CHAPTER XXVII
ADVENTURES OF A SUBSTITUTE
It presently appeared that Tom had not travelled above a dozen miles towards the sea he fancied he had smelt at eighteen; but this he declined to believe until the grey man produced a tattered map and pricked out the positions with his hook. Tom then gave in, but climbed into De Gruchy’s saddle with incomplete convictions upon the point. The delirium of his famished flight still magnified both the time and the space which it had covered. Thinking of the murder done before his eyes, and looking on these villains whom he had joined, he could half believe he was delirious still. The incredible thing was that in two more hours he would be back upon that hated spot whither he had sworn never to return alive.
But a man’s fate was stronger than his will, as it seemed to Tom during that midnight ride, when not care, but a very merciful sort of fatalism, sat behind the reckless horseman. Fatalistic he had felt before, but never with this result; hitherto the feeling had only deepened his despair, whereas now it was his single solace. It consoled him for the horrors he had countenanced that night; it even nerved him for what deeds he must himself commit before the night was out.
In the law’s eye he was a branded murderer as it was. He seemed destined to deserve that brand. He would kick no more against a fate so plain and so persistent. So he decided as he rode, too slowly for his spirit, to deliberate crime. For (despite philosophy) his one immediate longing was for a gallop to rekindle blood which the murder of De Gruchy had turned from fire to ice; and a greater comfort than he would have owned to himself came of his resolve to save and protect Peggy and Miss Sullivan from this ruthless crew. Otherwise he was one of them, and would play his part. But he was not yet the villain he had hoped.
Objective details impressed him little at the time. And yet he was left with the very sharpest memories of floating gum-trees and a drooping moon; of the masks they all put on, and the battered top-hat that Hookey wore above his; the pistols that they loaded, and the brace of horse-pistols handed to himself; the little conversation on the way; the startling of an old-man kangaroo, that shone an instant grey and glossy in the moonlight, then boomed and bounded into silence and the shades; of all such things, in fact, to the final plan of attack and division of villainy, made almost within sight of the devoted homestead.
At the time, however, though Tom listened (as he thought) attentively, and was much consulted on the strength of his present knowledge of the place, he grasped very little beyond his own instructions. He was to show them the overseer’s hut (the night-watchman would already be on their side or dead), then he was to station himself beneath the great bell, and to ring it furiously so soon as Ginger was hauled out and his hut set well on fire. Tom was also to answer to the name of Francisco, and to affect a foreign accent, because the Italian’s terrible reputation had been the best part of him.
The bell and the fire were calculated to tempt both Sullivans forth unarmed. At all costs those two were to be taken alive. “And then!” said the little man, poking Wall-eye in the ribs with his hook.
“What then?” inquired Tom.
“We shall do unto them as we’ve all been done by.”
“But you were never here yourself?”
“Next door to it,” returned Hookey Simpson. “I was at Strachan’s, and this old tyrant ordered me my fifties. We’ll see how he likes them himself—just for a start!”
“I wish it was Strachan’s we were coming to!” muttered Tom, with a flash of his former passion.
“It’ll be his turn next.”
“But when?”
“Tomorrow—if all goes well.”
“Then you don’t mean to stop at Castle Sullivan?” cried Tom, amazed.
“You’ll see,” rejoined Hookey, “and so shall I. There’s no saying where I may stop with seventy convicts at my back!”
Seventy convicts! That was the rough number at Castle Sullivan. Then what was this to which the little man was leading them? No petty robbery, after all? A grand rebellion instead? Tom’s heart lightened at the thought. He gazed at the confident little man—looking more like a monkey dressed up as a highwayman and perched upon a horse—and he felt that he could have followed so spirited a leader with all the spirit he himself had left but for the thing that had been done before his eyes that night. There was no more, however, to be said; they were at the farm.
At the gate (not the gate of former scenes; this one lay east beyond the stables) all dismounted but the little general, who was to keep his saddle as generals do. The others led their horses to the stables, and while Wall-eye stalled them, Tom showed Slipper and the black his old lair. Another convict had succeeded him as groom, and in a few moments young Brummy was dragged forth by Peter Pindar. So far from offering any resistance, however, the obliging youth at once put himself at the bushrangers’ disposal. His zeal and enthusiasm augured well for the other seventy in the huts. Under his eager guidance the watchman, Roberts, was immediately captured in his sleep beneath the bell; whereupon that official joined the enemy with no more demur than Brummy; indeed he went the length of shaking hands with the supposed Italian, and personally thanking him for having come at last.
Hookey on his horse cut this profession short and drove both prisoners before him towards the overseer’s hut, which Tom had already pointed out. The latter was now left in charge of the bell-rope, with a last order not to ring until the hut was well ablaze.
