For some days after his encounter with Trevenna, Lance Trevanion
avoided as much as possible going into the township. He devoted himself
to working steadily at his claim at the reef, to which he had gone
before the adjournment to Caleb Coke's hut with unexpected results.
His first impulse was to prepare for sudden departure. Trevenna, as a
cheap and obvious form of revenge, would probably inform the police of
his identity without delay. He shuddered at the idea of
recapture--nothing, of course, could be easier than to send word to the
nearest police station that prisoner Trevanion, lately escaped from the
hulk _President_, and for whom a reward of no trifling amount was
offered in the _Police Gazette_, was living as 'Harry Johnson,' the
miner, just outside of Omeo township.
Yet, upon further reflection, other considerations presented themselves:
Coke and Trevenna were evidently 'working' this horse and cattle
business together. They would not, presumably, be too anxious to bring
the police near to the scene of their illegal practices. They would
assume also that he, Trevanion, if recaptured, might reveal much to
their disadvantage. Besides, he was now receiving weekly drafts to a
considerable amount from Charles Stirling. These he exchanged through
Barker and Co., the storekeepers at Omeo, for drafts on a Melbourne
bank, keeping up the appearance of a mining speculator by buying parcels
of gold from time to time, which were transmitted to Melbourne by
escort--consigned to the same bank. He was loth to interrupt such
satisfactory financial operations, while proceeding in a manner so
favourable to his project of escape. In a few more weeks, if nothing
happened in the meantime, a sum would be placed to his credit in
Melbourne with which he could safely embark for San Francisco,
Valparaiso, or the Islands, leaving the remainder to be sent after him.
Thus arguing, he determined to trust to the chapter of accidents, and,
unless he received further warning, to abide the issue. Besides this, he
believed that Coke entertained a friendly feeling towards him; even that
he might depend upon him for notice in case Trevenna was determined to
play the informer.
As matters turned out, Trevenna and Coke were at that very time maturing
plans with which the sudden arrival of additional police would have
seriously interfered. But of this determination, as well as of its scope
and intention, Lance Trevanion was ignorant.
He had not, of course, been able to keep out of sight and observation of
his fellow-miners at Omeo. A parcel of gold had been offered for
purchase by his friend Barker, and as it was rather larger than usual,
he felt bound to go into Omeo to inspect it. His face--decisively as the
battle had terminated in his favour--still bore the signs of the severe
punishment which he had received. And all unheeding as he had been of
the pain during the heat and fury of the conflict, the disfiguring
bruises and cuts were none the less _en évidence_ for days after the
affair.
But this condition of facial disarrangement was too familiar to all
classes of society at Omeo to cause more than faint surprise or trivial
comment. 'Been having a friendly round and slipped the gloves off,
Harry?' said the storekeeper. 'I didn't think there was a chap on the
field that could paste you like that!'
Lance muttered something about 'accidents will happen,' and so on. 'Tell
you all about it some other time.' Yet though not denying the
impeachment, he showed so little desire to be questioned upon the matter
that the storekeeper, a shrewd person, dropped the subject and addressed
himself to the more important business of the gold purchase.
This was concluded, and the gold safely placed in the fire-proof safe,
at that time a necessary part of every storekeeper's outfit, there to
await the monthly or fortnightly escort. By far the greater portion of
the gold so purchased was sent to town by escort--the protection of the
police troopers being in general considered sufficient. In spite of the
perils of the road, there were, however, always to be found men,
fearless or foolhardy, as the case might be, who preferred to be the
bearers of their own winnings in Nature's lottery, or of that which they
had purchased as a speculation.
Lance had been working for nearly a week after making this purchase, at
his claim, which, strangely enough, was the only payable one for some
distance on either side. He had heard nothing further of Trevenna. Coke
appeared to have left his usual haunts temporarily. Once more a feeling
of comparative security came over him. The apparently peaceful and
isolated nature of the locality assisted to lull his grief-worn spirit
into a condition of repose.
* * * * *
It was noon at the Tinpot Reef. He had been working hard since early
morning, and had just decided to prepare his mid-day meal. The fire was
kindled, the camp-kettle placed upon it, and the water for the tea, that
indispensable adjunct of the Australian's _al fresco_ refection, was
commencing to boil. In anticipation of this stage of proceedings, Lance
had seated himself upon a fallen tree and was smoking meditatively,
after the manner of his class.
It was a lonely and silent spot--on this particular occasion rendered
more solitary and deserted-looking than ordinarily, from the fact that
the discouraged holders of the adjoining claims had arranged to prospect
a distant gully, and had, to that end, departed in a body on the
previous morning. The ropes were still upon the windlasses, the raw-hide
buckets on the braces. The tents and huts, with their rude adjuncts,
showed that the desertion was but temporary; therefore, the camp could
not legally be appropriated as 'worked and abandoned ground.' Still
there was an eerie, and it might have been thought by a supersensitive
resident an ill-omened, aspect about the place.
