"Nonsense!" he said scornfully. "I have shown you that you can gain
nothing by that."
Miles muttered a curse, and scowled at the ground, without, however,
withdrawing his hand.
"The case stands thus," said Dick: "you have imposed on friends of mine,
and I have found you--not a common humbug, as I thought all along--but
quite a famous villain. Plainly speaking, a price is on your head."
Miles did not speak.
"And your life is in my hands."
Miles made no reply.
"The natural thing," Dick continued, "would have been to crawl away,
when I heard who you were, and call the police. You see I have not done
that."
Still not a word.
"Another, and perhaps fairer, way would be to give you a fair start from
this spot and this minute, and not say a word for an hour or two, until
people are about; the hare-and-hounds principle, in fact. But I don't
mean to do that either."
Miles raised his eyes, and at last broke his silence.
"You are arbitrary," he sneered. "May I ask what is the special quality
of torture you have reserved for me? I am interested to know."
"I shall name a condition," replied Dick firmly--"a single
condition--on which, so far as I am concerned, you may impose on the
public until some one else unmasks you."
"I don't believe you!"
"You have not heard my condition. I am in earnest."
"I wouldn't believe you on oath!"
"And why?"
"Because you owe me a grudge," said Miles, speaking rapidly--"because it
is in your interest to see me go under."
"My condition provides for all that."
"Let me hear it, then."
"First tell me how you came to know the Bristos."
Miles gave Dick substantially the same story that he had already learned
from Alice.
"Now listen to me," said Dick. "Instead of squatter you were bushranger.
You had been in England a day or two instead of a month or two, and you
had set foot in Sussex only; instead of masquerading as a fisherman you
wore your own sailor's clothes, in which you swam ashore from your
ship."
"Well guessed!" said Miles ironically.
"A cleverer thing was never done," Dick went on, his tone, for the
moment, not wholly free from a trace of admiration. "Well, apart from
that first set of lies, your first action in England was a good one.
That is one claim on leniency. The account you have given me of it is
quite true, for I heard the same thing from one whose lips, at least,
are true!"
These last words forced their way out without his knowledge until he
heard them.
"Ah!" said Miles.
An involuntary subdual of both voices might have been noticed here; it
was but momentary, and it did not recur.
Dick Edmonstone took his hands from his pockets, drew nearer to Miles,
slowly beat his left palm with his right fist, and said:
"My condition is simply this: you are to go near the Bristos no more."
If this touched any delicate springs in the heart of Miles, their
workings did not appear in his face. He made no immediate reply; when it
came, there was a half-amused ring in his speech:
"You mean to drive a hard bargain."
"I don't call it hard."
"All I possess is in that house. I cannot go far, as I stand; you might
as well give me up at once."
"I see," said Dick musingly. "No; you are to have an excellent chance. I
have no watch on me: have you? No? Well, it can't be more than one now,
or two at the latest, and they keep up these dances till dawn--or they
used to. Then perhaps you had better go back to the house now.
Button-hole the Colonel; tell him you have had a messenger down from
town--from your agent. You can surely add a London agent to your
Queensland station and your house in Sydney! Well, affairs have gone
wrong on this station of yours--drought, floods--anything you like; you
have received an important wire; you are advised, in fact, to start back
to Queensland at once. At any rate, you must pack up your traps and
leave Graysbrooke first thing in the morning. You are very sorry to be
called back so suddenly--they are sorrier still to lose you; but
Australia and England are so close now, you are sure to be over again
some day--and all the rest of it; but you are never to go near them
again. Do you agree?"
"What is the alternative?"
"Escape from here dressed like that if you can! You will breakfast in
gaol. At best you will be hunted for a week or two, and then taken
miserably--there is no bush in England; whereas I offer you freedom with
one restriction."
"I agree," said Miles, hoarsely.
"Very good. If you keep your word, Sundown the bushranger is at the
bottom of the sea, for all I know; if you break it, Sundown the
bushranger is a lost man. Now let us leave this place."
Dick led the way from the plantation, with his hands again deep in his
pockets.
