CHAPTER XI
THE REAL THING
Irralie saw the whole truth in one blinding flash. And through all her terror there came an instant thrill of unutterable happiness. She loved and had delivered an innocent man; pure thankfulness for his innocence was her first overwhelming emotion; her next—was different. But it was characteristic of Irralie's case that even now she thought last of herself and the extremity she was in. To this, however, she was speedily recalled by the cool drawl of her villainous companion.
"Well! I never saw anything fall so flat!" said he. "Still, it's a matter for congratulation that you didn't sing out. I should certainly have shot you dead!"
"You dare not!"
"Try me. I should then discover the open prison and my own crime! It would be very neat."
"You beast!" said Irralie.
"Thank you. I am one. But it's your own fault, Miss Villiers, if you force me to show my bestial side to you; I assure you I've no wish to do so. I want a horse. You took the one that was here, and you will very kindly help me to find another."
"Very well," said Irralie, wondering whether Fullarton was yet half-way to the police-barracks. "We must go to the horse-paddock. You lead the way."
"No. I prefer to see you in front of me. And I shall need saddle and bridle, so you will be good enough to show me to the saddle-room. But please, my dear young lady, to remember that one cry"
"Oh, I'm not likely to forget that!"
And Irralie led him out, and round the building to the saddle-room door, with a coolness that surprised herself. But she was still thinking more of the honest man who had flown than of the ruffian left behind to her cost. Was the one so very honest after all? She felt more hurt by his harmless dissimulation at the last than she had ever been by the gross fraud of which she had suspected him up to the end. Nor could she see any reason for it; forgetting how determined she had been not to hear from him a single word of self-defence; forgetting, also, how plainly she had shown him that determination. Even his ready flight for the police struck her in an unheroic light; and that view of him was the hardest of all to bear.
The bushranger had struck matches and put a saddle over his arm. He now took down a side-saddle (Irralie's own) and put it on top of the other, with a bridle to spare. This put an end to Irralie's thoughts.
"Who's that for?" she gasped.
"For you, of course."
"For me!"
"Well, obviously I can't leave you here to raise an earlier alarm than there will be in any case. And I'd much rather not tie you to a tree. But it's either that or setting me on my way. What do you say?"
"I am in your hands," she replied; but a great thought was leaping in her heart. On foot she was utterly at the mercy of this infamous armed man. But she was a first-rate horse-woman, and in the saddle she might at least elude him.
"This is about as much as I can carry on one arm, and your spirit compels me to leave the other one free in case of need," said Stingaree. "I must therefore ask you to be so good as to carry my valise. It is very ungallant, but you leave me no choice."
The valise lay on the ground. Irralie picked it up. Its heaviness surprised her, and the contents rattled under her arm.
"Its weight don't represent its worth," remarked the bushranger, opening the door for Irralie with his revolver-point. "It would be an uncommon poor haul but for those Quandong diamonds. And now I think we'll talk no more until we've given this place a rather wider berth."
Nor did they, but passed in silence so close to the back veranda that Irralie could have thrown a stone through the open window of her empty room. She wondered whether she should ever see it again. For her brain was now teeming with daring projects and attempts, for which her present submission was but to pave the way. And to pave it the more effectively, when he spoke again she replied with a suavity not inferior to his own.
He had said, "Upon my word, Miss Villiers, I am ashamed to have to treat you like this!"
"I am sure you are," replied Irralie. "But there's one thing you might do to pass the time."
"Only tell me what!"
"You might explain exactly how you planned and carried out this conspiracy. It would edify me, and it couldn't hurt you."
"My dear young lady, with all my heart," replied Stingaree. "I ask no greater privilege than to afford you any little compensation in my power. The facts of the case are very simple. Last Saturday morning nothing was farther from our minds; but we had been engaged upon some trifling business on the Balranald road, and as that was blocked against us north and south we thought it best to strike a straight line east across the fenced country. Late in the afternoon we came to your boundary, but had no notion of looking you up, when we lit on a beautifully dressed young man, equally well-mounted, but hopelessly lost in the bush. Well, Howie's horse was dead-beat, for we had been pushing the pace a bit; and Howie's clothes were dead-beat also; and Howie himself being not more than a size or so larger than that young gentleman, both in height and build"
"And I never thought of that before!"
