“’mongst thousand dangers, and ten thousand magick mights.”
fa?rie queene.
n
ext morning, when claude wandered into the supper-room of the previous night, he found a couple of fat, comely young native women, in short, light-coloured frocks, relaying the cloth upon the table for a second or late breakfast.
one of these girls on seeing claude toddles up to him, and explains, in the ridiculous jargon she has been taught to consider english, that mr. giles and the young ladies have already partaken of breakfast and gone out.
“marmie bin go out longer missie lillie, um missie gory bin go longer marmie big fellow way.”
“what name?” she adds briefly, bringing her 253 beautiful eyes and smiling features to bear upon claude with awkward suddenness as she puts her question.
in reply angland bashfully but carefully explains to the gins how his name is usually pronounced by himself and friends; but the girls only grin in return with their pearly rows of teeth, as if they are the victims of suppressed mirth. they are evidently highly amused, and even retail some joke to the diminutive lucy, who, seeing that something out of the ordinary is going on, has popped her little black head in at the door to listen.
“what name, marmie?” the smiling “lubras” repeat in chorus.
whilst claude stands puzzling over the mystic meaning of the dark fair ones before him, mr. cummercropper enters the room, and nodding to our hero—and thereby losing his eyeglass for a few seconds—proceeds to tediously deliver the same message angland has already received. claude waits till the ?sthetical station storekeeper has finished, and then begs him to enlighten him as to the meaning of the laughing girls.
“ha! ha!” chuckles mr. cummercropper out of the depths of his high collar. “bai joave! not bad, by any means. they don’t want to know your name. picked that much up long ago. ‘what name?’ means, in this part of the globe, ‘which will you have, coffee, tea, or cocoa, for breakfast?’ don’t it, dina?”
dina grins a comprehensive smile, and nods her brilliantly beturbaned head in reply to the query; and, obtaining a satisfactory answer at last to her254 oft-repeated question, trots her buxom little figure away into the kitchen. after breakfast claude spends his morning in trying to learn something of billy; but he is almost entirely unsuccessful, as the blacks about the station are strangely reticent. the disappearance of his late uncle’s servant is very annoying to angland, and our young friend is really puzzled to know what steps he had better take next. claude has a lonely lunch, for none of the station folk are yet returned, and mr. cummercropper has descended from the art student to the “rational” storekeeper, and has started off in a buggy and pair with a load of “rations” for a far-off out-station; and then, getting a “boy” to fetch his horse in from the paddock, he canters over to an out-station, where he left his miner friend and the two boys the night before.
“well, lad, thou hast not been successful in thy work,” says old williams, claude’s digger companion as he observes that young man’s disappointed face. “and that i were right to camp here i’ll show ye. there’s nowt save ourselves here, for they’re out must’ring ‘weaners.’ so coome inside out of the sun, and i’ll tell thee news o’ billy.”
claude watches his lively purchase, joe, hobble the horse, and then follows williams into the two-roomed shanty, which is honoured by the name of an “out-station house.” it is merely a roughly-built hut, with walls of gum-tree slabs laid one upon another, and a roof formed of sheets of brown gum-tree bark. the studs of the building, also the rafters and purlieus, are ingeniously kept in position by neatly fastened strips of “green hide” (raw leather), and the hard grey floor and colossal chimney-place are composed of the 255 remains of a number of ant-hills that have been pounded up for the purpose. the material of which these hills are built is a kind of papier maché, consisting of wood-fibre and clay, and is in much request amongst northern settlers for various structural purposes. the termites, or “white ants,” sometimes raise their many-coned mounds to a height of from twelve to fifteen feet, and these “spires and steeples,” with the absence of dead tree-stems upon the ground,—another sign of the presence of these insects,—are two of the most characteristic features of the open bush country of northern queensland.
williams squats down on his hams, bush-fashion, in front of the yawning fireplace, where a camp-oven, suspended over the grey embers, is frizzling forth the vapoury flavour of “salt-junk,” and after lighting his pipe proceeds to tell claude what he has found out from the stockmen. this, to condense the lengthened yarn of the old miner, is just what billy related of himself, in our presence, to the old “hatter” weevil in the lonely jungle cave.