The morning had been fair, but though no clouds obscured the sky a chill
wind had arisen, and the temperature seemed to fall as the rising blast
became shrill-voiced and wailing.
Listening half mechanically to the boding signs of storm, Lance did not
notice the clatter of hoofs as a woman came at speed along the ravine
which lay to the eastward, and reined up her horse within a few yards of
his camp.
He turned listlessly towards her, but started to his feet and gazed into
the face of the rider with the look, half intent, half horror-stricken,
as of one who views an apparition.
'Kate Lawless!' he exclaimed.
'I used to be once,' the woman made answer, in a voice which seemed
struggling with an attempt at cheerfulness over-lain with habitual
melancholy. 'Won't you lift me down, or have you forgotten the way?'
He was at her side in a moment, and as, with the accustomed aid, she
sprang lightly to the earth, each gazed into the other's face for an
instant without speaking.
'Hang the mare up to that dead tree,' she said. 'I've ridden her hard
and far to-day, but she'll have to carry me across the mountain
to-night; I mustn't chance letting her go. And now I suppose you're
wondering what brought me here? I've got something to say to you, Lance
Trevanion, that's well worth the hearing.'
'And what may that be?' he made answer coldly. 'Let me remind you that
the last words I heard you speak caused my ruin, body and soul.'
'For God's sake, don't talk to me like that,' she said. 'I'm the most
miserable woman this day that walks the earth. I've helped to ruin you,
I know, but how I've suffered for it! I'm risking my life in coming here
to-day, and except to warn you for your good I wouldn't have done it.
Look at me, Lance, and see if I'm speaking true or false!'
'You took a false oath once,' he said slowly; 'why should I trust you
now, Kate?'
But while he spoke he could not avoid marking the unmistakable traces
which misery had imprinted upon her face and form. His voice softened,
his heart relented in spite of his just scorn and indignation. How
changed was she indeed! And could that haggard woman, who, with
streaming eyes and sorrow-laden features, stood before him in a
suppliant attitude, be the Kate Lawless of old days?
The trim and lissom girl, with an air of wild unconscious grace, lithe
of form and displaying in her every movement the instinctive charm of
early womanhood, had disappeared for ever. In her place stood a
hard-faced woman--bitter, reckless, and despairing. Her dress, that
unfailing test of feeling, showed that she had ceased to concern herself
about her personal appearance. Her fair hair was carelessly twisted into
a large knot, which showed behind the old felt hat which she wore: a
shabby kirtle was secured with a belt around her waist above a torn and
faded gray tweed riding-skirt. A red silk handkerchief knotted loosely
round her neck furnished the only coquettish-looking bit of colour that
her dress afforded, and, in spite of the carelessness and disorder of
her apparel, formed an effective contrast to her dark gray eyes, still
bright, and her abundant hair.
'You are changed, indeed, Kate,' he said musingly. 'So am I. Don't you
think, by the way, I ought to call you Mrs. Trevenna?'
'Call me Kate this time,' she said; 'God knows whether we shall ever
meet again. Do I look miserable, neglected, downtrodden to the very
ground? For that's what I am, besides being the wife of the greatest
brute, the meanest villain, ever God made. But it serves me right, Lance
Trevanion; it serves me well right!'
Here the wretched woman burst into a fit of passionate weeping. Hiding
her face in her hands, she sat down upon the log, and in broken
sentences detailed her wrongs and described the cruelty with which she
was habitually treated. Why did she marry him? Well, she hardly knew.
She was restless and miserable after the trial. Ned was gone, and she
was half mad, and could have drowned herself when all was over. Once in
Trevenna's power, the brute had shown her that one of his reasons for
making her his wife was to wreak his spite upon her as a former
favourite of his enemy; to punish her by every ingenious device of
callous cruelty for having preferred Trevanion to himself. She had been
worked upon before the trial by the artfulness of Dayrell and Trevenna,
the former having caused a letter to be written, as if from Lance to his
cousin, sneering at her low birth and bush manners in a way which led
her to believe that he had from the first intended to impose upon her
ignorance. Hasty, credulous, and madly ungovernable in her fits of
ill-temper, she had been practised on to bear false witness at the
trial. Then Tessie, ignorant of the wonderful likeness of the two men to
each other, had really mistaken Trevenna for Lance, having come upon him
unexpectedly in one of his trips to Eumeralla.
