Nevermore Part 35

CHAPTER XXIII

The morning of their departure rose bright and cloudless. The air was fresh and bracing, for the h.o.a.r-frost lay unthawed for hours on the wire-gra.s.s in the sheltered valleys, adown which the little cavalcade pa.s.sed on the Gippsland road. The trooper, a young mounted constable of the Victorian Police, with the storekeeper, Holmes Dayton, rode in front. Then came Estelle Chaloner and her travelling companion, Janie Graham, a young girl born and nurtured in the bush, the niece of the gold-buyer Constantine Gray. She had been on a visit to Omeo (save the mark!), and was now returning to her friends. They had not gone far when Dayton, the storekeeper, turning into a forest track which ran at right angles to the main road, explained that he had occasion to meet an acquaintance on business, and would rejoin them at the next stopping-place. The trooper then fell back to effect companions.h.i.+p with Gray, while the girls succeeded to the leading position.

Mounted on the good steed which she had learned to love, Estelle's spirits rose as she felt his free elastic motion. Rested by his sojourn in the inn stable, he paced fast and easily along the forest paths.

Though unable to account for the feeling, Estelle was conscious of a distinct sensation of relief, almost amounting to exhilaration. She was quitting Omeo for ever, and she looked forward with pleasurable antic.i.p.ation to the few days of wayfaring which the journey to Melbourne would necessitate.

'It will be my last week of freedom,' she told herself. 'I shall have to sell you, though, my poor Wanderer, you dear, good, faithful creature!'

and she patted her horse's arching neck and pushed over a stray lock of his mane. 'Well, wherever I go, and whenever I see the old land again, I shall never have a better horse. I have ridden some good ones in the old country, but I doubt if any one of the lot was as sure-footed, as easy, as untiring--certainly not on the food and treatment you have had to put up with. I wish I could take you home. Indeed, if we were going back in the ordinary fas.h.i.+on, I _would_ take you with me, whatever it cost. It would be only buying you over again; and good horses are cheaper here, even at gold prices, than in England.

'Now let me see,' she continued, in soliloquy, 'we shall be near Melbourne by the end of this week. Then, for I suppose it would be dangerous for him to wait, I must huddle up a few dresses and be married at once. _Married at once!_' Here she sighed; the light died out of her eyes, and the freshness of the morn seemed to fade out of her face. How different was it from the meeting in Australia which she had promised herself in her more sanguine imaginings! Even if he had been comparatively poor, her fortune would have sufficed for all needs until he was enabled to claim his paternal heritage. But now, how immeasurably worse than poverty was his condition!--disgrace, dishonour,--irrevocable, perhaps inexpiable,--possibly debarring him from ever claiming his rights! She saw herself after the vow had been sworn which bound her to a dishonoured man, a pa.s.senger in a foreign vessel, voyaging to a distant land, with perhaps dangers and privations in store of which she had no previous conception. How strange and unreal it all seemed!

But it was too late to despond--to falter. She had promised: she would perform. Shrinking with maidenly reluctance from the hasty, and in a measure clandestine, union to which she found herself committed, she felt compelled to call up all the reserves of resolution, of which she had so uncommon a portion, before she could still the instinctive dislike to the next act in the drama of her destiny.

As these thoughts--sombre, hopeful, and desponding by turns--pa.s.sed through her brain, the bright spring day wore on; the babbling brooklets, through which their horses plashed ever and anon, ran clear and sparkling. As Estelle Chaloner mused over her surroundings and gazed upwards through the tall white-stemmed eucalypts which, rank upon rank, hemmed in the rugged bridle-track, looked at the trooper, the gold-buyer, the rustic damsel who was to be by day and night her closely a.s.sociated companion, she could hardly realise her own ident.i.ty. 'How changed is my _monde_,' she thought, 'in the course of a few short months--my daily thoughts and feelings, my plans of the present, my prospects in the future! Am I indeed the same Estelle Chaloner who sat in the old hall at Wychwood for all the long sad autumn months, who saw the red leaves fall in those ancient woods, waiting the while for the last sands of a sick man's life to run out? And now, where am I? and _what am I_? What I shall be in the future I almost tremble to think.'

