LOVE'S CONQUEST
In the grey half light which is neither night nor day, Durham saddled
his horse in the station yard.
No one was stirring in the township as he passed slowly along the road,
but lest there should happen to be anyone who might see him, he turned
into the bush at the first opening he came to. Only then did he set his
horse at a faster pace, riding direct for the range to pick up the track
leading to the hidden pool.
The air was soft and cool, with filmy streaks of vapour floating amid
the trees. As he cantered along, the mist rose and formed a pearly haze
overhead into which there came a tinge of pink, dissipating it, before
the colour could grow into a deeper tone, to reveal the clear sky, blue
as a sapphire and bright with the first rays of the rising sun.
In long swinging strides his horse carried him easily, and his spirits
rose above the gloom which had weighed upon him since the evening before
when, for the third time, he had been foiled by the mysterious Rider.
There had been little sleep for him during the night. Had the discovery
of Eustace and the raid of the town been the only events of the day he
might have succeeded in banishing them from his mind sufficiently to
allow himself to sleep. But there was more than these, disquieting as
they were, to fill him with restlessness. The way in which Mrs. Burke
had rebuffed him on the previous evening, the hostility of manner she
had displayed towards him up to the time he and Brennan left Waroona
Downs, weighed upon him.
He could not account for the change which had come over her. From the
time he arrived from Taloona she had always shown kindliness and
gentleness towards him, even when, during the early days of his
convalescence, he had been impatient and exacting. Nor could he find a
reason for the change in the brief profession he had made of his love
for her. Had that been the cause she would, he argued, have shown it the
morning after; but she had met him then with the same light-hearted
raillery with which she had greeted him every morning he had been in her
house. Only when Brennan arrived on the scene had she suddenly developed
antagonism.
There must be some other reason for her anger than his declaration of
love. For hours he had sought for it, cudgelling his brain to discover
an explanation; but only now, as he cantered along through the bush with
his spirits rising in harmony with the glories of an Australian dawn,
did illumination come to him.
"Oh, my love, why have you come so late to me!"
Through the sombre shade of his brooding there flashed the memory of
the scene when he had heard those words spoken. Like the touch of a
magic wand the memory changed gloom to sunshine, shadow into light.
It was not because he had professed his love for her that she had been
displeased; it was because he was going from her, leaving her house,
parting with her perhaps for all time.
What a fool he had been not to know that earlier. Of course, she had
repelled him when he had spoken on the previous evening, repelled him,
not because she resented, but because she, like all of her sex, could
not yield the truth at the first asking.
Yet why should he have doubted with the memory of that earlier scene in
his mind? He asked himself the question and answered it frankly.
He doubted for the reason that still he did not know whether that memory
was of a real scene, or was merely a figment of a delirium-haunted
brain. If he could be sure, then no more need he doubt; but how was he
to be sure? There was only one way--only one person in all the world who
could tell him whether he was right or not--Nora Burke alone could say
whether he had been dreaming.
Some day he would ask her to tell him, some day, after he had asked and
compelled her to answer that other question which had now become
insistent. For the time the mystery of the Rider occupied a second place
in his thoughts; yet the trend of his mind unconsciously brought it
again to the front.
The mission on which he had set out was one which might clear away the
initial obstacle in the pathway of his love; he might locate the
hiding-place of the Rider; might secure a clue to his identity; might,
by great good fortune, discover the stolen money.
If he could only do that, if he could only go back to the bank with the
news that he had recovered the stolen gold, five thousand pounds would
be his. Then he would be able to go to Mrs. Burke without the feeling,
unbearable to a man of his temperament, that he, a poor man, was
aspiring to one who had money, and who might attribute to that money the
secret of his fascination.
By the time the sun showed above the trees, he was up to the outlying
spurs of the range and nearing the ridge along which he had previously
followed the tracks of the two horsemen. With the knowledge he had
gained how the track turned and twisted, he set his horse to the rising
ground, and rode steadily and cautiously until he arrived at the summit
of the steep immediately above where the creek entered the pool.
