THE LAST OF EASU
I
They knew that Easu was married, but they were hardly prepared for the
dirty baby crawling on the verandah floor. Easu had seen them come
through the gate, and was striding across to meet them, after bawling
something in his bullying way to someone inside the house: presumably
his wife.
Outwardly, he was not much altered. Yet there was an undefinable change
for the worse. He was one of those men whom marriage seems to humiliate,
and to make ugly. As if he despised himself for being married.
Easu ignored the baby as if it were not there, striding past into the
house, leading the newcomers into the parlour. It was darkened in there,
to keep out the flies; but he pulled up the blind: "t'see their blanky
fisogs." And he called out to the missus to bring glasses.
The parlour was like most parlours. Enlarged photographs of Mr. and Mrs.
Ellis, the Red parents, in large pine frames, on the wall. A handsome
china clock under a glass case on the mantelpiece, with flanking vases
to match, on fawn-and-red woollen crochet mats. An oval, rather curvy
table in the middle of the room, with the family Bible, and the meat
under a fly-proof wire cover. The parlour was the coolest place for the
meat.
Easu shifted the red obnoxity, wire cover and all, to the top of a
cupboard where some cups and saucers were displayed, and drew forth a
demijohn of spirit from the back of the horse-hair sofa, in front of the
window.
Mrs. Easu came in with the glasses. She was a thin, pale-faced young
woman with big dark eyes and her hair in huge curling pins, and a
hostile bearing. She took no notice of the visitors: only let her big
what-do-_you_-want eye pass over them with distaste beneath her bald
forehead. It was her fixed belief that whoever came to the house came to
_get_ something, if they could. And they were not going to get it out of
_her._ She made an alliance with Easu so far. But her rather protruding
teeth and her vindictive mouth showed that Easu would get as many bites
as kisses.
She set the glasses from her hands on to the table, and looked down at
Easu under her pale lashes.
"What else d'ye want?" she asked rudely.
"Nothing. If I want anything I'll holloa."
They seemed to be on terms of mutual rudeness. She had been quite an
heiress: brought Easu a thousand pounds. But the way she said it--a
tharsand parnds!--as if it was something absolutely you couldn't get
beyond, made even Easu writhe. She was common, to put it commonly. She
spoke in a common way, she thought in a common way, and she acted in a
common way. But she had energy, and even a vulgar suffisance. She
thought herself as good as anybody, and a bit better, on the strength of
the tharsand parnds!
"'S not eddication as matters, it's munney!" she said blatantly to
Lennie. "At your age y'ought t'ave somethink in th' bank."
He of course hated the sight of her after that. She had looked at him
with a certain superciliousness and contempt in her conceited brown
eyes, because he had no money and was supposed to be clever. He never
forgave her.
But what did she care! She jerked up her sharp-toothed mouth, and sailed
away. She wasn't going to be put down by any penniless snobs. The
Ellises! Who were the Ellises? Yes, indeed! They thought themselves so
superior. Could they draw a tharsand parnd? Pah!
She felt a particularly spiteful, almost vindictive, scorn of Jack. He
was somebody, was he? Ha! What was he _worth?_ That was the point. How
much _munney_ did he reckon he'd got? "If yer want me ter think anythink
of yer, yer mun show me yer bank-book," she said.
Easu listened and grinned, and said nothing to all this. But she had a
fiery temper of her own, and they went for one another like two devils.
She wasn't going to be daunted, she wasn't. She had her virtues too. She
had no method, but she was clean. The place was forever in a muddle, but
she was always cleaning it, almost vindictively, as if the shine on the
door-knob reflected some of the tharsand parnd. Even the baby was turned
out and viciously cleaned once a day. But in the intervals it groped
where it would. As for herself, she was a sight this morning, with her
hair in huge iron waving-pins, and her forehead and her teeth both
sticking out. She looked a sight to shudder at. But wait. Wait till she
was dressed up and turning out in the buggy, in a coat and skirt of
thick brown cord silk with orange and black braiding, and a hugely
feathered hat, with huge floating ostrich feathers, an orange one and a
brown one. And her teeth sticking out and a huge brooch of a lump of
gold set with pearls and diamonds, and a great gold chain. And the baby,
in a silk cape with pink ribbons, and a frilled silk bonnet of alternate
pink and white ruches, mercilessly held against her chains and brooches!