'And this is what I've brought you to,' she continued, gazing at his
rude attire, his changed aspect; for _never_ does the look of freedom
and careless pride return to the man who has known the prison garb, the
clanking chain,--who has once answered mechanically to the harsh summons
of the gaol warder. 'A working digger, and worse. Oh, my God! An escaped
prisoner. God forgive me! I don't see as _you_ can. No man could that
has gone through what you have!'
And here the frantic woman cast herself at his feet and bowed her head
to the earth in an attitude of despairing supplication almost oriental
in intense self-abasement.
In spite of his cruel wrongs, of the life-wreck and dishonour in which
this woman had been chiefly instrumental, Lance Trevanion's heart was
touched as he saw the once haughty and tameless Kate prone in the dust
at his feet.
He raised her gently, and, seating her beside him, essayed to comfort
her. 'Kate,' he said, taking her hand, 'we are two miserable wretches,
destined to be each other's ruin. Why should all the blame fall upon
you? Fate was too strong for us. It is over now. We must bear it as we
may. If I have undergone the torments of the damned, your deadliest
enemy could not have chosen a worse lot than you have made for yourself.
I forgive you freely. Now you have far to go, and I must finish my shift
by sundown. Let us make believe we are at the camp at Ballarat again; my
dinner is nearly ready.'
A faint flicker, dying out instantly into rayless gloom, was visible in
the woman's sad eyes. She dried her tears, and with a strong effort
recovered her self-possession.
'You are too good to me, Lance; God bless you for it,' she murmured. 'I
shall thank you to my dying day, whenever that is: I somehow think it
mayn't be long. Anyway, I _will_ have a few mouthfuls. There's thirty
miles of mountain road to go back, and I must be home before _he_ comes.
I see you're marked,' she continued, looking with curiously blended
sympathy and shyness at his discoloured face, 'but you're nothing like
as bad hurt as _he_ was, or you couldn't move about or stoop to blow up
that fire. He was close upon dead for a week after he got back. He
didn't tell me who done it till one day we quarrelled when he was
better. Then he half killed me,--kicked and trampled on me, as he's done
many a time. If it wasn't for--for the child,'--here she hesitated and
looked down,--'I'd have left him long ago.'
'Cowardly brute, ruffianly dog!' groaned Lance, grinding his teeth, 'why
didn't I kill him when we met at Gibbo? I had two minds to finish him
there and then. Things could hardly be worse than they are. But the next
time we meet one of us dies; I swear it, as God hears me.'
'Oh! don't talk like that,' she cried, and even in his wrath Lance
recognised with amazement the new element of pitying tenderness which
anxiety for his safety evoked (oh! wondrous-fashioned instrument, the
woman's heart! soaring to seraphic melody, yet at times clanging with
frenzied discords, echoes from the Inferno); 'if there's anything of
that sort you'll be sure to be taken, then it will be "life" or worse.
But,' changing her tone to one of grave entreaty, 'what I came for
to-day was this,--I knew you were here, no matter how; where I live we
know a lot, all the worse for us and other people.'
'And what was it, Kate?'
'_I came to warn you_,' she said, as she fixed her eyes imploringly upon
his countenance, 'and you believe me, just as if Tessie was talking to
you this minute.'
'To take care of my horse, Kate?' he said, half jestingly; 'I haven't
any to lose.'
'To take care of your LIFE!' she cried, almost with a scream. 'You have
that to lose, haven't you? and unless you are carefuller than I ever
knew you to be, you'll find it out too late. I overheard him and that
old wretch Caleb Coke (and of all the murdering dogs I ever heard of I
think he's the worst) talking over some plan they've put up, and from
words I caught I made out it was about you. There was a deal about
gold-buying and some hut, and a box with nuggets and things locked up in
it--money as well. You'll know if that fits. The man, whoever it was,
was to be "put away," as Coke said. So you take my tip! _Trust nobody
about this field_, Caleb Coke above all, and get shut of Omeo the first
minute you can.'
'When did you hear this?'
'The day before yesterday. They sat up late drinking, and Coke took more
than he does in general; he's that full of villainy of all
sorts,--robberies and murders too, people say,--that he's afraid of grog
for fear of giving himself away. Anyhow, they both went off early this
morning, and Trevenna's to be back to-night. So I ran up this little
mare--she's the only one I've got now to my name--as soon as they were
well off the place, and rode here on the chance of finding you at this
reef.'
'Well, Kate, my poor girl, you've done me a good turn, if you never do
another. You may have saved my life, you see. Not that it's worth much.
But I've a notion of getting away to California or the Islands next
month, and if I carry that out what you want me to be careful about may
rise in value, do you see?'
