Theodore Bethune was a young man of means, with the brains to add to
them, and the energy to use his brains. As the eldest of his family he
had inherited a special legacy in boyhood; had immediately taken himself
away from the Church of England Grammar School, and booked his passage
to London by an early boat. On the voyage he read the classics in his
deck chair, asked copious questions in the smoking-room, and finally
decided upon Cambridge as the theatre of his academical exploits.
Jesus was at that time the College most favoured by Australasian youth:
this was quite enough for Theodore Bethune. He ultimately selected
Trinity Hall, as appearing to him to offer the distinction of Trinity
without its cosmopolitan flavour, and a legal instead of an athletic
tradition. In due course he took as good a degree as he required, and
proceeded to be called at the English bar before returning to practice
in Melbourne. In connection with his university life he had two or three
original boasts: he had never been seen intoxicated, never played any
game, and only once investigated Fenner's (to watch the Australians). On
the other hand, he had added appreciably to his income by intelligent
betting on Newmarket course.
Temperament, character, and attainment seemed to have combined to
produce the perfect barrister in Theodore Bethune, who was infinitely
critical but himself impervious to criticism, while possessed of a
capital gift of insolence and a face of triple brass. The man, however,
was not so perfect; even the gentleman may exhibit certain flaws. Of
these one of his sisters had latterly become very conscious; but they
came out as a boon to her on the second evening of this visit to Eureka
Station, New South Wales.
For in conversation Bethune was what even he would formerly have called
"a terror," an epithet which he still endeavoured to deserve, though he
no longer made use of it himself. Captious, cocksure, omniscient, he
revelled in the uses of raillery and of repartee. Nothing pleased him
more than to combat the pet theories of persons whom he had no occasion
to conciliate. He could take any side on any question, as became the
profession he never ceased from practising. He destroyed illusions as
other men destroy game, and seldom made a new acquaintance without
securing a fair bag. Better traits were a playful fancy and an essential
geniality which suggested more of mischief than of malice in the real
man; the pose, however, was that of uncompromising and heartless critic
of every creature of his acquaintance, and every country in which he had
set foot.
The first night he had behaved very well. Moya had made him promise that
he would not be openly critical for twenty-four hours. He had kept his
word like a man and a martyr. The second night was different. Theodore
was unmuzzled. And both Moya and Rigden were thankful in their hearts.
Sir Oracle scarce knew where to begin. There were the turkeys which a
child could have hit with a pop-gun; there were the emus which the
Queen's Prizeman could not have brought down with his Lee-Metford. But
Theodore had discovered that there was no medium in the bush. Look at
the heat! He had been through the Red Sea at its worst, but it had not
fetched the skin from his hands as this one day in Riverina. Riverina,
forsooth! Where were their rivers? _Lucus a non lucendo._
The storekeeper winked; he was a humorist himself, of a lower order.
"No good coming it in Greek up here, mister."
The jackeroo was the storekeeper's hourly butt. The jackeroo was a new
chum who had done pretty badly at his public school, and was going to do
worse in the bush, but he still knew Latin from Greek when he heard it,
and he perceived his chance of scoring off the storekeeper.
"Greek is good," said the jackeroo. "Greek is great!"
"Ah, now we have it!" cried the storekeeper, who was a stout young man
with bulbous eyes, and all the sly glances of the low comedian. "'Tis
the voice of the scholard, I heard him explain! He comes from Rugby, Mr.
Bethune; hasn't he told you yet? Calls himself an Old Rug--sure it isn't
a plaid-shawl, Ives? Oh, you needn't put on side because you can draft
Greek from Latin!"
Ives the jackeroo, a weak youth wearing spectacles, had put on nothing
but the long-suffering smile with which he was in the habit of receiving
the storekeeper's grape-shot. He said no more, however, and a brief but
disdainful silence on the part of Bethune made an awkward pause which
Rigden broke heroically. Hitherto but little talking had been required
of him or of Moya. The aggressive Theodore had been their unwitting
friend, and he stood them in better stead than ever when the young men
adjourned to smoke on the verandah.
This was the time when the engaged couple would naturally have
disappeared; they had duly done so the previous evening; to-night they
merely sat apart, out of range of the lamp, and the young men galled
them both by never glancing their way. Nothing had been noticed yet; nor
indeed was there anything remarkable in their silence after so long a
day spent in each other's exclusive society. From time to time, however,
they made a little talk to save appearances which were incriminating
only in their own minds; and all the time their eyes rested together
upon the black stack of logs and corrugated iron which was the store.
Once the storekeeper approached with discreet deliberation.
"I've lost my key of the store, Mr. Rigden; may I borrow yours?"
"It's I who've lost mine, Spicer, so I took yours from your room. No,
don't bother about your books to-night; don't go over there again. Look
after Mr. Bethune."
He turned to Moya when the youth was gone.
"One lie makes many," he muttered grimly.
There was no reply.
Meanwhile Bethune was in his element, with an audience of two bound to
listen to him by the bond of a couple of his best cigars, and with just
enough of crude retaliation from the storekeeper to act as a blunt
cutlass to Theodore's rapier. The table with the lamp was at the
latter's elbow, and the rays fell full upon the long succesful nose and
the unwavering mouth of an otherwise rather ordinary legal countenance.
