Kitabı oku: «The Boss of Taroomba», sayfa 8
"Inside the counter."
"Much of a chest to bust into?"
"Two locks, and clamps all over."
"Where's the keys?"
"I don't know. Miss Pryse keeps them."
"She won't keep 'em long. See here, you devil, if you look at me again like that I'll plug your eyes into your mouth! You seem to know a fat lot about this silver. Have you seen it, or haven't you?"
"I have."
"What is there?"
"Not much. A couple of candlesticks; a few spoons; some old skewers; a biscuit-box; a coffee-pot – but it's half ivory; an epergne – "
"What the 'ells that? None o' your Greek, you swine!"
"It's a thing for flowers."
"Why didn't you say so, then? What else?"
"Let me see – "
"You'd best look slippy!"
"Well, there's not much more. A cake-basket, some napkin-rings, and a pair of nut-crackers. And that's about all. It's all I saw, anyhow."
"All silver?"
"I shouldn't think it."
"You liar! You plucky well know it is. And not a bad lot neither, even if it was the lot. By the Lord, I've a good mind to strip and sit you on that fire for not telling me the truth!"
"Easy, mate, easy!" remonstrated the Bo's'n. "That sounds near enough."
"By cripes," cried Simons, "it's near enough for me. 'Tain't the silver I want. It's the gold, and that's the girl!"
"You won't get her," said Engelhardt.
"Why not?"
"She'll put a bullet through you."
"Can she shoot straight?"
"As straight as her father, I should say. I never saw him. But I've seen her."
"What do?"
"Stand in the veranda and knock a crow off the well fence – with her own revolver."
"By cripes, that's a lie."
(It was.)
"I'm not so blooming sure," said Bill. "I recollect how the old man dropped Tigerskin at nigh twenty yards. She was with him, too, at the time – a kid out of bed. I took a shot at her and missed. She'd be as likely as not to knock a hole through one or other of us, lads, if you hadn't got me to see you through. You trust to Bill for ideas! He's got one now, but it'll keep. See here, you swine, you! When was it you saw all what you pretend to have seen, eh?"
Engelhardt laughed. His answer could do no harm, and it gave him a thrill of satisfaction to score even so paltry a point against his bestial antagonist.
"It was the day you two came around the station."
"That morning?"
"Yes."
"Where did you see it?"
"In the store."
"Before we came?"
"While you were there. When Miss Pryse locked the door, it was all over the place. While we were in the kitchen she got it swept out of sight."
"Good God!" screamed Bill; "if only I'd known. You little devil, if only I'd guessed it!"
His vile face was convulsed and distorted with greed and rage; his hairy, four-fingered fist shaking savagely in Engelhardt's face. Bo's'n remonstrated again.
"What's the sense o' that, messmate? For God's sake shut it! A fat lot we could ha' done without a horse between us."
"We could have rushed the store, stretched 'em stiff – "
"And carried a hundredweight o' silver away in our bluies! No, no, my hearty; it's a darn sight better as it is. What do you say, Simons?"
"I'm glad you waited, but I'm bleedin' dry."
"An' me, too," said Bill, sulkily, as he uncorked a black bottle. "Give us that pannikin, you spawn!"
Engelhardt handed it over unmoved. He was past caring what was said or done to him personally. Bill drank first.
"Here's fun!" said he, saluting the other two simultaneously with a single cross-eyed leer.
"'An' they say so – an' we hope so!'" chanted the Bo's'n, who came next. "Anyway, here's to the moon, for there she spouts!"
As he raised his pannikin, he pointed it over Engelhardt's shoulder, and the latter involuntarily turned his head. He brought it back next moment, with a jerk and a shudder. Far away, behind the scrub, on the edge of the earth, lay the moon, with a silvery pathway leading up to her, and a million twigs and branches furrowing her face. But against the top of the great white disc there fell those horrible boots and spurs, in grisly silhouette, and still swaying a little to the mournful accompaniment of the groaning bough above. Surely the works of God and man were never in ghastlier contrast than when Engelhardt turned his head without thinking and twitched it back with a shudder. And yet to him this was not the worst; he was now in time to catch that which made the blood run colder still in all his veins.