Wait!
Therefore when Jack glanced at her from a strange distance, she tossed
her bald forehead with the curling-irons, and thought to herself: "You
can look, Master Jack Nobody. And you can look again, next Sunday, when
I've got my proper things on. _Then_ you'll see who's got the munney!"
She seemed to think that her Sunday gorgeousness absolutely obliterated
the grimness of her week of curling pins. "Six days shall thou labour in
thy curling-irons." She lived in them. They kept her hair out of the way
and saved her having to do it up all the time.
And it may be that Easu never really looked at her in her teeth and
pins. That was not the real Sarah Ann. The real Sarah Ann swayed with
ostrich feathers; brown silk, brown and orange feathers, reddish hair,
brown eyes, pale skin, and a stiff, militant, vulgar bearing that wasn't
going to let anybody put it over _her._ "They can't put me down, whoever
they are!" she asserted. "I consider myself equal to the best, and
perhaps a little better."
This Easu heard and saw with curious gratification. This was his Sarah
Ann.
None the less, he was no fool. He saw the baffled, surprised look Jack
turned upon this grisly young woman in curlers and teeth, as if he could
not quite enter her in the class of human beings. And Easu was enough of
an Ellis to know what that look meant. It was a silent "Good God!" And
no man, when his wife enters the room, cares to hear another man's
horrified ejaculation: "Good God!" at the sight of her.
Easu wanted his wife to be common. Nevertheless, with the anomalousness
of human beings, it humiliated him and put acid in his blood.
"Have a jorum!" said Easu to Tom.
"I s'd think you're not goin' to set down drinkin' at this time of day,"
she said, in her loud, common, interfering voice.
"What's the time of the day to you?" asked Easu acidly, as he filled
Tom's glass.
"We can't stop. Mall be expecting us back," said Tom.
Easu silently filled Jack's glass, and the wife went out, banging the
door. Immediately she fell upon the baby and began to vituperate the
little animal for its dirt. The men couldn't hear themselves speak.
But Easu lifted up his chin and poured the liquor down his throat. He
had shaved his beard, and had only three days of yellowish stubble. He
smacked his lips as he set down his glass, and looked at the two boys
with a sarcastic, gloating look.
"Find a few changes, eh?" he observed.
"Just a few."
"How's the place look?"
"All right."
"Make a pile up North?"
"No."
Easu grinned slowly.
"Thought you didn't need to, eh?" he asked maliciously.
"Didn't worry myself," said Tom.
"Jack Grant come in for a fortune?" Easu asked, looking at Jack.
"No," said Jack coldly. There was something about Easu's vulgar,
taunting eyes, which he couldn't stand.
"Oh, you 'aven't!" The pleased sneer was unbearable.
"How's Ma?" asked Easu.
"All right," said Tom, surprised.
"Don't see much of her now," said Easu.
"No, I saw the gate was blocked up," said Tom.
"Looks like she blocked the wrong gate up."
"How?"
"How? Well don't you think she'd better have blocked up the gate over to
Pink-eye Percy's place?"--Easu was smiling with thin, gloating lips.
"Why?"
"Why? Don't y' know?"
"What?"
"Don't ye know about Monica?"
Jack's blood stood still for a moment, and death entered his soul again,
to stay.
"No. What?"
"Didn't Old George say nothing to y' in Perth?"
"No!" said Tom, becoming sullen and dangerous.
"Well, that's funny now! And Aunt Alice said nothing?"
"No! What about?"
Easu was smiling gloatingly, in silence, as if he had something very
good.
"Well that's funny now! Think of your getting right here, and not having
heard a thing! I shouldn't have thought it possible."
Tom was going white under his tan.
"What's amiss, Red?" he said curtly.
