UNMASKED
The silvery sheen of the rising moon glittered on the surface of the
pool and lay over the sombre-foliaged bush as Durham came out upon the
top of the bluff above the Rider's cave.
From the moment he reached the ridge to find only the marks made by the
plunging horse he had raced to get there first. Down the sharp slopes of
the gullies, across the dry, rock-strewn bed of the mountain-streams, up
the opposite steeps, with never a care for the risks he ran, he kept his
horse at its topmost speed, sparing neither spur nor lash to urge it
along. There was no time to choose the easy paths, no chance of picking
his way; every moment was of value, for he knew how the wounded outlaw
would make desperate haste to get to the shelter of his haven.
The gloom of the bush ere the moon rose added to his difficulties. With
no landmark to serve as a guide he had to rely absolutely upon his
instinctive sense of locality, and kept steadily in the one direction,
although that meant riding over the rugged ground, barred by tumbled
boulders and thickly growing trees, which formed the almost precipitous
sides of the gullies. At any time a fall was possible; he carried his
life in his hands and knew it; but the ride was a race against odds, and
there was no time to heed.
He was breasting the rise of what he believed to be the last of the
ridges he would have to cross, when the laboured breathing of his horse
told him it was almost done. Leaning forward in his saddle, he patted it
on the neck and spoke to it as a man who has realised the companionship
between himself and a favourite horse will do. Responding to the
encouragement, it mounted to the summit of the ridge and quickened its
pace as it felt it was on level ground again. But where the other ridges
had been flat on the top, this one was little more than a razor-back. No
sooner was the ascent completed than the descent began. The horse caught
in its stride to steady itself, tripped, stumbled, and came down. Durham
was flung over its head like a stone from a catapult.
Fortunately he came to the ground on the broad of his back, though with
such force that he was momentarily stunned. His horse picked itself up
and stood trembling and panting long before he was able to scramble to
his feet. Even when he did so his head was spinning and he could barely
stand.
With unsteady steps he went to his horse and took hold of the bridle. To
attempt to ride it further was obviously out of the question, and he led
it slowly down to the bottom of the slope, tethering it securely to a
tree in the shelter of the gully. Then, pulling himself together, he
set off up the opposite slope on foot.
His head was still swimming from the concussion of his fall, and into it
there came the humming he had experienced after his adventure at
Taloona. It made him so dizzy that he sank down on a boulder, resting
his head on his hands until the humming and throbbing should pass. As he
sat there came a sound to his ears which made him start to his feet,
forgetful of the giddiness, forgetful of everything save the sound and
all that it signified.
Through the silence of the bush came the measured tread of a walking
horse.
It was evidently crossing the gully below, for, as he listened, the pace
quickened to a trot and then to a canter and then became suddenly faint
and muffled.
In an instant Durham read the significance of it. The horse had crossed
the gully on to level ground and, urged by its rider, had cantered out
of hearing. Exactly such a thing would happen were the gully he had
crossed the one which came out on to the level sandy margin of the pool.
The realisation sent a chill through him. The rise up which he was
climbing must be the ridge which formed the bluff above the cave. If he
were not over it quickly, the Rider would be the first at the cave and
Durham's scheme for his capture defeated.
The thought drove the last vestige of dizziness from his brain. He faced
the slope and forced his way through the tangled undergrowth until he
came to the top and saw the moonlight gleaming on the surface of the
pool and illuminating with its silvery sheen the open space at the foot.
There was no sign of the horse he expected to see, and no sound came
from the cave. With his carbine ready, he crept slowly and silently down
until he was at the mouth. A stray moonbeam fell upon the spot where he
had seen the clothes on his former visit. The spot was bare.
He was about to step into the cavern when he heard the distant tread of
the horse. Quickly drawing back, he hid himself behind a clump of shrubs
which sheltered him, while leaving him a clear view in front up to the
line of bushes stretching from the bank to the water's edge. There he
waited, while the sound of the horse approaching became more and more
distinct.
Presently it was so clear he could hear the snapping of the twigs of the
undergrowth as they were trampled down, and he levelled his carbine so
as to cover the man immediately he and his horse emerged from the line
of bushes. But when the animal appeared, for the moment Durham thought
it was riderless. Only when it reached the middle of the open space and
was almost directly below him did he see the man, lying forward over the
withers, with his arms weakly clinging to the horse's neck and his legs
swaying limply as they dangled with the feet out of the stirrups.
Of its own accord the horse stopped. The man painfully pushed himself up
until he was able to turn his head and look from side to side.