'Oh, don't joke in that horrid way; you never used to,' said the woman,
rising and gathering up her skirt, as if in preparation to depart. 'It
makes my heart ache'--here she pressed her hand to her breast; 'I have
one, though you mightn't think it. But oh, for my sake, for every one's
sake, for the sake of that girl in England, if you want to see her
again, be careful! Don't go out of sight of Omeo--if you value your
life--till you start for Melbourne, and then travel in company. Coke
thinks no more of a man's life than a wild dingo's, and Trevenna's as
bad. The things I've heard, I wonder God lets them live. I must go now.
I've stayed too long. Remember my words; they're as true as if I was on
my dying-bed.'
Then she walked rapidly to where her horse stood patiently--a small roan
mare, the fineness of whose limbs, together with the character of head
and eye, denoted Arab blood, crossed probably with the wild 'mustang' of
the hills. Trevanion kept by her side, wondering when the strange scene
would end.
She made again as if to depart, for an instant touching the mare's
bridle. Then, turning towards him, held out her hand--'Good-bye, Lance,
and God bless you, wherever you are. You are sure you forgive me, don't
you?'
'As I hope to be forgiven,' he said solemnly, unconsciously using a
half-forgotten form of words, the true meaning of which had long been
alien to his heart. 'That is, you poor ill-treated Kate, I forgive you
freely, and with all my heart.'
As he spoke, the woman turned upon him a countenance so transfigured by
gratitude and tenderness that Lance Trevanion, for the moment, hardly
recognised her, so wonderfully softened, so refined and ennobled, was
every lineament by the unwonted emotions. Deep and bright in her lifted
eyes shone the fires of a buried passion as she gazed for a moment into
those of her companion. Then, as if inspired with sudden frenzy, she
threw her arms around him, and, pressing his head to her bosom, kissed
him passionately on the lips and forehead.
Disengaging herself as suddenly, she waved him back from approaching
her, and, springing into the saddle, drove the astonished mare wild,
plunging over the crown of the ridge and adown the rocky side of the
ravine, which the roused and sure-footed animal cleared with leaps like
the 'flying doe' of her native woods.
'Poor Kate!' he exclaimed, as he slowly retraced his steps, and,
gathering up his mining tools mechanically, proceeded to complete his
day's work; 'there is good about her after all. How queerly men and
women are compounded in this mad world--as I begin to think it is. What
a life hers must be, tied to a scoundrel like Trevenna! and yet _he_ is
a free man--whose whole life, since he came to the colony, has been
criminal--while I, who, God knows, never had a thought of wrong-doing,
have worn the felon's chain, and may again, who can tell? "A mad world,
my masters!" in truth and saddest earnest.'
No doubt remained in Trevanion's mind, as in the seclusion of his hut
that evening he pondered this singular interview, but that the woman had
warned him in all good faith. If her words were not true, she was indeed
the falsest of her sex. But there are looks, tones, gestures which
neither man nor woman can feign; moments in which all the truth of the
being comes to the surface; portions of our lives when a clearer insight
is gained in the passing of seconds than can be derived from years of
ordinary experience.
Such a flash of enlightenment was this, as when the lightning gleam
pierces the gloom of midnight, showing the perils of the road,
disclosing pitfalls and precipices previously shrouded in darkness. His
course had been thus illumined. How heedless was he, pursuing what
appeared to be a fairly open pathway; and yet, what unsuspected dangers
lurked on every side. These two remorseless villains, attracted by the
report of his comparative opulence,--of course the gold-buying would
reach all ears,--were evidently planning his robbery and murder. If not
his own, whose then could it be?
There was another man whom it possibly concerned--Con Gray, well known
as a gold-buyer in Omeo. He had lately made heavy purchases--had even
stated that this was his last trip to Melbourne. This man was perhaps
the fated victim. Under any circumstances Omeo was no longer safe
harbour. He would sell his claim on the reef. He would invest his cash
in gold, and, making some excuse, join the escort, and so get to
Melbourne unsuspected, and safe from being robbed on the road--if a man
could be said to be safe at any point of the journey between these
savage solitudes and the metropolis.
* * * * *
Thus having fully resolved to quit Omeo, taking whatever risks might be
involved in that step rather than await the perils which seemed to be
thickening around him, a feeling of impatience now took possession of
Lance Trevanion. On the very day on which he had met Kate, he had
'broken down' some stone of extraordinary richness, which, though it
might prove to be only a 'shoot,' in mining parlance, served to cause
the value of the claim to rise measurably. He had therefore no
difficulty in disposing of it to very great advantage, giving as his
reason for quitting so promising a 'show' that he had decided on
devoting himself to gold-buying for the future.
