Nevermore Part 29

'When you receive this you will be safe--safe from persecutors, and once more--oh! that I should have to write such words--a free man again. What misery and degradation you have suffered!

my poor dear unjustly punished----. I dare not even write your name for fear of--of consequences. But I shall be proud and happy all my life through that I was able to contrive to set you free--free! I have seen Mr. Wheeler since, and I could not help laughing, anxious and miserable as I have been, and am, at the way in which the affair was managed.

'You will see by the heading of my letter where I live. I am not a patient, but I was so restless and anxious until I heard of your safety that I took a situation as nurse in the Melbourne Hospital. There has been a good deal of sickness--fever, rheumatism, and so on--since the gold, and we are all kept hard at work night and day. I was always fond of helping sick people, and the work suits me exactly. So now you know where to find me. Address--"Nurse Hester Lawless, Fever Ward."

'I know, of course, that though Omeo is an out-of-the-way place, you stand a chance of being arrested at any time. So, for _my_ sake, if you value my feelings, be as careful as you can. Don't make friends unless you are certain about them. You have _paid dearly for that_, haven't you? My cousin Kate married Trevenna soon after the trial. They are somewhere about Monaro, and not likely to come across you, thank goodness. He doesn't treat her well, they say, so I can fancy what their life is. _It serves her right!_ You mustn't think me cruel, but I never shall forgive her as long as I live. I heard that Ned had got out of gaol, but am not sure whether it is true. Poor Ned! he was not all bad. I hope he may clear out to another colony, and keep straight for the future.

'I have been rambling on, but must now say good-bye. Good-bye, too, in earnest. I shall not write again unless I hear anything, and want to send you warning. You know my heart--I need not say that if you only tell me to "come" I will follow you to the end of the world. I do not advise you to do it--the other way, indeed--but L---- T---- must judge for himself; though he might easily win a grander wife, but he will never never find a more loving and devoted mate than poor

'TESSIE.'

'A truer woman never breathed!' Lance e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, as he read this letter in the lonely hut. 'But for her I should still be in those beastly hulks--perhaps chucked overboard some morning, with a round shot for a steadier! What in the world shall I do? What can I write to her? If she comes up here it will be sure to make people talk. They always try to find out more about a digger that's married than single, and if they find out too much, that infernal Dayrell, or some other ambitious trooper, will have the office given him, and _both_ of us made miserable for life. No! she's the dearest little girl in the world, and I may as well make up my mind to tour California or South Sea Islands with her for a wife, as she says. England must be for me a foreign land henceforth, and Estelle--poor Estelle--a beautiful dream! England's no country for a man with a stain on his honour.'

'"My native land, good-bye!" as Byron says. _He_ never saw it again, for that matter. Heigho! I wonder if I shall? Something tells me his fate will be mine. An early death, though there is no Greece to fight for--no such luck in store for Lance Trevanion as a patriot's grave--a hero's tomb. I used to think of such things once, strange to say. How queer it seems that a soldier's death in the open, and so many many other things are henceforth for me _impossible_.

'I see nothing for it but to hang on here, putting the crowd off the scent by working, talking, dressing like any other digger, till I get my share of Number Six by degrees from Charlie Stirling,--trump that he is,--then clear for Callao or 'Frisco without beat of drum, taking Tessie Lawless with me.'

Both before and since the conviction of Ned Lawless, who was one of the originators of the Omeo cattle-stealing gang, Lawrence Trevenna had been a partner in crime, a sharer in ill-gotten profits. He it was at Eumeralla whom the miners, the police, and indeed Tessie Lawless herself, had seen from time to time, and had mistaken for Lance Trevanion. They might well be excused. With some allowance for discrepancies in speech and manner, only observable when the two men stood side by side, few people could have told the difference.

His nature, inheriting the strongest proclivities to lawlessness of every shade and scope, needed but the occurrence of suitable conditions to develop into the commission of the darkest deeds. The comparatively easy profession of stock-lifting had, after his first chance wayfaring to the Monaro district within a few months after he quitted the s.h.i.+p, commended itself to him as an exciting and lucrative line of life.

