"Then he got what he jolly well earned! Anything less would have been
too good for him!" cried Oswald, and with a boyish, uncompromising heat
which spoke to some human nature in him still.
But Stingaree frowned up the moonlit track. There was still no sign of
the coach. Yet time was short, and the morbid enthusiast was not to be
disgusted; indeed, he was all enthusiasm now, and a less unattractive
lad than the bushranger had hoped to find him. He looked the white screw
and Oswald up and down as they sat in their saddles in the moonshine: it
seemed like sunlight on that beaming fool.
"And you think of commencing bushranger, do you?"
"Rather!"
"It's a hard life while it lasts, and a nasty death to top up with."
"They don't hang you for it."
"They might hang me for the man I put back in the vile dust from whence
he sprung. They'd hang you in six months. You've too many nerves. You'd
pull the trigger every time."
"A short life and a merry one!" cried the reckless Oswald. "I shouldn't
care."
"But your mother would," retorted Stingaree, sharply. "Don't think about
yourself so much; think about her for a change."
The young man turned dusky in the moonlight; he was wounded where the
Bishop had wounded him, and Stingaree was quick to see it--as quick to
turn the knife round in the wound.
"What a bushranger!" he jeered. "Put your plucky little mother in a
side-saddle and she'd make two of you--ten of you--twenty of a puny,
namby-pamby, conceited young idiot like you! Upon my word, Melvin, if I
had a mother like you I should be ashamed of myself. I never had, I may
tell you, or I shouldn't have come down to a dog's life like this."
The bushranger paused to watch the effect of his insults. It was not
quite what he wanted. The youth would not hang his head. And, if he did
not answer back, he looked back doggedly enough; for he could be dogged,
in a passive way; it was his one hard quality, the knot in a character
of green deal. Stingaree glanced up the road once more, but only for an
instant.
"It is a dog's life," he went on, "whether you believe it or not. But it
takes a bull-dog to live it, and don't you forget it. It's no life for a
young poodle like you! You can't stick up a better man than yourself,
not more than once or twice. It requires something more than a
six-shooter, and a good deal more than was put into you, my son! But you
shall see for yourself; look over your shoulder."
Oswald did so, and started in a fashion that set the bushranger nodding
his scorn. It was only a pair of lamps still close together in the
distance up the road.
"The coach!" exclaimed the excited youth.
"Exactly," said Stingaree, "and I'm going to stick it up."
Excitement grew to frenzy in a flash.
"I'll help you!"
"You'll do no such thing. But you shall see how it's done, and then ask
yourself candidly if it's nice work and if you're the man to do it. Ride
a hundred yards further in, tether your horse quickly in the thickest
scrub you can find, then run back and climb into the fork of this
gum-tree. You'll have time; if you're sharp I'll give you a leg up. But
I sha'n't be surprised if I don't see you again!"
There is no saying what Oswald might have done, but for these last
words. Certain it is that they set him galloping with an oath, and
brought him back panting in another minute. The coach-lamps were not
much wider apart. Stingaree awaited him, also on foot, and quicker than
the telling Oswald was ensconced on high where he could see through the
meagre drooping leaves with very little danger of being seen.
"And if you come down before I'm done and gone--if it's not to
glory--I'll run some lead through you! You'll be the first!"
Oswald perched reflecting on this final threat; and the scene soon
enacted before his eyes was viewed as usual through the aura of his own
egoism. He longed all the time to be taking part in it; he could see
himself so distinctly at the work--save for about a minute in the
middle, when for once in his life he held his breath and trembled for
other skins.
There had been no unusual feature. The life-size coach-lamps had shown
their mountain-range of outside passengers against moonlit sky or trees.
A cigar paled and reddened between the teeth of one, plain wreaths of
smoke floated from his lips, with but an instant's break when Stingaree
rode out and stopped the coach. The three leaders reared; the two
wheelers were pulled almost to their haunches. The driver was docile in
deed, though profane in word; and Stingaree himself discovered a
horrifying vocabulary out of keeping with his reputation. In incredibly
few minutes driver and passengers were formed in a line and robbed in
rotation, all but two ladies who were kept inside unmolested. A flagrant
Irishman declared it was the proudest day of his life, and Oswald's
heart went out to him, though it rather displeased him to find his own
sentiments shared by the vulgar. The man with the cigar kept it glowing
all the time. The mail-bags were not demanded on this occasion.
Stingaree had no time to waste on them. He was still collecting purse
and watch, when Oswald's young blood froze in the stiffening limbs he
dared not move.