Meanwhile, the vision of final escape from a life of dread and
suspicion, from the rude surroundings and mean shifts by which alone he
could hope to secure safety under present circumstances, commenced to
arise clear and inspiriting before him. It seemed comparatively easy to
slip down to town under cover of having gold to dispose of--as did many
a miner of the period. And then--and then, once on blue water with a
draft for five thousand pounds in his pocket, and more to follow at
regular intervals as long as Number Six continued 'payable,' what a
vista of change, affluence, almost happiness, opened out before him!
This was Saturday; on this day week the monthly gold escort would leave
Omeo for Melbourne. It gave him ample time to make needful preparations.
It was the last day of the month. It might be the last day of his exile.
* * * * *
The week passed in an uneventful fashion. It seemed to Lance Trevanion
as if all things were working harmoniously for his release from the
thraldom he had so long endured. The claim had been well sold. He had
received the proceeds in cash, as indeed is the custom of goldfields. He
had made several advantageous purchases of gold, and had received
advices from the mercantile house in Melbourne with whom, through Barker
and Co., the storekeepers, he had established business relations, that
they would be prepared to honour his drafts or furnish him with bills of
exchange in Britain or America. All things seemed prosperously working
together for a noiseless and unsuspected exit from Omeo--from
Melbourne--from Australia. He had reduced his worldly possessions to the
smallest portable quantity, while leaving his hut and belongings in
apparently the state which they would present during his absence,
presuming merely a temporary absence.
So steadily had he laboured, so assiduously had he devoted himself to
the arrangement of every detail which by any chance could be needed,
that on the Thursday evening he was in the somewhat nervous position of
a man who had nothing to do but to await the signal for departure. At
the same time, he had neglected no precautions which could tend to throw
his comrades of Omeo and the public generally off their guard. He had
not signified his intention of starting with the escort. He had made the
same arrangements which would have been necessary for the consignment of
his gold if he himself was absent.
He had said casually to his friend Barker, the storekeeper, that 'he
might go, or he might not; he was not sure; just as the fit might take
him. Anyhow, he would only be away a fortnight. It depended upon any
fresh "show" turning up. There was a talk of something towards the Snowy
River.'
He had purposely, from the day of his arrival at Omeo, adopted a rough,
laconic manner, in keeping with his assumed character of 'Ballarat
Harry'; had been, indeed, at some pains to efface tokens of gentle
blood, of culture, of refinement, of that chiefly indefinable personal
accompaniment which is usually described as 'the manners of a
gentleman.'
This curious possession, sometimes laboriously acquired, and yet only
perfect when merely derived from the accident of birth and inheritance,
is, by some shrewd observers of human nature, believed to be wholly
inseparable from the individual who has once possessed it. Others
believe--granting a careless habit of association, a looseness of fibre,
recklessness of mood, sordid surroundings, not to mention a fixed
intention of cutting loose from all the influences of early
training--that wondrous, almost incredible declension may take place.
One likes to fancy that the refinement produced by years of early
training, joined with hereditary tendency, can never be obliterated. But
'Want can quench the eyes' bright grace,
Hard toil can roughen form and face.'
Although in the case of Lance Trevanion it would have been an
exaggeration to have said with the poet--
'Poor wretch! The mother that him bare,
In his wan cheek and sunburnt hair
She had not known her child.'
But (and I who write have many a time witnessed the transformation) it
is by no means so easy to recognise the 'lapsed gentleman' after he has,
for whim, indolence, or necessity, played the bush labourer for a year
or two. The roughened hands, the altered expression of face, the gradual
disappearance of _les nuances_, the minor society tricks of expression
and manner, the rough habiliments, the changed step--all these and
more--the inevitable concomitants of the comparatively rude life of the
miner, the 'sundowner,' the shepherd or boundary-rider--denote the
disrated aristocrat. Any one of the subdivisions of Australian manual
labour _does_ inevitably, indisputably, change and disguise the
individual, of whatever previous history. There are exceptions,
doubtless; but such are rare.
In addition to the safeguards which a miner's garb, daily labour, and
rude association provided against recognition, Lance had practised of
set purpose the slang phrases and ungrammatical idioms common among men
of his adopted occupation. This kind of verbal deterioration is more
easy to acquire by careless habit than to relinquish when an upper
stratum of society is again reached, as relatives of young men returning
from 'back block' sojourns or 'northern territory' explorations have
discovered to their regret. Taking his privations into consideration, it
must not be considered very wonderful that the 'Ballarat Harry' of Omeo
was a different-appearing personage from the Lance Trevanion of No. 6,
Growlers', much more the haughty, rebellious heir of Wychwood.
The expected morning broke--a transcendent day of early spring, known
even to this mountain land, mist-shrouded and storm-swept though it be
in its winter garb. The sky was cloudless, the air breezeless, as the
sun uplifted his golden shield over the forest-clothed shoulders of the
Bogong and the Buffalo.