Athletic, bold, and attractive after a fas.h.i.+on, he had singled out Kate Lawless as the object of his admiration before the migration of the family to Ballarat. Becoming aware of the reckless girl's flirtation with his rival and antagonist of the voyage, he had sworn to take a deadly revenge. With the aid of the Sergeant, and acting upon the girl's jealous mood, he had been enabled to gratify his hatred to the full; and now he heard through Caleb c.o.ke, whose information from various sources was rarely inaccurate, that his enemy had escaped from prison and was actually living in Omeo.

Trevenna's practice in connection with the 'duffing racket,' as c.o.ke would have expressed it, was to travel through from Monaro with drafts of stolen animals and to await the arrival of others of the gang at Dargo, a place about fifty miles from Omeo. The men who met him were not suspected in their own neighbourhood, and as the stock were unknown locally, were enabled to drive them down the Snowy River into Gippsland or into Melbourne market by devious ways, known but to themselves, without arousing suspicion. Thus the mining and general population of Omeo had rarely seen and never noticed Trevenna. His beat lay on and around the Monaro district. Occasionally, when conference with c.o.ke was necessary, he met him at the hut at Mount Gibbo, a lonely and rarely visited spot. As far as the Omeo people were concerned, Trevenna was, to all intents and purposes, an unknown man. It was, in a sense, against his interest to meet with Lance Trevanion at present. He therefore took general precautions against such an event, keeping himself, however, well posted up, through c.o.ke, as to his rival's movements.

The destined meeting took place, however, after a fas.h.i.+on wholly unexpected by either, Fate proving, as of old, too strong for the machinations of mortals.

Trevanion had appointed a day to go with c.o.ke to one of the newly opened reefs which bade fair to make Omeo the premier goldfield of Australia.

It was at no great distance from the old man's hut. Lance had borrowed a horse and ridden to the point indicated by c.o.ke, and after an hour's ride found the reef which they had come to inspect. It was in truth wonderfully rich,--the stones 'strung together with gold,' as the prospectors expressed it. Lance secured a share which could hardly fall short of an astounding profit as the claim developed; and when c.o.ke suggested riding to his hut for a meal he readily a.s.sented.

The day was fine, the mountain air clear and bracing. The view, as they gradually ascended one of the foot-hills of the main Alpine range, was far-stretching and majestic. At the distance of a few miles, but apparently almost overhanging the lonely hut,--a substantial building, very solidly constructed,--arose the sullen shape of Mount Gibbo, snow-capped, and ever bearing on its granite ribs the marks of the Alpine winter.

A couple of savage-looking kangaroo dogs and a collie of suspicious aspect walked forward from the ma.s.sive hut-door, which Lance noticed was carefully secured by a padlock. A narrow bridge of logs led across a sedgy runlet, which, like many mountain streams, was unfordable, except in occasional spots. From the hut could be seen any man or beast approaching at a considerable distance. The idea crossed Lance's mind that in the middle ages it would have been a most suitable site for the castle of a robber baron. He smiled as he thought that perhaps his friend Mr. c.o.ke was only a later survival of those picturesque tax-gatherers.

Dismounting at the door, c.o.ke hung his bridle-rein over a wooden peg driven into a stump close by, and, motioning to his companion to do likewise, unlocked the door.

'Hold on!' he said, as he pushed back the heavy door cautiously, and, leaning forward, pulled out by the collar a brindled bull-dog of such ferocious aspect that Lance drew back involuntarily.

'You seem to believe in dogs, c.o.ke,' said he, as he noted the savage brute's red eye and grim jaw half approvingly. 'He would be rather a surprise to any one that called upon you when you were not at home.'

'He's not easy stopped when he goes for the throat,' said the old man, dragging the brute along by the collar and fastening him to a chain stapled into a section of a hollow log, which served as a kennel. 'He's a queer customer, is Lang. He dashed near settled a cove as got into the hut once by the winder when I was away. I was just back in time not to have to bury him, but it was a near thing.'

'One would think you had something valuable in your hut that you have to guard it so well,' said Lance, looking at the dog, now lying down licking his paws and showing his formidable teeth from time to time.

