A letter had been despatched to Mr. Windsor’s address, of which
his master had knowledge, requesting him to proceed to Sydney upon
important business. Accordingly, at an early hour next day he presented
himself at the club steps and greeted his employer with a subdued air
of satisfaction, as if doubtful how far his recent decided action had
met with approval.
‘I am very glad to see you, John,’ said Mr. Neuchamp; ‘I hope Mrs.
Windsor is well. I congratulate you both heartily. Yours was a spirited
plan, and your success in the carrying out, or rather the carrying
off, of my old friend Carry most enviable. I was afraid there might be
obstacles. How did you arrange it all? Suppose you walk over to the
Domain with me, and tell me all about it.’
Mr. Windsor, much doubting if this were the important business upon
which he had been summoned to town, but not unwilling to relate the
tale of his victory to so sympathising an auditor as he knew his master
to be, thus commenced—
‘You know, sir, I had a tightish ride to get over before I caught the
mail. I felt very queer, I tell you, as if I didn’t meet that identical
coach I should never get down in time. I was horrid frightened every
time I thought about it, there’s no mistake. I saved Ben Bolt as much
as I could the first day and bandaged his legs when I got to the stable
late at night. I did eighty miles that day, and dursn’t go farther for
fear I might crack him at the first burst. I was up with the stars and
fed him. I didn’t sleep much, you’re sure, and at three in the morning
I was off for a hundred mile ride! and that heat, _a man’s life_! Mine
wouldn’t have mattered much afterwards, if I’d lost. I didn’t feel gay
just then, and I thought Ben Bolt walked out rather stiff. However,
he put his ears back, and switched his tail sideways, as I mounted.
That was a good sign. It was all plains, of course, soft, sandy
road—couldn’t be beat for smoothness, and firm, too. I kept him going
in a steady hand-gallop, pulling him up only now and again during the
forenoon. In the middle of the day I stopped for three good hours, gave
him a middling feed—not too much, and got a little water; but he got
a real good strapping. I stood over the feller doing it, and gave him
half-a-crown.
‘I’d done fifty miles between three and eleven—I wasn’t going fast, you
see—but of course the second fifty makes all the difference. I began
to be afraid he was too big. The feed at Rainbar was awfully good, you
know, sir; but as luck would have it, I’d given him some stiffish days
after the farthest out cattle, and that had hardened him a bit.
‘About two o’clock I cleared out again; saddled him myself; saw that
his back was all right, and felt his legs, which were as cool and clean
as if he hadn’t gone a yard. I had the second fifty to do before twelve
at night. That was the time the coach passed, and hardly waited a
moment, either.
‘Off again, and I kept on steady at first, trusting to six miles an
hour to do it in, and something to spare; but every now and again
I kept thinking, thinking, suppose he goes lame all of a sudden!
suppose he jacks up! suppose he falls, put his foot into a hole, or
anything—rolls over me and gallops off, all the men in the world
wouldn’t catch him! suppose I’m stopped by bushrangers—Red Cap’s out,
you know;—why don’t they hang every scoundrel that turns out the moment
he hoists his flag?’
‘Because they might reform, John,’ mildly interposed Mr. Neuchamp.
‘No fear—that is, mostly, sir,’ continued Jack apologetically; ‘but
they wouldn’t have had the heart to stop me; and besides, I expect I
could have dusted any of ’em with Ben.
‘Well, bushrangers or not, I got within twenty miles of Boree; and then
my head got so full of fancies, that I settled to make a call on Ben
Bolt, and do it in two hours. Suppose the coach was earlier than usual!
No passengers, or only some young squatter, who wanted to go faster
and to stop nowhere—and tipped the driver! I’ve seen these things done
before now.
‘So I took the old horse by the head, gave him a hustle and a pull,
and, by George, if you’ll believe me, sir, he went away with his mouth
open, as if he hadn’t only been out to the Back Lake. The sun was down
then, and the night air was coolish. But I knew the track well, and as
we sailed along, Ben Bolt giving a kind of snort every now and then,
same as he used to do when he didn’t know the place he was going to, I
felt that I had the field beat, and the race as good as won. I thought
I could see Carry a-beckonin’ to me at the winning-post. I hardly
think I pulled up three times, I felt that eager, and bound to win or
die, before I saw the light of the Boree Inn, and the coach stables
across the plain.
‘“Has the coach from down the river come in yet, Joe?” says I to the
ostler, trembling all over.
‘“No, nor won’t be this hours yet; you needn’t have rode so fast.”
‘“I couldn’t afford to be late,” says I. “Lend us a rug while I cool
my old horse a bit. He’s carried me well this day, if he never does
another.”
‘Ben didn’t look beat—nor yet half beat. My belief is he could have
done another twenty or thirty miles without cracking up. But a hundred
miles is a hundred miles, and no foolish ride, even in this country
where horses are as plenty as wallabies, such as they are, so I did
my best for him. I let him rinse his mouth, and then I walked him up
and down, with the rug on, for a solid hour. Of course he broke out
at first, but he gradually dried and come all right. Before the coach
started with me on board, he was doing nicely for the night, littered
down (for we foraged some straw out of the bottled ale casks) and
eating his feed just as he would after a longish day’s muster out back
at Rainbar.’
‘I am very glad he carried you so well, John,’ said Mr. Neuchamp, at
the conclusion of this antipodean Turpin’s ride; ‘but how did you speed
in the last and most momentous stage?’
‘Oh, _that_ was easy drafting enough,’ replied Mr. Windsor, who
apparently had considered that portion of his matrimonial adventure
which depended upon horseflesh as the really important and exciting
part of the transaction. ‘I was safe and sound in Parramatta on the
Thursday afternoon. I heard enough about the grand wedding for next
day—but I never let on. Said I was off by sea to Queensland to look at
some store cattle, and hired a trap, with a fairish horse, and a boy to
mind it, which I drove down to the cross-roads, just about a mile from
the “Cheshire Cheese.” There was an old woodcutter’s hut just inside
the fence at the corner. So I left the boy there, and told him to hold
the horse among the trees, and not to go away till I came—if it wasn’t
till dinner-time to-morrow. Of course, I squared him right. He was
sharp enough; them Parramatta boys mostly are.
‘Down I goes to the old house, and marched in quite free and pleasant
like, to spend the evening for the sake of old times. There was Carry
looking half dull, half desperate, like a mountain filly three days in
the pound—as I told her afterwards—though she was among her own people,
in a manner of speaking.
