In another moment steps were heard on the verandah. The growling dogs,
still deeply distrustful, remained in the yard. A hand tried the
back-door; it yielded, but this apparently excited no suspicion. It is
not the custom to lock up houses in the bush of Australia. Burglars are
unknown, and bushrangers prefer to transact their business chiefly in
broad daylight--about the hour of 11 A.M. This was held to be an
exceptional case.
'The storekeeper sleeps off the big room,' said some one cautiously. 'I
saw him there when I was buying tobacco.'
'That's Billy's voice,' whispered Gray. 'I'd know it amongst a
thousand.'
'Let's go in anyhow,' a rougher voice answered. 'There's not a dashed
soul awake. Light a match and we'll have him out.'
A match flashed, lighting up the dim room, but with a result wholly
unexpected by the chief actors in the melodrama. As they looked
carelessly round the silent room they could hardly restrain a start of
surprise as their roving eyes fell upon the sergeant in full uniform,
the armed men, the levelled weapons. At the same moment Mr. Gateward
arose from behind his bale, and lighting a tallow lamp, retired
discreetly.
But in far less time than is occupied in tracing these ephemeral lines,
thought had matured and action followed. Outmanoeuvred, outnumbered as
they were, the cool courage of the race was as manifest in these unhappy
outlaws as in the best men of Britain's warlike forces.
'Surrender in the Queen's name!' roared the sergeant. 'It's no use,
Billy; better give in quietly.'
'Not alive you don't get us,' answered the younger man, with the soft,
deliberate intonation of the native-born Australian, while he raised his
revolver.
The other, a grizzled, broad-shouldered ruffian, shorter than his
companion by several inches, forbore reply, but firing at the sergeant's
first word, shot Bertram Devereux through the body, sending also a
second bullet into Harold Atherstone's right arm without loss of time.
As he did so, Atherstone shifted his revolver to his left hand and fired
deliberately. The robber sprang and fell on his face.
At that moment it seemed as if every firearm in the room was discharged
simultaneously--the sergeant's rifle, Gray's and Mossthorne's revolvers.
When the smoke cleared, Mossthorne lay dead with a rifle bullet through
his heart and with a smaller bullet through his shoulder. Bertram
Devereux, bleeding profusely, was lying insensible.
Mr. Gateward had come forward from behind his entrenchment. 'Seems there
was enough of you without me,' he said, 'but I felt cowardly like,
stowed away behind the sheepskins. But _surely_ the Doctor ain't
finished this young gentleman now, as well as the poor Captain long
ago?'
'By--! that rally's over quick!' exclaimed the sergeant, as he drew a
full breath and gazed around, while Mr. Gateward looked on the prostrate
forms with a curious mixture of relief and regret. 'Short and sharp
while it lasted, wasn't it, Mr. Atherstone?' the sergeant continued,
addressing himself to that gentleman, who had raised Devereux's head
with his left arm, and was trying to discover the nature of the wound.
'I'd rather have taken the Doctor alive, but he gave us no time;
shooting's too good for him! As for poor Billy, he's better where he is
than locked up in gaol for his natural life. Now about Mr. Devereux. We
must look to him first thing. He's hard hit, but it mayn't be serious.
Where's Dr. Ryan? Oh! at Wannonbah. That's just right. We'll want him
for the inquest besides. Constable Gray!'
The young man, who had been examining the wound in Mossthorne's breast,
stood at attention. 'Take my roan horse and ride like h--l to Wannonbah.
Tell Dr. Ryan to come here straight. Then go to the barracks and tell
the senior constable to telegraph to the coroner straight off. Come back
with him yourself.'
With a sign of assent the young man passed out into the night. A rush of
flying hoofs told in marvellously short space that he was speeding on
his errand on the best three-miler in the district.
'Now let's have a look at Mr. Devereux,' said Herne. 'Hold his head a
little higher. How do you feel, sir? Bleeding stopped, but you've lost a
lot of blood. Faintish, I daresay. Gateward, bring the brandy out of
your room; a taste will do him good--and Mr. Atherstone too, for the
matter of that. Seems the ball turned outward. Breathe a little, sir.