“I thought he was gov’nor?” Tom heard Roberts remark.
“The less you think the better,” retorted Hookey. “But about this overseer of yours: a ticket-of-leave, I understand? A true man, eh?” By which term Hookey meant its opposite.
“I doubt it,” said Roberts.
“Then all the worse for him!”
Ginger’s hut was but a few yards from the bell. Tom heard them enter and held his breath. The door was shut, and then he heard no more.
In the main building all was dark and still. He watched it keenly, with his ears, as it were, upon the hut behind. At last the door re-opened, and he heard the striking of lucifers accompanied by another sound, as of something being dragged from the hut. He looked round, and it was Ginger’s bed. The overseer lay upon it, bound and gagged.
Tom drew a deep breath. He had expected worse.
Brummy and Roberts were now despatched to the convicts’ huts, to tell the rest, at the right moment, what was happening, and how they would all be free men within an hour if they abstained from interference, but dead men if they did not. Then the black crept up close to the palisade, while Hookey rode to one side and the other two hid behind trees. Meanwhile the overseer’s hut was beginning to crackle, and all at once Tom saw the shadow of his tree leap out towards the palisade upon a ground of glaring red.
“Ring! Ring!” cried Hookey from his horse.
Almost with his words a terrific clang, clang, clang, burst out from amid the red-gum’s leaves. And almost with the alarum, a couple of white figures leapt out into the red glare behind the palisade.
Tom stood and watched like an actor who has forgotten he is on the stage himself.
He saw the white figures dash through the gate, and a black one glide in front of it next moment. He saw Nat Sullivan stop running, seize his father’s arm and point excitedly towards the burning hut. He saw them both about to turn, when the son was lifted off his legs as though he had been an infant; and there were coal-black arms entwined about his night-shirt, and snow-white teeth grinning over his shoulder. Hookey Simpson galloped up; Slipper and Wall-eye darted from behind their trees. All had pistols in their hands and masks upon their faces. And the masks reminded Tom that he was looking on through one himself, and had no business to be a looker-on at all.
He had vaguely wondered why the bell was still ringing; now he let go the rope, and ran a step or two forward. But they were four to two without him, and the four were armed, and watch he must.
The Sullivans were being dragged or driven backward upon the palisade. Tom could make little of the swaying, struggling group, for Hookey Simpson brought up the rear on his horse; but through the animal’s legs he had glimpses of fluttering calico and sparkling spurs, as the glare grew more and more intense. It was now as light as day. Every board of the main building stood out, in abnormal detail, against a blackened sky, while the shadows of the palisade made a glowing gridiron of the yard within.
The scuffle was over; something was happening that Tom could not see, when a flake of red-hot bark lit upon his ear. He was face-about in time to see the roof of the burning hut tumble in, and a column of clean flame spout high into the night. And there was the wretched Ginger, writhing in his bonds within reach of the burning walls, and with the flame of a fallen brand licking the very camp-bed on which he lay.
This time Tom did not forget his part; he ignored it, and had the overseer out of harm’s way in a few seconds; in two more his mask was among the rest, and his pistol pointed with the others at the two white figures that now stood side by side against the palisade—with torn nightshirts and clenched fists—defenceless, but still defiant.
“Now look you here, my fine gentlemen!” exclaimed Hookey from his saddle. “If you’ve got any sense between you, let’s see you show it. You’ll only cut things shorter if you don’t. What chance do you think you’ve got? Ah!—it’s too late to look that way now, you old fool!”
The doctor’s eyes were on his convict huts; the men were pouring out of them pell-mell. Hookey Simpson wheeled his horse, and rode up to them with a magnificent air; dropping his reins to wave his battered chimney-pot, as if it were a general’s cocked hat.
“My lads,” cried he, “your kind master would call upon you to stand by him in his hour of need. Now’s the time to show him your gratitude. Stop! stop!—not all of you at once!” And with his horse he stemmed a rush of zealous spirits who explained themselves in chorus as they unwillingly fell back.
“Stand by him?” cried one. “Get at him, you mean! Only give us the word, and we’ll take him off your hands—”
“And cut his throat—”
“An’ slit his juggler—”
“And Nat’s after—”
“The bluidy tyrants!”
Hookey waved them back.
“Is there a single man who’ll take the coves’ side in the time of need? Let him speak now or for ever after hold his mouth!”
Not a convict stirred.
“Then,” said Hookey, “you leave the rest to us, and don’t you interfere. You’re dead men if you do, but free men if you stop where you are. Your blood be on your own heads!”