There was plenty of animation in the face, however, and enough of the
devil to redeem a good deal of the prig. The lamp also made the most of
a gleaming shirt-front; for Theodore insisted on dressing ("for my own
comfort, purely,") even in the wilderness, where black coats were good
enough for the other young men, and where Mora herself wore a high
blouse.
"But there's nothing to be actually ashamed of in an illusion or two,"
the jackeroo was being assured, "especially at your age. I've had them
myself, and may have one or two about me still. You only know it when
you lose them, and my faith in myself has been rudely shattered. I've
shed one thundering big illusion since I've been up here."
The Rugby boy was not following; he had but expressed a sufficiently
real regret at not having gone up to Cambridge himself; and he was
wondering whether he should regret it the less in future for what this
Cambridge man had to say upon the subject. On the whole it did not
reconcile him to the university of the bush, and for a little he had a
deaf ear for the conversation. A question had been asked and answered
ere he recovered the thread.
"Oh, go on," said the storekeeper. "Give the back-blocks a rest,
Bethune!"
"I certainly shall, Mr. Spicer," rejoined Theodore, with the least
possible emphasis on the prefix, "once I shake their infernal dust from
my shoes. Not that I'd mind the dust if there was anything to do in it.
Of course this sort of thing's luxury," he had the grace to interject;
"in fact, it's far too luxurious for me. One rather likes to rough it
when one comes so far. Anything for some excitement, some romance,
something one can't get nearer home!"
"Well, you can't get this," said the loyal storekeeper.
"I never was at a loss for moonlight," observed Theodore, "when there
happened to be a moon. There are verandahs in Toorak."
Spicer lowered his voice.
"There was a man once shot dead in this one. Bushrangers!"
"When was that?"
"Oh, well, it was before my time."
"Ten years ago?"
"Ten to twenty, I suppose."
"Ten to twenty! Why, my good fellow, there was a blackfellows' camp in
Collins Street, twenty years ago! Corrobborees, and all that, where the
trams run now."
"I'm hanged if there were," rejoined Spicer warmly. "Not twenty years
ago, no, nor yet thirty!"
"Say forty if it makes you happy. It doesn't affect my argument. You
don't expect me to bolt out of this verandah because some poor devil
painted it red before I was breeched? What shall it profit us that
there were bushrangers once upon a time, and blacks before the
bushrangers? The point is that they're both about as extinct as the
plesiosaurus----"
"Kill whose cat?" interposed the storekeeper in a burst of his peculiar
brand of badinage. "He's coming it again, Ives; you'll have another
chance of showing off, old travelling-rug!"
"And all you've got to offer one instead," concluded Bethune, "besides
the subtleties of your own humour, is a so-called turkey the size of a
haystack, that'll ram its beak down your gun-barrel if you wait long
enough."
The Rugbeian laughed outright, and Spicer gained time by insulting him
while he rummaged his big head for a retort worthy of Bethune; it was
worthier of himself when it came.
"You want adventure, do you? I know the place for you, and its within
ten miles of where you sit. Blind Man's Block!"
"Reminds one of the Tower," yawned Bethune.
"It'll remind you of your sins if ever you get bushed in it! Ten by ten
of abandoned beastliness; not a hoof or a drop between the four fences;
only scrub, and scrub, and scrub of the very worst. Mallee and
porcupine--porcupine and mallee. But you go and sample it; only don't
get too far in from the fence. If you do you may turn up your toes; and
you won't be the first or the last to turn 'em up in Blind Man's Block."
"What of?" asked Bethune sceptically.
"Thirst," said Spicer; "thirst and hunger, but chiefly thirst."
"In fenced country?"
"It's ten miles between the fences, and not a drop of water, nor the
trace of a track. It's abandoned country, I'm telling you."
"But you could never be more than five miles from a fence; surely you
could hit one or other of them and follow it up?"
"Could you?" said the storekeeper. "Well, you try it, and let me know!
Try it on horseback, and you'll see what it's like to strike a straight
line through mallee and porcupine; and after that, if you're still hard
up for an adventure, just you try it on foot."
"Don't you, Theodore," advised Rigden from his chair. "I'm not keen on
turning out all hands to look for you, old chap."
"But is the place really as bad as all that?" inquired Moya, following
him into the conversation for the look of the thing.
"Worse," said Rigden, and leaned forward, silent. In another moment he
had risen, walked to the end of the verandah, and returned as far as
Bethune's chair. "Sure you want an adventure, Theodore? Because the
Assyrians are coming down in the shape of the mounted police, and it's
the second time they've been here to-day. Looks fishy, doesn't it?"
Listening, they heard the thin staccato jingle whose first and tiniest
tinkle had been caught by Rigden; then with one accord the party rose,
and gathered at the end of the verandah, whence the three black horsemen
could be seen ambling into larger sizes, among the tussocks of
blue-bush, between the station and the rising moon.
"What do they want?" idly inquired Bethune.