He was scarcely ten yards from Durham, and the clear light of the moon
revealed the face as distinctly as though it were day. The close-cropped
hair, fair almost to whiteness, the eyebrows and eyelashes of the same
hue; the general form of the face showing above the beard were
incongruously, yet elusively, familiar, while the pallor of the cheeks
and the anguish of the eyes told of the terrible injury the man had
sustained.
He was trying to push himself up so as to sit in the saddle. Only his
arms seemed to have any strength, for the legs still dangled limply and
the fingers clutched the horse's mane convulsively as the body swayed.
The moonlight fell full upon the face, glistening on the beads of
moisture which stood out on the skin.
A twinge of pity passed through Durham's heart as he watched the agony
of the stricken wretch. The effort to maintain his balance was more than
the weakened muscles could stand. A deep groan broke from his lips as
his arms gave way; his head fell and he plunged forward, slipping over
the horse's shoulder and coming head first to the ground, where he lay
in a limp, dishevelled heap.
Freed from its burden, the animal stepped forward and moved to a tree
where it had evidently been accustomed to find its feed, for it snorted
impatiently and shook itself as it sniffed round the trunk. But Durham
had no eyes for it; he was watching, with fascinated intentness, the
figure lying motionless on the ground.
Slipping from behind the sheltering shrubs, he approached the man with
noiseless steps. There was no sign of life in the figure which lay as it
had fallen, but across the lower part of the back the clothes were
stained with blood. A bullet had struck him almost on the spine, and the
dangling limbs were explained. The shot had paralysed them.
Durham stooped over him. The faintest flicker of breathing showed he was
still alive. He lay on his face, his arms out-flung, his legs twisted.
Drawing the arms together, Durham slipped a strap round them above the
elbows so as to hold them secure. Then he partly lifted him from the
ground and dragged him to the mouth of the cave, where he sat him with
his back against the rock.
The head drooped forward. In his waist-belt there was a revolver-pouch
which Durham, on removal, found to contain a revolver of heavy calibre
loaded in all chambers.
Now that he was unarmed and secured, Durham knelt beside him to try and
revive him. He gently raised the head and rested it against the stone,
holding it steady with one hand while with the other he lifted off the
false beard.
As the disguise came away and left the face fully exposed, Durham's
heart stood still. With a cry he sprang to his feet, staggering back to
stand, with clenching hands and throbbing temples, staring blankly at
the white, drawn face upturned to his.
The humming roar was again in his ears, a trembling seized his limbs,
his brain reeled and the scene spun before his eyes.
"Oh, my God!" he cried.
Slowly the eyelids lifted and a spasm of pain contracted the pallid
face. The glance rested for a moment on Durham as a faint wan smile
flickered round the corners of the bloodless lips and the eyelids
drooped again.
The sound of his own voice in a hoarse, strained whisper jarred on
Durham's ears.
"You!" he gasped. "_You!_"
The eyes opened once more.
In a weak, wavering tone came disjointed words.
"You said--you--would shoot him--like a dog--and I told you--it
would--kill--me if you--did."
As white as his captive, Durham stood dumbfounded.
The feeling of horror which had come upon him when first he recognised
the face overwhelmed him. His heart went dead and his brain numbed. All
the roseate dreams of his romance turned to dull grey leaden grief to
flaunt and mock him.
Like the panoramic vision said to come to the minds of the drowning, the
incidents on which his love had dwelt in cherishing delight passed
before him. He saw again the sparkling eyes which had filled him with
such gladness when first that love had come to him; saw the picture made
by the wonderfully graceful form leaning against the verandah at Waroona
Downs, bathed in the soft, romantic light of the new-born moon; saw the
pleading face turned to him as the gentle voice spoke endearing words to
gain a passing favour; saw once more that fleeting, taunting vision on
which he had built so much despite the warning to beware of the vagaries
of a delirium-swayed brain.
The visions passed. Before him, crippled and ghastly in the last agony
of life, lay the author of this diabolical outrage upon every
sensibility of his manhood.
A rage of blind, ungovernable fury swept over him. The primitive
instinct of revenge, the savage longing to wreak, while there was yet
time, a last fierce vengeance on the one who had betrayed him, filled
his being. With a cry which ended in a curse he sprang to where his
carbine lay, seized it by the barrel, and swung it round his head as he
turned back upon his prisoner.
A gasping sigh came from the prostrate form, and the head rolled lolling
to one side.
The carbine fell from Durham's hands and he stood motionless, looking
down at the figure from which all signs of life had gone.
As quickly as it had come the paroxysm of rage left him.
The man was dying, if not dead, and the hideous riddle of the mystery
still unsolved!