As the pearl-gray tints of the dawn-light insensibly dissolved,--losing
themselves, even as had the darker hues of the earlier morning, in a
bath of delicatest pink, enriched ere the eye could trace the
translucence with hues prodigal of crimson and burnished gold,--the
austere marble-white snow-peaks appeared to stand forth in yet more
awful and supernal splendour. Contrasted with colouring of indescribable
brilliancy, they appeared a company of phantasmal apparitions in the
silence of that wondrous dawn pageant.
Lance Trevanion was but a man as other men. How many times had he looked
upon these and kindred wonder-signs of Nature with incurious eyes,
holding them to be but ordinary phenomena with which, in the grip and
peril of Circumstance, he had nought to do. But now, his nervous system
being more tense, and his mental tone exalted in view of an imminent
deliverance, a stir took place among faculties long disused. In curious
unexplained fashion the beatific vision connected itself with his cousin
Estelle, whom he had ceased to regard as a terrestrial entity. Severed
from her, not less by seas and oceans than by inexorable fate, her
image, bright and celestial as it had formerly appeared, was now fading
rapidly; becoming fainter and yet more ethereal with each succeeding
recollection.
But on this, the last morn which he hoped to spend in this wilderness,
her image seemed to present itself with strangely persistent clearness
before him. How she would have joyed,--she that was so passionately fond
of landscape scenery, who discovered fresh beauties in every humble
hillock and lowly streamlet,--could but she have stood here with him;
together could they have beheld this entrancing vision. With quickened
tide, the back-borne stream of memory brought to his recollection the
many times they had stood hand in hand and gazed at sunset, stream, or
woodland, glorified by Nature's alchemy. He could almost fancy that he
heard her voice, soft and low, rich, yet so clear and distinct, as she
dwelt upon each feature of the landscape with instructed enthusiasm. He
recalled her dainty ways--her unvarying softness and sweetness, her
unfailing tact and temper, which had so often turned the tide of the
Squire's wrath, the discreet counsel that had so often been displayed in
times of perplexity.
And now, what torture to think of her! of all the sweetness and beauty,
divine as it now appeared to him, lost for ever, as much alien to him,
henceforth and for evermore, as though she had been born on another
planet!
The sudden change from the currents of his thoughts led the lonely,
half-despairing man to an almost complete temporary detachment from his
surroundings. He forgot much of the misery, the despair, the evil hap of
this past year--that year which had been so much more eventful than the
whole of his previous life. A new hope appeared to arise within his
outworn, wearied heart. Might he not, if he regained the old
land--might he not yet recover his position? Great heavens! was it then
possible that such an elysium should be in store for him? He knew
Estelle's steadfast fearless nature; he knew the sweet and loving pardon
that would shine in her eyes when they met, if ever permitted by a
merciful God. Was there a God? and could He be thus merciful even to a
forlorn, degraded outcast like himself?
As he stood leaning, with folded arms and meditative air, against the
doorpost of his humble dwelling, the clatter of hoofs along the track
which led near the hillock upon which the hut stood gave a fresh current
to his thoughts, and recalled him to a sense of the present. 'One day
more,' he said, half aloud. 'Shall I ever see these hills and valleys
again? I owe them much. They have proved good harbour for the stricken
deer.'
'Who the deuce is this?' His thought shaped itself into speech as a
wild-looking rider forced his horse, a half-broken colt, as near to the
hut door as he could get him. The colt snorted and trembled, after the
manner of his kind, but refused to budge a foot nearer. The horseman,--a
long-haired, long-legged native lad,--exercising his spurs vigorously,
besides devoting the colt and all his relatives to the infernal deities,
was fain to hold out a scrap of paper in his hand and await Lance's
approach.
'It was you as sold Number One South, on the Tinpot Reef, to Yorkey
Dickson, wasn't it?' inquired the ingenuous youth, staring at Lance.
'Yes; what then?'
'Well, there's been a bloomin' row between him and his mates and Mick
Doolan's crowd. They're measuring him off, and makes out as you'd took
up too much ground. He wants you to come. He give me this for ye; blank
ye, I'll knock the blank head off ye, if ye don't stand quiet.'
This last communication, though in strict continuation with his previous
address, was apparently intended for the colt's progressive education,
that vivacious animal having taken fright at Lance's approach, and
swerved backward with rear and plunge directly Lance reached out his
hand for the missive. He, however, retained hold of the paper, which,
after some difficulty, he deciphered--
MR. HARRY JOHNSON.
Dear Sir,--I paid you honest for Number One South, which I
stand a good show of loosin' if you don't come out and prove
your pegs. The Tips are trying the bluff game, and if you don't
stand by me I'll be regular jumped and run off the field. Come
afore dinner.