‘There was Homminey, and some other Hawkesbury chaps, full of their
jokes and fun—my word! if I could only have gone in at him and his
best man, a great, slab-sided, six-foot-three fellow, just about as
scraggy as he was tallowy, I think I could have spoilt both their
figure-heads—one up and the other down.
‘However, there wouldn’t have been any sense in charging the whole
family, like a knocked-up bullock meeting a picnic party—as I once saw,
and didn’t he scatter ’em!—so I put on all the side I could, and laid
by for a chance.
‘First of all, I shook hands with ’em all round, and came the
warm-hearted fakement. Said “I’d come to say good-bye; they mustn’t
think I bore any ill-will—just on my way to the north for store cattle,
passage taken and all—happened to hear of the wedding to-morrow, and
thought I’d look in and wish ’em joy.”
‘Then, of course, I threw my money about—must have a round of drinks
for luck. I never saw a publican yet that could refuse to serve a
“shout.” Then, of course, _they_ must treat me, seeing I was behaving
so handsome. Then I must have another round for all hands; and last
of all, I gammoned to be a bit “sprung,” and must propose the bride’s
health. So I made ’em fill up. Homminey’s little round eyes was
beginning to twinkle a bit, and old Walton was getting affectionate,
but Carry’s mother watched us both like a cat. I said, “I knowed the
bride these two years or more, and I proposed her health, and that of
the good-hearted, honest, straightforward chap as was going to marry
her to-morrow morning.” This fetched ’em about a bit. I said, “I’d
knowed him a goodish while, and heard tell of him, too, and a better
feller couldn’t be. After he was married he’d be still better,—a deal
better, _that_ I could safely go bail for. He couldn’t help it, with
such a wife. I therefore gave the health of Miss Carry Walton and her
husband that was to be, to-morrow, and no heel-taps.” I never proposed
my own health before.
‘Well, Homminey, after this, came over and squeezed my hand in his
great mutton fist, and looked at me, as if he wasn’t quite sure; then
he bust out and said I was a real good-natured chap, as didn’t bear
malice, and I’d always be welcome at Richmond Point.
‘“Right you are, old corn-cob,” says I; “I’ll come and see you the
very first time you ask me. And now let’s have a bit of a dance to
finish up with, for my time’s short, and I must be off. The steamer
leaves at daylight.”
‘Well, between the grog, and being that glad to get rid of me, that
they’d have done anything to see my back, they all agreed to it. There
were three or four other girls there; one of ’em, his cousin, was
fourteen stone if she was a pound. I gave her a few turns when the
music struck up, and then turned to Carry, quite promiskus, directly
the tune was altered.
‘“Oh dear, oh dear, why did you come?” she said in a low tone; “wasn’t
I miserable enough before?”
‘“You know the cross-roads?” I says, knocking against the tall chap’s
partner to drown the words. “There’s no time for talking. If you’re as
true to me as I am to you, will you do as I tell you?”
‘“You know I will,” she said; “what can I do?”
‘“Can you get out of your bedroom?” I says.
‘“No. I don’t know. Yes—perhaps. I think I can,” she said in a strange
voice, not a bit like her own.
‘“Then get away the moment you get to bed—don’t stop to take anything
with you, but make straight for the cross-roads. Inside the trees
you’ll see a buggy with a boy. Stay with him till I come. It will be
there till daylight and long afterwards. Will you come, Carry?”
‘“If I don’t come I shall be mad, or locked up, or dead,” she said,
with such a miserable look on her face that I could hardly help kissing
her and comforting her before them all.
‘Now, the old woman helped us, without wanting to, for she says,
“Carry, you’re looking like a washed-out print frock; do, for gracious
sake, go to bed, and sleep away your headache. She’s not been well
lately, Mr. Windsor, and she’s flustered like at seeing strangers, not
but what you’ve behaved most gentlemanly.”
‘“I’m afraid she’s thinkin‘about her wedding-dress or her veil,
or something,” says I. “I wish I could stay and see how she looks
to-morrow, but I can’t, and business is business.”
‘Poor Carry was off before this, with just “Good-night all,” which made
Homminey look rather glum. I ordered another round, saying I must be
off; but when it was drunk and paid for, I stayed half an hour before I
shook hands, most hearty, and walked out.
‘The moment I turned the corner of the garden-fence I started off, and
ran that mile up to the cross-roads as if all the blacks on Cooper’s
Creek was after me. Just as I got to the trap I overtook a woman, with
a large bundle, labouring along. It never could be—yes _it was_—Carry!
‘I first kissed her and then scolded her. “Never a woman born,” I said,
“that could do without a bundle. Why didn’t you leave all that rubbish?
ain’t you good enough for me as you are?”
‘“Oh, John,” says she, “would you have me come to you in my—in my one
frock? Nonsense! every woman must have a little dress.”
‘“Suppose you had been caught?”
‘“But I’m not caught, except by a bushranger, or some wild character,”
says she, smiling for the first time. “I’m afraid poor Harry will not
enjoy his dinner to-morrow.”
‘“Hang him and his dinner!” said I. “He’s all dinner. I’ve half a mind
to go back and murder him now.”
‘But instead of that, we made haste for Appin, after giving the boy a
pound. And, to make a long story short, were married there _that day_,
for it was past twelve o’clock. And Carry’s there with my old mother
now, and very proud she is of her.’
‘I see, John,’ said Mr. Neuchamp, ‘that you have carried out one
enterprise with your usual success. The other one I want you for, now,
is to start at once for Rainbar, and to take delivery of Mildool run
and stock, which I bought last week. They agree to muster in six weeks.
And you can tell Carry—Mrs. Windsor, I beg her pardon—that she is the
overseer’s wife at Mildool. I have decided to give you the management
of that run, and I look for wonderful profits from it all this season.’
‘And you’ll get ’em, sir,’ said Mr. Windsor, ‘if there’s any faith in a
fust chop season, and right-down hard work. God Almighty’s given us the
fust, and if Jake Windsor don’t find the second, he wishes his right
arm may rot off to the shoulder.’
‘I have no doubt that you will do your best, John,’ answered Mr.