Below him was the narrow sandy strip running round the edge of the
water, and even from where he was he could see the marks of the horses'
hoofs upon it. His glance wandered from the shore over the surface of
the pool. It was a long sheet of water, more an exaggerated reach in a
stream than a lake, for except along the sandy margin below him, the
water everywhere rippled right up to the dense verdure-clad slopes of
the hills.
A curious discolouration appeared in a streak across the pool at the
far end. The otherwise clear water was marred by a ledge of rock which
stretched from one side of the pool to the other and came so near the
surface as to give a suggestion of muddiness to the water.
Dismounting, he led his horse to a sheltered gully, and securely
tethered him to a tree. Then, with his carbine on his arm and his
revolver pouch unfastened, he walked down to the dry bed of the creek
and followed it to the mouth.
Fresh marks were on the soft ground near the water, coming from the end
of the pool where the streak of muddy water showed, and passing onwards
round the pool. He decided to go in the same direction, and for a few
yards walked along the level before he discovered other hoof-prints,
equally clear, going the opposite way. The horseman, whoever he might
be, had both come and gone within the past few hours, but Durham was
uncertain which way had been the last.
Leaving the level ground he forced a way through the thick herbage
growing on the bank above and crept forward. As he went he obtained
through the foliage an occasional glimpse of the track below, until the
bank rose so steeply and the vegetation became so dense that he had to
climb higher to move along at all. Presently he came to an easier grade,
and was able to see once more the margin of the pool, but he was
surprised to discover that all marks of the horses had ceased.
He crept down to the water. Looking back, he saw that the bank, on the
top of which he had been, ran out to the water's edge, forming a
barrier across the track and terminating in a steep bluff jutting out
into the pool.
Crouching almost to the ground, Durham crawled through the undergrowth
until he reached the summit of the bluff, and was able to see once more
the narrow sandy strip which skirted the bank and formed the margin of
the shore.
Peering through the low-growing shrubs he saw how the bluff fell away in
a precipitous descent on the other side down to where the narrow strip
widened out into a level space screened by a clump of bushes reaching
from the high bank to the water. The whole of this space was trampled
upon, and it was evident that horsemen had been there frequently and
recently.
A step forward showed him something more. Right under the bank a dark
patch showed. It was the mouth of a cave.
He listened intently, but no sound came to him, and he again crept
forward until he was able to see into the cave. It was low-roofed, and
formed by rocks which had fallen loosely together, and over which
vegetable soil had accumulated.
Satisfied it was empty, he advanced boldly towards it. As he pushed
between the shrubs which grew close up to it, he caught sight of what,
in the shadow, looked like a crouching man. In a moment his carbine was
thrown forward and he was about to challenge, when he realised he was
aiming at a heap of clothes.
He stepped into the cave. The clothes lay in a carelessly thrown heap,
and with them, half hidden, was a false beard of long yellow hair.
Picking it up, he held it at arm's length. So the Rider was disguised
after all!
The flimsy thing brought clearly back to him the features of the man as
he had twice seen him. The close-clipped fair hair, the light sandy
eyebrows, the peculiarly light lashes which gave so sinister an
expression to the eyes, were distinct; but when he tried to reconstruct
the face as it would be without the beard, he was baffled. The form of
the nose, the moulding of the chin, the shape of the mouth, had been
hidden by the disguise, and without a knowledge of them Durham could not
grasp fully what the man was like. As Harding had expressed himself,
when describing the face he had seen at the window of the bank, it was
the impression of a familiar face disguised, and yet a familiar face
which could not be located.
Beyond that he could not go.
He picked up the clothes and examined them. They were of nondescript
grey, such as can be bought by the hundred at any bush store in
Australia, and were similar to what the man was wearing the night he
visited Waroona Downs. The hat was missing, as Durham expected it would
be. The pockets were empty.
Replacing the articles as nearly as possible in the position in which he
found them, Durham turned his attention to the cave itself.