Yours trewly,
YORKEY DICKSON.
'My word! I'll have him steady enough by the time we get back to Tin
Pot. Been backed first time the day afore yesterday, and of course he's
touchy,' he explained, as the colt, after a wild rear, in which he
nearly fell backwards, stood with his forefeet rooted to the ground and
snorted, trumpet-like. 'Shall I say you're a-comin'?'
'I suppose so--yes,' slowly answered Trevanion, half absently. 'Curse
the claim and all belonging to it! I never wanted to see it again. But I
won't have the fellow done out of it. Tell him I've half a mind not to
come, as I'm going to Melbourne to-morrow. It's lucky for him I got word
to-day.'
'All right! I'll tell him you'll be there by dinner-time. So 'long!' and
with the words on his lips he turned his horse's head, and with spur and
shout forced him into a hand-gallop along the main track to the
township, up the principal street, and opposite the hotel door before
the half-tamed excited animal had time to halt or resist.
'It's an infernal nuisance,' said Trevanion, half aloud. 'But I don't
want to leave things tangled up. Yorkey paid me good money, and I
shouldn't like the poor devil to be wronged by those scoundrels. I'll
walk, too; it will do me good, and keep me from thinking.'
The day promised to be glorious. Slowly the mountain mist had rolled
back, and gradually disclosed the tones and magically blended colour
effects which the awakened morn revealed. A dull grayish green tinted
the undulating prairies, stretching to the darkly dense forest which
clothed the foot-hills of the Australian Alps. The sombre mountains
gradually ripened in colour as the sun-rays pierced them in concentric
lines, so that a graduated scale, shading from darkest green to
brilliant emerald, developed hourly. Deathlike, still eternal-seeming,
majestic, their snow-crowns rested on Bogong and Buffalo, with far-seen
Kosciusko and Feathertop in the azure distance.
The solar heat became distinctly noticeable--indeed, bordering on
oppressive. But Lance, excited in spite of himself, stepped joyously
forward as he felt the miles slipping behind him, as though on some
long-remembered schoolboy truant expedition. How different was the free
elastic stride with which he covered the ground now from the aimless,
dejected shuffle of himself and his fellow galley-slaves of the
_President_! His spirits rose with each mile of the way traversed.
Surely everything was turning in his favour. He would be pardoned yet,
his fair fame re-established. His innocence would not be so hard to
prove, after all. Tessie and Kate could _now_ give different evidence.
'Yes! England, Estelle, Wychwood! Fate would repent her of this dire
injustice. He would yet again place foot on the shore of his native
land, the home of his ancestors, as surely as he would presently ascend
the ridge on the other side of this Mountain Ash Gully, into which he
was now descending; as surely as he would behold the plain
far-stretching towards the horizon, the diggers' tents in the secluded
valley.'
Thus thinking, and moving forward with eager, quickened step, he reached
the bottom of the ravine, which--a notable exception to the general
distribution of timber--was covered with a scrub or thicket of the
mountain ash saplings for some distance back. From the course of the
little stream, eastward, appeared a narrow flat, riddled with shafts
long worked and abandoned, but still furnishing, in this depth and
closeness, a record of former richness.
'What would Kate say if she saw me here to-day?' he thought to himself.
And then her warning rang in his ears. 'As you value your life,' he
seemed to hear. 'When I get back,' he said, 'I will swear to take
excellent care of myself.'
'If such a thing as prudence can be knocked into a Trevanion, surely
what I have undergone should produce it. But what a lunatic! what a
benighted idiot I was to leave England at all! Why couldn't I have borne
the old man's petulance, like scores of other fellows that I have known?
All would have come right in the end, with Estelle's help. What a girl
she was! And what a fool I have been! Looking back, it seems incredible
that I--that _any man_--could have been so mad, so blindly besotted! I
wonder how the old Squire is now? He and Estelle must have a lonely time
enough of it in the gloomy old manor-house. Well, I swear--as God hears
me now--that when I return--if I ever do--I will humble myself before
the old man, and, yes, try for the rest of my life to make amends to him
and to her for the sorrow and anxiety which I have cost them.'
As this last thought passed through his mind, shaping itself
unconsciously into articulate speech, he stopped, with his right foot
raised upon a block of stone, and listened intently, with head half
turned towards the thickest portion of the scrub, which here approached
the narrow track worn in old days by the cattle-herds of the surrounding
pastures.
At that moment a shot was heard, and Lance Trevanion fell forward on his
face, temporarily disabled, if not mortally wounded. Following the
report, two men emerged from the covert, one of whom carried a gun. They
were Caleb Coke and Lawrence Trevenna.