Neuchamp, much gratified by the warm gratitude exhibited by one whose
fate at one time lay in his hand; whose after-career had done so much
to justify his anxiety for the welfare of his fellow-man. ‘I have no
doubt that Mildool will be the best-managed station on the river—after
Rainbar, of course; and that there will be a splendid increase this
year,—always providing that no calf bears my brand—and never mistake
me on that score—that cannot be honestly provided with a mother of the
same ownership.’
Mr. Windsor made a slight gesture of compulsory resignation, as of
one who feels himself bound down to superhuman purity; but he said,
‘You shall be obeyed in that, sir; and in every other thing you choose
to order; though it will come queer to the old hands at Mildool, if
all tales are true, to kill their own beef, let alone mothering their
calves. But _your word’s my law_! And I see now that going straight
is the best in the end, whether in big things or little. We’ll be off
to-morrow, Carry and I, and she can hang it out at Rainbar and have
Tot Freeman to talk to—those chaps ain’t left yet, I believe—while I’m
taking over the cattle at Mildool.’
‘That will do very well, John. Meanwhile you can let a contract for a
neat six-roomed cottage at Mildool, as there isn’t a place there fit
for Piambook and his gin to live in. You must consult your wife about
the site of it, though, as she will have to live in it and spend many a
day by herself there. Don’t let her regret the snug parlour and the old
orchard at the “Cheshire Cheese,” eh, John?‘
‘Well, it _is_ a great change, now I come to think of it,’ said Mr.
Windsor, the first expression of distrust coming over his bold features
that had been there exhibited since his successful raid upon the
lowlanders. ‘I daresay she _would_ feel struck all of a heap if she
was to come upon Mildool old station sudden-like, with the dog-holes
of huts, and every tree cut down on the sandhill because the men were
too lazy to go out for firewood, or for fear the blacks might sneak on
them, and the pile of bones, like a boiling down round the gallows.
But, thank God! there’s grass now, and there’s fat cattle enough in
Mildool by this time—for they’ve never sent away a beast this season, I
hear—to build an Exhibition, if it’s wanted. Carry’s got me, and I’ve
got her, that’s the main thing; and I think we shall make shift to jog
along. We’ve got to do it, and no two ways about it. So, good-bye, sir.
When shall we see you at Rainbar?’
‘I am afraid that business will detain me in Sydney for some weeks
longer,’ said Mr. Neuchamp thoughtfully, as if mentally calculating
the exact day on which he might quit the metropolis. ‘But you and Mr.
Banks will be able to manage the muster easy enough.’
‘Not a bit of bother there need be about it, that I can see, sir. We
shall have lots of help; every stockman within a hundred miles will be
there. There’ll be an awful big mob of strangers; and the Drewarrina
poundkeeper hasn’t had such a lift for many a day as he’ll get. We must
square the tails of every beast that’s counted, that’s one thing, so as
not to have ’em played on to us twice over. I think Mr. Banks is down
to most moves about cattle work, and what he don’t know I can tell him.
Good-bye, sir.’
‘By the way, John,’ said Mr. Neuchamp, ‘I shall want you to stay in
town this evening, if you can spare so much time away from Carry. I
have to see about the draft copy of the sale agreement, which you
will take up with you and give to Mr. Banks. Mr. Frankston informs me
that these agreements need to be very strictly carried out, and that
advantageous purchases _have_ been evaded from neglect in doing so.
So come out to Morahmee this afternoon, when you can have my final
instructions.’
Mr. Neuchamp spent the morning in tolerably close attendance upon
lawyers and persons addicted to the drawing up of those paper and
parchment promises which, if honour were binding, need never to have
troubled penman or engrosser. Nathless, human nature being what it is,
and retaining simian tendencies to steal, hide, falsely chatter and
closely clutch, the sheepskin may not be safely relinquished. Before
Mr. Neuchamp bethought himself of the mid-day solace of lunch he was
possessed of a legal document, wherein the exact time granted for
mustering and several other leading conditions were set forth with
such clearness that evasion or misunderstanding seemed impossible.
A copy of this all-important document was posted to Charley Banks; he
brought with him another for the use of Mr. Windsor, who might employ
his leisure time on the journey up in learning it by heart, and so
render himself able to meet all comers respecting its provisions.
Antonia had expressed a wish to see Jack Windsor, and to send a message
to his wife before he left town. For this reason chiefly Ernest had
appointed Morahmee as the rendezvous on this particular afternoon. As
the shadows lengthened, Mr. Neuchamp betook himself in that direction,
as indeed he had done daily for weeks past.
It so chanced that, on the evening before, Antonia had received a pink
triangular note from Miss Harriet Folleton, who was more or less a
friend of hers, to say that she intended to come and lunch with her
next day at Morahmee, and would be there, unless her dear Antonia wrote
to say she couldn’t have her. There was not any great similitude of
taste or disposition between the two girls—one indeed much disapproved
of the other. But those who have noted the ways of their _monde_ will
not decide from this statement that Antonia Frankston and Harriet
Folleton did any the less greet one another with kisses and effusion
when meeting, or say farewell with lavish use of endearing epithets.
Such being the state of matters, it was by no means surprising that
Harriet Folleton, a girl of great beauty and soft, enthralling manner,
but of so moderate a development of intellect that she might have been
called, if any one had been so rudely uncompromising as to speak the
unvarnished truth about so pretty a creature, ‘a fool proper,’ should
arrive in the paternal brougham before mid-day, and therefore share
luncheon with her dear Antonia in much innocence and peace.
It would have been even less surprising to any one who had possessed
the requisite leisure and opportunity to study that fair girl’s ways,
that, as the two friends were strolling near the strand, where a giant
fig-tree shadowed half the little bay, a boat should pull round the
adjoining headland, manned by four man-of-war-looking yachtsmen, with
the _White Falcon_ on their breasts and hat-ribbons, while from the
boat, as she ran up to the jetty, stepped the gracious form of Count
von Schätterheims.
‘Why, you naughty girl,’ said Antonia, instantly divining the ruse, ‘I
do believe you planned to meet the Count here, and disobey your father.
So this coming to see me was all deception! How dare you treat me like
this? I have a great mind to tell your father, and never speak to you
again.’