Miles followed, marvelling. Marvelling that he, who had terrorised half
Australia, should be dictated to by this English whelp, and bear it
meekly; wondering what it all meant. What, to begin with, was the
meaning of this masterly plan for an honourable exit? which was, in
fact, a continuation of his own falsehood. Why had not this young
fellow--who had every reason to hate him, independently of to-night's
discovery--quietly brought the police and watched him taken in cold
blood? There would have been nothing underhand in that; it was, in fact,
the only treatment that any criminal at large would expect at the hands
of the average member of society--if he fell into those hands. Then why
had not this been done? What tie or obligation could possibly exist
between this young Edmonstone and Sundown the Australian bushranger?
The night was at its darkest when they reached the avenue; so dark that
they crossed into the middle of the broad straight road, where the way
was clearest. Straight in front of them burned the lamps of the gateway,
like two yellow eyes staring through a monstrous crape mask. They seemed
to be walking in a valley between two long, regular ranges of black
mountains with curved and undulating tops--only that the mountains
wavered in outline, and murmured from their midst under the light touch
of the sweet mild breeze.
They walked on in silence, and watched the deep purple fading slowly but
surely before their eyes, and the lights ahead growing pale and sickly.
Miles gave expression to the thought that puzzled him most:
"For the life of me, I can't make out why you are doing this" (he
resented the bare notion of mercy, and showed it in his tone). "With you
in my place and I in yours----"
Dick stopped in his walk, and stopped Miles also.
"Is it possible you do not know me?"
"I have known you nearly a month," Miles answered.
"Do you mean to say you don't remember seeing me before--before this
last month?"
"Certainly, when first I met you, I seemed to remember your voice; but
from what I was told about you I made sure I was mistaken."
"Didn't they tell you that at one time, out there I was hawking?"
"No. Why, now--"
"Stop a bit," said Dick, raising his hand. "Forget that you are here;
forget you are in England. Instead of these chestnuts, you're in the
mallee scrub. The night is far darker than this night has ever been: the
place is a wilderness. You are lying in wait for a hawker's wagon. The
hawkers drive up; you take them by surprise, and you're three to two.
They are at your mercy. The younger one is a new chum from England--a
mere boy. He has all the money of the concern in his pocket, and nothing
to defend it with. He flings himself unarmed upon one of your gang, and,
but for you, would be knifed for his pains. You save him by an inch; but
you see what maddens him--you see he has the money. You take it from
him. The money is all the world to him: he is mad: he wants to be killed
outright. You only bind him to the wheel, taking from him all he has. So
he thinks, and death is at his heart. But he finds that, instead of
taking it all, you have left it all; you have been moved by compassion
for the poor devil of a new chum! Well, first he cannot believe his
eyes; then he is grateful; then senseless."
Miles scanned the young man's face in the breaking light. Yes, he
remembered it now; it had worn this same passionate expression then. His
own face reflected the aspect of the eastern sky; a ray was breaking in
upon him, and shedding a new light on an old action, hidden away in a
dark corner of his mind. A thing that had been a little thing until now
seemed to expand in the sudden warmth of this new light. Miles felt an
odd, unaccountable sensation, which, however, was not altogether
outside his experience: he had felt it when he pulled Colonel Bristo
from the sea, and in the moment of parting with his coat to a
half-perishing tramp.
Dick continued:
"Stop a minute--hear the end. This new chum, fresh from 'home,' was
successful. He made a fortune--of a sort. It might have been double what
it is had he been in less of a hurry to get back to England." Dick
sighed. "Whatever it is, it was built on that hundred which you took and
restored: that was its nucleus. And therefore--as well as because you
saved his life--this new chum, when no longer one, never forgot Sundown
the bushranger; he nursed a feeling of gratitude towards him which was
profound if, as he had been assured, illogical. Only a few hours ago he
said, 'If he came within my power I should be inclined to give him a
chance,' or something like that." Dick paused; then he added: "Now you
know why you go free this morning."
Miles made no immediate remark. Bitter disappointment and hungry
yearning were for the moment written clearly on his handsome, reckless
face. At last he said:
"You may not believe me, but when you came to me--down there on the
lawn--that's what I was swearing to myself; to begin afresh. And see
what has come to me since then!" he added, with a harsh laugh.