That's all right,' as the wounded man took a deep inspiration. 'Take a
sip of this, and we'll carry you to bed.'
'I feel better, I think,' said the wounded man, speaking with
difficulty. 'I must have fainted, I suppose. That scoundrel was too
quick for me. I thought he might surrender. What! are _you_ winged,
Atherstone?'
'Yes, worse luck,' said Harold, suppressing a groan as the broken bone
grated. 'The fellow did not shoot badly, either. Billy just missed the
sergeant, I see. There's his bullet mark in the door.'
'He fired first; but I didn't miss _him_,' replied that officer, with a
grim smile. 'Gray's revolver bullet went through his shoulder. You
dropped the Doctor in good time, Mr. Atherstone, just before he got to
his third barrel. We'd better put a cloth over them now.'
As he spoke a tall white female figure appeared in the doorway. It was
Pollie Devereux herself, wrapped in a dressing-gown. In her eyes, wide
and shining in the half-light, was horror unspeakable, with nameless
dread, as she gazed upon the forms that lay prone and so motionless.
'I _could_ not wait longer after the shots ceased,' she said pleadingly.
'I was growing mad with anxiety. Mother is praying still. Are the men
both dead? This one is Billy Mossthorne, I know. Poor fellow! I can't
help being sorry for him. I remember his being at Maroobil.'
Her gaze, which had been for the moment riveted to the still forms which
Lay as dead men only lie,
strayed towards the darker corner of the room, where Atherstone was
supporting Bertram Devereux. The expression of her features changed
instantaneously to that of agonising terror. She raised her arms with a
gesture of despair, and for the moment seemed as if about to abandon
herself to a transport of grief. But recovering with a strong effort of
will, she sprang to the side of the wounded man, and kneeling, threw her
arms around his neck, while she implored Harold to tell her if the wound
was mortal.
'Oh, how his blood has been flowing!' she said. 'How pale he is! His
eyes are shut. And you too, Harold? Your arm is hurt; and I was wicked
enough to joke about him last night. If he dies I shall never forgive
myself. Oh, my dear, dear Bertram!'
Whether this impassioned adjuration had any special effect upon the
patient is uncertain, but as he opened his eyes, he smiled faintly in
acknowledgment of the sympathetic words.
'Much better, dearest Pollie,' he said. 'No cause--for--alarm--much
better. Flesh wound--only.' With this he turned pale and closed his
eyes.
'Oh! _why_ has not some one gone for the doctor?' demanded the girl
passionately. 'He may die yet for want of assistance, and we are so
helpless. I will go myself to Wannonbah if there is no one else.'
'Constable Gray is half-way there by this time,' said Harold calmly. 'No
time has been lost. If I might suggest, you will help us best by asking
Mrs. Devereux to be kind enough to have your cousin's bedroom prepared,
so that we may carry him in.'
'You are quite right. Mother and I will watch by him till Dr. Ryan
comes. I know I am unreasonable and foolish, but you must bear with me a
little. Is your wound painful?'
'My wound is a scratch,' he answered roughly. 'Don't trouble yourself
about it. Ask your mother to do what I say.' Upon this Pollie retired;
and with but little loss of time Mr. Bertram Devereux was placed upon
his own bed in the spacious apartment which he occupied, and with all
the necessary arrangements promptly made for his benefit.
Mrs. Devereux at once devoted herself to his relief and solace as if she
had been his mother. Her heart was stirred with additional tenderness as
she recalled her husband's death from a similar wound at the hands of
the same man. For the truth had leaked out through Mr. Gateward. The
widow of Brian Devereux now knew that the hand stained with her
husband's life-blood had been imbrued with that of the younger scion of
the house, now wan and helpless before her; that the robber in his turn
had fallen by Harold Atherstone's bullet and lay dead beneath her roof.
'Thank God! Harold is but slightly hurt,' she exclaimed. 'I regard him
with a feeling I should extend to no other man as the avenger of my
husband's blood. But oh! if the boy be likewise sacrificed! What a fate
seems to pursue the race. May God in His infinite mercy avert it!'