One of the ladies had got down from the coach on the off side, and
behold! it was a man wrapped in a rug, which dropped from him as he
crept round behind the horses. At their head stood the lily mare, as if
doing her own nefarious part by her own kind. In a twinkling the mad
adventurer was on her back, and all this time Oswald longed to jump
down, or at least to shout a warning to his hero, but, as usual, his
desires were unproductive of word or deed. And then Stingaree saw his
man.
He did not fire; he did not shift sight or barrel for a moment from the
docile file before him. "Barmaid! Barmaid, my pet!" he cried, and hardly
looked to see what happened.
But Oswald watched the mare stop, prick her ears under the hammering of
unspurred heels, spin round, bucking as she spun, and toss her rider
like a bull. There in the moonlight he lay like lead, with leaden face
upturned to the shuddering youngster in the tree.
"One of you a doctor?" asked Stingaree, checking a forward movement of
the file.
"I am."
The cigar was paling between finger and thumb.
"Then come you here and have a look at him. The rest of you move at your
peril!"
Stingaree led the way, stepping backward, but not as far as the injured
man, who sat up ruefully as the bushranger sprang into the saddle.
"Another yard, and I'd have grabbed your ankles!" said the man on the
ground.
"You're a stout fellow, but I know more about this game than you," the
outlaw answered, riding to his distance and reining up. "If I didn't you
might have had me--but you must think of something better for
Stingaree!"
He galloped his mare into the bush and Oswald clung in lonely terror
to his tree. A snatch of conversation called him to attention. The
plundered party were clambering philosophically to their seats, while
the driver blasphemed delightedly over the integrity of his mails.
[Illustration: The mare spun round, bucking as she spun.]
"That wasn't Stingaree," said one.
"You bet it was!"
"How much? He hardly ever works so far south."
"And he's nuts on mails."
"But if it wasn't Stingaree, who was it?"
"It was him all right. Look at the mare."
"She isn't the only white 'orse ever foaled," remarked the driver,
sorting his fistful of reins.
"But who else could it have been?"
The driver uttered an inspired imprecation.
"I can tell you. I chanst to live in this here township we're comin' to.
On second thoughts, I'll keep it to myself till we get there."
And he cracked his whip.
Oswald himself rode back to the township before the moon went down. He
was very heavy with his own reflections. How magnificent! It had all
surpassed his most extravagant imaginings--in audacity, in expedition,
in simple mastery of the mutable many by the dominant one. He forgave
Stingaree his gibes and insults; he could have forgiven a
horse-whipping from that king of men. Stingaree had been his imaginary
god before; he was a realized ideal from this night forth, and the
reality outdid the dream.
But the fly of self must always poison this young man's ointment, and
to-night there was some excuse from his degenerate point of view. He
must give it up. Stingaree was right; it was only one man in thousands
who could do unerringly what he had done that night. Oswald Melvin was
not that man. He saw it for himself at last. But it was a bitter hour
for him. Life in the music-shop would fall very flat after this; he
would be dishonored before his only friends, the unworthy hobbledehoys
who were to have joined his gang; he could not tell them what had
happened, not at least until he had invented some less inglorious part
for himself, and that was a difficulty in view of newspaper reports of
the sticking-up. He could scarcely tell them a true word of what had
passed between himself and Stingaree. If only he might yet grow more
like the master! If only he might still hope to follow so sublime a
lead!
Thus aspiring, vainly as now he knew, Oswald Melvin rode slowly back
into the excited town, and past the lighted police-barracks, in the
innocence of that portion of his heart. But one had flown like the wind
ahead of him, and two in uniform, followed by that one, dashed out on
Oswald and the old white screw.
"Surrender!" sang out one.
"In the Queen's name!" added the other.
"Call yourself Stingaree!" panted the runner.
Our egoist was quick enough to grasp their meaning, but quicker still to
see and to seize the chance of a crazy lifetime. Always acute where his
own vanity was touched, his promptitude was for once on a par with his
perceptions.
"Had your eye on me long?" he inquired, delightfully, as he dismounted.
"Long enough," said one policeman. The other was busy plucking loaded
revolvers from the desperado's pockets. A crowd had formed.
"If you're looking for the loot," he went on, raising his voice for the
benefit of all, "you may look. _I_ sha'n't tell you, and it'll take you
all your time!"
But a surprise was in store for prisoner and police alike. Every stolen
watch and all the missing money were discovered no later than next
morning in the bush quite close to the scene of the outrage. There had
been no attempt to hide them; they lay in a heap, dumped from the
saddle, with no more depreciation than a broken watch-glass. True to
his new character, Oswald learned this development without flinching.
His ready comment was in next day's papers.
"There was nothing worth having," he had maintained, and did not see the
wisdom of the boast until a lawyer called and pointed out that it
contained the nucleus of a strong defence.