"To think as you haven't heard! Why it was the talk of the place. Ross
heard all about it in Perth. Didn't you come across him there? He's been
in the Force quite a while now."
"No! What was it he heard about?"
"Why, about Monica."
"What about her?"
"D'y' mean to say you don't know?"
"I tell you I don't know."
"Well!" and Easu smiled with curious, poisonous satisfaction. "I don't
know as I want to be the one to tell you."
There was a moment's dead silence. The sun was setting.
"What have you got to say?" asked Tom, his face set and blank, and his
mouth taking on the lipless, Australian look.
"Funny thing nobody has told you. Why it happened six or seven months
since."
This was received in dead silence.
"She went off with Percy when the baby was a month old."
Again there was nothing but dead silence.
"Mean she married Pink-eye Percy?" asked Tom, in a muffled tone.
"I dunno about marryin' him. They say he's got a wife or two already:
legal and otherwise. All I know is they cleared out a month after the
baby was born, and went down south."
Still dead silence from the other two. The room was full of golden
light. Jack was looking at the fly-dirts and the lamp-black on the
ceiling. He was sitting in a horse-hair arm-chair, and the broken
springs were uncomfortable, and the horse-hair scratched his wrist.
Otherwise he felt vacant, and in a deathly way, remote.
"You're minding what you're saying?" came Tom's empty voice.
"Minding what I'm saying!" echoed Easu rejoicingly. "I didn't want to
tell you. It was you who asked me."
"Was the baby Percy's baby?" asked Jack.
"I should say so," Easu replied, stumbling. "I never asked her, myself.
They were all thick with Percy at that time, and I was married with a
family of my own. Why I've not been over to Wandoo for--for--for close
on two years, I should think."
"That's what was wrong with Ma!" Tom was saying, in a dull voice, to
himself.
"I wonder Old George or Mary didn't prepare ye," said Easu. "They both
came down before the baby came. But seemingly Old George couldn't do
nothing. Percy confessing he was married, and trying to say he wasn't to
blame. However, he's run off with Monica all right. Ma had a letter from
her from Albany, to say there was no need to worry, Percy was playin'
the gentleman."
"She never cared for him," Jack cried.
"I dunno about that. Seems she's been mad about him all the time. Maybe
she waited for you to come back. I dunno! I tell you, I've never been
over to Wandoo for nigh on two years."
Jack could not bear any more. The golden light had gone out of the room,
the sun was under the ridge--that ridge----
"Let's get, Tom!" said Jack rising to his feet.
They stumbled out of the house, and went home in silence, through the
dusk. Again the world had caved in, and they were walking through the
ruins.
Ma was upstairs when they got home, but Katie had got the tea on the
table, and Lennie was in. He was a tall, thin, silent, sensitive youth.
"Hullo, you two wanderin' Jews!" he said.
"Hello, Len!"
"Come an' 'ave y' teas."
Lennie was like the head of the house. They ate their meal in silence.
II
Tom and Jack and Lennie still slept in the cubby, but Og and Magog had
moved indoors. The three of them lay in the dark, without sleeping.
"Say, young Len," said Tom at length, "what was you after, letting
Monica get mixed up with that Pink-eye Percy?"
"Me? What was I after? How could I be after 'er every minute. She
snapped my 'ead off if I looked at 'er. What for did you an' Jack stop
away all that time, an' never write a word to nobody? Blame me, all
right! But you go 'avin' 'igh jinks in the Never-Never, and nobody says
a word to you. You never did nothing wrong, did you? An' _you_ kep' an
eye on the fam'ly, didn't you? An' it's only me to blame. 'F course!
'Twould be! But what about yourselves?"
This outburst was received in silence. Then a queer, sullen snake reared
its head haughtily in Jack's soul.
"I shouldn't have thought she'd have cared for Percy," said he.
"No more would nobody," replied Len. "You never know what women's up to.