Pollie had been sent to bed with peremptory commands to go to sleep
instantly, and on no account to rise till she was called. The mother
watched, hour after hour, with the unwearied patience of women under the
excitation of grief or duty. Ere daylight broke, a trampling of horses
was heard, and the man of skill, the arbiter of life and death, appeared
in the chamber.
After careful examination, Dr. Ryan gave it as his decided opinion that
the bullet had taken an outward course; had therefore injured no vital
organ; that the faintness had been caused by loss of blood, which
symptom was natural, but not necessarily dangerous. He commanded Mrs.
Devereux to seek the rest she required, saying that he would take her
place at the bedside of his patient. He would see what Mr. Atherstone's
injury was like, and would make a search for the missing bullet in the
morning.
'You will have me here for a day or two, Mrs. Devereux, so you must make
me useful. It will all come to the same in the bill. I shall be wanted
when the coroner comes. Fortunate escape you have all had, to be sure.'
* * * * *
With the morn came good tidings, and relief from the doubts and fears
which had so cruelly tortured the dwellers at Corindah. Dr. Ryan, by his
exercise of professional skill or the aid of exceptional good fortune,
verified his favourable diagnosis by extracting the bullet, which had
lodged in the outer muscle. The bleeding having ceased and the wound
been dressed, there was no reason, he averred, why the patient, with
such careful and intelligent nursing as he was certain to enjoy at
Corindah, should not be well and hearty within the month.
The coroner too, a high and dignified official, arrived with the jury,
more police, and, it appeared, likewise with a large proportion of the
population of Wannonbah. The inquest was held duly and formally, a jury
of twelve being impanelled, by whom a verdict of justifiable homicide
was returned, the slain men being declared to have been killed in
righteous defence. A rider was added to the effect that 'the conduct of
Sergeant Herne and Constable Gray was deserving of high commendation,
their coolness and courage rendering them, in the opinion of the jury,
worthy of speedy promotion. In token of which, as well the Coroner as we
the said jurors have attached our seals,' etc.
The bodies were buried in the little graveyard of Wannonbah, situated
upon a yarran-shaded sandhill about a mile from that infant city. The
denominational divisions, owing to the climate or other influences
perhaps, were not so strictly defined as is the case in some rural
Australian cemeteries, where a closely paled fence divides Protestant
from Catholic, and Jew from Dissenter. At Wannonbah the dead slept much
as they pleased, or rather, as their relatives desired. So Billy
Mossthorne, having kinsfolk and sympathisers in the district, was buried
near a maternal aunt who had nursed him in his childhood; and the
Doctor, coming in for his share of indulgent forgiveness, was interred
by the side of a horse-breaker of reasonably unblemished character.
Corindah was again tranquil. The inevitable sequences, great and small,
of the night attack had been disposed of. The police troopers, the
doctor, the coroner, the jurors had come and gone. The account _in
extenso_ of the 'battle, murder, and sudden death,' had been first
published in the _Wannonbah Watchman_, and then had gone the round of
the metropolitan and provincial papers. Sergeant Miles Herne was
promoted to be sub-inspector, Constable Gray to be senior constable.
Then the excitement ended, and the midnight affray at Corindah slipped
into the limbo of partly forgotten facts.
One or two results, however, were not so speedily disposed of. Harold
Atherstone's good right arm was of very little use to him during the
ensuing half-year, the broken bones being somewhat tardy in uniting; and
Bertram Devereux, through carelessness on his own part, had a relapse,
and after hovering between life and death for several weeks, lay
deathlike and slowly recovering in his room, needing the most careful
and constant attendance to 'bring him through,' as Dr. Ryan expressed it
himself. In this labour of love both mother and daughter were closely
engaged for many a day after the event. It was the first time that
Pollie's feminine instincts had been called into play by the necessity
for personal service which a wounded soldier generally imposes upon the
nearest available maiden. No situation, as persons of experience will
admit, is more favourable to the development of the tender passion. The
touching helplessness of the sufferer, the sense of possession and
ownership, so to speak--albeit temporary--the allowable exaggeration of
gratitude, the implied devotion: all these circumstances in combination
render the relative positions of maiden fair and helpless knight so
extremely suitable for mutual attachment, that the blind archer rarely
fails to score an inner gold.