CHAPTER XIII
A SMOKING CONCERT
Simons was toasting Naomi Pryse. It took Engelhardt some moments to realize this. The language he could stand; but no sooner did he grasp its incredible application than his self-control boiled over on the spot.
"Stop it!" he shrieked at the shearer. "How dare you speak of her like that? How dare you?"
The foul mouth fell open, and the camp-fire flames licked the yellow teeth within. Engelhardt was within a few inches of them, with a doubled fist and reckless eyes. To his amazement, the man burst out laughing in his face.
"The little cuss has spunk," said he. "I like to see a cove stick up for 'is gal, by cripes I do!"
"So do I," said Bo's'n. "Brayvo, little man, brayvo!"
"My oath," said Bill, "I'd have cut 'is stinkin' throat for 'alf as much if I'd been you, matey!"
"Not me," said Simons. "I'll give 'im a drink for 'is spunk. 'Ere, kiddy, you wish us luck!"
He held out the pannikin. Engelhardt shook his head. He was, in fact, a teetotaler, who had made a covenant with himself, when sailing from old England, to let no stimulant pass his lips until his feet should touch her shores again. The covenant was absolutely private and informal, as between a man and his own body, but no power on earth would have made him break it.
"Come on," said Simons. "By cripes, we take no refusals here!"
"I must ask you to take mine, nevertheless."
"Why?"
"Because I don't drink."
"Well, you've got to!"
"I shall not!"
Simons seemed bent upon it. Perhaps he had taken a drop too much himself; indeed, none of the three were entirely above such a suspicion; but it immediately appeared that this small point was to create more trouble than everything that had gone before. Small as it was, neither man would budge an inch. Engelhardt said again that he would not drink. Simons swore that he should either drink or die. The piano-tuner cheerfully replied that he expected to die in any case, but he wasn't going to touch whiskey for anybody; so he gave Simons leave to do what he liked and get it over – the sooner the better. The shearer promptly seized him by his uninjured wrist, twisted it violently behind his back, and held out his hand to Bo's'n for the pannikin. Engelhardt was now helpless, his left arm a prisoner and in torture, his right lying useless in a sling. Bo's'n, however, came to his rescue once more, by refusing to see good grog wasted when there was little enough left.
"What's the use?" said he. "If the silly devil won't drink, we'll make him sing us a song. He says he tunes pianners. Let him tune up now!"
"That's better," assented Bill. "The joker shall give us a song before we let his gas out; and I'll drink his grog. Give it here, Bo's'n."
The worst of a gang of three is the strong working majority always obtainable against one or other of them. Simons gave in with a curse, and sent Engelhardt sprawling with a heavy kick. As he picked himself up, they called upon him to sing. He savagely refused.
"All right," said Bill, "we'll string him up an' be done with him. I'm fairly sick o' the swine – I am so!"
"By cripes, so am I."
"Then up he goes."
"The other beggar's got the rope," said Bo's'n.
"Then cut him down. He won't improve by hanging any longer. We ain't a-going to eat him, are we? Cut him down, and sling this one up. It's your job, Bo's'n."
Bo's'n was disposed to grumble. Bill cut him short.
"All right," said he, getting clumsily to his feet, "I'll do it myself. You call yourself a bloomin' man! I'd make a better bloomin' man than you with bloomin' baccy-ash. Out of the light, you cripple, an' the thing'll be done in half the time you take talking about it!"