"I'll defend myself, thank you," said the inflated fool.
"Then you'll make a mess of it, and deserve all you get. And it would be
a pity to spoil such a good defence."
"What is the defence?"
"You did it for a joke, of course!"
Oswald smiled inscrutably, and dismissed his visitor with a lordly
promise to consider the proposition and that lawyer's claims upon the
case. Never was such triumph tasted in guilty immunity as was this
innocent man's under cloud of guilt so apparent as to impose on every
mind. He had but carried out a notorious intention; for his few friends
were the first to betray their captain, albeit his bold bearing and
magnanimous smiles won an admiration which they had never before
vouchsafed him in their hearts. He was, indeed, a different man. He had
lived to see Stingaree in action, and now he modelled himself from the
life. The only doubt was as to whether at the last of that business he
had actually avowed himself Stingaree or not. There might have been
trouble about the horse, but fortunately for the enthusiastic prisoner
the man who had been thrown was allowed to proceed on a pressing journey
to the Barcoo. There was a plethora of evidence without his; besides,
the hide-and-bone mare was called Barmaid, after the original, and it
was known that Oswald had tried to teach the old creature tricks; above
all, the prisoner had never pretended to deny his guilt. Still, this
matter of the horses gave him a certain sense of insecurity in his cosey
cell.
He had awakened to find himself not only deliciously notorious, but
actually more of a man than in his heart of hearts he had dared to hope.
The tenacity and consistency of his pose were alike remarkable. Even in
the overweening cause of egoism he had never shown so much character in
his life. Yet he shuddered to realize that, given the usual time for
reflection before his great moment, that moment might have proved as
mean as many another when the spirit had been wine and the flesh water.
There was, in fine, but one feature of the affair which even Oswald
Melvin, drunk with notoriety and secretly sanguine of a nominal
punishment, could not contemplate with absolute satisfaction. But that
feature followed the others into the papers which kept him intoxicated.
And a bundle of these papers found their adventurous way to the latest
fastness of Stingaree in the mallee.
The real villain dropped his eye-glass, clapped it in again, and did his
best to crack it with his stare. Student of character as he was, he
could not have conceived such a development in such a character. He read
on, more enlightened than amused. "To think he had the pluck!" he
murmured, as he dropped that _Australasian_ and took up the next week's.
He was filled with admiration, but soon a frown and then an oath came to
put an end to it. "The little beast," he cried, "he'll kill that woman!
He can't have kept it up." He sorted the papers for the latest of all--a
sinful publican saved them for him--and therein read that Oswald Melvin
had been committed for trial, and that his only concern was for the
condition of his mother, which was still unchanged, and had seemed
latterly to distress the prisoner very much.
"I'll distress him!" roared Stingaree to the mallee. "I'll distress him,
if we change places for it!"
Riding all night, and as much as he dared by day, it was some hundred
hours before he paid his third and last visit to the Melvins'
music-shop. He rode boldly to the door, but he rode a piebald mare not
to be confused in the most suspicious mind with the no more conspicuous
Barmaid. It is true the brown parts smelt of Condy's Fluid, and were at
once strange and seemingly a little tender to the touch. But Stingaree
allowed no meddling with his mount; and only a very sinful publican,
very many leagues back, was in the secret.
There were no lighted windows behind the shop to-night. The whole place
was in darkness, and Stingaree knocked in vain. A neighbor appeared upon
the next veranda.
"Who is it you want?" he asked.
"Mrs. Melvin."
"It's no use knocking for her."
"Is she dead?"
"Not that I know of; but she can't be long for this world."
"Where is she now?"
"Bishop's Lodge; they say Miss Methuen's with her day and night."
For it was in the days of the Bishop's daughter, who had a strong mind
but no sense of humor, and a heart only fickle in its own affairs. Miss
Methuen made an admirable, if a somewhat too assiduous and dictatorial,
nurse. She had, however, a fund of real sympathy with the afflicted, and
Mrs. Melvin's only serious complaint (which she intended to die without
uttering) was that she was never left alone with her grief by day or
night. It was Miss Methuen who, sitting with rather ostentatious
patience in the dark, at the open window, until her patient should fall
or pretend to be asleep, saw a man ride a piebald horse in at the gate,
and then, half-way up the drive, suspiciously dismount and lead his
horse into a tempting shrubbery.
Stingaree did not often change his mind at the last moment, but he knew
the man on whose generosity he was about to throw himself, which was to
know further that that generosity would be curbed by judgment, and to
reflect that he was least likely to be deprived of a horse whose
whereabouts was known only to himself. There was but one lighted room
when he eventually stole upon the house; it had a veranda to itself; and
in the bright frame of the French windows, which stood open, sat the
Bishop with his Bible on his knees.
