A NIGHT OF ADVENTURES.
Alice and Grif were within a few miles of Highlay Station. That
morning, Old Jamie, having brought them to the road that led to their
journey's end, had bidden them good-bye and God speed! They had walked
during the day, and they were now resting in a clump of bush. Alice
was very pale and thin, while poor Grif was absolutely clothed with
rags. He looked dusty and tired; as indeed he was, for he had
consistently declined to avail himself of the waggoner's invitation to
ride, and had walked the whole of the way. His feet were bare, and he
was suffering from the first symptoms of an attack of slow Australian
fever; his skin was hot and blazing, and his white tongue clung to the
roof of his mouth, and almost choked him. But he did not complain. He
had sworn to Alice that he would be faithful and true to her, and he
would keep his word. As they trudged along, side by side, that day,
the devoted faithfulness of the lad sank deeper than it had ever yet
done into Alice's mind. Much as she knew of his devotion and his
suffering, much reason as she had to thank and bless him for the help
he had given her, for the fealty he had shown to her, she did not know
all. She did not know that the soles of his feet were one mass of
blisters; she did not know that every time he put his feet to the
ground and raised them again, burning pains quivered through him. But
not a groan escaped him--he returned Alice's looks cheerfully and
smilingly, and bore his agony without a murmur.
He had made a great impression upon the goodhearted waggoner. Old
Jamie had received a hint from his friend the bullock-driver that
Alice desired to keep her story to herself; he respected her wish, and
did not distress her with questions. But he talked a great deal with
Grif, and learned to his surprise that Grif and Alice were not in any
way related, and that they had known each other for only a few months.
He failed to detect any selfish motive for Grif's service to her, and
he was a witness to the boy's heroic suffering. Ignorant as he was of
their story, the strange companionship was a puzzle beyond his
comprehension. "You love her?" he once asked of Grif, receiving in
reply an affirmative nod. "Why?" "Because she's good," Grif replied.
"There never was nobody 'arf as good as Ally." That was the substance
of all he was able to extract from Grif, and with that he was fain to
be satisfied.
The night before they parted from Old Jamie, Alice could not sleep.
The near approach of the end of her task rendered her restless, and
she lay until past midnight on her soft bed of leaves, kept awake by
anxious thought. Unable to bear the torture any longer, she rose and
walked softly about the woods. The influence of the quiet night did
her good, and she rested against a tree, with a more composed mind.
She had not so rested for more than two or three minutes before a
voice broke upon her ear. Nervous and worn as she was, she trembled
with alarm, but only for a moment, for she recognised the voice as
Grif's, and remembered that he was sleeping near the spot. She
inclined her head, and listened. "You'll take care on him, sir," she
heard him say. "I can't go--I can't leave _her_. I shan't like to part
with Little Peter, but it'll be for his good. I ain't got any grub to
give him, sir. Don't say no, sir! Take Little Peter, and not me, and
I'll do any thin'--anythin' but go away from where _she_ is!" She
knew, as she heard these words, muttered at intervals, that he
referred to her when he said that he could not go away from where
_she_ was. "Good-bye, Little Peter; you'll never be hungry no more!"
he sighed, and then Alice heard a sudden movement, as if he were
sitting up. "I remember every word," he continued. "If ever you want
me to do anythin'--never mind what it is, so long as I know I'm a
doing of it for you--I'll do it, true and faithful, I will, so 'elp me
G--! And I _will_; I'm her friend--that's what I am--I'm her friend,
till I die!' She said so herself." Alarmed at the earnestness of his
voice, Alice stole towards Grif's sleeping-place. As her eyes rested
upon him, he sank down, and buried his face in the earth. His arms
were stretched over his head; she laid her soft fingers upon his hard
hand, and felt that it was burning. Presently he spoke again, but did
not move his face. "He swore he'd kill Rough, and he's done it. But
I'll be even with him one of these days! Little Peter! Rough's dead.
Ain't you sorry?" He waited as if for an answer. "The Tenderhearted
Oysterman's pizened him. Say, Damn him!" He waited again for an
answer, and then he said, "That's right. Now, come, and bury him." A
long pause ensued--a pause occupied, in the boy's fancy, by a
walk on a dismal, rainy night, through miserable streets, towards a
burial-ground. "Ashes to ashes!" he murmured. "Good-bye, Rough. Dear
old Rough! Poor old Rough!" And with the last remembrance of his
faithful dumb companion lingering in his mind, Grif's sleep became
more peaceful, and he did not speak again. Alice sat by his side for
an hour and more, and then retired to her bed, filled with a tender
compassion.