Engelhardt was left sitting between Simons and the ill-used Bo's'n. The latter had his grumble out, but Bill took no more account of him. As for the shearer, the ferocity of his attitude toward the doomed youth was now second to none. He sat very close to him, with a hellish scowl and a great hand held ready to blast any attempt at escape. But none was made. The piano-tuner stuck his thumbs into his ears, covered his closed eyes with his palms, and tried both to think and to pray. He could not think; vague visions of Naomi crowded his mind, but they formed no thought. Nor could he pray for anything but courage to meet his fate. Within a few yards of him was the body of a dead man murdered by these thieves among whom he himself had fallen. He could not but doubt that they were about to murder him too. His last hour had come. He wanted courage. That was all he asked for as he sat with plugged ears and tight-shut eyes.
He was aroused by a smart kick in the ribs. As he got up to go to his doom, Bill seized him by the shoulders and pushed him roughly toward the hanging rope; it hung so low, it bisected the rising moon.
"Let me alone," he cried, wriggling fiercely. "I can get there without your help."
"Well, we'll see."
He got there fast enough. A little deeper in the scrub he could see a shapeless mass of moleskin and Crimean shirting, with a spurred boot half covered by a stiff hand. He was thankful to turn his face to the blazing camp-fire, even though the noose went round his neck as he did so.
"Now then," said Bill, hauling the rope taut, "will you give us a song or won't you?"
He could not speak.
"If you sing us a song we may give you another hour," said the Bo's'n from the ground. Simons and he had been whispering together. Bill shook his head at them.
"That rests with me," said he to Engelhardt. "Don't you make any mistake."
"Another hour!" cried the young man, bitterly, as he found his voice. "What's another hour? If you're men at all, put an end to me now and be done with it."
"How's that?" said Bill, hauling him upon tip-toe. "No, no, sonny, we want our song first," he added, as he let the rope fall slack again.
"Sing up, and there's no saying what'll happen," cried the Bo's'n, cheerily.
"What shall I sing?"
"Anything you like."
"Something funny to cheer us up."
"Ay, ay, a comic song!"
Engelhardt wavered – as once before under the eyes and ears of a male audience. "I'll do my best," he said at last. And Bo's'n clapped.
A minute later the bushrangers' camp was the scene of as queer a performance as ever was given. A very young man, with a pallid, blood-stained face, and a rope round his neck, was singing a "comic" song to a parcel of cut-throats who were presently to hang him, as they had hanged already the corpse at his heels. Meanwhile they surrendered themselves like simple innocents to a thorough enjoyment of the fine fun provided. The replenished camp-fire lit their villanous faces with a rich red glow. They grinned, they laughed, they displayed their pleasure and satisfaction each after his own fashion. The fat man shook in his fat; the long man showed his grinning teeth; the sailor-man slapped his thighs and rolled on the ground in paroxysms of spirituous mirth. It must have been the humor of the situation, rather than that of the song, which so powerfully appealed to them. The former had the piquant charm of being entirely their own creation. The latter was that poetic paraphrase of the early chapters of the Book of Genesis which the singer had tried upon another back-block audience but a few nights before. Of the two, this audience, as such, was decidedly the better. At any rate they let him get to the end. And when that came, and Bo's'n clapped again, even the other two joined in the applause.
"By cripes," said Simons, "that's not so bad!"
"Bad?" cried the enthusiastic Bo's'n. "It's as good as fifty plays. We'll have some more, and I'll give you a song myself."
"Right!" said Bill. "The night's still young. Stiffin me purple if we haven't forgot them weeds we laid in at the township! Out with 'em, mateys, an' pass round the grog; we'll make a smokin' concert of it. A bloomin' smoker, so help me never!"
The cigars were unearthed from the pockets of Bill himself. He and Simons at once put two of them in full blast. Meantime, Bo's'n was trying his voice.
"Any of you know any sailors' chanties?" said he.
A pause, and then —
"Yes, I do."
The voice was none other than Engelhardt's.
"You? The devil you do! How's that, then?"
"I came out in a sailing ship."
"What do you know?"
"Some of the choruses."
"'Blow the land down?'"
"Yes – best of all."
"Then we'll have that! Messmates you join his nibs in the chorus. I sing yarn and chorus too. Ready? Steady! Here goes!"
