CHAPTER XII
THE MEN AT THE HUT
"Irralie!"
"Mr. Fullarton!"
"Well! what in blazes brought him here?"
The three speakers stood aghast in a common stupefaction. It was impossible to choose between their blank, incredulous faces. But Stingaree's eye-glass was swinging on its cord; and he turned upon huge Howie with the savage alacrity of a man uncertain of his friends.
"Easy does it, mister; he's all right," responded Howie, in a heavy deferential manner that fitted him no better than Fullarton's clothes. "'E's done brown; come here to get the deaf 'un to go back with 'im and swear 'e wasn't Stingaree! So 'e tumbles into a bloomin' 'ornet's nest for his pains, an' very near gets stung by a lump o' lead; only we was two to one, w'ich settles it out o' court. But we now delivers 'im over to you, and glad to get the beggar off of our 'ands."
Fullarton had handed Irralie to an old soap-box (in lieu of a chair) by the fireside; of the others he took no more notice than to nod to her in confirmation of Howie's report. The latter had a marked effect upon Stingaree.
"Excellent!" cried he, with the lopsided grin of all eye-glassed men. "I pictured those dear good troopers a paddock behind us; and behold them still in their beds! Your hand, my friend, your horny hand! It's a near thing yet though. Where's that ear-trumpet?"
It hung round the deaf-man's neck, as he knelt scowling over the billy-can upon the fire. Stingaree seized it, thrust the end into the other's ear, and roared through the trumpet, "Tea for the lot of us, quick as you know how!" Dawson growled, but threw a handful of tea into the can as the water broke out in bubbles; and Irralie watched him from her seat beside the fire. He refused to look at her. His fece was as dark as aloes against its mat of iron-gray hair; his expression as bitter.
While the tea drew, Stingaree took Howie aside. They whispered together at the door, and the coarse, big man in the fine, tight collar and clothes, and the little whiskered dandy—all weapons and jewels—made a quaint pair, framed in the doorway, touched on one side by the warm fire-light, and on the other by that of the raw red east. Fullarton never forgot them. But Irralie, after failing in all her efforts to catch the deaf man's sullen eye, was comparing Fullarton and Stingaree. And here the contrast was the more remarkable in that both had good looks; yet the ready, energetic, strutting bantam of a man was not only a stronger figure than his heedless, indolent, hare-brained captive; he looked still, and in the teeth of the facts, the likelier gentleman of the two.
"They're listening—the two of 'em!" cried Howie, suddenly. "They can 'ear every word; let's get outside."
Stingaree looked round the hut; there was but the one door, and no window save those on either side of it; inner compartment there was none, and the floor was honest earth.
"All right—a few yards," said he. "I tell you, Howie, I mean to have my way; and you know what that means. So let's fix it here on the spot. You may go to the devil or stop where you are. I'll have my way about the girl!"
Howie's reply was inaudible; they were well outside the hut; but before Irralie and Fullarton could exchange more than glances, he was back, and had snatched the ear-trumpet from the deaf man's neck. Dawson turned round with a curse, his face scrubbed by the cord; but Howie was gone, and the other made no attempt to rise or follow, but only darkened his scowl as he stirred the tea and added sugar for all.
"I know what that means," said Fullarton. "We're not to get at him. We shall see!"
He took a twig from a heap of logs by the fire, and scratched with his left hand on the bare, sandy ground—
HELP US AND YOU ARE SAFE.
Fullarton then pulled the whim-driver's arm, and pointed to the words. The deaf man looked at them and got up to get pannikins without moving a muscle of his face.
"Can he read?" asked Fullarton.
"Yes; I have brought him papers myself. You should make it plainer."
Fullarton picked up the twig and printed underneath the former line, but in characters twice the size—
I DOUBLE YOUR SCREW.
"You do, do you?" said Dawson's voice above his head. It trembled with anger; and next moment Dawson's heels had obliterated every word. He said no more, however, but only glared at Fullarton with quivering fists. And when he had dipped a pannikin in the tea, he spilled some of it before he could set it down at Irralie's feet.
"Hopeless!" said Fullarton. "They are three to one."