The next morning Old Jamie bade them goodbye, and shook Grif's hand
heartily. During the day Alice had been much occupied thinking over
Grif's feverish mutterings the previous night, and now, as they sat
together near to her father's homestead, near, perhaps, to lasting
misery or lasting happiness, she noticed Grif's burning skin and the
brilliancy of his eyes.
"I have overtaxed you, my poor Grif," she said. "How tired you must
be!"
"I'm all right, Ally," said the boy. "Never you mind me. So long as
you are in time to do what you want, and can see your father, I don't
care a bit."
"We are not far off. And now that we are so near, I am full of fears.
Yet I should not be so, for Heaven has surely watched over us. What
good friends we have met upon the way! How thankful I am! God bless
the good men who helped us on the road!"
"Yes," said Grif, reflectively; "they was very good coves, they was.
I'm thinkin', Ally, that a good deal of what the preacher chap said to
me was right. Not all of it, you know, but some. He told me, when I
was in quod, that men was charitable and good; and they must be, a
good many on 'em. Look at them two coves, the bullock-driver and the
wagginer. They'd got no call to help us. It didn't do 'em a bit of
good, as I sees, for they didn't get nothin' out of us. Then there's
this blanket the wagginer give us. I never got no one to give me a
blanket before."
And Grif rested his aching head in the palm of his hand, and mused
over this exceptional circumstance in his career. Alice noticed the
action, and noticed also that it was prompted partly by physical
suffering.
"You are in pain!" Alice cried, anxiously, as Grif, with difficulty,
repressed a groan.
"Don't you bother about me," Grif said, stoutly. "I've got a little
bit of a headache, that's all. I'll be all right in a minute."
"I am afraid you have a touch of fever," Alice said, "and I cannot
help you now. By-and-by, when my task is done, I may be able to nurse
you. If all goes well--"
"It _shall_ go well, Ally," Grif said, dreamily. "It shall go
well--you'll be all right, Ally, you will--you see if you won't!"
"If all goes well, Grif, I shall be able to nurse you; for to-morrow,
please God! we shall be at rest."
"Yes--to-morrow, please God! we shall be at rest," Grif repeated
softly.
"I knew last night that you were ill," she said.
"How?" he asked. "I didn't say anythin', did I?"
"Not when you were awake."
He looked at her, not comprehending her meaning.
"I was sitting by you when you were asleep, Grif."
A sudden moisture came into his eyes, and he repeated her words in a
broken voice. "You sat by me when I was asleep! For how long, Ally?"
"For an hour, nearly, Grif."
He touched the skirt of her dress with his hand, without her observing
him, and placed his fingers to his lips.
"And you were talking of a great many things I did not understand. I
knew you were not well by the way you were talking in your sleep. Is
Little Peter one of your friends? I heard you speak of him."
"I spoke of Little Peter, did I, Ally? Perhaps I shall see him
to-morrow. I wonder if he'll remember me, and be glad to see me!"
Alice thought he was wandering in his mind, and she took his hand in
hers.
"I ought to have told you before, Ally," Grif continued. "I know your
father; I've seed him three times. Once, that night you gave me the
letter, by the sea, you know; twice, when Mr. Blemish set me up as a
moral shoe-black" (a sharp pang darted through him as he remembered
that he had broken the pledge of honesty he had given to Alice);
"three times, when he came upon me and Little Peter when we was
sittin' under a hedge. He was very kind that time to me, Ally. He
wanted me and Little Peter to go on to his Station, but I said I
couldn't go, and asked him to take Little Peter alone. And he did--as
much to please the lady as anythin' else."
"The lady!" Alice echoed.
"There was a lady with him, a young lady. She called him uncle. And
they took Little Peter away with them, and I've never seen him since."
So, little by little, he told the whole story; how he had always felt
as if Little Peter were his brother; how he used to steal for him when
he was hungry: how, when he turned honest, Little Peter often had
nothing to eat; and how sorry he was to part with Little Peter, and
how glad to know that the lad would never be hungry any more. Grif
cried as he spoke, and the pain in his heart was greater than the pain
in his body.
"You did not speak to my father about me, Grif--you did not mention me
in any way?"