Give me a steady woman, Lord, I pray. Because for the last year Monica
wasn't right in 'er mind, that's what I say. It wasn't Percy's fault. It
was she made 'im. She made 'im as soft as grease about 'er. Percy's not
bad, he's not. But women can make him as soft as grease. An' I knows
what that means myself. Either there shouldn't be no men an' women, or
they should be kept apart till they're pitched into the same pen, to
breed."
Tom, with Honeysuckle Lucy on his conscience, said never a word.
"Is it true that Percy's got a wife already out east?" asked Jack.
"He say he has. But he wrote to find out if she was dead. At first he
said he wasn't to blame. Then he said he was, but he couldn't marry her.
An' Monica like a wild cat at us all. She would let nobody write an'
tell you. She went over to Reds, but Easu had just got married, an'
Sarah Ann threatened to lay her out. Then she turned on Percy. I tell
you, she skeered me. The phosphorus came out of her eyes like a
wildcat's. She's bewitched or something. Or else possessed of a devil.
That's what I think she is. Though I needn't talk, for maybe I am
myself. Oh, mates, leave me alone, I'm sick of it all. Lemme go to
sleep."
"What did she go over to Easu's for?"
"God knows. She'd been nosing round with Easu, till Ma got mad and put a
stop to it. But that's a good while since. A good while afore Easu
married the lovely Sarah Ann, with her rows o' cartridges on her
forehead. Oh Cripes, _marriage!_ Leave m'alone, I tell you."
"Funny she should go to Easu's, if she was struck on Percy," said Jack.
"Don't make me think of it, sonny!" came Len's voice. "She went round
like a cat who's goin' t' have kittens, an' nobody knew what was amiss
with her. Oh Jehosaphat! Talk about bein' born in sin. I should think we
are. But say, Jack! Do you suppose the Lord gets awful upset, whether
Monica has a baby or not? I don't believe He does. An' I don't believe
Jesus either turns a hair. I don't believe. He turns half a hair. Yet we
get into all this stew. Tell you what, makes a chap sick of bein' a
humain bein'. Wish I grew feathers, an' was an emu."
"Don't you bother," said Jack.
"Not me," said Len. "I don't bother! Anyhow I know all about the parsley
bed, 'n I don't care, I'd rather know an' have done with it. 'S got to
come some time. I'm a collar-horse, I am, like ol' Rackett said. All
right, let me be one. Let me be one, an' pull me guts out. Might just as
well do that, as be a sick outlaw like Rackett, or a softy like Percy.
Leave m'alone! I've got the collar on, an' the load behind, an' I'll
pull it out if I pulls me guts out. That's the past, present an' future
of Lennie."
"Where is Rackett?"
"Hanged if I know. Don't matter where he is. He wanted to educate me an'
make a gentleman of me. Else I'd be nothing but a cart-'oss, he said.
Well, I am nothing but a cart-'oss. But if I enjoys pullin' me guts out,
let me. I enjoys it all right."
Tom lay in silence in the dark, and felt scared. He hated having to face
things. He hated taking a long view. Sufficient unto the day is the evil
thereof, was his profound conviction. He hated even to look round the
next corner.
"Say, Jack," came Lennie's voice again. "You always turns up like a
silver lining. I got your cheques all right. Fifty-seven pound. That's
only a pair o' socks, that is, compared to Gran's store. I had to have a
laugh over that stockin', you're the angel that stood in Jacob's doorway
an' looked like a man, you are. I'd love it if you'd come an' live with
me an' Ruthie."
But Jack was thinking his own thoughts. It had come over him that it was
Easu who had betrayed Monica. The picture of her wandering across like a
cat that is going to have kittens, to the Red's place, and facing that
fearful, common Sarah Ann, and Easu grinning and looking on, made his
spirit turn to steel. Pink-eye Percy was not the father of that baby.
Percy was as soft as wax. Monica would never have fallen for him. She
had simply made use of him. The baby was Easu's.
"Was the baby a girl or a boy?" he asked.
"A girl."
"Did it look like Percy?"
"Not it. It didn't have any of Percy's goo-goo brown eyes or anything.
Ma said it was the spitten image of Harry when he was born."
