night.
• 47:09
  There were moments when he questioned the complete sanity of his eccentric benefactor, who
• 47:15
  drank whiskey like water, both as to quantity and effect, and who chuckled
• 47:20
  continuously in his huge gray beard with Such doubts only added to the excitement of
• 47:25
  the evening, which reached a climax when a lighted candle was thrust in at
• 47:30
  the door and the pair advised not to make a night of it by the
• 47:32
  candid crone on her way to bed. We'll give her twenty minutes, said
• 47:37
  the manager, winking across his glass. They've never let her hear me,
• 47:43
  and she mustn't hear you either. She must know nothing at all about it.
• 47:46
  Nobody must, except you're in me. The mystification of Fergus was now
• 47:52
  complete. Unimaginative as he was by practice and profession, he had an explanation
• 47:59
  a minute until the time was up. When the truth beat them all for
• 48:02
  wild improbability, mac Bean had risen, lifting the lamp, holding it on
• 48:09
  high, he led the way through Bay's doors into the banking premises. Here
• 48:15
  was another door, which Macbean not only unlocked, but locked again behind them
• 48:20
  both a small inner office led them to a shuttered chamber of fair size,
• 48:25
  with a broad polished counter, glass swing doors, and a formidable portal beyond.
• 48:31
  And one of young Carrick's theories received apparent confirmation on the spot, for
• 48:37
  the manager slipped behind his counter by another door, and at once whipped out
• 48:43
  a great revolver. This they provided. Smith said he so forage as our
• 48:49
  only authorized defense, And are hangs on a hook down here behind the counter.
• 48:52
  But your march in here prepared, your pistol cocked behind your back,
• 48:55
  for which missus likely to shoot first, the bushranger said Fergus, still more
• 49:01
  startled, than reassured the bushranger. Of course, stringer, ee, there're
• 49:06
  as shay. And as for me, either my arms go up or down,
• 49:08
  I go in a heap. But suppose my arms do go up,
• 49:13
  supposing I still touched something with one foot, and supposing the flora just opens
• 49:16
  has swallowed as a sanguinary's stingery. Eh, hey, what then it would
• 49:22
  be great, cried Fergus. Who could it be done? It can be,
• 49:27
  it will be. It is being done, replied the manager. Replacing
• 49:31
  the bank revolver is sliding over the counter like a boy. A square replane
• 49:37
  linoleum covered the floor, overlapped by a border of the same material bearing a
• 49:42
  design. Down went mc Bean on his knees, and his beard swept this
• 49:47
  borderis began pulling it up tax and all the lamp burned brightly on the counter,
• 49:54
  its rays reflected in the burnished mahogany. All at once. Fergus seized
• 50:00
  it on his own initiative, and set it on the floor before his kneeling
• 50:04
  elder, going down on his knees on the other side, and where the
• 50:07
  plain linoleum ended, but where the overlapping border covered the floor, the planks
• 50:14
  were sworn through and through down one side of the central and self colored square
• 50:20
  a trap door, exclaimed Fergus in a whisper macbean, leant back on a
• 50:25
  slippered heels, his skull cap wickedly awry. This border takes a lot lifting,
• 50:30
  said he. Yet we've just got to lift it every time and tack
• 50:34
  it down again for a morning metray your hand over yonder on the far side.
• 50:39
  Fergus complied with so much energy that the whole boarder was ripped up in
• 50:44
  a minute, and he was not mistaken a trap door. It was of
• 50:49
  huge dimensions, almost exactly covered by the self colored square, but at each
• 50:54
  side a tongue of linoleum had been left loose for lifting it, and the
• 50:59
  lamp had scarcely been replaced upon the counter. When the bulk of the floor
• 51:02
  leaned upright in one piece against the opposite wall, it had uncovered a pit
• 51:07
  of corresponding size, but as yet hardly deep enough to afford a hiding place
• 51:13
  for the bucket, spade and pickaxe, which lay there on a length of
• 51:16
  sacking O I see, exclaimed Karric, as the full light flooded his brain.
• 51:23
  Is that a fact? Inquired the manager, twinkling, you are going
• 51:28
  to make a deep hole of it. No, I am going to pay
• 51:31
  you to make it deep for me, And then a dead or knight we
• 51:36
  will take out to sleep by day when Stingery comes, if he waits to
• 51:40
  were ready for him, you'll touch some lever and the floor swallows him.
• 51:45
  As I said, if he waits to were ready for him, everything depends
• 51:49
  on that, and on your sailings. We must take tame. It isn't
• 51:52
  already the digging, though. We need to fix up some counterpoise to make
• 51:57
  it shut after a body like a mouse trap. We must do the thing
• 52:00
  thoroughly, if we do it at all, Until it's done, not a
• 52:04
  word to a soul of the same hemisphere. In the end, I suppose
• 52:07
  I shall have to know donk In my cashier and fouler the clerk. Donkin's
• 52:12
  their disbeliever, who'd deserve the name of didimis more than any one of my
• 52:15
  acquaintance. Freder would take so kindly to the old idear he blurted out within
• 52:20
  a week. He may find it out when all's in readiness, but don't
• 52:23
  tell him even then. See, I trust a brother Scotch at saint.
• 52:29
  I'm much appreciated, said Fergus, humbly. I wouldn't have trusted even you,
• 52:34
  you know, hadn't offend a delivinerial work for old shoulders, pursued Macbean,
• 52:38
  broadening his speech with intentional humor. No will you do it? Will
• 52:44
  you know? The young man's answer was to strip off his coat and spring
• 52:47
  into the hole and set to work with such energy. It's so quietly that
• 52:52
  the bucket was filled in a few almost silent seconds. Mc bean carried it
• 52:58
  off, unlocking doors for the nonce, while Fergus remained at the hole to
• 53:01
  mop his forehead. Who need to have another bucket? Said the manager on
• 53:07
  his return, I thought of every other thing. There is a disused well
• 53:09
  in the yard, and down goes every blessed bucket to and fro over the
• 53:15
  lip of the closing well. Back into the throat of the deepening hole went
• 53:17
  the buckets. For many a night and by day, Fergus Carrick employed his
• 53:22
  best wits to make an intrinsically anomalous position appear natural to the world, twas
• 53:28
  a position which he himself could thoroughly enjoy. It was largely his own master.
• 53:34
  He had daily opportunity for picking up the ways and customs of the bush,
• 53:37
  and a nightly excitement which did not pall as the secret task approached conclusion.
• 53:43
  But he was subjected to much chaff and squestering from the other young bloods
• 53:46
  of glen Ranold. He felt from the first that it was what he must
• 53:52
  expect. He was a groom with a place at his master's table. He
• 53:55
  was a jackaroo who introduced station life into a town, and the element of
• 54:00
  underlying mystery really existing as it did, was detected soon enough by other young
• 54:07
  heads, led by that of Fowler, the keen bank clerk. Or he
• 54:12
  is looking at you both together, and you do favor the old man in
• 54:15
  no wearer, he would say, Or else, what is it? You
• 54:20
  could hang the boss for Ferguie, old toucher, These delicate but cryptic salies
• 54:25
  being ignored or parried. The heavy swamp of innuendo was invariably deserted for the
• 54:31
  breezy hilltop of plain speech, and Fergus had often work enough to put a
• 54:36
  guard upon hand and tongue. But his temperament was eminently self contained, and
• 54:40
  on the whole he was an elusive target for the witticisms of his friends.
• 54:46
  There was no wit, however, and no attempt at it on the part
• 54:50
  of Donkin, the cantankerous cashier. He seldom addressed a word to Carrick,
• 54:55
  never a civil word, but more than once he treated his chief to a
• 54:59
  sarch pastic remonstrance on his degrading familiarity with an underling. In such encounters,
• 55:05
  the imperturbable gray Beard was well able to take care of himself, albeit he
• 55:09
  expressed to Fergus a regret that he had not exercised a little more ingenuity in
• 55:13
  the beginning. You should recoun to me with a letter of introduction, said
• 55:16
  he. But who would it given me? One? I would yon first
• 55:21
  night, and you would have presented it next day in officers, replied the
• 55:24
  manager. But it's too late to think of it now. In a few
• 55:29
  days, doncan may know the truth. He might have known it already,
• 55:32
  but for one difficulty. They had digged their pit to the generous depth of
• 55:37
  eight feet, so that a tall prisoner could barely touch the trap door with
• 55:42
  extended fingers and Stingaree, whose latest performance was no longer the yellow Rock Affair,
• 55:49
  was of medium height. According to his police description. The trap door
• 55:53
  was a double one which parted in the center with the deadly precision of the
• 55:57
  gallows floor. Fiquity was to make the flaps close automatically, with the mouse
• 56:04
  trap effect of Macbean's ambition. Does manage to ventry by boring separate wells for
• 56:08
  a weight behind the hinges on either side. Copper wire running on minute pulleys
• 56:14
  let into grooves, suspended these weights and connected them with the flaps. And
• 56:17
  powerful door springs supplemented the more elaborate contrivance. The lever controlling the whole was
• 56:23
  concealed under the counter and reached by thrusting a foot through a panel which also
• 56:29
  opened inward on a spring. May be conceived that all this represented the midnight
• 56:35
  labors in the constant thought of many weeks. It was now the beginning of
• 56:39
  the cool but brilliant Riverina winter, and despite the disparity in their years,
• 56:45
  the two scotsmen were fast friends. They had worked together as one man,
• 56:50
  with the same patient passion for perfection, the same delight and detail for its
• 56:54
  own sake. Almost the only difference was that the old man refreshed his energy
• 57:00
  with the glass of whiskey twas never far from his elbow after banking hours,
• 57:04
  while the young one cultivated the local excess of continual tea. And all this
• 57:08
  time the rascally Stingreye ranged the district with or without his taciturn accomplice, covering
• 57:16
  great distances in fabulous time, lurking none new where, and springing on the
• 57:22
  unwary in the last places in which his presence was suspected. But he has
• 57:27
  not yet robbed a bank, and we have our hopes, wrote Fergus to
• 57:30
  a faithful sister at Larg's. It may be for fear of the revolvers which
• 57:34
  all the banks have pervaded. Now mister Macbean has been practicing with O's and
• 57:38
  purposely put a bullet through one of our back windows. The old township has
• 57:43
  been chaffing him about it. The local rag has risen to a sarcastic paragraph,
• 57:45
  which is exactly what we wanted. The trap door over the pit is
• 57:50
  now practically finished. It is too complicated to describe, but Stingarey has only
• 57:54
  to march into the bank and stick it up, and the man behind the
• 57:58
  counter is only touch a leap with his foot for the villain to disappear through
• 58:01
  the floor into a prison, who take him all his time to break.
• 58:05
  On Saturday, the cashier and the clerk are coming to dinner, and before
• 58:07
  we sit down there to be sure, in everything, this was but a
• 58:12
  fraction of one of the long letters which Fergus dispatched by nearly every mail.
• 58:16
  Silent and self contained as he was, he had one confidante on the opposite
• 58:22
  end of the earth, one escape pipe in his pen. Not a word
• 58:27
  of the great secret had he ever written to another soul, To his trusted
• 58:30
  sister, he had never before been quite so communicated. His conscience pricked him
• 58:36
  as he took his letter to the post, and he had it registered.
• 58:38
  On no other score. On Saturday, the bank closed at one o'clock.
• 58:45
  The staff were to return and die at seven, the Queen's birthday falling on
• 58:49
  the same day for a sufficient pretext. As the hour approached, Fergus made
• 58:53
  the distressing discovery that his friend and host had anticipated the festivities with too free
• 59:00
  a hand. Mac Bean was not drunk, but he was perceptibly blunted and
• 59:05
  blurred, and Fergus had never seen the pale eyes so watery, or the
• 59:08
  black skull cap so much. On one side of the venerable head. The
• 59:14
  lad was genuinely grieved. A whiskey bottle stood empty on the laden board,
• 59:20
  and he had the temerity to pocket the corkscrew while mac Bean was gone to
• 59:23
  a store room for another bottle. Solemn search ensued, and then Fergus was
• 59:30
  dispatched in haste for a new corkscrew. And look slippy, said mac Bean.
• 59:36
  Or we'll have old Donkey here before ye keept back. Not for another
• 59:39
  three quarters of an hour, remarked Fergus, looking at his watch any minute,
• 59:45
  retorted mac Bean with a ryebald epithet. I invited Duncan in conference to
• 59:51
  come a good half hour hourly. Now tell you why Duncan, miss kin,
• 59:55
  but an unso sure of your other impudent young squiry his tongs too long
• 1:00:00
  for his mouth, Donquin, or I could always be behind the counter anyway.
• 1:00:04
  I mean to take his opinion before telling any other body. Entertaining his
• 1:00:08
  own distrust the vivacious fowler, Fergus commanded the decision, and so took his
• 1:00:15
  departure by the private entrance. It was near sundown. A fresh breeze blew
• 1:00:21
  along the hard road, puffing cloudlets of yellow sand into the rosy dusk.
• 1:00:27
  Fergus hurried till he was out of sight, then idled shamelessly under trees.
• 1:00:30
  He was not going on for a new corkscrew. He was going back to
• 1:00:35
  confess boldly where he had found the old one. And the sight of Donkan
• 1:00:38
  and the distance sent him back in something of a hurry. Was quite enough
• 1:00:43
  to have to spend an evening with the cantankerous cashier. The bank was practically
• 1:00:47
  at one end of the township, as then laid out two or three buildings
• 1:00:52
  that were further on. They stood together aloof the bank. For a bank
• 1:00:58
  was sufficiently isolated. Fergus could not but congratulate himself in the completion of its
• 1:01:02
  ingenious and unsuspected defenses. It only remained to keep the inventor's reasonably sober for
• 1:01:10
  the evening, and thereafter to whistle or to pray for Stingaree. Meanwhile,
• 1:01:15
  the present was no mean occasion, and Fergus was glad to see the McBean
• 1:01:20
  had thrown open the official doors in his absence. They had often agreed that
• 1:01:23
  it would be worth all their labor to enlighten Duncan by letting the pit gape
• 1:01:28
  under his nose. As he entered the bank, Fergus glanced over his shoulder,
• 1:01:34
  saw the other hurrying, and hurried himself in order to take up a
• 1:01:37
  good position for seeing the cashier's face. He was in the middle of the
• 1:01:42
  treacherous floor before he perceived that it was not Macbean in the half light behind
• 1:01:45
  the counter, but a good looking man whom he had never seen before.
• 1:01:51
  Didn't know I was invited, eh, said the stranger, putting up a
• 1:01:54
  single eyeglass. Don't believe it. Perhaps you'd better ask mister mc bean.
• 1:02:00
  Before it had occurred to him to stir from where he stood agape, the
• 1:02:04
  floor fell from beneath the feet to Fergus. His body lurched forward and came
• 1:02:08
  down flat and heavy on the hard earth eight feet below, not entirely stunned,
• 1:02:15
  though shaken and hurt from head to heel. He was still collecting his
• 1:02:19
  senses when the pit blackened as the trap door shut in implicit obedience to its
• 1:02:24
  weights and springs, and in the clinging velvet darkness, the young man heard
• 1:02:30
  a groan. Is that you said, Fergy? And are you there,
• 1:02:35
  mister Macbean? Maud? Didn't it shut? Just fain curiously blended with the
• 1:02:40
  physical pain. In the manager's voice was a sodden, philosophic humor which maddened
• 1:02:46
  the younger man. Fergus swore where he lay writhing on his stomach. Mac
• 1:02:52
  Bean chuckled and groaned again. Y' stingery, he said, drawing of breath
• 1:02:58
  through his teeth. Of course it is I never praised it to us,
• 1:03:01
  so no more did I. Fergus spoke with ready confidence, and yet the
• 1:03:07
  words left something on his mind. It was something vague but haunting, something
• 1:03:13
  that made him feel extinctively unworthy of the kindly, uncomplaining tone which had annoyed
• 1:03:17
  him. But a moment before, no bones broken, Ferige none that they
• 1:03:22
  know of. They doubt I've not been so lucky, And thinking it's a
• 1:03:27
  rib by the way it hurted to breathe, Fergus was already fumbling in his
• 1:03:32
  pocket. The match box opened with a click. The match scraped several times
• 1:03:37
  in vain. Then at last the scene sprang out as on the screen of
• 1:03:43
  a magic lantern, and to Fergus was a very white old man hunched up
• 1:03:47
  against the muddy wall, with blood upon his naked scalp and beard, and
• 1:03:52
  both hands pressed to his side, to the old man, a muddy face
• 1:03:55
  stricken with horrified concern, and a match burning down betw in muddy fingers,
• 1:04:00
  but to both such a new view and version of their precious hull that the
• 1:04:04
  corners of each mouth were twitching. As the match was thrown away, Fergus
• 1:04:11
  was fumbling for another when a step rang overhead, and at the sharp exchange
• 1:04:15
  of words which both underground expected, Fergus came in all falls to the old
• 1:04:19
  Man's side, and together they sat gazing up into the pall of impenetrable crepe,
• 1:04:27
  you infernal villain. They heard Donkin roar and stamper's feet with such effect
• 1:04:32
  that the floor opened, and down through the square of light came the cashier
• 1:04:36
  feet first here the then hell He squeezed, but subsided, unhurt on hands
• 1:04:43
  and knees, as the flat went up with such a snap that Macbean and
• 1:04:46
  Carrick nudged each other at the same moment. Now I know who you are,
• 1:04:53
  the cashier, raved call yourself stingery. Your fowl had drissed up.
• 1:04:58
  And this is one of mac Bean's you true practical jokes. I saw as
• 1:05:01
  Jackal hurrying in to say I was coming by cripes. Takes a surgical operation
• 1:05:06
  to see this sort. I grant you. There was a noise of subdued
• 1:05:12
  laughter overhead, even in the pit. A dry chuckle came through McBean's set
• 1:05:15
  teeth. If it's a practical joke of Maine, doncan th record on my
• 1:05:21
  own, poor pete, said the old man and the rib stoven tool.
• 1:05:26
  If that's any consummation to you, it's stingerreem the money. You're right,
• 1:05:31
  it'd easy, must be, cried the cashier, finding his words in a
• 1:05:34
  torrent. I was going to tell you it's been at his game down south.
• 1:05:39
  Stuck up our own mail again. Only yesterday between this and the den
• 1:05:43
  or, Quinn got a fine haul of registered letters. So they say,
• 1:05:46
  But where the juice are we? Oh? I never knew there was a
• 1:05:48
  cellar under here, little at a trap door that might have been made for
• 1:05:53
  these villains. You was made for them, replied McBean, after a pause,
• 1:05:58
  and in the dead dark on to relate the frank and humble history of
• 1:06:01
  the whole, from its inception to the crooked climax of that bitter hour.
• 1:06:08
  A braver confession Fergus had never heard its philosophic flow was unruffled by the more
• 1:06:13
  and more scornful interjections of the ungenerous cashier. And yet his younger countryman,
• 1:06:18
  who might have been proud of him, hardly listened to a word uttered by
• 1:06:24
  Macbean. Half a dozen fallen from the lips of Donkin had lightened young Carrot's
• 1:06:29
  darkness with consuming fires of shame, a fine haul of registered letters, among
• 1:06:36
  others, his own last letter to his sister. So it was he who
• 1:06:42
  had done it all, and he had purjured himself to his benefactor besides betraying
• 1:06:46
  him. He sat in the dark between fire and ice, chiefly wondering how
• 1:06:51
  he could soonest win through the trap door and earn a bullet in his brain
• 1:06:56
  A spray to night, concluded Macbean, whose all completely asserted him was for
• 1:07:01
  the express purpose of expounding the trap to ye, and I asked ye eily
• 1:07:05
  to take your advice. He was not so sure about young Ferler, whether
• 1:07:10
  we need tell him or no. He's an awful long tongue. But I'm
• 1:07:14
  thinking there's a longer if I knew where to look for it. Oh,
• 1:07:16
  I can tell you where, rasped Duncan we go on? Who was what
• 1:07:20
  you knowed, Hannah put into finishing touches to the table and waiting for Fergus's
• 1:07:25
  character come back. When I thought I had him behind me and you with
• 1:07:28
  him, But it was Stingery in his meat, and the two of us
• 1:07:31
  were covered with revolvers like young riffles. Hannah, they told to go on
• 1:07:36
  with what she was doing, as they were mighty hungry. And they advised
• 1:07:41
  her to do as she was bid, and broke with the beard his charge
• 1:07:44
  of her. Stingery himself drove me into the middle of my own trap door,
• 1:07:47
  made me give up my keys, and then went behind the counter and
• 1:07:50
  did the trick. He'd got it all down on paper. The lord lone
• 1:07:56
  knows how ah you Scotch mean, cried the pleasant cashier to hear, land
• 1:08:01
  O cakes, you take every cake in the land between you. It seemed
• 1:08:06
  to have been filling his pipe while he listened and prepared this pretty speech.
• 1:08:11
  Now he struck a match, and with the flame to the bowl, saw
• 1:08:15
  Fergus for the first time. The cashier held the match on high, ye
• 1:08:21
  hear all the while he cried, nay wonder you lay low carrick, Nay
• 1:08:27
  wonder I didn't hear your voice. What do you mean by that? Growled
• 1:08:31
  fergus in fierce heat and fierce satisfaction. Surely, mister mc bean, you
• 1:08:35
  aren't wondering who wagged the long tail? Now? You mean that I wagged
• 1:08:40
  mane and it's a lay, said fergus hoarsely, who was sitting upon his
• 1:08:45
  heels poised to spring. Oh, I mean that, if mister mc bean
• 1:08:48
  had listened to me two months ago, we should none of this be in
• 1:08:50
  this soul. Now, then, my faith, you're in a worse one
• 1:08:55
  than yer think, cried Ferguson felt upon his traducer as the match went out.
• 1:09:00
  Take that and that and that, he ground out through his teeth as
• 1:09:03
  he sent the cashier over on his back and powdered the earth with his skull.
• 1:09:08
  Luckily, the first was soft and the second hard, so that the
• 1:09:12
  man was more outraged than hurt when circumstances which they might have followed, created
• 1:09:15
  a diversion in his turn, the lively fowler had marched whistling into the bank,
• 1:09:21
  had ceased whistling to swear down the barrel of a cocked revolver, and
• 1:09:27
  met a quicker fate than his comrades by impressing the bush Rangers, the most
• 1:09:30
  dangerous man of the quartet. Unfortunately for him, his fate was further differentiated
• 1:09:36
  from theirs. Fowler's feet glanced off Carrock's back, and he plunged into the
• 1:09:42
  well head first, rolling over like a stone. As the wooden jaws closed
• 1:09:45
  greedily. Upon the light of day, Fergus at once struck matches, and
• 1:09:51
  in their light the cashier took the insensible head upon his knees and glared at
• 1:09:57
  his enemies, as if from sanctuary of the Red Cross. But Fergus returned
• 1:10:02
  to mc bean's side, who he never said a word to a living soul.
• 1:10:06
  He muttered, just come out some other way, of course, it
• 1:10:10
  has said the old manager, with the same tell tale inhalation through the teeth.
• 1:10:14
  Fergus felt worse than ever. He groped for the bald head and found
• 1:10:18
  it cold and dank. In an instant he was clamoring under the trap door,
• 1:10:23
  leaping up and striking it with his fist. What do you want,
• 1:10:28
  whiskey? Some of us are hurt. God help you. If it's any
• 1:10:31
  hanky panky, it's none. Something to drink, and something to drink it
• 1:10:35
  in while there's blood upon your head. Clanking steps departed and returned stand by
• 1:10:43
  to catch below there, and Fergus stood by, expecting to see a long
• 1:10:46
  barrel with the bottle and glass that broke their fall on him. But Stingaree
• 1:10:51
  had crept away unheard, and he pressed the lever just enough to let the
• 1:10:56
  glass and bottle tumble through. Time passed, it might have been an hour.
• 1:11:01
  The huddled heap that was Macbean breathed forth relief. The head on Donkin's
• 1:11:06
  knees moved from side to side with groans. Doncan himself thanked Fergus for his
• 1:11:13
  ration. He who served it out alone, was thirsty. Wait UNTI lay
• 1:11:16
  earn some, he said littly to himself. He could finish the lot if
• 1:11:20
  a started now. The others never dreamt that he was waiting, and he
• 1:11:26
  lied about it to mac Bean. Now that they sat in silence, no
• 1:11:29
  sound escaped them. Overhead the herd, Stingery and his mates set down to
• 1:11:32
  a feast, which Macbean described with groaning modesty, as the best that he
• 1:11:36
  could do. There's no soup, he whispered, But there's a barrel of
• 1:11:42
  oysters fetched up on purpose by the coach helped. The heavener missed the shabbley.
• 1:11:46
  The majest will do the thing complete in a little. The champagne popped,
• 1:11:53
  dray Monopoly, moaned the manager, near to tears. He came up
• 1:11:57
  along with the oysters, or sirs, sirs, but this is hard on
• 1:12:01
  us. All another at the turkey when I chopped the stuff, and with
• 1:12:05
  my aunt to our hands. They were at the turkey a long time.
• 1:12:11
  Another cork popped, but the familiar tread of death Hannah was heard no more,
• 1:12:15
  and at length they called her murder, cried a mouth that was full.
• 1:12:20
  Old lady, cried the gallant, stingery. She's odd of earring,
• 1:12:25
  mate, she might still hear you, howey, And the chairs rasped backward
• 1:12:30
  over the bare boards as one the same instant. Fergus leaped to his feet
• 1:12:34
  in the earthly tartarus his own hands had done. Oh do you believe she's
• 1:12:40
  done? A book? He gasped and got clean away. Curses overhead confirmed
• 1:12:45
  the supposition. Clanking feet hunted the premises at a run. In a minute,
• 1:12:49
  the curses were renewed and multiplied, yet muffled, as though there were
• 1:12:54
  some fresh cause for them. Which the prisoners need not know. Hannah had
• 1:12:58
  not been found yet, some disturbing discovery had undoubtedly been made. Doors were
• 1:13:03
  banged and bolted. A gunshot came faint to mister Carter from the outer world.
• 1:13:09
  A real report echoed through the bank besiege, cries Fergus striking a match
• 1:13:15
  to dance by the old heroine has fetched the police, and these beauties are
• 1:13:19
  in a trap. What about us, demanded The cashier should up and listen,
• 1:13:26
  retorted Fergus without ceremony. Mac Bean was leaning forward with bald head on
• 1:13:30
  one side and hollowed palm at the upper ear. Even the stun man had
• 1:13:34
  recovered sufficiently to raise himself on one elbow and gaze overhead as Fergus struck.
• 1:13:40
  Match after match, the villains were having an altercation on the very trap door.
• 1:13:45
  Now's the tener cut and run? No one never very well you do
• 1:13:48
  so, I am going through the safe. You should have done that first.
• 1:13:53
  Better late than not at all. You can't stop and do it without
• 1:13:57
  me, know as I can. I'll call for a volunteer from below.
• 1:14:00
  You show them your spurs and save your skin. No, I'll stay,
• 1:14:04
  curse you. I'll stay and I'll have my volunteer whether you stay or not.
• 1:14:12
  The pair had scarcely parted when the trap door opened slowly and stayed open
• 1:14:16
  for the first time. The banking chamber was but dimly lit, and the
• 1:14:20
  light in the pit less than it had been during the brief burning of single
• 1:14:25
  matches. No peering face was revealed to those below, but the voice of
• 1:14:30
  Stingery came rich and crisp from behind the counter. Your old woman has got
• 1:14:34
  away to the police barracks, and the place is surrounded. One of you
• 1:14:39
  has got to come up and help and help fear or go to hell with
• 1:14:42
  a bullet in his heart. I give you one minute to choose your man.
• 1:14:46
  In In one second, the man had chosen himself another word or a
• 1:14:50
  glance at any of his companions, But the face burning with extraordinary fires.
• 1:14:56
  Fergus Carrick sprang for the clean edge of the trap door, caught at first
• 1:15:00
  with one hand and then with both, drew himself up like the gymnast he
• 1:15:03
  had been at a Scottish school, and found himself prone upon the floor and
• 1:15:08
  trap door as the latter closed under him. On the release of the lever
• 1:15:12
  which Stingarey understood so well. A yell of execration followed him into the upper
• 1:15:16
  air, and Stingaree was across the counter before his new ally had picked himself
• 1:15:23
  up. That's because this was expected of me, said Fergus grimly to explain
• 1:15:29
  the cashier's reiterated anathemis I is the writer of the registered letter that led to
• 1:15:33
  all this, So now I'm going the whole hog and the blue eyes boiled
• 1:15:40
  in his brick red face. You mean that, no nonsense? You shall
• 1:15:45
  see I should shoot you like a native cat. You couldn't do me a
• 1:15:49
  better turn right, Swear on your knees that you won't use it against me
• 1:15:55
  or my mate, and I'll trust you with this revolver may fire as high
• 1:15:58
  as you please, but they must think where three instead of two. Fergus
• 1:16:02
  took the oath in fierce earnest upon his knees, was handed the weapon belonging
• 1:16:06
  to the bank and posted in his own bedroom window at the rear of the
• 1:16:11
  building. The front was secure enough of the shutters and bolts of the official
• 1:16:15
  fortress. It was to the back premises that the attack could find itself,
• 1:16:18
  making all use of the admirable cover afforded by the stables. Carrick saw heads
• 1:16:25
  and shoulders hunched to aim over stable doors. As he obeyed his orders and
• 1:16:29
  kept his oath, his high fire drew a deadlier upon himself. Stream of
• 1:16:34
  lead from a winchester whistled into the room, passed his ear and over his
• 1:16:38
  ducked head. He tried firing from the floor without showing his face. The
• 1:16:43
  winchester let him alone. In a sudden sickness, he sprang up to see
• 1:16:47
  if anything hung sprawling over the stable door, and was in time to see
• 1:16:50
  men retreat to left and right, the white puggarees of the police fluttering ingloriously.
• 1:16:57
  Among them, only one was left upon the ground, and he could
• 1:17:00
  sit up to nurse and knee. Fergus sighed relief as he sought stingaree and
• 1:17:06
  found him with a comical face before the open safe house full of poultry paper.
• 1:17:12
  Said he, I suppose it's the old sportsman's custom to get rid of
• 1:17:15
  most of his heavy metal before closing on saturdays. Fergus said it was he
• 1:17:20
  had himself stirred many a strong box aboard unsuspected barges for a chooker. Well,
• 1:17:26
  now it's our time to leave you, continued Stingaree. If I'm not
• 1:17:30
  mistaken, their flight is simply for the moment, and in two or three
• 1:17:32
  more they'll be back to batter and the bank's shutters. I wonder what they
• 1:17:36
  think they've done with our horses. I'll bet they've looked everywhere but in the
• 1:17:41
  larder next to the kitchen door. Not that will ever let them get so
• 1:17:45
  close. But my mates in there now, mounted and waiting, and I
• 1:17:47
  shall have to leave you. The day was coming with you, cried Fergus
• 1:17:51
  Aghast, Stingarey's eye glass dangled on its cord. I'm afraid I must trouble
• 1:17:58
  you to step into that safe and still dead, said he, smiling.
• 1:18:01
  Man, I mean it, you'll think I don't. I fortun your essade
• 1:18:05
  of my own free will. How can I leave that downe? It's the
• 1:18:09
  only side for me for the rest of tame. The fixed eye glass covered
• 1:18:13
  the brick bred face with the molten eyes. I don't believe you mean it.
• 1:18:18
  You shall shoot me if I don't, I most certainly should. My
• 1:18:23
  mate Howie has his obvious limitations. I've long wanted a drop of new blood
• 1:18:28
  bar maids thoroughbred and strong as an elephant, were neither of us heavy weights
• 1:18:33
  by the power as I'll trust you and you shall ride behind now, Barmaid
• 1:18:39
  was the milk white mare that was only less notorious than her lawless rider.
• 1:18:43
  It was noised in traveler's huts and around camp fires that she would do more
• 1:18:46
  at her master's word than had been known of a horse outside a circus,
• 1:18:50
  just the one touch that Stingery had borrowed from a more Napoleonic, but incomparably
• 1:18:56
  coarser and cruel and knight of the bush. In all other respects, the
• 1:19:00
  foun de siecle desperado was unique. It was a stroke of luck, however,
• 1:19:04
  that there happened to be an old white mare in the bank's stables,
• 1:19:08
  which the police had impounded with solemn care, while turning every other animal adrift.
• 1:19:14
  And so it fell out that not a shot followed the mounted bush rangers
• 1:19:17
  into the night, and that long before the bank shutters were battered in the
• 1:19:21
  flying trio were miles away. Fergures flew like a runaway bride, his arms
• 1:19:28
  about the belted waist of Stingaree. Trees, loomed ahead, and flew past
• 1:19:32
  by the clump under a wonderful, wide sky of scintillating stars. The broad
• 1:19:39
  bush track had very soon been deserted at a tangent through ridges and billows of
• 1:19:44
  saltbush and cotton bush, they sailed with the swift confidence of a well handled
• 1:19:48
  clipper before the wind. Stingaree was the leader of four miles out of five,
• 1:19:54
  but in the fifth his mate Howie would gallop ahead, and anon they
• 1:19:57
  would come on him. Dismounted a wire fence that the wires struck down,
• 1:20:00
  and his horse tethered to one of the posts till he had led barmaid over
• 1:20:04
  twas Thus they careered across the vast chess board of the fence back blocks.
• 1:20:09
  At dead of night, Stingery and Fergus sat saddle and bare back without a
• 1:20:13
  break until near dawn. Their pioneer spurred forward yet again and was swallowed in
• 1:20:18
  a steely haze twas cold as a sharp spring night in England. But for
• 1:20:23
  a mile or more Fergus had clung on with but one arm round the bush
• 1:20:27
  ranger's waist. Now the right arm came stealing back, felt something cold for
• 1:20:32
  the fraction of a second, and plucked prodigiously and in another fraction, an
• 1:20:38
  icy ring moules Stingery's neck. Pull up, said Fergus hoarsely. For your
• 1:20:45
  brains go flaying, little traitor, whispered the other with an imprecation that froze
• 1:20:51
  the blood. Aim no traitor as far. I wouldn't abuse the revolver you
• 1:20:57
  gave me, and it's been in my pocket, or the knights unloaded.
• 1:21:00
  You wouldn't sit so quiet if it were now round we go and back in
• 1:21:04
  our tracks. Full split it, skidding light. We shall see them plain
• 1:21:09
  if you vary a yard either way, or if your mate catches us,
• 1:21:12
  out go your brains. The bushrangeer obeyed without a word. Fergus was almost
• 1:21:17
  unnerved by the incredible ease of his conquest over so redoubtable a roughian, his
• 1:21:23
  stolid Scottish blood stood by him, but he still made grim apology as they
• 1:21:28
  rode. I had to do it. It was through me. You got
• 1:21:30
  to know. I had to lift that down. This was the only way
• 1:21:33
  you have spirit. It would still be my mate. You're a mate.
• 1:21:39
  I mean this to be the making of me as an honest man. Here's
• 1:21:42
  the fence. Give you two, minister, strap it down and get us
• 1:21:45
  over, Stingery slid tamely to the ground. Don't you dare to get through
• 1:21:50
  those ways? Strap it from this side with your belt, and strap it
• 1:21:53
  quick. And the bush ranger obeyed with the same sensible docility, but with
• 1:21:59
  his back turned so that Fergus could not see his face. And it was
• 1:22:02
  light enough to see faces now, Yet bar maid refused the visible wires that
• 1:22:09
  she had not refused them all that night of Indigo's starlight. CorX Arman cried
• 1:22:15
  Fergus in the saddle now and urging the mare with his heels. So Stingery
• 1:22:18
  whispered in the mare's ear, and with that the strapped wires flew under his
• 1:22:23
  captor's nose as the rider took the fence, but not the horse. At
• 1:22:28
  a single syllable, the milk white mare had gone on her knees like a
• 1:22:30
  devout lady in holy fane, and as she rose her last rider lay senseless
• 1:22:35
  at her master's feet. But whether from his fall or from a blow dealt
• 1:22:40
  him in the act of falling, the unhappy Fergus never knew, indeed,
• 1:22:45
  knowledge for him was at an end till matches burned under his nose awakened him
• 1:22:49
  to a position to the last humiliation. His throat and chin topped a fence
• 1:22:55
  post. The weight of his body was on chin and throat, while rits
• 1:23:00
  some muscles were lashed at full strength to the wires on either side. Now
• 1:23:04
  I am going to shoot you like a dog, said Stingaree. He drew
• 1:23:09
  the revolver, whose muzzle had pressed into his own neck so short a time
• 1:23:13
  before. Yet now it was broad daylight, the sun coming up in the
• 1:23:16
  bound youth's eyes for the last time. Shot away, he croat, raising
• 1:23:23
  the top of his head to speak at all, I gave you leave before
• 1:23:26
  we started. Shot away at ten paces, said Stingaree, stepping them.