So, during the patient hours when the heavy eyes were closed, when the
pale brow required bathing with _eau de Cologne_, when the spasm of pain
contracted the features, when the restless fever-tossed frame lay
helpless, the heart of the maiden, unfolding flower-like, grew tender
and loving. She persuaded herself that a fate mightier than themselves
had decreed their union. She awaited but the avowal which his eyes had
long made, but which his lips had not yet confirmed, to acknowledge
herself his own for ever, in life or death, here in her native land or
in the unknown regions beyond the sea.
After much consideration Miss Devereux had sagely concluded that Bertram
was the only man she had ever met who inspired her with feelings of
sufficiently romantic intensity, who aroused in her as yet untouched
heart the longing and the dread, the joy and the mystery, the strange,
inexplicable, subtly compounded essence which the poets in all ages have
termed love.
Why it should be so she was unable to comprehend. She told herself that
he was not so strong and true as this adorer, so clever as that, or so
amusing as the other; but still, why was it? Who can tell? who explain
the birth of fancy, the apparition of love? But she chose to make him
her hero. And if she so willed it, who was there to gainsay her?
Among the other privileges which her nursing sisterhood permitted was
that of receiving and bringing in the letters of her patient. About
these he had always been reticent, never encouraging conversation
thereon, or admitting that any patently feminine superscriptions were
not those of his mother, sisters, or cousins.
Among those which arrived by the monthly mail-steamer was one, the
peculiar handwriting of which Pollie remembered having noticed at an
earlier period of his sojourn. The characters were delicately formed,
but the abrupt terminal strokes indicated, as she thought, no ordinary
degree of determination, even obstinacy of purpose.
'Ah! my cousin Eleanor,' he said with a faint smile, as she held up the
letter; 'she is my most regular, most useful correspondent. Poor little
Nellie, how she would stare to see me lying here! She was my best friend
when I was a graceless schoolboy, and takes an interest in the poor
exile now.' He opened the other letters one by one, but did not seem to
avail himself of this one. 'It will keep,' he said carelessly. 'Country
news, for which I am losing my relish, poachers and pheasants, hunting
and coursing, quite a journal of village historiettes.'
'A good correspondent, evidently,' said Pollie. 'Judging from the
thickness of the letters, she deserves some gratitude. But when we women
harness ourselves to a man's chariot, that is the treatment we chiefly
receive.'
'That we are always over-indulged,' he answered, with a faint smile and
a meaning look, 'I am the last man living to deny. But what must we do?
It is cruel to refuse kind offices, the mere acceptance of which so
gratifies the donor.'
'It may be so,' assented the girl thoughtfully, 'but the bare suspicion
that my offering was _tolerated_ would madden me. "All or nothing" is
the Devereux motto, and it seems to embody the family temperament.'
Poor Pollie! could her eyes have pierced the inclosure!
This was the missive she unconsciously bore to the interesting
sufferer:--
WYNTON HALL, _27th May_ 188-
MY OWN DARLING BERTIE--You seem carelessly to have missed the
last mail, at which I was woefully disappointed, and besides, I
was not by any means satisfied with the tone of your last
letter, sir! I read it, yes, fool that I am, over and over
again, to see if I could not cheat myself into the belief that
your feelings towards me were unchanged and, as mine are,
unchangeable.
But I could not do it. Something, too, seems to exhale from the
very lines of your writing, every letter of which I know so
well, breathing coldness and change, the decay of love, the
death of constancy.
Yes, Bertram Devereux, I distrust you. You are beginning to
play a double game. Another woman has taken your fancy--most
likely the lovely cousin of whom you wrote in your first
letter, but about whom you have been suspiciously silent or
guarded of late. You can deceive, have deceived many people,
but you never deceived _me_. So beware! If for money, or what
you men call love, you elect to play the traitor with me, to
prove false to the vows which you called heaven and earth to
witness, to break the compact which I have rigidly
observed--_gardez-vous bien, mon ami_!
