CROSBY ACCOUNTS FOR HIMSELF.
It was broad daylight when Alec awoke; the sun was pouring a brilliant
flood of light into the room through the broken, unscreened window, and
he could hear the loud "chirring" of the locusts outside in the morning
heat. The room he was in looked even dirtier and more miserable than it
had appeared the night before. The floor could not have been cleaned
for years, and dust lay thick upon everything that was not in constant
use. The white wood table was unscoured, and was littered with bones
and crumbs and fragments of stale food. Foster sometimes swept all
these remains with his dirty hand on to the floor, but as yet, this
morning, he had neglected to do so. A greasy old newspaper that was
crumpled and torn with use was lying on the floor, where one of the men
had let it fall the night before; and a rusty candlestick, that was
clogged with tallow, was standing at the edge of the table where the
reader had left it when he rolled to bed. The frowsy hammock in which
Starlight had slept was empty, the draggled blue blanket he had used
was hanging over the side. Besides Alec there was no one in the room.
For half a moment, when he first awoke, he did not recognise the place
he was in, but sitting up and looking round the uncleanly, slovenly
room, with a shudder of disgust at his surroundings, he remembered only
too vividly where he was. He got up and found a battered galvanised
iron bucket full of water at the other side of the hearth, and at this,
taking off his tattered shirt, he proceeded, without soap or towels, to
wash himself. He had moved into the stream of hot sunshine that poured
into the room to dry himself, and with bended head was shaking the
water out of his hair in a little dazzling shower of spots, when the
creaking door was opened and Martin Crosby stepped into the room.
"Oh, you are awake at last?" said the great genial red-faced fellow,
walking across the room and slapping Alec on his naked back. "I've been
in to look at you once or twice, and each time found you sleeping like
a top."
"Yes, awake and hungry."
"All right, put your jumper on, and I'll get you something. We can have
a talk while you are eating."
"Where are Starlight and the other fellows?" said Alec, struggling into
his shirt, which clung to his damp skin.
"They are down at Lingan's, and won't be back just yet. They left
Foster and me to keep our eyes on you, so that you could not give us
the slip."
"That's just what I want to do. You will help me, won't you?" said poor
Alec, almost trembling with eagerness. "Remember your promise of last
night."
"Yes, I'll help you to clear out of this vile den if I possibly can do
it. Heaven knows how willingly I would get out of it myself," said
Crosby, earnestly.
"Leave with me, then," whispered Alec, grasping his arm.
"I can't. It's no use. I'm in with them too deep. If I did leave
there's nothing I could turn my hand to, and nowhere that I could go.
I'm done for. You don't know me I can see. I'm the man that did for
Squiros down in Brisbane. But I'd do it again, without a moment's
hesitation, if I saw that villain serving that poor woman as he did
before."
"No, I don't know anything about it. Who was Squiros?"
"He was a low, South American sort of Spanish cove, who was mate to a
ship from Rio. I met him at Ridley's. What! don't you know Ridley's?
Then it is evident you don't know Brisbane--and none the worse for
that," he added _sotto voce_. "Well, we had one or two bits of rows; he
was always bumming round there and bossing everybody; and then one
night I saw him striking a pretty, decent girl, from Troman's store in
Wood Street, that I knew, so I ran up and caught him one with the stick
I carried. I didn't mean to hit the little beast so hard, but I was
angry, and had a drop on board, and the chap fell down without a word
at my feet.
"I tried to bring him round, but he never stirred a muscle. I should
have faced it out if I'd been by myself, but Annie was in an awful
fright, and lugged me away when the folks began to come up. I got out
of Brisbane that night, and had the bad luck to drop in with Kearney--I
used to know him years ago--and I told him all about it, and he brought
me up here to be out of the way. It served that little brute right, but
I can't forget his ghastly face as he fell under the street lamp.
"If it weren't for that I'd have cut this concern as soon as I found
out who and what Starlight was. But I'm tied here; wherever I went
every one would know that I was Squiros' murderer."
During the last few words, unseen by either of the two men, Foster had
been standing by the door that Crosby had left partly open when he came
into the room. He had heard all the last words of Crosby's self
accusation, and, perhaps feeling sorry for the evident distress of the
young fellow, or perhaps moved by that desire to be the first to tell a
startling piece of news, which we all feel, he said with a loud laugh--
"Well, you must be a fool to believe that any longer. Why, that Squiros
chap is as well as you are, and is 'alf-way back to Rio by this time.
We knew it three days a'ter you came 'ere, but Starlight told us not to
let on about it as he wanted to keep you in our lot."
With clenched great fists and indrawn breath Crosby listened to
Foster's story. His ruddy face flushed redder, but the hardened,
reckless look upon it passed away.
"Thank Heaven!" he uttered brokenly and fervently, and his eyes for a
moment grew dim. As Foster, still laughing at the credulity and
simplicity of the fellow, left the room with the saddle and bridle he
had come for, Crosby turned to Alec with a great sigh of relief, and
said--
"Then I'm not a murderer;" he laughed an excited sort of laugh as he
spoke, and his face brightened. "What a weight that man has taken from
my heart. All these two last weeks I have felt utterly hard and
reckless, and I didn't care a jot what I did or what became of me.