• 1:23:32
  That I think is fair, perfectly, replied Fergus. But be kind enough
• 1:23:38
  to make this silk called man of yours hold his fair tongue till a matter
• 1:23:41
  of year. Shot of you will huge? How he had muttered little enough
• 1:23:45
  for him. But to that little Stingeree put an instantaneous stop. Here's a
• 1:23:49
  dog to be shot like a dog. But too good a dog for you
• 1:23:55
  to blagg it, cried he. Any message, young fellow, not through
• 1:23:59
  you so long? Then shoot away. The long barrel was poised as steadily
• 1:24:05
  as field gun on its carriage. Fergus kept his blue eyes on the gleaming
• 1:24:12
  ring of the muzzle. The hammer fell, the cartridge cracked, and from
• 1:24:15
  the lifted muzzle a tiny cloud flowed like a bubble from a pipe. The
• 1:24:20
  post quivered under Karek's chin, and a splinter flew up and down before his
• 1:24:26
  eyes. But that was all aim longer said, he get it over this
• 1:24:32
  shot. I'll try, But the same thing happened again. Come nearer,
• 1:24:39
  sneered Fergus, and Stingery strode forward with an oath. I was going to
• 1:24:45
  give you six of em, but you're a braver man than I thought,
• 1:24:49
  and that's the lot. The board youth's livid face turned redder than the red
• 1:24:55
  dawn. Shoot me, shoot, he shouted like a lunat. No,
• 1:25:00
  I shall not. I never meant to. I did mean you to sit
• 1:25:04
  out six. But you're the most gallant little idiot I've ever struck besides come
• 1:25:11
  from the old country like myself. And a sigh floated into the keen morning
• 1:25:16
  air as he looked as last upon the lad through the celebrated monocle. Then,
• 1:25:23
  or shoot myself when I'm free, sobbed Fergus through his teeth. No,
• 1:25:28
  no, you won't Misstingery's last words. You'll find it's not a bit
• 1:25:31
  worth while. And when the mounted police and others from Glen Ryanold discovered the
• 1:25:38
  trussed youngster not an hour later, they took the same tone and one and
• 1:25:43
  all stopped and stooped to peer at the two bullet holes in the post and
• 1:25:46
  at something underneath them, before cutting poor Fergus down. When they propped him
• 1:25:51
  up to read with his own eyes the nailed legend which first helped Fergus Carrick
• 1:25:56
  to live down the indiscretion of his letter to Largs, and then did more
• 1:26:00
  for him in that colony than letter from Queen Victoria to his Excellency of New
• 1:26:04
  South Wales. For it ran, this is the gamest little cock I have
• 1:26:09
  ever struck, yet me captive. Once could have shot me over and over
• 1:26:13
  again, and all but took me alive. More power to him Stingeree end
• 1:26:19
  of chapter two, to the Vile Dust, van Heimert had been in many
• 1:26:27
  dust storms, but never in such a storm so far from the haunts of
• 1:26:30
  men. Awaking in his blanket with his mouth full of sand, he had
• 1:26:34
  opened his eyes to the blinding sting of a storm which already shrouded the very
• 1:26:39
  tree under which he lay. Other landmarks were there none, and the world
• 1:26:45
  was swallowed in a yellow swirl that turned browner and more opaque. Even as
• 1:26:48
  van Heimert shook himself out of his blanket and ran for the fence, as
• 1:26:54
  for his life. He had only left it in order to camp, where
• 1:26:57
  his tree had towered against the stars. He could not be a hundred yards
• 1:27:00
  away. And along the fence ran that beaten track, to which the bushman
• 1:27:04
  turned instinctively in his panic. In a few seconds he was groping with outstretched
• 1:27:11
  hands to break the violence of a collision with invisible wires. In a few
• 1:27:15
  minutes, standing at a loss, wondering whether wires or he had got to
• 1:27:19
  whether it would not be wise to retrace his steps and try again. And
• 1:27:25
  while he wondered, a fit of coughing drove the dust from his mouth like
• 1:27:28
  smoke. And even as he coughed, the thickening swirl obliterated his tracks as
• 1:27:32
  swiftly as heavy snow speckled eyeball stood out of a sanded face. As van
• 1:27:39
  Heimert saw himself adrift and drowning in the dust. He was a huge young
• 1:27:44
  fellow, and it was a great smooth face from which the gaping mouth cut
• 1:27:47
  a slice from jaw to jaw. Terror and rage, in an overpowering passion
• 1:27:54
  of self pity, convulsed the coarse features in turn. Then, with the
• 1:27:58
  grunt of a wounded beast, he rallied and plunged to his destruction, deeper
• 1:28:03
  and deeper into the bush, further and further from the fence. The trees
• 1:28:10
  were few and mostly stunted, but van Heimert crashed into more than one upon
• 1:28:15
  his headlong course, the sense was choked out of him. Already he was
• 1:28:19
  fleeing on the wings of the storm of direction. He thought no more.
• 1:28:25
  He forgot that the run he had been traversing was at the best abandoned by
• 1:28:28
  man and beast. He forgot the spell that he had promised himself at the
• 1:28:31
  deserted homestead where he once worked as a lad. He might have remembered that
• 1:28:36
  the paddock in which he was burying himself had always been the largest in the
• 1:28:40
  district. Was a ten mile block, without subdividing fence or drop of water
• 1:28:44
  from end to end. The whole station was a howling desert. Little lightly,
• 1:28:48
  to be stopped a second time by an enlightened man. But this was
• 1:28:53
  the desert's heart, and into it sped van Heimert, coated yellow to the
• 1:28:58
  eyes and lips, the dust fiend himself in visible shape. Now he staggered
• 1:29:03
  in astride. Now fell headlong to cough and sob in the hollow of his
• 1:29:09
  arm. The unfortunate young man had the courage of his desperate strait. Many
• 1:29:14
  times he arose and hurled himself onward with curse or prayer. Many times he
• 1:29:17
  fell or flung himself back to earth. But at length the storm passed over
• 1:29:23
  and over his spent members, sand gathered by the handful on the folds of
• 1:29:27
  his clothes. The end was as near as end could be. It was
• 1:29:31
  just then that two riders, who fancied they had heard a voice, struck
• 1:29:36
  an undoubted trail before it vanished, and followed it to the great sprawling body
• 1:29:41
  in which the dregs of life pulsed feebly. The thing groaned as it was
• 1:29:45
  lifted and strapped upon a horse. A gurgled gibberish at the taste of raw
• 1:29:49
  spirits. Later in the same hour, twas high noon before van Heimert opened
• 1:29:55
  a seeing eye and blinked in the unveiled sun. He was eye on a
• 1:30:00
  blanket and a treeless hollow in the midst of trees. The ground had been
• 1:30:03
  cleared by no human hand. It was the little basin of barren clay,
• 1:30:08
  burnt to a brick and drained by the tiny water hole that sparkled through its
• 1:30:12
  thatch of leaves and branches. In the center of a natural circle. Van
• 1:30:16
  Heimert lay on the eastern circumference, twas the sun falling sheer on his upturned
• 1:30:21
  face that cut short a sleep of deep exhaustion. The sky was a dark
• 1:30:28
  and limpid blue, but every leaf within van Heimert's vision bore its little load
• 1:30:32
  of sand, and the sand was clotted, as though the dust storm had
• 1:30:36
  ended with the usual shower. Vanheimer turned and viewed the silver amphitheater. On
• 1:30:43
  its far side were two small tents and a man in a folding chair reading
• 1:30:47
  the Australasian. He closed the paper on meeting Vanheimert's eyes, went to one
• 1:30:53
  of the tents, stood a moment looking in, and then came across the
• 1:30:57
  sunlit circle with his newspaper and the folded chair. Then how do you feel
• 1:31:00
  now? Said he? Setting up a chair beside the blanket, but still
• 1:31:04
  standing as he surveyed the prostrate man with dark eyes drawn together in the shade
• 1:31:09
  of a great straw sombrero. Fine, replied Van Heimot huskily, But where
• 1:31:15
  am I? Many? Were you chaps rabbits? As he spoke, however,
• 1:31:21
  he searched for the inevitable strings of rabbit skins festooned about the tents and
• 1:31:27
  found them. Not if you like, replied the other, frowning a little
• 1:31:31
  at the immediate curiosity of the rescued man. I don't like, said Van
• 1:31:36
  Heymot, staring unabashed. I'm a rabbit to myself, and I know too
• 1:31:41
  much. It ain't no game for abandoned stations. You don't go plan and
• 1:31:45
  top boots and spoos. Where's your skins? And where's your squatter? To
• 1:31:49
  pay for em plucky rabbit? As you too, and he gazed across the
• 1:31:56
  open towards the further tent, which had just disgorged a long body and a
• 1:32:00
  black beard not wholly unfamiliar to Van Heibert. The dark man was a shade
• 1:32:05
  darker as he followed the look and read its partial recognition, but a grim
• 1:32:11
  light came with quick resolve, and it was with sardonic deliberation that an eyeglass
• 1:32:15
  was screwed into one dark eye. Then what should you say that we are
• 1:32:20
  now? Do I know? Cried Van Heymot, turning pale. For he
• 1:32:25
  had been one of the audience at Missus Clarkson's concert and Gullen Store, and
• 1:32:30
  in consecutive moments he had recognized first Howie, and now stinger Ee, you
• 1:32:36
  know well enough? And the terrible eye glass covered him like a pistol.
• 1:32:43
  Perhaps I can guess, faltered Van Heymoert, no small brain working in his
• 1:32:48
  prodigious skull. Yes, then there are tales about a new chum camping by
• 1:32:55
  himself. There is just with one man, and what object to get away
• 1:33:00
  from the world? Sir? And when did you hear these tales? All
• 1:33:05
  along the road? Sir? The chasin turned the anxious countenance, the sudden
• 1:33:11
  recourse to the servile monosyllable. Were none of them lost on Stingery. But
• 1:33:17
  he himself had once set such a tale abroad, and it might be that
• 1:33:20
  the present bearer still believed it. The eyeglass looked him through and through Vanheimert
• 1:33:28
  bore the inspection like a man, and was soon satisfied that his recognition of
• 1:33:31
  the outlaw was as yet quite unsuspected, congratulated himself in his presence of mind,
• 1:33:39
  and had sufficient courage to relish the excitement of a situation of which he
• 1:33:43
  also perceived the peril. I suppose you have no recollection of how you got
• 1:33:47
  here at length, said Stingery, not me, only remember the dust storm,
• 1:33:54
  and van Heimert shuddered where he lay in the sun. But I'm very
• 1:33:58
  grateful to your surface saving my life. You are are you have I cause
• 1:34:03
  to be sir well, I dare say we did bring you round between us,
• 1:34:09
  but it was pure luck that we ever came across you. And now
• 1:34:12
  I should lie quiet if I were you. In a few minutes there'll be
• 1:34:15
  a pannikin of tea for you, and after that you'll feel a different man.
• 1:34:20
  Van Heimert lay quiet enough. There was much to occupy his mind.
• 1:34:26
  Instinctively, he had assumed a part, and he was only less quick to
• 1:34:30
  embrace the necessity of a strictly consistent performance. He watched Stingery in close conversation
• 1:34:35
  with Howie, who was boiling the billy on a spirit lamp. Between the
• 1:34:39
  two tents, but he watched them with an admirable simulation of idle unconcern.
• 1:34:45
  They were talking about him, of course, more than once they glanced in
• 1:34:48
  his direction, and each time Van Hymer congratulated himself the more heartily on the
• 1:34:54
  ready pretense to which he was committed let them, but dreamed that he knew
• 1:34:59
  them. Vanheimert gave himself as short a shrift as he would have granted him
• 1:35:02
  their place. But they did not tream it. They were off their guard,
• 1:35:08
  and rather at his mercy than he at theirs, he might prove the
• 1:35:12
  immediate instrument of their capture. Why not the thought put van Heimert in a
• 1:35:17
  glow on the blanket where they had laid him. He dwelt on it without
• 1:35:21
  a qualm, and the same wide mouth watered for the tea which these villains
• 1:35:27
  were making, and for their blood. It was Howie who came over with
• 1:35:31
  the steaming pannikin and watched van Heimert as he sipped and smacked his lips,
• 1:35:36
  while Stingery, at his distance, watched them both. The pannaquin was accompanied
• 1:35:42
  by a tin plate full of cold mutton and a wedge of baking powder bread,
• 1:35:46
  which between them prevented the ravening man from observing how closely he was himself
• 1:35:50
  observed as he assuaged his pangs. There was, however, something in the
• 1:35:57
  nature of a muttered altercation between the bushery and how he was sent back for
• 1:36:00
  more of everything. Van Heimert put it down to his own demands and felt
• 1:36:06
  that Stingaree was his friend. When was he who brought the fresh supplies?
• 1:36:11
  Eat away? Said Stingery, seating himself and producing pipe and tobacco. It's
• 1:36:15
  rough fare, but there's plenty of it. I won't ask you for no
• 1:36:19
  more, replied van Heymot, paving the way for his escape. Oh yes
• 1:36:25
  you will, said Stingery. You'll get a camp with us for the next
• 1:36:28
  few days. My friend, why am I cried van Heimert, aghasted at
• 1:36:32
  the quiet statement, which had never occurred him to gainsay. The Stingaree peered
• 1:36:38
  a pipe full of tobacco and rubbed it fine before troubling to reply. Because
• 1:36:44
  the way out of this takes some finding. And what's the use of escaping
• 1:36:46
  an unpleasant death one day if you go and die it the next. That's
• 1:36:51
  one reason, said Stingery, But there's another. The other reason is that
• 1:36:57
  now you're here, you don't go till I choose. Blue wreaths of smoke
• 1:37:02
  went up with the words which might have phrased either a humorous hospitality or a
• 1:37:08
  covert threat. The dispassionate tone told nothing, but Van Heymot felt the eye
• 1:37:15
  glass on him, and his hearty appetite was at an end. That's real
• 1:37:18
  kind of you, said he. I don't feel like running, no more
• 1:37:23
  risks to long obliged. My nerves are shook. And if a born back
• 1:37:28
  blocker may make so bold, it's a fair old trick to see a new
• 1:37:30
  chum camping out for the fun of it. You told you I was a
• 1:37:34
  new chum, asked Stingery, sharply, Nah, I remember, he added,
• 1:37:41
  nodding. You heard of me lower down the road. Van Hymen grinned
• 1:37:45
  from ear to ear. I've known it without that, said he. What
• 1:37:51
  real bushmen will boil their billy on a spirit lamp with his wood and to
• 1:37:56
  spare for a camp fire, and all sides of him. Now, then
• 1:38:00
  Hymert clearly perceived the superiority of smokeless spirit lamp to teltowe fire for those in
• 1:38:05
  hiding. So he chuckled consumedly over This thrust was taken such excellent part by
• 1:38:11
  Stingaree as to prove him a victim to the desired illusion. It was the
• 1:38:15
  cleverest touch that van Heimert had yet achieved, and he had the wit neither
• 1:38:19
  to blunt his point by rubbing it in, nor to recall attention to it
• 1:38:25
  by subtle protestation of his pretended persuasion. But once or twice before sundown he
• 1:38:30
  permitted himself to ask natural questions concerning the old country, and to indulge in
• 1:38:34
  those genial jibes as the Englishman in the bush learns to expect from the indigenous
• 1:38:40
  buffoon. In the night, van Heimert was less easy yet to sleep in
• 1:38:45
  Howie's tent, But it was some hours before he slept at all, for
• 1:38:49
  Howie would remain outside, and van Heimert longed to hear him snore. At
• 1:38:56
  last, the rabbiter fell into a doze, and when he awoke, the
• 1:39:00
  auspicious music filled with the tent. He listened on one elbow, peering till
• 1:39:04
  the darkness turned less dense, and there lay Howie across the opening of the
• 1:39:10
  tent. Vanheimert reached for his thin, elastic sided bushman's boots, and his
• 1:39:16
  hands trembled as he drew them on. He could now see the form of
• 1:39:21
  Howie plainly enough, as it lay half from the starlight and half from the
• 1:39:26
  darkness of the tent. He stepped over it without a mistake, and the
• 1:39:30
  ignoble strains droned on behind him. The stars seemed unnaturally bright and busy as
• 1:39:38
  van Heimert stole into their tremulous light. At first it could distinguished nothing earthly.
• 1:39:44
  Then the tents came sharply into focus, and after them the ring of
• 1:39:47
  impenetrable trees. The trees whispered a chorus myriad, strong in a chromatic scale,
• 1:39:54
  that sang but faintly of the open country. They were palpable miles of
• 1:39:59
  wilderness, and none other lodge. But this yet, the psychological necessity for
• 1:40:03
  escape was stronger in van Heimot than the bodily reluctance to leave the insecure security
• 1:40:09
  the bush ranger's encampment. He was their prisoner, whatever they might say,
• 1:40:14
  for the sense of captivity was intolerable. Besides, let them but surprise his
• 1:40:18
  knowledge of their secret, and they would shoot him like a dog. On
• 1:40:23
  the other hand, beyond the forest and along the beaten track lay fame and
• 1:40:28
  a fortune in direct reward. Before departure, van Heimert wished to peep into
• 1:40:34
  the other tent, but its open end was completely covered in for the night,
• 1:40:39
  and prudence forbade him to meddle with his hands. Had an even keener
• 1:40:44
  desire to steal one or other the horses, which he had seen before nightfall
• 1:40:47
  tethered in the scrub. But here again he lacked enterprise, fancied the saddles
• 1:40:53
  must be in Stingery's tent, and shrank from committing himself to an action which
• 1:40:57
  nothing, in the event of disaster could expel away. On foot he need
• 1:41:01
  not put himself on the wrong, even with villains ready to suspect that he
• 1:41:05
  suspected them. And on foot he went, indeed on tiptoe to the edge
• 1:41:11
  of the trees. Was reached without adventure, and he turned to look his
• 1:41:15
  last upon the two tents, shimmering in the starlight. As he turned again,
• 1:41:20
  satisfied that the one was still shut, that how he still lay across
• 1:41:25
  the opening of the other, a firm hand took van Heimot by either shoulder,
• 1:41:30
  otherwise he had leapt into the air, for it was Stingerree, who
• 1:41:33
  had stepped from behind a bushes from another planet so suddenly that van Heimot nearly
• 1:41:40
  gasped his dreadful name. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't sleep, he cried
• 1:41:46
  out, instead, shrinking as from a lifted hand, though he was merely
• 1:41:50
  being shaken playfully to and fro. No more could I, said Stingery.
• 1:41:56
  So I was going for a stroll. That was all I swear. Mister,
• 1:42:00
  mister, I don't know your name, quite sure, said Stingery.
• 1:42:04
  My oath, how should I You might have heard it down the road,
• 1:42:10
  not me, and you heard of me? You know not my name,
• 1:42:14
  my oaf. Stingery peered into the great face, in which the teeth were
• 1:42:18
  chattering, from which all trace of color had flown. I shouldn't eat you
• 1:42:24
  for knowing who I am, said he. Honesty is still a wise policy
• 1:42:28
  in certain circumstances. But you know best. I know nothing about you,
• 1:42:33
  and careless, retorted Van Heymen, sullenly, that the perspiration was welling out
• 1:42:39
  of him or or came for a stroll because I couldn't sleep, and I
• 1:42:43
  can't see what all this Barney's about. Stingery dropped his hands do you want
• 1:42:47
  to sleep, what blessed oaf? Then come to my tent and I give
• 1:42:53
  you a nobbler that may make you. The nobbler was poured out of a
• 1:42:57
  gallant jar under Van Heyment's nose by the light of a candle which he held
• 1:43:00
  himself. Yet he smelt it furtively before trying it with his lips, and
• 1:43:05
  denied himself with gulp till he was reassured. But soon the empty pannikin was
• 1:43:13
  held out for more, and it was the starless hour before dawn when Van
• 1:43:17
  Heymot tripped over Howie's legs and took a contented header into the corner from which
• 1:43:24
  he had made his stealthy escape. The tent was tropical when he awoke,
• 1:43:29
  but Stingery was still at his breakfast outside in the shade. He pointed to
• 1:43:32
  a buckle and a piece of soap behind the tent, and Van Hymot engaged
• 1:43:36
  in obedient ablutions before sitting down to his pannikin, his slice of damper,
• 1:43:42
  and his portion of a tin of sardines. Sorry there's no meat for you,
• 1:43:45
  said Stingery. My mate's gone for fresh supplies. By the way,
• 1:43:49
  did you miss your boots? The rabbitor looked at a pair of dilapidated worsted
• 1:43:55
  socks and at one protruding toe. He was not sure whether he had gone
• 1:44:00
  to bed for the second time in these or in his boots. Certainly he
• 1:44:03
  had missed the latter on his second awakening, but had not deemed it expedient
• 1:44:08
  to make inquiries, And now he merely observed that he wondered where he could
• 1:44:12
  have left them on your feet, said Stingery. My mate has made so
• 1:44:15
  bold to borrow them for the day. He's welcome to them, I'm sure,
• 1:44:21
  said Van Hymott with a sickly smile. I'm sure you would say so,
• 1:44:27
  rejoined Stingery. His own are reduced to uppers and half a hill apiece,
• 1:44:30
  but he has to get them sold and ivan herb while he waits.
• 1:44:34
  So he's gone to Ivanhoe. Has he miss been gone three hours? Sure
• 1:44:41
  it's a long trip. Yes, we shall have to make the most of
• 1:44:44
  each other till sundown, said Stingery, gazing through his glass upon Van Heinmolt's
• 1:44:49
  perplexity. If I were you, I should take my revenge by shaking anything
• 1:44:54
  of his that I could find for the day with a cavalier nod to clinch
• 1:44:59
  the last word on the subject, the bush ranger gave himself over to his
• 1:45:02
  camp chair, his pipe, and his inexhaustible Australation. As for van Heibert,
• 1:45:09
  he eventually returned to the tent in which he had spent the night,
• 1:45:12
  and there he remained a good many minutes, though it was now the forenoon
• 1:45:15
  and the heat under canvas was past endurance. But when at length he emerged
• 1:45:20
  as from a bath, stingaree seated behind his Australasian, and the lee of
• 1:45:26
  the other tent took so little notice of him that vain Heibert crept back to
• 1:45:30
  have one more look at the thing which he had found in the old valise,
• 1:45:32
  which served, howie for a pillow. And the thing was a very
• 1:45:36
  workmanlike revolver, with a heavy cartridge in each of its six chambers. Van
• 1:45:44
  Heimert handled it with trembling fingers and packed it afresh in the pocket, where
• 1:45:47
  at least effected his personal contour, its angle softened by a big bandanna handkerchief,
• 1:45:54
  only to take it out again with a resolution that opened a fresh sluice,
• 1:45:57
  and every paw a blanket that had been led to him, and how
• 1:46:01
  his blanket both lay at his feet, threw one over either arm, with
• 1:46:05
  the revolver thus effectually concealed, but grasped for action with finger on trigger,
• 1:46:11
  sallied forth. At last Stingery was still seated in the narrowing shade of his
• 1:46:15
  own tent. Van Heimert was within five paces of him before looked up so
• 1:46:20
  very quickly, with such a rapid adjustment of the terrible eye glass that Van
• 1:46:25
  Heymert stood stopped still, and the butt of his hidden weapon turned colder than
• 1:46:29
  ever in his melting hand. Why what have you got there, cried Stingerye.
• 1:46:34
  And what's the matter with you? Man? He added, as Van
• 1:46:38
  Heymot stood, shaking in his socks only his blanketsturs camp on. The fellow
• 1:46:45
  answered hoarsely, you advised me to help myself. You h quite right,
• 1:46:49
  so I did. But you are as white as the tent. Who tremble
• 1:46:54
  like a leaf? What's wrong my head, replied Van Hymot in a wine,
• 1:47:00
  it's it's going round and round, whether from more I hadn't the night,
• 1:47:03
  or lying too long, or hot tend or one on top of the
• 1:47:05
  other. Oh thought i'd camp for a bit in the shade, I should,
• 1:47:11
  said Stingaree, and buried himself in his paper with undisguised contempt. Van
• 1:47:15
  Heimert came a step nearer Stingery, did not look up again. The revolver
• 1:47:21
  was leveled under one trailing blanket, but the trigger was never pulled. Van
• 1:47:27
  Hymot feared to miss, even at arm's length, Sir pausied, was his
• 1:47:31
  hand so dim his eye, And when he would have played the man and
• 1:47:34
  called desperate into the other to surrender the very tongue clove in his head,
• 1:47:42
  he slunk over to the shady margin of surrounding scrub and lay aloof all the
• 1:47:45
  morning, now fingering the weapon in his pocket, now watching the man had
• 1:47:50
  never once looked his way. He was a bush ranger in an outlaw.
• 1:47:56
  He deserved to die or to be taken. And Van Hymot's only regret was
• 1:48:00
  that he had neither taken nor shot him at their last interview. The bloodless
• 1:48:03
  alternative was to be borne in mind, Yet in his heart he well knew
• 1:48:09
  that the bullet was his one chance for Stingery. And even with the bullet,
• 1:48:14
  he was horribly uncertain and afraid, But of hesitation on any higher ground
• 1:48:18
  of remorse, or of reluctance, or the desire to give fair play.
• 1:48:24
  He had none at all. The man whom he had stupidly spared so far
• 1:48:29
  was a notorious criminal with a high price upon his head. It weighed not
• 1:48:32
  a grain with van Heimert that the criminal happened to have saved his life.
• 1:48:38
  Domin Eat shouted Stingery at last, and van Heimert trailed the blankets over his
• 1:48:43
  left arm, his right thrust idly into his pocket, which bowlged with a
• 1:48:46
  red bandanna handkerchief. Sorry it's sardine's again, the bushranger went on. But
• 1:48:53
  we shall make up with a square feed to night if my mate gets back
• 1:48:57
  by dark. If he doesn't, ne're to tighten up belts till morning.
• 1:49:00
  Fortunately, there's plenty to drink. Have some whisky in your tea. Then
• 1:49:05
  Heymot nodded, and with an eyron, the Bushranger, who was once more
• 1:49:09
  stooping over his beloved Australasian, helped himself enormously from the gallant jar and now
• 1:49:15
  for a siesta, yawned Stingery, rising and stretching himself after the meal.
• 1:49:23
  Here here croaked Van Heymot, his great face flushed his bloodshot eyes on fire.
• 1:49:30
  I shall camp on the shady side of my tent, and oh do
• 1:49:33
  ditter at the other? So long? Then, so long, sweet repose
• 1:49:40
  to you, same to you, rasped Van Heymat, and went off,
• 1:49:45
  cursing and chuckling in his heart. By turns it was a sweltering afternoon of
• 1:49:51
  little air, and that little as hot and dry in the nostrils as the
• 1:49:58
  atmosphere of a laundry on ironing day. Beyond and above the trees, a
• 1:50:02
  fiery blast blew from the north, but it was seldom a wandering puff that
• 1:50:08
  stoop to flutter the edges of the tents and the little hollow among the trees,
• 1:50:12
  And into this empty basin poured a vertical sum, as if through some
• 1:50:17
  giant lens which had burnt a hole in the heart of the scrub, lulled
• 1:50:23
  by the faint, perpetual murmur of leaf and branch, fout a sound from
• 1:50:27
  bird or beast to brook its soothing monotone. The two men lay down within
• 1:50:30
  a few yards, though out of sight of each other, and for a
• 1:50:35
  time all was very still. Then Van Hymot rose slowly without a sound,
• 1:50:44
  and came on tiptoe to the other tent, his right hand in the pocket
• 1:50:49
  with a bandanna handkerchief had been but was no longer. He came up close
• 1:50:55
  to the sunny side of the tent and listened vainly for a sound. But
• 1:51:00
  Stingery lay like a log in the shade on the far side, his face
• 1:51:03
  to the canvas, his straw sombrero tilted over it, and Sir van Heimert
• 1:51:09
  found him breathing with the placid regularity of a sleeping child. Van Heimert looked
• 1:51:15
  about him. Only the ring of impenetrable trees and the deep blue eye of
• 1:51:20
  heaven would see what really happened, But as to what exactly was to happen,
• 1:51:25
  van Heimert himself was not clear. As he drew the revolver ready cocked,
• 1:51:30
  even he shrank from shooting a sleeping man. What he desired and yet
• 1:51:34
  feared, was a sudden start, a semblance of resistance, a swift,
• 1:51:38
  justifiable shot. And as his mind's eye measured the dead man at his feet,
• 1:51:43
  the live man turned slowly over on his back, twas too much for
• 1:51:46
  van Heimert's nerves. The revolver went off in his hands, but it was
• 1:51:51
  only a cap that snapped, and another and another is his step back,
• 1:51:56
  firing desperately. Stingey sat upright, looking as treacherous enemy in the eye through
• 1:52:00
  the glass in which it seemed he slept. And when the sixth cap snapped,
• 1:52:06
  as harmlessly as the other five, van Heimert caught the revolvl by its
• 1:52:11
  barrel to throw or to strike, but the raised arm was seized from behind
• 1:52:15
  by Howie, who had crept from the scrub at the snapping of the first
• 1:52:19
  cap. At the same moment, Stingery sprang upon him, and in less
• 1:52:25
  than a minute van Heimot lay powerless, grinding his teeth, foaming and bleeding
• 1:52:30
  at the mouth, and filling the air with nameless imprecations. The bush rangers
• 1:52:35
  let him curse. Not a word did they bandy with him or with each
• 1:52:40
  other. Their action was silent, swift, concerted, pre arranged. They
• 1:52:45
  lashed their prisoners wrists together, lashed his elbows to his ribs, hobbled his
• 1:52:49
  ankles, and tethered them to a tree by the longest of the stoutest of
• 1:52:53
  their many ropes. The tree was the one under which van Heimert had found
• 1:52:57
  himself the day before. The eye afternoon was exposed to the full fury of
• 1:53:01
  the sun, and in the sun they left him quieter already, but not
• 1:53:06
  so quiet as they. It was near sundown when they returned to look upon
• 1:53:12
  a broken man, crouching in his toils like a beaten beast, with undying
• 1:53:16
  malice and his smallen eyes stingery. He sat at his prisoner's feet, offered
• 1:53:23
  him tobacco without a sneer, and lit up his own when the offer was
• 1:53:27
  declined with a curse. When we came upon you yesterday morning in the storm,
• 1:53:32
  one of us was for leaving you to die in your tracks, began
• 1:53:36
  Stingery. He was immediately interrupted by his mate. That was me, cried
• 1:53:42
  Howie, with a savage satisfaction. It doesn't matter which of us it was,
• 1:53:46
  continued Stingery. The other talked to him over. We put you on
• 1:53:50
  one of our horses, and we brought you more dead than alive, to
• 1:53:53
  the place which no other man has seen since we took a fancy to it.
• 1:53:57
  We saved your miserable life. I won't set the risk of our own,
• 1:54:01
  but it risk enough. Even if you had not recognized us, we
• 1:54:06
  were going to see you through, whether you knew us or not. Before
• 1:54:11
  this, we should have set you on the road from which you had strayed.
• 1:54:14
  I thought you must know us by sight, but when you denied it,
• 1:54:16
  I saw no reason to disbelieve you. It only dawned on me by
• 1:54:21
  degrees that you were lying. Though Howie here was sure of it. I
• 1:54:26
  still couldn't make out your game. If it was funk, I could have
• 1:54:29
  understood it. So I tried to get you to own up in the night.
• 1:54:32
  I'll let you see that we didn't mind whether you knew us or not.
• 1:54:35
  Yet you persisted in your lie. Then I smelt something deeper. But
• 1:54:43
  we had gone out of our way to save your life. Never struck me
• 1:54:46
  that you might go out of your way to take ours. Stingery paused,
• 1:54:51
  smoking his pipe, but it did. May, cried Howie. We'll never
• 1:54:58
  admit taking you lives, muttered Vanheimen, on taking you as you deserved.
• 1:55:03
  We scarcely deserved it a view, but that is a matter of opinion.
• 1:55:08
  As for taking us alive, no doubt you would have preferred to do so
• 1:55:12
  if it had seemed equally safe and easy. You had not the pluck to
• 1:55:15
  run a single risk. You were given every chance. I sent Howie into
• 1:55:20
  the scrub took the powder out of six cartridges and put what anybody would have
• 1:55:25
  taken for a load of revolver or but into your hands. I sat at
• 1:55:29
  your mercy, quite looking forward to the sensation of being stuck up for a
• 1:55:32
  change. If you had stuck me up like a man, said Stingery,
• 1:55:38
  reflectively, examining his pipe, you might have lived to tell the tale.
• 1:55:43
  There was an interval of the faint, persistent rustling of branch and leaf,
• 1:55:47
  varied by the screech of a distant cockatoo and the nearer cry of a crow.
• 1:55:53
  As the dusk deepened into night. As expeditiously as on the stage,
• 1:55:58
  Van Heimert was not awed by the quiet voice to which he had been listening,
• 1:56:01
  elect the note of violence, which he understood, even lulled into a
• 1:56:05
  belief that he would still live to tell the tale. But in the dying
• 1:56:10
  lights he looked up, and in the fierce, unrelenting face, made the
• 1:56:13
  more sinistered by its foppish furniture, he read his doom. You tried to
• 1:56:18
  shoot me in my sleep, said Stingery, speaking slowly, with intense articulation.
• 1:56:27
  That's your gratitude. You will live just long enough to wish that you
• 1:56:31
  had shot yourself instead. Stingery rose, you ms WoT shoot me? Now,
• 1:56:40
  cried Van Heymot, with a husky effort. Shoot you. I am
• 1:56:44
  not going to shoot you at all. Shooting's too good for scum like you.
• 1:56:48
  But you are to die, make no mistake about that, and soon,
• 1:56:54
  but not to night. That would not be fair on you, for
• 1:56:57
  reasons which I leave to your imagination. Will lie where you are to night,
• 1:57:00
  and you'll be watched and fed like your superiors in the condemned cell.
• 1:57:04
  The only difference is that I can't tell you when it will be. It
• 1:57:09
  might be to morrow. I don't think it will. But you may number
• 1:57:13
  your days on the fingers of both hands, so saying, Stingery turned on
• 1:57:18
  his heel and was lost to sight in the shades of evening before he reached
• 1:57:23
  his tent. But Howie remained on duty with the condemned man. As such,
• 1:57:30
  Van Heymot was treated from the first hour of his captivity. Not a
• 1:57:33
  rough word was said to him, and his own unbridled outbursts, who received
• 1:57:36
  with as much indifference as the abject prayers and supplications which were their regular reaction.
• 1:57:43
  The ebbing life was ordered on that principle of high humanity, which might
• 1:57:46
  be the last refinement of calculated cruelty. The prisoner was so tethered to such
• 1:57:53
  a tree that it was no longer necessary for him to spend a moment in
• 1:57:56
  the red eye of the sun. He can follow a sufficient shade from dawn
• 1:57:59
  to dusk. His boots were restored to him, a blanket was permitted in
• 1:58:03
  day and night, But night and day he was sedulously watched, and neither
• 1:58:08
  knife nor fork was provided with his meals. His fare was relatively not in
• 1:58:14
  theory to that of the legally condemned, whose notorious privileges and restrictions served the
• 1:58:17
  bush rangers for a model, and Van Heymot clung to the hope of a
• 1:58:23
  reprieve with all the sanguine tenacity of his ill starred class, though it did
• 1:58:28
  seem with more encouragement on the whole, for the days went on lead to
• 1:58:31
  the many mornings brought its own respite till the next A welcome announcement was invariably
• 1:58:38
  made by Howie after a colloquy with his chief, which Van Heymot watched with
• 1:58:42
  breathless interest for a day or two, but thereafter, with increasing coolness,
• 1:58:47
  they were trying to frighten him. It did not mean it any more than
• 1:58:51
  Stingery had meant to shoot the new chum heard the temerity to put a pistol
• 1:58:56
  to his head. After the affair of the glen Ranold Bank, the case
• 1:59:00
  of Lucky Fergure's, justly celebrated throughout the colony, was a great comfort to
• 1:59:04
  van Heimert's mind. He could see but little difference between the two. But
• 1:59:09
  if his treachery was the greater, Sir Walter, was the ordeal to which
• 1:59:13
  he was being subjected. For in the light of a mere ordeal, he
• 1:59:16
  soon regarded what he was invited to consider as his last days on earth,
• 1:59:20
  and, in the conviction that they were not, began suddenly to bear them
• 1:59:25
  like a man. This change of front produced its fellow in Stingree, who
• 1:59:30
  apologized to Van Heymot for the delay, which he vowed he could not help.
• 1:59:34
  Van Heimert was a little shaken by his manner, though he smiled behind
• 1:59:39
  the bush, ranged his back, and he could scarcely believe his ears when
• 1:59:43
  the very next morning, how he told him that his hour was come.
• 1:59:47
  Rot said Van Heymot with a confident. Expletive now all right, said Howie.
• 1:59:55
  But if he don't believe me, I am sorry for you than I
• 1:59:58
  was. He slouched a. Van Heimert had no stomach for the tea and
• 2:00:01
  damper which had been left behind. It was unusual for him to be suffered
• 2:00:05
  to take a meal unwatched. Something unusual was in the air. Stingery emerged
• 2:00:13
  from the scrub leading the two horses. Van Heimert began to figure the fate
• 2:00:16
  that might be in store for him, and the horses saddled and bridled before
• 2:00:20
  his eyes were led over to where he sat. Are you gonna shoot me
• 2:00:26
  before you go? He cried? Or he going to leave me to die
• 2:00:29
  alone? Neither here, said Stingery. We're too fond of the camp.
• 2:00:36
  It was his first brutal speech, but the brutality was too subtle for van
• 2:00:42
  Heimert. He was beginning to feel that something dreadful might happen to him.
• 2:00:45
  After all, the pinions were removed from his arms and legs, the long
• 2:00:49
  rope detached from the tree made fast to one of Stingery's stirrups instead, and
• 2:00:55
  by it van Heimert was led a good mile through the scrub with Howie at
• 2:01:00
  his heels. A red sun had risen on the camp, but in the
• 2:01:03
  scrub it ceased to shine, and the first open space was as sunless as
• 2:01:09
  the dense bush. Spires of sand kept whirling from earth to sky, joining
• 2:01:15
  other spinning spires, forming a monster balloon of yellow sand, a balloon that
• 2:01:19
  swelled to it burst, obscuring first the firmament and then the earth. But
• 2:01:26
  the mind of van Heimert was so busy with the fate he feared, that
• 2:01:29
  he did not realize he was in another dust storm. To Stingaree, at
• 2:01:31
  the end of the rope was swallowed like a tug in a fog. And
• 2:01:36
  even then Van Heiment's peculiar terror of a dust storm did not link itself to
• 2:01:41
  the fear of sudden death, which had at last been put into him.
• 2:01:45
  But the moment of mental enlightenment was at hand. The rope trailed on the
• 2:01:50
  ground as Stingeree loomed large and yellow through the storm. He had dropped his
• 2:01:57
  end. Van Heimert glanced over his shoulder, and how he loomed large and
• 2:02:01
  yellow behind him, You would have perceived the reason for so many days delay,
• 2:02:06
  said Stingery. I have been waiting for such a dust storm as the
• 2:02:10
  one from which we saved you, to be rewarded as you endeavored to reward
• 2:02:14
  me. You might perhaps have preferred me to make shorter work of you.
• 2:02:17
  But on consideration you will see that this is not only just but generous.