‘Oh, pray don’t, Antonia dearest,’ whimpered the softly insincere one,
‘I only said I _might_ be here this afternoon; and he said he was
going off to Batavia, or Russia, or India, or somewhere. And papa was
so dreadful, that I thought there was no harm in it. I shall never
see him again—oh!’ Here the despairingly undecided damsel commenced
to weep, and so interfere with the natural charms of her fine and
uncommon complexion, that Antonia, inwardly resolving to restrict the
acquaintance to conventional limits in future, was constrained to
soothe and console her. Meanwhile the Count, who had been engaged in an
earnest colloquy with his crew, advanced with his customary gallantry
to meet them.
‘My boad is on de zhore
And my barg is on de zea;
is not dat the voord of your boet? I come to make farevell to you, Miss
Frankstein; to you, Miss Folledon, to lay at your veet dis hertz—mein
hertz—vich is efer for dee so vondly beating.’
‘And are you really going to leave us, Count?’ asked Antonia, without
any particular interest or otherwise in the noble foreigner, of whom
she was becoming wearied and increasingly distrustful. Then happening
to look at Harriet Folleton’s face, she saw that she was deathly pale,
and trembled as if about to fall. The Count, too, though complimentary
as usual, seemed annoyed and uneasy at her presence.
The Count, in answer to the question, pointed to his yacht, a beautiful
schooner, more fair than honest of aspect, and of marvellous sailing
powers, which had, perhaps, more than any of his reported possessions,
tended to sustain his prestige since his arrival in Sydney.
Antonia’s practised eye at once discerned that she was fully equipped
for sea. With sails ready to be unfurled at a moment’s notice, she
could sweep out unchallenged and trackless as the falcon on her ensign,
before the freshening south wind which was even now curling the waves
with playful but increasing power.
With lightning rapidity she divined the full extent of the girl’s
imprudence and the Count’s villainy. In the same sudden mental
effort she resolved, at all hazards, to save her companion from the
consequences of her inconceivable folly.
‘I did vorm de resolution dat I shall bezeegh you and Miss Folledon
to honour me by paying me von last leetle visit on board de
_Valgon_, dis afdernoon. Mine goot friend Paul, he was goming, but
de business—dat pete noir—he brevent him. He ask me to peg Miss
Frankstein if she vill, zo also Miss Folledon, vizout her fader, to my
so-poor-yet-highly-to-be-honoured graft go. Dere is izes, one small
collation, a few friend. Surely you will join dem?’
Here the Count beamed the irresistible smile which had through life
served him well, and advancing, held out both hands to the young ladies.
‘Oh, do let us go!’ said the reassured weakling. ‘It would be so
pleasant. It is such a delightful afternoon. I should like it of all
things.’
But Antonia more than ever distrusted the Count, _et dona ferentes_.
She disliked his eye, his wily words, the appearance of his swarthy
crew, the evidently sea-fitted appearance of the yacht. She felt more
than ever convinced that he had matured a deliberate plot to carry off
an unsuspecting girl.
Such in truth was the unpardonable sin with which the Herr von
Schätterheims had resolved to conclude his Australian career. Unable to
meet the many pressing claims upon his finances, the holders of which,
he had reason to know, were meditating an advance in line; having
failed in the daring speculations in which, by means of humble foreign
agents, he had invested the small capital with which he had arrived,
and the incredibly large loans which his assurance and reputation for
wealth had enabled him to procure,—he had conceived the desperate plan
which Antonia’s quick intuition had discovered. He had determined,
by force or fraud, to carry off Harriet Folleton, trusting that the
irrevocable _coup_ once made, time and other considerations would tend
to the ultimate wresting of her immense fortune from her father’s hands.
Hunted by his creditors and threatened with imprisonment, the Count
was now desperate. In such a position he had, more than once during
his career, showed no disposition to stick at trifles. His yacht lay
within hail—a seabird with her great wings plumed for instant flight, a
Norway falcon looking on ocean from a low-placed rocky ridge. His crew
of mixed nationality, who had followed him through many a clime, were
lawless and devoted. The hour had come when Albert von Schätterheims
would stand forth with front unveiled, and show these simple dwellers
by the shore of the southern main what manner of man they had dared to
drive to bay.
Therefore, when Antonia Frankston stepped forward, and with head erect
and flashing eye interposed between the Count and his sacrifice, she
confronted a different man from the silky, graceful _serviteur des
dames_ with whom she had often wished, for some instinctive reason, to
quarrel.
‘I cannot go with you now, nor shall Miss Folleton, Count
Schätterheims; it would not be right, in my father’s absence. Permit us
to return to the house.’
‘Beholt me desoladed if Miss Frankstein will not honour my poor boad,’
said the Count, as he barred the progress of the two young ladies
on the somewhat narrow green-walled alley which led to the house;
‘but’—fixing his eye steadily upon Harriet Folleton—‘I go not forth
alone; Miss Harriet Folledon, you bromised me. I haf your vord. You
vill come with me now; is it not so, belofet one? Ja! you vill follow
de fortunes of Albert von Schätterheims, for efer.’
He strode forward a pace, and seizing the wrist of the frightened girl,
spoke rapidly in Spanish, while two of his sailors ran up from the
boat, to whom he committed the half-insensible form of the fainting
girl.
Antonia Frankston did not faint or swoon. With sudden movement she
confronted the Count, with so fierce an air and so unblenching a brow
that he involuntarily stepped back a pace, and made as though to
protect himself from the onset of a foe.
‘Coward and robber that you are, release her this instant,’ she cried.
The Count smiled sardonically. ‘You will parton me, mademoiselle, if I
redurn you with my complimend for your goot opinion. My engachemends is
more pressing, as you gan pelief.’
On the girl’s face, as she stood with threatening aspect—a young
Bellona, as yet unversed in battles—burned a deeper glow; in her eye
flashed a fiercer light as she marked the smile on the calm features of
the Count, which, in her heated fancy, seemed the mocking regard of a
fiend.
‘She shall _not_ go!’ cried she, springing forward and throwing her
arms round the neck of the helpless maid. ‘Oh that my father were
here—or Ernest —— Robbers, villains, assassins that you are, release
her—don’t dare to touch _me_!’
But at this moment, at a signal from their chief, the dark-browed,
swarthy seamen laid their rude hands upon the sacred form of the
deliverer herself, and rapidly hurried both damsels towards the gig.
With one wild look to heaven, one frantic gesture of wrath, despair,
and abandonment, Antonia Frankston betook herself to one of the best
weapons in her sex’s armoury, and shrieked till every rock and tree
within a mile of Morahmee echoed again.