And he cantered back to the palisade, with his chimneypot hat on the side of his head, and the hook stuck rakishly against his ribs.
Tom ran up to him and caught his rein.
“The women have got into the store—I saw the light—it’s where they keep the guns —will you leave them to me?”
“No bloodshed, then: they’re scarce!”
“I’ll make them prisoners.”
“And none of your larks just yet!”
Tom was gone. With a horse-pistol in each hand he dashed into the store, and caught Peggy and Miss Sullivan in the act of lifting down the fowling-pieces.
“Surrender!” he roared.
Miss Sullivan shrieked and hid her face. Peggy advanced.
“Shoot a woman if you dare,” said she. “’Tis me that dares ye!”
“Peggy!” he whispered.
“Tom!”
“I am here to save you both. Do as I tell you and make her do the same. I’m here to save you both!” he repeated aloud. “There are horses in the stable. Come with me and I’ll put you on them. Undo those outer doors, Peggy.”
He had said her name by accident. She gave him a warning glance. And now Miss Sullivan stood her ground steadfastly, and having recovered that mettle which was in the blood, refused to move until she knew what they were going to do with her father and brother.
“Nothing at all,” said Tom. “It’s you they’re after.”
“Me, indeed!”
“The two of you,” said Tom. “The men are all right, they’ve given in; but they’ll carry off the women if they can—though not if I know it.”
By this time Peggy O’Brien had unfastened the great outer doors at which the store-drays could unload without entering the yard; in another moment Tom had both women out in the open, with the front west angle of house between them and the palisade. Even the burning hut was thus hidden from their view. Yet the voice of Hookey Simpson sounded dreadfully close.
“You shall lay it on yourselves,” he was shouting out. “Let the man who had the last fifty come forward and lay on the first.”
“That’s me,” said Macbeth’s voice. “Gi’e us the cat!”
There was none.
“Then the auld cove’s cane.”
Tom had seized Miss Sullivan by the arm.
“I don’t stir!” she declared. “Not one step!”
“Then worse will come of it.”
“But my father!”
“It’s idle threats—they don’t mean a word of it.”
“Ah, miss, come on!” urged Peggy in an agony for Tom.
“She shall!” he muttered, with the nozzle of one pistol against the lady’s neck; and so between them they got her to the back of the house, and thence across the open space to the stables. As they ran Tom turned his head, and just saw one end of a chain of ruddy convict faces, all horribly intent upon some unseen spectacle before the palisade.
The stable proper faced the open gate through which the bushrangers had ridden. Their saddled horses stood two in a stall, and Tom was backing out a couple when he discovered Peggy meddling with a third. He told her three would not be wanted.
“An’ what about you?”
“I stay with my mates.”
“Wid thim murtherin, vill’ns?”
“I’m one myself!”
“Already?” she cried. “Tom—Tom—”
It was his turn to hold up a warning hand.
Miss Sullivan stood listening at the door; but not to them.
Tom listened too.
For some instants all was still.
Then a thwack, thwack, thwack was greeted with a yell of savage joy; and Miss Sullivan was gone from the door.
“Let her go,” cried Tom, seizing Peggy’s wrist. “I did my best for her. You at all events shall be saved!”
“Not without you, Tom.”
“Nonsense, Peggy; I must see this through.”
“An’ so must I, then!”
With these words she set her back to the open door; but there stood Tom, looking past and beyond her, as though he had not heard one of them. Presently a soft laugh came from his lips.
“All right, Peggy! You are safer than I thought. Look behind you!”
The girl obeyed; and there, trotting two abreast through the open gate, were a score of troopers, with the glare from the still blazing hut reddening their whiskered faces, jewelling their spurs, and gilding from hilt to point the waving sword of the lad who rode at their head.
Peggy stood aghast with an amazement that left no room for thought; it was only when the cavalcade had swept close by, and so out of sight, at a gallop, that she heard Tom speaking to her from a height. He had himself mounted one of the horses, and was entreating her to stand aside and let him out.
And then she realised how the situation had reversed itself, and how he was now the one to fly and gallop for his life. Without a word she sprang out of his way. He clattered under the lintel and was gone. She came out to see him gallop through the open gate. He had already vanished, but not that way; he had dashed to the assistance of his rascally mates.
But a dozen shots had been fired already, and blue wreaths were curling in the glare like clouds at sunset. Wall-eye lay stretched upon his face. Slipper and the aboriginal were fighting desperately back to back, but both were wounded, and their moments numbered. Troopers surrounded them; others were already endeavouring to restore order among the convicts; while one—a sergeant—was being dragged and bumped about, with one foot twisted in his stirrup, and his dead face smothered with blood.