The floor was rough and uneven. What sand clustered in the hollows was
too much trampled upon to reveal any detail of the feet that had walked
upon it.
There were innumerable nooks and crannies where articles could be
stored, but in every instance they contained nothing. Nowhere could he
find anything more than the clothes.
He went to the mouth and stood peering round to see if there was another
similar cave near, but everywhere else the ground rose solid and
unbroken.
In the open space under the shelter of the bluff where the ground had
been so much trampled by horses, the wheel-marks of a vehicle also
showed. He walked over and examined them carefully.
They were the marks of what was evidently an old and rackety conveyance.
One of the wheels was loose and askew on the axle, with the result that
it made a wobbly mark on the ground, while the tyres on all the wheels
were uneven in width and badly worn.
"Almost as ancient as old Dudgeon's rattle-trap," Durham said to himself
as he looked at the marks.
The story, fanciful as he had regarded it at the time, of the buggy
driven by two men with a pair of white horses, the story told by the
travelling bushmen the day the bank robbery was discovered, recurred to
him. If this was the vehicle in which the gold had been carried off, and
the wheel-marks he was looking at had been made by it, then that gold
was probably secreted somewhere in his immediate vicinity.
The thick-growing shrubs and stunted gums made it difficult for him to
see far from where he stood. The level stretch along the margin of the
pool showed clear enough, but around him the vegetation was so dense
that, unless he had some clue to guide him, to prosecute a search within
it was like trying the proverbial search for a needle in a haystack.
During the time that had elapsed since those wheel-marks had been made
they had been greatly obliterated, but it was still possible to
distinguish where the vehicle had been stopped, for the horses had
turned suddenly, and the wheels cut deep as they came round. He stepped
to the spot. Later tramplings had removed all clear traces of footmarks.
Nothing was now to be learned from that source.
His eyes swept along the line of shrubs which fringed the open space. A
twig, snapped near the stem, dangled, its leaves brown and withered. It
was a finger pointing where someone had forced a way through.
Durham went down on his knees beside the shrub. Near the root the bark
had been stripped for a couple of inches, the scar showing brown, while
in the soil the impression of a heavy boot was just distinguishable.
On hands and knees he pushed his way between the stems. Other footmarks,
old and faint, showed, and he crept along with his eyes on them. Some
weeks before there had evidently been much coming and going through the
scrub at this point. Looking straight ahead he saw the grey sheen of a
sun-dried log. He stood up. The thick undergrowth reached to his
armpits, but through it, a couple of yards from where he stood, and ten
from the spot where the wheel-marks turned, was the fallen trunk of an
old dead tree.
Such a log, hollow for the greater part of its length and absolutely
hidden by the shrubs growing round it, was exactly the place where
anything could be secreted, and remain secreted, for an indefinite
period.
Pushing his way carefully through the tangle of shrubs he came upon it
at the root end. It had evidently fallen in some bygone bush-fire, the
jagged charred fragments showing where it had snapped off close to the
ground. The fire had eaten its way into the heart of the timber and
there was space enough in the cavity for a man to crouch.
Stooping down, Durham peered into it. At the far end he saw,
indistinctly, a confused mass, pushed up closely. He reached in, but
could not touch it, without creeping into the opening.
He looked round for something that would serve as a rake to pull the
articles out, but there was no loose stick sufficiently long near to
hand, and he did not want to cut one. Higher up the bank he saw one that
would suit his purpose and went to get it.
As he returned with it in his hand he saw, at the other end of the log,
a patch of white on the ground. Going over to it he found it was caused
by a chalky powder which clustered thickly near the tree.
This end of the log was also hollow, and in the cavity were a couple of
bags which, when he pulled them out, he found to be full of the chalky
powder.
The white horses flashed into his mind as he looked at it.
"The cunning scoundrel!" he exclaimed. "Even the horses were disguised."
He replaced the bags, and went to the root end of the tree. With his
stick he was able to reach the objects stored in the hole, and pulled
one out.
By the weight he knew what he had found, before he opened it--the bag
was full of gold.