‘_Carambo!_’ said one of the men, ‘we shall have half Sydney here
before we are clear with these shrieking senoritas; have you no muffler
for her cursed mouth?’
‘_Paciencia_, Diego!’ said the Count, ‘harm her not. A few minutes will
suffice—and then——’
But before further infraction of the liberty of the subject could be
carried out, Miss Frankston had exhibited for some moments the full
force of a very vigorous pair of lungs. The party had nearly reached
the little pier, whence so many joyous bands had taken the water, when
a man came crashing through the shrubbery, and rushed furiously at Von
Schätterheims.
‘Stand back, Neuchamp!’ shouted the Count, levelling a revolver, ‘or
you die.’
‘Scoundrel and pirate that you are,’ said Ernest, facing him with
steady eye, ‘fire! do your worst. By heaven, I will tear you limb from
limb if you do not instantly order your ruffians to desist.’
This rather melodramatic threat was used by Mr. Neuchamp, who was cool
enough to take in the precise aspect of the fray at a glance, more with
the intention of gaining time than of intimidating five armed men.
He was eminently at a disadvantage as matters stood. He was, so to
speak, at the Count’s mercy, being at the wrong end of his revolver,
and that experienced soldier, sailor, tinker, tailor, or whatever,
indeed, in time past might have been his true designation, was far too
wary to permit him a chance of closing.
The sailors in whose grasp were Antonia and her guest had drawn their
knives, and were prepared for an affray _à l’outrance_. The two seamen
in the boat carried sheath-knives at least. He could not but admit
to himself, grinding his teeth the while, that he had the hazard of
beholding his love torn from her home by the rude hands of lawless men,
or of dying vainly in her defence.
To this latter alternative, could it but avert her peril, he was
willing, nay anxious, to yield himself. But if—if only a short respite
could be gained—even now—the issue was uncertain. His resolution was
taken.
‘Stop your men, Count, while we parley,’ he said, ‘or, by the God above
us, you shall shoot me down the next second, and I tear the false heart
out of your breast, if you miss. Choose!’ And he stepped forward in the
face of the levelled weapon.
‘You are mat, like every dummer Englander, I pelief,’ said the
nineteenth-century buccaneer. ‘Why should I not kill you for your
insults to my honour? But I revrain. I would not meddle with the
Fräulein Frankstein—she dell you herselve, but she try to rop me of my
shpirit-star—my schatz—bromised prite—I presend her to you. I know your
sendimend for her. I make you my complimend. Her dempers is angelig.’
Here the Count wreathed his face into such a smile as the companion of
Faust may have worn when Marguerite implores the Mater Dolorosa, and
spoke rapidly with commanding gesture to his myrmidons, who released
their hold upon Miss Frankston. But Antonia still clung with desperate
tenacity to the cold hands, the corpse-like form of Harriet Folleton.
‘You see she is obstinade—to the death,’ said the Count, whose
moustache seemed to curl with wrath. ‘It is not her affair, or yours;
go in beace, gross not my path more furder.’
‘I cannot abandon Miss Folleton, nor will Antonia,’ said Mr. Neuchamp,
raising his voice so as to drown a peculiar crackling noise in the
shrubbery which his ear had caught. ‘Do _you_ go in peace, Von
Schätterheims? Wrong not further the kind hearts that have trusted
you; betray not hospitality free and open as ever man received. I will
return with both, or not at all.’
‘Then die, fool!’ hissed the Count, as he raised his weapon and fired
full at the head of Ernest Neuchamp, who at the same moment rushed in
and closed, while his blood flowed freely from a wound in the forehead,
and ensanguined his adversary as they grappled in deadly conflict.
The accuracy of the Count’s aim, faultless and unerring in gallery
practice, or at the _poupée_, of which he could drill heart, head, or
limb, five times out of six, may or may not have been shaken by the
sudden apparition of Jack Windsor, or by the portentous yell which that
gentleman emitted, worthy of Piambook or Boinmaroo, as he observed the
Count in the act of firing at the sacred head of his benefactor.
Too late to interpose with effect as he stood on a block of sandstone
overlooking the scene of conflict, he raised his voice in one of the
half-Indian cries with which the horsemen of the Central Desert are
wont to intimidate the unwilling herd at the stockyard-gates. The
sailors started and gazed with astonishment as Mr. Windsor sprang
recklessly from his elevated post, and cleared the rough declivity with
a succession of bounds, emulating, not unworthily, the hard-pressed
‘flyer’ of his country’s forests when the grim gazehounds are close on
haunch and flank.
Straight as a line for the men that held the captive maids went the
henchman, and as they hurriedly released their prey and stood on
guard, Mr. Neuchamp could have offered a votary’s prayer to the patron
saint of old England’s weaponless gladiators, as he marked the unarmed
Anglo-Saxon’s rapid unswerving onset.
Though there, the western mountaineer
Rushed with bare bosom on the spear,
And flung the feeble targe aside,
And with both hands the broadsword plied.
Mr. Windsor so far resembled Donald at Flodden Field, that he trusted
chiefly to natural strength and courage. But none the less did he
display an amount of coolness and cunning of fence characteristically
Australian.
Charging the nearest Frenchman, as he took him to be, and indeed in
all future relation so described him, with the velocity of a mallee
three-year-old, he feinted with his right hand at the forehead of his
foe, and as the Mexican-Spaniard, for such he was, raised his arm for
a deadly stab, he suddenly gripped his wrist, catching him full in the
face with the ‘terrible left,’ and stretched him senseless and bleeding
at his feet. Snatching up the knife, he had but time to parry a stroke
which shrewdly scored his right arm, when his other antagonist was upon
him. Both men glared at one another with uplifted knives—for a moment;
in the next Mr. Windsor swept his antagonist’s outstretched foot from
under him with a Cornish wrestler’s trick—a lift—a dull thud, and he
lay on his back, with Jack’s knee on his chest and the dangerous knife
in the bushman’s belt.
In the meanwhile Miss Frankston, perceiving that the men who had charge
of the boat showed no disposition to quit their station, half dragged,
half raised Miss Folleton along the path to the verandah steps, halting
just within sight of the combatants.
‘Now, do you prefer being dragged up to the house, Von
Schätterheims?—by Jove! I shoot you where you stand if you resist,’
inquired Ernest of that nobleman, whom he had mastered after a severe
struggle, and whose revolver he now pointed at those classical
features, ‘or will you depart in God’s name, and rid us of your
presence for ever?’