• 2:02:23
  Their chances are perhaps against you somewhat in favor of a more unpleasant death than
• 2:02:28
  It is quite possible that the storm may pass before it finishes you, and
• 2:02:32
  that you may then hit the fence before you die of thirst. But at
• 2:02:36
  the worst we leave you no worse off than we found you, and that
• 2:02:41
  I hold is more than you had any right to expect. So long the
• 2:02:45
  thickening storm had swallowed man and horse once more, van Heymut looked round.
• 2:02:51
  The second man and the second horse had also vanished, and his own tracks
• 2:02:56
  were being obliterated as fast as footmarks and blinding. End of chapter three,
• 2:03:02
  A bush Ranger at Bay, the honorable Guy Kentish was trotting the globe,
• 2:03:09
  an exercise foreign to his habit when he went on to Australia for a reason
• 2:03:14
  racy of his blood. He wished to witness a certain game of cricket between
• 2:03:17
  the full strength of Australia and an English team which included one or two young
• 2:03:21
  men of his acquaintance. It was no part of his original scheme to see
• 2:03:26
  anything at the country. One of the Australian cricketers put that idea into his
• 2:03:30
  head, and it was under inward protest that mister Kentish found himself smoking his
• 2:03:35
  chronic cigar on the Glen Rannold in clear corner coach one scorching morning in the
• 2:03:41
  month of February. He thought he had never seen such a howling desert in
• 2:03:46
  his life, and it is to be feared that in his heart he applied
• 2:03:50
  the same epithet to his two fellow passengers. The one outside was chatting horribly
• 2:03:57
  with the driver. The other had tried to chaff the honorable guy, and
• 2:04:01
  had repaired in some disorder to the company of the mail bags. Inside.
• 2:04:06
  Kentish wondered whether these were the types he might expect to encounter upon the station
• 2:04:11
  to which he had reluctantly accepted an officious introduction. He wished himself out of
• 2:04:16
  that absurd little two horse coach, out of an expedition whose absurdity was on
• 2:04:21
  a larger scale, and back on the shady side of the two or three
• 2:04:26
  streets where he lived his normal life. The fair at Wayside inns made thought
• 2:04:30
  of his club a positive pain, and these pangs were at their sharpest when
• 2:04:34
  Stingery cantered out of the scrub on his lily mare a blessed bolt from the
• 2:04:41
  blue. Mister Kendish watched the little operation of sticking up without a word,
• 2:04:47
  but with revived interest in life. He noted the pusillanimous pallor of the driver
• 2:04:54
  and his friend, and felt personally indebted to the desperado who had put a
• 2:04:58
  stop to their unpleas conversation. The inside passenger made a yet more obsequious surrender,
• 2:05:05
  not that the trio was set any better example by their noble ally,
• 2:05:10
  who began by smiling at the whole affair. It was content to the last
• 2:05:14
  in taking an observant interest in the bushrangers methods. These were simple and in
• 2:05:18
  a sense humane. There was no personal robbery at all. The mail bags
• 2:05:24
  were sufficient for Stingaree, who on this occasion worked alone, led a pack
• 2:05:29
  horse, to which the driver and the inside passenger were compelled to strap the
• 2:05:31
  long canvas bags under his eye glass and his long revolver. Few words were
• 2:05:39
  spoken from first to last. The on guy never put in his at all,
• 2:05:44
  but he watched the outlaw like a lynx, without betraying an undue attention.
• 2:05:47
  And when all was over he gave a sigh. So that's stingey,
• 2:05:55
  he said, more to himself than to his comrades and humiliation. The bushranger
• 2:06:00
  had cantered back into the scrub, and his name opened the floodgates of a
• 2:06:03
  profanity, which made Kentish WinCE. For all his knowledge of the world.
• 2:06:10
  Do you never swear at him til he is gone? He asked, when
• 2:06:13
  he had a chance. The driver leant across the legs of his friend.
• 2:06:17
  Nor unless we wore a bullet through our scowls, he answered, in bourished
• 2:06:21
  derision, and the man between them laughed harshly. I thought he had never
• 2:06:28
  been known to shield. That's just in mister. We don't want him to
• 2:06:31
  begin on us. Why didn't you give him bid of your mind? The
• 2:06:36
  man in the middle inquired of Kentish, Oh, I never heard you open
• 2:06:41
  your gills, and we expected to see some pluck from the old country,
• 2:06:45
  added the driver, wreaking vengeance with his lash. Mister Kentish produced a cigar
• 2:06:51
  case with an insensitive smile, and after a moment's deliberation, handed it for
• 2:06:58
  the first time to his uncouth compareds. Do you want those mail bags back?
• 2:07:03
  He asked, quite casually, when the three cigars were and BLAST want
• 2:07:09
  them? Of course I want them, but one must be my boss,
• 2:07:14
  said the driver gloomily. I'm not so sure, said Kentish. When does
• 2:07:17
  the next coat pass this way midnight? And I drive it or turn back
• 2:07:23
  when I get to clear corner? You see, then look out for me
• 2:07:27
  about this spot. I am going to ask you to put me down.
• 2:07:30
  Put you down if you don't mind pulling up. I'm not going on at
• 2:07:34
  present, but I'll go back with you to Glenn Ranold instead, if you'll
• 2:07:39
  keep a look out for me to night. Instinctively, the driver put his
• 2:07:43
  foot upon the brake, for the request had been made with that quiet authority
• 2:07:46
  which the silent passenger had suddenly assumed. Yet it seemed to them such a
• 2:07:51
  mad demand that his companions looked at Kentish as they had not looked before.
• 2:07:58
  His face bore a close inspection. It was one of those which burned red,
• 2:08:01
  and in the redness twinkled hazel eyes that toned agreeably with a fair beard
• 2:08:07
  and a fairer mustache. The former he had grown upon his travels. But
• 2:08:11
  the trail of the West End tailor, whose shooting jacket is as distinctive as
• 2:08:16
  his frock coat, was upon guy Kentish from head to heel. As they
• 2:08:22
  watched him. He took an open envelope from his pocket, scribbled a few
• 2:08:26
  words on a card, put that in and stuck down the flap here said
• 2:08:31
  he is my letter of introduction to the good people of the Mazeppa station higher
• 2:08:35
  up. If I don't turn up to night, see that they get it,
• 2:08:37
  even if it costs you a bit of this and putting a sovereign in
• 2:08:41
  a startled palm, he jumped to the ground. But what you going to
• 2:08:46
  do, sir, cried the driver in alarm. Recover your mail bags if
• 2:08:50
  I can. What after you've just been stuck up exactly? I hope to
• 2:08:56
  stick up stinger Ee. Then you were armed all the time, mister Kentish
• 2:09:03
  smiled as he shook his head. That's my affair, I imagine. But
• 2:09:07
  even so, I am not fool enough to tackle such a fellow with his
• 2:09:11
  own weapons. You'll leave it to me, and don't be anxious, But
• 2:09:15
  I must be off if I am to stalk him before he goes through the
• 2:09:18
  letters. No, I know what I am doing, and I shall do
• 2:09:20
  better alone till to night. Then, and he was in the scrub ere
• 2:09:26
  they decided to take him at his mad cap word and let his blood be
• 2:09:30
  on the chuckle head of the new chummiest new chum that ever came out after
• 2:09:33
  the rain. Was it pluck or all pretense? It was rather plucky,
• 2:09:39
  even to pretend in such proximity to the terrible stingery on the whole. The
• 2:09:43
  coaching trio were disposed to concede a certain amount of unequivocal courage, and the
• 2:09:48
  driver, with Kentish his sovereign in his pocket, went so far as to
• 2:09:54
  declare that duty alone nailed him to the box. Meantime, the hon guy
• 2:10:00
  had skirted the road until he came to double horse tracks, striking back into
• 2:10:05
  the bush. These he followed with the wary stealth of one who had spent
• 2:10:09
  his autumns at least in the right place. They led him through belts of
• 2:10:13
  scrub in which he trod like a cat without disturbing an avoidable branch, and
• 2:10:18
  over treeless spaces that he crossed at a run bent double, but always as
• 2:10:24
  he followed the trail, his shadow fell at one consistent angle, showing how
• 2:10:30
  the bushranger rode through his natural element, as the crow might have flown overhead.
• 2:10:35
  At last Kentish found himself in a sandy gully bristling with pines, through
• 2:10:41
  which the sunlight dripped like melted gold, and in the fine warp and woof
• 2:10:46
  of high light and sharp shadow, the bushrangers horses stood lashing at the flies
• 2:10:50
  with their long tails. The bushranger himself was nowhere to be seen, But
• 2:10:56
  at last Kentish descried a white and brown litter on either side of the thickest
• 2:11:01
  trunk in sight, from whose further side floated intermittent puffs of thin blue smoke.
• 2:11:07
  Kentish looked and looked again before advancing, but the tall pine, through
• 2:11:11
  such a shadows should easily swallow his own, and in another minute he was
• 2:11:16
  peeping round the bowl. The litter on either side was, of course the
• 2:11:20
  shower of miscellaneous postal matter from the mail bags, and in its midst sat
• 2:11:24
  stingerly against the tree, enjoying his pipe and a copy of punch, of
• 2:11:31
  which the wrapper lay upon his knees. Kentosh peered for torn envelopes in gaping
• 2:11:35
  packets. There were no more. The bush ranger had evidently started with punch,
• 2:11:41
  and was still curiously absorbed in its contents. The notorious eyeglass dangled against
• 2:11:48
  that kindred vanity, the spotless white jacket, which he affected in summer time.
• 2:11:52
  The brown attentive face, even as Kentish saw it in less than profile,
• 2:11:58
  was thus purged to the sinister aspect which such an appendage can impart to
• 2:12:01
  the most innocent, and a somewhat passive amusement was its unmistakable note. Nevertheless,
• 2:12:09
  the long revolver, which had once more done its nefarious work, still
• 2:12:15
  lay ready to his hand. Indeed, the honorable guy could have stooped and
• 2:12:18
  whipped it up, had he been so minded. It was absorbed, however,
• 2:12:24
  in the absorption of stingaree, And as he peered audaciously over the other's
• 2:12:28
  shoulder, he put himself in the outlaw's place. An old friend would have
• 2:12:33
  lurked in every cut, a friend whom it might well be a painful pleasure
• 2:12:39
  to meet again. There were the oval face and the short upper lip of
• 2:12:43
  one imperishable type. On the next page one of Puncture's fancy portraits with lines
• 2:12:48
  underneath, which set Stingery incongruously humming a stave from H. M. S.
• 2:12:54
  Pinafore. Mister Kenish smiled without surprise. The common folk and the omnibus
• 2:13:00
  opposite were the common folk of an inveterate master. There was a matter for
• 2:13:05
  a homesick sigh and his hint of streaming streets, and Kentish thought he heard
• 2:13:09
  one as he held his breath. The page after that detained the reader some
• 2:13:16
  minutes. The illustrations proclaimed it an article on the new Savoy Opera, and
• 2:13:20
  Stingery confirmed the impression by humming more Pinafore. When he came to the end,
• 2:13:28
  Kentish left him at it, and, creeping away as silently as he
• 2:13:31
  had come, described a circle and came noisily on the bushranger from the front.
• 2:13:37
  The result was that Stingery was not startled into firing, but stopped the
• 2:13:41
  intruder at due distance with his revolver leveled across the open copy of Punch.
• 2:13:46
  I heard you singing Pinafore, cried Kentish cheerily. And I find you reading
• 2:13:52
  Punch now? Dare you find me demanded the bushranger, black with passion.
• 2:13:58
  I thought you wouldn't mind. I'm perfectly innocuous, look and divesting himself with
• 2:14:05
  his shooting coat, he tossed it across the other's inspection. He wore neither
• 2:14:09
  westcoat nor hip pocket, and his innocence of arms was manifest when he had
• 2:14:13
  turned round slowly where he stood. Now, may I not come a little
• 2:14:18
  nearer? Asked the honorable guy. No, keep your distance and tell me
• 2:14:24
  why you have come so far. The truth, mind, or you'll be
• 2:14:28
  shot very well, said Kendish. They were dreadful people on the coach.
• 2:14:33
  Are they waiting for you, sounded stingery. No, they've gone on,
• 2:14:37
  and they think me mad, So you are. We shall see Meanwhile,
• 2:14:43
  I prefer your company to theirs. Mean to enjoy it up to the moment
• 2:14:46
  of my murder. For an instant stingaree seeing on the brink of a smile,
• 2:14:52
  and his dark face hardened, and he tapped the long barrel and rest
• 2:14:56
  between his knees. You may call it murder of you, like, said
• 2:15:01
  he. That will not prevent me from shooting you dead unless you speak the
• 2:15:03
  truth. You have come for something. What is it? May have told
• 2:15:07
  you already. I was bored and disgusted. That is the truth, but
• 2:15:13
  not the whole truth, cried Stingery. You had some other reason. Kentish
• 2:15:16
  looked down without speaking. He heard the revolver cocked. Come let us have
• 2:15:22
  it, or I'll shoot you like the spy I believe you are. You
• 2:15:26
  may shoot me for telling you, said Kentish, with a quiet laugh and
• 2:15:28
  shrug. No I shall not, unless it turns out that you were ground
• 2:15:33
  baked for the police. That I am not, said Kentish, growing serious
• 2:15:39
  in his turn. But since you insist, I have come to persuade you
• 2:15:43
  to give up every one of these letters, which you have no earthly right
• 2:15:46
  to touch. Their eyes met stinger Is with a wider open, and in
• 2:15:52
  an instant the less stern. He dropped his revolver with a laugh, until
• 2:15:58
  its old place at his side. Mad Or saying said he, I shall
• 2:16:03
  be under the unpleasant necessity of leaving you rather securely tied to one of these
• 2:16:07
  trees. I don't believe you will, returned Kentish without losing a shade of
• 2:16:13
  his rich coloring. But in any case, I suppose we may have a
• 2:16:16
  chat. Thirst I give you my word that you are safe from further intrusion
• 2:16:20
  to the level best of my knowledge and belief, May I sit down instead
• 2:16:24
  of standing you? May we are a good many yards apart, you may
• 2:16:31
  reduce them by half. There, I thank you, said Kentysch, seating
• 2:16:37
  himself tailorwise with an artam's length of Stingery's spurs. Now, if you will
• 2:16:43
  feel in the breast pocket of my coat, you will find a case of
• 2:16:46
  very fine cigars. J. S. Maurius not too strong. I should
• 2:16:50
  be oddered. If you will help yourself and throw me one. Stingerrey took
• 2:16:54
  the one and handed the case with no ungraceful acknowledgment to its own. But
• 2:17:01
  before mister Kentish could return the courtesy by proffering his cigar cutter, the bush
• 2:17:07
  ranger had produced his raisin from a pocket of the white jacket and sliced off
• 2:17:11
  the end with that. So you shave every day in the wilds remarked the
• 2:17:16
  other, handing his match box instead. And I gave it up on my
• 2:17:20
  voyage. I alter myself from time to time, said Stingery, as he
• 2:17:26
  struck a light. It must be a wonderful life. But Stingery lit up
• 2:17:31
  without a word, and Kentish had the wit to do the same. They
• 2:17:35
  smoked in silence for some minutes. A gray ash had grown on each cigar
• 2:17:41
  before Kentish demanded an opinion of the brand. Early the truth, said Stingery.
• 2:17:48
  And I have smoked strong trash for so many years, and I can
• 2:17:50
  scarcely taste it. And he peered rather pathetically through his glass. Didn't the
• 2:17:56
  same apply to Punch? No, I have always read the papers when I
• 2:18:01
  could, said Stingery, and suddenly he was smiling. That's one reason why
• 2:18:07
  I make a specialty of sticking up the mail, he explained. Mister Kentish
• 2:18:11
  was not to be drawn into a second deliverance on the bush ranging career.
• 2:18:16
  Is it a good number, he asked, nodding toward the copy of Punch.
• 2:18:20
  The bush ranger picked it up. Good enough for me? What date
• 2:18:26
  ninth of December, nearly three months ago? I was in London, then,
• 2:18:31
  remarked Kentish, in a reflective tone. Really cried Stingery under his breath.
• 2:18:37
  His voice was as soft as the others, but there was suppressed interest
• 2:18:41
  in his manner. His dark eyes were only less at length than the red
• 2:18:45
  cigar. He took from his teeth as he spoke, and he held it
• 2:18:48
  like a connoisseur between finger and thumb. For all his ruined palliate, I
• 2:18:54
  was repeated, Kentish, I didn't sail to the middle of a month.
• 2:18:58
  Think you were in town till nearly Christmas? Stingery gazed. Enviously, you
• 2:19:05
  must be hard to realize, he added, in some haste other things,
• 2:19:09
  replied Kentish, a harder. And I gather from the punch cartoon that the
• 2:19:15
  new law courts are in use at last. I was at the opening,
• 2:19:18
  and you may have seen this opera that I have been reading about. Kendish
• 2:19:22
  asked what it was, although he knew ill Anthe rather, I was there
• 2:19:28
  the first night the deuce you were, cried Stingery. And for the next
• 2:19:35
  quarter of an hour this armed scoundrel, the terror of a district as large
• 2:19:39
  as England and Wales, talked of nothing else to the man whom he was
• 2:19:43
  about to buy into a tree. Was the new opera equal to its predecessors,
• 2:19:48
  which were the best numbers to punch to a justice? Or was there
• 2:19:50
  some jealousy in that rival hotbed of wits and wisdom? Unfortunately, Guy Kendish
• 2:19:56
  had no ear for music, but it made a clear report to the plot,
• 2:20:01
  could repeat some of the Lord Chancellor's quips, and was in decided disagreement
• 2:20:05
  with the captious Banter, from which he was given more than one extract and
• 2:20:09
  a default of one of the new years. Stingery rounded off the subject by
• 2:20:13
  dropping once more into for he might have been a Russian, a French,
• 2:20:20
  or Turk, or Prohusian, or perhapsity Lion, or perhapsidy Lion, but
• 2:20:28
  in spite of fore temptations to belong to other nations, he remains an Englishman.
• 2:20:37
  He remaineds anynglishman. Now understand that might be said of both of us,
• 2:20:46
  remarked Kentish, looking the outlaw boldly in the eyes. But from all
• 2:20:52
  accounts, I should have thought you were out here before the days of Gilbert
• 2:20:56
  and Sullivan. So I was replied Stingery that frowned, or hesitation which you
• 2:21:01
  might have heard, that I am font of music any I can get my
• 2:21:05
  only opportunities as a rule, the bush ranger continued, smiling mischievously at a
• 2:21:11
  cigar, And go on the stations I have occasion to visit from time to
• 2:21:15
  time. On one a good lady played and sang Pinafore of the Pirates of
• 2:21:20
  Penzance to me from dewy eve to dawn. I'm bound to say I sang
• 2:21:24
  some of it at sight myself, and I flatter myself. It helped to
• 2:21:28
  pass an embarrassing night rather pleasantly for all concerned. We had all hands on
• 2:21:33
  the place for our audience. And when I left, I was formerly presented
• 2:21:37
  with both scores, for I had simply called for horses, and horses were
• 2:21:41
  all I took. Only the other day I had been luck to confiscate a
• 2:21:46
  musical box which plays selections from the Pirates. Ought to have had it with
• 2:21:50
  me in my swag. So affable and even charming was the quiet voice,
• 2:21:56
  so evident, the appreciation of the last inch of the cigar which had thawed
• 2:22:00
  a frozen pellet, and so conceivable a further softening that guy Kentish made bolder
• 2:22:05
  than before. He knew what he meant to do, he knew how he
• 2:22:09
  meant to do it. Yet it seemed just possible there might be a gentle
• 2:22:15
  a way. You don't always take things. I believe he hazarded, you
• 2:22:20
  mean after sticking up yes, generally, I fear it's the whole meaning of
• 2:22:26
  the act, confessed Stingery, still the dandy in turn and phrase. But
• 2:22:30
  there have been exceptions, exactly, quoth Kentish. Then there's going to be
• 2:22:35
  enough of this afternoon. Stingery hurled the stump of his cigar into the scrub
• 2:22:41
  without a word. The villain was born again, with his hard eyes,
• 2:22:45
  his harder mouth, his sinister scowl, his crag of a chin. So
• 2:22:50
  you come back to that, he cried harshly. I thought you had more
• 2:22:54
  sense. You will make me tie you up before your time. You may
• 2:22:58
  do exactly what you like, retorted Kenysh a galling scorn in his unaltered voice.
• 2:23:05
  Only before you do it, mayors will know who I am. My
• 2:23:11
  good sir, do you suppose I care who you are? Said Stingery with
• 2:23:16
  an angry laugh, and his anger is the rarest thing in all his annals.
• 2:23:22
  I am quite sure you don't, responded Kentish. But you mayors won't
• 2:23:26
  know my name, even though you've never heard it before, and he gave
• 2:23:30
  it with a touch of triumph, not for one moment to be confounded with
• 2:23:33
  a natural pride. The bush ranger stared him steadily in the eyes. His
• 2:23:39
  hand had dropped once more upon the butt of his revolver. No I never
• 2:23:45
  did hear it before, he said, I'm not surprised, replied the other
• 2:23:50
  I was a new member when you were turned out of the club. Stingery's
• 2:23:54
  hand closed. His eyes were terrible, and yet continued Kentych. The moment
• 2:24:01
  I saw you at close quarters in the road, I recognized you as Stingery,
• 2:24:07
  cried the Bushranger in a rich and vibrant note. Let the other name
• 2:24:11
  pass your lips even here, and it's the last word that ever will very
• 2:24:16
  well, said mister Kentish with his unaffected shrug. But you see, I
• 2:24:20
  know all about you. You're the only man who does in all Australia,
• 2:24:26
  exclaimed the outlaw hoarsely. At present, I sha'n't be the only man long,
• 2:24:33
  you will, said Stingarey through teeth and mustache, and he leaned over,
• 2:24:37
  revolver in hand. You'll be the only man ever, because instead of
• 2:24:41
  tying you up, I am going to shoot you. Kenoch threw up his
• 2:24:46
  head in sharp contempt. What said he sitting? Stingaree sprang to his feet
• 2:24:54
  in a fury. No I have a brace, he cried, catching the
• 2:24:58
  pack horse. You shall have the other if it makes you happy, but
• 2:25:01
  you'll be a dead man all the same. I can handle these things,
• 2:25:03
  and I shall shoot to kill. Let us All up with you, said
• 2:25:07
  Kentish, rising slowly in his turn, All up with me? What the
• 2:25:11
  devil do you mean? Unless I am at a certain place by a certain
• 2:25:16
  time, with or without those letters that are not yours, another letter will
• 2:25:20
  be opened. Stingery's stare gradually changed into a smile, A little vague,
• 2:25:28
  said he. Don't you think it should be as plain as you please?
• 2:25:33
  The letter I mean was scribbled on the coach before I got down. Twill
• 2:25:37
  only be opened if I don't return. It contains the name you can't bear
• 2:25:41
  to hear. There was a pause. The afternoon's sun was sinking with southern
• 2:25:46
  precipitancy, and Kentish had got his back to it by cool intent. He
• 2:25:52
  studied the play of suppressed mortification and strenuous philosophy in the swarthy face, warmed
• 2:25:58
  by the reddening light, and admired the arduous triumph of judgment over instinct,
• 2:26:03
  even as a certain admiration dawned through the monocle which insensibly focused his attention.
• 2:26:09
  I Suppose, said Stingery, suppose you return empty as you came, contemptuous
• 2:26:16
  kick sent a pack of letters spinning. I should feel under no obligation to
• 2:26:20
  keep your secret. Would you think I would trust you to keep it?
• 2:26:24
  Otherwise? If I gave you my word, said kentish, I know you
• 2:26:30
  would. Stingery made no immediate answer, but he gazed in the sun flayed
• 2:26:35
  face without suspicion. You wouldn't give me your word, he said at last,
• 2:26:41
  Oh yes I would. But you would die without letting that name pass
• 2:26:46
  your lips unless I died delirious, with all my heart, I have as
• 2:26:50
  much respect for it as you as much, echoed the Bushranger, in a
• 2:26:56
  strange blend of bitterness and obligation. But how could you explain the bags?
• 2:27:01
  How could you have taken them from me? Kent has shrugged once more.
• 2:27:07
  You left them. I found them who you were sleeping? But I was
• 2:27:11
  unarmed. You would lie like that to save my name and a man whom
• 2:27:16
  I remember perfectly. Stingery heard no more. He was down on his knees,
• 2:27:22
  collecting the letters into heaps and shoveling them into the bags, even the
• 2:27:26
  copy of Punch and the loose wrapper went in with the rest. You can't
• 2:27:31
  carry them, he said, when none remained outside, I'll take them for
• 2:27:35
  you and dump them on the track. I have to pass the time till
• 2:27:37
  midnight. I can manage them in two journeys. But Stingery insisted, presently
• 2:27:43
  stood ready to mount his mare. You give me your word, Kentish,
• 2:27:48
  my word of honor. It is something to have one to give. I
• 2:27:52
  shall not come back this way. We shall have the clear corner police on
• 2:27:56
  our tracks by moonlight, and the more they have to choose from, the
• 2:28:00
  better. So I must go. You have given me your word, you
• 2:28:05
  wouldn't care to give me. But his hand went out a little as he
• 2:28:07
  spoke, and Kentishes met at seven eighths of the way. Give this up,
• 2:28:11
  man, it's a poor game. When all's said, do give it
• 2:28:16
  up, urged the man of the world. With the warmth of the lad
• 2:28:20
  come back to England. And but the hand he had detained was wrenched from
• 2:28:22
  his and in the pink sunset sifted through the pines, Stingery vaulted into his
• 2:28:28
  saddle with an oath. With a price on my skin, he cried,
• 2:28:33
  and galloped from the gully with a bitter laugh, and in the moonlight,
• 2:28:39
  sure enough came bobbing horsemen with fluttering puggarees and short tunics with silver buttons.
• 2:28:43
  But they saw nothing of the missing passenger, who had carried the bag some
• 2:28:46
  distance down the road, and had found them quite a comfortable couch and a
• 2:28:50
  certain box clump commanding a sufficient view of the road. Nevertheless, when the
• 2:28:56
  little coach came swaying on its leathern springs its skull at an animal stain black
• 2:29:01
  as ink in the moonshine, he was on the spot to stop it with
• 2:29:03
  uplifted arms. Don't shoot, he cried, I'm the passenger you'll put down
• 2:29:09
  this afternoon. The driver nearly tumbled from his perch. What about my mail
• 2:29:16
  bags? He recovered himself enough to ask. But it was perfectly plain that
• 2:29:20
  the pretentiously intrepid passenger had been skulking all day in the scrub, scared by
• 2:29:24
  the terrors of the road. Dare in that clump, replied mister Kentish.
• 2:29:30
  And you can get them yourself, or send some one else for them,
• 2:29:33
  for I have carried them far enough that be blowed for a yarn. Cried
• 2:29:39
  the driver forgetting his benefits in the virtuous indignation of the moment, andn't wonder
• 2:29:45
  at your thinking at one, returned the other mildly, for I never had
• 2:29:48
  such absolute luck in all my life. And he went on to amplify his
• 2:29:54
  first lie like a man. But when the bags were really back in the
• 2:29:58
  coach piled ruth high on those of the downward mail, then it was worse
• 2:30:03
  fun for guy Kentish outside than even he had anticipated. Question followed question,
• 2:30:09
  compliment, capped compliment, and a certain unsteady undercurrent of incredulity by no means
• 2:30:15
  lessened his embarrassment. Had he but told the truth, he felt he could
• 2:30:20
  have borne the praise and indeed enjoyed it, for he'd done far better than
• 2:30:24
  anybody was likely to suppose. And already it was irritating to have to keep
• 2:30:28
  that circumstance as secret. Yet one thing he was able to say from his
• 2:30:31
  soul before the coach drew up at the next stage. You should have a
• 2:30:35
  spell here, the driver had suggested. Let me pick you up again on
• 2:30:41
  my way back. You'd soon lay hands on the bird himself. If you
• 2:30:43
  can put salt on as tail as you've done, and no one else can
• 2:30:48
  we want a few more charms like you, I dare say, And the
• 2:30:52
  new charm's tone bore its own significance. You don't mean, cried the driver
• 2:30:58
  to go and tell me you'll hurry home after this, only by the first
• 2:31:03
  steamer, said Guy Kentish, and he kept that word as well. End
• 2:31:09
  of chapter four the taking of Stingaree. Stingaree acrossed the Murray, and all
• 2:31:16
  Victoria was agog with the news. It was not as first descent upon that
• 2:31:20
  colony, nor likely to be as last unless sub inspector kill Bride, and
• 2:31:24
  as mounted mermidons did much better than they had done before. There is no
• 2:31:30
  stimulus, however, like a trembling reputation. Within four and twenty hours,
• 2:31:35
  Kilbride himself was on the track of the invader, whose heels he had never
• 2:31:37
  seen, much less his face, and he rode alone. Tis not merely
• 2:31:43
  his reputation that was at stake, though nothing could restore that more effectory than
• 2:31:46
  the single handed capture of sow notorious a desperade of Stingaree. The dashing officer
• 2:31:52
  was not unnaturally actuated by the sum of three hundred pounds now set upon the
• 2:31:56
  outlaw's person alive or dead. That would be a little windfall for one man,
• 2:32:01
  but not much to divide among five or six. On the other hand,
• 2:32:07
  and with all his faults, some Inspector kill Bride had courage enough to
• 2:32:11
  furnish forth a squadron. It was a black bearded, high cheeked Irish Australian
• 2:32:16
  keen and over eager to a disease, restless, irascible, but full of
• 2:32:20
  the fire and dash that makes dangerous an enemy. As another good fighter need
• 2:32:24
  desire, and as a fine fighter and an infamous cause, Stingaree had his
• 2:32:28
  admirers even in Victoria, with the old tale of popular sympathy. With a
• 2:32:33
  picturesque rascal was responsible for not the least of the souther Inspector's difficulties. But
• 2:32:39
  even this struck kill Bride as yet another of those obstacles which were more easily
• 2:32:43
  surmounted alone than at the head of a talkative squad And with that conviction he
• 2:32:48
  pushed his thoroughbred on and on through a whole cool night in three parts of
• 2:32:54
  an Australian summer's day imagined. Then his disgust at the apparition of a mounted
• 2:33:01
  trooper galloping to meet him in the middle of the afternoon and within a few
• 2:33:05
  miles of a former hiding place of the bush ranger, where the senior officer
• 2:33:09
  had strong hopes of finding and surprising him. Now, where the devil do
• 2:33:13
  you come from? Cried Kilbride, as the other rode up jumping creek.
• 2:33:18
  Was the crisp reply stationed there? Then why don't you stop there and do
• 2:33:22
  your duty? Stingery, said the laconic trooper. What do you think you're
• 2:33:28
  after him too? I am after him, so am I. Then you're
• 2:33:33
  going in the wrong direction. Kilbride flushed a warm brown from beard to Helbert.
• 2:33:41
  Do you know who you're speaking to? Cried he? Oh, I'm
• 2:33:45
  so inspectacure braid in this business's my business. You know where the man's in
• 2:33:48
  this colony. You'll go back to your barracks, sir. You're not going
• 2:33:52
  to have every dunn full in the forest, chargingerund the country in his elder
• 2:33:56
  coat. The trooper was a dark, smart, a young fellow of a
• 2:34:01
  tight not easily brow beaten or subdued, and discipline is not the strong point
• 2:34:05
  of forces so irregular as the mounted police of a Crescent colony. But nothing
• 2:34:11
  could have been more admirable than the manner in which this rebuke was received.
• 2:34:16
  Very well, sir, if you wish it, But I can assure you
• 2:34:18
  that you are off the track of stingery. How do you know, asked
• 2:34:24
  Kilbride rudely, But he was beginning to look less black. I happen to
• 2:34:28
  know the place. You would have some difficulty in finding it if you'd never
• 2:34:31
  been there before. And he stumbled across it by accident myself lately one day
• 2:34:37
  last winter, when I was out looking for some horses, and you kept
• 2:34:39
  it to yourself. The trooper hung his head. I knew we should have
• 2:34:45
  him across the river again, he said, so, only a question of
• 2:34:46
  time. And well, sir, you can understand you were keener taking him
• 2:34:52
  yourself. Were you as keen as you are? Mister Kilbride owned the younger
• 2:34:56
  man, raising bold eyes and looking as superior fairly as squarely in the face.
• 2:35:01
  Kilbride returned the stair, and what he saw unsettled him. The other
• 2:35:07
  was wiry, trim, eminently alert. He had the masterful mouth and the
• 2:35:11
  dare devil lie, and his horse seemed a part of himself. A more
• 2:35:16
  promising comrade at hot work was not to be desired. The work would be
• 2:35:20
  hot of stingery at half a chance. After all, was better for two
• 2:35:24
  to succeed than for one to fail. Harf the muddy in a whole skin,
• 2:35:28
  said Kilbride to himself. He wrapped out his decision with an oath.
• 2:35:33
  The trooper's eyes lit with reckless mirth, and a soft cheer came from under
• 2:35:39
  his breath. Boy theburry, what's your name, said Kilbride, before we
• 2:35:43
  start? Bowen, Jack, Bowen? Then ain't no a look at you?
• 2:35:48
  Where on earth them should tell me before to assure that took that black
• 2:35:52
  fellow who murdered the shepherd a wolfshad creek, wasn't it? The admission was
• 2:35:56
  made with due modesty. Way, you're the very man for me, Kilbride
• 2:36:01
  cried, Who show the way, Jack, and now make the gully.
• 2:36:05
  And off they went together at a canter, the slanting sun striking fire from
• 2:36:09
  their buttons and accoutermore and lighting their sunburnt faces as it lit the red stems
• 2:36:15
  and the white that raced past them on either side. For a little they
• 2:36:20
  followed the path which Kilbride had taken on his way thither, and the trooper
• 2:36:24
  plunged into a thick bush on the left, and the game became follow my
• 2:36:28
  leader in and out, out and in through a maze of red stems and
• 2:36:31
  of white, and the pungent eucalyptus scent hung heavy as the sage green perpendicular
• 2:36:37
  leaves themselves, and so onward till the sum inspector called a hold horrifar is
• 2:36:41
  it now bowing two or three miles? Sir? Good? It be late
• 2:36:46
  for another hour and a half. We pickted the molks a breather while we
• 2:36:50
  can, and there we no harm and two drawers. I was just thinking
• 2:36:54
  the same thing, sir. So they rains dangled while they cut up a
• 2:36:58
  pipe full of apparent shoe leather piece. And presently the dull blue smoke was
• 2:37:01
  curling and circling against the dull green foliage, producing subtle half tinted harmonies and
• 2:37:07
  momentary arabesques as the horses ambled neck and neck. Nature of this colony,
• 2:37:13
  paughed Gilbride. Well, no er old country originally, but have been out
• 2:37:18
  some years. That's all right, as long as you're not a new South
• 2:37:20
  Welshman, said Kilbride with a chuckle. I'll be shot if I wouldn't almost
• 2:37:26
  have turned you back if you had been. Victoria is to have all the
• 2:37:28
  creditors, she said, anyway, they shan't have any on the other side,
• 2:37:31
  or I'll know the reason. The Victorian swore, why why by jove,
• 2:37:37
  oh it is leaf loose my man again as let them have a hand
• 2:37:41
  in taking him. But why why do you live so near the border?
• 2:37:46
  And you can ask, did you never hear Sydney sided drover blown about his
• 2:37:50
  bloomin colony? Have you never heard of Sydney Harbor till you're sick? And
• 2:37:56
  then they're papers? Cried Kilbride, with columns in his tone. But only
• 2:38:00
  have the last laugh yet a sworer wood and a whim, a sphorid text
• 2:38:03
  stingery. So I heard, yes, they put it in their infernal papers,
• 2:38:09
  But it was true. Take her I win, or die in the
• 2:38:13
  intente, or die and be dumbed to me. All the bitterness of previous
• 2:38:18
  failure deed. A notorious and much criticized defeat, was in the Southernspector's tone
• 2:38:24
  that of his subordinate, though light as air had a touch of insolence.
• 2:38:26
  But an outsider could not have failed that Kilbride was too excited to detect the
• 2:38:33
  outsider might possibly have foreseen a rivalry which no longer entered Kilbride's hot head.
• 2:38:39
  Meanwhile, the country was changing, even with their now leisurely advanced. The
• 2:38:43
  timbered flats in the region of the river had merged into a gully which was
• 2:38:46
  rapidly developing into a gorge with new, luxuriant growths, which added greatly to
• 2:38:50
  the density of the forest, Suggesting its very heart, The almost neutral eucalyptian
• 2:38:56
  tint was splashed with the gay hues of many parrots, as though the gum
• 2:39:00
  trees had burst into flower. The noise of running water stole gradually through the
• 2:39:05
  murmur of leaves, and suddenly an object in the grass struck the sight like
• 2:39:09
  a lantern flashed at dead of night. It proved to be an empty sardine
• 2:39:15
  tin, pricked by a stray lance from the slanting sun. We must be
• 2:39:20
  near, whispered Kilbride. We are there. You hear the creek. Here's
• 2:39:24
  a gunya there, that's all. Should we rush it on horseback or creep
• 2:39:28
  up on foot? You'll know the lay of the land. Women, whish
• 2:39:31
  do you recommend rushing it? Then? Here goes in a few seconds,
• 2:39:37
  they leaped their horses into a tiny clearing on the banks of a creek as
• 2:39:41
  relatively minute, and the Gunya a mere funnel of boughs and leaves in which
• 2:39:46
  a man could lie at full length. They only set upright at the funnel's
• 2:39:50
  mouth, seemed as empty as the space on every hand. The only other
• 2:39:54
  sign of stingery was a hank of rope flung carelessly across the gunya roof.
• 2:40:01
  He may be watching us from among the trees, muttered Kilbride, looking sharply
• 2:40:05
  about him. Bowen screwed up his eyes and followed, suit, I hardly
• 2:40:09
  think it, mister Kilbride, but it is possible, and here we sit
• 2:40:13
  for him to pot us. Let's dismount whether or no. This slid to
• 2:40:18
  the ground. The trooper found himself at the mouth of the Gunya. But
• 2:40:22
  if he were in there after all, said he He isn't, said Kilbride,
• 2:40:26
  stepping in front and stooping quickly. But you might creep in, Jack
• 2:40:30
  and see if he's left any sign of leash behind him. The man was
• 2:40:33
  standing between the horses. The revolver was cot Bowen's answer was to hand his
• 2:40:39
  weapon over to Kilbride, and creep into the gunyar on his hands and knees.