"'Tain't likely, Ally. If he'd a' known that you and a poor beggar
like me was friends, it wouldn't have done you much good. He knows
pretty well what sort of life I've led."
"There are good and bad in the world, dear Grif. It is not your fault
that your life has not been cast in pleasant places, nor amongst good
people."
"They're a bad lot I've been amongst. That's the reason I'm so bad, I
s'pose."
"Ah, dear Grif," said Alice tenderly; "if all were like you--"
"They'd be precious queer, Ally, if they was all like me. It's a good
job for them that isn't! I oughtn't to have been born, that's where it
is! I wish I never had been. I wouldn't if I could have helped it."
"Hush! you must not speak like that."
"I can't help it, Ally," said the boy fretfully. "If they'd come to me
and said, 'Now, will you be born or not?' I should have said, 'No, I
won't!'"
"It is by God's will that we are here," said Alice, with tearful eyes.
"There is a better world than this."
"Is there, Ally?" asked Grif, eagerly. "Is there? The preacher cove
said there was, but I didn't believe him, he spoke so hard-like. It
didn't sound good the way he said it. It set me agin it."
"Yes, dear Grif, another world where sin and sorrow are not known."
"I wouldn't mind goin' there," said Grif, musingly, "if it's all
right. I'd rather be out of it, though, if it's like this one--that
is, unless I was a swell. I wonder if my dawg Rough's there! I should
like to see old Rough agin. But lord! I don't expect they'd have me
among 'em. I'm a regular bad 'un, I am!"
"There is One above us, my dear," said Alice, resting her hand lightly
on the boy's shoulder, "who knows your heart, and will reward you for
your goodness. If you have erred, it is through no fault of yours."
"Not as I knows on. I never bothered about nothin' else but my grub.
I'm not so bad as Jim Pizey or the Tenderhearted Oysterman. He's a
orfle bad 'un, is the Oysterman--ten times worse nor me! He'd steal a
sixpence out of a blind man's tray!"
"I pray that our journey may end happily," said Alice, "for your sake
as well as mine. You are my brother, now and always. I am so tired,
Grif, that I must rest for a couple of hours; then we will go on to my
father's house."
"All right, Ally. I'll watch, and call you."
And spreading the blanket over Alice, Grif retired a short distance,
and lay down. He meant to keep awake, but he was overpowered by
fatigue, and presently he dozed off, and then slept soundly.
What was this creeping stealthily through the bush? The form of a man,
with haggard, almost despairing face; with beating heart, with hands
that trembled with a convulsive agony. The form of Richard Handfield!
He had escaped from his vile associates. Strict as was the watch they
had kept upon him, he had eluded them; he had made no idle efforts to
escape; he had bided his time, and he was free. But of what use was
his freedom to him? He had joined them for the settled purpose of
obtaining some information, some evidence, that would render clear his
innocence of the horrible charge which he knew men and the law were
bringing against him. If he could have done that, he would have been
contented. But he had not been able to obtain the slightest evidence
to assist him; and hope, for a time, entirely deserted him, when he
discovered that they all knew that the Oysterman himself had done the
deed, and had laid the trap to catch him. Richard, for the sake of his
own personal safety, was compelled to join in admiration of the
devilish cunning which had thrown the suspicion of guilt upon himself.
He had unconsciously strengthened the spring of the trap in which he
had been caught; for, say the entire gang were taken, would not their
vindictiveness lead them to bear false evidence against him? What else
could he expect from such as they? They all hated him, they all
suspected him; and he knew that they only admitted him as a comrade
because of his intimate knowledge of Highlay Station, and of the house
in which was concealed the purchase-money of the property which Mathew
Nuttall coveted. That obtained, they would not care what became of
him; nor did he, either, but for one consideration, care what became
of himself. But for that one consideration, he would have bidden
good-bye to life--he would have had courage for that, coward as he
was--and would have allowed the waters of pitiless circumstance to
have engulfed him for ever. That consideration was Alice. That she,
knowing his weak, vacillating nature, should be led to believe from
his silence that he was guilty, was the worst torture of all to him.