'That dropped him,' said the former, with a fiendish chuckle. 'Not far
from the "curl," I'd say, if it was a bullock. Many a one the old single
barrel has finished. I thought she'd carry straight that distance.'
Here the wounded man moved his arm and groaned.
'Ha! my fine gentleman!' said Trevenna, 'I swore I'd have ye under my
feet yet. Where are ye now?' And here the hellish villain spurned the
unresisting form of his prostrate foe. 'What do ye say about "time" now?
This is the last round of all.'
'That's no good,' growled Coke, 'and d--d cowardly, into the bargain.
You couldn't stand up to him when he was right, so ye may leave him
alone now. He's only stunned; the ball's grazed his forehead. Lend us
that tomahawk o' yourn. I'll finish him.'
Two crashing blows, one of which clove the skull even to the brain, and
this man--this 'masterpiece of nature,' so lately in full possession of
the strength and beauty of youth--lay a disfigured corpse.
'Now lend a hand and let's get him off the road a bit,' said Coke, as
coolly as if he was directing the assistants of a slaughter-yard.
'Scrape some sand over that blood; there ain't much, but it might show.
We've got to strip him first, and then it won't take long to drop him
where he won't be seen again in a hurry.'
Dragged through the scrub some twenty yards or more, the dead man lay
with dreadful widely open eyes as they had placed him. A heartrending
spectacle surely, had but the men who now busied themselves in stripping
the corpse possessed the feelings of ordinary humanity. But a lifetime
of crime, for the most part undetected, had dulled the heart and brain
of the older ruffian, to the exclusion of all but the baser instincts--a
veritable demon disguised in form of man. Fiends of the pit could scarce
have exceeded him in remorseless cruelty.
In Trevenna's case the love of gain, the hope of booty, together with
complicated feelings of jealousy and revenge, rendered him callous to
all natural feeling. Swiftly was the dead man divested of his clothing;
his watch, a few bank notes, which he had perhaps placed in his purse in
readiness for the morrow, were secured, and after counting and
inspection, taken possession of by Trevenna.
This done, the old man pointed to a mound a few yards distant around
which the saplings clustered thickly, showing that some time had elapsed
since the shaft which it marked had been commenced.
'That's the deepest shaft on the flat; they was a-sinking for the blue
"lead" and bottomed on rock. You take hold of him.'
A combined effort placed the dead man on the edge of a shaft, down which
the old man peered with ghoulish glee, as if to gauge the depth. 'Hold
on,' he said, as he dropped a stone. The men waited for some seconds,
which seemed long, until a dull thud came up from the lower level,
telling by its delay that the shaft was little under a hundred feet.
In another moment the unresisting form was drawn to the edge of the
yawning black-mouthed pit, which, so wondrous straight and narrow, had
been driven deeply into the bowels of the earth. A push, a heave, and
the once noble and beautiful form of him who was Lance Trevanion
disappeared from the face of the earth, hidden from the light of the
sun, from the ken of mortal man, for ever and for ever!
* * * * *
As the strange dull sound, so unlike any other, which follows the fall
of a human body down a deep shaft came up from below, Trevenna shuddered
in spite of his hardihood.
The old man laughed aloud. 'You're only half baked yet, Larry, with all
your blowing. When you've seen as many coves rubbed out as I have,
you'll have better narves. We've got a ticklish game to play yet, mind
ye, so don't go a-shivering and shaking like a school-girl. Take off yer
duds now and collar his, and let's see how yer look.'
Trevenna, with a rude oath, repelled the accusation of softness, and
doffing his own garments, which he made into a bundle and threw down the
shaft, proceeded to dress himself in the dead man's clothes. This
transformation effected, the curious similarity between the two men
became so apparent to the only spectator that Coke yelled with apparent
amazement and danced around him with fiendish delight.
'By ----!' he cried, 'if that ain't the rummiest fake ever I see. Your
own mother wouldn't know the difference. Hanged if _I_ could tell, and I
knowed the pair on ye purty well. Pitch a log or two down the hole; it
won't be long afore it falls in. It's bad standing ground, and then he
won't need no tombstone. We'd as well collar our horses now and get to
the cove's hut after dark. Then you start fair to-morrow morning as
'Ballarat Harry,' alias Lance Trevanion, Esquire, and I'm d--d if
there's a digger on Omeo as'll know the difference. What are ye lookin'
in the grass for?'
'When we had the--the mill--I swear he had a watch-chain. It must have
dropped hereabouts.'
'Well, I'm blowed!' chuckled the older ruffian, 'if that ain't a good
'un. Takin' a man's life, his money, his duds, and his watch, and then
growlin' because the chain's a-missin'. You'll find it in his hut, I'll
go bail.'