Immersed in reverie, she had trusted the conduct of her horse almost entirely to his own discretion. A hackney exceptionally good in the slow paces, as are many Australian horses, the Wanderer had, for his own pleasure and satisfaction, gone forward at the top of his walking speed, which was sufficiently fast to keep her companion's horse at a jog-trot.

From time to time, at an earlier stage, the rustic maiden had laughingly protested; then Wanderer was held back. However, in this particular instance the failure of consideration was unnoticed, until Estelle was aroused by a cry from her companion, so loud and vehement in tone that she knew at once that no ordinary occurrence had called it forth.

Reining up sharply, she turned in her saddle to behold a sight which blanched her cheek and well-nigh froze the life-blood in her veins.

From out the tangled forest growth, emerging from behind a gigantic eucalypt, two men, masked and armed, had stepped into the roadway, abreast of the gold-buyer and the trooper. A third man, half hidden by the bushes, levelled his fire-arm a few paces in the rear. Both girls sat horror-stricken on their horses as the trooper's carbine and the fire-arms of the robbers appeared to make simultaneous reports. The gold-buyer fell heavily from his horse in the road; the trooper staggered and swayed in the saddle, dropping his reins, but recovered himself, though evidently hard hit and unable to control his horse. The wounded man rose to his knees, but at that moment one of the masked strangers rushed over and struck him over the head. Estelle's eyes darkened, and she felt as if all sensation was leaving her; but, recovering herself, she shook her reins, and the free horse dashed down the slope leading to the creek of which they had been told, with the speed of a racer, accompanied by her terror-stricken companion, whose hackney followed suit with the instinct of his kind.

The creek was crossed almost immediately. Mile after mile fled away like a dream before either of the girls thought of drawing rein. At length, at the foot of a steep and rocky range, the horses commenced to slacken speed.

'My G.o.d!' said the girl, 'did you see that? They have murdered my poor uncle! Whatever shall we do? Do you think they will come after us? Is there any house that we can go to along this horrid road? I know we shall both be killed and planted so as never to be heard of again.'

'Let us think over our best course,' said Estelle, aroused to the necessity of self-possession in the hour of need, and in the presence of a weaker nature. 'I remember this range. Five miles on the other side is an inn, near a water-race. If we can get there we are safe; there seemed to be a good many people about when we pa.s.sed up. But I hear horses galloping after us. Good heavens!'

They stopped, and, listening, could plainly hear the sound of more than one horse coming fast along the rocky road behind them.

'We must turn into the wood,' said Estelle; 'fortunately it is thick enough to hide us until we see who are following up.'

They rode some distance into the forest, the low-growing pendent shrubs of which, the product of a damp climate and constant rainfall, were sufficiently dense to s.h.i.+eld them from observation.

Nearer and nearer came the hoof-beats. The girls gazed anxiously through the close foliage. Then a chestnut horse came round a corner of the range, upon which sat a man whose arms were apparently helpless.

'Great Heaven!' said Estelle, 'it is Beresford the police trooper. He has been wounded in the arms. See! he cannot hold the reins, poor fellow!'

'That's his chestnut horse,' said the rural young lady excitedly; 'I'd know his blaze and white stockings a mile off. But what's follerin' him up? I'm blessed if it ain't poor old Uncle Con's horse, and he's got his pack all right and reg'lar too. Those chaps is gone cronk and done their villainy for nothing. I'm dashed if I ever see the like!'

'We had better catch them up,' said Estelle; 'the Lawyers Rest is hardly five miles distant. We might help that poor Beresford.'

Suddenly relieved from the deadly fear of the close presence of the wretches whose deed of blood they had witnessed, the girls put their horses to full speed and overtook one fugitive before he reached the hill-top. Bending down from her saddle, the Australian maid caught the pack-horse's bridle, bursting into tears and loud lamentation as she recognised her dead kinsman's effects attached to different sections of the pack-saddle.

'Poor old Uncle Con,' she said, 'there's his mackintosh, his water-bag, his billy-can--all the old traps I know so well. Many a time I've joked him about them--so particular to have everything handy for camping, he was. He won't camp no more, poor old man! He said it would be his last trip, and so it was. I wonder if I shall live to see those villains hanged? That old wretch c.o.ke's in it for one, I'll swear.'

Scarcely had they ridden another mile when they overtook the police trooper. Partly disabled and in pain, and guiding his horse with difficulty, the deathlike pallor of his face told of weakness from loss of blood; yet he braced himself gallantly for the work that lay before him.