And in a rich, rolling voice, that had been heard above many a gale on the high seas, he began with the familiar words:
Oh, where are you going to, my pretty maid? —
Yo-ho, blow the land down!
Oh, where are you going to, my pretty maid? —
And give us some time to blow the land down!
The words were not long familiar. They quickly became detestable. The farther they went, of course, the more they appealed to Simons, Bill, and the singer himself. As for Engelhardt, obviously he was in no position to protest; nor could mere vileness add at all to his discomfort, with that noose still round his neck, and the rope-end still tight in Bill's clutch. Then the refrain for every other line was no bad thing in itself; at all events, he joined in throughout, and at the close stood at least as well with his persecutors as before.
It now appeared, however, that sailors' chanties were the Bo's'n's weakness. He insisted on singing two more, with topical and impromptu verses of his own. As, for instance:
The proud Miss Pryse may toss 'er 'ead —
An' they say so – an' we hope so—
The proud Miss Pryse will soon be dead —
The poor – old – gal!
Or again, and as bad:
Oh, they call me Hanging Johnny —
Hurray! Pull away!
An' I'll soon hang you, my sonny —
Hang – boys – hang!
These are but opening verses. There were many more in each case, and they were bad enough in all respects. And yet Engelhardt chimed in at his own expense – even at Naomi's – because it might be that his life and hers depended upon it. He was beginning to have his hopes, partly from the delay, partly from looks and winks which he had seen exchanged; and his hopes led to ideas, because his brain had never been clearer and busier than it was now become. He was devoutly thankful not to have been twice forced to sing. The second time, however, was still to come. It was announced by a jerk of the rope that went near to dislocating his neck.
"This image is doing nothink for 'is living, an' yet we're letting 'im live!" cried Bill, in a tone of injured and abused magnanimity. "Sing, you swine, or swing! One o' the two."
"What sort will you have this time?" asked Engelhardt, meekly. His meekness was largely put on, however. The black bottle had been going round pretty freely; in fact, it was quite empty. Another had been broached, and the men were both visibly and audibly in their cups.
"Another comic!" cried Simons and the Bo's'n in one breath.
"No, something serious this trip," Bill said, contradictiously. "You know warri mean, you lubber – somethin' soothin' for a night-cap – somethin' Christy-mental. Go ahead an' be damned to ye!"
Engelhardt had no time to consider, to reflect, to choose. The signal to start instantly was given by a series of sharp, throttling jerks at the rope. Almost before he was himself aware of it, he was giving them the well-known "Swannee River." It was the first "Christy-mental" song that had risen to his mind and lips. Moreover, he gave it with all the pathos and expression of which he was capable, and that, as we know, was not inconsiderable. They did not join in the chorus. This made it the easier. He tried to forget that these men were there, and, throwing his gaze aloft, sung softly – even sweetly – to the stars. Doubtless it was all acting, and by a cunning instinct that he went so slow in the final chorus:
Oh, my heart is sad and weary,
Everywhere I roam;
Oh, darkies, but my heart is weary,
Far from the old folks at home.
And yet one knows that it is possible to act and to feel at one and the same time; and, incredible as it may seem in the circumstances, Engelhardt found it so just then. He did think of the dear old woman at home; and being an artist to his boots, he gave his emotions their head, and sang to these blackguards as he would have sung to Naomi herself. And the effect was extraordinary – if in part due to the whiskey. When the young man lowered his eyes there was the maudlin Bo's'n snivelling like a babe, and the other two sucking their cigars to life with faces as long as lanterns.
"Lads," said Bill, "the night's still young. What matter does it make when we tackle the station? It'll keep. We on'y got to get there before mornin'. 'Tain't midnight yet." His voice was thickish.
"If the moon gets much higher," hiccoughed the Bo's'n, "we'll never get there at all. We'll never find it!" And he dried his eyes on his sleeve.