Slowly he drew everything out of the place. All the gold taken from the
bank and from Taloona lay at his feet, together with a miscellaneous
collection of jewellery wrapped up in a small square of canvas. But
there was no sign either of papers or bank-notes.
It was out of the question for him to attempt to remove the treasure to
the bank there and then. All he could do was to make it as secure as
possible until, at a later day, he could return with a conveyance and
carry it back to the town.
On the far side of the bluff he discovered a crevice formed by an
overhanging ledge. It was a place even more difficult to trace than the
fallen tree, and here he placed everything, keeping only a gold watch
which bore Harding's name. Then, having obliterated, as nearly as he
could, every mark which would be likely to reveal the hiding-place, he
made his way back to his horse.
He rode to the margin of the pool, and walked along the track until he
was opposite the streak of mud stain in the water. The horse and
wheel-tracks turned towards it and, standing up in his stirrups, Durham
saw that the water shoaled with a wide ledge of rock running directly
into the pool.
Putting his horse to it, the water was barely a foot deep on the rock
all the way across to the opposite bank. Here the horse and wheel-tracks
reappeared, turning sharp to the left through the bush, and passing over
a dwarf ridge from the summit of which he caught sight of the mountain
road where it turned down to the ford.
Still following the tracks, they led him once more to the water's edge.
He entered it, and continued close to the shore until he suddenly
emerged on to the rock which formed the break in the road over which the
stream rippled.
He rode on to the road and reined in his horse near the spot where he
had first seen the pool the night he was on his way to Waroona Downs.
Had he not just ridden along the track round the edge of the water, he
would not have believed it was there, so absolutely was it hidden from
the roadway.
For a moment he hesitated whether to go on to Waroona Downs or return to
the township at once, and arrange for the treasure to be removed. But
the anxiety gnawing at his heart decided for him and he wheeled his
horse and set off at a canter for the station.
As he came out to the level road he saw, riding towards him, the object
of his regard. Mounted on a fine dark chestnut she was coming along at a
hand gallop. She waved her hand as she caught sight of him, and he
pulled up to wait for her, watching, with more than admiration, the
magnificent seat she had and the easy grace with which she managed her
horse.
"Oh, Mr. Durham, I'm so glad to see you," she cried as she came up. "I
am in such trouble about that old reprobate. Sure he's gone and I'm just
after riding into town to see if he is getting more of the wretched
drink. If I find him----"
"Brennan will have him if he is in there, Mrs. Burke. You need not be
uneasy. I'll inquire as soon as I return. I am on my way----"
"Oh, but I can't," she interrupted. "What would they say if ever it got
to Ireland that I let the old fool fall into the hands of the police
over a trifle like this--for it's only a trifle they would call it in
Ireland, Mr. Durham. Sure if it were known there, and you may be certain
he'd leave no stone unturned to make it public, they'd boycott me and
all my belongings, if they didn't do something worse."
"Then it would be better for you not to go back there," he said, smiling
at her.
She gave him a sidelong glance with her head on one side.
"Not go back there? And what should I be doing anywhere else with all my
responsibilities waiting over there for me?" she asked coquettishly.
"You may have responsibilities over here as well, some which would----"
"Oh, now, you're making fun of me, Mr. Durham," she exclaimed. "What's a
bit of a place like this with never even a single pig on it, let alone
all the sheep and cattle it ought to have, to keep me from my own home?
When I get stock on the place it might keep me here, but sure where's
the money to come from to buy the creatures if I don't go back and sell
everything I possess to pay for them?"
"Won't you turn back, Mrs. Burke? I was riding out to see you. I want
to--ask you something."
"Ask me something? What, more police questions? No, no thanks, Mr.
Durham. They don't agree with my constitution--nor my temper."
"It is not a police question," he said seriously. "It is to
do--with--with yourself."
A merry peal of mocking laughter answered him.
"Come along now, come to the township with me before they get poor old
Patsy where it would break his honest old heart to be."
She started her horse.
"Come along now," she called over her shoulder, flashing a mischievous
glance back at him.