He wanted to see her, to assure her of his innocence; then, let come
what might, he would meet it with some sort of weak fortitude at all
events. And he would save Alice's father if he could; he would do that
one right deed for Alice's sake. So, matching his cunning with theirs,
he had escaped from the villains that day; and now he was making his
way to a hut, where he knew two stockmen dwelt, to give the alarm. He
had not eaten food since the morning; he had a few shillings in his
pocket, but he had not dared to diverge from his course to purchase
bread. He halted for a moment, faint and weary, his heart racked with
a terrible despair. He had brought it all on himself, he knew, by his
unmanliness. Who was he that he should pass his time in repining as he
had done? What better man was he than other men, that he should expect
life to be made especially smooth for him? But he had expected this,
and had wrecked his happiness by murmuring at the fancied hardships
by which he had been afflicted. He thought of Alice waiting in
Melbourne--waiting and hoping in vain--but still loving him, still
believing in him. "I am unworthy of her," he groaned; "and have been
from the first, utterly unworthy. No man ever had such a blessing as
she would have been to me, if I had not been mad. Oh, bright Heaven!"
he cried; "place it in my power to see her, and tell her of my
innocence before I die!" He crept on in the direction of the
stockmen's hut. At every step he took he halted, his heart in his
ears; for he knew well that if he were caught by the gang, life was
over with him. He was thoroughly acquainted with the locality. "They
may lose some time hunting for me," he thought; "and I may gain a few
minutes by that means." The moments were too precious to waste in
repining. He had a purpose to accomplish--to fail in its
accomplishment would be worse than death. And a moment might win it or
mar it. Life had never before been so bitter and so sweet to him as it
was at this time: bitter in the irrevocable past, with its load of
shame and humiliation; sweet in the possible future in the thought
that he might save the woman who had sacrificed all for him from the
agony of believing him guilty. He dashed the bitter tears from his
eyes, and crept along. But a few yards--for he saw a human form upon
the ground. Who could it be? He crept onwards, and bending over
it--Great Heavens! Was he dreaming, or was it a phantasm of Death? The
earth and sky, blended together, swam in his fading sight. Then, he
saw nothing but the white face of his wife, and he sank down beside
it. He lost consciousness for a few moments, and when he recovered, he
rose and looked about him with the air of one waking from a
bewildering dream. Hush! she was speaking in her sleep. He knelt by
her side, and listened. He heard his name and her father's mingled
strangely together. He heard her entreat him not to--Horror!--was it
Murder of which she spoke? He seized her by the arm, and cried,
"Alice! Alice! awake!" With a scream of terror she awoke, and seeing
her husband before her, she called him by the dearest of names, and
blessing God for bringing him to her, she fell upon his breast
weeping. For a brief space only did she allow herself such happiness.
The full memory of her mission rushed upon her, and she extricated
herself from his arms, and asked, "Oh, Richard, answer me quickly--am
I too late?"
Too late for what? He did not speak the words, but she saw them
expressed in his face. She saw, accompanying them, a look of such
terrible despair, that her senses would have left her if her strong
purpose had not upheld her.
"Tell me,--quickly, or I shall die," she said in a voice which,
although it was no louder than a whisper, sounded on his ears like a
knell; "am I too late?"
"Too late for what?" he was constrained to ask.
"To save my father!"
A sigh of exquisite relief escaped him. He thought it was of another
danger she was about to speak. The change of expression in his
countenance was a sufficient answer, and for a few brief moments she
was silent, almost overcome with grateful thought.
"I am bewildered," Richard said, pressing his hands across his face.
"What brought you here?"
"I came to save my father--to save you."
"Then you know--"
"All."
"All!" echoed Richard, shrinking from her. "Do not shrink from me,
dear," she said. "Yes, I know all about my father's danger and yours.
Do not look upon me so strangely, Richard. Is it not happiness that we
have met before any evil is done? Be thankful for his sake, for yours,
for mine."
He did not reply, but he came closer to her, and then she told him
rapidly what had occurred to her since he left Melbourne. In as few
words as she could relate the story, she told him of Milly's death, of
the letter the poor girl had given her, and of the horror which
possessed her when she read of the plot Jim Pizey and his comrades had
laid to trap her husband--
Richard stopped her there. "Anything about a murder?" he asked. "No,"
she answered; "only mention of the circumstance that they had set a
trap for him and had caught him."
That gleam of hope vanished as soon as it had shone upon his troubled
soul. He pressed his hand to his heart, and motioned her to proceed.