“he’ll coome back here, i tell ye. for note ye, lad, he camped as long as he could at murdaro, till they made him clear.”
“yes, i believe he was waiting there for me,” responds claude.
“now, mind ye,” continues the digger, gesticulating with his maize-cob pipe, “mind ye make every nigger round know that yer wants to find billy, and ye’ll hear of him soon, like enough. now the more ye gets known here the safer fur ye, so wait here till the men get back. ye can pitch ’em a song after supper and ride home with the head stock-keeper. he’ll be256 going up to ‘government house’ to-night. moon rises ’bout nine.”
half an hour before sundown a dust cloud that has been slowly travelling for the last two hours across the plain, in the direction of the out-station, reaches its destination. it is now seen to be caused by the feet of a small “mob” (herd) of cows and unbranded calves. these, after much yelling and an accompanying—
“running fire of stockwhips,
and a fiery run of hoofs,”
are at last forced down a funnel-shaped lane between two wide fences, called “wings,” into the receiving yard of a large stockyard near the house.
not long afterwards the head stock-keeper and his two white stockmen appear; and the former, after being introduced to claude, and having indulged in a very necessary wash, sets the example, which is soon followed by the other men, of proceeding to work upon the evening meal. this is placed upon the table by two dark-skinned nymphs, whose airy costume consists chiefly of one old shirt and a pair of smiles between them.
the position these girls occupy in an establishment where all are bachelors may be guessed, and claude learns, before the meal is over, that they are under the “protection” of the white stockmen, having been “run down” for this purpose some months previously.
“run away!” laughs one of the stockmen, skilfully supplying his mouth with gravy by means of his knife-blade, as he repeats a question put to him by angland before answering it. “run away! no, i 257 rayther think as ’ow nancy was the last gal as will ever try that game agin. the black beggars know what they’ll get for trying the speeling racket here. short and sharp’s our motter on this here station,” the speaker adds, as his savoury knife-point disappears half down his gullet.
upon claude expressing a wish to hear about nancy’s ultimate fate, the men become reticent; but claude learns afterwards on good authority that the unfortunate girl was overtaken whilst attempting to return to her tribe, and was flogged to death before the other native station-hands, “pour encourager les autres.”
after the whites have done their meal, the black stockmen are handed their “rations,” which consist of the broken viands from the table, and such pieces of “junk” as have become tainted. the whole amount does not seem very much for the eight “boys” after their hard day’s work in the saddle, and when they have further sub-divided it with their relatives at the black camp close by, their earnings for the day must appear very small indeed.
selfishness is unknown between relations amongst aborigines. there is no meum et tuum. a hunter’s spoil or a “boy’s” earnings are given away immediately upon his return to camp; and the individual who has obtained the good things generally keeps less than his own proper share, being complimented upon this by the women in a low chant or grace during the eating or cooking of the food.
it seems probable, however, that if the right of purchasing their liberty was permitted to the station blacks, and each “boy” was allowed his peculium,258 as instituted by justinian, the first anti-slavery emperor of rome, this unselfish division of each day’s wage would soon become out of fashion. it is, perhaps, in order to encourage this virtuous practice of their station slaves that the australian squatters have never followed the example set them by the ancient romans.
the head stock-keeper, whose name is lythe, but who is generally known upon the station as “the squire,” is a very different kind of man to his two stockmen. these individuals belong to a much lower type of humanity, and are apparently without any education whatever, save a superficial knowledge of horses and cattle.
born of good parentage in an english “racing county,” lythe is a fair average sample of a certain class of men not very uncommon in up-country australia. life’s chessboard has been with him an alternating record of white, glowing triumphs, and black disgrace of wild, feverish saturnalia and rough toiling at the hardest kinds of colonial work. a wild boyhood, a wilder time at sandhurst, a meteoric existence as cornet in a lance regiment,—with the attendant scintilla of champagne suppers, racehorses, and couturières,—and then he slipped on to a “black square” and became a “rouseabout” on an australian run. presently he rises again, by making for himself a bit of a name as a successful “overlander” or cattle-drover, and, becoming rich, moves “on to the white.” he is a squatter, takes up-country, loses all, and then becomes an irreclaimable tippler. “black square” again, and here he is, working hard to “knock up” another cheque,—a well-educated, useful 259 member of society when free from liquor; a wild, quarrelsome savage from the time he reaches the first “grog-shanty” on his way “down south,” till he returns “dead broke” to “knock up another cheque” at the station.