• 2:40:43
  Here's something or other, his voice cried thickly from within, as half
• 2:40:46
  buried. But wait a bit, a sharpishire can all right, But it's
• 2:40:52
  a box and jolly heavy. Kilbride appeared nervously to right, left and center.
• 2:41:00
  Then his eyes fell upon his companion, wriggling back into the open,
• 2:41:03
  a shallow oblong box in his arms. It's polished, dimmed, and dusted
• 2:41:07
  with the mold, as though they had violated a grave. Kick it open,
• 2:41:13
  exclaimed Kilbride excitedly. But there was no need for that. The box
• 2:41:18
  was not even locked, and the lifted lid revealed an inner, one of
• 2:41:22
  glass, protecting a brass cylinder with steel bristles and uneven growth, and a
• 2:41:26
  long line of Liliputian hammers. A musical box, said the staggered sub inspector.
• 2:41:33
  That's it, sir, I remember hearing that he collared one on one
• 2:41:37
  of the stations he stuck up last time he was down here, must have
• 2:41:39
  lain on the ground ever since then. He shows how hard you must have
• 2:41:43
  pressed him, mister Kilbride. Yes, they hided him back across the Murray.
• 2:41:48
  Soon as they heard of Mahdrevich's rejoined the other room grim Bravado. Anything
• 2:41:52
  else in the gun? Ya O he took that trip. I fancy if
• 2:41:56
  we dig a bit. He never gave him time to roll his swag.
• 2:42:00
  We must ever look, said Kilbride, his excitement fed by his reviving vanity.
• 2:42:07
  The other questioned whether it were worth while. This settled the souther inspector.
• 2:42:11
  Who may be something to shore where he is gone, that Casuist suggested,
• 2:42:16
  for I don't believe he is anywhere here? Shall I held the salutor,
• 2:42:18
  sir, facts and keep your aise open. Just in kiss. It
• 2:42:22
  is my opinion that the birds flown somewherets, and it's thrush to find out
• 2:42:26
  where. Kilbride then crept into the gun near on his hands and knees,
• 2:42:31
  and found it less dark than he had supposed, the light filtering freely through
• 2:42:35
  the leaves and branches. At the inner extremity, he found a mildewed blanket,
• 2:42:39
  and the place for the musical box had evidently laid a long time.
• 2:42:43
  But there, though we delved to the elbows and the loosened earth, his
• 2:42:46
  discoveries ended puzzled and annoyed, Kilbride was on the verge of cursing his subordinate,
• 2:42:54
  nor at once he was given fresh cause. The musical box had burst
• 2:42:56
  into selections from the pirates of Penz. What the deuce are you at?
• 2:43:03
  Shouted the irate officer, nearly seeing how it goes? Stop at at once,
• 2:43:07
  you full he may hear it? You said, the bird had flown?
• 2:43:11
  Who dare to argue with me? By thunder you should see? But
• 2:43:13
  it was some inspector kill Bride who saw most backing precipitately out of the gun
• 2:43:18
  Ya. He turned round before rising upright, and remained upon his knees.
• 2:43:24
  After all, he was covered by two revolvers, one of them his own.
• 2:43:31
  The face behind the barrels was the one with which the last hour had
• 2:43:33
  familiarized to kill Bride. The only difference was the single eye glass and the
• 2:43:39
  right eye, and the strains of the musical box so thin and tinkling in
• 2:43:43
  the open air filled with the paws. What in blazers are you playing at?
• 2:43:50
  Laughed the luckless officer, feigning to treat the affair as a joke,
• 2:43:54
  even while the iron truth was entering his soul. By inches rise another inch,
• 2:43:58
  without myn and you may be in blazes to see. Look here,
• 2:44:03
  bone, what do you mean? Only that Stingery happens to be at home?
• 2:44:07
  After all, mister Kilbride, the victim's grin was no longer forced.
• 2:44:13
  The situation made for laughter, even if the laughter were hysterical, And for
• 2:44:18
  an instant it was given even to Kilbride to see the cruel humor of it.
• 2:44:22
  Then he realized all it meant to him certain ruin or a sudden death,
• 2:44:28
  and the drops stood thick upon his skin. What if boone? He
• 2:44:33
  at length asked hoarsely. The idea of another victim came as a slight alleviation
• 2:44:39
  of his own grotesque case. I didn't kill him, said Stingery, Good,
• 2:44:43
  said Kilbride, with something, that two of them should live to share
• 2:44:46
  the shame. But Wiingham I did, added the bushranger. I couldn't help
• 2:44:50
  myself. The beggar put a bullet through my hat, did well early to
• 2:44:54
  get one back in the leg. Kilbride longed to be wakened and wounded in
• 2:44:58
  his turn, since blood alone could lessen his disgrace. On cooler reflection,
• 2:45:03
  however, it was obviously wiser to feign a surrender more abject than it might
• 2:45:07
  finally prove to have been well, said Kilbride. You have the whip hand
• 2:45:13
  over me this tame, and I give you the best. How long are
• 2:45:16
  you going to keep me on my knees? You can get up when you
• 2:45:18
  like, replied Stingery, if you promise not to play the full So you
• 2:45:24
  are really going to take me this time? Were you? I have really
• 2:45:26
  no desire to rub a ding, But if I were you, I should
• 2:45:28
  have kept that to myself until I had done it. If you wanted to
• 2:45:33
  have me all to yourself, well you couldn't pay me a higher compliment,
• 2:45:37
  But I am going to pay you a high one and return. You really
• 2:45:39
  did make me run for it last time and leave all sorts of things behind,
• 2:45:43
  so this time I mean to take them with me and leave you here
• 2:45:48
  instead. Nevertheless, you're the only Victorian trap I have any respect for,
• 2:45:52
  mister Kilbride, or I shouldn't have gone to all this trouble to get you
• 2:45:56
  here. Kilbride did not blanch, but he heard it apparent doom with a
• 2:46:01
  glittering eye, and was deaf for a little to the pirates of Penzance.
• 2:46:05
  Oh I'm not going to harm a good man like you, continued Stingery,
• 2:46:09
  unless you make me your friend. Bowen made me. But you don't promise
• 2:46:13
  to fire low every time. Mark you. There's another good man on the
• 2:46:16
  other side, Cairns by name. You know him, do he'll kick up
• 2:46:20
  his heels when he hears at this. They do no better in New South
• 2:46:24
  Wales. So don't let that worry you. Think you held both shooters at
• 2:46:26
  one stage of the game. I trusted you and so you trusted me.
• 2:46:31
  Felly, you would known. Eh. Hear that tune and know what it
• 2:46:35
  is. It's in your honor, mister Kilbride, and Stingery hummed the Policeman's
• 2:46:39
  chorus sotto voce, but before the end, with a swift remorse, induced
• 2:46:46
  by the dignity of Kilbride's bearing and a humiliating disaster, he swooped upon the
• 2:46:50
  insolent instrument and stopped its tinkle by touching the lever with one revolver barrel,
• 2:46:54
  while sedulously covering his souther inspector with the other. The sudden cessation of the
• 2:47:00
  toy music, bringing back into undue prominence all the little bush noises which had
• 2:47:05
  filled the air before, brought home to Kilbride, a position which he had
• 2:47:09
  subconsciously associated with those malevolent strains of something theatrical and unreal. He had known
• 2:47:16
  in his heart that it was real, without grasping the reality until now.
• 2:47:20
  He flung up his fists in sudden entreaty. Put a bullet through me,
• 2:47:24
  he cried, If you're a man, stingery shook a decisive head. Not
• 2:47:28
  if I can help it, said he. But I fear I shall have
• 2:47:31
  to tie you up. That's slow death, never has been yet. But
• 2:47:35
  you must take your chance. Give me that rope that's stung over the Gunya,
• 2:47:39
  it's got to be done. Kilbride obeyed with apparent apathy, but his
• 2:47:45
  heart was inflamed with a sudden and infernal glow. Yes, it had never
• 2:47:50
  ended in death in any case that he could recall at this time. On
• 2:47:54
  a trick of all the bush rangers on the contrary, sooner or later,
• 2:47:58
  most vic contrived to release themselves. Well, one victim was going to complete
• 2:48:05
  his release by hanging himself by the same rope to the same tree. Meanwhile,
• 2:48:09
  he confronted his captor grimly. The coil in both hands. There's a
• 2:48:13
  loop at one end, said Stingery, stick your foot through it, either
• 2:48:16
  foot you like. Kill Bride obeyed, wondering whether his head would go through
• 2:48:22
  when his turn came. Now chuck me the other end. It fell in
• 2:48:26
  coils at the bush. Ranger's feet. Now stand up against that blue gum,
• 2:48:30
  he continued, pointing at the tree, with kill Bride's revolver, his
• 2:48:33
  own being back at his hip, and standstill like a sensible chair. Stingery
• 2:48:39
  then walked round and round the tree, paying up the long rope, yet
• 2:48:41
  keeping it taut till look wound round tree and man from the latter's ankles to
• 2:48:46
  his armpits Instinctively, Kilbride had kept his arms free to the last. There
• 2:48:50
  were no use to him in his suit of hemp, and one after another
• 2:48:54
  his wrists were pinned and handcuffed behind the tree. Steel came as a shock.
• 2:49:01
  The captive had counted on loosening the knots by degrees, beginning with those
• 2:49:05
  about his hands. There was no loosening steel. Guives like these. He
• 2:49:11
  knew the field of them too well. They would kill Bride's own that he
• 2:49:13
  had brought with him for Stingery found them in your saddle bags while you were
• 2:49:18
  in by Gunya, explained the bushrangers, stepping round to survey his work.
• 2:49:22
  Sorry to see the kid, so to speak, But you see you and
• 2:49:24
  my most dangerous enemy, the side of the murray. The enemy did not
• 2:49:30
  look very dangerous as he stood on the dusk and the heart of that forest,
• 2:49:33
  lashed to that tree with his finger tips not quite meeting behind it,
• 2:49:37
  and the blood already on his wrists. And no, he whispered hoarse,
• 2:49:41
  already his lips cracking his throat, part, I shall give you a drink
• 2:49:46
  before I go, and won't take one from you. I shall make you,
• 2:49:50
  for I have to be a bigger brute than ever. We must live
• 2:49:52
  to spin this yarn, never Stingarey smiled to himself as he produced pipe and
• 2:49:58
  tobacco. But it was not a sinister smile, twas rather that of the
• 2:50:03
  victor who salutes the vanquished in his heart. Meanwhile, the more striking and
• 2:50:07
  a more subtle change had come over the face of Kilbride. Twas not joy,
• 2:50:11
  but it was a new grimness, and in his preoccupation the bush ranger
• 2:50:16
  did not notice it at all. He sauntered nearer with his knife and his
• 2:50:20
  tobacco plug. There was some compassion in his pensive stare. Cheer up Man
• 2:50:26
  said he there's no disgrace in coming out second best to me. You may
• 2:50:31
  smile. You will find it's generally admitted in New South Wales. After all,
• 2:50:37
  didn't tell little crooked Cairns how it happened, so that stops your smile.
• 2:50:41
  But he's the best man left on my tracks. Or I shouldn't be
• 2:50:43
  surprised if he's the first to find you, damn Or should I said a
• 2:50:48
  harsh voice behind the bush Ranger hands up in empty Stingery, for you're the
• 2:50:54
  next dead man, and this little carlony quick ast thought Stingery stepped in front
• 2:50:58
  of the tide Victoria, but his hands were up and his eyeglass dangling on
• 2:51:03
  its string. Now you don't catch me kill two beds, rasped the newcomer's
• 2:51:09
  voice. Though I'm not sure which of you will be least loss. Stingery
• 2:51:13
  stood aside once more and waved his hands without lowering them, bowing from his
• 2:51:16
  captor to his captive as he did so, superintended Cairns of New South Wales.
• 2:51:22
  Inspector kill Bride of Victoria said he, you two men will be glad
• 2:51:26
  to know each other. The new South Welshman drawed out a dry expression of
• 2:51:30
  his own satisfaction. It was a strange and striking personality, dark as a
• 2:51:35
  mulatto, and round shouldered to the extent of some distinct deformity. He carried
• 2:51:39
  his eyes high under the lids, and shot his piercing glance from under the
• 2:51:43
  penthouse of a beakling brow. Lipless mouth was pursed in such a fashion as
• 2:51:48
  to shorten the upper lip and exaggerate in an already powerful chin, and a
• 2:51:52
  stooping and intent carriage was no less suggestive of the human sleuth hound than were
• 2:51:58
  the veiled vigilance and dogged determination of the lowered face. Such was the man
• 2:52:03
  who had succeeded where Kilbride had failed, succeeded at the most humiliating moment of
• 2:52:09
  that most ignominious failure, and who came unwarrantably from the wrong side of the
• 2:52:13
  murray. Victorian stood in his bonds and favored his rival with such a glare
• 2:52:20
  as he had not leveled at Stingery himself. But not a syllable did kill
• 2:52:24
  Bride vouchsafe, and the Superintendent was fully occupied with his prisoner. Lettle Crocker.
• 2:52:31
  Keynes, am, I there are those that look a jolly side spailer,
• 2:52:35
  and I'll have a worse hump than mine for the rest of their born
• 2:52:39
  days. Come nearer and tell your back. And the revolver was withdrawn from
• 2:52:45
  its carrier on the stolen constabulary belt. The Bushranger was then searched for other
• 2:52:50
  weapons, then marched into the bush at Pistol's point, and brought back handcuffed
• 2:52:54
  to the Superintendent's bridle. That's the way you'll come, marching ham now,
• 2:52:58
  boy, and one of us in horseback each side. Don't trust you in
• 2:53:03
  a saddle and a dark night. Indeed, it was nearly dark already,
• 2:53:07
  and the nebulous middle distance, a laughing jackass was indulging in his evening peal.
• 2:53:13
  Keern jerked his head in the direction of the unearthly cackle. Lots of
• 2:53:16
  them down here in Vicker, I believe, said he, and at length
• 2:53:20
  turned his attention to the bound man. You see, I wanted to land
• 2:53:24
  him alive in kicking without spilling blood. He continued, opening his knife.
• 2:53:28
  That's why I had to let him tie you up. You lash him,
• 2:53:31
  stunnered the Victorian, breaking his silence of the bellow was as though the man
• 2:53:35
  with the knife had cut through the rope into the bound man's body. Stand
• 2:53:39
  still, said he, Or I may hurt you, or had to let
• 2:53:43
  him, my good fellow, would he been dropping each other like bullocks?
• 2:53:46
  As it is nor a scratch between us. Though I found young Bowen in
• 2:53:50
  a pretty bad way. Our friend had stuck up jumping creep barracks in the
• 2:53:54
  small hours. Put a bullet through Boward's lee and come away in his uniform.
• 2:54:00
  All that, Eh, shouldn't wonder if you'd swing him for it alone
• 2:54:03
  down here in Vic. No doubt you've got to be more severe in a
• 2:54:05
  young colony. But I tracked my gentleman at the barracks and I found Bowing
• 2:54:09
  in his blood. Sent my trooper for a doctor, and got on your
• 2:54:13
  tracks before they were half an hour old. I'll come up with you.
• 2:54:18
  Just as he stuck you up. He'd won on each hand wasn't quite good
• 2:54:22
  enough at the moment, book knife snare through the rope for the last time,
• 2:54:26
  and it lay in short ends all round the tree. You're my hands,
• 2:54:31
  cried Kilbride fiercely. I beg pardon, said the satirical superintendent. My
• 2:54:37
  hans, I tell you. Is it it a word they teach them to
• 2:54:41
  say at our state skills? Perhaps you've never heard it down in Vic.
• 2:54:46
  Don't be a silly fool, said Kilbride wearily. You haven't been through what
• 2:54:50
  I have. That's true, said Kenns. Still you might be decently civil
• 2:54:56
  to the man that gets you out of a mess. Nevertheless, the the
• 2:55:00
  handcuffs were immediately removed at that instant, with the courteous thanks some inspector.
• 2:55:05
  Kilbride sprang forward with such a vigorous intent that the other detained them forcibly by
• 2:55:09
  one of the stiff and aching arms. What are you after now, Kilbride,
• 2:55:13
  my prisoner, you are white, My prisoner, I said, oh
• 2:55:18
  I like that? And you his Kilbride burst into voluble defense of his position.
• 2:55:24
  What rate if you on this side of them? Marry you Sydney Cider,
• 2:55:28
  None at all except as a passenger. You can't lay finger a man,
• 2:55:31
  woman or chair in this colony, and by god you shan't nor yet
• 2:55:35
  upon the three hundred beers on his head, and the sons of convicts done
• 2:55:39
  in Sydney Cup dashed their paper and smoke it. For all his cool and
• 2:55:43
  ready insolence the Misshape and Superintendent from the other side, still dazed and bewildered
• 2:55:46
  by this volcanic outpouring. Then his dark face flushed darker. With a snarl,
• 2:55:52
  he clinched his fists. The Victorian, however, it turned on his
• 2:55:56
  heel, and now his liberated hands flew skywood, as though the bush Ranger's
• 2:56:01
  revolver covered him yet again. But there was no such weapon discernable through the
• 2:56:07
  shade, no new South Welshman's horse, and neither sight, sound wraith,
• 2:56:11
  nor echo of Stingery, the outlawed bush Ranger, the terror and the despair
• 2:56:16
  of the sister colonies. Or it may be done, when a sure how
• 2:56:20
  you've fixed him, said Kilbride, cheerfully, dors Becker's can rade, lying
• 2:56:24
  down or standin' up. I believe you saw him clear, Or settle that
• 2:56:30
  with you when I've caught him. You catch him, you gum sucker,
• 2:56:33
  when you as good as let him go. And a volley of further and
• 2:56:37
  more trenchant abuse was discharged by Superintendent Cairns of the New South Wales Police,
• 2:56:43
  that Kilbride was already in the saddle a covert outward kicked with a spurred heel,
• 2:56:48
  and the third horse went cantering, riderless into the trees. He won't
• 2:56:54
  go far, sang the south Inspector, and you'll take your safe back to
• 2:56:58
  barracks. You shall give him his head. It's easy to get pushed in
• 2:57:01
  this country for new charms from penal settlements. As the Victorian galloped into the
• 2:57:07
  darkness and the New South Welshman dashed wildly out of the third horse, the
• 2:57:11
  laughing Jackass in the invisible middle distance gave his last grotesque defour at departed day.
• 2:57:18
  And the laughing Jackass is a Victorian bird. End of chapter five,
• 2:57:24
  The Honor of the Road. Sergeant Cameron was undressing for bed when he first
• 2:57:28
  heard the voices through the weatherboard walls. Less than a minute there was a
• 2:57:33
  knock at his door. He is mist a hard castle from Razanna, say,
• 2:57:37
  he says, he must see you at once. The juicy he does?
• 2:57:41
  What about? He says, he'll any tell you, but he's ridden
• 2:57:45
  over in three hours. If he looks like the dead, give him some
• 2:57:48
  whiskey, tyler and tell him I'll be down in two ticks, So saying
• 2:57:54
  the gray bearded sergeant of the New South Wales, mounted police, tucked the
• 2:57:58
  nightgown into his cord breech, slipped into his tunic, and hastened to the
• 2:58:01
  parlor, which served as court room on occasion, buttoning as he went.
• 2:58:07
  Mister Hardcastle had a glass to his lips as the sergeant entered. Was a
• 2:58:11
  very fine man of forty and as passive fraying was crowned with a countenance as
• 2:58:16
  handsome as it was open and bold. But at a glance it was plain
• 2:58:20
  that he was both shaken and exhausted, and in no mood to hide either
• 2:58:22
  as fatigue or his distress. Sergeant Camberon sat down on the other side of
• 2:58:28
  the oval table with the faded cloth. The younger constable had left the room
• 2:58:33
  when Hardcastle called him back. I go, Tyler said he you may as
• 2:58:39
  well both. Hear what I've got to say. It's it's Stingerye. The
• 2:58:46
  name was echoed at in incredulous undertones. But he's down, and vic urged
• 2:58:50
  the sergeant. He's been giving our chaps a devil of a time down there.
• 2:58:54
  He's gone back of saying him with my own eyes. But I'm beginning
• 2:59:00
  at the wrong way end first, said the squatter, taking another sip,
• 2:59:03
  then sitting back to survey his hearers. You know old Duncan, my overseer.
• 2:59:09
  The sergeant nodded, of course, you know him, The other continued,
• 2:59:13
  so does the whole back country. That even before he won this fortune
• 2:59:18
  in the Merwyn Cups sweep. I suppose you've heard how he took the news.
• 2:59:22
  He was fuddling himself from his own bottle on Sunday afternoon when the mail
• 2:59:26
  came first. I knew it was when I saw him sitting with his letter
• 2:59:31
  in his hand and throwing out the rest of his growl with the other.
• 2:59:35
  Then he told us he had won the first prize of thirty thousand, that
• 2:59:39
  he'd made up his mind of his next drink in his own place in Scotland.
• 2:59:43
  He left us that afternoon to catch the coach and go down to Sydney
• 2:59:46
  for his money. You ought to be him back this evening before sundown.
• 2:59:52
  The sergeant put in his word that he ought or I saw him come off
• 2:59:56
  the coach and start for the station as soon as they'd run up the horse
• 2:59:58
  he'd left behind him at the I wondered what had brought him if he were
• 3:00:03
  so set on getting back to the old country, and I could tell you,
• 3:00:07
  said Hardcastle, after some little hesitation, then I may as well.
• 3:00:11
  Poor old Duncan was most generous of men, and nothing would serve him but
• 3:00:16
  that for every soul and Rosanna should share more or less in his good fortune.
• 3:00:22
  I'm ashamed to tell you how much he spoke of pressing on myself.
• 3:00:26
  We have probably heard that one of his peculiarities was that he would never take
• 3:00:30
  payment by check like other people, and I believe it was because he had
• 3:00:35
  knocked down too many checks in his day. In any case, we used
• 3:00:39
  to call him hard cash Duncan on Rosanna, and I'm very much afraid that
• 3:00:43
  when you saw him, he must have had the whole of his thirty thousand
• 3:00:46
  pounds upon him, and the hardest form of cash. But what has happened,
• 3:00:50
  mister Hardcastle, The very worst, said Hardcastle. Stooping to sip.
• 3:00:56
  The three heads came closer together across the fade tablecloth. There was no sign
• 3:01:01
  of them at seven. You ought to have been with us before six.
• 3:01:05
  We had done our best to make an occasion, and it seemed that the
• 3:01:09
  dinner would be spoiled. So at seven, young Evans, my store keeper
• 3:01:13
  went off at a gallop to meet him, and at twenty five past he
• 3:01:18
  came galloping back, leading a riderless horse. It was the one you saw
• 3:01:24
  Duncan riding this afternoon. There was blood upon the saddle, and I found
• 3:01:28
  it. Then with another hour it found the poor old boy himself dead and
• 3:01:33
  cold in the middle of the track, with a bullet through his heart.
• 3:01:37
  The squatter's voice trembled with an emotion that did him honor in his hearer's eyes.
• 3:01:43
  The gray bearded sergeant waited a little before asking questions, what makes you
• 3:01:48
  think it a stinger ree? He inquired at length. Early saw him on
• 3:01:52
  the run with my own eyes this morning. I passed him in one of
• 3:01:56
  my paddocks, as close as I am to you, and asked him if
• 3:02:00
  he was looking for the homestead. He asked that he was only riding through,
• 3:02:05
  and we neither of us stopped. But you knew all the time that
• 3:02:09
  it was stingery. No, to be quite honest, replied Hardcastle, I
• 3:02:15
  never dreamt of it at the time, but now I'm quite positive on the
• 3:02:18
  point. He hadn't his eye glass in his eye, but it was dangling
• 3:02:22
  on its court all right. There was the cold mustache, and the boots
• 3:02:26
  and breeches that one knows all about, one has never seen them for oneself.
• 3:02:31
  Yet I own it didn't dawn on me just then, having to be
• 3:02:33
  thinking of the stations round about, and wondering if they were as burnt up
• 3:02:39
  as we are. When I met this swell, I simply took him for
• 3:02:41
  a new charm on one or other of them. It had been robbery,
• 3:02:46
  of course, an absolute clearance, said Hardcastle. The valise had been cut
• 3:02:50
  to ribbons with a knife, and its other contents were strewn all about.
• 3:02:56
  A pocket book we found still bouldering for the roll of notes which have been
• 3:02:58
  taken out. I waited beside him while Evans went back for the buggy,
• 3:03:03
  and when they started to take him in, I rode on to you.
• 3:03:07
  We'll ride back with you at once, said the sergeant, and find you
• 3:03:11
  a fresh horse if your own has had enough run up the lot tyler and
• 3:03:16
  mister Cardcastle can take his choice. Seems clear enough, continued Cameron, as
• 3:03:20
  the trooper disappeared. But this is in you departure for stingery, the very
• 3:03:26
  thing that everybody said he would never do, And that is the logical climax.
• 3:03:31
  Of his career might have happened long ago, but it's not as first
• 3:03:35
  blood as it is, argued Hardcastle. When he had rained his glass,
• 3:03:39
  didn't he wing one of you darn in Victoria the other day? Your bush
• 3:03:43
  ranger is bound to come to it sooner or later. He may much prefer
• 3:03:48
  not to shoot. He's only going to get up against a man of his
• 3:03:50
  own caliber as Resululton, as well armed as himself to have no choice in
• 3:03:56
  the matter. Poor old Duncan was the very type he would never have given
• 3:04:01
  way. In fact, we found him with his own revolver fast in his
• 3:04:05
  hand and a finger frozen to the trigger, and not a chamber discharged.
• 3:04:11
  Yes, that that settles it. And it must have been foul play,
• 3:04:16
  cried Cameron, turning a doubt in its dismissal. And we mustn't lose a
• 3:04:20
  single minute in getting on those Blaggard's tracks. It was midnight before the little
• 3:04:24
  cavalcade set out upon a ride of over thirty miles, for arrangements had to
• 3:04:30
  be made for a telegram to be sent to the glen Randold coroner first thing
• 3:04:33
  in the morning, and to ensure this it was necessary to disturb the postmaster,
• 3:04:37
  who occupied one of the three weather board dwellings which constituted the roadside hamlet
• 3:04:41
  of Clear Corner. A round moon topped the sand hills. As the trio
• 3:04:48
  rode away, it was near its almost dazzling zenith when they rained up at
• 3:04:52
  the scene of the murder. This was at a point where the sandy track
• 3:04:56
  ran through a belt of scrub. The got off to examine the ground with
• 3:05:01
  Hardcastle, while Tyler mounted guard in the saddle. But nothing of importance was
• 3:05:07
  discovered by the pair on foot, and nothing seen or heard by their mounted
• 3:05:11
  comrade. They found the station still astir and faintly aglow in the veiled daylight
• 3:05:16
  of the moon. A cluster of the men stood in a glare at the
• 3:05:20
  door of their hut. The traveler's hut betrayed the like symptoms of excitement.
• 3:05:24
  At the kitchen door were more men with pannikins and odd glimpses of a fire
• 3:05:28
  lit, white capped face within. But on the broad veranda sat two young
• 3:05:33
  men with their backs to a closed and darkened window. And beyond the window
• 3:05:37
  lay all that remained of an elderly man, whose brown, gnarled face was
• 3:05:41
  scarcely recognizable by the newcomers in its strange smooth pallor, but his grizzled beard
• 3:05:48
  weirdly familiar and still crisp with lingering life. The coroner arrived in some thirty
• 3:05:54
  hours which had brought forth nothing new. His jury was drawn from the men's
• 3:05:58
  hut and rabbit as tents, and after a prolonged but inconclusive investigation, the
• 3:06:03
  inquest was adjourned for a week. But the seven days were as barren as
• 3:06:07
  the first, and a verdict against some person unknown a foregorne result. This
• 3:06:13
  did not satisfy the many who were positive that they knew the person, for
• 3:06:18
  Stingery had been seen a hundred miles lower down, doubtless on his way back
• 3:06:22
  to Victoria, with his appearance altered in a telltale manner. But the coroner
• 3:06:26
  thought he knew better than anybody else and had his way, notwithstanding the manifest
• 3:06:31
  feeling on the long Verandah when he held his court, so jurors and spectators
• 3:06:35
  drifted back to hut and tent and neighboring station. The coroner started in his
• 3:06:41
  buggy for Glen Ranold. Last of all the police departed, leading the horse
• 3:06:45
  which Hardcastle had ridden home from their barracks, leaving him at peace once more
• 3:06:50
  with his two young men. But on the squatter the time had told.
• 3:06:54
  His table had been full to overflowing through it all, and he sank into
• 3:06:58
  a long chair, a trifle grayer at the temples, a thought looser in
• 3:07:03
  his dress, as the puggarees of Cameron and Tyler fluttered out of sight.
• 3:07:09
  I think we might have a drink, he said with a wry smile to
• 3:07:11
  Evans, who fetched the decanter from the store. The jackaroo was called from
• 3:07:16
  a stable to become augean during the week, when the three were still mildly
• 3:07:22
  tippling. When the store keeper came to his feet, good Lord cried he,
• 3:07:26
  I thought we'd seen the last of the plucky police. You don't mean
• 3:07:31
  to say they're coming back. I do worse luck Cameron, Tyler and some
• 3:07:39
  new joker and playing clothes. Hardcastle finished his drink with a resigned smile,
• 3:07:45
  stood on the verandah to receive the intruders. After all, well stave off
• 3:07:50
  the reaction of me had to feel the moment they had turned their backs,
• 3:07:52
  said he, oh, well, well thought I'd just got rid of you
• 3:07:58
  fellows, and back you come, I base Coin. Mustn't blame us,
• 3:08:03
  said the sergeant first to dismount. We couldn't know that Superintendate Cairns had been
• 3:08:07
  sent up from Sydney, much less that we would ride right unto him in
• 3:08:11
  your horse paddock. The squalor had stepped down from the veranda with polite alacrity,
• 3:08:16
  glad to see you, mister Kent's said, he only wish you had
• 3:08:20
  come before. The creature in the plain clothes looked about him with a dry
• 3:08:24
  smile and a sharp eye upon the younger men and the empty glasses, as
• 3:08:30
  he and the sergeant accompanied Hardcastle to the verandah, while Tyler took charge of
• 3:08:35
  the three horses. The fame of Cairns had traveled before him to Rosanna,
• 3:08:39
  that none had been prepared for a figure so weird, for a countenance,
• 3:08:43
  so forbidding him a line. His manners were equally uncouth. Bichholvis bent head
• 3:08:48
  to decline refreshment. He pointedly ignored a generalization of hard Castles about the crime,
• 3:08:54
  and when he spoke it was in a gratuitously satirical style of his own.
• 3:09:00
  May I ask, mister Hardcastle, if you were the owner or the
• 3:09:03
  manager of this lodge in a howling wilderness. I'm sorry to say own both.
• 3:09:09
  I appreciate the sorrow I've failed to discern a single green blade as I
• 3:09:13
  came upon, depend On salt Bush and the like, in spite of which
• 3:09:18
  I believe you have had several lean years. There's no denying it. I
• 3:09:24
  am sorry to be one of so many intruders in such a season, mister
• 3:09:26
  Hardcastle, but I should not trouble you long. I hope to take the
• 3:09:31
  murderer to night stingery. Not quite so loud, please, who else should
• 3:09:35
  you suppose? You may be interested to hear that he's been hiding on your
• 3:09:39
  run for several days, and so have I within fairly easy reach of him.
• 3:09:46
  And he's not a man to be taking single handed without further loss of
• 3:09:50
  life. So I intercepted you, sergeant, and now you are both enlightened
• 3:09:54
  to night. With your assistance and that of your young colleague, I count
• 3:09:58
  upon a bloodless fick. But I should prefer you, mister Hardcastle, not
• 3:10:03
  to mention the matter to the very young men whom I noticed in your accompany
• 3:10:05
  on my arrival. Have I your promise to comply with my wishes on this
• 3:10:09
  point, and on any other which may arise in connection with the capture Miss
• 3:10:15
  Steely glitter shot through the beetling eyebrows. That Hardcastle had given his word before
• 3:10:20
  the request was rounded to that pedantic neatness which characterized the crabbed utterances of the
• 3:10:26
  ground shouldered dictator. That is well, he went on, For now I
• 3:10:30
  can admit you both into my plan of campaign. Suppose we sit down here
• 3:10:33
  on the verandah, at the end, farthest from any door. Be good
• 3:10:39
  enough to draw your chairs near a mind, gentleman, It might be dangerous
• 3:10:43
  if a fourth person heard me say that I had discovered the murderer's ill gotten
• 3:10:46
  hoarde, not you, sir, cried Cameron. Good God, exclaimed the
• 3:10:52
  squatter, and the discoverer was not divine, indeed no human being, but
• 3:10:58
  myself, the bent man of Urge, turning with mischievous humor from one to
• 3:11:01
  the other of his astonished hearers. Yes, there was more gold than would
• 3:11:05
  have credited Saint Scotchman was carrying through the wilds, but the bulk was in
• 3:11:09
  small notes, and the whole has been buried in the scrub close to the
• 3:11:13
  scene of the murder. Doubtless to avoid at once the detection and the division
• 3:11:16
  of such unusual spoil. You are thinking of his mate. He was Cameron
• 3:11:22
  who asked the question, but Hardcastle followed immediately with another. Did you remove
• 3:11:26
  the spoil? My dear mister Hardcastle, how you must lack the detective instinct?
• 3:11:33
  Of course, I left everything as nearly as possible as I found it.
• 3:11:37
  The van camps on the spot, or very near it. He lights
• 3:11:41
  no fires and is careful to leave no marks. But I am more or
• 3:11:43
  less convinced of it, and that is where I shall take him to night,
• 3:11:48
  or rather early to morrow morning. I wish you could make it to
• 3:11:52
  night, said Hardcastle, with a yawn that put a period to a pause
• 3:11:56
  of some duration. Why dem to the detective, raising open eyes for once?
• 3:12:03
  Because I have heard a desperate weake of it, replied Hardcastle. Len
• 3:12:07
  am dead with sleep. The other carried his growing geniality to the length of
• 3:12:13
  an almost hearty laugh. My dear sir, do you suppose that I thought
• 3:12:18
  of taking you with us, No, mister Hardcastle. The risks of this
• 3:12:22
  sort of enterprise are for those who are paid to run them. If there
• 3:12:26
  is a risk, if we timed our attack too early or too late,
• 3:12:30
  there would be bloodshed, to a certainty. But at two o'clock the average
• 3:12:35
  man is fast asleep, and a quarter after one. Therefore I start with
• 3:12:39
  Sergeant Cameron and Constable Tyler. Hardcastle yawned again. I should have liked to
• 3:12:46
  be with you. There are compensations, said he. I doubt if I
• 3:12:52
  shall even stay up to see you off. If you did, you would
• 3:12:56
  sit up alone, returned the Superintendent. I intend to turn him myself for
• 3:13:00
  three or four hours. It will be in the face of all my wishes,
• 3:13:03
  Sergeant, if you and tirely do not do the same. No reason
• 3:13:07
  to tell him what a short night it's to be. It might prevent a
• 3:13:09
  young fellow like that from getting any sleep at all. Mayly let it be
• 3:13:13
  arranged that we all turn in betimes in view of an early start. We
• 3:13:18
  three alone need know how early the start will be. They had this simple
• 3:13:22
  dinner at half past seven, and the detective took it on himself to entertain
• 3:13:26
  the party, and succeeded so well that the entertainment was continued on the verandah
• 3:13:31
  for the better part of another hour. Doupled up in his chair, abnormal
• 3:13:37
  weird, he recounted it, in particular the exploits of Stingery, including a
• 3:13:41
  garbled version of the recent fiasco across the Murray, with a zest only equaled
• 3:13:46
  by his confident undertaking to avenge the death of Robert Duncan. Before another day
• 3:13:52
  was out. All listened in a rapt silence, and the younger men were
• 3:13:56
  duly disappointed when the party broke up prematurely between nine and ten, but they
• 3:14:01
  also had played their part in a fatiguing week. By the later hour all
• 3:14:07
  were in their rooms. Before very long, Rosanna Station lay lighted only by
• 3:14:11
  the full white moon of New South Wales. Cameron wondered if it could possibly
• 3:14:16
  be two o'clock, while Tyler sat up, insensate with the full weight of
• 3:14:20
  his first sleep. When their chief crept into the double bedded room which the
• 3:14:24
  two policemen had been put he earned himself before his time by an hour or
• 3:14:30
  more, but explained that he had an idea which had only struck him as
• 3:14:33
  he was about to fall asleep. If we hunt for the fellow in the
• 3:14:37
  dark, said he, we may give him the alarm before we come on
• 3:14:39
  him. But if we go now, there is at least a chance that
• 3:14:43
  we may find his fire to guide us. I am aware I said he
• 3:14:46
  wouldn't like one. But everybody knows that stingery uses a spirit lamp. In
• 3:14:52
  any case, it's a chance. With a desperate man like that. We
• 3:14:56
  can't afford to give the ghost of a chance away. The sergeant dressed without
• 3:15:01
  more ado as to his subordinate, on learning the nature of their midnight errant.
• 3:15:07
  Meanwhile, the disturber of slumbers was gone to the horse yard to start
• 3:15:09
  saddling. The others followed in a few minutes, and there was the horse
• 3:15:15
  yard overflowing with moonshine, but emptier like of man and beast. No wonder
• 3:15:22
  what's got em, murmured the bewildered sergeant, uneasily, old Harry, for
• 3:15:26
  all I care, muttered the other. Now, I'm no such nuts on
• 3:15:31
  him, if you ask me. There's a bit too much of him for
• 3:15:33
  my taste. In his secret breast, the sergeant entertained a similar sentiment,
• 3:15:39
  but he was too old an officer to breathe disaffection in the ear of his
• 3:15:41
  subaltern. He contented himself with a mild expression of his surprise at the conduct
• 3:15:46
  of the Sydney authorities. Putting a tow knee over his head without so much
• 3:15:52
  as a word of notice. In such a towey, echoed Tyler. One
• 3:15:56
  you never heard of in your life before, and never will again. Speak
• 3:16:01
  for yourself, rejoined Cameron, irritated at the exaggeration of their case. I
• 3:16:07
  have heard of them ever since I joined the force. But he's a funny
• 3:16:09
  joke to have sharped over us, living a little lunch back like that.