Confound you, Starlight," said he, bitterly, and bringing his fist down
on the table with a sounding crash, "I'll not forget this."
"Hush!" said Alec, moving round to where Crosby sat. "Don't speak so
loudly; there's no knowing, in this den of thieves, who may be
listening. I am glad of this for your sake," said he, laying his hand
warmly on the other fellow's shoulder, and giving him a little
congratulatory shake by it. "For my sake, too, for you will try to get
away with me, now. Won't you?"
Crosby nodded and looked up. His face was wonderfully changed in
expression in the last few minutes. The strained, uneasy expression
that was visible behind the dare-devil recklessness of it was gone, and
even the anxiety that was still apparent in it looked less hard and
corrosive.
"I don't know how it is to be done," he said, "but we will try.
Starlight, confound him, is so sharp. Whatever you do, be careful
before him."
"If I could only let them know at Wandaroo where I was they might send
help."
"That would be no good, I fear. Starlight is not one to be taken
unawares, he'd get to know of it. Besides, in the first place, it is
impossible to send any message."
"If I could only let them know that I was alive I shouldn't care. I
have a mother and sister, and they will be breaking their hearts at
their double loss. I know Margaret----"
"_Margaret!_ Is Margaret Law your sister--a beautiful, tall, dark girl?
What an idiot I've been; why of course she is, you are very like her."
"Have you ever seen my sister?" asked Alec, with the utmost
astonishment.
"Yes," said the great fellow, blushing a rosy red, like any girl; "many
times last year at my uncle's house."
"Good gracious!" exclaimed Alec, a sudden light bursting upon him.
"Then you are old Peter Crosby's nephew!"
"Yes. I used to live with him. He adopted me when I was a lad, but he
has turned me out since then; he said he couldn't afford to keep me any
longer; I ate too much."
"Miserly old brute! Why he is as rich as Croesus."
"He was quite right, poor old chap," said Crosby, with that tenderness
which the very strong and healthy often have for the old and weak. "I
have been an awful fool, and haven't lived as decently as I might. He
is old now, and couldn't bear to see me squandering my money, although
it was my own; he thought I should be asking him for more when mine was
all gone. So he turned me out before that time came. He was very good
to me when I was a little un."
Whilst Alec was talking with Crosby, Como, having made a little tour of
inspection round the house on his own account, came into the room, and
seeing food on the table and no one very near it he thought he could
not do better than help himself. This he could easily do, as he stood
so high that his head was above the level of the table. Having
demolished the food, that in his excitement Alec had hardly touched,
the dog approached his master, looking, but for a crumb on the side of
his mouth, the picture of canine innocence. With a sideway wriggle of
his hind quarters, and with a preliminary wave--it was too stately a
movement to be called a wag--of his tail, he laid his head on Alec's
knee.
Alec always respected dogs' feelings--which are much more acute than
most people think--so he noticed the dog, and, without interrupting his
talk with Crosby, he caressed Como's tawny head and ears. He was
listening to his companion, yet all the time there was a mental picture
before him of Como's master lying unburied by that charred black stump,
and exposed to the garish sunlight. He could not forget his loss, it
was too recent, and the pain of it too keen; the events of the last
night seemed burned into his mind in a series of indelible pictures.
Suddenly an idea flashed into his mind, and leaping up from his seat,
he exclaimed--
"Can you get me a bit of paper and ink or pencil?"
"Whatever for?" asked Crosby, surprised by Alec's abrupt movement, and
by the earnestness of his face and voice.
"Como will take a message."
"And who in the name of fate is Como?"
"This dog here. Hundreds of times has Geordie--my brother," Alec
explained in a voice that shook though he tried to keep it steady,
"sent him home to the head station with messages from all parts of the
run. He might find his way from here. Anyway it is a chance. Eh, Como,
will you?" said Alec.
The dog knew that they were speaking of him, and with ears pricked up
and inquiring eyes, he looked at Alec as though waiting for an
explanation.
It was with difficulty that Crosby could find what they wanted, but at
last he discovered, on the decrepit side table, which was littered with
bridles, foul empty bottles, odd bits of iron and straps and rubbish of
all sorts, a stockman's dusty pocket-book, in which there were a few
unused pages, and with a stump of pencil still fastened in it by the
sticky and worn elastic band.
"Here we are!" said he, bringing these trophies in triumph to Alec.
"You must look sharp, for I expect they will be coming back directly."
For a moment Alec sat quite still without putting pencil to paper; he
had so much to say that he didn't know where to begin. At last he began
to write swiftly. He looked up, after a minute or two, at Crosby, who
was leaning out of the window, whistling softly to himself, and said--
"How am I to tell them where I am? I can't describe this place."
"Oh, say Norton's Gap, south of the Dixieville road, just after you
have passed by Badger's Creek. Tell them to ask for Lingan's. Most
people know where that is, though it is out of the way and few come to
it."
For a moment or two the stump of pencil rapidly travelled over the
paper, and then again Alec paused.