"A runaway convict," said Rigden, quietly.
"No!" cried Spicer.
"Is it a fact?" asked Ives, turning instinctively to Miss Bethune.
"I believe so," replied Moya, with notable indifference.
"Then why on earth have you been keeping it dark, both of you?" demanded
Bethune, and he favoured the engaged couple with a scrutiny too keen for
one of them. Moya's eyes fell. But Rigden was equal to the occasion.
"Because the police don't want it to get about. That's why," said he
shortly.
And Moya admired his resource until she had time to think; then it
revolted her as much as all the rest. But meanwhile the riders were
dismounting in the moonlight. Rigden went out to meet them, and
forthwith disappeared with Harkness among the pines.
"No luck at all," growled the sergeant. "We're clean off the scent, and
it licks me how he gave you such a wide berth and us the slip. We can't
have been that far behind him. None of the other gentlemen came across
him, I suppose?"
"As a matter of fact I've only just mentioned it to them," replied
Rigden, rather lamely. "I thought I'd leave it till you came back. You
seemed not to want it to get about, you know."
"No more I do--for lots of reasons. I mean to take the devil, alive or
dead, and yet I don't want anybody else to take him! Sounds well,
doesn't it? Yet I bet you'd feel the same in my place--if you knew who
he was!"
Rigden stood mute.
"You won't cut me out for the reward, Mr. Rigden, if I tell you who it
is, between ourselves? You needn't answer: of course you won't.
Well--then--it's good old Bovill the bushranger!" And the sergeant's
face shone like the silver buttons of the sergeant's tunic.
"Captain Bovill!" gasped Rigden, but only because he felt obliged to
gasp something.
"Not so loud, man!" implored the sergeant, who had sunk his own voice to
the veriest whisper. "Yes--yes--that's the gentleman. None other!
Incredible, isn't it? Of course it wasn't Darlinghurst he escaped from,
but Pentridge; only I thought you'd guess if I said; it's been in the
papers some days."
"We get ours very late, and haven't always time to read them then. I
knew nothing about it."
"Well, then, you knew about as much as is known in Victoria from that
day to this. The police down there have lost their end of the thread,
and it was my great luck to pick it up again by the merest chance last
week. I'll tell you about that another time. But you understand what it
would mean to me?"
"Rather!"
"To land him more or less single-handed!"
"I won't tell a soul."
"And don't you go and take the man himself behind my back, Mr. Rigden!"
the policeman was obliged to add, with such jocularity as men feign in
their deadliest earnest.
But Rigden's laugh was genuine and involuntary.
"I can safely promise that I won't do that," said he. "But ask the other
fellows if they've seen the kind of man you describe; if they haven't,
no harm done."
The unprofitable inquiry was conducted in Moya's presence, who abruptly
disappeared, unable to bear any more and still hold her peace. Thereupon
Rigden breathed more freely, and offered supper with an improving grace;
the very tracker was included in the invitation, which was accepted with
the frank alacrity of famished men.
"And it's not the last demand we shall have to make on you," said
Harkness, as he washed in Rigden's room; "we've ridden our cattle off
their legs since we were here in the afternoon. We must hark back on our
own tracks first thing in the morning. Beds or bunks we shall want for
the night, and fresh horses for an early start."
Rigden thought a moment.
"By all means, if you can stand the travellers' hut. It's empty, but in
here we're rather full. As for horses, I've the very three for you. I'll
run 'em up myself."
The storekeeper came to him as he was pulling on his boots. He was not a
conspicuously attractive young man, but he had one huge merit. His
devotion to Rigden was quite extraordinary.
"Why not let one of us run up those horses, sir?"
"One of you! I like that. Give us those spurs."
"Well, of course I meant myself, Mr. Rigden. The new chum wouldn't be
much use."
"I'm not sure that you'd be much better. You don't know the paddocks as
I know them, nor the mokes either. Nobody does, for that matter. But I
don't want the men to get wind of this to-night."
"I'll see that they don't, Mr. Rigden."
"Now I'm ready, and I'll be twice as quick as anybody else. What's the
time, Spicer?"
"Just on ten."
"Well, I'll be back by eleven. Now go in and see they've got everything
they want, and take Mr. Bethune in with you for a drink. That's your
billet for to-night, Spicer; you've got to play my part and leave the
store to take care of itself. Now I'm off."
But it was some minutes before he proceeded beyond the horse-yard;
indeed, he loitered there, though the jackeroo had the night-horse ready
saddled, until Theodore had accepted the storekeeper's invitation, and
the verandah was empty at last.
"Hang it! I'll have my dust-coat," he cried when about to mount. "Hold
him while I run back to the barracks."
"Can't I go for you, sir?"
"No, you can't."
And the Rugby boy thought wistfully of Cambridge while Rigden was gone;
for he was an absent-minded youth, who did not even notice how the
pockets of the dust-coat bulged when Rigden returned.
Only Moya, from her dark but open door on that same verandah, had seen
the manager slip from the barracks over to the store, and remain there
some minutes, with the door shut and the key inside, before creeping
stealthily out and once more locking the door behind him.
V