The Lost Valley Part 25

"I've got to pretend," she said in answer to my question. "Pretend that you are nothing to me when----"

She stopped short. It seemed almost as if she regretted that she had said so much.

"Go on," I urged.

"There's not much to say," she continued. "I just want to tell you, to tell you in such a way that you'll believe me, that if I've treated you shamefully I've suffered for it. I can't make any reparation for it; you were quite right in saying that it is too late now to alter things. I just want you to know that I'm sorry. I can't say much more than that, though I don't want to take any credit for it now, seeing that it's been practically forced out of me."

I remembered the way she had been standing when I came in, the tears in her eyes, and the way she had backed out of my reach the moment I put my hands on her shoulders. It would have been so easy for her to have done the other thing, but she hadn't, and I admired her all the more for it.

She might easily have captured me in the first flush of emotion, but she had instead given me time to think and a chance to get away if I wanted to. There was something in her att.i.tude that appealed to my sense of fair play and at the same time prevented me from in any way misinterpreting her last remark.

"Moira," I said, "were you crying when I came in just now?"

Her lip trembled a little as she asked, "Why do you want to know?"

"Because," I said slowly, "I've solved one riddle already to-night, and I've a mind to solve another before I go to bed."

"I was crying," she admitted, "only I didn't mean you to see."

"And why was that?"

"I thought you might imagine I was just doing it."

I knew what she meant; there was no need for her to explain further. She didn't want to influence me in any way; whatever I did must be done of my own free will.

"I'm beginning to understand," I said slowly.

"Then you'll forgive?" she said quickly, and one hand went up to her throat as if she were choking.

I nodded and impulsively she held out her hand to me. I did not take it, and she half-turned so that I would not see what was in her eyes.

"Can't we even be friends?" she said, with a queer little catch in her words.

Something snapped in my head at that, and the words I had been holding back all the evening came to my lips in a rush of speech.

"I didn't mean you to take it that way," I said desperately. "I wouldn't shake hands because ... that's not what I want. It's too stand-offish.

I'm going to do more than forgive, and we're going to me more than friends, if you still want me."

"You know I want you," she said softly with her head bowed shyly and the blushes rising in her cheeks.

I took her in my arms and kissed her.

CHAPTER II.

OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY.

Once we had definitely fixed the date of our departure we lost no time in making ready. As the days went by I began to see more and more clearly that it was just as well I had thrown in my lot with Moira and young c.u.mshaw. Neither of them had the least idea of organisation, and they seemed to think that things just happened of their own accord.

Moira couldn't see anything else but the glamor and romance of the adventure, and I found that, for all his cleverness, Albert c.u.mshaw did not know what was essential to the expedition and what wasn't.

"We can't start off like a picnic party," I said to them on one occasion, "and just wander on until we come to a likely spot. We've got to have everything planned out right down to the last box of matches and the last cartridge."

c.u.mshaw drew a deep breath. "Cartridges!" he said, "Are you talking figuratively?"

"No," I answered. "I'm speaking literally. It might yet be the case of the last cartridge. You must remember that, even if we get the gold and come back here in safety, we're still not out of the wood. We're not safe until our friends the enemy are removed from our paths for ever."

"You mean that they must be killed?" Moira demanded.

"I don't mean anything of the kind," I answered. "As a matter of fact I've got a perfect horror of killing people. It makes such a mess, and I'm naturally a rather tidy person."

c.u.mshaw laughed softly, but Moira bit her lip, though she made no reply to what I had said.

"Now, while we're talking about it," I ran on, "I just want to impress on you the fact that we aren't going off into the bush--not the kind of bush that you read about in books, where it's all scrub and myall blacks and things like that. Most of the time we'll be within coo-ee of civilisation. Most of Western Victoria's pretty well settled, and it's just the luck of the game and the formation of the country that this valley's remained so long hidden away. We'll be near enough to people all the time to be noticeable if we do anything remarkable. We've got to go to work so that we'll attract as little attention as possible. We'll want food, enough for several weeks, I suppose, and we've got to get it and take it with us, and do it all in such a way that n.o.body's going to wonder what we're after. Another thing that that reminds me of. Miss Drummond here had better keep out of sight as long as she can. We two can manage to escape observation, but people always want to know what a woman's doing in it when there's anything suspicious happening."

"If you mean by that that you think I can be turned back at the last moment, you're making a mistake," Moira informed me.

"I don't mean that," I said calmly, "but I want to take every precaution that I can. I'm in charge of this expedition, elected by three votes to nothing, and I'm going to run things the way I think best. It mightn't be the best way in the end, but that's quite another matter. I haven't wandered across the world from Yokohama to the White Nile and from the Klond.y.k.e to the Solomons without knowing how to organise an expedition."

"You're right there," c.u.mshaw acknowledged. "You're the only one amongst us who's had practical experience. In future what you say goes."

"That's the spirit," I said briskly. "What have you to say, Moira?"

"You know best," she answered. "As long as you don't leave me out altogether I'll agree to anything, but I want to take my share of the risk too."

"Apparently," I remarked, "everyone's afraid that everybody else'll have the lion's share of the fighting. Well, if I can fix it, there'll not be any fighting at all."

"What do you mean?" c.u.mshaw asked interestedly.

"That's nothing to do with the situation at present," I informed him.

"You'll all see when the time's ripe. Now what's next?"

"There's nothing more that I know of," c.u.mshaw volunteered.

"And you, Moira?"

"I think I've got everything fixed," she answered.

"That means we can start at the end of the week," I said with satisfaction. "It looks as if fortune's turning our way at last."

The three of us laughed together, and c.u.mshaw I think it was who said, "Success to the expedition!" It sounded very nice, and we were all so sure that things were going to turn out well. But there was one little point that all of us had overlooked, and that was destined in one way and another to upset our plans to a remarkable extent.

Profiting by Bryce's experience, I decided to leave the car at home, as I realised that we would have to abandon it sooner or later, and nothing is so apt to set foolish people talking as an apparently ownerless car.

I resolved on making our headquarters at the spot where by all accounts the unlamented Mr. Bradby had met his death. For one thing all the later developments of the chase had centred round that one spot, and Bryce himself had gone there unhesitatingly by the shortest and most direct route he knew of. I couldn't see at the time where I could find a better jumping-off place. To say the least it was a fixed point from which to start exploring, and we had the comforting knowledge, though it might not be of any practical use to us, that the valley itself was within two or three days' march. With it as the centre we would have to cast a circle with a radius of anything up to fifty miles, and then somewhere within the enclosed area we might, or might not, find the elusive vale that held the treasure.

We approached the rendezvous by widely divergent routes. It was a rather extravagant precaution, no doubt, but then I wasn't taking any risks that I could possibly avoid. The murderous gentlemen who were quite certainly on our track were a power to be reckoned with, and at the same time we had to keep our eyes open for the law itself. It was all right for Bryce to say that he was playing within the law--quite possibly he was--but I had no idea of paying any percentage to the Crown. I was rather hazy on the matter myself, though I seemed to have heard somewhere or other that the Government always gobbled a big share of the loot in the case of treasure trove. At any rate the quieter we kept the expedition the less likelihood there was of us having to pay anything at all.

Moira was to travel with me from Murtoa, and c.u.mshaw decided to train as far as Landsborough--the recently opened Crowlands to Navarre railway would take him that far--and then do the rest across the hills on foot.