"I don't know what is best to be done. They can't send enough men after
me to capture Starlight and all the rest, for, not counting you, of
course, there are seven of them including Foster."
"Yes, and probably Lingan and his son would help them, and Lingan's
son's wife, too, Big Eliza, who rather likes Starlight, and who is a
regular Tartar, and nearly six feet high into the bargain. I can't
think why a man, when he does want to marry, chooses a woman like a
grenadier with a head of hair like a bearskin."
Alec could not help smiling at this pleasant portrait of Mrs. Lingan,
junior, for Martin had a very dry and humorous way of saying things.
"I don't like the idea of sneaking off without a bit of a row with
them," said Alec, who was still longing for vengeance; "but I suppose
that we must as they are so strong. If I could only have it out with
Starlight I shouldn't so much mind."
"You must look on that as a pleasure deferred. Now, then, have you got
that letter ready?"
"Yes. I have told them to try to communicate with me through you. I've
said that to-morrow night at eleven o'clock you will be on the track
that leads from the Dixieville road to Lingan's. I have said what you
are like. I expect old Macleod, our manager, will come, and you and he
may be able to concoct a plan. I don't think I can say any more."
"Come on, then."
"Will you do it?"
"Do it! of course."
Alec called Como, who was sitting on his haunches in the sun idly
snapping at the flies which buzzed about him, and with a bit of frayed
string that Crosby produced from his pocket, he tied the all-important
letter round the neck of the dog. He folded the paper as small as
possible, and placed it underneath the dog's neck, and hid the string
in the hair of his neck, where it was longer and thicker than
elsewhere.
"I don't think Starlight will see that."
"Not unless he stops him."
"Oh, he won't do that if Como once gets a start."
They took the dog to the front of the house, and Alec, pointing towards
Wandaroo, tried to start him off. But the dog did not seem to
understand; in vain Alec said, "Home, Como," "Home, then," "Good dog,"
"Go home," any one of which would have been enough from Geordie. He was
in despair about it, for the dog would not leave him, and he could
conceive no other plan of communicating with the station. At last
Crosby came to his rescue with a suggestion.
"Try to make him go back to your brother. He may know what you mean
when he hears his name."
It was hard for poor Alec to say it, believing, as he did, that his
brother was lying dead in the trampled grass where he had fallen the
night before, but he remembered how much was at stake, and manfully
controlling his voice, he spoke again to the dog, who was looking up at
him wistfully.
"Hi, then, Como. Home. Take that to Geordie."
It almost seemed that he did recognise the name, for with a quick,
short bark, and an intelligent flourish of the tail, he started off to
Wandaroo.
Very anxiously they watched the dog, as with his long stride he quickly
covered the ground, though he appeared to be trotting so easily. He
travelled at the same easy pace, and without looking back, till he came
to the corner which hid Lingan's house and buildings from the place
where they stood. Here the dog suddenly made a bolt of it, and rushing
madly along was out of their sight in a moment. They could hear the
noise of several men shouting, and then the sharp crack of a pistol
shot. Alec turned pale and bit his lip, and looked to Crosby for
confirmation of his fears.
"They've seen him, the brutes, and tried to stop him by force, as they
failed to do it by persuasion. He may have got off. We must go in.
Don't let Starlight see us here. And try not to look so anxious."
They returned to the house, and a moment or two later Starlight and two
of the other men came into the room. In a perfectly natural manner, and
with rather a complaining tone in his voice, Crosby said--
"What a time you have been. I thought you were never coming back again.
I don't want to be boxed up here all day."
"We wanted to see what Lingan had got for those bullocks for us, and it
took some time to settle up."
"What bullocks?"
"Some that strayed up here, and whose marks we couldn't make out," said
one of the men.
"Don't be a fool, Evans. Why, some bullocks that we drove off from
Sheridan's station, all the marks on which we got rid of. But it was
before you joined us, Crosby, so you don't get any of the plunder,"
said Starlight.
"What was that shot I heard just now?" asked Crosby, in an incidental
manner.
With what sickening anxiety Alec awaited Starlight's answer! He almost
feared to listen, yet he could hardly breathe till he heard what was
Como's fate.
"Oh, just as we were coming out of Lingan's yard we saw that dog, that
great beast of yours, Law, trotting calmly off. We called to it, but
that made it start off at full rush, so I lugged out my snapper and let
fly at it."
"Well?" said Martin.
"Why, the brute got away. He was going too quick, I think. But it
doesn't matter. We don't want a great hulking brute of that sort about
the place. He would eat as much as any two men."
When Starlight so lightly dismissed the matter, he little knew what
momentous results to him and his gang depended upon that "hulking
brute" getting safely away. Alec breathed freely again when he heard
that Como had managed to give them the slip, and Martin could not
prevent a faint smile flickering in his sunny face. Starlight noticed
it, and said--
"What are you grinning at, Crosby?"
"At my own thoughts, which are distinctly comic."
"Well, don't keep the joke to yourself."
"Ah, that's the funny part of it. _You_ wouldn't think it at all
amusing."