"No, Miss Villiers? Well, you weren't meant to; though the last thing we hoped for was that our young gentleman would keep the incident to himself. You may hear from him why he did, and when you do I should like to know. To proceed, however, we stuck him up (to use a vile expression) in due course; and Howie and he exchanged horses and clothes; and Howie nearly spoilt everything by leaving a loaded shooter in the coat he took off. However, as our friend hadn't condescended to put it on up to the time we left him, no harm was done. Howie, I should explain, is my mate (to employ another barbarism); and a very worthy soul, though no gentleman. But here we are at last at the horse-paddock gate!"
It was open; probably Fullarton had been unable to shut it with his one hand; nevertheless, it conveyed to Irralie the picture of a man galloping for his life and those of his friends; and her heart softened as it leapt again. Nor was there a horse to be seen from the gate. And before striking into the paddock to look for one, the bushranger hung the saddles over the top bar to rest his arm.
"And where have you both been ever since?" inquired Irralie, finessing still, but also interested to know.
"Aha!" said he. "I'm not sure that I shall tell you that. Yet I don't know; have you ever heard of a man they call Deaf Dawson?"
"Heard of him! Why, he drives the whim at our Seven-mile."
"Yes; but did you never hear my name coupled with his? I don't mean my real name. There's not a soul in the Colony knows that. But Stingaree?"
"Yes, I have," said Irralie. "He was said to have known you."
"To have been my mate! That's more like it. He and Howie and I once stood in together—before we were quite so well known. Now can you guess where we've been since Saturday; and who told us you were going to have all the back-blocks at the station last night; and who came in with Howie to the men's hut, and found out that the new chum had been too ashamed to explain away his old clothes, and was looked on with suspicion because of them? I think it must be obvious; and now we'll catch that horse."
Obvious it was; and Irralie's heart sank quicker than it had risen. She had relied upon Deaf Dawson. He was a man not generally liked upon the station; a man who kept himself to himself in his outlying hut, where he was seldom visited by anybody except on business. But Irralie had stopped in her rides to shout into his ear-trumpet. And she had credited the man with some slight fondness for her; and had determined to put it to the test, if fortune favored her with a faster horse than might fall to Stingaree. She now knew what to expect at the deaf man's hands.
But she was glad that she had steeled herself to converse with Stingaree. Here was one good thing come of it already; it was very good indeed to be forewarned. She must now think of some other plan; and as she thought, they were walking off the track among the salt-bush in search of horses; and as they walked half-a-dozen came suddenly like phantoms across their path.
Stingaree caught one adroitly, and Irralie was no less quick to secure another by the mane. She was as anxious as he to be in the saddle; and the saddling fell to her, while Stingaree stood at the horses' heads. So Irralie left the girths of the man's saddle judiciously loose; but when he had helped her to mount he would not let her handle her own reins; and before mounting himself he tightened his girths without a word. So they rode on together in silence at a steady canter, and the girl's hands were empty of rein or switch. Her mount was a quiet, inoffensive buggy-horse; and his, one of her small brother's ponies. Short of the farther gate, he pulled them both up suddenly.
"Do you know," said he, "that your father is a very innocent man?"
"Indeed!" said Irralie, who had thought often and bitterly of her father since falling into the clutches of this wretch.
"Yes! Just imagine the skipper turning in with a dangerous pirate in irons in his deck-house! Nice thing to do, was it not?"
Irralie would not speak; that very thought had been her own.
"Well," proceeded the other, "you mustn't be too hard on the poor unfortunate skipper! He has bad teeth. He mentioned the matter to me. I asked to see the inside of his medicine-chest, and ever since he's been lying on his own store floor, full to the nose with chloral! I thought it a good thing done," he concluded, laughing; "but I only wish to heaven I could have got quit of that confounded pig-headed overseer as cheap!"