"For mercy's sake try no resistance!"
"I fear it would be useless—though the sporting thing to do."
"Don't dream of it! He sticks at nothing. He has emptied a revolver upon me already!"
"Upon you?"
The words came hoarsely from a face which Irralie could scarcely recognize, so transfigured was it with horror and rage and incredulity.
"Yes! I struck him first—with the screw-end of my pommel—on the hand. His blood was up; but he would do it again!"
"Would he?" cried Fullarton, as his eye roved about for a weapon; and then, "It was my fault!" he bitterly exclaimed. "I should never have left you there! But you promised to keep out of the way; and not one of them would have stood by me without some proof on my side; and this blackguard was my only hope!"
"Not one?" said Irralie, in a low voice. "Not I?"
"Not even you."
"I think I did stand by you!"
"But not because you believed in me; out of the pure compassion of your heart; however, let that rest. It would only have terrified you to know the truth just then. And I argued that he was on his good behavior as long as he kept up the game; but I was wrong, wrong, wrong!"
He spoke so bitterly that the girl's eyes filled with tears; or it may have been the way in which a slice of cold plum-duff had been placed beside her pannikin without a word. In the ensuing silence the raised voices of the men outside carried to the ears of those within.
"Then that's settled. We shan't fall out about it. Thy horny hand once more!"
"I don't want no barney, you know," said the voice of Howie the humble.
"Nor I; but, by heaven, I mean her to pay for it! Now you go inside, and I'll fetch along the piebald moke myself."
Irralie sprang to her feet and looked at Fullarton in sudden terror; and Fullarton laid his hand firmly on her shoulder, while Dawson, now sitting on his heels in front of the fire, had one eye for them and one for the doorway of cold pink sky. As Howie filled it with his powerful frame, the deaf man seized a log and hurled it at his body, then leapt upon him like a cat, dug his fingers inside the tight white collar, and cracked the great skull like an egg against the door-jamb. The thing was done in an instant, and the two men on the ground in a heap, with Howie insensible on top. The thud of their fall had been the only sound.
"Pull him off, sir!" gasped Dawson. "He's paid me out!"
Fullarton tugged at the great limbs one after the other—at his own riding-boots pinching the ruffian's feet—until Dawson was free to rise but did not move.
"His shooter, sir, his shooter!"
Fullarton found it—loaded in every chamber—and signed to the deaf man to get up. He shook his head.
"My leg's broke, sir! He's paid me out."
His left foot lay as if it did not belong to him. Fullarton knelt and examined.
"It's true," said he. "We must shift him too. Lend a hand, Irralie." As the girl did so a smile broke over the deaf man's face.
"I didn't know whether I'd do it till I did it," said he; "but I didn't want no bribes! It's all I can do for you. You must fix up Stingaree. Pot him as he comes in; it's our only chance."
Fullarton unwound the bandages from his wounded hand, stretched his fingers, and gripped and cocked Howie's revolver. His dark eyes danced.
"I mean to do so," said he. "Irralie, keep out of the way—turn your head and shut your ears!"
The girl obeyed— trembling as she had not trembled all the night. It was the worst of all, this waiting. Fullarton stood at one side of the door with the revolver. Howie had never moved.
Then the horse's hoofs and a man's feet were heard approaching through the sand, preceded by a whistle, high and clear and wonderfully sweet. He was whistling Mendelssohn again! Suddenly, as if a yard from the door, it broke off; the man's walk became a run; he was in the hut, with swinging eye-glass and whiskers flying, and had shouted, "Quick! they are on us!" before Fullarton cut him short.
"Up with your hands," said he. "It's your turn now!"
And when George Young and Mr. Villiers had reined up at the Seven-mile, they found Irralie like a ghost outside in her ball-dress; and, standing in the doorway, with his back to them, and a cocked revolver showing over his shoulder, a well-built figure in black trousers and white shirt-sleeves.
"Excuse me," said Fullarton; "but I daren't take my eye off him. Creep in under my left arm. The beggar stuck me up on Saturday afternoon, but I swore I wouldn't tell you till I got even with him; and, by the powers, I've kept my word!"