'Maybe I have, maybe I haven't,' said the old man sourly. 'Anyhow, I don't like people coming about my place when I'm away. I've always kept a dorg or two as wasn't safe at close quarters. They know it now, black fellows and white both, and lets us alone, eh, Lang, old man?'

The dog gave a low growl as he spoke, while at the same moment the collie and the kangaroo hounds raised their heads, and turning towards the road, which wound along a rocky incline from the eastward, gave a joint whimper, and seemed on the point of breaking out into a chorus of barking. Lance, looking instinctively in the same direction, saw a horseman emerging from a patch of timber, nearly a mile distant, and apparently riding at speed towards the hut. The dogs, however, appeared to have come to a conclusion in their own minds favourable to the approaching stranger, inasmuch as they lay down and awaited events.

'D--n him,' growled the old man, as, shading his eyes mechanically with his hands, he gazed searchingly at the horseman. 'What the devil brings him here now?'

'You know him then?' queried Lance.

'Know him? Well, yes,' answered c.o.ke, with the tone of a man disgusted with things in general. 'Maybe you do too, and if you'll take a fool's advice, you'll neither make nor meddle with him. He's pretty hot property, is Larry Trevenna.'

'My G.o.d!' groaned out Lance, as his face flushed high, and then grew pale to the lips. 'This is more than I could have hoped for. Now look here, c.o.ke,' and he turned upon the old man with a subdued wrath in every look and tone that, fearless as he was, awed the ruffianly elder.

'This Trevenna did me the worst wrong that one man can do another.

Through his villainy I have been chained, starved, gaoled, treated like a dog--falsely accused, too, if ever man was. If I shoot the infernal hound as he pulls up his horse, I should be doing a good deed. If I don't, it is only that he may feel that, man to man, I am his master, and the punishment I intend to give him will not be so soon over. But if you interfere, by word or deed, by G.o.d! I'll shoot the pair of you like dogs.'

He touched his pistol as the last words came from his lips in low concentrated tones. His chest heaved, his hands were clenched until the muscles in his bare arms stood out like cordage, and the lurid fire in his deep-set eyes glowed as though ready to leap forth with volcanic flame. The resistless force of long-repressed pa.s.sion a.s.serted itself at this supreme moment.

The crafty veteran recognised the necessity of neutrality, and a.s.sumed his position with prompt.i.tude. 'Larry must take his chance. It's dashed little I care which way it goes. I'll see fair play, anyhow.'

There was little time to say more. The horseman had crossed the creek and, riding at a hand-gallop, pulled up at the door, throwing his bridle-reins, stock-rider fas.h.i.+on, on the ground, and leaving the hard-ridden hackney, a grand three-parts bred animal, to recover his wind and graze on the green tussock gra.s.s till he should need him.

Without apparently taking notice of the stranger who, in ordinary miner's garb, stood by the old man,--most probably taking him for a wandering prospector or hard-up 'hatter,'--he called out, advancing the while--

'I say, old King of the Duffers, do you know there's half-a-dozen chaps from Monaro waiting for you at Dobbs' Hole? They've a stunning lot of nags with them, so you'd better scratch all you know and get there before dark. Who's this cove? Perhaps he'll give us a hand? I must have a pot of tea first, though.'

He moved towards the hut door, near which Lance and the old man were standing. Lance stepped forward.

'So we meet again, Lawrence Trevenna?'

Trevenna was no coward. Still the sudden apparition of a deadly enemy--as if he had arisen from the earth--would disturb the equilibrium of most men. He started back. But a life filled with risk and imminent peril had schooled his nerves. He smiled, as if in apparent good-fellows.h.i.+p.

'By Jove! So it's _you_, Trevanion? Who'd have thought of seeing you here? Well, you've slipped the clinks, it seems. I was always dashed sorry you got into that sc.r.a.pe so deep. You'd better go shares with c.o.ke and the rest of us in this lay. There's money in it--pots and pots of it.'

'D--n you and your money too, you scoundrel!' shouted Lance, advancing upon him with hate burning in his eyes and vengeance written on every line of his countenance. 'You!--You propose to me to share in your villainies? Have not you and your accomplices worked me ruin enough already? Put up your hands!'