• 3:16:15
  Awis heard that he was none the worse for what he couldn't help. And
• 3:16:18
  now I can understand it, said the sergeant, for he's not such a
• 3:16:22
  hunch. The men looked at each other in the moonlight, and the ugly
• 3:16:26
  word was never finished. A dozen hoofs were galloping upon them, their thunder
• 3:16:31
  muffled by the sandy road, and into the tank of moonshine came two horses,
• 3:16:35
  hounded by the detective bareback. On the third some one left the slip
• 3:16:39
  rails down, and they were all over the horse paddock. He panted,
• 3:16:43
  but it took a bridle and managed to catch one, and it was easy
• 3:16:46
  enough to run up to the other two. But even Constable Tyler thought the
• 3:16:52
  more of fair misshapen leader for the feet. There was now no time to
• 3:16:56
  be lost for it approach midnight, but the trio was soon canned, tering
• 3:17:00
  through the horse paddock neck and neck, and the new day found them at
• 3:17:03
  the farther gate. The moon still poured unbroken brilliance upon that desert world of
• 3:17:09
  sandy stretches, tufted with salt bush and erratically overgrown with scrub. The shadow
• 3:17:15
  of the gate was as another gate lying ready to be hung. For each
• 3:17:18
  particular wire in the fence there was a thin black stripe upon the ground.
• 3:17:24
  The three passed through and came in quick time upon the edge of that scrub
• 3:17:28
  in which the crime had been committed. And here the chief called a halt
• 3:17:33
  the two to nail them must be on foot, said he. You can
• 3:17:35
  creep upon them on foot, as you never could with the horse, but
• 3:17:39
  I will remain mounted in the road and ride em down for show's fight.
• 3:17:43
  So the pair and pugarees walked on at either stirrup of their crooked chief,
• 3:17:48
  leaving the two horses tethered to a tree, till suddenly the whole party halted
• 3:17:54
  as one. They had rounded a bend in the road. With great caution,
• 3:17:58
  for they all knew where they were were with only one of them was
• 3:18:01
  prepared for the position of the light which flashed into their eyes from the heart
• 3:18:05
  of the scrub. It was a tiny light set low upon the ground,
• 3:18:09
  yet it flashed through the forest like a diamond in a bundle of hay.
• 3:18:13
  It burnt at no little distance from the track, for at a movement it
• 3:18:16
  was lost. It was some hundreds of yards nearer the station than the scene
• 3:18:20
  of the murder. The chief whispered that this was where he had found the
• 3:18:24
  buried booty, and over half the distance. He led the way, winding
• 3:18:26
  in and out among the trees, now throwing a leg across his horses withers
• 3:18:31
  to avoid a bowl anon embracing its neck to escape contact with the branches.
• 3:18:35
  It was long before they could discern anything but the light itself amid the trunks
• 3:18:39
  and branches of the scrub. Suddenly the horsemen stopped, beckoning with his free
• 3:18:46
  hand to the pair of foot, pointing at the fire with the one that
• 3:18:50
  held the reins. As they crept up to him, he stooped in the
• 3:18:54
  stirrups till his mouth was close to the sergeant's ear. He sitting on the
• 3:18:58
  fire side of the light. But you can't see his face. I thought
• 3:19:03
  he was a log, and I still believe he's asleep. Creep on him
• 3:19:07
  like cats till he looks up. Then rushing with your revolver was before he
• 3:19:11
  can draw his, And I'll support you with mine. Nearer and nearer stole
• 3:19:16
  Cameron and Tyler. The rider managed to coax a few more noiseless steps from
• 3:19:22
  his clever mount, but dropped the reins and squared as elbows some twenty paces
• 3:19:26
  from the light a hurricane lamp, now in the sharpest focus. The policeman
• 3:19:31
  crawled some yards ahead. All three carried revolver in hand, but still the
• 3:19:39
  unsuspecting figure sat motionless, his chin Uponi's chest, the brim of his wide
• 3:19:43
  awake, hiding his face, the leap of gold and notes before him on
• 3:19:46
  the ground. Then the Superintendent's horse flung up its head, its teeth champed
• 3:19:52
  upon the bit. The man sat bolt upright, and the light of the
• 3:19:56
  hurricane lamp fell full upon the face of Hardcastle. The squatter Russian, Russian,
• 3:20:03
  that's the man we want. But the momentary stupefaction of the police had
• 3:20:07
  given Hardcastle as an opportunity. Hurricane lamp flew between them, going out where
• 3:20:11
  it fell, and for a minute the revolver was spat harmlessly in the remaining
• 3:20:16
  patchwork of moonshine and shadow. Yet behind trees. Shoot low, don't kill
• 3:20:20
  him, shouted the chief from his saddle. Go on to him before he
• 3:20:24
  can load again. That's it, pin him. Throw your revolves away or
• 3:20:28
  a statch one before you know where you are. Ah thought he was too
• 3:20:31
  strong for you, mister Hardcastle. I'll put a bullet through you myself if
• 3:20:35
  you don't instantly surrender, And the fight ended with the bent man leaning in
• 3:20:41
  his stirrups over a lot and swaying group as he brandished his revolt to suit
• 3:20:46
  deed to word. It was a heavy load with the long barrel that finally
• 3:20:50
  turned the scale. In a few seconds, Hardcastle stood a prisoner, the
• 3:20:56
  handcuffs fitting his large wrists like gloves, his great frame panting from the fray.
• 3:21:01
  Yet a marvel of monstrous manhood and its stoical and defiant carriage. Lord's
• 3:21:07
  sake, Cairns, do what you say, he cried, Put three bullets
• 3:21:13
  through me into vide what's on the ground between you now, for which we
• 3:21:16
  could for your sake, was the reply. But it's idle to speak of
• 3:21:20
  it, and I'm afraid you've committed a crime that places you beyond the reach
• 3:21:22
  of sympathy. That he has cried, the sergeant wiping blood from his gray
• 3:21:28
  beard. It's plain as a pike staff now. And to think he was
• 3:21:33
  the one to come and fetch us the very night he'd done it. But
• 3:21:35
  what licks me more than anything is how in the world you found about,
• 3:21:39
  sir. The hunchback looked down upon the stallwart prisoner standing up to his last
• 3:21:45
  inch between his two captors. There was an impersonal interest in the man's bold
• 3:21:50
  eyes that invited a statement more eloquently than the sergeant's tongue. I will tell
• 3:21:54
  you, said the horseman, smiling down upon the three on foot. In
• 3:21:58
  the first place, I had my own reasons for knowing that Stingaree was nowhere
• 3:22:03
  near this place on the night of the murder, For I happened to have
• 3:22:05
  been on his tracks for some time. Who knew all about the dead man's
• 3:22:09
  stroke of luck, his insane preference for hard cash the time of his return.
• 3:22:16
  Mister Hardcastle, for one who swore that he had met Stingaree face to
• 3:22:20
  face upon the run mister Hardcastle alone. There was not to sew to corroborate
• 3:22:26
  or contradict him, who was in need of many thousand pounds, Mister Hardcastle,
• 3:22:33
  as I suspected, and as he practically admitted to me when we discussed
• 3:22:37
  the bad season on my arrival, I was pretty sure of my man before
• 3:22:41
  I crossed the boundary fence. But I was absolutely convinced before I had spent
• 3:22:46
  twenty minutes on his verandah, the prisoner smiled sardonically in the moonlight. The
• 3:22:52
  policeman gazed with awe upon the man who had solved a nine days mystery and
• 3:22:56
  fewer hours. Must remember, he continued, that I had spent some days
• 3:23:01
  and nights upon the run. During the days I have camped in the thickest
• 3:23:03
  scrub I could find. But by night I've been very busy. And last
• 3:23:07
  night I had a stroke of luck. I stumbled by accident on a track
• 3:23:13
  that led me to the place I had been looking for all along. You
• 3:23:16
  see, I had put myself in Hardcastle's skin, and I was quite clear
• 3:23:22
  that I should have buried a lap full of gold and notes somewhere in the
• 3:23:24
  bush until the hue and cry had blown over. Not that I expected to
• 3:23:28
  find it so near the scene of the crime. I should certainly have gone
• 3:23:33
  farther afield myself. But I can't make out why that wasn't enough for you,
• 3:23:37
  sir, ventured the sergeant deferentially, Why don't you come and arrest him
• 3:23:41
  on that you shall see in three minutes? Wasn't it better to catch him
• 3:23:46
  red handed? As we have? We'll at least admit that it was far
• 3:23:48
  Neto. I say, I have the place. I say, we're all
• 3:23:52
  going to it at two in the morning. I say, let us sleep
• 3:23:56
  till a little after one. Was it not obvious what would happen? The
• 3:24:01
  only thing I did not expect was to find him asleep with a swag under
• 3:24:05
  his nose. Then Hardcastle spoke up. I was not asleep, said he.
• 3:24:11
  I thought I was safe for an hour or two. I began to
• 3:24:15
  think. I was wondering what to do, whether to cut my throat at
• 3:24:20
  once? And his dreadful voice died away like a single chord struck in an
• 3:24:24
  empty room. That Stegnaree put in Tyler at the end, what's happened to
• 3:24:30
  him? He also has been here, but he was many a mile away
• 3:24:33
  at the time what brought him here? The crooked superintendent from Sydney was sitting
• 3:24:39
  strangely upright in his saddle. His face was not to be seen, for
• 3:24:43
  his back was to the moon, but he seemed to rub one of his
• 3:24:48
  eyes. You may have wished to clear his character. He may itch to
• 3:24:52
  uphold the honor of that road, of which he considers himself. A not
• 3:24:54
  imperfect night, he may have found it so jolly easy to play policemen downe
• 3:25:00
  Victoria that he couldn't resist another shot in a better cause up here at his
• 3:25:05
  worst, he never killed a man in all his life, and you will
• 3:25:07
  be good enough to take his own word for it that he never will.
• 3:25:11
  He had backed his horse while he spoke. He turned a little to the
• 3:25:15
  light, and the eye glass gleamed in his eye. The young constable sprang
• 3:25:20
  forward, sting hway. He screamed, but the gray sergeant flung his arms
• 3:25:26
  round their prisoner. That's right, cried the bush ranger. He trotted off.
• 3:25:31
  Your horses, and even your pistols are out of reach, thanks to
• 3:25:35
  a discipline for which I love you dearly. You hang on to your bird
• 3:25:37
  in the hand. My friends, never again misjudged the one in the bush,
• 3:25:43
  And as the trees swallowed the cantering horse and man, followed by a
• 3:25:46
  futile shot from the first revolver which the young constable had picked up, an
• 3:25:52
  embittered admiration kindled on the captive Murderer's eyes. End of chapter six the purification
• 3:26:01
  of Molferer. Molfora station n. S. W. Was not only an
• 3:26:07
  uttermost end of the earth, but an exceedingly loose end, And that again,
• 3:26:11
  in more senses than one. There were no ladies on Molferer, and
• 3:26:16
  this wrought inevitable deterioration in the young men who made a bachelor's barracks of the
• 3:26:20
  homestead. Not that they ever turned it into the perfect pandemonium, you might
• 3:26:26
  suppose, but it was unnecessary either to wear a collar or to repress an
• 3:26:31
  oath at table. And this sort of disregard does not usually stop at the
• 3:26:35
  elementary decencies. It is true that on Molfero, the bark of the bachelor
• 3:26:41
  was something worse than his bite, and his tongue no fair criteria to the
• 3:26:45
  rest of him. Nevertheless, the place became a byword, even the back
• 3:26:48
  blocks, and when at last the good Bishop Methan had the hardihood to include
• 3:26:54
  it in an episcopal itinerary. There were admirers of that dear divine who run
• 3:27:00
  only condemned his folly, and enemies who no longer denied his heroism. The
• 3:27:05
  Lord Bishop of the back Blogs had at that time been a twelvemonth or more
• 3:27:09
  in charge of what he himself described playfully as his oceanic see. But his
• 3:27:15
  long neglect of Molfrel was due less to its remoteness than to notorious fact that
• 3:27:20
  they wanted no abject, tival and illiterative bishops. There an obvious way of
• 3:27:26
  repulse happened to be open to the blaspheming squatter, though there was no other
• 3:27:31
  instance of its employment. On these up country visitations, the bishop was dependent
• 3:27:37
  for his mobility upon the horseflesh of his hospitable hosts. Thus it became the
• 3:27:43
  custom to send to fetch him from one station to another, and as a
• 3:27:46
  rule the owner of the manager came himself with four horses and the big trap.
• 3:27:52
  The manager of Molfrel said his horses had something else to do, and
• 3:27:58
  his neighbors backed him up with some descreet encouragement. On their own account,
• 3:28:03
  it was felt that a slur would be left upon the whole district if his
• 3:28:05
  lordship actually met with the only sort of reception which was predicted for him on
• 3:28:09
  Molferer. Bishop method, however, was one of the last men on earth
• 3:28:15
  to shirk a plague spot, and on this one warning was eventually received that
• 3:28:20
  the Bishop and his chaplain would arrive on horseback the following Sunday morning to conduct
• 3:28:26
  divine service, if quite convenient, at eleven o'clock. The language of the
• 3:28:31
  manager was something inconceivable upon the receipt of this cool advice. He was a
• 3:28:37
  man named Carmichael, and quite a different type from the neighbors who held up
• 3:28:41
  horny hands when the Bishop decided on his raid. Carmichael was not a native
• 3:28:48
  of this colony or of the next. But he was that distressing spectacle,
• 3:28:54
  the published schoolman who is no credit to his public school. Worse than this,
• 3:29:01
  he was a man of brains. Worst of all, he had promised
• 3:29:05
  very differently as a boy. A younger man who had been at school with
• 3:29:09
  him, having come out for his health, traveled some hundreds of miles to
• 3:29:13
  see Carmichael, whose conversation struck him absolutely dumb. He was captain of our
• 3:29:20
  house, the visitor explained to Carmichael's subordinates. And you daren't say dash in
• 3:29:26
  dormitory, not even dash in appearance. This redoubtable person was chiefly remarkable for
• 3:29:33
  the intellectual cast of his still occasionally clean shaven countenance, and for his double
• 3:29:39
  eyeglasses, or rather the way he wore them. They were very strong and
• 3:29:45
  very common, without any rooms, and Carmichael bought them by the box.
• 3:29:50
  He would not wear them with a cord, and in the heat that they
• 3:29:52
  were continually slipping off his nose. When they did not slip right off,
• 3:29:56
  they hung at such an angle that Carmichael had to throw his whole body in
• 3:30:00
  the head backward in order to see anything through them except the ground. And
• 3:30:05
  when they fell, someone else had to find them. While Carmichael, cursed
• 3:30:09
  for his naked eye, was as blind as a bat's. It's go mustering
• 3:30:13
  on Sunday, suggested the overseer, every blessed man, let him find the
• 3:30:18
  whole place, deserted homestead and hut. Well, let's get blind for the
• 3:30:24
  occasion, was the bookkeeper's idea. Every mother's son that would do, agreed
• 3:30:31
  the overseer. If we just got blind enough and we might get the blacks
• 3:30:35
  from Poony Creek to come and join the Dards. The Overseer was a dap
• 3:30:41
  of Victorian with a golden mustache, twisted rakishly up and down at either end,
• 3:30:46
  respectively, like an overturned letter s. He lived up to the name
• 3:30:50
  of smart. The Bookkeeper was a servile echo with a character and a face
• 3:30:54
  of putty. He had once perpetrated an opprobrious ode to the Overseer, and
• 3:31:01
  an answer to the name of Chaucer. Ever since Carmichael leaned back to look
• 3:31:05
  from one of these worthies to the other, and the spectacled eyes flamed with
• 3:31:11
  morderant scorn. And I suppose you think you were funny, your fellows,
• 3:31:16
  said he without the oath, which was a sign of his good will,
• 3:31:20
  except when he lost his temper with the sheep. If so, I wish
• 3:31:24
  you'd get outside to entertain each other. Since the fellow's coming, we shall
• 3:31:28
  have to let him come. The thing is how to choke him off ever
• 3:31:31
  coming again without open insult, which I won't allow. A service of some
• 3:31:37
  sort. We shall have to have this once. I want to go ahead,
• 3:31:43
  declared the indiscreet Chaucer. If you do I'll rehearse the men the overseer
• 3:31:48
  promised you idiots, thundered Carmichael, whose temper was as short as his sight.
• 3:31:54
  Can't you see I weaken on the prospect as much as the two of
• 3:31:56
  you struck together. But the Beggars certainly be a public school and vasty man,
• 3:32:01
  and I won't have him treated as though he'd been dragged up on one
• 3:32:03
  of these god forsaken colonies. Now, most properly, you cannot talk like
• 3:32:09
  this in the bush unless you were also capable of confirming the insult with your
• 3:32:13
  fists. But Carmichael could, and he was much too blind to fight without
• 3:32:18
  his glasses. He was, in fact the same strenuous character who'd set his
• 3:32:24
  dogmatic face against the most harmless expletis and dormitory at school and said it successfully.
• 3:32:30
  Because Carmichael was a mighty man whose influence was not to be withstood,
• 3:32:35
  his standard alone was changed or he was playing on the other side. Yet
• 3:32:41
  he had brought a prayer book with him to the backblocks, and he was
• 3:32:46
  seen studying it on the eve of the Episcopal descent. You may have his
• 3:32:50
  say, observed Carmichael darkly. And then I'll have mine iind to heckel in
• 3:33:00
  smart in a nasal voice, full of hope and encouragement. Not at the
• 3:33:05
  function, you fool, replied Carmichael sweetly, For when it's all over,
• 3:33:09
  I should like to take him on about the Athenasian Creed and the thirty nine
• 3:33:13
  articles. Only both substantives were qualified by the epithet of the country. For
• 3:33:18
  Carmichael had put himself an excellent temper for the day of battle. The day
• 3:33:24
  dawned blood red and beautiful, but in a little it was a blinding blue
• 3:33:28
  from pole to pole, and the thermometer in the Verandah reached three figures before
• 3:33:33
  breakfast. It was a hot wind day, and the even Carmichael's subordinates pitied
• 3:33:39
  Doctor Methan and his chaplain, who were riding from the south and the teeth
• 3:33:43
  of that Probethean blast. But Carmichael himself drew his own line with unswerving rigidity.
• 3:33:50
  And though the deep Verandah was prepared as a place for worship and covered
• 3:33:54
  in with canvas twas kept saturated with water, he would not permit an escort
• 3:33:58
  to sally even to the boundary fence to beat the uninvited prelate Not long after
• 3:34:05
  breakfast, the two horsemen jogged into view, ambling over the sand hills,
• 3:34:11
  whose red hot edge met a shivering sky some little distance beyond the station pines.
• 3:34:18
  Both wore pith helmets and fluttering buff dust coats, but both had got
• 3:34:22
  hot black legs, the pair and gaiters being remarkable for their length. The
• 3:34:28
  homestead trio, their red necks chased by the unaccustomed collar, gathered grimly at
• 3:34:33
  the open end of the verandah with their exchanged impressions, while the religious raiders
• 3:34:37
  bore down upon them. They can ride a bit too. Aren't bothered if
• 3:34:41
  they can't, exclaimed the overseer in considerable astonishment. Do you suppose, my
• 3:34:48
  good fool, inquired Carmichael, with the usual unregenerate embroidery. Do you,
• 3:34:54
  in your innocence suppose that an accomplishment confined to these precious prop answers. There
• 3:35:01
  is brown as mois sugar, said the keeper of books and stores. Bishop
• 3:35:07
  looks as though he's been out here all his life. Carmichael did not quarrel
• 3:35:11
  with his observation of his viseer, but colorless eyebrows were raised above the cheap
• 3:35:16
  glasses as he stepped into the yard to shake hands with the visitors. The
• 3:35:20
  bearded bishop returned his greeting in a grave silence. A chaplain, on the
• 3:35:26
  other hand, seeing the victim of a nervous volubility, and unduly anxious to
• 3:35:30
  return for his chief's taciturnity, which he essayed to explain to Carmichael on the
• 3:35:33
  first opportunity. His lordship feels to heat so much more than I do,
• 3:35:39
  who have had so many more years of it. And to tell you the
• 3:35:41
  truth, he still little hurt at not being met for the first time since
• 3:35:46
  he has been out here. And why did he come, demanded Carmichael bluntly.
• 3:35:50
  I never asked him, did I no er? No er? Butter
• 3:35:54
  Ohma, we won't go into it, said the chaplain. I am glad
• 3:35:58
  to see your preparations, mister Carmon Michael, that I consider very magnanimous sinew
• 3:36:03
  under all the circumstances, and so will his lordship when he has had a
• 3:36:05
  rest. You won't mind his retiring until it's time for the little service,
• 3:36:09
  mister Carmichael, Not, I returned Carmichael promptly. But the worst paddock On
• 3:36:16
  Molfarer in its worst season, was not more dry than the manager's tone.
• 3:36:24
  Shortly before eleven, the bell was rung, which roused the men on weekday
• 3:36:26
  mornings that began trooping over from their hut. While the trio four gathered on
• 3:36:31
  the verandah as before the open end. Was the one looking east that the
• 3:36:37
  sun was too near the zenith to enter many inches and with equal thoroughness and
• 3:36:41
  tagged, Carmichael had placed the table, the water bag, and the tumbler
• 3:36:45
  at the open end. They were all they could do in the way a
• 3:36:48
  pulpit, desk and lectern. The men tramped in and filled the chairs,
• 3:36:54
  forms, tin trunks and packing cases which had been pressed into the services as
• 3:36:58
  makeshift sanctuary. The trios sat in front the bell ceased, the ringer entering
• 3:37:05
  and taking his place. There was some delay, if not some hedge.
• 3:37:11
  Then came the chaplain with an anxious face. His Lordship wishes to know if
• 3:37:15
  all hands are here, he whispered across the desk. Carmichael looked behind him
• 3:37:22
  for several seconds. Every man jack, he replied, And damn his Lordship's
• 3:37:28
  cheek, he added, for his equals benefit. As the chaplain disappeared roam
• 3:37:35
  cove that chaplain whispered Chaucer in the guarded manner, upon whose frequent portion is
• 3:37:39
  the snub brutal. How so, inquired Carmichael with a duly withering glance.
• 3:37:48
  Chaucer told the whispers of a word which he had overheard through the weatherboard wall
• 3:37:52
  of the room in which the bishop had sought repose. It was, in
• 3:37:56
  fact the monosyllable of which Carmichael had just made. He, however, was
• 3:38:01
  the first to heap discredit on the book keeper's story, which he laughed a
• 3:38:05
  scorn with as much of his usual arrogance as could be assumed below the breath.
• 3:38:09
  If you heard it at all, said Carmichael, which I don't for
• 3:38:13
  a moment believe you heard it in the strictly biblical sense. Can't be expected
• 3:38:18
  to know what that is, Chaucer. But as a matter of fact,
• 3:38:20
  it means lost and done for, like our noble selves, and it was
• 3:38:26
  probably applied to us. If this the least truth in what you say,
• 3:38:31
  truth, he began, but was not suffered to add another word. Shut
• 3:38:35
  up, snarled Carmichael. Can't you hear them coming? And the tramp of
• 3:38:41
  the shooting boots, which doctor Meththin was still new chum enough to wear,
• 3:38:46
  followed by the chaplain's lighter step, drew noisily nearer upon the unseen part of
• 3:38:50
  the verandah that had circled the whole house. Stand up, you cripples,
• 3:38:56
  cried Carmichael over his shoulder, a stage whisper. They all came to their
• 3:39:01
  feet as the two ecclesiastics appeared behind the table at the open end of the
• 3:39:05
  tabernacle. Carmichael felt inclined to disperse the congregation on the spot. There was
• 3:39:13
  the bishop still in his gaiters, in his yellow dust coat. Even the
• 3:39:16
  chaplain had not taken the trouble to don his surplice. Sir, anything was
• 3:39:20
  good enough for molfer. Carmichael plunged forward with a jutting jaw, but an
• 3:39:26
  authoritative voice rang out across the table. Sit down. The bishop had not
• 3:39:31
  opened his hairy mouth. W was the smart young chaplain who spoke, and
• 3:39:37
  all obeyed except Carmichael. Now beg your lordship's aparton. He was bearing with
• 3:39:43
  sarcastic emphasis, and the manager of Molfera was cut as short as he was
• 3:39:48
  himself the habit of cutting his inferiors. If you will kindly sit down,
• 3:39:54
  cried the Chaplain, like everybody else, I shall at once explain the apparent
• 3:39:58
  irregularity upon which she would doubtless about to comment. Caliko glowered, threw his
• 3:40:03
  glasses for a few seconds, and there resumed his seat with a shrug and
• 3:40:07
  a murmur happily inordible to all but his two immediate neighbors. On his way
• 3:40:13
  here this morning, the chaplain went on, his lordship met with a misadventure
• 3:40:18
  from which he has not yet recovered sufficiently to address you, as he fully
• 3:40:20
  hoped and intended to do to day. At this all eyes sped to the
• 3:40:26
  bishop, who stood certainly in the drooping attitude at the Chaplain's side, his
• 3:40:31
  episcopal hands behind his back. Something happened, the glib spokesman continued, with
• 3:40:37
  stern eyes, something that you do not often hear of in these days.
• 3:40:41
  His lordship was accosted, beset and like the poor man and the scriptures,
• 3:40:46
  despitefully entreated not many miles beyond your own boundary, by a pair of armed
• 3:40:52
  ruffians. Stuck up, cried one or two men bush ranges one or two
• 3:40:58
  more, I think for both words, said the chaplain, bowing. He
• 3:41:03
  was stuck up by the bushranger, who was once more abroad in the land,
• 3:41:07
  really, mister Carmichael, But the manager of Mofre rose to his full
• 3:41:11
  height, and, leaning back to get the speaker into focus, stuck his
• 3:41:15
  arms akimbo in a way that he had in his most aggressive murmurs. And
• 3:41:20
  what were you doing? He demanded fiercely of the chaplain. It was I
• 3:41:26
  who struck him up, answered the sois desson, chaplain, whipping a single
• 3:41:31
  glass into his eye to meet the double ones, my name is Stingaree.
• 3:41:35
  And in the instant's hush which followed, he plucked a revolver from his breast,
• 3:41:41
  while the hands of the sham bishop shot up from behind his back,
• 3:41:43
  with one in each. The scene of the instant after that defies ordinary description.
• 3:41:50
  Twas made the more hideous by the frightful imprecations of Carmichael and the short,
• 3:41:56
  sharp threat of Stingery to shoot him dead unless he instantly sat down.
• 3:42:01
  Carmichael bade him to do so with a gallant oath, at which the men
• 3:42:05
  immediately behind him joined with his two companions, and pulling him back into his
• 3:42:09
  chair, and there holding him by main force. Thereafter, the manager appeared
• 3:42:15
  to realize the futility of resistance, and was unhanded on his undertaking to sit
• 3:42:18
  quiet, which he did with the exception of one speech to those behind.
• 3:42:24
  If any of you happened to be armed, he shouted over his shoulder,
• 3:42:28
  shoot him down like a dog. But if you're all as fairly had as
• 3:42:33
  I am, let's see what the beggar's got to say. Thank you,
• 3:42:37
  mister Carmichael, said the bush Ranger, still from the far side of the
• 3:42:39
  table, as the comparative silence fell at last. You are a man after
• 3:42:45
  my own heart, sir, and would as leef have you on my side
• 3:42:48
  as the simple ruffian on my right. Not a bad bishop to look at,
• 3:42:52
  continued Stingery, with a jerk of the head towards his bait with the
• 3:42:56
  two revolvers. But if I had let him in his mouth, now,
• 3:43:01
  if i'd had you, mister Carmichael. But I have doubts about your vocabulary
• 3:43:05
  too. The point appealed to all present, and there was a laugh,
• 3:43:09
  in which, however, Carmichael did not join. And I suppose it didn't
• 3:43:13
  come here simply to give us a funny entertainment, said he. I happen
• 3:43:18
  to be the boss, or I have been hitherto, and if you will
• 3:43:20
  condescend to tell me what you want, I shall consider whether it is worth
• 3:43:24
  while to supply you or to be shot by you. I shall be sorry
• 3:43:28
  to meet my death at the hands of a thieving blaggard. But one can't
• 3:43:31
  pick and choose in that matter. Before it comes to choosing, however,
• 3:43:35
  is it any good asking what you've done with the real bishop and the real
• 3:43:39
  chaplain if you've murdered them as I Stingery had listened thus far with more than
• 3:43:43
  patience. In fact, was something again to approval to the captive who was
• 3:43:48
  still his master. Was the tongue with all his villainy. The bush Ranger
• 3:43:52
  was man enough to appreciate another man when he met him, but Carmichael's last
• 3:43:56
  word flicked him on a bare nerve. Don't you dare talk to me about
• 3:44:01
  murder, he rapped out. I've never committed one yet that you were going
• 3:44:05
  the right way to make me begin. As for Bishop Methven, I have
• 3:44:09
  more respect for him than for any man in Australia. But his horse was
• 3:44:13
  worth two of my mates, and that's all I troubled him for. Didn't
• 3:44:16
  even tie him up, as there would any other man, who just relieves
• 3:44:20
  the two of them, with their boots and clothes, twas quite as good
• 3:44:22
  as tying up with your roads, as red hot as they are. But
• 3:44:26
  my mate here doesn't agree with me. The man with the beard very emphatically
• 3:44:31
  shook a matted head, now relieved at the stolen helmet, and observed that
• 3:44:35
  the quicker they were, the better it would be. He was as taciturn
• 3:44:41
  a bush ranger as he had been a bishop. But Stingaree was perfectly right.
• 3:44:45
  Even these few words would have destroyed all chance of illusion in the case
• 3:44:48
  of his mate. The very clothes which become us so well, continued the
• 3:44:54
  Prince of Personators, who happened to be without a hair upon his face at
• 3:44:58
  this period, looked every inch his part. They're very boots we have only
• 3:45:03
  borrowed. I will tell you presently where we drop the rest of their kid
• 3:45:07
  But if the misuit of pajamas a piece and not another stitch, and we
• 3:45:11
  blindfolded and drove them into the scrub as a last precaution, but before we
• 3:45:16
  go, I shall also tell you where a search parties is likely to pick
• 3:45:18
  up their tracks. Meanwhile, we will all stay exactly where you are,
• 3:45:22
  with the exception of the store keeper, who will kindly accompany me to the
• 3:45:26
  store, I shall naturally require to see inside of the safe. And otherwise
• 3:45:31
  our wants are very simple. The outlaw ceased. There was no word in
• 3:45:37
  answer. Curious hush had fallen on the captive congregation. If there is a
• 3:45:43
  store keeper, suggested Stingery, he'd better stand up. But the accomplished chaucer
• 3:45:50
  sat stark and staring. Not for you, whispered Carmichael in terrible tones,
• 3:45:56
  or we're done. And even as the bookkeeper rose tremulously to his feet,
• 3:46:03
  a strange and stealthy figure the sign assured of all eyes. But the bush
• 3:46:07
  rangers, for a long minute, reached the open end of the verandah,
• 3:46:13
  and with a final spring, a tall man in silk pajamas, his gray
• 3:46:16
  beard, flying over either shoulder, heard himself upon both bush rangers at once.
• 3:46:22
  With outspread fingers, he clutched the scruff of each neck at the self
• 3:46:26
  same second crash came the two heads together and over went the table with the
• 3:46:31
  three men over it. Shots were fired from the struggle on the ground,
• 3:46:35
  happily without effect. Stingaree had a shooting hand mangled by one blow with a
• 3:46:39
  chair whirled from a height. Carmichael got his heel with a venomous stamp upon
• 3:46:45
  the neck of Howie, and in fewer seconds that it would take to write
• 3:46:48
  their names, the rascals were defeated and disarmed. Howie had his neck half
• 3:46:52
  broken and his face was darkening. Before Carmichael could be induced to lift his
• 3:46:58
  foot, a coch crouch bowled the manager. Drunk with battle, I'd hoof
• 3:47:03
  his soul out for two pins. A moment later he was groping for his
• 3:47:07
  glasses, which had slipped and fallen from his perspiring nose, and making use
• 3:47:13
  of such expressions withal as to compel a panting protest from the tall man and
• 3:47:16
  the silken stripes. My name is Methin, said he. I know it's
• 3:47:22
  a special moment, but do you mind come? Michael found his glasses at
• 3:47:28
  that instant, adjusted them, stood up and led back to view the bishop,
• 3:47:33
  and his next words with the apology of the gentleman. He should have
• 3:47:35
  been, my dear fellow, cried the other. I quite understand what are
• 3:47:41
  they doing with the Ruffians? Have you any handcuffs? Is it far to
• 3:47:46
  the nearest police barracks. The next act of this moving melodrama was not the
• 3:47:52
  least characteristic as the chief performance, when Stingaree and partner hadn't been not only
• 3:47:56
  handcuffed but lashed hand and foot in incarcerated in separate lock huts with the guard
• 3:48:01
  apiece, and when a mounted messenger had been dispatched to the barracks at Clare
• 3:48:05
  Corner, and the remnant raised a cheer for Bishop Meththin. Twas then that
• 3:48:09
  the fine fellow showed them the still finer stuff of which he was also made.
• 3:48:15
  He invited all present to step back for a few minutes into the place
• 3:48:18
  of worship, which had been so charmingly prepared, so scandalously misused. But
• 3:48:24
  he hoped to see them all yet again in the evening. If it would
• 3:48:26
  not bore them to give him a further and more formal hearing, then I
• 3:48:31
  won't keep them five minutes now, he whispered to Carmichael, as the men
• 3:48:35
  went ahead to pick up the chairs and take their places, while the Bishop
• 3:48:39
  hobbled after, still in his pajamas, who was terribly inflamed and swollen feet.
• 3:48:43
  And then he added, I must ask you to send a buggy at
• 3:48:48
  once for my poor chaplain. He did his gallant best, poor fellow,
• 3:48:50
  but I had to leaven fallen by the way. I am an old miler.
• 3:48:54
  You know it came easier to me. But the cinder path and running
• 3:48:58
  shoes are a difference story from hot sand and naked feet. And now,
• 3:49:03
  if you please, I will strike one little blow while our hearts are still
• 3:49:05
  warm. But how shrewdly he struck it, how straight from the shoulder,
• 3:49:09
  how simply, how honestly, there is perhaps no need to tell, even
• 3:49:13
  those who have no previous knowledge of backblock Bishop Methven and his manly ways.
• 3:49:20
  What afterward happened to Stingery is another matter to be set forth faithfully in the
• 3:49:24
  sequel. This is the story of the purification of Molfhera's station in s w
• 3:49:31
  in which the bush Range is played but an indirect and her most inglorious part.
• 3:49:35
  The bishop and his chaplain, a good man of no present account,
• 3:49:39
  stayed to see the police arrive that night and the Romantic Ruffians taken thence next
• 3:49:43
  morning. In Unromantic bonds comparatory, little attention was paid to their departure,
• 3:49:50
  partly on account of the truculent attitude of the police, partly because the episcopal
• 3:49:54
  pair were making an equally early start in another direction. No one accompanied the
• 3:50:00
  ar men and the bound but every man on the place from homestead men's hut,
• 3:50:05
  rabbit as tent and boundary rider's camp, every single man who could be
• 3:50:09
  mustered for the nonce had a horse run up for him. Escorted Doctor Methan
• 3:50:13
  in close cavalcade to the Molfara boundary, where the final cheering took place,
• 3:50:18
  led by Carmichael, who of course was the font and origin of the display.
• 3:50:24
  And Carmichael rode by himself on the way back. He had been much
• 3:50:28
  with the bishop during his lordship's day, and he was too morose for profanity
• 3:50:33
  during the remainder of that day. But it was no better when the manager's
• 3:50:37
  mood lifted and the life of Molferer slipped back into the old blinding, perspiring
• 3:50:41
  groove. Then one night, a night to the very week thus sensationally begun,
• 3:50:48
  the ingenious chaucer began one of the old old stories on the moon that
• 3:50:52
  Veranda. Carmichael stopped him. While that particular old story was still quite young
• 3:50:56
  in the telling. There was an awkward pause until Carmichael laughed. I don't
• 3:51:01
  care tuppence what you fellows think of me, said he, and never did.
• 3:51:07
  I saw a lot of the bishop. He went on less aggressively after
• 3:51:11
  a pause, Sy we saw assented, smile, you b added chaucer,
• 3:51:16
  for there were two to one. He ran the mile for Oxford, continued
• 3:51:22
  Carmichael. Two years he ran it and won both times. You may not
• 3:51:28
  appreciate quite what that means. And with a patience foreign to his character as
• 3:51:33
  they knew it. Carmichael proceeded to explain, but he added that was nothing
• 3:51:39
  to his performance last Sunday in getting here from beyond the boundarying the time he
• 3:51:43
  did it in bare foot would have been good enough in shoes. But don't
• 3:51:50
  you forget his feet. I can see them and feel them still. Now
• 3:51:56
  he's a grand chap, the overseer allowed, we nevers did he was in't
• 3:52:01
  his ally chimed in. Carmichael took no notice of a turne which the youth
• 3:52:05
  with a putty face had never employed toward him before. He was also in
• 3:52:09
  his school in Eaven, continued Carmichael, still in a reflective fashion. Was
• 3:52:15
  it a public school? Inquired smart, Yes, the public school, added
• 3:52:20
  Chaucer, not mine, if that's what you mean, returned Carmichael, with
• 3:52:24
  just a touch of his earlier manner. But he knew my old head master.
• 3:52:30
  It was quite a pal of the dear old man. We had such
• 3:52:33
  lots in common, added the manager, more to himself than to the other
• 3:52:37
  two. The overseers comment is in no consequence, while the bookkeeper was emboldened
• 3:52:43
  to add matters evil less. Suffice it that between them they brought the old
• 3:52:50
  Carmichael to his feet, his glasses flaming in the moonshine, his body thrown
• 3:52:54
  pugilistically backward, his jaw jutting like a crag. The old Carmichael, indeed,
• 3:53:01
  but not in word. The soldier just now, I didn't care tuppence
• 3:53:05
  what either of you thought of me. He roared that there wasn't the least
• 3:53:09
  necessity to tell you, because you knew. So I needn't repeat myself.