He must not die! He must not pass beyond the reach of human knowledge
with the truth of that tragic drama in which he had played the leading
part unrevealed.
Durham rushed to the pool, filled his cap with water and came back with
it. Lifting up the drooping head, he moistened the nerveless lips and
bathed the cold temples and pallid cheeks.
"In the--cave--rum."
The whisper was just loud enough for him to hear. Leaning the head once
more against the stone, Durham staggered to the cave. A dark heap lay on
the ground in the shadow. He struck a match.
Numbed as his brain was by the revelation that had come to him, he
shrank back at what he saw.
A pile of woman's clothes; the skirt and jacket which had been impressed
upon his memory only a few hours before under circumstances which form,
perhaps, the one occasion when a man heeds and remembers what a woman
wears; the jaunty hat which had exerted so great a spell upon the
masculine population of the district, and beside it, the most horrible
of all, a wig of luxuriant coal-black hair from which the subtle perfume
that had so often charmed him still floated.
With hands which shook so that he could scarcely hold it, he took the
bottle of rum, bearing Soden's label, from the ground beside the
clothes, and hastened to the mouth of the cave.
In the cold moonlight the figure lay to all appearances dead.
Durham tore open the front of the shirt and pushed in his hand to feel
if the heart still beat.
With the moaning cry of a heart-broken man he reeled back. Then, in a
wild fervour born of his soul's despair, he fell on his knees beside the
prostrate form and tenderly drew the lolling head to his breast and
moistened the blue lips with the spirit.
"Oh, speak! Speak to me! Nora, speak to me and tell me," he wailed.
He reached to take her hands and remembered how he had bound the arms.
Quickly he set them free and chafed the limp fingers.
"Rum--quick--drink," came in a wavering whisper, and he poured some of
the potent spirit between the lips.
Holding her in his arms, with her head resting on his shoulder, he
waited, listening to her faint breathing.
"A little more and--I----"
She was able to raise her hand to steady the bottle which he held. Then
her head fell over again and she lay inert.
He turned his face to watch her. In a momentary fit of remorse and grief
he pressed his lips to hers.
One of her arms stole round his neck and held him to her.
"Oh, my darling, my darling, how I have loved you," he heard her
whisper. "Why did you come to me so late?"
Like a chill of death the words went through his brain.
"Tell me--everything," he whispered.
"Yes--before I die--if I can."
"Who are you?" he said. "What is your real name?"
"Nora O'Guire. I am Kitty Lambton's youngest daughter. I told you her
story."
"And Patsy?"
"He was my father."
"Was?"
"Yes. He is at the house--dead--Dudgeon--shot him."
"Who was it robbed the bank?"
"Dad and I."
"And Eustace?"
"No. He was innocent."
A shudder of horror passed over him. The woman whom he had loved with
such an abandon, this woman whom he held even then in his arms--he
shrank away from her, letting her fall against the stone as the grim,
sordid horror of the tragedy she was revealing grew plain before him.
"Ah, don't leave me--don't--don't," she moaned. "Let me die in your
arms--let me--oh, I love you, love you beyond all else. I will tell you
everything--everything--only still hold me."
"How did Eustace die?" His voice rang hard and pitiless.
"Oh! Give me this one last joy on earth. I am not all bad. Don't deny me
now. Hold me in your arms, beloved. I had no faith in man or God till I
met you, and you were good to me--in the coach--have you forgotten?
Don't desert me--now."
Like a jagged claw rending harp-strings the phrases jarred and jangled
every chord within his being.
"Oh, why--why----?" he cried. "Why did you come to this?"
"Hold me and I will tell you."
He knelt by her side, taking her head again upon his shoulder while she
clutched at his hand.
"My strength is going--more rum--quick."
He held the bottle to her mouth in silence, loving, loathing, pitying,
and condemning.
"Now. Don't stop me. Don't interrupt--only listen."
She lay still for a few minutes, gathering the last of her energy.
Presently she began.
"Dad, O'Guire that is, was driven to stealing. Mother too. All the other
little ones died but me. Dad trained me. Write to the police in London
and ask about Nora O'Guire--there are lots of other names, but they know
me under all as Nora O'Guire. Then mother died. She made me swear not to
rest till we had revenged her on Dudgeon. We came out, Dad and I, came
out to find him. I bluffed the bank."
"But the deeds you had with you--were they forgeries?"
"No. I stole them. From a solicitor's office in Dublin--he probably does
not know they are missing. Write to him."
"Where are they now?"
"In the cellar under the house--in a stone jar. His name is on them. The
bank-notes are there too. The gold is in a----"
"I have found that."