"Just then," returned Dick, frankly, "I should have liked nothing better
than to have seen you run in. I followed you out with as good a hate as
one man can feel towards another. You never thought of my following you
out here? Nor did I think of coming so far; by the bye, the--your wife
made it difficult for me; she was following too. Yes, I hated you
sufficiently; and I had suspected you from the first--but not for what
you are; when I heard Jem Pound say your name I was staggered, my brain
went reeling, I could scarcely keep from crying out."
"Did you recognise him?"
"Pound? No: I thought him a detective. He is a clever fellow."
"He is the devil incarnate!"
They had passed through the gates into the road.
"Here we separate," said Dick. "Go back to Graysbrooke the way you came,
and pack your things. Is there any need to repeat--"
"None."
"You understand that if you break it, all's up with you?"
"I have accepted that."
"Then we are quits!"
"I like your pluck--I liked it long ago," said Miles, speaking suddenly,
after staring at Dick for more than a minute in silence. "I was thinking
of that new chum hawker awhile ago, before I knew you were he. You
reminded me of him. And I ought to have known then; for I was never
spoken to the same, before or since, except then and now. No one else
ever bargained with Sundown! Well, a bargain it is. Here's my hand on
it."
As he spoke, he shook Edmonstone by the hand with an air of good faith.
Next moment, the two men were walking in opposite directions.
XV
THE MORNING AFTER
Dick reached Iris Lodge before the other two whom he had left at the
ball. This was fortunate, not only because he had the latchkey in his
pocket, but since it obviated crooked answers to awkward questions: they
would, of course, suppose that he had gone straight home from the
Bristos'.
He went quietly up to his room, changed his coat, and filled his pipe.
In searching for matches on the dressing-table, however, he came across
something which caused him to forget his pipe for the moment; a packet
of letters in an elastic band, displaying immediately below the band a
thin, folded collection of newspaper cuttings. They were the extracts
Flint had given him, referring to the capture and subsequent escape of
Sundown the bushranger. He had found no time to read them before going
out, and now--well, now he would read them with added interest, that was
all.
Yet he stood still with the papers in his hand, trying to realise all
that he had seen, and heard, and said since midnight; trying not to
separate in his mind the vaguely suspected rogue of yesterday and the
notorious villain unmasked this morning; trying, on the other hand, to
reconcile the Sundown of his remembrance--still more of his
imagination--with the Miles of his acquaintance, to fuse two
inconsistent ideas, to weld unsympathetic metals.
Standing thus, with all other sensations yielding to bewilderment, Dick
was recalled to himself by hearing voices and footsteps below his
window. Fanny and Maurice had returned; he must go down and let them in,
and then--the cuttings!
"Why, how long have you been in?" was Fanny's first question; she had
too much tact to ask him why he had left.
"Oh, a long time," Dick replied. "I didn't feel quite all right," he
added, a shade nearer the truth; "but--but I thought it would only
bother you."
"How could you think that? If you had only told me," said Fanny, with
honest trouble in her voice, "you shouldn't have come alone."
"Then I'm glad I gave you the slip." Dick manufactured a laugh. "But,
indeed, I'm all right now--right as the mail, honour bright!"
"But why didn't you go to bed when you got home?" his sister pursued.
"The key!" explained Maurice laconically, turning out the hall gas as he
spoke.
They stole up-stairs in the pale chill light that fell in bars through
the blind of the landing window.
Fanny laid her hand softly on Dick's shoulder.
"It was wretched after you went," she whispered sympathetically. "Do you
know that--that--" timorously--"Alice went up-stairs and never came down
again?"
"Did no one else disappear?" asked Dick, bending his head to read his
sister's eyes.
Fanny hung her head. Mr. Miles had been missed by all; but no
one--except the Colonel--had remarked Dick's absence in her hearing.
When she had found Alice nearly fainting, and taken her to her maid, she
had seen, indeed, that her friend was sorely distressed about something;
but the friendship between them was not close enough for the seeking of
confidences on either side; and, as the cause of so many sighs and
tears, she had thought naturally, because she wished so to think, of her
own brother. Now it seemed that perhaps, after all, Mr. Miles--whom she
detested--had been the object of compassion. And Fanny had nothing to
say.
"Good night," said Dick, quietly kissing her.
The next moment she heard the key turn in his door.