Trevenna smiled and took his ground. Among the younger members of the lawless gang with which he had allied himself he had seen many a similar encounter, half or wholly in earnest. And in the pugilistic practice so popular among Australian youths of all cla.s.ses, Larry Trevenna, to which cognomen he had been, for greater convenience, reduced, was held to be, if not the very cleverest of that wild band, so near the top of the cla.s.s that there were few--very few--that cared to arouse his anger.

He had, as he supposed, advanced considerably in the science of the prize ring, and fondly trusted that the fast and vigil inseparable from a bushman's life would render him more than a match for any infernal swell (as he would have phrased it), especially one who had so lately 'done time,' and been therefore precluded from the enjoyment of fresh air and exercise.

Old Caleb c.o.ke's rugged features writhed themselves into a saturnine grin as he watched the savage onset with an inherited instinctive interest.

'Dashed if I ever seen a better-matched pair,' he growled out, half unconsciously. 'I'd a walked twenty mile when I was a youngster to see a battle like it. It's even betting--Larry's a quick hitter and pretty fit, but I doubt he's met his match. Well, it's d--d little to me who wins. First blood to Larry, by ----!'

By this time the two men were hard at it. The heavy blows on face and body, which in such a contest fall fast and furious, sounded strangely clear in the rarified mountain atmosphere--the old stock-rider and the dogs the sole spectators. These last--comrades of mankind under such ever-changing conditions--looked on with manifest interest. The bull-dog, indeed, until warned by a kick from his master, being minded to smash his chain and make a third in the encounter. The blow from Trevenna to which c.o.ke had alluded had split the flesh above the cheek, showing the white bone underneath, as if gashed by a knife. Its effect was due less to want of skill on Lance's part than to his desperate determination to get to close quarters with his foe. And, indeed, all unheeding of the punishment, which would have staggered another man less iron-sinewed and agile, he forced his opponent before him with a succession of blows, delivered with such terrific power and rapidity that Trevenna's guard was completely broken in, eventually sending him to the earth, half stunned and motionless.

Lawrence Trevenna had underrated his foe in more than one respect.

During the few weeks which he had spent in Omeo Lance Trevanion had worked harder than he had ever done in his life before. Partly to dull the memories of the past, as well as to quiet the haunting fear of apprehension, he had toiled incessantly. The keen air, the healthy appet.i.te, the free intercourse with his fellow-men, had restored him to fullest strength and activity. Never in his life, as he stepped forward to meet his foe, had he felt more fully conscious of muscular strength and deer-like elasticity--those glorious physical gifts with which only early manhood is endowed.

As they fronted each other for the second time, face to face and eye to eye, as is the wont of men of British race in such a contest, c.o.ke could not fail to be impressed with their extraordinary likeness to each other, and the similarity of their general cast of feature. The colour of the hair was identical, and but for a slight deviation in the direction of coa.r.s.eness on the one hand, and that indescribable something which belongs to the man of birth on the other, they could hardly have been distinguished from each other by a casual spectator. In their eyes, so remarkable in both, burned in that hour the deadliest fire of hate, the difference alone being that while it glowed furnace-bright in the orbs of Lance Trevanion, Trevenna's glare, in demoniacal malice, resembled the rage of a wild beast.

'By ----,' said the old man, as once more he marked the blood-stained faces of the desperate combatants, who again went at each other with silent fury, 'I could fancy as they was brothers. They ought to shake hands and travel the country. What a circus they'd be able to run. Ha!

Larry's down agen. The Ballarat cove's too good for him.'

It was even so. For a short time only it appeared as if the issue was doubtful. There was but little thought of evasion or parrying of blows on either side. The terrific rally with which the second round ended would have brought to a close more than one world-famous fight. But Lance Trevanion fought as though each arm--like the Familiar of the enchanter--wielded an iron flail. And when Lawrence Trevenna went down, beaten dead and senseless from the last tremendous 'upper cut,' it was evident that he would not come to time.

'That last left-hander knocked him out,' said the old man, with a grin of qualified approval, while a strange expression lurked in his evil eyes. 'It ain't no use follerin' it up, as I see. Dip that pannikin in the bucket while I sluish his neck a bit. You ain't settled him this time, Harry, but it's a d--d close shave.'