Bill took no notice of this. But he shook up his companions, linked arms between the two, and halted them in front of Engelhardt. They all three swayed a little as they stood, yet all three were still dangerously sober; and the second bottle was empty now; and there was no third. Engelhardt confronted them with hope, but not confidence, and listened, more eagerly than he dared to show, to Bill's harangue.
"Young man," said he, "you're not such a cussed swine's I thought. Sing or swing, says I. You sings like a man. So you sha'n't swing at all – not yet. No saying what we'll do in an hour or two. P'r'aps we're going to take you along with us to the station, to show us things, an' p'r'aps we ain't. You make your miseral life happy, to go on with. You bloomin' beggar, you, we respite you! Bo's'n, take the same rope an' lash the joker to that tree."
Bill stopped to see it done. He was quite sober enough to be sufficiently particular in this matter; as was Bo's'n, to perform his part in sailor-like fashion. In five minutes the thing was done.
"What do you think of that?" cried the seaman, with a certain honest sort of deep-sea pride.
"It'll do, matey."
"By cripes, he'll never get out of that!"
In fact, from his chin to his knees, the poor piano-tuner was encased in a straight-waistcoat of rope – the rope that had been round his neck for the last half-hour. Even the injured arm was inside. Nor could he move his feet, for they were tied separately at the ankles. Otherwise there was only one knot in what was indeed a masterpiece of its kind.
"I hope you'll be comfortable," said the Bo's'n, with a quaint touch of remorse, "for split me if you didn't sing like a blessed cock-angel! And never you fear," he added, under his breath, "for we ain't agoin' to hang you. Not us! And if there's anything we can do for you afore we take our spell, say the word, messmate, say the word."
The piano-tuner shook his head.
"Then so long and – "
"Stop! you might give us a cigar."
It was given readily.
"Thanks; and now you might light it."
This also was done, with a brand from the dying fire.
"Good-night," said Bo's'n.
"And thank you," added Engelhardt.
The sailor stopped to give a last admiring glance at his handiwork; then he joined his companions, who were already spread out upon the broad of their backs; and Engelhardt was left to himself at last – unable to move hand or foot – with a corpse at hand and the murderers under his eyes – with the risen moon shining full upon his face, and the vilest of vile cigars held tight between his teeth.
And he was no smoker; tobacco made him sick.
Nevertheless, he kept that bad weed alight, and very carefully alight, for ten minutes by guess-work. Then he depressed his chin, knocked off an inch of ash against the top-most coil, applied the red end to the rope, and sucked and puffed for his life and Naomi's.
CHAPTER XIV
THE RAID ON THE STATION
Those same dark hours of this eventful night were also the slowest and the dreariest on record in the mind of Naomi Pryse. She too had waited for the moon. At sundown she had stabled her horse, and left it with a fine feed of chaff and oats as priming for the further work she had in view. This done, she had consented, under protest, to eat something herself; but had jumped up early to fill with her own hands a water-bag and a flask of which she could have no need for hours. It made no matter. She must be up and doing this or that; it was intolerable sitting still even to eat and drink. Besides, how could she eat, how could she drink, when he who should have shared her meal was perhaps perishing of hunger and thirst in Top Scrubby? It was much more comforting to cut substantial slices of mutton and bread, to put them up in a neat packet, and to set this in readiness alongside the flask and the water-bag. Then came the trouble. There was nothing more to be done.
It was barely eight o'clock, and no moon for two hours and a half.
Naomi went round to the back veranda, picked up the book she had been reading the day before, and marched about with it under her arm. She had not the heart to sit down and read. Her restless feet took her many times to the kitchen and Mrs. Potter, who shook her good gray head and remonstrated with increasing candor and asperity.
"Go to look for him?" she cried at last. "When the time comes for that, you'll be too dead tired to sit in your saddle, miss. If you start before the moon's well up, there'll be no telling a hoof-mark from a foot-print without getting off every time. You've said so yourself, Miss Naomi. Then why not go straight to your bed and lie down for two or three hours? I'll bring you a cup of tea at half-past eleven, and you can be away by twelve."