'Let me hold your rein,' said Estelle, as she rode up to his horse's shoulder; 'are your arms badly hurt?'

'Riddled through and through,' said the young fellow, groaning. 'The brute must have loaded with slugs; my wrists feel the worst, and there's a hole in my shoulder as well. I may get some one to ride back with me from the inn. I can't leave poor Con dead on the road.'

The sight of the unpretentious slab edifice with a bark verandah which was dignified with the t.i.tle of Lawyers' Rest was more grateful to Estelle's strained vision than would have been the most palatial hotel in Europe, for around it stood a dozen men, while several horses, 'hung up' to the palings of the little garden, testified to an unusual gathering. The trooper's dull eye brightened at the sight, and he looked as if the spirit within him had power to overcome the weakness of the flesh. They rode up to the door, a strange cortege, in the eyes of the miners and squatters there a.s.sembled--a woman leading a horse, upon which swayed and bent forward a wounded man, while a girl followed with a pack-horse heavily laden and mud-splashed to the eyes.

As they reined up amid the excited crowd, the trooper lay forward in a deathlike swoon, and was only saved from falling by the strong arms which lifted him from the saddle and bore him tenderly to a couch.

In broken and disjointed sentences Estelle described the deed of blood, while the gold-buyer's niece inveighed wildly against the murderers of her uncle. He was a well-known man, and a corresponding degree of indignation was aroused, while all necessary steps were taken for the relief of the fugitives.

The gold was removed, and, after being weighed in the presence of witnesses, deposited with the landlord, as also the other effects of the deceased. Wanderer and his comrades were stabled, a comfortable room prepared by the landlord's wife for the girls, while a dozen well-armed men were ready to start for the scene of murder within ten minutes of their arrival. With them rode Trooper Beresford, recovered from his faint. Revived with eau-de-vie de Cognac, he insisted on accompanying them.

But this was a bootless errand. Beresford pointed out where the men first appeared from behind the b.u.t.tress of the forest giant. The tracks were as a printed page to the experienced dwellers in the waste who stood beside him. But the gold-buyer lay dead in the centre of the road.

From a gunshot wound the blood had welled forth into a pool, while his skull had been cleft with more than one stroke of an axe.

'We'd better take him back to the shanty with us, boys,' said one of the older men, by common consent elected to act as leader. 'You young chaps as has got sharp eyes hunt about, and don't leave so much as a b.u.t.ton behind if you come across one, next or anigh him. It's no use follerin'

the tracks for more than a bit, just to see which way they've headed.

Beresford here ain't fit, and if they're the men we suspect, one of 'em's near Mount Gibbo by this, and the rest many a mile off some other way.'

So the dead man was placed on a horse, and the party wended their way sadly back to the little hostelry with their silent blood-stained companion.

On the morrow, at a formal meeting, it was decided that a strong body of volunteers, with a black tracker, should follow up the trail of the murderers. A reward sufficiently large to tempt an accomplice was offered for information leading to a conviction, an old comrade of the dead man subscribing more than half the amount. A messenger had been despatched to the nearest police station, and the Coroner shortly arrived to hold an inquest upon the body.

This melancholy business having been completed, and a verdict of 'wilful murder by persons unknown' having been brought in, Estelle felt sufficiently recovered to recommence her journey. Now that she had experienced one of the dread realities of goldfields life, much of her former confidence had departed. She felt an overwhelming impatience to regain the security of civilisation, and cheerfully accepted the offer of the escort of the Coroner, who was also a police magistrate. He accompanied her as far as the next towns.h.i.+p on the way to Melbourne.

There were also a couple of police troopers _en route_ for the barracks at Jolimont, so that nothing better could be wished. At the towns.h.i.+p they fell in with a squatter and his daughter bound for Melbourne, with whom they joined forces till Toorak once more rose to view and the winding Yarra Yarra. And now this strange and terrible occurrence had pa.s.sed like the horror of a dream, and Estelle Chaloner was again in Melbourne, safe under the sheltering wing of Mrs. Vernon. Awakening on the first morning in that well-ordered home, she felt as if evil-hap or danger could never menace her more. Shaken in nerve and outworn by the journey, words could faintly express the need she felt for rest. Yet a shuddering dread possessed her lest she might be destined for experiences not less terrifying and lawless in her future.