He sat down on the edge of the bed, lit his pipe, and withdrew the
cuttings from the indiarubber band. There was not much to read, after
all; only three paragraphs, of which two were telegraphic, and
consequently brief. In no case was either name or date of the newspaper
attached; but in the short paragraphs Dick seemed to recognise the type
of the "Australasian," while there was internal evidence that the longer
one emanated from a Queensland organ. After glancing rapidly at all
three, he arranged them in an order that proved to be chronologically
correct.
The first paragraph (telegraphic: headed "Brisbane, Friday,") stated
that, on the afternoon of the day before, the branch of the Australian
Joint-Stock Bank at Mount Clarence had been entered by two bushrangers,
one of whom declared that he was Sundown, the New South Wales outlaw.
That after "bailing up" everybody in the establishment, and shutting up
the bank--which, as it was then closing-time, was effected without
raising the suspicions of the township--the bushrangers had ridden away,
taking with them about five hundred ounces of gold and a considerable
sum in cheques and notes. That, at two o'clock the following morning,
the bushrangers had been captured asleep under a gunyah, twelve miles
from Mount Clarence, "through the rare sagacity of Sergeant Dogherty,"
and that Sundown's mate, a man named Benjamin Hickey, had been
subsequently shot dead by the police on attempting to escape. "The
redoubtable Ned Ryan, alias Sundown," the paragraph concluded, "gave no
trouble on the way to Mount Clarence, whence he will be forwarded to
Rockhampton without delay; but the gold has not yet been recovered,
having evidently been 'planted' by the outlaws before camping for the
night."
Dick believed that he had seen this identical paragraph in the "Argus"
of February 13th, the day on which the Hesper sailed from Hobson's Bay.
The second cutting seemed to be part--perhaps the greater part--of an
article from a Queensland pen, written in the first blush of triumph
following the announcement of Sundown's capture. From it Dick learned so
much concerning Ned Ryan that had never before come to his knowledge,
that it is here reproduced word for word:
"Edward Ryan, or 'Sundown,' is declared by our informant to be a man of
pleasing countenance, about six feet three inches high and thirty-seven
years of age. He is a native of Victoria, where his parents resided for
many years. Some six years ago--being then a horse-dealer of
questionable repute--he married the daughter of a well-to-do farmer in
the Ovens district (Vic.). But for some time past--since, indeed, a
short time after his outlawry--he is said to have ceased all
communication with his wife. About four years and a half ago, a warrant
was taken out against Edward Ryan for some roguery connected with a
horse. He, however, managed to escape across the Murray into New South
Wales. A few weeks later his career of desperate crime--which has now
happily ended as above detailed--was commenced in the partnership of two
kindred spirits. One of these, Benjamin Hickey, has met with a summary
fate, but one strictly in accordance with his deserts, as already
described. The third of the band, however, who is believed by the police
to be a Tasmanian 'old hand,' lost sight of for many years, was turned
adrift some time ago by Sundown, on account, it is said, of his extreme
bloodthirstiness. This statement receives colour from the fact that
Sundown, since his capture, has declared that neither he nor Hickey ever
spilt blood with their own hands; so that if this is true, not only the
murder of Youl, the storekeeper near Menindie, on the Darling--which
crime rendered the name of Sundown infamous at the commencement--but the
grievous wounding of Constable O'Flynn, two years later, may be freely
ascribed to the murderous hand of the miscreant that is still at large.
However this may be, we have, in Sundown, succeeded in running to earth
a freebooter equal in daring, impudence, and cunning generalship to the
most formidable of the highwaymen who were the terror of the sister
colonies in the early days. The credit of this brilliant capture,
however, rests entirely with this colony. Indeed, it is to be hoped that
we shall hereafter be able to boast that it was reserved to the youngest
colony to add the finishing touch to the extermination of the Australian
bandit. And as the bushrangers had been but a few months in Queensland,
whereas their depredations in the neighbouring colony extended over as
many years, it will be seen that on the whole the exploit of our police
compares not unfavourably with the New South Wales method of doing
business."
After this, the effect of the last extract was at least startling. The
words in this case were few, and cruelly to the point. They simply told
of the escape of the prisoner Ryan during a violent dust-storm that
enveloped the township of Mount Clarence, and afterwards rendered
tracking (when the bird was discovered to have flown) most difficult. No
details of the escape were given, but the message ended with the
confident assurance (which read humourously now) that the re-capture of
Sundown, alive or dead, could be but a matter of hours.