She told him how she and Grif had started to walk from Melbourne
half-an-hour after poor Milly died--every word she uttered of this
part of her story struck him as if it were a dagger's point; she told
him of Grif's goodness to her--(the lad had awoke, and was standing by
them, listening to Alice with rapt attention, and when she mentioned
his name she took his hand and kissed it); of the kind friends they
had met upon the road; of their walking a long distance that day, and
of their stopping providentially to rest for a while before proceeding
to her father's house; all this she told him almost breathlessly. But
he saw what she made no mention of; he saw in her care-worn face the
anxiety and grief she had suffered for him--he saw in her patient,
uncomplaining eyes, the perfect purity of her love--he saw in
her soiled and ragged clothes the wondrous evidence of a holy
self-sacrifice--and he fell upon his knees, and, burying his face in
her dress, he sobbed like a little child.
"Oh, my dear! my dear!" he cried. "How unworthy I am of your love!"
"Not unworthy, Richard," she said happy in the thought that his nature
was not hardened; "unfortunate, not unworthy. We have gone through
terrible storms, dear, but they will pass away presently. Surely we
have suffered enough!" But there was no sound of complaining in her
voice as she raised her streaming eyes to heaven.
He kept his face buried in her dress, and the memory of their last
parting, when he knelt before her as he was kneeling before her now,
and when she blessed him with her hands upon his head, came to his
mind. How low had he fallen since that time!
"There is a more terrible storm for you to bear than any you have yet
borne," he said. "There is a greater peril before us than any we have
yet encountered."
Her face was hidden from him, but he held her hand in his, and it
suddenly turned cold. Her fingers tightened upon his, and she asked,
"What is it? What storm? What peril?"
"I had a mate, a Welshman, a man with a soul as innocent as a
child's--with a heart as tender as a woman's. I was growing to love
him. I had another mate, a villain, who stepped between us and told to
each of us such lying stories of the other, that we quarrelled, and
almost fought. All the gold-diggers knew that we were at enmity with
each other. They all knew that if there were any true cause for our
quarrel, poor Tom would be found to be in the right, I in the wrong.
They knew him to be good and gentle-hearted. They knew me to be proud
and selfish. They loved him. They despised me. We lived in a tent
together, and slept beneath the same roof. One night I came home,
filled with bitter feelings, which I had been expressing in company. I
was stung almost to madness by what my villain-mate told me Tom had
said of me. I never stopped to think, I never stopped to ask, but I
let my passion have full sway. When I came home, determined to
quarrel, pledged to do so, proud fool as I am! because I had said as
much out-of-doors--Tom met my passion with sweetness, and forced me to
talk of the cause of our falling-out. Then we discovered that our
false mate had been lying to both of us, to make us enemies for some
purpose of his own, which I did not know then, but know now. We shook
hands, and were friends again; we laid out plans for the future--for
your happiness and mine chiefly, for Tom taught me my duty that night.
We went to bed, and in the morning Tom was found dead, murdered with
my knife! That and the other awful evidence of my own ungovernable
passion were against me, and I was obliged, or thought I was obliged,
to fly for my life; the gold-diggers swore they would lynch me if they
caught me. So I fled in the company of the villains from whom I have
but this day escaped. The false mate who set Tom and me quarrelling
was the Tenderhearted Oysterman, disguised so that I could not
recognise him--and the murder of the Welshman with my knife was the
means they took of compelling me to join them. I escaped from them
to-day--to warn your father and save him, if possible. That is why I
am here. After that I do not know what will become of me. As I hope
for mercy, I have told you the truth!"
When he had spoken the words: "Tom was found dead, murdered with my
knife," Richard, whose face was still half-hidden in his wife's dress,
felt her limbs tremble, although no sound escaped her. At that sign,
he rose abruptly, and he spoke the last words of his confession, "As I
hope for mercy, I have told you the truth!" with his back turned to
her. The moment's pause that ensued seemed to him an hour; the stars
paled out of the skies, and a thick darkness fell upon him and shut
out the sight of everything but his own deep misery; then a great
tremor of happiness came upon him, for he felt his wife's arms about
his neck and heard her voice whispering in his ear: "I know you have,
my love. Did you think I could believe you otherwise than unfortunate?
More now than ever must we be brave, must we be firm; not only life
and happiness, but honour is at stake. Courage, love! courage! Think!
Is there no way to prove your innocence of this dreadful charge? The
letter I have is something."