‘It is Fade,’ said the Count gloomily. ‘He is too strong. My shtar is
under an efil influence. I will quid dese accurset lants. Let your
man—teufel dat he is with his boxanglais—release my grew, and I go; but
stay—I am guildy by your laws; why should you release me?’
‘You deserve death for your outrage,’ replied Ernest sternly. ‘You
could hardly escape lifelong imprisonment. But I would not willingly
see the man, at whose board I have sat, in the felon’s cell. Go, and
repent. Also—and this is my chief reason—I would willingly evade the
_esclandre_ which your public trial for this day’s proceedings would
cause.’
‘Ha! not the deet. But the fama—what you call “scandall,”’ said the
Count wonderingly. ‘But you English, you are as efer, a strange—a so
wunderlich beoples. Still, I go. It is all that is left to Albert von
Schätterheims in this hemis-vahr—to steal away, like the hund, beaden,
disgraced, dishonoured. Fahrwohl. Dell to the Fräulein my regret, my
despair, my shames. Under another schtar Albert von Schätterheims mighd
haf geliebt und gelebt—but all dings is now ofer.’
Ernest stepped back and motioned him to arise, still keeping guard.
The Count called aloud to his men, one of whom still lay beneath Mr.
Windsor’s thrall, and the other sitting up, all blood-stained, swayed
backward and forward, as only half recovered from a swoon.
‘Let your men go, John,’ said Mr. Neuchamp. ‘The treaty of Morahmee is
arranged between the high contracting powers. They will not renew the
war,’ he continued, as the Count and Jack’s last antagonist between
them raised the fainting man and led him down to the gig, which in the
briefest period was seen heading for the yacht as fast as oars could
drive her.
‘My word, sir,’ said Mr. Windsor, ‘it looked very crooked when I come
on the ground. I saw that frog-eating mounseer potting you with his
squirt like a tree’d ’possum—both the young ladies, too, being run off
to sea with, clean and clear against their wills. I don’t hold with
that sea business at all—it’s dangerous—let alone with a boss like
the Count, who’s wanted in his own country, like as not. However, we
euchred ’em this time, whoever plays next game.’
‘You behaved like a trump, Jack. You were my genuine “right bower,”’
said Mr. Neuchamp with unwonted humour and heartiness. ‘Without you we
should never have won the odd trick. I knew that you were just behind
me at Woolloomooloo; but I was terribly afraid that you could not be up
in time.’
‘If one John Windsor’s anyways handy when you’re in trouble, sir,
you’ll mostly find him there or thereabouts, as long as he’s alive,
that is. I can’t say afterwards. What do you think, sir, about what
comes after all this rough-and-tumble that we coves call life?’
demanded Jack with sudden interest.
‘I don’t think too much about it, which is perhaps the best wisdom. But
of this we may be sure, John, that no man will fare worse in the other
world for doing his duty as a man and a Christian in this.’
When the house was reached, it appeared that Miss Folleton had
been handed over to the good offices of her friend’s maid, and was
recovering her nervous system in the seclusion of a guest-chamber.
Antonia, having smoothed her hair, and rearranged herself generally,
awaited the victor in the verandah. She stood gazing seawards with a
haughty air of defiance, which still savoured of the fray. The light of
battle had not faded from her eye; a bright flush embellished with rare
and wondrous beauty the untinted marble of her delicate features.
As she stood, unconsciously statuesque, and gazed half unheeding in her
rapt regard of the flying bark, the long-loved, fast-thronging, magical
glories of the evening ocean-pageant,
... the day was dying:
Sudden the sun shone forth; its beams were lying
Like boiling gold on ocean, strange to see;
And on the shattered vapours, which defying
The power of light in vain, tossed restlessly
In the red heaven like wrecks in a tempestuous sea.
‘It is you,’ she said, suddenly turning towards Ernest with a look of
praise and gratitude almost childlike in its absence of reserve. ‘How
can I, how will my father, ever thank you for this day’s deeds? I had
given up all for lost; that is, as far as that foolish Harriet was
concerned. They should have torn me limb from limb before they should
have placed us in their boat. Then I determined to fight for Harriet,
to—yes! I believe that is the word, for I really felt the real fighting
spirit all over—it is not such a very unpleasant sensation as one would
think. I was quite _exaltée_, and if I had had a revolver, I think the
Count would have paid forfeit with his life, whatever might have come
after. Papa would kill him now if they met.’
‘Is there no fear of such a meeting?’
‘None, thank Heaven!’ said Antonia, ‘though he deserves the worst in
the shape of punishment. Sydney has seen the last of him. Look!’ she
cried, as every sail on the long, low, beautiful schooner filled as
if by magic, and the graceful craft, leaning to the full force of the
strong south wind, swept forth towards the sea-way.
‘He is safe from pursuit,’ she continued, ‘even if tidings could have
been sent at the instant. With this breeze behind him, there is nothing
in Sydney which would not be hull down behind the _White Falcon_
before day broke. Of course he will steer for one of the northern
ports, or else for the Islands. They must have had every sail tied
with spun-yarn, so as to be ready to unfurl at a moment’s notice. To
you alone, and to that brave Jack Windsor, it is due that we are not
miserable captives in yonder flying bark. I shudder to think of it.’
‘I should have done little without John,’ said Mr. Neuchamp. ‘He came
up like Blücher at Waterloo, and I was as impatiently awaiting his
arrival as the Duke. Here—receive Miss Frankston’s thanks, John; then,
with her permission, you can go and ask the butler for some beer. I
daresay you feel equal to it.’
‘You have behaved this day, John Windsor, like a brave man and a true
Australian,’ said Antonia, giving her hand to Jack, which he shook
carefully and with much caution, relinquishing the dainty palm with
evident relief. ‘My father will know how to thank the rescuer of his
daughter; and she will remember you as a gallant fellow and a friend in
need all the days of her life.’
‘Thank you, miss,’ said Mr. Windsor, with a respectful yet puzzled air.
‘I’ve had many a worse shindy than this in my time, and got no thanks
either—’tother way on, ‘ndeed. But of course I couldn’t help rolling
in, seeing the master double-banked, and you young ladies being made
to join a water-party against your wills. Don’t you have no more truck
with them boats, miss; they’re too uncertain altogether. Nothing like
dry land to my taste; even if the season’s bad, there’s a something to
hang on by. My respects, miss, and I’ll try that beer; my throat’s like
a bark chimney with the soot afire.’