There was a curious smile upon Dick's face as he folded up the cuttings.
"I wonder how on earth he did it?" he asked himself as he slowly knocked
the ashes from his pipe.
The sunlight was peeping in where it could through blind and curtains.
Dick raised the first, drew back the second, and stood in the broad
light of day. Then, throwing up the sash, he plunged head and shoulders
into the fresh, fragrant morning air. The effect upon him was magical.
His forehead seemed pressed by a cool, soothing hand; his throat drank
down a deep draught of wizard's wine; he caught at his breath, as though
actually splashing in the dewy air, and yet in a very little while the
man's baser nature asserted itself. Dick yawned, not once or twice, but
repeatedly; then he shivered and shut the window. Five minutes later the
lively sparrows--if they took more than a passing interest in their
early guest, as they should, since such very early guests were rare
among them--the sprightly sparrows that visited the window-ledge might
have seen for themselves that he was sound, sound asleep.
For some hours this sleep was profound, until, in fact, Dick began to
dream. Then, indeed, he was soon awake, but not before his soul had been
poisoned by a very vivid and full vision. This dream was not strange
under the circumstances, but it was plausible, disturbing, and less
bizarre than most--in fact, terribly realistic. He had gone to
Graysbrooke and found Miles--Sundown the bushranger--still there. At
once and openly he had denounced the villain, shown him in his true
colours, and at once he had been disbelieved--laughed at by the enemy,
pitied by his friends, treated as the victim of a delusion. With Miles's
mocking defiant laugh in his ears, Dick awoke.
It was the dread, the chance of something like this actually happening,
that hurried him to Graysbrooke with unbroken fast. He found Colonel
Bristo plainly worried, yet glad to see him, eager to tell him what was
the matter.
"We have lost our guest."
Dick felt the blood rushing back to his face at the words.
"Miles has gone," the Colonel pursued in a tone of annoyance; "gone this
morning--a summons to Australia, he fears--a thing he had never dreamt
of until last night."
"Dear me!" said Dick, with surprise that was partly genuine. For his
plan had worked out better--he had been followed more strictly to the
letter than he could have dared to hope; the misgivings of the last hour
were turned to supreme satisfaction.
"Yes," sighed the soldier, "it was most unexpected. And I need not tell
you how disappointed we all are."
Dick murmured that he was sure of it, with all the awkwardness of an
honest tongue driven into hypocrisy.
"For my own part, I feel confoundedly put out about it. I shall be as
dull as ditch-water for days. As for the ladies, they'll miss him
horribly."
Dick's reply was monosyllabic, and its tone fell distinctly short of
sympathy.
"He was such a good fellow!"
The Colonel said this regretfully, and waited for some echo. But Dick
could have said nothing without the whole truth bursting out, so he
merely asked:
"When did he go?"
"About nine--as soon as he could pack up his things, in fact. Alice was
not down to say good-bye to him."
Dick's eyes glittered.
"He will be back to say it, though?" he asked suspiciously.
"No, I fear not; he will probably have to start at once; at least, so
his agent told him--the fellow who came down last night, and robbed us
of him for half the evening. By-the-bye, we missed you too; did you go
home?"
"Yes." Dick faltered a little.
"Have you and Alice been quarrelling?" asked Alice's father abruptly.
Dick answered simply that they had. Colonel Bristo silently paced the
carpet. When he spoke again it was to revert to the subject of Miles.
"Yes, I am sorry enough to lose him; for we had become great friends,
intimate friends, and we understood one another thoroughly, he and I.
But the worst of it is, we shan't have him with us in Yorkshire. What a
man for the moors! And how he would have enjoyed it! But there; it's no
use talking; we're all disappointed, and there's an end of it."
The Colonel laid his hand on Dick's shoulder, and added:
"You won't disappoint us, my boy?"
"For the moors, sir?"
"Why, of course."
"I cannot go--I am very sorry"--hastily--"but----"
"Nonsense, Dick!"
"I really cannot--I cannot, indeed," with lame repetition.
"And why?" asked Colonel Bristo, mildly. "Why--when you promised us
weeks ago?"