• 3:53:13
  But just listen a moment and try not to be greater fools than God made
• 3:53:16
  you. You saw a real man last Sunday, and so did I,
• 3:53:22
  who had almost forgotten what they were like that quality. Well, we had
• 3:53:26
  a lot of talk, and he told me what they were doing on some
• 3:53:31
  of the other stations. They're holding services something like what he held here every
• 3:53:35
  Sunday night for themselves. Now, it isn't in human nature to fly from
• 3:53:39
  one extreme to the other. But we are going to have a try to
• 3:53:43
  keep up our Sunday end with the other stations. At least I am,
• 3:53:48
  and you too are going to back me up. He paused, not a
• 3:53:54
  syllable from the pair, do you hear me? Thundered Carmichael, as he
• 3:54:01
  had thundered in the dormitory at school. Now, after twenty years, the
• 3:54:05
  same good cause once more, whether you like it or not, you fellows
• 3:54:11
  are going to back me up. And Carmichael was a mighty man whose influence
• 3:54:18
  was not to be withstood. End of Chapter seven, A Jewel in the
• 3:54:24
  Desert. It was eight o'clock and Monday morning when the Romantic rascals were led
• 3:54:28
  away in unromantic bonds. Their arms were bound to their bodies, their feet
• 3:54:33
  lashed to the stirrup ions. They set like packs upon quiet station horses carefully
• 3:54:39
  chosen for the knots. They were tethered to a mounted policeman apiece, each
• 3:54:45
  with leading rain buckled to his left wrist. And government revolver in his right
• 3:54:50
  hand. Behind the quartet rode the officer in command superbly mounted, watching ever
• 3:54:56
  all four with a third revolver ready cocked. It seemed a small and yet
• 3:55:01
  an ample escort for the two bound men. But Stingery was by no means
• 3:55:07
  in that state of Napoleonic despair which his bent back and lowering countenance were intended
• 3:55:13
  to convey. He had not uttered a word since the arrival of the police,
• 3:55:18
  whom he had suffered to lift him on horseback as hearsat without raising his
• 3:55:22
  morose eyes once. Howie, on the other hand, had offered a good
• 3:55:28
  deal of futile opposition, cursing his captors as the fit moved, and once
• 3:55:33
  struggling so insanely in his bonds as to earn a tap from the wrong end
• 3:55:37
  of a revolver, and a bloody face for his pains. Stingery lowered in
• 3:55:41
  deep delight. His mate's part was as well acted as his own. But
• 3:55:46
  it was he who would conceived them both and expounded them in countless camps against
• 3:55:50
  some such extremity as this. The result was in ideal accordance with his calculations.
• 3:55:58
  The man who gave the trouble all was the man to watch in Stingarey
• 3:56:03
  chin on chest was left in peace to evolve a way of escape. The
• 3:56:07
  chances were all adverse. He had never been less sanguine in his life.
• 3:56:13
  Not the Stingery had much opinion of the police, and slipped through their hands
• 3:56:16
  too often. But it was an unfortunate circumstance that two of the present trio
• 3:56:22
  were among those whom he had eluded most recently, and who therefore would be
• 3:56:26
  least likely to give him another chance. A lightning student of his kind,
• 3:56:31
  he based his only hope upon an accurate estimate of these men, and applied
• 3:56:35
  his whole mind to the triple task. But it was a single task almost
• 3:56:41
  from the first, for the policeman in charge of him was none other than
• 3:56:45
  his credulous old friend, Sergeant Cameron from clear Corner. And how his custodian,
• 3:56:50
  a young trooper, run from the same mold as Constable Tiler, and
• 3:56:54
  many a hundred more in whom a thick skull canceled a stout heart. Both
• 3:57:00
  were brave men. Neither was really to be feared. But the man behind
• 3:57:05
  upon the thoroughbred, the man in front, the man now on his side,
• 3:57:09
  and now on that with his braying laugh in his vindictive voice, triumphant
• 3:57:13
  as though he had taken the bush Rangers himself, and a blatant bully.
• 3:57:18
  In his triumph was none other than the formidable Superintendent, whose undying animosity the
• 3:57:24
  bush Rangers had earned by the two escapades associated with his name. Yet the
• 3:57:30
  outlaw never flattered him with word or look, never lifted chin from chest,
• 3:57:35
  never raised an eye or opened his mouth, until how his knock on the
• 3:57:39
  head caused him to curse his mate for a fool who deserved all he got.
• 3:57:43
  The thoroughbred was caracoling on his other side in an instant. You ain't
• 3:57:48
  a one eye, you cried the taunting tongue of superintended cans. Not much
• 3:57:54
  fool about staying array. The time had come for a reply, so I
• 3:58:00
  thought, until yesterday, sighed the Bushranger. But now I'm not so sure.
• 3:58:05
  Not so sure, eh, you were sure enough last time we met
• 3:58:09
  my beauty. Yes, I had some conceit of myself, then said Stingrey,
• 3:58:16
  with another of his convincing sighs, to say nothing of when you guide
• 3:58:20
  me. Damn you, added the Superintendent below his breath. And threw his
• 3:58:26
  teeth well, replied the outlaw. You've got your revenge. I must expect
• 3:58:31
  you to rub it in, my fine friend, rejoined Cairns. You may
• 3:58:37
  expect worse than that, and still you won't be disappointed. Stingarey made no
• 3:58:43
  reply. Ada would have taken a very shrewd eye to have ridd deeper than
• 3:58:48
  the depths of sullen despair expressed in every inch of his bound body and every
• 3:58:52
  furrow of his downcast face. Even the vindictive Cairns ceased for a time to
• 3:59:00
  row over so abject an adversary, in so bitter an hour. Meanwhile,
• 3:59:05
  the five horses streamed slowly through the high lights and heavy shadows of a winding
• 3:59:09
  avenue of scrub, just like a hothouse in the dense low trees. Not
• 3:59:15
  a wandering wind, not a waking bird, but five faces that dripped steadily
• 3:59:20
  in the shade, and all but caught fire in the sun. The head
• 3:59:24
  rode Howie, dazed and bleeding, with his callous young constable. The sergeant
• 3:59:31
  and his chief, with Stingery between them, now brought up the rear by
• 3:59:35
  degrees. Stingery raised his chin a little and still looked neither right nor left.
• 3:59:41
  Cheer up, cried the chief with soothing irony. I feel the heat,
• 3:59:46
  said the bound man, uncomplainingly, and was just about here. It
• 3:59:50
  happened. What happened? We overtook the church milletant here on earth, rejoined
• 3:59:56
  the bush ranger with a rueful irreverence. Well you ran across a stag that
• 4:00:01
  time, mister sanguinary Stingery, And I couldn't resist returning how into the bishop
• 4:00:07
  and making myself his mouthpiece. I dan't let him open his lips. It
• 4:00:13
  wasn't the offer tree that was worth having. It was the fun of rounding
• 4:00:16
  up that congregation on the homestead veranda and never letting them spot a thing,
• 4:00:22
  to which shown our guns hadn't been a hitch, and never would have been
• 4:00:26
  of that old bishop had run all those miles barefoot of the hot sand,
• 4:00:31
  taken us unawares. Made with wry humor and philosophic candor, ike Germaine to
• 4:00:37
  his predicament. These remarks seemed natural enough to one knowing little of Stingery.
• 4:00:43
  They seemed just the sort of things that Stingery would say. The effect,
• 4:00:46
  however, was rather to glorify Methan at the expense of superintend the kids who
• 4:00:52
  strove to reverse it with some dexterity. You certainly ran against a snag,
• 4:00:56
  he repeated, and now your mates run against another. He gave the butt
• 4:01:01
  of his ready pistol a significant tap. Be I'm the worst snag than ever
• 4:01:05
  either of you struck, he went on in his vain glory. Make no
• 4:01:09
  mistake about that. In the worst day's work that you ever did in your
• 4:01:13
  life, mister sanguinary Stingery, was when you dared to play at being little
• 4:01:18
  crooked Keynes, Stingery took a first look at his man. After all,
• 4:01:24
  he was not so crooked on horseback as it seemed on foot. At dusk.
• 4:01:28
  In the Victorian bush, the hump was even less pronounced than Stingery had
• 4:01:33
  made it on Rosanna. It looked more like a ridge of extra muscle across
• 4:01:37
  a pair of abnormally broad and powerful shoulders. There was the absence of neck,
• 4:01:43
  which this deformity suggests was a great head, lighted by flashing and indignant
• 4:01:48
  eyes, but mounted only on its mighty chin. The bush ranger was conceded
• 4:01:54
  enough to find in the flesh a coarser and more common type than that created
• 4:01:58
  by himself for the honor of the road. But this did not make the
• 4:02:01
  real Superintendent a less formidable foe. The most poetic Justice murmured Stingery and resumed
• 4:02:09
  in an instant his apathetic pose. See if you jolly well right, if
• 4:02:13
  that's what you mean, the Superintendent smiled. You've yourself and your own mighty
• 4:02:18
  chick to thank for taking me out of my shell and putting me on your
• 4:02:22
  tracks in earnest. But it was high time than you the cut of my
• 4:02:26
  jib up here. The fools won't forget me again in a hurry, and
• 4:02:30
  you, you devil, you sha'n't forget me to your dying day. The
• 4:02:35
  Stingery's offside Sergeant Cameron, was also hanging an insulted head, but the bushranger
• 4:02:43
  laughed softly in his chest. Some one has got to do your dirty work,
• 4:02:48
  he said, I did at that time, and the bishop has done
• 4:02:50
  it now. But you shouldn't blame me for helping you fellows to bring a
• 4:02:54
  murderer to justice. You guide me, said Ken through his teeth. I
• 4:03:01
  heard all about it. You guide me, blutch your soul. Stingery felt
• 4:03:07
  that he was missing a strong face. Finally, convulsed with passion, as
• 4:03:11
  indeed he was, But he had already committed the indiscretion of a repartee,
• 4:03:16
  which was scarcely consistent with an attitude of extreme despair. For downcast silence seemed
• 4:03:22
  the safest policy. After all, that used to be forty miles to the
• 4:03:26
  corner, he murmured. After a time, God had come more than ten.
• 4:03:31
  Not so much, snapped the superintendent, going to stop for feed at
• 4:03:35
  Zeppa station. That's my business. It's the long day for three of you
• 4:03:39
  in this heat with two of us. But I mind hang heavy on our
• 4:03:45
  hands, not heavy enough. I should have thought, I wonder you didn't
• 4:03:48
  bring some of the boys from Malfa along with you, Superintendent Cairns braid as
• 4:03:54
  high, harsh laugh, Yes you wonder, and said did they said he?
• 4:04:01
  But I know a bit too much. There'll always be sympathy among scum
• 4:04:05
  like them for thicker scum like you. You're too suspicious, said Stingery mildly.
• 4:04:11
  But I was seeking as the bishop and the boss. They've gone their
• 4:04:16
  own way, growled Kens. And it's just as well. It wasn't our
• 4:04:18
  way. Thouderstood no interference from them. That had been his attitude on the
• 4:04:24
  station. Stingery had heard of his rudeness to those to whom the whole credit
• 4:04:30
  of the capture belonged. The man revealed his character as freely as an angry
• 4:04:33
  child, and indeed a childish character. It was arrogance was at strength and
• 4:04:41
  weakness. The suggestion had only to be made to call down either the insolence
• 4:04:45
  of offers or the malice of denial. For denial's sake, I wish you'd
• 4:04:50
  stop a bit at mazeppa wine. Stingery, dripping like a candle in the
• 4:04:54
  heat, the station roofs gleamed through the trees far off the track. Why
• 4:05:01
  because I'm feeling sick, gam it, You've got your friends there aren't ye
• 4:05:05
  push but you will camp somewhere in the heat of the day. I shall
• 4:05:11
  do as I think fit. I shan't cans out, ye, my fine
• 4:05:15
  friend. Stingery drooped and nodded lower and lower, then recovered himself with a
• 4:05:22
  jerk, like one battling against sleep. The party pushed on for another hour.
• 4:05:26
  The heat was terrible. The bound men endured torments in their bonds.
• 4:05:31
  For the nature of the superintendent, deformed like his body, declared itself duly
• 4:05:37
  at ever return, and the more one prisoner groaned and the other blasphemed,
• 4:05:41
  the greater the zest and obduracy of the driving force behind them. Noon passed,
• 4:05:48
  the scanty shadows lengthened, and how he gave more trouble of an incensate
• 4:05:54
  sword. They rained up and lashed them tighter. He had actually loosened his
• 4:05:58
  cords. The Stingery seemed passed remonstrance with friend or foe, and his bound
• 4:06:05
  body swayed from side to side as the little cavalcade went on at a canter
• 4:06:09
  to make up for lost time. He was leading now with the kindly sergeant,
• 4:06:15
  and his mind had never been more alert. Behind them, thundered the
• 4:06:18
  recalcitrant. How he, with Constable and Superintendent on either side them, were
• 4:06:24
  midway between the Zeppa and clear corner, or some fifteen miles from either haunt
• 4:06:28
  of men. Stingery pulled himself upright in the saddle, as by a superhuman
• 4:06:33
  effort, and shook off the helping hand that held him by one elbow.
• 4:06:39
  He was about to do a thing at which even his courage quailed, and
• 4:06:43
  he longed for the use of his right arm. Twas not absolutely bound.
• 4:06:48
  Band and wrist had been badly hurt in the Sunday's fray, so badly that
• 4:06:54
  it had been easy to sham a fracture would have hand and wrist and splints.
• 4:06:58
  Before the arrival of the police, they still hung before him in a
• 4:07:01
  sling, his good right hand and forearm stiff and sore enough, it strong
• 4:07:07
  and ready at a moment's notice. When the moment came, it had not
• 4:07:11
  come, and it was not coming for a long time. With stingery set,
• 4:07:16
  his teeth lurched either way, and toppled out of the saddle and the
• 4:07:20
  paths of the cantering hoofs. His lashed feet held him in the stirrups.
• 4:07:26
  The off stirrup never had come over with his weight, and there at his
• 4:07:28
  horse's hoofs, kicked and trampled and smothered with blood and dust, he dragged
• 4:07:33
  like an anchor without sign of life, and it was worse even than it
• 4:07:39
  looked, for the life never left him for an instant, nor ever for
• 4:07:43
  an instant did he fail to behave as though it had. Minutes later,
• 4:07:48
  they stopped his horse and cut him down from the stirrups and carried him into
• 4:07:52
  the shade of hop orsh off the track and with Stingery dared to open his
• 4:07:54
  eyes and was nearer closing them perforce, and the scene swammed for him with
• 4:08:00
  superfluous realism. Jans and Cameron dismounted, while the troopers sat aloof with Howie
• 4:08:07
  in the saddle, were at high words about their prostrate prisoner. What a
• 4:08:11
  syllable was lost on Stingery. You might put him across the horse yourself,
• 4:08:16
  said the sergeant. I won't have a hand in it, and make sure
• 4:08:20
  you haven't killed him, as it is traveling a sick man like that killed
• 4:08:24
  him. He's got his eyes open, cried Chirns in savage triumph. Stingrey
• 4:08:31
  lay blinking at the sky. Do you still refuse to do your duty?
• 4:08:35
  Crielty to animals is no duty of mind, declared the sergeant. Let alone,
• 4:08:39
  my fellow men bush rangers. Oh no, bush rangers, and you,
• 4:08:45
  funded Cairns at the mounted constable. I'm with the sergeant said he he's
• 4:08:50
  had enough, right, cried the superintendant, producing an oebook and scribbling venomously.
• 4:08:56
  You both refuse. You will hear more of this? Meanwhile, Sergeant,
• 4:09:01
  I should like to know what your superior wisdom may be pleased to suggest.
• 4:09:05
  Send a cart back for him, said Cameron. See any way he
• 4:09:09
  is fit to travel. Stingery sought to prop himself upon the elbow with a
• 4:09:13
  splintered wrist and hand. There are no more bones broken that I know of,
• 4:09:20
  said he faintly. But I felt bad before, and now I feel
• 4:09:26
  worse. He looks at two observed the sergeant. The Stingery, ghastly enough
• 4:09:33
  beneath his blood and dust rolled over his back once more, and lay effectively
• 4:09:37
  with closed eyes. Even the superintendent was impressed. Then what's to be done
• 4:09:43
  with him? He exclaimed, with an oath. What's to be done?
• 4:09:48
  If you ask me, returned Cameron. I should make him comfortable where he
• 4:09:52
  is. After all, he's a human being, and done no murder that
• 4:09:56
  we should run the risk of murdering them. Leave him to me while you
• 4:10:00
  two push on with his mate, and one of you can get back with
• 4:10:03
  a spring cut before sundown. But trust me to look after him till you
• 4:10:07
  do. Stingery held his breath where he lay. His excitement was not to
• 4:10:11
  be betrayed by the opening of an eye. Yet he knew that the Superintendent
• 4:10:16
  was looking the sergeant up and down, and he guessed what was passing through
• 4:10:20
  that suspicious mind. Trust you, rasped the dictatorial voice. At last,
• 4:10:26
  that's the very thing I'm not inclined to do, Sergeant Cameron. Sir,
• 4:10:33
  keep your temper, Sergeant. I don't say you'd let him go, but
• 4:10:37
  I've got to remember. This man has twisted you round his finger before to
• 4:10:41
  day. Let you bite the head like a blessed old child, and passed
• 4:10:46
  himself off for me. Look at the fellow, look at me, and
• 4:10:50
  ask yourself candidly if you're the man for the job. But don't ask me
• 4:10:54
  unless you want my opinion. If you a bit plainer still, now you
• 4:11:00
  go on with the others. But here, if you can manage howie.
• 4:11:03
  If you can't, you put a bullet through him. This is my man,
• 4:11:07
  and i'm his by the hokey as he'll know if he tries any of
• 4:11:11
  his tricks while you're gone. Stingery did not move a muscle. He might
• 4:11:16
  have been dead, and in his disappointment, was easy to lie as though
• 4:11:20
  he were really bruised, really battered, really faint and stiff and sword,
• 4:11:26
  to say nothing of his bonds. He felt himself physically in no match for
• 4:11:31
  so young a man, with the extra breadth of shoulder and the extra length
• 4:11:33
  of arm, which were part and parcel of his deformity. With the elderly
• 4:11:39
  sergeant he might have had a chance manned man when armed too, but with
• 4:11:43
  Superintendent Cairs his any weapons were his wits. Lay quite still and reviewed the
• 4:11:48
  situation as it was, and as it had been in the very moment of
• 4:11:54
  his downfall. By instinctive presence of mind, he had preserved the use of
• 4:11:58
  his right hand, that was a still unsuspected acid of incalculable worth, had
• 4:12:03
  been the nucleus of all his plans. Without a hand, he must have
• 4:12:07
  resigned himself to the inevitable from the first. Then he'd split up the party.
• 4:12:13
  He heard the sergeant and the constable ride off with Howie exactly as he
• 4:12:16
  intended two of the three captors to do. His fall alone introduced the element
• 4:12:22
  of luck. Might have killed or maimed him, but the risk had been
• 4:12:26
  run with open eyes. Being alive and whole, he had reduced the odds
• 4:12:31
  from three against two to a man and man. The difference was enormous,
• 4:12:37
  even though one man held all the cards against HOWI the odds were heavier than
• 4:12:41
  ever, but how he was eliminated from present calculations as Stingery made them with
• 4:12:48
  the upturned face of seeming insensibility. He had a nonchalant step, come and
• 4:12:52
  go. But you and I was on him all the time, and never
• 4:12:56
  opened his own till the striking of a match was followed by the smell of
• 4:13:01
  bush tobacco. The shadow of the hot bush was spreading like spilt ink,
• 4:13:05
  and for a moment Stingery thought he had it to himself, But a wreath
• 4:13:09
  of blue smoke hovered overhead. When he got to his elbow and glanced behind,
• 4:13:15
  there sat cairns in his shirt sleeves filling the niche his body made in
• 4:13:18
  the actual green bush, small and wet water bag at his feet, his
• 4:13:22
  revolver against his knees. There was an ominous click even as Stingery screwed round
• 4:13:30
  where he lay. Give me a drink, he cried at sight of the
• 4:13:33
  humid canvas bag. Why should I, asked the superintendent smoking on, because
• 4:13:39
  I haven't had one since we started. Because I'm parched for thirst part away,
• 4:13:46
  cried the creature of suspicion. You can't help yourself, and I can't
• 4:13:52
  help you with this baby eaten airs, and he fondled the cocked revolver in
• 4:13:56
  his hands. Very well, don't give me one, exclaimed Stingery, and
• 4:14:01
  dealt the moist bag a kick, the center jet of cold water spurting over
• 4:14:05
  his foot. He expected to be kicked himself, for that was only cursed,
• 4:14:11
  and the bag snatched out of his reach and deeply drained before his eyes.
• 4:14:15
  How was ganna give you, sam said Kair, smacking his lips.
• 4:14:20
  Now your tongue may hang out before I did. Stingery left the last word
• 4:14:26
  with the foe twas part of his preconceived policy. He still regretted his solitary
• 4:14:31
  retort, but not for a moment the more petulant act which he had just
• 4:14:35
  committed. His boots had been removed after his fall. One of his socks
• 4:14:39
  was now wet through. He spent the next few minutes in taking it off
• 4:14:43
  with the other foot. The lengthy process seemed to afford his mind a certain
• 4:14:48
  pensive entertainment. It was a shapely and delicate white foot that lay stripped at
• 4:14:52
  last, a foot that its owner, with nothing better to do, could
• 4:14:56
  contemplate with legitimate satisfaction. The Superintendent Cairns, noting his prisoner's every look,
• 4:15:03
  putting his own confident interpretation on them, all, cursed him afresh for a
• 4:15:07
  conceited pig, and filled another pipe with the revolver for an instant by his
• 4:15:13
  side. Stonery took no interest in his proceedings. The revolver he especially ignored,
• 4:15:20
  and they stretched before his captor, one sock off and one sock on,
• 4:15:24
  one arm in splints and sling, and the other bound to his ribs.
• 4:15:28
  A model prisoner whose last thought was of escape. His legs indeed were
• 4:15:35
  free. But a man who could not sit on a horse was not the
• 4:15:39
  man to run away. And then there was the relentless Superintendent sitting over him,
• 4:15:43
  pipe and mouth, but revolver again in hand, and a crooked finger
• 4:15:48
  very near the trigger. The fiery wilderness still lay breathless in the great heat,
• 4:15:54
  but the lengthening shadow of the hot bush was now a thing to be
• 4:15:58
  thankful for, and in it the broken captive fell into a fine semblance of
• 4:16:03
  natural slumber. Cairnes watched with alternate envy and suspicion. For him, there
• 4:16:08
  could not be a wink. The most likely the fellow was shamming all the
• 4:16:12
  time, no russover succeeded in exposing the sham. The Superintendent copied by breathing,
• 4:16:19
  first heavily and then stertoriously, with one eye open and on his man.
• 4:16:25
  Stingarey never opened one of his. There was no change in the regular
• 4:16:29
  breathing, the peaceful expression of the blood stained face, the sleep the man
• 4:16:33
  must be. The Superintendent's own experiments had gone to show him that no extremity
• 4:16:40
  need necessarily keep one awake in such heat. He stifled a yawn that was
• 4:16:45
  no part of his performance. His pipe was out. He struck a mat
• 4:16:48
  noisily on his boot. The Stingery just stirred as naturally as any infant.
• 4:16:55
  But Stingery's senses were incredibly acute. He smelt every whiff of the rekindled pipe,
• 4:17:02
  knew to ten seconds when it went out once more, and listened in
• 4:17:06
  an agony for another match. None was struck. Was the Superintendent himself really
• 4:17:11
  asleep at this time? He breathed as though he were, but so did
• 4:17:17
  Stingaree. Yet there was hope in the fact that his own greatest struggle all
• 4:17:22
  this time had been against the very thing he feigned at last he opened one
• 4:17:27
  eye a little. It was met by no answering furtive glance. He opened
• 4:17:33
  the other, and there could be no more doubt. The terrible Superintendent was
• 4:17:38
  dozing in his place. But it was the lightest sort of doze. The
• 4:17:44
  eyes were scarcely closed, and all but watching stingaree as the cock revolved in
• 4:17:48
  the relaxed hand, all but covered him. The prisoner felt that for the
• 4:17:52
  moment he was unseen, forgotten, that the lightest movement of his body would
• 4:17:57
  open those terrible eyes once and for all. It remembered that he was lying
• 4:18:03
  under them lengthwise on the bound arm, with the arm and the sling uppermost
• 4:18:07
  and easily to be freed, and yet the most salient part of the recumbent
• 4:18:11
  figure, and that on which his hidden eyes still seemed fixed for all their
• 4:18:15
  lids. To make the least movement there to attempt the slowest withdrawal of hand
• 4:18:22
  and arm was to court the last disaster of discovery in such an act.
• 4:18:26
  But to lie motionless down to the thighs, and to execute a flank movement
• 4:18:30
  with the leg uppermost was a far less perilous exploit. It was the leg
• 4:18:36
  with the bare foot every detail had been foreseen, and now at last the
• 4:18:41
  bare foot hovered over the revolver and the hand at hell, while the upper
• 4:18:45
  man lay yet like a log under those drowsy, dreadful eyes. Stingery took
• 4:18:52
  a last look, the barrel drooping from the slackened hand. The back of
• 4:18:56
  the hand lay on the ground. The muzzle of the barrel was filled with
• 4:19:00
  sand. Yet the anger was such that it was by no means sure whether
• 4:19:03
  a bullet would bury itself in the sand or in Stingery. He took the
• 4:19:08
  risk with his bare toe touched the trigger sharply. There was a horrible explosion.
• 4:19:15
  It brought the drowsy superintendent to his senses, and with such a jerk
• 4:19:19
  that it was as though the smoking pistol leaped out of his hand a thing
• 4:19:22
  alive, and so into the hand that flashed to meet it from the sling.
• 4:19:26
  And almost in the same second, while the double cloud of smoke and
• 4:19:30
  sand still hung between them, Stingery sprang from the ground an armed man.
• 4:19:34
  Once more, sit where you are, he thundered up with those hands before
• 4:19:38
  I shook them to shreds. Your life's in less danger than mine has been
• 4:19:42
  all day. But I'll wing you limb by limb if you offer to budge.
• 4:19:48
  With uplifted hands above his ears, the deformed officer sat with heads and
• 4:19:52
  shoulders depressed to the semblance of one's sphere. Not a syllable did he utter,
• 4:19:57
  but his upturned eye shot indomitable fires. Stingery stood wriggling and fumbling at
• 4:20:04
  the coil which bound his left arm to his side. Suddenly the revolver went
• 4:20:10
  off, as if by accident, but so much by design, that there
• 4:20:12
  dangled two ends of rope, cut and burnt asunder by lead and powder.
• 4:20:17
  And less than a minute the bushranger was unbound, and before the minute was
• 4:20:21
  up, he leaped upon the Superintendent's thoroughbred, been tethered all this time to
• 4:20:25
  a tree, swishing his tails with the station hack which Stingery had ridden as
• 4:20:29
  a captive. He now rode the thoroughbred and led the hack to the very
• 4:20:33
  feet of the humiliated cares. Oh thank you for that water bag, said
• 4:20:37
  Stingery. I am much oblige, and now I'll trouble you for that nice
• 4:20:42
  wide awake. You really don't need it in the shade. Thank you so
• 4:20:47
  much. He received both bag and hat on the barrel of the government revolver,
• 4:20:52
  hooking the one to its proper saddle strap, and clapping on the other
• 4:20:56
  at an angle inimitably imitative of the outwitted officer. I won't carry the rehearsal
• 4:21:03
  any further to your face, continued stingery. But I can at least promise
• 4:21:07
  your more flattering portrait than the last. And this excellent coat, which you
• 4:21:11
  have so considerately less strapped to your saddle, should contribute greatly to the very
• 4:21:17
  similitude. Dare I hope that you begin to appreciate some of the points of
• 4:21:21
  my performance so far as it has gone. The pretext on which I bared
• 4:21:25
  my foot for its delicate job under your very eyes, eh, not so
• 4:21:29
  vain as it looked in either sense. I fancy should you have said that
• 4:21:33
  your hand would recoil from a revolver the moment it went off. You see,
• 4:21:37
  I staked my life on it, and I've won. What about that
• 4:21:41
  fall? It was the lottery. I was prepared to have my head cracked
• 4:21:45
  like an egg, and it's still pretty sore. The broken wrist wasn't your
• 4:21:51
  fault. It passed into the accepted situation before you turned up, and you
• 4:21:56
  would certainly have seen that I was shamming sleep if we hadn't both been so
• 4:21:59
  jam mean sleepy at the time. Give you my word, only you threw
• 4:22:03
  up the whole thing for forty winks any other point on which you could wish
• 4:22:07
  enlightenment. Then let me thank you with all my heart for one of the
• 4:22:11
  worst days and some of the greatest moments in my whole career. The crooked
• 4:22:18
  man answered, never a word, as he sat in a ball with uplifted
• 4:22:22
  palms and glaring upturned, unconquerable eyes. Good Bye, mister sipperinten at kens
• 4:22:27
  said stingery. I'm afraid I've been rather cruel to you, but you were
• 4:22:33
  never very nice to me. Sergeant Cameron was driving the spring cart towards sundown
• 4:22:38
  after a variety of unforeseen delays. Of a sudden out of the pink haze
• 4:22:44
  came the galloping figure, slightly humped in the inspector's coat and wide awake,
• 4:22:48
  with a bare foot through one stirrup and only a sock on its fellow with
• 4:22:52
  stingery E screamed the sergeant, pulling up, and the galloper drew rein at
• 4:22:57
  the driven horse's head. Dead, said he thickly. He was worse than
• 4:23:03
  we thought. You'll fetch him while I this time the sergeant knew that voice
• 4:23:07
  too well, and his right hand had flown to the back of his belt.
• 4:23:11
  Stingery shot was only first by a fraction of a second, but had
• 4:23:15
  put a bullet through the brain of the horse between the shafts, so that
• 4:23:18
  horse and shafts came down together, and the sergeant fired into the earth.
• 4:23:22
  As he fell across the splashboard. Stingery pressed soft heels into the thoroughbred's ribs
• 4:23:27
  and thundered on and on. Soon there was a gate to open. When
• 4:23:33
  he listened at that gate, all was still behind him, and before a
• 4:23:37
  far ahead. The rolling plain was faintly luminous in the dusk. Asce deepened
• 4:23:41
  to night, a cluster of terrestrial lights sprang out with stars. The Stingery
• 4:23:45
  knew the handful of gaunt unsheltered huts the light stood for there were an inn,
• 4:23:51
  a store, and Pelisse barracks clear corner on the map. The bush
• 4:23:56
  ranger galloped straight up to the barracks, but skirted the knot of men and
• 4:23:59
  the light before the veranda, and went jingling round into the yard. The
• 4:24:03
  young constable in charge ran through the building and met him dismounted at the Back's
• 4:24:08
  the matter, sir, he's gone stinger E. He's worse than we thought.
• 4:24:15
  Your man all right now, trouble whatever sare only second. Sorry in
• 4:24:18
  saying his prayers in a way you'd never credit. Come and hear him.
• 4:24:22
  I must come and see him at once. Got a fresh horse, and
• 4:24:25
  though I have so in saddled in the stool, I thought you might want
• 4:24:29
  one, Sir, ran up bar maid Stingery's own mare that was sent out
• 4:24:33
  here from the station when we had the news. That was very thoughtful of
• 4:24:37
  you. You will get on, young man, now lead the wave of
• 4:24:40
  that lamp. This time Stingery had spoken in gasps, like a man who
• 4:24:42
  had ridden very far, and the young constable, unlike as sergeant, did
• 4:24:48
  not know his voice of old. It had struck him at the last moment,
• 4:24:52
  as more unlike the voice of syprotended Cairns than the hardest riding should have
• 4:24:56
  made it. And with the key in the door of the cell, the
• 4:25:00
  young fellow wheeled round and held the lamp on high. That instant he was
• 4:25:03
  fell to the floor, for that went down and out with a separate yet
• 4:25:07
  simultaneous crash, and Stingery turned the key, Howie, not a word after
• 4:25:14
  come the burly ruffian crept forth with outstretched hands apart what not even handcuffed,
• 4:25:22
  nay turned averid. You leafed the moment we left you, and been praying
• 4:25:26
  like a parson for him all to hear this jap to knew the same.
• 4:25:30
  When he comes to himself, lies pretty still, doesn't he in with him?
• 4:25:34
  The door clanged, the key was turned, Stingery popped it into his
• 4:25:38
  pocket. Later they'd let him out the better. Here's the best mount you
• 4:25:42
  ever had, and my sweetheart's waiting for me in the stable outside in front
• 4:25:48
  before the barracks Veranda, an inquisitive little group heard first the clang of the
• 4:25:52
  door within, and presently the clatter of hoofs coming around the yard Stingery and
• 4:25:57
  Howie. A white flo and a bay streak swept past them as they stood
• 4:26:03
  confounded, and the dwindling pair still bobbed in sight under a full complement of
• 4:26:07
  stars, when a fresh outcry from the cell and a mighty hammering against its
• 4:26:12
  locked door broke the truth to one and all. End of chapter eight,
• 4:26:18
  the villain worship there was no more fervent admirer of Stingaree and all bush Rangers
• 4:26:26
  than George Oswald Abernethy Melvin. Despite this mellifluous maenclature, young Melvin helped his
• 4:26:33
  mother to sell dance music, ballads, melodeons and a very occasional pianoforte in
• 4:26:40
  one of the several self styled capitals of Riverina. And despite both facts the
• 4:26:45
  mother was a lady of the most gentle blood, the son could either teach
• 4:26:49
  or tune the piano with a certain crude and idle skill. He endured a
• 4:26:53
  monopoly of what little business the locality provided in this line, and sat superior
• 4:26:59
  on the music stall at all the dances. He had once sung tenor in
• 4:27:03
  Bishop Methfin's choir, but offended by a word of wise and kindly advice,
• 4:27:10
  was seen no more in surplice or in church. It will be perceived that
• 4:27:15
  Oswald Melvin had all the aggressive independence of young Australia, without the virility which
• 4:27:21
  levins the truer type. Yet he was neither a base nor an unkind lad.
• 4:27:26
  His bane was a morbid temperament which he could no more help than a
• 4:27:30
  sallow face, and weedy person. Even his vanity was directly traceable to the
• 4:27:36
  early influence of an eccentric and fectless father with experimental ideas on the upbringing of
• 4:27:41
  a child. Twas a pity that brilliantly unsuccessful man had not lived to see
• 4:27:47
  the result of his sedulous empiricism. His wife was left to bear the brunt,
• 4:27:52
  a brave exile whose romantic history was never likely to escape her continent lips.
• 4:28:00
  None even knew whether she saw any or one of those aggravated faults of
• 4:28:03
  an only child which were so apparent to all her world. Yet the worst
• 4:28:10
  of Oswald Melvin was known only to his own morbid and sensitive heart. An
• 4:28:15
  unimpressive presence in real life. On his mind stage, he was ever in
• 4:28:21
  the limelight with a good line on his lips. Not that he was invariably
• 4:28:25
  the hero of these pieces. He could see himself as large with the noose
• 4:28:30
  round his neck, as in coronet or halo. And though this inward and
• 4:28:33
  spiritual temper may be far from rare, there had been no one to kick
• 4:28:37
  out of him its outward and visible expression. Oswald had never learned to gulp
• 4:28:44
  down the little lie which ensures a flattering attention. His clever father had even
• 4:28:48
  encouraged it in him as the nucleus of imagination. Imagination he certainly had,
• 4:28:56
  but it fed on strong meat for an unhealthy mind. On the sordid history
• 4:29:00
  of the earlier bush Rangers. Its favorite fare was the character and exploits of
• 4:29:06
  Stingaree. The sallow and neurotic face were brightened with morbid enthusiasm at the bare
• 4:29:11
  mention of the desperado's name. The somewhat dull, dark eyes would lighten with
• 4:29:17
  borrowed fires. The young fool were an eye glass in one of them.
• 4:29:21
  When he dared sting Array, he would say, is the greatest man in
• 4:29:26
  all Astradia. He had inherited from his father a delight in uttering startling opinions,
• 4:29:33
  but this one he held with unusual sincerity. It had come to all
• 4:29:37
  ears, and was the subject of that episcopal compliment which Oswald took as an
• 4:29:42
  affront. The impudent little choristers supported his loss by calling sting Array after him
• 4:29:48
  in the street. He was wise to keep his eye glass for the house
• 4:29:55
  there, however, with a few even younger men, who admired his standpoint
• 4:29:59
  and reveled in his store of criminous annals or with his patient, inscrutable mother.
• 4:30:04
  Oswald Melvin was another being. His language became bright and picturesque, his
• 4:30:11
  animation surprising. A casual customer would sometimes see the side of him and carry
• 4:30:17
  away the impression of a rare young dare devil. And it was one such
• 4:30:22
  who gave Oswald the first great moment of his bush life. Not been down
• 4:30:26
  for the back blocks for three years, he had asked, as he showed
• 4:30:30
  a tremulous and dilapidated bushman how to play the instrument that he had bought with
• 4:30:33
  a few shillings remaining out of his check. Been on the spring and going
• 4:30:38
  back to drive a whim till you've got enough to go at another. How
• 4:30:41
  I wish you'd tell that to our high and bitey lord Bishop of all the
• 4:30:45
  back Blocks. I should like to see his face and hear him of the
• 4:30:48
  subject. But I suppose he's news since you'd been down here last, never
• 4:30:53
  come across him. Eh, But of course you heard how good old Stinger
• 4:30:57
  he scored off in the other day. After he thought he'd scored off Stingery
• 4:31:03
  the wim driver had heard something about it. Young Melvin plunged into the congenial
• 4:31:08
  narrative, and emerged minutes later on a dusky glow. That's the man,
• 4:31:12
  for my money, he pederated Stingery, Sir, it's the greatest chap in
• 4:31:18
  all these colonies. It deserves to be viceroy when they get federation. Thunderbolt,
• 4:31:23
  Morgan, ben Hold and ned Kelly were not a circumstance between them.
