A Crime of the Under-seas Part 21

"My dear child, you're getting wet through; do bring your horse into shelter!"

But before the sentence was finished the girl had turned her horse's head and was galloping down the streaming road at break-neck speed.

Then Mrs. Belverton gathered her wits together and set to work to undeceive her two admirers. All things considered, the operation must have been a curious one. When it was accomplished she rode home alone, meditating, I presume, on the futilities of this mundane existence.

The sad conclusion we, the Hillites, have come to, is that both Poltwhistle and Collivar hate their would-be benefactress most cordially for endeavouring to promote their happiness, and abominate each other still more for interfering and spoiling sport. While Miss Halroyd, who goes home next mail-day, hates all three with an undying hatred, and of course cannot be made to understand that her own folly alone is responsible for everything that happened. Personally, I should be more interested to know what easy-going William Belverton thinks about it all.

In Great Waters

"Short shrift! sharp fate! dark doom to dree!

Hard struggle, though quickly ending!

At home or abroad, by land or sea, In peace or war, sore trials must be, And worse may happen to you or to me, For none are secure and none can flee From a destiny impending."

--Adam Lindsay Gordon.

"Don't thank me; I'm sure I'm equally obliged to you. I haven't seen a strange face these three months; and though I am that despised animal, a broken-down gentleman, I've never quite been able to overcome a foolish hankering after some dealing with my old caste again. Pardon the implied compliment!

"You'd better hobble your horses and turn them loose towards the creek.

I'll run them up in the morning with my own.

"Having done that, if you're hungry, you'll find tea in the billy, and damper and meat in those ration bags. It's Queensland boundary rider's fare, but the best I can offer you.

"Monotonous country? By Heavens, yes! The children in exile knew no worse. On all sides, sand, mulga, and desolation--desolation, mulga, and sand, and unceasing regret, the portion of every man who has his lot in it!

"Have you quite finished? Then light your pipe. No, no! not with a vesta like a new chum, but with a fire-stick--so! When you've been in the Bush as long as I have, you will see in a match something more than a pipe-light. But by that time you will be on the high road to a still more peculiar wisdom, which will never be of service to you.

"Now, draw your blankets to the fire and cease thinking of your horses.

They're on good feed, so let them eat their fill. If what I hear of the country out back is true, they'll get no more this side of the Barcoo.

"What do I say? How do I know that you are new to the country? Simply enough! By the light in your eyes, the palms of your hands, and the freshness of your voice. Besides, when a man has been long in the West, does he stand up for want of a chair? Forgive my rudeness, but you'll learn it all soon enough.

"Talking of cla.s.ses! Consider the cla.s.s I represent. In this country it is a numerous one, and the Bush is both our refuge and our cemetery. As we wish to know n.o.body, so we desire that n.o.body shall ever know us; and being beyond the reach of pride or shame, we live entirely in memories of the past, through which we enjoy a keener torture than any creed or sect can promise us hereafter. If you have the understanding, you might write the book of our misery, and, believe me, you'd have an inexhaustible reservoir upon which to draw.

"Before you came out you had a different notion of Australia? Exactly!

Folk who live sixteen thousand miles away, and own bank-books and fat stomachs, have one idea of it; while we, who exist like Esau, in the Red Sand itself, if you approached us properly, would give quite another.

Now, I knew of a case once--but I beg your pardon!

"That old hut at the Creek Bend you pa.s.sed at mid-day? Three black posts and a wreck of charred timber, yellow boulders against an umber cliff, and two dingoe pups rioting on the threshold--isn't that the picture?

"Well, if you think it dreary and lonesome to-day, try and imagine it when it was the furthest boundary west, with only the Great Unknown between the ranges at our back and the Timor Sea.

"For reasons which could not interest you, I was the first to live there. Curiously enough, my hut-keeper was also of our caste. By nationality he was a Hungarian, and in addition to other things, he was a studious disciple of Goethe, and the finest zither player I have ever heard. It's about his connection with that hut that I wish to tell you.

"As men seldom quarrel when ambition has gone out of their lives, for a year we came as near a certain sort of happiness as a remorseless Heaven would permit. Then everything suddenly changed.

"One day, after a long stretch of dry weather that looked almost like settling in for a drought, welcome storm-clouds gathered in the west, and night closed in with a vigorous downpour. The creek, which for months past had been merely a chain of half-dry waterholes, began to trickle briskly round its bends, and in the morning had risen to the size of a respectable torrent. Next day, Thursday, it was a banker, and still the rain continued. By Friday evening the flood was upon us. And such a flood as you never in your life saw or dreamed of!