III
Jack decided what he would do. In the morning he would take the new
horse and set off south, to Albany. He would see Monica and ask her.
Anyhow he would see her.
He was up at dawn, saddling his horse. He told Tom of his plan, and Tom
merely remarked:
"It's up to you, mate."
Tom was relapsing at once into the stiff-faced, rather taciturn
Australian he had been before. The settled life on the farm at once
pulled him to earth, the various calamities had brought him down with a
bump.
So Jack rode off almost unnoticed, with a blanket strapped behind his
saddle, and a flat water-bottle, a pistol in his belt, and a hatchet and
a little bag of food tied to the front saddle-strings. Something made
him turn his horse past the place where he had fought Easu, and along
the bush trail to the Reds' place.
The sun had come up hot out of a pink, dusty dawn. In an hour it would
be blazing like a fiend out of the bare blue heavens. Meanwhile it was
still cool, there was still a faint coolness on the parched dry earth,
whose very grass was turning into yellowish dust. Jack jogged along
slowly, at a slow morning jog-trot. He was glad to be in the saddle
again.
As he came down the track, he saw the blue smoke rising out of the
chimneys of Easu's house, and a dark movement away in one of the home
paddocks. He got down for the gates, then rode on, over to the paddock
fence, and sat there on his horse, watching Easu and Herbert and three
blacks, sorting out some steers from a bunch of about thirty cattle.
They were running the steers through a gate to a smaller enclosure.
There was a good deal of yelling and shouting and running and confusion,
as the bunch of young cattle, a mixed little mob of all colours, blacks
and black-and-white and red and red-and-white, tossed and swayed, the
young cows breaking away and running nimbly on light feet, excited by
the deep, powerful lowing of the stock bull, which had wandered up to
the outer corner of the fence under a group of ragged gum-trees, and
there stood bellowing at the excitement that was going on in the next
paddock.
Jack kept an eye on the bull, as he sat on his uneasy horse outside the
shut gate, watching. Near by, two more horses stood saddled and waiting.
One of them was Easu's big black mare with the two white forefeet. The
other was a thin roan, probably Herbert's horse.
Herbert was quite a man now: tall and thin and broad, with a rather
small red face and dull fairish hair that stood up straight from his
brow. He was the only one of the brothers left with Easu. He was patient
and didn't pay any attention to that scorpion of a Sarah Ann. Sam and
Ross had cleared out at the first sight of her.
It was Herbert who did most of the running. Easu, who stood with his
feet apart, did most of the bossing--he was never happy unless he was
bossing, and finding fault with somebody--and the blacks did most of the
halloaing. Easu didn't move much. He seemed to have gone heavier, and
where he stood, with his feet apart and his bare arm waving, he seemed
stuck, as if he were inert. This was unlike him. He was always stiffish,
but he used to be quick. Now he seemed slow and wooden in his movements,
his body had gone inert, the life had gone out of it, and he could only
shout and jeer. He used to have a certain flame of life, that made him
handsome, even if you hated him. A certain conceit and daring, inside
all his bullying. Now the flame had gone, the conceit and daring had
sunk, he was only ugly and defeated, common, and a little humiliated. He
was getting fat, and it didn't suit him at all.
He had glanced round, when Jack rode up, and it was evident that he
hated the intrusion. Herbert had waved his arm. Herbert still felt a
certain gratitude--and the blacks had all stopped for a moment to stare.
But Easu shouted them on.
At last the sorting out was done, and the bars put up. The bull went
bellowing along the far fence. Herbert came striding to the gate, his
smallish red face shining, and Jack got down to greet him. The two shook
hands, and Herbert said:
"Glad to see you back."
He was the first to say he was glad to see Jack back. Even Len had not
said it. The two men stood exchanging awkward sentences beside the
horse.
Easu too came through the gate. He looked grudgingly at Jack and at
Jack's horse. Jack thought how ugly he was, now his face had gone fatter
and his mouth with its thin, jeering line looked mean. The alert
bird-look had gone, he was heavy, and consumed with grudging. His very
healthiness looked heavy, a bit dead. His light blue eyes stared and
pretended to smile, but the smile was a grudging sneer.