Naomi sighed.
"It is so long to wait – doing nothing! He may be dying, poor fellow; and yet what can one do in the dark?"
"Lie down and rest," said Mrs. Potter, dryly.
"Well, I will try, but not on my bed – on the sitting-room sofa, I think. Will you light the lamp there, please? And bring the tea at eleven; I'll start at half-past."
Naomi took a short stroll among the darkling pines – the way that she had taken the piano-tuner in the first moments of their swift friendship – the way that he had taken alone last night. She reached the sitting-room with moist, wistful eyes, which startled themselves as she confronted the mirror over the chimney-piece whereon stood the lamp. She stood for a little, however, looking at herself – steadfastly – inquisitively – as though to search out the secrets of her own heart. She gave it up in the end, and turned wearily away. What was the use of peering into her own heart now, when so often aforetime she had seemed to know it, and had not? There was no use; and as it happened, no need. For the first thing her eyes fell upon, as she turned, was the pile of music lying yet where Engelhardt had placed it, on the stool. The next was his little inscription on the uppermost song. She knelt to read it again; when she had done so the two uncertain, left-handed, pencilled lines were wet and blotched with her tears, and she rose up knowing what she had never known before.
At eleven-thirty – she had set her heart upon that extra half hour if let alone – Mrs. Potter rattled the tea-tray against the sitting-room door and entered next moment. She found her mistress on the sofa certainly, but lying on her back and staring straight at the ceiling. Her face was very white and still, but she moved it a little as the door opened. She had not slept? Not a wink. Her book was lying in her lap; it had never been opened. Mrs. Potter was not slow to exhibit her disappointment, not to say her disgust. But Naomi sprang up with every sign of energy, and finished her tea in five minutes. In ten she had her horse saddled. In twelve she had cantered back to the veranda, and was receiving from Mrs. Potter the water-bag, the flask, and the packet of bread and meat.
"Have his room nice and ready for him," said the girl, excitedly, "and the kettle boiling, so that we may both have breakfast the instant we get in. It will be a pretty early breakfast, you'll see! Do you think you can do without sleep as long as I can?"
"Well, I know I sha'n't lie down while you're gone, miss."
"Then I'll be tremendously quick, I will indeed. I only wish I'd started long ago. The moon is splendid now. You can see miles – "
"Then look there, Miss Naomi!"
"Where?"
"Past the stables – across the paddock – toward the fence."
Naomi looked. A black figure was running toward them in the moonlight.
"Who can it be, Mrs. Potter? Not Mr. Engelhardt – "
"Who else?"
"But he is reeling and staggering! Could it be some drunken roustabout? And yet that's just his height – it must be – it is– thank God!"
Her curiosity first, and then her amazement, kept Naomi seated immovable in her saddle. She wondered later why she had not cantered to meet him. She did not stir even when his stertorous breathing came painfully to her ears. It was only when the quivering, spent, and speechless young man threw his arms across the withers of her horse, and his white face fell forward upon the mane, that Naomi silently detached the water-bag which she had strapped to her saddle, and held it to his lips with a trembling hand. At first he shook his head. Then he raised his wild eyes to hers with a piteously anxious expression.
"You have heard – that they are coming?"
"No – who?"
"You have heard, or why are you on horseback?"
"To look for you. I was on the point of starting. I made sure you must be bushed."
"I was. But I got to a camp. They looked after me; I am all right. And now they are coming in here – they're probably on their way!" Each little sentence came in a fresh gasp from his parched throat.
"But who?"
"Those two tramps who came the other day, and Simons, the ringer of the shed. Villains – villains every one!"
"Ah! And what do they want?"