"Yes, I know you," said he, putting his marker in the place as Stingaree
entered, boots in one hand and something else in the other. "I thought
we should meet again. Do you mind putting that thing back in your
pocket?"
[Illustration: Stingaree knocked in vain.]
"Will you promise not to call a soul?"
"Oh, dear, yes."
"You weren't expecting me, were you?" cried Stingaree, suspiciously.
"I've been expecting you for months," returned the Bishop. "You knew my
address, but I hadn't yours. We were bound to meet again."
Stingaree smiled as he took his revolver by the barrel and carried it
across the room to Dr. Methuen.
"What's that for? I don't want it; put it in your own pocket. At least I
can trust you not to take my life in cold blood."
The Bishop seemed nettled and annoyed. Stingaree loved him.
"I don't come to take anything, much less life," he said. "I come to
save it; if it is not too late."
"To save life--here?"
"In your house."
"But whom do you know of my household?"
"Mrs. Melvin. I have had the honor of meeting her twice, though each
time she was unaware of the dishonor of meeting me. The last time I
promised to try to save her unhappy son from himself. I found him
waiting to waylay the coach, told him who I was, and had ten minutes to
try to cure him in. He wouldn't listen to reason; insult ran like water
off his back. I did my best to show him what a life it was he longed to
lead, and how much more there was in it than a loaded revolver. He
wouldn't take my word for it, however, so I put him out of harm's way,
up in a tree; and when the coach came along I gave him as brutal an
exhibition of the art of bushranging as I could without spilling blood.
I promise you it was for no other reason. What did I want with watches?
What were a few pounds to me? I dropped the lot that the lad might
know."
The Bishop started to his gaitered legs.
"And he's actually innocent all the time?"
"Of the deed, as the babe unborn."
"Then why in the wide world----"
Dr. Methuen stood beggared of further speech. His mind was too plain and
sane for immediate understanding of such a type as Oswald Melvin. But
the bushranger hit off that young man's character in half-a-dozen
trenchant phrases.
"He must be let out, and it may save his mother's life; but if he were
mine," exclaimed the Bishop, "I would rather he had done the other deed!
But what about you?" he added, suddenly, his eyes resting on his
sardonic visitor, who had disguised himself far less than his horse.
"It will mean giving yourself up."
"No. You know me. You can spread what I've told you."
The Bishop shifted uneasily on his hearth-rug.
"I may not see my way to that," said he. "Besides, you must have run a
lot of risks to do this good action; how do you know you haven't been
recognized already? I should have known you anywhere."
"But you have undertaken not to raise an alarm, my lord."
"I shall not break my promise."
There was a grim regret in the Bishop's voice. Stingaree thought he
understood it.
"Thank you," he said.
"Don't thank me, pray!" Dr. Methuen could be quite testy on occasion. "I
have other duties than to you, you know, and I only answer for my
actions during the actual period of our interview. There are many things
I should like to say to you, my brother," a gentler voice went on, "but
this is hardly the time for me to say them. But there is one question I
should like to ask you for the peace of both our souls, and for the
maintenance of my own belief in human nature." He threw up an episcopal
hand dramatically. "If you earnestly and honestly wished to save this
poor lady's life, and there were no other way, would you then be man
enough to give yourself up--to give your liberty for her life?"
Stingaree took time to think. His eyes were brightly fixed upon the
Bishop's. Yet they saw a little bedroom just as plain, an English lady
standing by the empty bed, and at its foot a portrait of himself armed
to the teeth.
"For hers?" said he. "Yes, like a shot!"
"I'm thankful to hear it," replied the Bishop, with most fervent relief.
"I only wish you could have the opportunity. But now you never will. My
brother, if you look round, you will see why!"
Stingaree looked round without a word. In the Bishop's eyes at the last
instant he had learned what to expect. A firing-party of four
stocking-soled constables were drawn across the opened French windows,
their levelled rifles poking through.
The bushranger looked over his shoulder with a bitter smile. "You've
done me, after all!" said he, and stretched out empty hands.
"It was done before I saw you," the Bishop made answer. "I had already
sent for the police."
One had entered excitedly by an inner door.
"And he didn't do you at all!" cried the voice of high hysteria. "It
was I who saw you--it was I who guessed who it was! Oh, father, why have
you been talking so long to such a dreadful man? I made sure he would
shoot you, and you'd still be shot if they had to shoot him!
Move--move--move!"
Stingaree looked at the strong-minded girl, shrill with her triumph,
quite carried away by her excitement, all undaunted by the prospect of
bloodshed before her eyes. And it was he who moved, with but a shrug of
the shoulders, and gave himself up without another sign.