"Where'd you get y' 'oss?"
"From Jimmie Short, in Perth."
"Bit long in the barrel. Making a trip, are y'?"
And Easu looked with his pale-blue eyes straight and sneering into
Jack's eyes, and smiled with his grudging, mean mouth. Jack noticed that
Easu had begun to belly, inside his slack black trousers. He was no
longer the spruce, straight fellow. Easu saw the glance, and was again
humiliated. He himself hated his growing belly. He looked a second time,
into Jack's eyes, furtively, before he said:
"Find out if it was right what I was tellin' y'?"
Jack was ready for the insult, and did not answer. He turned to Herbert
asking about Joe Low, who had been a pal of Herbert's. Joe Low also was
married, and had gone down Busselton way. Jack asked for his directions,
saying perhaps he might be able to call on him.
"What, are y' goin' south?" put in Easu.
Jack looked at him. It was impossible not to see the slack look of
defeat in Easu's face. Something had defeated him, leaving him all
sneering and acid and heavy. Again Jack did not answer.
"What did you say?" Easu persisted, advancing a little insolently.
"What about?"
"I asked if y' was goin' south."
"That's my business, where I'm going."
"Of course it is," said Easu with a sneer and a grin. "You don't think
anyone wants to get ahead of you, do you?" He stood with a faint,
sneering smile on his face, malevolent with impotence. "You'll do Percy
a lot o' hurt, I'll bet. I wouldn't like to be Percy, when you turn up."
And he looked with a grin at Herbert. Herbert grinned faintly in echo.
"I should think, whatever Percy is, he wouldn't want to be you," said
Jack, going white at the gills with anger, but speaking with calm
superiority, because he knew that enraged Easu most.
"What's that?" cried Easu, the grin flying out of his face at once, and
leaving it stiff and dangerous.
"I should think Percy wouldn't want to be you, let him be what he may in
himself," said Jack, in the cold, clear, English voice which he knew
infuriated Easu unbearably.
Easu searched Jack's face intently with his pale-blue eyes.
"How's that?" he asked curtly.
Jack stared at the red, heavy face with the smallish eyes, and thought
to himself: "You pig! You intolerable white fat pig!" But aloud he said
nothing.
Easu smiled a defeated grin, and strode away heavily to his horse. He
unhitched, swung heavily into the saddle, and moved away, then at a
little distance reined in to hear what Jack and Herbert were talking
about. He couldn't go.
Herbert was giving Jack directions, how to find Joe Low down Busselton
way. Then he sent various items of news to his old pal. But he asked
Jack no questions, and was careful to avoid any kind of enquiry
concerning Jack's business.
Easu sat on his black horse a little way off, listening. He had a rope
and an axe tied to his saddle. Presumably he was going into the bush.
Herbert was asking questions about the North-West, about the cattle
stations and the new mines. He talked as if he would like to talk all
day. And Jack answered freely, laughing easily and making a joke of
everything. They spoke of Perth, and Jack told how Tom and he had been
at the Governor's ball a few nights ago, and what a change it was from
the North-West, and how Tom enjoyed himself. Herbert listened,
impressed.
"Gosh! That's something to rag old Tom about!" he said.
"_When you've done gassing there!_" called Easu.
Jack turned and looked at him.
"You don't have to wait," he said easily, as if to a servant.
There was really something about Easu now that suggested a servant. He
went suddenly yellow with anger.
"What's that?" he said, moving his horse a few paces forward.
And Jack, also white at the gills, but affecting the same ease, repeated
distinctly and easily, as if to a man-servant:
"We're talking, you don't have to wait."
There was no answer to this insult. Easu remained stock motionless on
his horse for a few moments. Was he going to have to swallow it?
Jack turned laughing to Herbert, saying:
"I've got several things to tell you about old Tom."