She raised her head.
"You found it? When?"
"Early to-day. Before I met you."
The head fell back. "I am glad," she said. "You are the first man to
beat me--but I love you."
"Tell me how you managed to deceive everyone as you did."
"I acted. Once, for a time, when things got too hot for us, I went on
the stage. It threw the 'tecks off the scent. I wanted to stay at it,
for I liked it, but mother was mad to ruin Dudgeon, and Dad could not
keep straight. So we began again. I wore a wig and made up. You'll find
it in the cave."
"I have seen it."
"Oh, if I could only have married you," she gasped. "If I had only met
you earlier!"
"But about Eustace," he said quietly.
"Yes, I'll tell you. I went to the bank--like this--and saw Eustace. I
slipped into the kitchen and drugged the tea. I knew they all took it.
Then Dad and I broke in. It was quite easy. I climbed up the verandah,
opened the back door, and let Dad in. They were all dead asleep. We took
the keys and cleared the safe. Every place was locked up again and left
just as we found it. Dad went out, and when I had locked the back door
I went over the verandah again."
"How did you get the gold away?"
"The buggy was in the bush. We whitewashed the horses as a blind. We
knew they hated the colour up here. It puzzled everyone."
"But when did you discover this place?"
"Dad knew it in the old days. He and mother used to meet here in
secret--there is a way across to the ford--the water gets shallow in one
place--it was there Dad shot----"
Her voice caught and she turned appealing eyes to him as she struggled
for breath.
"Give me--rum," she muttered, and he rested her head on his arm, while
he slowly poured some of the spirit between her lips. For a time she lay
so still he thought she had gone, till there came a wavering sigh and
she moved her head slightly.
"It was--nearly--over----" she whispered.
"About Eustace?" he said. "Can you tell me now?"
"Yes--I'll try," she answered. "Don't leave me--stay with me till the
end, won't you? Give me--your word."
"I will stay," he replied.
The head resting on his arm turned until the eyes looked straight into
his. They were filled with the gentle light he had seen in them when,
through the momentary lifting of the veil of unconsciousness, he had
been enabled to catch a glimpse of her real nature.
"Then I'll tell you--everything," she whispered. "We had to fix
suspicion on someone. When I saw him he had no nerve. I offered to
shelter him. He agreed, and I let him out of the window, and pretended
to go on talking to him all the time he was getting away into the bush.
You know what happened then."
"At the bank? Yes. But what became of Eustace?"
"He was at the house. He was there the night you came. He nearly gave
himself up. He was coming when he heard you say who you were. So Dad
knocked him on the head and put him in the cellar."
"While I was there?" Durham exclaimed.
"Yes. When you went to see to your horse. Then later we had to trick
you. Dad put something in the tea like I did at the bank, only it would
have killed you all he put in. He wanted to. He wanted to after, and
tried to, but I--I wouldn't let him--because I loved you. But I made you
sleep that night--Dad had to make fresh tea, and I put the stuff in. We
watched you go off on the verandah while you were smoking, and then tied
you up. It was hard to make you wake, but we had to--Dad had taken
Eustace's handkerchief--we knew you would be convinced if you found
it--after seeing me--and we--we shot your horse, and made the others
bolt."
"But afterwards? What happened to Eustace afterwards?" he asked as she
stopped.
"We had to keep him there, then, because he knew. He was there in the
cellar the night you came from Taloona. You heard him cry out. So Dad
brought him here and tied him up. He was here all the time you were at
the house. The evening after you saw Brennan, when you talked to me on
the verandah, Dad came and found him escaping. Dad killed him. He had
to. He shammed drunk next day, so that you should not suspect him. There
is a short cut from the house, and Dad took it after you left, and got
to the ford before you. That's all."
"When Taloona was stuck up----"
"Dad and I," she said. "We didn't know you were there. You hit me, and
I--oh, darling, it broke my heart when I saw you fall, but I had to.
That is why I took you away to nurse you. I kissed you when you didn't
know."
"The other night--when you rode through the town?"
She lay silent and he repeated the question.
"I was--half drunk. So was Dad. We did it out of devilment. They were
all such fools--all but you--and you nearly shot me. The bullet grazed
my horse. You will see the cut on the shoulder. You nearly caught Dad.
He was in the police-station when you got back. He cracked every crib in
the place--I wasn't in that."
"Where did he hide?" Durham asked.
"In the yard--where Eustace was--you never looked there."
A convulsive shudder ran through her.
"But to-night--where were you going to-night when I met you?" he asked.