‘And now I must order you, Mr. Neuchamp, to betake yourself to your
room. Look in the glass and see if your complexion hasn’t suffered.
Was it the Count’s blood which flowed, or did you scratch your face
with the prickly pear hedge? Let me look! Merciful heaven!’ exclaimed
the girl, with a half scream, as she narrowly scanned her deliverer’s
face; ‘why, there is the deep trace of a bullet on your temple. How
providential that it was the least bit wide—a slight turn of your
head—a shade nearer the temple, and you would have been lying there
dead—dead! How awful to think of!’
Here she covered her face with her hands. Tears trickled through the
slender palms as her overwrought feelings found relief in a sudden
burst of weeping.
Mr. Neuchamp’s attempts at consolation would appear not to have been
wholly ineffectual, if one may judge from the concluding sentences
of rather a long-whispered conversation, all carried on prior to the
lavation of his gory countenance.
‘I always thought,’ said Antonia, smiling through her tears, with as
much satirical emphasis as could coexist with so sudden an access of
happiness, ‘that you wanted some one to take care of you in Australia.
I fear I have been led into undertaking a very serious responsibility.’
‘May it not be the other way?’ very naturally inquired Ernest. ‘If I
had not been, as Jack would say, “there or thereabouts” to-day, some
one might have been a pirate’s bride, after all. Miss Folleton, of
course, had prior claims, but——‘
‘But—please to go and render yourself presentable, this instant. We
shall have such an amount of talking to do before we can put poor dear
old pappy in possession of all the news. Good gracious, how can we ever
tell him? How furious he will be!’
‘Will he?’ inquired Ernest, with affected apprehension; ‘perhaps we had
better defer our——’
‘I don’t mean _that_—and you know it, sir; but, unless you wish to be
taken for a pirate yourself, or an escaped I-don’t-know-what, you will
do as I tell you.’
So Ernest was fain to do as he was bid, commencing, unconsciously
indeed, that period of servitude to which every son of Adam, all
unheeding, is pledged who rivets on himself the flower-wreathed
adamantine fetters of matrimony. He sought Mr. Frankston’s extremely
comfortable dressing-room, at the behest of his beloved _châtelaine_;
and very glad he was to find himself there.
His sense of relief and general congratulation was, however, slightly
alloyed by the thought of the stupendous amount of explanation and
narrative due to Paul Frankston, when this now fast-approaching hour of
dinner should arrive.
‘I would it were bedtime, and all well,’ groaned he, in old Falstaff’s
words, as he addressed himself to the rather serious duties of the
toilette.
Mr. Frankston arrived from town but a few minutes before the
dinner-hour, and, like a wise man, made at once for his room.
‘Only just time to dress, darling,’ said he to his daughter. ‘Got such
a budget of news; met Croker just as I was coming out, tell Ernest. No
end of news—quite unparalleled. You will be surprised, and so will he.’
‘And so will you,’ thought Mr. Neuchamp, who just came into the hall in
time to hear the concluding sentence. But he darkly bided his time.
As the dinner-bell rang, forth issued Mr. Frankston, radiant with snowy
waistcoat and renovated _personnel_, having the air at once of a man in
good hope and expectation of dinner, also conscious of the possession
of news which, however sensationally disastrous, does not prejudicially
affect himself.
‘Now then,’ he said, the soup having been disposed of, and the mildly
stimulating Amontillado imbibed, ‘what do you think has become of our
friend—or, rather, your friend, Antonia, for you never would let me
abuse him—the Count von Schätterheims?’
‘What indeed?’ replied Antonia, looking at her plate.
‘Well, he has bolted, levanted, cleared out, on board his famous yacht,
the _White Falcon_, for some northern port—Batavia, the Islands, New
Guinea—no one knows.’
‘How about money matters?’ inquired Ernest.
‘Well, you both take it coolly, I must say,’ said Paul, hurt at the
small effect of his great piece of ordnance. ‘As to money, all Sydney,
in the legitimate credit way, is left lamenting. He had been operating
very largely of late, and his losses and defalcations are immense.
Yorick and Co.’s bill for wines and liqueurs is something awful.’
‘Alas, poor Yorick!’ said Ernest, with so pathetic an emphasis that
Antonia could not help laughing.
‘You two seem very facetious to-night,’ quoth Paul with dignity. ‘It
is no laughing matter, I can tell you. But you won’t laugh at _this_,
I fancy. Croker told me that it was everywhere believed that he had
persuaded that unhappy, infatuated girl Harriet Folleton to accompany
him in his flight.’
Mr. Frankston uttered these last words with a deep solemnity, imparted
to his voice by the heartfelt pity which, at any time, he could have
felt for the victim in such a case.
His daughter and Ernest were sufficiently ill-bred to laugh.
‘Hang me if I understand this!’ he commenced, in tones of righteous
indignation; and then, softening, ‘Why Antonia, dearest, surely you
must pity——’
‘Papa, she is upstairs and in bed at this very moment, so she can’t
have run away with the Count. There must be a mistake somewhere.’
‘So there must, so there must,’ said Paul, instantly mollified, and
addressing himself to his dinner. ‘I’m a hot-tempered old idiot, I
know. But there’s no mistake about the Count’s debts, or the Count’s
flight. He was sighted by No. 4 pilot cutter that brought in the
English liner, the _Cumberland_, this evening, steering nor’-nor’-east,
and before such a breeze as will see him clear of anything from this
port before daylight.’
‘He has gone, safe enough,’ said Ernest; ‘indeed, we watched him go
through the Heads from the verandah—a most fortunate migration, in
my opinion. He has conferred an immense benefit upon the country by
leaving it, which I trust he will confirm by never returning.’
‘Then you saw him go from here?’ inquired Mr. Frankston. ‘Was he close
enough for you to see him?’
‘Well,’ admitted Ernest, ‘he certainly _was_ close enough to see, and,
indeed, to feel; but it’s rather a long story, and if you’re going to
smoke this evening, we can have it all out on the verandah.’
‘I think I must go and see how my visitor is getting on,’ said Antonia;
‘and as I feel tired, I will make my farewell for the evening.’