But he glanced up quickly. Easu was kicking his horse, and it was
dancing before it would take a direction. Herbert gave a loud,
inarticulate cry. Jack turned quickly to his own horse, to put his foot
in the stirrup. Just as quickly he refrained, swung round, drew his
pistol, and cocked it. Easu, once more a horseman, was kicking his
restive horse forward, holding the small axe in his right hand, the
reins in his left. His face was livid, and looked like the face of one
returning from the dead. He came bearing down on Jack and Herbert, like
Death returning from the dead, the axe held back at arm's length, ready
for the swing, half urging, half holding his horse, so that it danced
strangely nearer. Jack stood with the pistol ready, his back to his own
horse, that was tossing its head nervously.
"Look out!" cried Herbert, suddenly jumping at the bit of Jack's horse,
in terror, and making it start back, with a thudding of hoofs.
But Jack did not move. He stood with his pistol ready, his eyes on Easu.
Easu's horse was snaffling and jerking, twisting, trying to get round,
and Easu was forcing it slowly forward. He had on his death-face. He
held the axe at arm's length, backward, and with his pale-blue, fixed
death-eyes he watched Jack, who stood there on the ground. So he
advanced, waiting for the moment to swing the axe, fixing part of his
will on the curvetting horse, which he forced on.
Jack, in a sort of trance, fixed Easu's death-face in the middle of the
forehead. But he was watching with every pore of his body.
Suddenly he saw him begin to heave in the stirrups, and on that instant
he fired at the mystic place in Easu's forehead, under his old hat, at
the same time springing back. And in that self-same instant he saw two
things: part of Easu's forehead seemed to shift mystically open, and the
axe, followed by Easu's whole body, crashed at him as he sprang back. He
went down in the universal crash, and for a moment his consciousness was
dark and eternal. Then he wriggled to his feet, and ran, as Herbert was
running, to the black horse, which was dancing in an agony of terror,
Easu's right foot having caught in the stirrup, the body rolling
horribly on the ground.
He caught the horse, which was shying off from Herbert, and raised his
right hand to take the bridle. To his further horror and astonishment,
he saw his hand all blood, and his fore-finger gone. But he clutched the
bridle of the horse with his maimed hand, then changed to his left hand,
and stood looking in chagrin and horror at the bloody stump of his
finger, which was just beginning, in a distant sort of way, to hurt.
"My God, he's dead!" came the high, hysterical yell from Herbert, on the
other side of the horse, and Jack let go the bridle again, to look.
It was too obvious. The big, ugly, inert bulk of Easu lay crumpled on
the ground, part of the forehead shot away. Jack looked twice, then
looked away again. A black had caught his horse, and tied it to the
fence. Another black was running up. A dog came panting excitedly up,
sniffing and licking the blood. Herbert, beside himself, stood helpless,
repeating: "He's dead! He's dead! My God, he's dead! He is."
Then he gave a yell, and swooped at the dog, as it began to lick the
blood.
Jack, after once more looking round, walked away. He saw his pistol
lying on the ground, so he picked it up and put it in his belt, although
it was bloody, and had a cut where the axe had struck it. Then he walked
across to his horse, and unhitched the bridle from the fence. But before
he mounted, he took his handkerchief and tied it round his bleeding
hand, which was beginning to hurt with a big aching hurt. He knew it,
and yet he hardly heeded it. It was hardly noticeable.
He got into the saddle, and rode calmly away, going on his journey
southward just the same. The world about him seemed faint and
unimportant. Inside himself was the reality and the assurance. Easu was
dead. It was a good thing.
He had one definite feeling. He felt as if there had been something
damming life up, as a great clot of weeds will dam a stream and make the
water spread marshily and dead over the surrounding land. He felt he had
lifted this clod out of the stream, and the water was flowing on clear
again.
He felt he had done a good thing. Somewhere inside himself he felt he
had done a supremely good thing. Life could flow on to something beyond.
Why question further?
He rode on, down the track. The sun was very hot, and his body was
re-echoing with the pain from his hand. But he went on calmly,
monotonously, his horse travelling in a sort of sleep, easy in its
single-step. He didn't think where he was going, or why; he was just
going.