But no season of repose was as yet for her. She must risk whatever further trials fate had in store. Her word was given; the plighted vow must be kept. The life, the very soul of him to whom she was pledged to entrust all that womanhood holds most sacred, trembled in the balance.

Was she, from girlish timidity, from mere nervous shrinking and feminine reluctance, to which she could not give a name, to draw back meanly from mere personal considerations? What were her wrongs and probable privations to _his_? The die was cast.

Early in the following week the half-expected, half-dreaded fateful letter arrived. 'He had taken _their_ pa.s.sage,'--'_our pa.s.sage_,' she repeated to herself--'in the _John T. Whitman_ for Callao, in the name of Mr. and Mrs. H. Johnson. He had arranged for the marriage at the little church at South Yarra, on the morning of the day the vessel was to sail. She would sail on that afternoon, and no humbug about it; he had seen the first mate and made things right with him, so his information was good. Nothing remained, then, but for his heart's darling Estelle to hold herself in readiness to be at St. Mark's at the hour appointed, and all would yet be well. What he had suffered since they parted, no tongue could tell!... She might imagine his feelings when he became aware of the diabolical crime that had been committed. He was half-way to Melbourne when he heard of it. No doubt justice would overtake the guilty parties. '_She_ had escaped--that was everything.

Poor Con Gray was right when he said it should be his _last trip_.'

And so the day was at hand--close, inevitable! This was on Tuesday.

Sat.u.r.day was the day fixed for the sailing of the _John T. Whitman_--for the joining of two hearts, two bodies, two souls--irrevocably, eternally--in this world and the world to come. For how can the human mind realise the essential dissociation during the probation of this earthly life, or even amid the spiritualised conditions of another existence, of those _once_ made one flesh--wedded, and welded together under the sanction of the most tremendous of human sacraments?

Like most prospective occurrences seen dimly and afar, Estelle Chaloner had not closely a.n.a.lysed her feelings when the day of doom should arrive. Now, she experienced a kind of minute a.n.a.lysis of her sensations, distinctly painful in its intensity. She read and re-read Lance's letter, and, among other things, marked with surprise an occasional lapse in grammar, or the use of a small letter when a capital was imperative. Even the handwriting, though more like Lance's letters from school than his latter-day epistles, seemed cramped and laboured.

'Poor fellow, poor fellow!' she said softly to herself, 'I suppose he hasn't written much lately. Australia is a bad country for correspondence, and yet----' here she smiled and blushed slightly as she recalled the pile of home letters she had watched Mr. Stirling despatch one Sunday morning, and her playful reference to his dutiful habits.

'People differ in Australia, I suppose,' she continued, 'as in all other places. What ignorant folly it is to think otherwise!' and again she sighed--sighed deeply; then rose from her seat half impatiently. 'It is my fate,' she said; 'man or woman, who can escape their destiny?'

Of course, all Melbourne rang with the account of the Omeo Tragedy, as it was called. Every provincial paper, from one end of Australia to the other, had its moral deduction, its elaborate amplification. Murders and robberies were unhappily far from infrequent in those early days of the Gold Revolution--that social, political, and pecuniary upheaval which overturned so many preconceived opinions, and changed the destinies of states no less than individuals.

But for this special crime the horror was universal, the clamour for vengeance upon the villains who had done to death a worthy and inoffensive citizen was exceptionally loud and persistent. A friend of the murdered man offered three hundred pounds for information leading to conviction; the Government as much more. It was confidently hoped that such 'honour among thieves' as existed would disintegrate before so powerful a solvent.

Meanwhile Estelle found herself, to her surprise and slight annoyance, placed involuntarily in the position of a heroine. Her portrait was in the ill.u.s.trated papers; not, however, limned from any miniature, but hit off from a thumb-nail sketch made by an ingenious but deeply respectful young gentleman connected with the press, during the pa.s.sage of a brief interview. It had leaked out in some way, probably through her travelling companion, that Estelle was about to be married to a man connected with mining pursuits (so he was described) at Omeo. This fact was dwelt upon and emphasised as adding to the natural interest felt in the case. This version of the affair was more than distasteful to her; as, apart from her natural disinclination to be described and commented upon from every conceivable point of view, she dreaded lest the additional publicity forced upon her private affairs might prove fatal to