"Can't you guess? The silver! The silver! That fat brute who insulted you so, who do you suppose he is? Tigerskin's mate – just out of prison – the man whose finger your father shot off ten years ago! You remember how he kept his hands in his pockets the other day? Well, that was the reason. Now there isn't a moment to lose. I listened to their plans. Half an hour ago – or it may be an hour – they lay down for a spell. They were drunk, but not very. They only meant to rest for a bit; then they're coming straight here. They left me tied up – they were going to bring me with them – I'll tell you afterward how I got loose. I daren't stop a moment, even to cut adrift their horses. I just bolted for the moon – I'd heard them say the station lay due east – and here I am. Thank God I've found you up and mounted! It couldn't have been better; it's providential. Now you mustn't get off at all; you must just ride right on to the shed."
"Must I?" said Naomi, with a tight lip and a keen eye, but a touch of the old banter in her tone.
"We could follow on foot. Meanwhile you would rouse them out at the shed – "
"And my silver?"
Engelhardt was silent. The girl leant forward in her saddle, and laid a hand upon his shoulder.
"No, no, Mr. Engelhardt! Captains don't quit their ships in such a hurry as all that. I'm captain here, and I'll stick to mine. It isn't only the silver. Still my father smelt powder for that silver, and the least I can do is to follow his lead."
She slid to the ground as she spoke.
"You will barricade yourself in the store?" said Engelhardt.
"Exactly. It was fixed up for this very kind of thing, after the first fuss with Tigerskin. They'll never get in."
"And you mean to stick to your guns inside?"
"To such as I have – most certainly."
"Then I mean to stick to you."
"Very well."
"But think – think before it's too late! They are devils, Miss Pryse – beasts! I have seen them and heard them. Better a hundred times be dead than at their mercy. For God's sake, take the horse before they are upon us!"
"I stop here," said Naomi, decidedly.
"Yet Mrs. Potter and I could hold the store as easily as you could. They shall not get your silver while I'm alive."
"My mind is made up," said the girl, in a voice which silenced his remonstrances; "but I agree with you that somebody ought to start off for the shed. I think that you should, Mr. Engelhardt, if you feel equal to it."
"Equal to it! It's so likely I would ride off and leave two women to the mercy of those brutes! If it really must be so, then I think the sooner we all three get into the store – "
It was Mrs. Potter who here put in her amazing word. While the young people stood and argued, her eyes had travelled over every point of the saddled horse. And now she proposed that she should be the one to ride to the shed for help.
"You!" the two cried in one breath, as they gazed at her ample figure.
"And why not?" said the hardy woman. "Wasn't I born and bred in the bush? Couldn't I ride – bareback, too – before either of you was born? I'm not so light as I used to be, and I haven't the nerve either; but what I have is all there in the hour of need, Miss Naomi. Let me go now. I'm ready this minute."
Naomi had seemed lost in thought.
"Very well!" cried she, whipping her eyes from the ground. "But you don't know the way to the shed, and I must make your directions pretty plain. Run to the back of the kitchen, Mr. Engelhardt, you'll see a lot of clothes-props. Bring as many as you can to the store veranda."
Engelhardt darted off upon his errand. Already they had wasted too many minutes in words. His brain was ablaze with lurid visions of the loathsome crew in Top Scrubby; of the murderous irruption imminent at any moment; of the unspeakable treatment to be suffered at those blood-stained hands – not only by himself – that mattered little – but by a woman – by Naomi of all women in the world. God help them both if the gang arrived before they were safe inside the store! But until the worst happened she need not know, nor should she guess, how bad that worst might be. Poor Rowntree's fate, and even his own ill-usage by those masterless men, were things which Engelhardt was not the man to tell to women in the hour of alarm. He was clear enough as to that; and having done up to this point all that a man could do, he jumped at the simple task imposed by Naomi, and threw himself into it with immense vigor and a lightened heart. As he dropped his first clothes-prop in the store veranda, Naomi and the housekeeper were still talking, though the latter was already huddled up in the saddle. When he got back with a second, both women were gone; with a third, Naomi was unlocking the store door; with the fourth and last, she had lit a candle inside, and was sawing one of the other props in two.