"To kill Dudgeon. Dad only just got home. I could die happy if I only
had."
Again her frame quivered, and she was racked with a fierce struggle to
get her breath. She lay against him, her head resting in the hollow of
his arm, her eyes closed, and her mouth twitching.
"Tell him," she whispered between her panting gasps. "Tell
him--I--tried----"
He touched her hands lying limply in her lap; they were icy cold. Her
head was growing heavy on his arm and her lips were turning blue. He
moistened them once more with rum as her breathing became almost
imperceptible.
For a moment her eyes opened and looked into his with an expression of
wonderful tenderness.
"Dudgeon is already dead," he whispered gently.
She started and tried to sit up, but could only raise her head.
"Dead," she whispered. "Dead!"
Then, as though the news galvanised her waning strength into one last
tumultuous effort, she flung out her arms and sat up, with wide-open
eyes staring fixedly into space.
"Dad! Dad!" she cried. "You did--you did, Dad. Oh, thank----"
Her arms fell, her head lolled forward, and her body lurched against
Durham as, with a broken, gasping sigh, she collapsed into a nerveless,
jointless thing.
He bent his head and placed his ear to her breast above her heart. There
was not the faintest throb, and he took his arm from around her. As he
did so she rolled over, her face upturned towards the moon, at which her
wide-open eyes stared and her mouth gaped.
The Rider of Waroona was dead!
With bowed head and aching heart Durham bent over her.
All the love of his nature which had lain dormant for so long had gone
out to this woman, enfolding her, idealising her, until she became to
him the completement of his being, the one incentive for all which was
noble within him, the mainspring of his life, the lode-stone of his
ambitions. To have won her would have been his dearest and proudest
achievement; to have had her love would have made existence for him a
never-ending stream of happiness and joy.
As a sun new risen from the night she had come into his life, bringing
light and warmth and peace where there had been only coldness and
unrest. So he had dreamed of her only that morning; so she had appeared
to him only a few hours since when, at her bidding, trusting her,
believing in her, loving her, he had turned his back on his
duty--betrayed.
Resentment at the treachery warred with his love and tinged his sorrow
with bitterness. How she had played with him, tricking him, fooling him,
outwitting him--and yet loving him.
The memory of the last fond look of lingering tenderness which had been
in her eyes ere he told her Dudgeon was dead came to him. Why had he
told her that? Why had he not let her die as she was then, with the
gentle side of her nature dominating her, filled with the one soft
impulse she perhaps had ever known?
The words had slipped from his tongue almost before he knew, and on the
instant there had come back to her the overshadowing influence which had
warped her life for evil even before she was born.
By his hand she had died; by his words her last moments had been filled
with the blackness of insensate hate.
Before the mute condemnation of that self-accusing thought the
bitterness which had been in his mind against her dissipated. Whatever
ills she had done to him, he had done greater to her. Whatever ills she
had done to humanity were the outcome not of her own nature, but of the
circumstances and conditions which had governed her from the moment she
was born. All that she had said during the last evening he spent at her
house recurred to him and a new significance dawned into the words.
She had spoken of herself, pleaded for herself, striven to rouse his
sympathy and compassion, so that, within the sombre barrenness of her
ill-starred life, one spot there might be where the loving kindness of
human charity had fallen and made it bright. He remembered how he had
answered her--coldly, sternly, crushing down her awakening soul with the
same callous indifference which had always met her. With the pitiless
weight of a loveless life, what wonder she was warped, distorted,
marred? More sinned against than sinning, he had no right nor will to
blame her--only the love she had inspired in him remained, to fill his
heart with sadness and drag it down with the hopeless desolation of vain
regrets.
For she had gone from him even as she revealed the love she bore him,
gone into the darkness by his own act, gone--his throat grew hard until
he choked as the thought came to him--gone from a greater degradation
he, by the merciless irony of fate, would have had to fasten upon her.
Better, a thousand times better for her, that she should be as she was
than that she should have lived to face the doom awaiting her--better
for her--and better for him.
It was nothing to him now that the story she had told showed her, by all
the laws of humanity, to be unworthy. Black as she had painted herself,
the love she had inspired shone through the blackness, revealing only
that which lay beyond, the radiant purpose, unmeasurable by human
standards, transcending human ken.
He knelt again by her side, taking her cold hands in his and placing
them upon her breast, closing the staring eyes, composing the
wry-drooped mouth, straightening the twisted limbs.
"Oh, my love, my love," he wailed. "Sleep on in peace. Sleep on till I
shall come to you. Wait for me, for I must stay awhile yet to shield and
shelter you so that none may know the secret of your life."