Was there in the outwardly formal handshaking a sudden instinctive
pressure? Was there in the hasty glance a lighting up of hitherto
lambent fires in the clear depths of Antonia’s deep-hued eyes—an added,
half-remorseful, half-clinging tenderness in the never-omitted caress
which marked her evening parting with her father? If so, that father
was all unconscious, and the outward tokens were so faint as to have
been invisible to all but one deeply interested, near-sighted observer.
‘I am much relieved to find that poor girl Harriet Folleton has not
been carried off, after all, by that scoundrel, who has taken us all in
so splendidly,’ growled Paul. ‘Of course, now the mischief is done,
all kinds of reports are going about the city as to his real character.
People say he was a valet, or a courier; others, a supercargo, who ran
away with that pretty boat he brought here. He certainly had a very
good notion of handling a yacht.’
‘Let me tell you, then, that it is chiefly owing to your daughter’s
courage and unselfish determination to save her friend at all hazards,
that Harriet Folleton is not now a captive in yonder yacht, hopelessly
lost and disgraced,’ announced Mr. Neuchamp, commencing his broadside.
‘Why, you don’t tell me that the scoundrel came _here_ and attempted
any violence?’ said the old man, rising excitedly and performing the
regulation quarter-deck walk up and down the verandah, while he dashed
his ignited cigar excitedly out over the lawn. ‘If I knew—if I had
known this day that he dared to set his foot upon these grounds with a
lawless purpose towards any guest of Antonia’s, I’d have followed him
to the Line and hanged him at his own yardarm.’
As the old man uttered these very decided sentiments, somewhat at
variance with the Navigation Act and international usage, his brow
darkened, his eye gleamed with pitiless light, and his arm was raised
with a gesture which indicated familiarity with the cutlass and the
boarding-pike.
‘You must not excite yourself,’ said Ernest, laying his hand kindly on
the old man’s arm. ‘Remember, first of all, that the offender is beyond
pursuit; that he was baulked in his evil purpose, and that he suffered
ignominious defeat, chiefly through the timely help of Jack Windsor,
who assisted me to rout the attacking force.’
‘Good God!’ exclaimed the old man. ‘Attack—defeat; what has happened?
and I sat gossiping at the club, while you were defending my home and
my honour!’
‘Could I do less? However, you had better hear the whole story straight
out. No harm has been done, and the enemy was routed with loss.’
The story was told. Full justice was done to Antonia’s heroism. Jack
Windsor’s prowess received its meed of praise. His own fortunate
overthrow of the Count by good luck and a little more practice in
wrestling than continental usages render familiar, was slightly alluded
to. Finally, he explained his reasons for assisting the escape of Von
Schätterheims, and thereby confining the scandal of his attempted
abduction to the narrow limit of the actual participators in the affray.
Mr. Frankston walked the deck of a long-departed imaginary vessel so
long without speaking that Ernest feared some rending typhoon of wrath
after the enforced calm. But the event justified his best surmises.
Placing his hand upon his guest’s arm, Paul said, in a voice vibrating
with emotion—
‘I see in you, Ernest Neuchamp, a man who this day has saved my honour
and my life—hers, to whom this poor remnant of existence is but as
this worthless weed.’ (Here he cast from him the half-consumed cigar.)
‘From this day forth you are my son—take everything that I can give.
Paul Frankston holds nothing back from the man who has done what you
have done this day. I am but your steward—your manager, my dear boy,
henceforward.’
‘There is _one_ of your possessions—the most precious, the most
priceless among them,’ answered Ernest, holding up his head with a
do-or-die sort of air, ‘and that one I now ask of you. We are past
phrases with each other. But you will understand that I at least do not
undervalue the worth of Antonia Frankston’s heart, of your daughter’s
hand!’
Mr. Frankston once more paced the long-faded deck and communed with
the broad and heaving deep. Then he turned. His eyes, from which the
strange fire had faded wholly out, had a softened, perhaps somewhat
clouded light.
‘Ernest Neuchamp,’ he said, ‘if this day has witnessed, perhaps, the
most bitter insult, the deepest humiliation to which Paul Frankston
has ever been subjected, it has also witnessed his greatest joy. Take
her—with her old father’s blessing. You have, what he considers,
earth’s greatest treasure; and it is no flattery, but honest liking,
when he swears that you are worthy of her. As far as human look-out can
see over life’s course, Paul Frankston’s troubles and anxieties are
over. Now I can take my cigar again.’
More than one cigar was needed to allay the old man’s overstrained
nervous system. Long they sat and talked, and saw the moon rise higher
in the star-gemmed sky, casting a broader silver flame across the
tremulous illumined deep; while between Ernest Neuchamp and the old man
again stood a shadowy, diaphanous, divinely-moulded form, turning into
an elysian aroma the scent of Paul’s cigars, and echoing the secret
gladness of each thought, which in that hour of supernal loveliness and
unutterable joy flowed from the bared heart of Ernest Neuchamp.
* * * * *
On the next morning Aurora in person must have attended to the proper
arrangement of the dawn, the breakfast-hour, and other small matters
which, apparently trivial, tend unquestionably to that due equilibrium
of the nervous system, without which comfort is impossible and
exhilaration hopeless.
Thus, Miss Folleton, having slept well, appeared renovated and just
becomingly repentant. Antonia was severely happy, Mr. Neuchamp calmly
superior to fate, and Mr. Frankston so hilarious that his daughter had
to interpose more than once.
That ambrosial repast concluded, Antonia departed for town in the
carriage, and straightway delivered up Miss Folleton to her rejoicing
relatives, who had suffered anxiety in her absence. Hers was an
impressionable, shallow nature, recovering easily from moral risks and
disasters—even from physical ills. Her appetite reasserted itself; her
love of life’s frivolities, temporarily obscured, brightened afresh;
and long before the legend of the debts, the daring, the disappearance
of the Count von Schätterheims had been supplanted by newer scandal,
her cheek had recovered its wonted bloom, her step its lightness in the
dance, and her mien its touchingly dependent grace.
In due time she had her reward; for she captured, after a short but
brilliant campaign, consisting of an oratorio, a lawn party, and three
dances, an immensely opulent northern squatter. She looks fair and pure
as the blue sky above her, as she rolls by, dressed _à merveille_, in
the best-appointed carriage in Sydney. But for happiness—who shall say?
In the meanwhile, unlimited pleasure-seeking and universal admiration
supply a reasonable substitute.