Tom looked about for Hookey Simpson, and found him on the verge of shaking off four troopers and the ensign. One saddle he had emptied with his pistol; as Tom came near he hooked the ensign out of his, but was within an ace of being dragged to the ground in doing so. The ensign’s stock gave way and saved him. Ere he could recover himself, a trooper took deliberate aim at the little man. Tom saw him, however, and fired point-blank at the outstretched arm; it fell; and the next Tom knew was that he and Hookey were galloping neck and neck for the gate, with but one pursuer close upon them.
Hookey had apparently received no hurt. The battered hat was off and his benevolent forehead rose high and white above his mask; it was to be Tom’s last memory of the little grey man. He had thrown away one pistol, drawn another, and turned to fire it with every furrow of that fine brow showing in the glare. But Tom heard the man behind fire first, and saw those furrows leap into space like snapped fiddle-strings; and he galloped through the gate alone.
Whether the slayer came to grief over the slain, or how else to account for it, Tom never knew; but he now got a start which he was destined to keep and to increase. Now also he began for the first time to appreciate the piece of hard-bitten horse-flesh between his knees. He had taken the dead Italian’s roan, which had been led riderless to the farm, and was thus comparatively fresh. It was a great gaunt brute, with a mouth like leather, as Tom had discovered to his cost in the skirmish. Once through the gate, however, he felt that no more: the beast had run away without his knowing it.
Indeed he knew very little for the first few minutes except that the moon was setting at his back, and he was once more heading for the sea. This he gathered from the grotesque shadow leaping along between the roan’s ears; his first conscious effort was to keep that shadow dead ahead. Now he lost it where the timber thickened, now he found it in an open glade. At length the shadow failed and vanished, and it was very dark indeed. But on went the roan with Tom on its withers to avoid invisible boughs; and when the sky lightened he could have shouted for joy, for the roan’s ears took shape against its lightest point.
He did not shout because his pursuers would have heard him; for all this time he had heard them at intervals; and whenever the ground changed from hard to soft, their hoofs rang out the instant the roan’s were muffled.
The joy of that wild ride through the gum-trees to the sea! He forgot the little value he had set upon his life, and rode for it now as men ride for nothing else. Yet he recked but little of the result. He knew no fears and no regrets, but instead an exhilaration such as he had never known before. It might be his last hour. He revelled in it the more—was the more grateful for it—on that account. To have tasted such life as this at life’s end! To die after this with no more pain! To reach the sweet sea, and swim out to rest!
And now he smelt it; the rushing air was spiced with salt; even in the pungent forest he detected it through all the odours, and was mistaken in that no more. Only one question remained in his mind. Would the roan hold out? Would the roan hold out?
Long ago the pace had slackened. Long ago Tom had stooped and ripped his big boots down to the ankles, and cast them from him with all else that had been the Italian’s. He was now riding a light ten stone in his shirt and trousers. His bare feet were numb from standing in his stirrups to ease the roan. But the trees had been rushing past in myriads half the night; and still they stood against the morning sky-line, like blots of ink upon a slate, in myriads more.
On the other hand, he had heard nothing of his pursuers for some time, and was beginning to wonder whether they had given up the chase. Their horses might well have started less fresh than his. Had they given it up or had they not?
Tom had asked himself the question for the twentieth time when something happened and he had his answer sitting stupidly on the ground. The roan was disappearing amid the trees with the saddle beneath its belly; its startled gallop died away like the roll of a drum; but heavier hoofs were coming up behind.
Tom sprang up, but sat down again with a yelp of pain. His ankle was badly sprained. He felt for a weapon, but he had thrown them all away; even his knife he seemed to have hurled after the long boots, or left in a pocket of the blue jacket, which had been jettisoned in its turn.
He sat still and groaned. To have to surrender sitting still! What an end to his ride! What a beginning of the end of all!
The heavy hoofs came nearer, nearer. Three troopers laboured into view, gave a yell and put spurs to their tired horses, but ceased to spur them when they saw their man.
“Why, who are you?” cried they.
“The man you want.”
“I wish you were! You’re all we shall get with these horses. But you must have heard him pass?”
A light broke over Tom; he said he had heard it, but some time since, when it was darker and he was half-asleep.
“And what made you think you were our man?” asked another trooper suspiciously.
“I—I—I’m a runaway convict.”
“Then you’re better than nothing,” cried the former speaker. “You’ll come with us; but the man we’ve lost is an Italian, and there’s precious little of the Italian about you!”
There was less than little: he had thrown everything away, but without a thought of saving his neck by so doing. Nor indeed had he saved it yet.