He had no alternative but to follow, and he cantered to her side.
"It would teach him a good lesson, Mrs. Burke, if you let him spend a
few days in the lock-up," he said. "It would give him a chance to get
really sober, whereas, if he keeps on getting drink, you will have him
out of his mind."
"Now you're trying to frighten me, Mr. Durham. Sure, what sort of a man
is it I've met this morning? I believe you'd like to see old Patsy
inside a cell, and then maybe you'd be after me too."
"I might be," he answered.
"What would you give me? Six months hard or just a caution?"
"I should offer you something entirely different," he said in a serious
tone of voice. "I should offer you----"
"Oh, yes, it's a lot you police people offer folk. Sure they have to
take what is given them, whether they like it, or want it, or not."
"I may not always be one of the police people, as you term us," he said.
"Are you thinking of joining the ministry?" she exclaimed. "I'd like to
hear you preach your first sermon, Mr. Durham. I'd come twenty miles in
the rain for it."
The mockery in her voice irritated him, and his face showed it.
"Oh, now, Mr. Durham, don't talk nonsense. What would become of the
place if you left the force of which you are such an ornament? It's
fairy tales you are telling me. And you have never said a word yet about
your journey. What news did you hear when you reached Waroona?"
"I suppose you have not heard about Eustace?" he asked.
"Eustace? What's the matter with Eustace now?"
"He was found yesterday."
The jerk she gave the bridle brought her horse back on his haunches, and
Durham was a couple of lengths past her before he could bring his horse
round. When he turned she was allowing her horse to walk, the bridle
hanging loose.
"Eustace was found yesterday?" she asked in a dazed tone as she came up
to him. "Found yesterday? Is that the news you had to give me?"
"It was not to tell you of that I was on my way to Waroona Downs," he
replied. "Though I should probably have mentioned it."
"Where was he found, Mr. Durham? I suppose he is arrested now?"
All the raillery had gone from her voice, which had grown so sorrowful
that he looked at her wonderingly.
"He was not alive when he was found," he said quietly, still watching
her.
Her hands convulsively clutched the bridle, and her mouth twitched.
"Oh, Mr. Durham, how awful! What a terrible thing! Oh, poor Mrs.
Eustace! Sure I'm glad I'm going into the town, for I'll be able to see
the poor thing. Is she much upset? But she is sure to be."
"It is a great trial for her. She will be very glad to see you, I should
think," he answered.
"Oh, well, well; what a funny thing life is, Mr. Durham. One never
knows. It's all a muddled-up sort of affair at the best. If only people
could do what is in them to do, instead of being placed in positions
where there is only sadness and trouble crowding in on them and crushing
them out of existence! It's a weary world, very, very weary."
"We can only take it as we find it, and make the best of it," he said.
"You must not allow this to worry you. Perhaps, after all, it is the
best thing that could have happened for him. There are worse things
than death. Think what it would have been for Mrs. Eustace had he been
captured and sent to penal servitude. Her whole life would have been
ruined. We see so much of that in cases where the husband gives way. It
is the wife who suffers most, Mrs. Burke."
"Oh, I know, I know," she exclaimed in a tone so full of sadness that he
feared he had touched on some secret grief.
He rode beside her in silence, not knowing what to say lest he added to
her distress, but yet tormented by the idea that he should speak out
what was in his heart and learn, once and for all, whether his hopes
were to be realised or shattered. Keeping slightly behind her, he was
able to watch her without her knowing it. She was staring between her
horse's ears, her lips tightly closed, her head erect, and her cheeks
pale. Lost, apparently, in the reverie his words had called up, she
seemed to have forgotten his presence as a mile went by without her
turning her head or opening her lips.
But she had not forgotten he was there. At a turn in the road she
uttered a sharp exclamation and held out her hand, pointing.
"Oh, it is too bad," she exclaimed bitterly. "It is too much for anyone
to bear. Look at that!"