• 4:31:27
  Distingery and the silly old Bishop's a silly old fool to him, I don't
• 4:31:33
  care. Tuppen's about right and wrong. That's not the point. The ones
• 4:31:36
  are false and the other isn't. The dawn saw it too much force to
• 4:31:41
  my mind, observed the wim driver with some warmth. You don't take my
• 4:31:47
  meaning, The superior youth pursued, it's a question of personality, A bit
• 4:31:52
  more personal than you think, was the dark rejoinder. How do you mean
• 4:32:00
  Melbourn's tone had altered in an instant. Oh, I know too much about
• 4:32:04
  him at first hand, the youth asked, with bated breath. Double first
• 4:32:11
  returned the other with a muddled glimmer of better things. Ye never knew him,
• 4:32:17
  did ye? Whispered? Oswald knew him? Or have been taken Prisony
• 4:32:22
  by him, said the whim driver, with the paws of a man who
• 4:32:26
  hesitates to humiliate himself, but is lost for the sake of that same sensation
• 4:32:30
  which Osward Melbourne loved to create. Missus Melvin was in the back room,
• 4:32:37
  wistfully engrossed in an English magazine sent that evening from Bishop's Lodge. The bad
• 4:32:41
  blood and the sun had not affected Doctor Methvan's keen but tactful interest in the
• 4:32:47
  mother. She looked up in tolerant consternation as Oswald pushed an unsavory bushman before
• 4:32:52
  him into the room. But even through her gentle horror, the mother's love
• 4:32:56
  shone with that steady humor which raised above the sphere of obvious pathos. He's
• 4:33:03
  a man who's been stuck up by stiggerree, he cried, boyish enough in
• 4:33:07
  his delight. Do keep an eye in the show, mother, and let
• 4:33:10
  him tell me all about it. Yes, he's good enough to say he
• 4:33:14
  will. Is there any whiskey nought for me? Put in the wim driver
• 4:33:18
  with a frank shudder, or should like a drink of tea out of a
• 4:33:21
  cup if I'm to have anything? Missus Melvin left them with a good humored
• 4:33:26
  word beside her promise. She'd given no sign of injury or disapproval. She
• 4:33:32
  was not one of the windsing sort, and a tremulous tramp was in her
• 4:33:37
  own chair before her back was turned. Yeah, fire away, cried the
• 4:33:41
  impatient Osborne. It's a long story, said the wim driver, and his
• 4:33:47
  dirty brows were knited and thought, let's have it coaxed the young man,
• 4:33:52
  and the other's thoughtful creases vanished suddenly in the end, very well, said
• 4:33:57
  he, since it means a drink of tea out of a caup. It
• 4:34:00
  was only the other day in a dust storm away back near the Darling as
• 4:34:06
  bad in one as ever I was out in, I was bushed and done
• 4:34:10
  for, gave it up and said my prayers. Then I practically died in
• 4:34:15
  my tracks, and came to life in a sunny clearing. Later in the
• 4:34:18
  day the storm was over. Two coves had found me and carried me to
• 4:34:25
  their camp, and as soon as I saw him, I spotted one for
• 4:34:27
  Howie and the other for stinger Ee. The narratives went no farther for a
• 4:34:33
  time. The thrilling youth I had question and leading question like a cross examining
• 4:34:38
  council and a fever at a concluder's case. The tea arrived that the whim
• 4:34:44
  driver had to help himself. His host neglected everything for the first chance he
• 4:34:48
  had ever had of hearing of Stingaree or any other bushranger at first hand,
• 4:34:52
  in how long we there a birder week? What happened? Then? The
• 4:34:57
  wim driver paused doubt renewed, you will never guess. Tell me. They
• 4:35:04
  waited for the next dust storm and then cast me adrift in that oswart stared
• 4:35:11
  he would never have guessed. Indeed, the unhealthy light faded from his sallow
• 4:35:17
  face. Even his morbid enthusiasm was a little damped. You must have done
• 4:35:25
  something to deserve it, he cried. At last, Who did was the
• 4:35:30
  reply, with hanging head. I I tried to take him, take your
• 4:35:36
  benefactor, take him prisoner, Yes, the man who saved my life.
• 4:35:42
  Melbourne sat staring twas a stare of honestly incredulous disgust. Then he sprang to
• 4:35:49
  his feet, a brighter youth than ever. His depression melted like a cloud.
• 4:35:56
  His villainous hero was a heroic villain after all. His heart of hearts,
• 4:36:02
  which was not black, could still render whole homage to Stingery. He
• 4:36:07
  no longer frowned on his informer as on a thing accursed. The creature had
• 4:36:11
  wiped out his original treachery distingery by replacing the uninjured idol in its Niche in
• 4:36:15
  this warped mind, Oswald, however, had made his repugnance only too plain.
• 4:36:21
  He was unable to elicit another detail, and in the very few minutes
• 4:36:25
  Missus Melvin was back in her place, though not before flicking it with her
• 4:36:29
  handkerchief, undetected by her son. It was certainly a battered and hand dog
• 4:36:33
  figure that stole away into the bush. Yet the creature straightened as he strode
• 4:36:38
  into starlight, undefiled by earthly illumination his paws. He left him presently as
• 4:36:45
  he went and began fingering the new Melodeon in the way of a man who
• 4:36:48
  need not have sought elementary instruction from Oswald. Melbourne and our shining disk filled
• 4:36:55
  one unwashed eye. Stingery lay a part of that night beside the milk white
• 4:37:00
  mare that he had left tethered in a box clump quite near the town.
• 4:37:04
  As sunrise, he knelt and shaved on the margin of a government tank,
• 4:37:07
  before breaking the mirror by plunging in. Before the next stars paled. He
• 4:37:14
  was snugly back in his older haunts, none knowing of his descent upon those
• 4:37:18
  of men there or thereabouts. Hidden like the needle in the hay, and
• 4:37:23
  yet ubiquitous in the stag, the bush ranger remained for months. Then there
• 4:37:29
  was an encounter, not the first of this period, but the first in
• 4:37:33
  which shots were exchanged. One of these pierced the lungs of his melodion,
• 4:37:40
  an instrument more notorious by this time than the musical box before her. There
• 4:37:44
  still greater treasure to Stingery that was near the full of a certain summer moon.
• 4:37:49
  It was barely waning to the eye when the battered buyer of melodians came
• 4:37:53
  for a new one to the shop in the pretty bush town. The shop
• 4:37:57
  was closed for the night, but Stingaree knocked at a lighted window under the
• 4:38:03
  verandah, which Missus Melbourne presently threw up. Her eyes flashed when she recognized
• 4:38:08
  one against whom she now harbored a bitterness on quite a different plain of feeling
• 4:38:12
  from her former repulsion. Even to his first glance shook an older and harder
• 4:38:18
  woman. I am sorry to see you, she said, the soft vehemence
• 4:38:23
  plainly foreign to herself. I almost hate the sight of you. You have
• 4:38:27
  been the ruin of my son. Is ruin? Stingaree forgot the speech of
• 4:38:33
  the unlettered stockman, but his cry was too short to do worse than warn
• 4:38:37
  him. Come round, continued missus Melvin, austerely I will see you.
• 4:38:42
  Who shall hear what you have done? In another minute he was in the
• 4:38:48
  parlor where he had sat aforetime, never dreamt of sitting now. But the
• 4:38:52
  lady took her accustomed chair as a queen her throne? Is he ruined?
• 4:38:56
  Asked Stingery, Not a reverably, not yet. That he may be any
• 4:39:03
  moment, he must be before long. But for what ailes in, Madam
• 4:39:10
  finnin worship, cried the lady, with a tragic face, stripped of all
• 4:39:14
  its humor and bare without it as his winter's tree. I remember, yes,
• 4:39:19
  well, I understand he was mad about Stingaree. It is madness now,
• 4:39:26
  said the bitter mother. Twas only a stupid, hair brained fancy then,
• 4:39:30
  but now it is something worse. You're the first of whom I have
• 4:39:33
  admitted it, She continued, with I logical indignation, because it's all through
• 4:39:38
  you, all through me. You told him a tale. You made that
• 4:39:44
  villain a greater hero in his eyes than ever. You made him real.
• 4:39:48
  He is real enough, God knows, but you made him so to my
• 4:39:55
  son. The keen eyes softened for one divine instant before that field, and
• 4:40:02
  and I I am talking my own boy over with with Stingery stood in twofold
• 4:40:08
  embarrassment. Did you know, after all who he was and what he had
• 4:40:15
  said he was the time before? A lower stuff alow? He answered,
• 4:40:19
  with a twitch of his unshaven lips. No, you were not that or
• 4:40:26
  rare, not whatever you may say you, She hesitated sweetly, You have
• 4:40:33
  been unsteady when you were here before. He twitched again, imperceptibly. I
• 4:40:37
  am thankful to see that you are now more like what you must once have
• 4:40:41
  been. I can bear to tell you of my boy, Oh sir,
• 4:40:47
  can you bear with me? Stingery twitched no more rich as the situation was
• 4:40:53
  keenly as he had said that it's unsuspected irony, The humor was all over
• 4:40:59
  for him. Here was a woman, still young, sweet and kind and
• 4:41:03
  gentle as a childish memory, with her fine eyes full of tears. That
• 4:41:08
  was bad enough to make it worse. She went on to tell him of
• 4:41:12
  her son him and outlaw him a bush ranger with a price upon his skin,
• 4:41:19
  as she might have outlined the case to a consulting physician. The boy
• 4:41:23
  had been born in the trouble of her early exile. He could not help
• 4:41:27
  his temperament, yet countless virtues, she extolled him in beaming parentheses. But
• 4:41:33
  he had too much imagination and too little balanced. He was morbidly wrapped up
• 4:41:40
  in the whole subject of romantic crime, and no less than possessed with the
• 4:41:45
  personality of this one romantic criminal. I should be ashamed to tell you of
• 4:41:49
  the childish lengths to which he is gone, she went on, if he
• 4:41:53
  were quite himself on the point. But indeed he is not. His stingery
• 4:42:00
  in his heart, stingery in his dreams. It is as debasing a form
• 4:42:04
  as mental and temperamental weakness could well take. Yet I know watch over him
• 4:42:11
  half the night. He is an eye glass, he keeps revolvers. He's
• 4:42:15
  even bought a white mare. He can look extremely like the portraits one a
• 4:42:21
  scene of the wretched man. But come with me one moment. She took
• 4:42:26
  the lamp and led the way into the room where Osward Melbourne slept. It
• 4:42:32
  slept in it from that boyhood in which the brave woman had opened this sort
• 4:42:34
  of shop entirely for his sake. Music was his only talent. He was
• 4:42:40
  obviously not to be a genius in musical world. But it was the only
• 4:42:44
  one in which she could foresee. The selfish, self willed child figuring with
• 4:42:48
  credit, and her foresight was only equaled by her resource. The business was
• 4:42:52
  ripe and ready for him when he grew up, and this was what he
• 4:42:56
  was making of it. But Stingery saw only a little bed that had once
• 4:43:02
  been far too large, the Bible still by its side, read or unread,
• 4:43:07
  the parents portrayed overhead. The mother was looking in an opposite direction.
• 4:43:15
  He followed her eyes, and there at the foot where the infatuated four could
• 4:43:19
  see at last thing at night and first in the morning, was an enlarged
• 4:43:23
  photograph of the bush ranger himself. It had been taken an audacious circumstances a
• 4:43:30
  year or two before, a traveling photographer had been one of yet another coach,
• 4:43:36
  though turned out and stood in a line by the masterful, masterless man.
• 4:43:40
  Now you may take my photograph. The police refuse to know me when
• 4:43:44
  we do meet, give them a chance. And he had posed on the
• 4:43:47
  spot with eye glass up and pistols pointed, as he saw himself, now
• 4:43:52
  not less than a quarter life's size, in a great gaudy frame. For
• 4:43:57
  while he stared, missus Melbury been rubbaging in a drawer, And when he
• 4:44:02
  turned, she was staring in her turn with glassy eyes and her hands was
• 4:44:06
  an empty mahogany case with velvet molds, which ought to have been filled by
• 4:44:11
  a breast of missing revolvers. He kept it long, he kept them in
• 4:44:15
  it, She gasped. He may have done it this very night. Done
• 4:44:21
  what stuck up the denil Quinn veil. That is his maddest dream. I
• 4:44:26
  have heard of, boast of it to his friends, the brainless boys who
• 4:44:30
  alone look out to me. They have even heard and rave of it in
• 4:44:33
  his dreams. Stingery was heavy for a moment with mental calculation. His head
• 4:44:41
  was a time table of Cobb's coaches on the Riverina road system. He nodded
• 4:44:45
  it as he located the imperiled vehicle the dream. It shall remain, said
• 4:44:51
  he. But it was not a moment to lose. Do you propose to
• 4:44:53
  follow and stop him? If he really means it? He may not.
• 4:44:59
  He will ride at night. He is often out as late, coming and
• 4:45:03
  going at about the same time. Yes, now I think of it.
• 4:45:07
  Then his courage must have failed and hitherto and it probably will again. But
• 4:45:12
  if not, I will cure him. But it must go at once.
• 4:45:15
  I have a horse not far away. I will gallop and meet the coach
• 4:45:19
  if it is still safe, as you may be sure it will be,
• 4:45:22
  I shall scour the country for your son. I can tell him a fresh
• 4:45:26
  thing or two about stinger. Ee, you'd bless you leave him to me?
• 4:45:33
  Oh, may God bless you always. His hands were in a lady's
• 4:45:37
  hands once more. Stingaree withdrew them gently, and he looked as last into
• 4:45:41
  the brave, wet eyes raised gratefully to his The villain worshiper was indeed duly
• 4:45:48
  posted a certain belt of trees through which the coach route rang, but half
• 4:45:52
  way between the town and the first stage south. It was not his first
• 4:45:56
  a nocturnal visit to the spot, often as prototype divined, had the mimic
• 4:46:02
  would be Desperado, sat trembling on his hoary screw, revolse ready, while
• 4:46:07
  the red eyes of the coach dilated down the road, and as often had
• 4:46:11
  the cumbrous ship pitched passed unscathed. The weakneed and weak minded youth was too
• 4:46:18
  vain to feel much ashamed. He was biding his time. He could pick
• 4:46:22
  his knight. Oh one was too dark. Noo, that was not dark
• 4:46:26
  enough. He had always some excuse for himself when he regained his room,
• 4:46:30
  still unstained by crime, and so the unhealthy excitement was deliciously maintained to night.
• 4:46:37
  As always when he sallied forth the deed should be done. He only
• 4:46:41
  wished there was a shade less moon, and wondered whether he might not have
• 4:46:45
  done better to wait. But as usual, the dye he was cast.
• 4:46:49
  Indeed, he was quite a new complication that deterred this poor creature for the
• 4:46:56
  last time. He was feverishly expecting the coach when a patter of hoofs smote
• 4:47:02
  his ear from the opposite quarter. This was enough to stay in older in
• 4:47:07
  a bolder hand, Oswald tucked in his guns with unrealized relief. It was
• 4:47:12
  his last instinct to wait and see whether the horseman was worth attacking for his
• 4:47:15
  own sake. He at room for few ideas at the same time, and
• 4:47:21
  his only new one was the sense of a new danger, which he prepared
• 4:47:23
  to meet by pocketing his pistols as a child bolts stolen fruit. There was
• 4:47:29
  no thinking before the act, but it was perhaps as characteristic as the naturally
• 4:47:33
  honest man as of the coward. Stingery swept through the trees at a gallop,
• 4:47:40
  the milk white mare flashing in the moonlit patches. At the sight of
• 4:47:45
  her, Oswald was convulsed with a premonition as to who was coming. His
• 4:47:48
  heart palpitated as even his heart had never done before. And yet he would
• 4:47:52
  have sat irresolute, inert and let the man pass, as he always let
• 4:47:57
  the coach, had the decision been left to him. The real milk white
• 4:48:02
  mare affected the imitation in its turn, as the coach horses never had,
• 4:48:06
  and Oswald swayed and swam upon a whinnying steed. I thought you was stingaree.
• 4:48:12
  The anticlimax was as profound as the weakling's relief, Yet there was a
• 4:48:18
  strong dash of indignation in his tone. What if I am, but you're
• 4:48:22
  not. You're not half smart enough. You can't tell me anything about stingaree.
• 4:48:29
  He put his eye glass up with an air. Stingery put up his
• 4:48:33
  You, young fool, said he. The thoroughbred mare, the eye glass,
• 4:48:38
  a peeping pistol were all superfluous evidence. There was the far more unmistakable
• 4:48:45
  authority of voice and eye and bearing. Yet the voice, at least was
• 4:48:48
  somehow familiar to the ear of Oswald, who stuttered as much when he was
• 4:48:52
  able. I must have heard it before, or have I dreamed it or
• 4:48:57
  thought a good deal about you, ye know? To do him justice.
• 4:49:02
  He was no longer very nervous, though still physically shaken. On the other
• 4:49:07
  hand, he began already to feel the elation of his dreams. I do
• 4:49:11
  know you've thought your soul into a pulp on the subject, and you must
• 4:49:15
  give it up, said Stingery sternly. Oswald sat aghast. But how on
• 4:49:22
  earth did you know? I've come straight from your mother, your breaking her
• 4:49:26
  heart? But how can you have come straight from here? I've come down
• 4:49:33
  for another Melodeon. I've got to have one too, another at Osward,
• 4:49:38
  Melvin, you was drunken wind driver for what he had really been. The
• 4:49:44
  arn I told you about myself was true enough, continued Stingery, and the
• 4:49:48
  names were altered. As they say it happened to the other fellow, not
• 4:49:52
  to me. I made it happen. He is hardly likely to have lived
• 4:49:56
  to tell the tale, did ye? He try to betray you after what
• 4:50:00
  you've done for him? More or less he looked on me as fair game,
• 4:50:06
  but you had saved his life. Stingery shrugged. We rolled across him,
• 4:50:11
  and you think he perished at dust and thirst. Stingery nodded in torment.
• 4:50:18
  Din he got what he jolly will end. Anything less would have been
• 4:50:21
  too good for him, cried Osbalde, and with a boyish, uncompromising heat
• 4:50:26
  which spoke to some human nature in him. Still, but Stingery frowned up
• 4:50:32
  the moonlit track. There was still no sign of the coach. Yet time
• 4:50:36
  was short, and the morbid enthusiast was not to be disgusted. Indeed,
• 4:50:41
  he was all enthusiasm now, and a less unattractive lad than the bush ranger
• 4:50:45
  had hoped to find him. He looked the white screw and Osward up and
• 4:50:49
  down as they sat in their saddles in the moonshine seemed like sunlight on that
• 4:50:55
  beaming fall, And you think of commencing bush ranger, do ra there?
• 4:51:00
  It's a hard life, what at lasts in a nasty death to top up
• 4:51:03
  with? There ain't hang ye for it. They might hang me for the
• 4:51:07
  man I put back in the vile dust. From whence he sprung that?
• 4:51:11
  Hang you in six months? You've too many nerves. You'd pull the trigger
• 4:51:15
  every time. A short life and a merry one, cried the reckless Oswald.
• 4:51:22
  I shouldn't care, but your mother would, retorted Stingery, sharply,
• 4:51:27
  don't think about yourself so much. Think about her for a change. The
• 4:51:32
  young man turned dusky at the moonlight. He was wounded where the bishop had
• 4:51:37
  wounded him, and Stingery was quick to see it, as quick to turn
• 4:51:41
  the knife round in the wound. What a bush ranger, he jeered.
• 4:51:47
  Put your plucky little mother in a side saddle, and she make two of
• 4:51:49
  you, ten of you, twenty of a puny Namby Pamby conceited a young
• 4:51:55
  idiot like you. Pon my word, Melvin, if I had a mother
• 4:51:57
  like you, I should be ashamed of my I never had, I may
• 4:52:02
  tell you, or I shouldn't have come down to a dog's life like this.
• 4:52:07
  The bushranger paused to watch the effect of his insults. Tis not quite
• 4:52:11
  what he wanted. The youth would not hang his head, and if he
• 4:52:15
  did not answer back, he looked back dog ofly enough, for he could
• 4:52:18
  be dolled in a passive way, twas his one hard quality, but not
• 4:52:25
  and a character of green deal. Stingery glanced up the road once more,
• 4:52:30
  but only for an instant to dog's life. He went on, whether you
• 4:52:34
  believe it or not, but it takes a bull dog to live it.
• 4:52:38
  And don't you forget it. It's no life for a young poodle like you.
• 4:52:42
  You can't stick up a better man than yourself, not more than once
• 4:52:48
  or twice, requires something more than a six shooter, and a good deal
• 4:52:52
  more than was put into you, my son. But you shall see for
• 4:52:56
  yourself. Look over your shoulder. Oswald did so, and started in a
• 4:53:02
  fashion that set the bush range in nodding his scorn. Twas only a pair
• 4:53:07
  of lamps still close together in the distance up the road, the couch exclaimed.
• 4:53:11
  The excited youth exactly said Stingery, and I'm going to stick it up.
• 4:53:18
  Excitement grew to frenzy in a flash. I'll help you. You do
• 4:53:22
  no such thing that you shall see how it's done, and then ask yourself
• 4:53:26
  candidly if it's nice work, and if you are the man to do it.
• 4:53:30
  Ride a hundred yards further in. Tether your horse quickly in the thickest
• 4:53:33
  scrub you can find. Then run back and climb into the fork of this
• 4:53:37
  gum tree. You'll have time. If you're sharp. I'll give you a
• 4:53:40
  leg up, but I sha'n't be surprised if I don't see you again.
• 4:53:45
  There was no saying what Oswald might have done, but for these last words,
• 4:53:49
  certain it is that they set and galloping with an oath, and brought
• 4:53:52
  him back panting in another minute. The coach lamps are not much wider apart
• 4:53:57
  stingery awaited him, are so on foot and quicker than the telling. Oswald
• 4:54:02
  was ensconced on high where he could see through the meager drooping leaves with very
• 4:54:06
  little danger of being seen. And if you come down before I'm done and
• 4:54:11
  gone, if it's not to glory, I'll run some lead through you.
• 4:54:17
  You'll be the first. Oswald perched Reflecting on this final threat, the scenes
• 4:54:22
  soon enacted before his eyes was viewed as usual through the aura of his own
• 4:54:26
  egoism. He longed all the time to be taking part in it. He
• 4:54:32
  could see himself so distinctly at the work safe for about a minute in the
• 4:54:37
  middle, when for once in his life he held his breadth and trembled for
• 4:54:40
  other skins. There been no unusual feature. The life sized coach lamps had
• 4:54:45
  shown their mountain range of outside passengers against moonlight, sky or trees. Cigar
• 4:54:52
  paled and reddened between the teeth of one plain Wreaths of smoke floated from his
• 4:54:56
  lips. With but an instant's break. When Stingery rode out and stopped the
• 4:55:00
  coach, the three leaders reared. The two wheelers were pulled almost to their
• 4:55:07
  haunches. The driver was docile, indeed, though profane and word and Stingarey
• 4:55:11
  himself discovered a horrifying vocabulary out of keeping with his reputation. In incredibly few
• 4:55:18
  minutes, driver and passengers were formed in a line and robbed in rotation or
• 4:55:22
  but two ladies who were kept inside unmolested. The flagrant irishman declared it was
• 4:55:27
  the proudest day of his life, and Oswald's heart went out in although it
• 4:55:33
  rather displeased him to find his own sentiments shared by the vulgar. The man
• 4:55:37
  with a cigar kept glowing all the time. The mail bags were not demanded
• 4:55:41
  on this occasion. Stingery had no time to waste on them. He was
• 4:55:45
  still collecting purse and watch. When Oswald's young blood froze in the stiffening limbs,
• 4:55:51
  he dared not move. One of the ladies had got down from the
• 4:55:56
  coach on the off side, and behold was a man wrapped in a rug,
• 4:56:02
  which dropped from him as he crept round behind the horses. At their
• 4:56:06
  head stood the lily mare, as if doing her own fairyous part by her
• 4:56:10
  own kind. In a twinkling, the mad adventurer was on her back.
• 4:56:15
  And all this time Osborne longed to jump down, or at least to shout
• 4:56:18
  a warning to his hero, but as usual, his desires were unproductive of
• 4:56:22
  word or deed. And then STINGERI saw his man did not fire, did
• 4:56:29
  not shift sight or barrel for a moment from the docile file before him.
• 4:56:33
  Barmaid, barmaid, my pet. He cried and hardly looked to see what
• 4:56:38
  happened, but Osbald watched the bear stop, prick her ears under the hammering
• 4:56:44
  of unspurred heels, spin round, bucking as she spun, and toss her
• 4:56:48
  rider like a bull. There in the moonlight. He lay like a lead
• 4:56:55
  with leaden face upturned to the shuddering youngster in the tree. O one of
• 4:56:59
  you would, doctor, asked Stingery, checking a forward movement of the file.
• 4:57:03
  Oh am, the cigar was paling between finger and thumb. Then you
• 4:57:07
  come here and have a look at him. The rest of you move at
• 4:57:11
  your peril. Stingery led the way, stepping backward, but not as far
• 4:57:15
  as the injured man, who sat up ruefully as the bush ranger sprang into
• 4:57:19
  the saddle another yard and might have grabbed your ankles, said the man on
• 4:57:26
  the ground. You are a start, fellow, but I know more about
• 4:57:29
  this game than you, the outlaw answered, riding to his distance and reining
• 4:57:33
  up. If I didn't you might have had me. But you must think
• 4:57:36
  of something better for Stingery. He galloped his mair into the bush, and
• 4:57:41
  Oswald clung in lonely terror to his tree. A snatch of conversation called him
• 4:57:47
  to attention. The plundered party were clambering philosophically to their seats, while the
• 4:57:53
  driver blesphemed delightedly over the integrity of his mails. It wasn't stinger Ring,
• 4:58:00
  said one, you bet it was? How much he hardly ever worked so
• 4:58:03
  far south, and he's nuts or males. But if it wasn't Stingery,
• 4:58:08
  who was it? It was him, all right? Look at the mere
• 4:58:14
  she in. The only white horse ever foaled, remarked the driver, sorting
• 4:58:18
  his fistful arrains. But who else could it have been? The driver uttered
• 4:58:23
  an inspired imprecation. I can tell you, oh, I chanced to live
• 4:58:29
  in this year township we're coming to all And second thoughts, I'll keep it
• 4:58:34
  to myself till we get dead, And he cracked his whip. Osward himself
• 4:58:41
  rode back to the township before the moon went down. It was very heavy
• 4:58:45
  with his own reflections. How magnificent it had all surpassed his most extravagant imaginings,
• 4:58:53
  in audacity, in expedition, and simple or mastery of the mutable.
• 4:58:59
  Many by the dom at one he forgave Stingery his gibes and insults could have
• 4:59:04
  forgiven a horse whipping from that king of men. Stingery had been his imaginary
• 4:59:08
  god before. He was a realized ideal from this night forth, and the
• 4:59:14
  reality updid the dream. But the fly of self must always poison this young
• 4:59:21
  man to Ekland tonight there was some excuse from his degenerate point of view.
• 4:59:26
  He must give it up. Stingarey was right. It was only one man
• 4:59:32
  in thousands who could do unerringly what he had done that night. Osward Melbourne
• 4:59:37
  was not that man. He saw it for himself at last, But it
• 4:59:42
  was a bitter hour for him life and the music shop would fall very flat
• 4:59:48
  after this. He would be dishonored Before his only friends, the unworthy,
• 4:59:52
  hobbedehoys who were to have joined his gang. He could not tell them what
• 4:59:57
  had happened, least until he invented some less inglorious part for himself, and
• 5:00:03
  that was a difficulty in view of newspaper reports of the sticking up. Could
• 5:00:08
  scarcely tell them a true word of what had passed between himself and Stingaree.
• 5:00:14
  If only he might yet grow more like the master, if only he might
• 5:00:18
  still hope to follow so sublime a lead, Thus aspiring vainly as now he
• 5:00:23
  knew. Osward Melbourne rode slowly back into the excited town. Who passed the
• 5:00:29
  lighted police barracks in the innocence of that portion of his heart. But one
• 5:00:34
  had flown like the wind ahead of him, and two in uniform followed by
• 5:00:38
  that. One dashed out on Osward and the old white screw Sir m dare
• 5:00:45
  say out one in the quinge name, added the other call yourself stingaree,
• 5:00:52
  panted the runner. Our egoist was quick enough to grasp their meaning, but
• 5:00:56
  quicker still to see and to seize the chance of a crazy lifetime. Always
• 5:01:02
  acute where his own vanity was touched, his promptitude was, for once on
• 5:01:06
  a par with his perceptions. Ed your eye on me long, he inquired,
• 5:01:11
  delightfully as he dismounted. Long enough, said one policeman. The other
• 5:01:17
  was busy plucking loaded revolves from the desperadoes pockets. A crowd had formed.
• 5:01:22
  If you're looking for the loat, he went on, raising his voice.
• 5:01:26
  From the benefit of all you may look, I shan't tell you, and
• 5:01:30
  it will take you all your time. But a surprise was in store for
• 5:01:36
  prisoner and police alike. Every stolen watch, and all the missing money was
• 5:01:41
  discovered no later than the next morning in the bush, quite close to the
• 5:01:44
  scene of the outrage. There'd be no attempt to hide them. The len
• 5:01:48
  heap dumped from the saddle with no more depreciation than a broken watch. Class
• 5:01:53
  True to his new character, Oswald learnt this development without flinching. His ready
• 5:02:00
  comment was in the next day's papers. There is nothing worth heaving, he
• 5:02:06
  had maintained, and did not see the wisdom of the boast until a lawyer
• 5:02:08
  called and pointed out that it contained the nucleus of a strong defense. Oh
• 5:02:14
  defend myself, thank you, said the inflated fool. Then you will make
• 5:02:18
  a mess of it and deserve all you'll get. Nor be a pity to
• 5:02:22
  spoil such a good defense. What is the defense? You did it for
• 5:02:26
  a joke, of course, Oswald smiled inscrutably and dismissed his visitor with a
• 5:02:33
  lordly promise to consider the proposition and that lawyer's claims upon the case. Never
• 5:02:38
  was such triumph tasted in guilty immunity, as was this innocent man's under cloud
• 5:02:45
  of guilt so apparent as to impose on every mind. Yet but carried out
• 5:02:49
  a notorious intention, for his few friends were the first to betray their captain,
• 5:02:55
  albeit his bul bearing and magnanimous smiles, when an admiration which they had
• 5:02:59
  never before much safety in their hearts. He was indeed a different man.
• 5:03:04
  He had lived to see stingery in action, and now he moldeled himself from
• 5:03:08
  the life. The only doubt was as to whether, at the last of
• 5:03:12
  that business he had actually avowed himself stingery or not. There might have been
• 5:03:17
  trouble about the horse, but fortunately for the enthusiastic prisoner, the man who
• 5:03:22
  had been thrown was allowed to proceed an oppressing journey to the barcou There was
• 5:03:26
  a plethora of evidence without his Besides, the hide and bone mare was called
• 5:03:30
  barmaid after the original, and it was known that Oswald had tried to teach
• 5:03:34
  the old creature tricks. Above all, the prisoner had never pretended to deny
• 5:03:38
  his guilt. Still, this matter of the horses kept him a certain sense
• 5:03:42
  of insecurity in his cozy cell. He had awakened to find himself not only
• 5:03:48
  deliciously notorious, but actually more of a man than in his heart of hearts
• 5:03:52
  he had dared to hope the tenacity and consistency of his pose were alike remarkable,
• 5:03:59
  even in the over weening cause of egoism. He had never shown so
• 5:04:02
  much character in his life. Yet he shuddered to realize that, given the
• 5:04:07
  usual time for reflection before his great moment, that moment might have proved as
• 5:04:11
  mean as many another. When the spirit had been wine and the flesh water.
• 5:04:17
  There was in fine but one feature of the affair which even Oswald Melbourne,
• 5:04:21
  drunk with notoriety, in secretly sanguine of a nominal punishment, could not
• 5:04:25
  contemplate with absolute satisfaction. That feature followed the others into the papers which kept
• 5:04:32
  him intoxicated, and a bundle of these papers found their adventurous way to the
• 5:04:37
  latest fastness distingery in the malley. The real villain dropped his eyeglass, clapped
• 5:04:42
  it in again, and did his best to crack it with his stare.
• 5:04:47
  Student of character as he was, he could not have conceived such a development,
• 5:04:51
  and such a character. He read on, more enlightened than amused to
• 5:04:56
  think he had the pluck, he murmured as he dropped that australation and took
• 5:05:00
  up. The next weeks he was filled with admiration. But soon a frown
• 5:05:07
  than an oath came to put an end to it. Little beast, he
• 5:05:11
  cried, He'll kill that woman. He can't have kept it up. He
• 5:05:17
  sorted the papers for the lightest of all. A sinful publican saved them for
• 5:05:21
  him, and therein read that Oswald Melbourne had been committed for trial, and
• 5:05:26
  that his only concern was for the condition of his mother, twas still unchanged,
• 5:05:30
  and seemed latterly to distress the prisoner very much. Oh distress him,
• 5:05:36
  roared Stingery to the malley, I'll distress him if we change places for it.
• 5:05:41
  Riding all night as much as he did by day for some hundred hours
• 5:05:45
  before he paid his third and last visit to the Melbourn's music shop. He
• 5:05:51
  rode boldly to the door, but he rode a pieboard mare, not to
• 5:05:53
  be confused in the most suspicious mind with the no more conspicuous barmaid. It
• 5:05:59
  is true of the brown parts smelt of Condy's fluid, and were at once
• 5:06:03
  strange and sending a little tender to the touch. But Stingery allowed no medley
• 5:06:07
  with his mount, and only a very sinful publican, very many leagues back
• 5:06:12
  was in the secret. There were no lighted windows behind the shop. To
• 5:06:17
  night, the whole place was in darkness, and stingery knocked in vain.
• 5:06:22
  A neighbor appeared on the next Verandah, who is it you want? He
• 5:06:27
  asked Missus Melvine. It's no good's knocking for her. Is she dead?
• 5:06:33
  Not that I know of, for she can't be long for this world?
• 5:06:37
  Where is she now? Bishop's lodge? They say, Miss Bethan's with her
• 5:06:41
  day and night. For it was in the days of the bishop's daughter,
• 5:06:44
  who had a strong mind but no sense of humor, and a heart only
• 5:06:48
  fickle in its own affairs. Miss Methan made an admirable, if somewhat to
• 5:06:52
  assiduous dictorial nurse. She had, however, a fund of real sympathy with
• 5:06:57
  the afflicted, and Missus Melbourne's only serious complaint, which she intended to die
• 5:07:03
  without uttering, was that she was never left alone with her grief by day
• 5:07:07
  or night. It was Miss Methveline, who, sitting with rather ostentatious patience
• 5:07:11
  in the dark at the open window till her patient should fall or pretend to
• 5:07:15
  be a sleep, saw a man ride a piebald horse in at the gate,
• 5:07:21
  and then, half way up the drive suspiciously dismount and lead his horse
• 5:07:26
  at an attempting shrubbery. Stingery did not often change his mind at the last
• 5:07:30
  moment, but he knew the man on whose generosity was about to throw himself,
• 5:07:34
  which was to know further that that generosity would be curved by judgment,
• 5:07:40
  and to reflect that he was at least likely to be deprived of a horse
• 5:07:42
  whose whereabouts was known only to himself. There was but one lighted room where
• 5:07:48
  he eventually stole upon the house, and had a veranda to itself and the
• 5:07:52
  bright frame of the French windows which stood open. Sat the Bishop with his
• 5:07:56
  bible on his knees. Yes, I know you, said, he putting
• 5:08:02
  his marker in the place as Stingery entered, boots in one hand and something
• 5:08:04
  else in the other. I thought we should meet again. Would you mind
• 5:08:10
  putting that thing back in your pocket? You promise not to call a soul?
• 5:08:14
  Oh dear, Yes, you weren't expecting me, were you, cried
• 5:08:18
  Stingery suspiciously. I've been expecting you for months, returned the Bishop. You
• 5:08:23
  knew my address, but I hadn't yours. We were bound to meet again.
• 5:08:29
  Stingery smiled as he took his revolver by the barrel and carried it across
• 5:08:33
  the room to doctor Methan. What's that for? I don't want it.
• 5:08:37
  Put it in your own pocket. Least I can trust you not to take
• 5:08:41
  my life in killed blood. The bishop seemed nettled and annoyed. Stingarey loved
• 5:08:48
  him. I didn't come to take anything, much less life, he said.
• 5:08:52
  I came to say that if it is not too late to save life
• 5:08:56
  here in your house. But whom do you know of my household? Missus
• 5:09:03
  Melvin, and I've had the honor of meeting her twice. The reach time
• 5:09:06
  she was unaware of the dishonor of meeting me. The last time, I
• 5:09:10
  promised to try to save her unhappy son from himself. I found him waiting
• 5:09:14
  to waylay the coach, told him who I was, and had ten minutes
• 5:09:17
  to try to cure him in He wouldn't listen to reason, insult ran like
• 5:09:21
  water off his back. I did my best to show him what a life
• 5:09:23
  it was he longed to lead. Now much more there was than it been
• 5:09:26
  a loaded revolver. He wouldn't take my word for it. However, so
• 5:09:30
  I put him out of harm's way, up in a tree. When the
• 5:09:33
  coach came along, I gave him as brutal an exhibition of the art of
• 5:09:36
  bush rangering as I could without spilling blood. I promise you it was for
• 5:09:40
  no other reason. What did I want with watches? What were a few
• 5:09:45
  pounds to me? I dropped the lot that the lad might know. The
• 5:09:49
  Bishop started to his gaited legs. And he's actually innocent all the time of
• 5:09:56
  the deeds the babe unborn? Then why in the wide world? Doctor Methvan
• 5:10:03
  stood begg at a further speech. His mind was too plain and sane for
• 5:10:07
  immediate understanding of such a type as Osward Melbourne. But the bushranger hit off
• 5:10:12
  that young man's character and half a dozen trenchant phrases. You must be let
• 5:10:18
  out, and it may save his mother's life. But if he were mine,
• 5:10:22
  exclaimed the Bishop, who would rather he had done the other deed?