"It is something," he said; "but oh Alice, my dear, in the harsh
judgments of men, with all-cruel circumstance against me, it will be
but poor testimony in my favour. All the gang know he committed the
crime. If I had a witness, one who had heard the villain confess, as
he confessed to me, laughing the while, that he stole my knife, and
with it did the deed, for the purpose of trapping me--if I had such a
witness, my innocence would be established. Oh, Alice, if I had such a
witness--for your sake, my love! my darling! whom I have surrounded
with shame and misery--"
"Hush! my dear! Heaven will send such a witness! I know it! I feel
it!"
"I scarcely dare hope it," he said; "it is known to none but to the
four men in the gang. And they will not tell, for their own sakes."
"I will appeal to them--implore them. I have a message to the man
Pizey from poor Milly. I will see him, and beg of him, for her sake,
to clear you from the charge."
"You do not know them; pity never enters their hearts. There are
four of them: Jim Pizey, the Tenderhearted Oysterman, Ned Rutt, as
cold-blooded a villain as ever stepped, and Grif's father."
Richard said this last in a whisper, so that Grif should not hear. He
looked at the lad, who was still standing by them in an attentive
attitude.
"Is he with them?" asked Alice, with a pitying glance to Grif, who was
now turning slowly away.
"Yes, and as bad as the rest. But Alice, we have tarried too long
already. We must not waste another minute."
"Yes, we must go," Alice said, preparing to move. "You know the way,
Richard. Take comfort, dear! All will turn out well--I feel it will.
Where's Grif?"
Grif was gone. They called him, and searched for him in vain. They
could find no trace of him.
"He was here but a moment ago!" Alice said, in deep distress. "Perhaps
he thinks you are not pleased to find me with him. He is keenly
sensitive."
"And I have spoken unkindly to him, and he remembers it," said
Richard, to whom every memory of the past brought with it a sting of
self-reproach. "If I can make it up to him, I will. He will find us, I
have no doubt. We dare not linger now, Alice. The stockmen's hut is in
the hollow. We must go there at once, and give the alarm. Come--there
may be death to your father in every moment's delay!"
Keenly anxious as Alice was because of Grif's unaccountable
disappearance, she felt how precious was time for the safety of her
father: his life might depend upon their speed. They moved carefully
away from the track, and walked through the bush as quickly as
possible.
"There are few except myself who would be able to find their way
here," said Richard. "But you remember, Alice, I was always fond of
roaming about the Station. You would scarcely believe how near to this
spot is your father's house. It is only two miles, as the crow
flies--I could walk straight to it, in less than half-an-hour. Hark!
We are disturbing the crows! I used to call this Crow's Hollow. See,
we are in a hollow, completely hidden by the ranges and the thick
timber. It is a melancholy-looking place."
It was in truth a dismal spot, and Alice shuddered as she heard the
harsh cawing of the birds. Suddenly she stopped.
"Richard," she said, "do you hear nothing?"
He listened, and shook his head.
"Nothing but the crows," he said.
"It's not a crow, Richard. Listen again. Can I be mistaken? A child's
voice, singing!"
And hurrying swiftly in the direction of the sound, they came upon a
strange sight. Two boy-children were lying, as if dead, upon the
ground, clasped in each other's arms, and one, a little girl, was
covering them with her frock, which she had taken off for that
purpose. She was the eldest of the three, and yet could scarcely be
eight years of age. She was singing softly a child's ditty. A few
yards from her was a pale-faced boy, looking vacantly before him. It
was Little Peter, who with the other three children had been wandering
in the bush for two days. They had set out for a long walk on the
first day, taking two or three slices of bread and butter with them,
and had lost their way. When the night came, they were near a cavern,
the mouth of which was nearly choked up with stones and rotten
underwood. They peeped through the crevices, and as it looked like a
house inside, they crept in, and tried to go to sleep. But they had
not been long in the cave before they heard a great flapping, and
something rushed by, sending a cold wind to their faces. They were
nearly frightened out of their lives, but they did not dare to move;
every other minute came the flapping and cold wind. They thought the
place was haunted, and they shut their eyes tight, and pressed their
fingers in their ears, and lay trembling with their faces touching
each other; they found much comfort in that! The bravest of the party
was the little girl, sister to Johnny and Billy. These three were the
Stockman's children. The girl, although she was mortally afraid, kept
her fears to herself, and sang little songs to her companions during
the whole night. And so they lay, with their faces touching each
other, until the morning came. For a good many minutes they were
frightened to look around, but when they did muster up courage, they
found that there were a great number of bats inside the cavern, and
that it was the flapping of their wings that had frightened them so.