"To give you some idea of its size, you must imagine this plain, from the mountains behind you to the scrub yonder, one vast sheet of foaming, roaring, rus.h.i.+ng, eddying water.

"Opposite the old hut we are talking of it was many miles in width, and for more than a week we were hemmed in upon a tiny island (the hut stands on a slight elevation, as you perhaps have observed), with the waters drawing a line of yeast-like foam daily closer and closer to our door. There was no escape, and I doubt if either of us would have taken advantage of it if there had been.

"Morning, noon, and night, the flood went roaring and rus.h.i.+ng by, carrying on its bosom forest trees, and hopeless beasts of all sorts, sizes, and descriptions. And each moment saw us waiting for the lip-lap upon the threshold which should signal the destruction of the hut and our immediate departure for Eternity!

"Now you must remember that in life there is no such thing as chance.

Every existence has its allotted span, and to avoid the pre-ordained termination is impossible for any man. You may smile, but I am convinced that what I say is correct, and this is a case in point.

"On the ninth night of our imprisonment we were sitting in our one room, trying to keep warm, and listening to the storm outside. The wind, moaning through the logs, played with the firelight and threw a thousand fantastic shadows on the rough-hewn walls.

"When life carries no future for a man, you will readily understand that he becomes callous, even as to the means of his death; so, even with destruction hovering over him, Yadeski sought company in his music.

Drawing his zither from its case, he laid it on the table and allowed his fingers to stray across the strings. The sweet, sad melody that followed lent an air of almost reverence to the bare walls and homeless aspect of the room.

"The storm outside yelled and muttered by turns; but, heedless of it, he played on, wandering from the folk-songs of the old grey Magyar villages to the paeans of victorious hunters, from mighty trampling war-chants to tender, crooning cradle-songs.

"Suddenly a shout rang out clear and distinct above the storm. It was the cry of a man who, feeling the hand of Death clutching at his weasand, knows that unless help comes quickly that grip will tighten and his life go from him. Before he could call again, we had rushed into the storm.

"The wind blew a hurricane, the waters snarled at the tiny hill and rolled in black waves, that might almost have been taken for the sea, to our feet. Battling in the direction whence the sound proceeded, Yadeski called with all the strength of his lungs. His voice, however, was lost in the general turmoil. But at the same instant, as if in answer, a white face rose through the foam not a dozen paces from our feet.

Yadeski instantly plunged in, the face vanished, and for a moment I lost sight of both. Then they rose within an arm's length of where I stood, and I went in and dragged them out--the working of Fate, mind you!

"Between us we carried the stranger to our hut and laid him before the fire.

"For more than an hour, despite our exertions, he remained unconscious; then his eyes slowly opened, and in a few moments his power of speech returned to him. Two words escaped his lips, and when he heard them my hut-keeper fell back against the wall with ashen face.

"A soft sleep followed the return to consciousness, and I turned into my bunk. Yadeski, however, sat gazing into the fire with an expression on his face I could not, for the life of me, understand. All night he must have kept the same position; but when the sun rose he shook himself together and set about his preparation of the morning meal.

"By the light of day I saw that the stranger was a young man of prepossessing appearance. He explained that he was a Hungarian, and had only been in Australia a month. From what I could gather he was travelling to some new country that had lately been taken up further to the north-west. When crossing the river, which, by reason of the floods, was very much congested, the waters had separated him from his party and had washed his horse from under him. He was carried mile after mile battling for life, spent half a day in a tree, which was eventually washed from under him, was borne out into the main stream, and, but for our timely a.s.sistance, would soon have been a dead man.

"I hope I am not wearying you?

"Well, day after day the flood continued, and for more than a week our chance guest was compelled to remain with us. Then the waters fell as quickly as they had risen, and when the safety of the track was once more a.s.sured, he decided to resume his journey.

"The night before he left us we were sitting round the fire listening to Yadeski's music. As was his custom, he wandered from air to air, seemingly unconscious of our presence.

"The stranger listened with his eyes full of an insatiable hunger.

"From gentlest pianissimo the music rose to a wild, fierce note of despair. An unearthly pathos seized the instrument--an inexplicable, yet intense longing, a vague desire for something unattainable, took possession of us. Then the music ceased abruptly, the spell was broken, and the younger man, springing to his feet, cried, in a voice tremulous with excitement,--

"'Oh, where, tell me where you learned that dreadful air?'

"The musician did not answer, but sat gazing into the fire. Shaking him by the shoulder, the younger man repeated his question till, as one in a dream, Yadeski muttered,--

"'Many years ago, far from here. What does it matter?'

"'Matter! Why, man, it was that air that brought me out here; it was that cursed air that killed my----' But he stopped, and leaned against the wall.