• 5:10:26
  What about you? He added, suddenly, his eyes resting on his sardonic
• 5:10:30
  visitor, who had disguised himself far less than his horse for me in giving
• 5:10:34
  yourself up? No, you know me. You can spread what I have
• 5:10:38
  told you. But the bishop shifted uneasily on his hearth rug and may not
• 5:10:44
  see my way to that said he besides, must have run a lot of
• 5:10:48
  risks to do this good action. How do you know you haven't been recognized
• 5:10:52
  already? I should have known you anywhere, but you have undertaken not to
• 5:10:57
  raise an alarm, my lord, and I shall not break my promise.
• 5:11:02
  There was a grim regret in the bishop's voice. Stingery thought he understood it.
• 5:11:07
  Thank you, he said, don't thank me, pray. Doctor Methfid
• 5:11:11
  could be quite testy on occasion now of other duties then to you, you
• 5:11:15
  know, and I only answer for my actions during the actual period of our
• 5:11:19
  interview. There are many things I should like to say to you, my
• 5:11:23
  brother, a gentle voice went on, But this is hardly the time for
• 5:11:26
  me to say them. But there is one question I should like to ask
• 5:11:30
  you for the peace of both of our souls and for the maintenance of my
• 5:11:34
  own belief in human nature. He threw up an episcopal hand dramatically. If
• 5:11:40
  you earnestly and honestly wished to save this poor lady's life and the word no
• 5:11:44
  other way, would you then be man enough to give yourself up to give
• 5:11:48
  your liberty for her life. Stingery took time to think. His eyes were
• 5:11:53
  brightly fixed upon the bishop's. Yet I saw a little bedroom just as plainish
• 5:12:00
  ladies, standing by the empty bed. At its foot a portrait of himself,
• 5:12:03
  armed to the teeth for hers, said he yes, like a shot.
• 5:12:11
  I am thankful to hear it, replied the bishop, with almost fervent
• 5:12:15
  relief. Only wish you could have the opportunity, But now you never will,
• 5:12:21
  my brother. If you look round, you will see why. Stingrey
• 5:12:25
  looked round without a word the bishop's eyes. At the last instant he had
• 5:12:30
  learned what to expect. A firing party of four stocking soled at constables were
• 5:12:36
  drawn across the opened French windows, their leveled rifles poking through the Bushranger looked
• 5:12:41
  over his shoulder with a bitter smile. You have done me, after all,
• 5:12:45
  said he, and stretched out empty hands. Who was done before I
• 5:12:51
  saw you? The Bishop made answer. I had already sent for the police.
• 5:12:56
  One had entered excitedly by an inner door, and he didn't do you
• 5:13:00
  at all, cried the voice of high hysteria. It was I who saw
• 5:13:04
  you, twas I who guessed who it was, Oh, father, have
• 5:13:07
  you been talking so long to such a dreadful man, and made sure he
• 5:13:11
  would shoot you, and you'd still be shot if they had to shoot him.
• 5:13:15
  Move, Move, Move. Stiggery looked at the strong minded girl,
• 5:13:19
  shrill with her triumph, quite carried away by her excitement, all undaunted by
• 5:13:25
  the prospect of bloodshed before her eyes. And it was he who moved with
• 5:13:30
  but a shrug of the shoulders, and gave himself up without another sign.
• 5:13:36
  End of chapter nine, The Moth and the Star, Part one. Dyinghurst
• 5:13:41
  jail had never ammured a more interesting prisoner than the back block bandit, who
• 5:13:45
  was tried and convicted under the strange style and title which he had made his
• 5:13:49
  own. Not even in prison was his real name ever known, And the
• 5:13:55
  wild speculations of some imaginative officials were nothing else up to the end. There
• 5:14:00
  was enough color in their wildness, however, to crown the convict with a
• 5:14:03
  certain halo of romance, which his behavior in jail did nothing to dispel.
• 5:14:10
  That, of course, was exemplary, since Stingery had never been a fool,
• 5:14:15
  but it was something more and rarer, not content simply to follow the
• 5:14:18
  line of least resistance. He exhibited from the first to spirit in a philosophy
• 5:14:22
  unique indeed beneath the broad arrow, and so far from decreasing with the years
• 5:14:27
  of his captivity. These attractive qualities won and friend after friend among the officials,
• 5:14:33
  and privilege upon privilege at their hands, while amply justifying the romantic interest
• 5:14:38
  in his case. At last they came to Sydney a person more capable of
• 5:14:44
  an acute appreciation of the heroic villain than his most ardent admirer on the spot.
• 5:14:48
  Lucius Brady was a long haired irishman of letters, barred and bookworm,
• 5:14:55
  rebel and reviewer in his ample leisure. He was also the most enthusiastic criminologist
• 5:15:00
  in London, and as president of an exceedingly esoteric society for the Cultivation of
• 5:15:06
  Criminals. Even from London did he come for a pre arranged series of interviews
• 5:15:11
  with the last and the most distinguished of all the bush Rangers, and mister
• 5:15:15
  Lucius Brady his biographer to be that Stingery confided the data of all the misdeeds
• 5:15:22
  recounted in these pages, but of his life during the quiet intervals of his
• 5:15:26
  relations with Confederates and his more honest dealings with honest folk, of which many
• 5:15:32
  a pretty tale was rife. He was not to be persuaded to speak without
• 5:15:36
  an irritating reserve. Keeped my points of contact with the world, but which
• 5:15:41
  something is known or ready, and you shall have the whole truth of the
• 5:15:45
  matter, said the convict. But I don't intend to give away the altogether
• 5:15:51
  unknown. I doubt if it would interest you if I did. The most
• 5:15:56
  interesting thing to me has been the different types with whom I have had.
• 5:16:00
  What it pleases you to determ professional relations, and the very different ways in
• 5:16:04
  which they have taken me. You read character by flashlight along the barrel of
• 5:16:10
  your revolver. What you should do is to hunt up my various victims and
• 5:16:14
  get at their point of view. You really mustn't press me to harp back
• 5:16:18
  to mine. As it is, you bring a whiff to the outer world
• 5:16:22
  which makes me bruise my wings against the bars. The criminologist gloated over such
• 5:16:27
  speeches from such lips, would have touched another to note what an irresistible fascination
• 5:16:33
  the bars had for the wings despite all pain. But Lucius Brady's interest in
• 5:16:40
  stingery was exclusively intellectual, his heart ever ached for a roving spirit, and
• 5:16:45
  confinement did not occur to him to suppress a detail of his own days in
• 5:16:49
  Sydney. Doubted the attractions of an Italian restaurant he had discovered near the jail,
• 5:16:55
  the flavor of the chianti, and so forth. On the contrary,
• 5:17:00
  it was the most interesting to note the play of features in the tortured man,
• 5:17:03
  who, after all, brought his torture on himself by asking so many
• 5:17:07
  questions. Soon when his visitor left him, the bond man could follow the
• 5:17:12
  free in all but the flesh, through every corridor of the prison and every
• 5:17:17
  street outside, to the hotel where you read the English papers on the verandah,
• 5:17:22
  or to the little restaurant where the kianti was corked with oil, which
• 5:17:26
  the waiter removed with a wisp of tar. One day, late in the
• 5:17:30
  afternoon, as Lucius Brady was beaming on him through his spectacles and indulging in
• 5:17:34
  an incisive criticism of the champagn At Government House, Stingery quietly garrotted him.
• 5:17:41
  The gag was an all readiness. Likewise, strips of coarse sheeting torn up
• 5:17:45
  for the purpose in the night blackened the face, but with breath still in
• 5:17:48
  his body. The criminologist was carefully gagged and tied down to the bedstead,
• 5:17:53
  while his living image, at a casual glance, strolled with bent headed,
• 5:17:57
  black sombrero, sp svectacles and frock coat, first through the cold corridors and
• 5:18:03
  presently along the streets. The heat of the pavement striking to his cells,
• 5:18:07
  was the first of a hundred exquisite sensations, but Stingery did not permit himself
• 5:18:12
  to save one of them. Indeed, he had his work cut out to
• 5:18:17
  check the pace's heart dictated. It was by admirable exercise of the will that
• 5:18:22
  he wandered along deep to all appearance of a Camelot classic, which he had
• 5:18:26
  found in the Criminologist's pocket, in reality, blinded by the glasses, but
• 5:18:32
  all the more vigilant out the corners of his eyes. A suburb was the
• 5:18:37
  scene of these perambulations. Had he but dared to lift his face, Stingery
• 5:18:41
  might have caught a glimpse as the bluest of blue water, and his prison
• 5:18:45
  eyes hungered for the sight. But he would not raise his eyes so long
• 5:18:49
  as footsteps sounded on the same pavement. By taking judicious turnings. However,
• 5:18:55
  he drifted into a quiet road with gray suburban bungalows on one one side and
• 5:19:00
  building lots on the other. No step approached he could look up at last,
• 5:19:06
  and the very bungalow that he was passing was shut up yet furnished.
• 5:19:10
  The people had merely gone away, servants and all. He saw it at
• 5:19:14
  a glance from the newspapers plastering the windows, which caught the sun. In
• 5:19:18
  an instant he was in the garden, and in another he had forced the
• 5:19:22
  side gate leading by an alley to back yard and kitchen door. But for
• 5:19:26
  many minutes he went no further than this gate, behind which he cowered,
• 5:19:30
  prepared with excuses in case he had already been observed. It was in this
• 5:19:34
  interval that Stingery recalled the season with a thrill, for it was Christmas week,
• 5:19:41
  and without a doubt the house would be empty till the new year.
• 5:19:45
  Here was one port for the storm that must follow his escape. A very
• 5:19:48
  pleasant port he found it on entering, after duke precautionary delay. Clearly the
• 5:19:55
  abode of young married people. The bungalow was filled and furnished with a taste
• 5:20:00
  which appealed almost painfully to Stingery. The drawing room was draped in sheets,
• 5:20:06
  but the walls carried a few good engravings, some of which he remembered with
• 5:20:10
  a stab. It was the dressing room, however, that he wanted,
• 5:20:12
  and the dressing room made him rub his hands. The dainty establishment had no
• 5:20:18
  more luxurious corner, hot with a fitted bath, circular shaving glass, packed
• 5:20:23
  trouser press, a row of boots on trees, and a fine old wardrobe
• 5:20:27
  full of hanging coats. Stingery began by selecting his suit. And it may
• 5:20:33
  have been his vanity or a strange longing to look for once what he had
• 5:20:37
  once been, but he could not resist the young man's excellent evening clothes.
• 5:20:42
  This fellow comes from home, said he, and they are spending their Christmas
• 5:20:47
  pretty far back. What he would have taken these with him. He had
• 5:20:52
  wallowed in the highly enameled bath and was looking for a towel when he saw
• 5:20:56
  his head in the shaving glass. He was dry enough before he could think
• 5:21:00
  of anything else. There was a dilemma, obvious yet unforeseen, that shaven
• 5:21:08
  head, purple and fine linen could not disguise the convict's crop. A wig
• 5:21:15
  was the only hope. To wear a wig, one must first try it
• 5:21:18
  on and let the peruchio call the police. The knot was gaudian, and
• 5:21:25
  yet desperately a Stingery's sought unravelment. It was at the same time subconsciously as
• 5:21:30
  deep in a study of a face so unfamiliar that at first he had scarcely
• 5:21:33
  known it for his own, twas far leaner than of old. It was
• 5:21:38
  no longer richly tanned, and the mouth caught louder than ever for a mustache.
• 5:21:45
  The hair, what there was of it, seemed iron gray. Had
• 5:21:48
  certainly receded at the temples. Good a pity. While it was about it,
• 5:21:53
  Stingery clapped his hands. His hunt for the rays was feverish, tremulous.
• 5:21:57
  Surely a young man must have many raises. Yeah, ye had I
• 5:22:03
  hear they were, Oh, young man, blessed among young men. It
• 5:22:11
  was quite dark when a gentleman in evening, clothed light over coat and an
• 5:22:14
  opera hat, sailed forth into the quiet road. Quiet as it was,
• 5:22:18
  however, a whistle blow as he trod the pavement, and his hour or
• 5:22:22
  two of liberty seemed at an end. His long term in prison, a
• 5:22:26
  mixed Stingery's ideas of the old country in the new. You'd forgotten that it
• 5:22:32
  is the postman who blow the whistles in Australia. Yet this postman stopped him
• 5:22:36
  on the spot, beg pardon, sir, but if it's quite convenient,
• 5:22:41
  I ask you for the Christmas box. She was so kind enough to promise
• 5:22:45
  me. And I think you were mistaking me for some one else, said
• 5:22:48
  Stringery. Why so, I am, sir. I thought you came out
• 5:22:52
  of mister Brinton's house. I'm sorry to disappoint you, said the convict.
• 5:22:57
  If only I had changed you should have some of it in spite of your
• 5:23:00
  mistake, but unfortunately I have none. He had, however, a handsome
• 5:23:06
  pair of opera glasses, which he converted into change on the gurtuitous plea that
• 5:23:11
  he had forgotten his purse. At the first pawnbrokers on the confines of the
• 5:23:15
  city. The pawn broker talked Greek to him at once. It's a pity
• 5:23:19
  you won't be out of see you, sir, as well as here,
• 5:23:22
  he said. He perhaps they have them on higher than the theater, replied
• 5:23:27
  Stingery. At adventure pawnbroker's face instantly advised him that his observation was wide of
• 5:23:33
  the obscure mark the theater. You won't hear her at any theater in Sydney,
• 5:23:40
  nor yet in the Southern Emisphere. Town Alls is the only lay for
• 5:23:42
  il de Bouverie out here. At first the name conveyed nothing distingery. Yet
• 5:23:48
  it was not wholly unfamiliar, of course, said he the town hall I
• 5:23:53
  meant, the pawnbroker leered, as he put down a sovereign in a shilling.
• 5:24:00
  What a season she's having, sir? Nah? What a season?
• 5:24:03
  Stingery wagged his opera hatted head. Hundreds of pounds worth of flowers flung onto
• 5:24:10
  every platform, and not a dry eye in the place I know, said
• 5:24:15
  the feeling Stingery. It's wonderful to think of this year colony producing the world's
• 5:24:19
  best prima donna. It is, indeed, when you think of her start,
• 5:24:26
  that's true. The pawnbroker leaned across his counter and leered more than ever
• 5:24:30
  into his customer's face. They say she ain't no better than she ought to
• 5:24:34
  be. Really, it's right too, But what can you expect of a
• 5:24:40
  prima donna whose fortune was made by a bloodthirsty bush range like that the Stingaree,
• 5:24:47
  You little scurrilous wretch, cried the bushranger, and flung out of the
• 5:24:52
  shop that instant. It was a miracle. He remembered everything. Now then
• 5:25:00
  he had done the world of service as well as the woman. He gave
• 5:25:03
  thanks for the guinea in his pocket and asked his way to the town hall.
• 5:25:07
  As he marched down the middle of the lighted streets, the first flock
• 5:25:10
  of newsboys came flying in his face. Escape if Stingaree, Escape if Stingaree,
• 5:25:15
  cowardly outrage on famous author, Escape if Stingaree. The damp pink papers
• 5:25:22
  were in the hands of the overflow crowd outside the hall. His own name
• 5:25:26
  was already in every mouth, continually coupled with that of the world renowned hil
• 5:25:30
  De of Bouvris. It not detur the convict from elbowing his way through the
• 5:25:34
  mass that gloated over his deed, exactly as they would have gloated over his
• 5:25:38
  destruction on the gallows. I have my ticket, I have been detained,
• 5:25:42
  he told the police, And at the last line of fanse he whispered new
• 5:25:47
  guinea. The standing room and the Guinea got it. It was the interval
• 5:25:52
  between parts one two. He thought of that other interval when he had made
• 5:25:56
  such a different entry at the same juncture, the other concert rome would have
• 5:26:00
  gone some fifty times into this. All at once fell a hush and an
• 5:26:06
  arising thunder of applause, and some one requests the stingery to remove his hat.
• 5:26:11
  He did so, and a cold creeping of the shaven flesh reminded him
• 5:26:15
  of his general position of this particular peril, that no one took any notice
• 5:26:21
  of him or of his head. And it was not Hilda Bouvarry this time,
• 5:26:26
  who was a pianiste in violent magenta and elaborate lace, whose performance was
• 5:26:30
  also loud and embroidered. Followed a beautiful young baritone whom Missus Boervy had brought
• 5:26:37
  from London in her pocket for the tour. He sang three little songs,
• 5:26:41
  very charmingly, indeed, but there was no one care. The guards were
• 5:26:47
  burning for their own. Her functory plaudence dyed to a dramatic pause, and
• 5:26:52
  then and then, amid deafening selvos, a dazzling vision appeared upon the platform.
• 5:27:00
  Came forward with the carriage of a conscious queen stood bowing and beaming,
• 5:27:06
  the gloss and glitter of fabric and of gem that were yet less radiant than
• 5:27:10
  herself. Stingery stood inanimate, between stamping feet and clapping hands. No,
• 5:27:18
  he never would have connected this magnificent woman with the simple bush girl and the
• 5:27:22
  unpretentious frocks that he recalled as clearly as her former self. He had looked
• 5:27:29
  for less finery, less physical development. Less indeed is the grand operatic tout
• 5:27:34
  ensemble. But acting ended with her smile, and much of the old,
• 5:27:40
  innocent simplicity came back as the lips parted in song. And her song had
• 5:27:45
  not been spoilt by riches and adulation. A song had not sacrificed sweetness to
• 5:27:51
  artifice. There was even more than the old magic in her song. Is
• 5:27:56
  this a dream? Then waking would be pain? Oh, do not wake
• 5:28:02
  me, Let me dream again. Twas no new number. Even then,
• 5:28:08
  even Stingaree had often heard it, and heard great singers go the least degree
• 5:28:14
  flat on the first dream he listened critically, hilde Bovarie was not one of
• 5:28:21
  the delinquents. Her intonation was as perfect as that of the great violinists.
• 5:28:26
  Her high notes had that rarefied quality. The e string finally touched. It
• 5:28:32
  was a flawless, if a purely popular performance, and the musical heart of
• 5:28:37
  one listener in that crowded room was too full for mere applause. But he
• 5:28:42
  waited with patient curiosity for the encore, waited while curtesy. After Curtesy was
• 5:28:48
  given in vain, she had to yield. She yielded with a winding grace,
• 5:28:55
  and the first bars of the new song set one full heart beating,
• 5:29:00
  so that the earlier words were lost upon his brain. She ran before me
• 5:29:04
  in the meads and down this world worn track. She leads me on.
• 5:29:10
  For while she leads, she never gazes back. And yet her voice is
• 5:29:15
  in my dreams to witch me more and more, that wooing voice. Ah
• 5:29:21
  me, it seems less near me than of yore. Lightly I spared when
• 5:29:26
  hope was high and youth beguiled. The chase I follow follows still, But
• 5:29:33
  I shall never see her face till the song ended, And in the ultimate
• 5:29:40
  quiet, the need of speech came over, stingery the unrealized ideal. He
• 5:29:45
  informed a neighbor. Rah There rejoined the man, treating the stale news as
• 5:29:49
  a mere remark. We never let her off without that, I suppose not,
• 5:29:55
  said Stingery. It's the song the bush ranger forced her to sing at
• 5:29:59
  the back block com and it made her fortune, good old Stingaree by the
• 5:30:04
  way, or heard somebody behind me say he'd escaped. That can't be true,
• 5:30:10
  and the newsboys were yelling at as they came along late. Well,
• 5:30:14
  said Stingey's neighbor. If he has escaped, then I for one don't hope
• 5:30:18
  he has end. This is where he ought to be, Just the sort
• 5:30:21
  of thing he'd do too, good old sportsman sting Eree. It was an
• 5:30:26
  embarrassing compliment, ay to I, and foot to foot wedged in a crowd.
• 5:30:32
  The bush ranger did not fish for any more, or did he wait
• 5:30:34
  to hear heard a boovery sing again, though this cost him much, but
• 5:30:40
  he had one more word with his neighbor before he went. You don't have
• 5:30:44
  to know where she's staying. I suppose I've met her once or twice,
• 5:30:47
  and I might call the other smiled as on some suicidal moth who's only one
• 5:30:52
  place good enough for a style like her in Sydney, And that is Government
• 5:30:57
  House Part two, His Excellency of the moment was a young nobleman of sporting
• 5:31:06
  proclivities and your true sportsman breadth of mind. He was immensely popular with all
• 5:31:11
  sects and sections, but the aggressively puritanical and the narrowly austere. He graced
• 5:31:18
  the theater with his constant presence, the turf with his own horses. His
• 5:31:22
  entertainment was lavish and a quality far above the gubernatorial average. Late life and
• 5:31:27
  soul of an exalted circle. He was hide bound by few of the conventional
• 5:31:32
  trammels that distinguished the older type of peer to which the colonies had been accustomed.
• 5:31:37
  It was the obvious course for such a governor and as kindred lady,
• 5:31:41
  to insist upon making the Great Miss Bovary their guest for the period of her
• 5:31:45
  professional surgeon in the capitol, and his semi bohemian supper at the Government House
• 5:31:49
  was but a characteristic finale to her first great concert. The Prima Donna sat
• 5:31:56
  on the Governor's right, and at the proper point his excellence when he sang
• 5:32:00
  her praise as in a charmingly informal speech, which delighted him, amused the
• 5:32:03
  pressmen, actors and actresses whom he had collected for the occasion, only the
• 5:32:08
  guest of honor looked a little weary and condescending. She had a sufficient experience
• 5:32:14
  of such entertainments in London, where the actors were all London actors. The
• 5:32:18
  author's journalists, men whose names one knew, mere peers were no great treat
• 5:32:23
  either. In a word, Hilda Bouvorie was not a little spoilt. She
• 5:32:29
  had lost the girl's glad outlook on the world which some women keep until old
• 5:32:33
  age. There were stories about her which would have accounted for a deeper deterioration.
• 5:32:38
  Yet she was the governor's guest, and her behavior not unworthy of the
• 5:32:42
  honor on him. At least she smiled, and her real smile less expansive
• 5:32:48
  than the platform counterfeit had still its genuine sweetness, its winning flashes, and
• 5:32:53
  at its worst was more sad than bitter. To night, the woman was
• 5:32:59
  an exhausted artist, unnerved, unstrung, unfitted for the world, yet only
• 5:33:03
  showing it in a languid appreciation, which her host and hostess were the first
• 5:33:07
  to understand. Indeed, was the great lady who carried her off, bowing
• 5:33:11
  with her platform bow and smiling that smile before the banquet was at hern end.
• 5:33:18
  A charming suite of rooms had been placed at the disposal of the Prima
• 5:33:21
  Donna. The boudoir was like a hothouse, with the floral offerings of the
• 5:33:23
  evening already tastefully arranged by Madame's own Swiss maid. But the weary lady walked
• 5:33:30
  straight through to her bedroom and sank with her sigh into the arm chair before
• 5:33:37
  the glass. Who brought this? She asked, peevishly, picking a twisted
• 5:33:42
  note from amid the golden furniture or her toilet table, and never saw it
• 5:33:48
  enters this minute? Madame. The Swiss maid answered in dismay, does not
• 5:33:52
  there ten minutes ago? Aim? Sure, in Madame, where have you
• 5:33:55
  been since? Done to the servants off for one minute? Madame, missus
• 5:34:00
  booverery read the note was an animated being. In three seconds she looked in
• 5:34:06
  the glass, the flush became her, and even as she looked, all
• 5:34:07
  horror dyed in her dark blue eyes. Instead, there came a glitter that
• 5:34:11
  warned the maid. I am tired of you, Lea cried, Madame.
• 5:34:17
  You let people bring notes into my room and you say you are only out
• 5:34:19
  of it for a minute. Be good enough to leave you for the night.
• 5:34:22
  I can look after myself. For once. The maid protested, wept,
• 5:34:26
  but was expelled, and a key turned between them. Then Hilda Booverery
• 5:34:32
  read her note again. Let's get this afternoon, came to your concert hiding
• 5:34:36
  in boudoir. Give me five minutes or raise alarm, which you please.
• 5:34:38
  Stingery so ran his words in pencil on her own paper, and they were
• 5:34:45
  true. She had heard at supper of the escape. Once more she looked
• 5:34:48
  in the glass, and to her own eyes, in these minutes she looked
• 5:34:52
  years younger. There was a new sensation left in life. I touched her
• 5:34:57
  hair, a glance in the pier glass, and all for a notorious convict
• 5:35:03
  broken prison. So into the boudoir with her grandest air. But again she
• 5:35:07
  locked the door behind her, and sweeping round, beheld a bald man bowing
• 5:35:12
  to her in immaculate evening clothes. Are you the writer of a note found
• 5:35:18
  in my dressing table? She demanded, every syllable off the ice. I
• 5:35:22
  am, Then who are you? Besides being an impudent forger? You'd name
• 5:35:29
  the one crime I never committed, said he, I am Stingery, And
• 5:35:34
  they gazed into each other's eyes, but not yet were hers to be believed.
• 5:35:40
  He only escaped this afternoon. Die and he with a bald head thanks
• 5:35:45
  to a razor. And in those clothes I found them where I found the
• 5:35:49
  razor. Look, they don't fit me as well as they might. And
• 5:35:55
  he drew nearer, flinging out an abbreviated sleeve. She looked all the harder
• 5:36:00
  in his face. Yes, I begin to remember your face, but it
• 5:36:04
  has changed. It has gazed on prison walls for many years. I heard.
• 5:36:12
  I was grieved, but it was bound to come. It may come
• 5:36:18
  again. I care very little after this, His dark eyes shone, his
• 5:36:25
  deep voice vibrated. Then he glanced over a shrugged shoulder towards the outer door.
• 5:36:30
  He would have darted as if to turn that key, too, but
• 5:36:33
  it was none to turn. It ought to happen at once, she said,
• 5:36:37
  and through me. But it will not. His assurance annoyed her.
• 5:36:44
  She preferred his homage. I know what you mean, she cried, you
• 5:36:48
  did me a service years ago. I am not to forget it. It
• 5:36:52
  is not I who have kept it before your mind, perhaps not, but
• 5:36:57
  that's why you came to me to night. Stingery looked upon the spirited,
• 5:37:02
  spoilt beauty in her satin and diamonds and pearls. Villain as he was,
• 5:37:07
  he held himself at her mercy. But he was not get kneel to her.
• 5:37:11
  For that he saw a woman who had heard the truth from very few
• 5:37:15
  men, a nature grown and mastery as his own had inevitably shrunk. Twas
• 5:37:21
  worth being at large to put the old Adam still remaining to him against the
• 5:37:25
  old Eve, And this petted darling of the world. The false Protestations were
• 5:37:30
  no countess in his game. Miss Boovery says stingery. You may well suppose
• 5:37:37
  that I have borne you in mind all these years. As a matter of
• 5:37:40
  honest fact, when I first heard your name this evening, I was slow
• 5:37:44
  to connect it with any human being. You look angry. I intend no
• 5:37:48
  insult. If you have not forgotten the life I was leaving before, you
• 5:37:53
  would very readily understand that I never heard your name from those days to this.
• 5:37:59
  That is my misas fortune, if also my own fault. It should
• 5:38:03
  suffice that when I did remember, I came at my peril to hear you
• 5:38:07
  sing, and that before I dreamt of coming an inch further. But I
• 5:38:12
  heard them say, both in the hall and outside, that you owed your
• 5:38:15
  start to me. Now one thinks of it must have been a rather striking
• 5:38:22
  advertisement, and I reflected that not another soul in Sydney can possibly owe me
• 5:38:26
  anything at all. So I came straight to you without thinking twice about it.
• 5:38:32
  Criminal as I have been and I am. My one thought was and
• 5:38:36
  is that I deserve some little consideration at your hands. You mean money.
• 5:38:41
  I have not a penny to make all the difference to me, and I
• 5:38:45
  give you my word, if there is any satisfaction to you, there would
• 5:38:48
  be an honest man from this time forth. You actually asked me to assist
• 5:38:52
  a criminal and escaped convict me hod A Boovery, at my own absolute risk.
• 5:39:00
  I took a risk for you nine years ago, misservery tis all I
• 5:39:04
  did take, said Stingery at the concert that made your name. And you
• 5:39:08
  rob it in. She told him, you rob it in. I'm running
• 5:39:14
  for my life, he exclaimed in answer. Wouldn't have been necessary, that
• 5:39:18
  would have been enough for the Miss Boovery. I knew then, but you
• 5:39:22
  were different. You are another being. You are a woman of the world.
• 5:39:27
  Your heart, your heart is dead and gone. He cut her to
• 5:39:34
  it. None the less, he could not have inflicted a deeper wound.
• 5:39:38
  The blood leaped to her face and neck. She cried out of the insult,
• 5:39:41
  the indignity, the outrage of it all. And crying, she darted
• 5:39:45
  to the door. It was locked. She turned on stingery. You dared
• 5:39:52
  to lock the door, You dared give me the key this instant. I
• 5:39:56
  refuse very well. You have heard my voice. You shall hear it again.
• 5:40:03
  Her pale lips made the perfect round, her grand teeth gleamed in the
• 5:40:07
  electric light. He arrested her, not with violence, but a shrug.
• 5:40:14
  I shall jump out of the window and break my neck. They don't take
• 5:40:18
  me twice alive. She glared at him in anger and contempt. He meant
• 5:40:25
  it, then let him do it. Her eyes told him all that,
• 5:40:30
  But as they flashed, stabbing him, their expression notled, and in a
• 5:40:33
  trice, her ear was to the keyhole. Something has happened, she whispered,
• 5:40:37
  turning a scared face up to him. I hear your name. They
• 5:40:41
  have traced you here. They are coming. Oh what are we to do?
• 5:40:47
  He strode over to the door. If you're a scandal, I can
• 5:40:49
  give myself up this moment and explain all. He spoke eagerly. The thought
• 5:40:55
  was sudden. She rose up, looking in his eyes. No you shall
• 5:41:00
  not, she said. Her hand flew out behind her, and in two
• 5:41:04
  seconds the brilliant room had click clicked into a velvet darkness. Stand like a
• 5:41:10
  mouse, she whispered, and he heard her reach the inner door, where
• 5:41:14
  she stood like another. Steps and voices came along the landing in a great
• 5:41:18
  crescendo. Miss Bovy, Miss Bouvery, Miss Bouverie. It was his Excellency's
• 5:41:26
  a gay voice, and it continued until, with much noise, Miss Bouverie
• 5:41:30
  flung her bedroom door wide open, put on the light within, ran across
• 5:41:33
  the boudoir, put on the boudoir light, and stopped a parley through the
• 5:41:37
  keyhole. The bush ranger Stingery has been traced to Government House. Good Heavens,
• 5:41:44
  one of your windows was seen open. He has not come through it.
• 5:41:48
  Then you were heard raising your voice. That was to my maid.
• 5:41:52
  This is all through her. I don't know how to tell you, but
• 5:41:56
  she leaves me in the morning. Yes, yes, the was a man,
• 5:42:00
  but it was not Stingaree. I saw her myself through coming up early,
• 5:42:04
  but I let him go as he had come to save her fuss through
• 5:42:08
  the window. I am so ashamed, not a bit, miss Boolbery.
• 5:42:14
  I am ashamed for bothering you. Confound the police. When the voices and
• 5:42:21
  steps had died away, Huda Boovererie turned to Stingaree, her whole face shining,
• 5:42:26
  her deep blue eyes alight there she said, could you have done that
• 5:42:30
  better? Yourself? Not half so well? And you thought I could forget?
• 5:42:36
  I thought nothing. Then it came to you in my scrape, after
• 5:42:41
  years of imprisonment, he could speak of as life and death hazard, as
• 5:42:45
  a scrape. She looked at him with admiring eyes, and personal triumph put
• 5:42:49
  an end to her indignation. My poor lear O, wonder how much she
• 5:42:55
  has heard? I shall have to tell her nearly all. She could wait
• 5:42:57
  for me at Melbourne or Adelige, and I can pick her up my voyage
• 5:43:00
  home. Will we no joke without her? Until then? I give it
• 5:43:04
  up for your sake. Stingery hung his head. Was a changed man.
• 5:43:11
  And I, he said, grimly, not pathetically. I'm a convict to
• 5:43:15
  escape by violence this afternoon, Hilda smiled. I met mister Brady the other
• 5:43:22
  day, she said, and I heard of him to night. He is
• 5:43:26
  not going to die. He stared at her unscrupulous radiance. Do you wonder
• 5:43:33
  at me? She said? Did you never hear that musical people had no
• 5:43:37
  models? And her smile bewitched to more and more? It explains us,
• 5:43:41
  both declared missus boovery. But do you know what I have kept all these
• 5:43:47
  years? She went on? Do you know what has been my mascot?
• 5:43:51
  What I have had about me whenever I have sung in public since? And
• 5:43:55
  including that timing? Yallarook? Can't you guess? He could not. She
• 5:44:00
  turned her back. He heard some gossops give, and the next moment she
• 5:44:06
  was holding a strange trophy in both hands, and was a tiny silken bandolier
• 5:44:11
  containing six revolver cartridges with bullet and cap intact. Can't you guess now?
• 5:44:18
  She gloried, No, I never missed them. They're not like any I
• 5:44:22
  ever had. Don't you remember the man who chased you out and misfired at
• 5:44:26
  you? Was six times? He was the overseer on the station. His
• 5:44:30
  name may come back to me, but his face I shall never forget.
• 5:44:33
  He had a revolver in his pocket, but he dared not lower a hand.
• 5:44:37
  I took it out of his pocket and was to hand it up to
• 5:44:40
  him, and I got the chance. Until then I was to keep it
• 5:44:42
  under my shawl. That was when I managed to unload every chamber. These
• 5:44:48
  are the cartridges I took out. And there'd been my mascot ever since.
• 5:44:52
  He looked years younger than she had seen, even singing in the town hall.
• 5:44:56
  But the lines deepened on the bush Ranger's face, and he stepped back
• 5:45:00
  from her apace. So you saved my life, he said. You had
• 5:45:06
  saved my life all the time, and yet I came to ask you to
• 5:45:11
  do as much for me as I had done for you. He turned away,
• 5:45:15
  his hands were clenched behind his back. I will do more, she
• 5:45:18
  cried, if more could be done by one person for another. Here are
• 5:45:22
  jewels, she stopped her neck of its rope of pearls, and here are
• 5:45:26
  notes. She dived into a bureau and thrust a handful upon him. With
• 5:45:32
  these alone, you should be able to get to England or America. And
• 5:45:34
  if you want more, when you get there, right to hil the boovery
• 5:45:38
  s long she has any, there will be some for you. Tears filled
• 5:45:45
  her eyes. The simplicity of her girlhood had come back to the seasoned woman
• 5:45:51
  of the world, at once spoiled and satiated with success. This was the
• 5:45:56
  other side of the artistic temperament which had enslaved her soul. She would swing
• 5:46:00
  from one extreme of wounded and vindictive vanity to this length of lawless nobility.
• 5:46:07
  Now she could think of none but self, and now not of herself at
• 5:46:11
  all. Stingery glanced toward the window. I can't go yet. I'm afraid
• 5:46:19
  you shan't. Why shoot you, But I still fear they may not be
• 5:46:23
  satisfied downstairs. I am ashamed to ask it, but will you do one
• 5:46:29
  little thing more for me? Name it? It is only to make assurance,
• 5:46:33
  doubly sure. Go downstairs and let them see you. Tell them more
• 5:46:37
  details if you like. Go down as you are and say that without your
• 5:46:41
  maid you could not find anything else to put on. I promised not to
• 5:46:45
  vanish with everything in your absence. You do promise on my liberty. She
• 5:46:52
  looked in his face with a very wistful sweetness. They were to find me
• 5:46:56
  out, she said, I wonder how many years there were give me.
• 5:47:02
  I neither know nor care. It would be worth a few. I thought
• 5:47:06
  I had lived since I saw you last, but this is the best fun
• 5:47:08
  I have ever had since Yellow Rook. She stood for a moment before opening
• 5:47:15
  the door that he unlocked for her, stood before him in all her flushed
• 5:47:18
  and brilliant radiance, and blew a kiss to him before she went. The
• 5:47:26
  governor was easily found. He was grieved at her troubling to descent at such
• 5:47:30
  an hour, and did not detain her five minutes. In all, he
• 5:47:33
  thought she was in a fever, but that the fever became her beyond belief.
• 5:47:38
  Reassured on every point, Missus Bovary was back in her room, but
• 5:47:41
  a very few minutes after she had left it, it was empty. She
• 5:47:48
  searched all over, first behind the curtains, then between the pedestals of the
• 5:47:52
  bureau, but Stingery was nowhere in the room, and the bedroom door was
• 5:47:56
  still locked. There was a second can look behind the curtains that revealed an
• 5:48:00
  open window with the scratch of a boot upon the white enamel. It was
• 5:48:04
  no break neck drop into the shrubs. So he had gone without a word,
• 5:48:10
  but also without breaking his word, for with wet eyes and a white
• 5:48:15
  face between anger and admiration, Whoda Bouverie had already discovered her bundle of notes
• 5:48:22
  and her rope of pearls. There are no more tales of Stingery. Tongue
• 5:48:27
  never answered to the name again, nor was face ever recognized as his.
• 5:48:33
  He may have died that night, it is not very likely, since the
• 5:48:37
  young married man in the well appointed bungalow which had been broken into earlier in
• 5:48:40
  the day, was a suit of clothes indeed, but not his evening clothes,
• 5:48:44
  which were found hung up neatly where he had left them. And it
• 5:48:47
  is regrettable to add that his opera glasses were not the only article of a
• 5:48:51
  market or character which could never be found on his return. There is nonetheless
• 5:48:56
  reason to believe that this was the last professional incident in one of the most
• 5:49:00
  incredible criminal careers of which there is any record in Australia. Whether he be
• 5:49:06
  dead or alive, back in the old country or still in the New what
• 5:49:10
  is less likely, in prison under some other name. A gratifying fact remains
• 5:49:15
  that neither in Australia nor elsewhere has there been a second series of crimes bearing
• 5:49:19
  the stamp of Stingaree. End of Chapter ten end of Stingrerey by E.
• 5:49:26
  W. Horning