Away down the road Durham saw a horse and rider. The horse was making
its own way, the rider having as much as he could do to keep in the
saddle. He was swaying from side to side, occasionally waving his arms
in the air and howling out a tuneless ditty in a strident cracked voice.
"Old Patsy," Durham said shortly.
"Oh, what will I do?" she exclaimed.
"Better let me take him back and give him a few days where he will have
time to recover his senses, I think," he said.
She flashed a furious glance at him.
"I shall do no such thing," she snapped. "The best thing you can do is
to get out of sight before he sees you. He hates you, Mr. Durham.
Irishmen of his class always hate the police. The sight of you will only
aggravate him in his present state."
"He is not in a fit state to return with you," Durham said.
"Oh, I can manage him if I'm left alone with him," she replied.
"But I shall not leave you with him," he said firmly.
"You must; you must," she exclaimed sharply. Then, as though a mask had
fallen from her, the expression of her face changed and she leaned
towards him, laying her hand on his bridle arm. "Oh, yes, please, for my
sake. For the sake of--of what I said you--you were not to mention
again--will you--please will you do this?"
Her wonderful eyes, soft and melting with a look of appeal, were turned
full upon his; her red lips pouted and her voice thrilled with a winning
gentleness.
"Please, please do this for me. I would not ask it, only I know--I
know--I can ask _you_."
Her voice sank to a whisper, more alluring, more devastating upon him
than when she spoke before. So taken aback, and yet so elated was he at
her change of manner, that he could not answer her at once.
"You were coming to tell me again--I read it in your face. Oh, do this
for me now. Leave me alone with him. Come and see me to-morrow. Come and
tell me then--tell me--what I want to hear."
"Nora!"
The word escaped him in a gasp. What she wanted to hear! Were his ears
playing him false? Was he dreaming? He had his hands on hers, holding it
with a grip of a strong man stirred to the depths, crushing the fingers
one on the other, but there was no waver in the eyes that looked with so
much entreaty into his.
"Leave me now before he sees you, before he gets here. I can manage him
best alone. Look, he is hastening. Oh, don't wait. Ride away into the
bush. I appeal to you--in the name of my love for you. Dearest--go!"
The tumult surged up and over him; had she bidden him at that moment to
ride into the jaws of death, he would have galloped, shouting his
delight. Nothing else counted with him then, nothing but her wish.
Bending down he pressed her hand to his lips.
"Go--go--quickly--dearest!" he heard.
"Till to-morrow, Beloved, till to-morrow," he answered, as, pulling his
horse's head round, he drove his spurs home and plunged into the bush,
racing in the wild abandon of his joy.
What did it matter that a drunken old Irishman was saved from arrest? He
would probably have contented himself with warning the old reprobate to
get home as quickly and as quietly as he could. But she did not know
that. All she could do was to think how to save her foolish servant from
the penalty of his folly--how like her that was, how like the great
warm-hearted noble creature she was! Pride in her, pride, love,
adoration, welled up in his heart. The yearning of his soul was
satisfied, the longing of his being set at rest.
Her love was his! In that knowledge all the contradictions of her
attitude became clear. She had only sought to hide the truth from him
lest he should think her too easily won. He laughed aloud as he
galloped.
Too easily?
No matter how great the sacrifice he had been called upon to make, it
would have ranked as nothing if, at the end of it, her open arms were
waiting to enfold him. But there was no sacrifice, no toll to be exacted
from him. Of her own initiative she had sounded the note which called
him to her and made her his. To-morrow he would ride out to her, not
alone to give her the pledge of his affections, but to carry to her the
tidings of his discovery. Although he had not yet recovered her papers,
he would be able to assure her that he would have them as soon as he
captured the man who stole them, the man who had murdered Eustace, the
Rider whose hiding-place he had discovered.
For there was no doubt in his mind about that capture. Once let the
gold be safely removed to the bank, he would return to the cave and wait
till, as he was certain would happen sooner or later, the Rider came for
his disguise.
Then Nora Burke should have her papers returned in safety, and he would
have won more than the promised five thousand pounds reward.