Still Irralie refused to speak; and now they were at the farther gate. This also had been left open; but it had swung to again; and as Stingaree leaned over to push it open, Irralie raised the pommel which she had unscrewed from her saddle, and struck the screw with all her might into the hand that held her reins. In another instant she was through the gate and galloping headlong into the paddock beyond.
A scream, an oath, a shot, and then the tattoo of the pony's hoofs pursued her into the night; but as yet the latter showed no sign of lifting; and Irralie felt that she could risk the random shots. Five followed her in quick succession, and one hummed past her ear. But she had straddled her mount, and hid her face in the mane, and her first great anxiety was at rest. She had retrieved her reins without getting them hobbled about the horse's legs.
The shots gave Irralie (what his polite threats and elaborate phrases had hitherto denied her) a sufficiently lurid insight into the ferocious nature of the man against whom she had pitted herself. Not that she was filled with any special loathing for the dastard who would empty his revolver upon a defenceless girl; never in the habit of claiming peculiar protection on the strength of her girlhood, she had in this case lost sight of sex, and, fully conscious that it was she who had struck the first shrewd blow, she was as fully ready for reprisal in kind. Nevertheless, the instant shooting was a revelation of character which prepared her for death at those bloody hands, should she again fall into them. But of this she never seemed in serious danger; a short, sharp chase over the salt-bush and through the scrub, and the chase was over; either the pony had stumbled, or the rider had decided that his own flight was the first consideration. Irralie, at all events, found herself cantering quite alone under a wide, sable sky; and the discovery filled her with an awe for which there had been no time in the heat of the chase itself. What was she to do? There were but two gates to the paddock; was she to go on to the one at the whim, and risk the villains there; or should she return to the gate at which she had committed her assault, and perhaps fall in with the greatest villain of them all, who would certainly murder her now? There were two other courses. She might hide all night in the heart of the paddock—say in that very clump where she had first seen Fullarton—or she might strike the horse-paddock fence, strap down the wires, lead her horse across, and so gallop back to the homestead and give the first alarm. She felt that she would risk something to do even that; and decided, after a horrible minute, in which she could only hear her own horse panting, upon the last-named course.
She gained the fence; she dismounted and strapped down the wires; she was herself in the horse-paddock, tugging at the reins; but the old buggy-horse had not made the leap when the hoofs of another broke upon her terrified ears, first galloping, then trotting, and finally only ambling down the fence. But the girl was too panic-stricken to attempt to mount. And, just as the sky seemed a shade lighter from rim to rim, and a breath of wind blew in the morning, Stingaree reined up leisurely at her side.
"Waiting for you at the gate," said he. "You should have struck the fence higher up."
He slipped off and led his mount back into the paddock which Irralie's had never left. Then he undid the straps and put Irralie in her saddle again without a word on either side. Not one syllable about the blow she had dealt him; but there was now a crust of blood upon the hand that held her reins; and his features, which the night had hidden, became clearer every moment, with their weeping whiskers, the glass shining in one eye, and an expression so malevolent as to make the silence more sinister than any speech.
They cantered to the track, and thence onward to the whim; but its timbers were slow to appear against the sky, for the dawn was breaking at their backs. Irralie never opened her mouth; but once the bushranger seemed to her to slacken the pace for the express purpose of humming the 30th of the Lieder Ohne Worte to the time of the pony's hoofs. And about five o'clock in the morning they reached the whim-driver's hut.
A big, black-bearded, round-shouldered ruffian, looking grotesque in a white tight collar and a full suit of fashionable tweeds, all too small for him, stood at the door and expressed profane surprise at the sight of Irralie. "But," said he, "we've got a bit of a startler for you, too, boss!" The light-eyed, thick-set, iron-gray whim-driver took down his ear-trumpet and turned away without a word. As for Irralie, she saw the red light of a fire in the hut as she dismounted, and she entered, calculating that it was thirteen miles from the station to the police barracks, but that Fullarton should have covered them by quarter-past four. And next moment she saw him before her eyes; he was standing in his shirt-sleeves with his back to the fire, and with an indolent, half-amused, wholly characteristic expression, which froze upon his face, however, as their eyes met.