The floor of the cavern was strewn with the bones and dried-up skins
of bats. The children were glad to get out into the bright light, and
they washed their faces and dried them on the little girl's frock.
Then they began to feel hungry, but all their bread and butter was
eaten. They did not know where they were, and they wandered about the
whole of the day, crying, and growing more and more faint, until night
came again; they would not go into the cavern to sleep, so the girl
had made her two brothers a bed of leaves, and was trying to sing them
to sleep, when Alice and Richard discovered them. The child stopped in
the middle of her song, and running to Alice, with a cry of joy,
said,--
"If you please we have been lost in the bush, and Johnny and Billy,
and Little Peter, and me, we've had nothing to eat, and we're so
hungry! Please take us home?" The children clustered around her, and
she was stooping to kiss them, when a groan from Richard caused her to
look up.
"Alice!" he cried, seizing her arm with such force as to cause her
pain. "See! We are discovered!"
Lights were moving in the bush, and the voices of men, calling to each
other, were heard.
"It is Jim Pizey and the rest, looking for me," he whispered,
hoarsely, and trembling with fear--for her, not for himself. "If they
find us, it is all over with us. They swore to kill me, if I attempted
to escape; and you--Oh, Alice! say that you forgive me for the peril
to which I have exposed you!"
"I do forgive you, Richard!" Alice said, kissing him. "Have you any
weapon?"
He produced a revolver, loaded.
"Is it useless trying to escape?" she asked.
"Quite. See--they are spreading themselves out. We are lost. They have
no pity, those men. Oh my God!" he cried, in an anguish. "This is
worse than all!"
"If those men be the men you fear, Richard," said Alice, rapidly, her
limbs trembling, and a nameless horror resting in her eyes, "swear
that you will kill me! Swear it, as you hope for mercy--as you hope to
meet me in heaven, when all our misery is ended!"
"I swear it, Alice!"
"My poor husband!--my dear love!" and she pressed him to her breast.
"Forgive us, O Lord, for what we are about to do!"
They stood hand in hand, their faces as the faces of the dead; while
the children, clinging to Alice's dress, looked up at her in wondering
fear.
Nearer and nearer came the lights, and louder grew the voices of the
men.
"Here is a shoe!" one called out. "The children are somewhere near.
We're on their track."
"It is my father's voice!" cried Alice, as the sound reached her ears.
"Richard, we are saved! They are searching for the children we have
found! Do you hear? We are saved! Father! this way! this way!"
But the last words died in her throat, and staggering forward, she
fell into the arms of her father, who had hurried to the spot as she
cried. He recognised his daughter, and a fear smote him, as she lay
motionless in his arms, that she was dead. The remorse which fell upon
him overcame his surprise at her appearance, and even made him look
upon Richard without astonishment.
"She has fainted from fatigue, sir," said Richard; "she has been
sorely tried."
"Why is she here?" asked Matthew Nuttall.
"She came from Melbourne, sir, to warn you of danger which threatens
you, and to save me from disgrace; but for this latter, I fear she is
too late. Your house, at this moment, is surrounded by bushrangers."
"Bushrangers!" cried Matthew Nuttall; "and there are only two women in
the house!"
"We are stronger than the bushrangers," said Richard. "There are but
four in their party. We have no time to lose. We must make for the
place without delay. See, sir! Your daughter is recovering."
She opened her eyes, and looked wildly round. Seeing her father, her
memory returned; and she slid from his arms, and falling upon her
knees at his feet, she said, imploringly,--
"Forgive me, father!"
The sound of the soft lapping of the sea upon the sands fell upon his
ears, but now there was a sweet music in the sound; and in the vision
of white crested waves which came upon him again, the stars were
shining in the blue depths with a glad light. Chastened and subdued,
he raised his daughter to his breast and kissed her. The tears that
welled into his eyes were tears of purification. His hard nature was
softened by the perfect goodness of the pure and faithful woman! He
held out his hand to Richard, who took it, and said--
"We dare not linger, sir. The bushrangers may be there before us."
"True!" replied Matthew Nuttall. "Keep a good look-out, men, and
follow me. We'll take these villains, dead or alive! See to your
pistols. Alice, keep behind with the children. Now then, On!"