If you do not already know me sufficiently, believe this, that
you will do so. I will never be deserted and scorned with
impunity. I hold you bound to me by the most sacred oaths, by
what I have forfeited on earth irrevocably, by what in heaven
or hell I may yet have to expiate. And remember, I am capable
of _anything_ in the way of revenge to punish your falsehood.
If you dare to betray me, to doom me to a life of loneliness
and remorse, to the torture of neglect, to the endless regret
of desertion and contempt--but no, you _cannot_ dream of
perpetrating such fiendish cruelty. I am mad to make the
accusation. My brain seems on fire. I can write no more.
Believe me for ever and for ever yours only,
SYBIL DE WYNTON.
That night the sleep of the convalescent was troubled. His head moved
restlessly on the pillow. His brain was feverishly active. His soothing
draught failed of its effect. When Pollie came to his bedside with his
breakfast she was shocked at the drawn look of his face, its pallor, and
the dark rings under his eyes.
'We must keep back your home letters until you are quite strong,' she
said, with an archly innocent smile, and a child's mischievous gleam in
her eye, 'if they affect you like this. Your cousin's country chronicle
must be strong meat for babes. But perhaps you have really had bad news,
and I am talking foolishness?'
'My news is of a mixed complexion,' he said, trying to assume a cheerful
expression. 'Partly good, but I have been disappointed in an important
matter upon which I had set my heart. But I am so weak that the least
thing tells upon me.' Here he lifted his eyes to the sympathetic, tender
face, which to him now seemed as that of an angel, and a wistful appeal
for pity appeared to be written on every line of his countenance.
It was the fateful moment in which heart answers to heart, and the
destinies of two beings are for ever determined. It was the electric
spark which fires the mine, which shatters the feeble defence raised by
reason against that most ancient strategist and arch-conqueror, Love. A
change passed over the girl's countenance, so swift, so subtle, so
profound, that a less experienced student of woman's ways might have
read the sign. To Bertram Devereux it was the plainest of print--with
love's surrender in every line. He saw that pity, measureless and
tender, as is woman's sympathy for man's strength laid low, had
completed the spell which had been working on her sensitive, imaginative
nature since his arrival. But for his wound, his near escape from death,
the long hours of tendance, he doubted whether the capture of this shy,
sweet wild-bird of the waste would have been effected. But now he
doubted no longer. She would nestle in his bosom, would trill her song
and curb her flight at his desire. The victory was won, and in the blaze
of his triumph all doubts vanished as clouds at dawn. For the moment he
scorned the dread which had tortured him in the dreary night-watches. He
forgot that he was a coward and a traitor. He banished the thought of
the sad, reproachful gaze of a forsaken woman. A new life in a new land,
a new world of love and splendour lay before him.
Their eyes had met, their hands, their lips, long before this glowing,
passionate thought-procession passed through his excited brain. As the
girl sat by the bedside of her pale, death-stricken lover, with his
wasted hand in hers, she felt as if the surrender of her every thought
and feeling to his future welfare would be a price all too small to pay
for the boundless happiness which had been granted to her. She was the
most favoured of earth's daughters. All other thoughts and sensations
showed wan and lifeless before this wondrous magic rose of love.
'But I must leave you, Bertram dear,' she said. 'You are too weak to be
troubled with me. No! not another minute. Mother will bring you your
medicine. You must then have a good sleep, and wake up quite a new man.'
So, with one long look of tenderest denial, the fairy of his dreams
vanished from the gazer's sight.
The days of Bertram Devereux's lingering in hospital were nearly ended.
Over those which he still had to undergo was shed the radiance, the
sweet love-light of woman's first love. He seemed to gain strength from
that hour. He was soon able to lie at length and dream in the cane
lounge in the shaded verandah; later on, to wander amid the orange trees
by the lagoon edge, supported indeed by Pollie's fair round arm, and
closely pressed to that true and tender heart. At the termination of his
illness, when but for a slightly added pallor, a languor, that but
accentuated his ordinary indifferent manner, no trace remained of the
effects of the wound that had well-nigh proved fatal, it was then
officially made known to the friends of the family that the heiress of
Corindah was engaged to be married to her cousin Mr. Devereux, late of
Her Majesty's Sixth Dragoon Guards.