claude’s hosts at the little out-station—who, like most australian colonists, are as hospitably minded as their means will allow them to be—do all they can to render his visit to their rough home as agreeable as possible. they even indulge him with a few bush songs, whilst the after-supper pipe is being smoked. one of these, sung in a voice gruff and husky with shouting to the cattle all day, to the air of a well-known nautical ditty, is descriptive of the first “taking up” of the never never land, and has a taking chorus, concluding thus:—
“then sing, my boys, yo! ho!
o’er desert plains we go
to the far barcoo,
where they eat ngardoo,
a thousand miles away.”
at nine o’clock “the squire” and claude say good-bye to the others, and mounting their horses, which have been brought up to the house across the dewy, moonlit pastures by a pair of attendant sprites, proceed leisurely in the direction of the head-station.
around the riders stretches the tranquil indigo and silver glory of a marvellous phantasmagoria, painted by earth’s cold-faced satellite. and accustomed to the softer beauties of a new zealand moonlight night, claude cannot help exclaiming to his companion upon the strange, phantom-like appearance that all the 260 familiar objects around him appear to have put on beneath the argent rays. even that most unpoetical object, the stockyard, where the imprisoned cattle are roaring impatient of restraint, seems, with its horrid carcase gallows, all dressed with a silvery, mystic robe of light, as if transformed into a spectre castle, filled with moaning, long-horned beings of another world.
“yes, that is so,” returns claude’s companion, when our young friend has remarked the curious features of the scene before him. “what you notice is just what is the chief characteristic of an australian moonlight scene. the only real poet australia’s ever had was lindsay gordon. he was an englishman, by-the-bye, and he has the same sort of weird touch running through all his poems. but it isn’t so much to my mind,”—the speaker rubs his chin thoughtfully,—“it isn’t that the moonlight is different here to what it is elsewhere, i fancy, so much as it is that nature herself puts on an outlandishly-awful, god-forsaken, ghastly kind of rig-out, when left to herself in these wilds.”
“that’s very true,” responds claude, looking at the dreary scene of broken sandstone cliff and dead forest through which their horses are picking their way.
“now, really, mr. angland, what a devilish nightmare of a place this ‘outside’ country is. look at those ghostly, white-stemmed gums. i’ve heard those trees groan like dying men when there was hardly a breath of air moving. why, there! you can hear them for yourself now. and, like all their kind, at midday they cast no shadow; and therefore might261 well be considered bewitched, if we went by the old standard of ancient european justice, that considered this infringement of the natural laws the very earmark of satan’s cattle. look at our deserts, our old volcanoes, our fishes that run about on the shore like mice, our rivers of sand, and—but we need not go farther than our wild animals. what artist—griset, doré, or any one else—ever conceived a more impish brute than the dingo, or a more startling caricature of a deer with grasshopper’s legs than we find in the kangaroo?”
the dree wail of some neighbouring dingoes upon the distant hills comes as a sort of unearthly murmur of acquiescence, as the speaker closes his remarks.
“why, really,” remarks claude, laughing quietly, “now that you point it out, there is really something curiously nightmare-like about australian nature.” he adds after a pause, “you would be a grand hand at telling a ghost story.”
the two men canter over a smooth piece of country in silence; and when their horses have again come within easy speaking distance, “the squire” asks claude if he would like to hear a ghost yarn.
“i’m touchy, rather,” goes on “the squire,” “on the subject of this the only ghost that i have ever seen; and i give you warning you mustn’t scoff at me for believing in it. i haven’t told any one about it since,—well, it don’t matter when. you’re not in a hurry to get to the station, i suppose?”
“oh, the yarn, by all possible means!” assents claude.
but his companion does not hear the reply to his question, for as he loosens the flood-gates of his262 memory there rushes vividly before his mind a long-forgotten scene, like a weird picture from a magic lantern, shutting out all external things,—a scene of moonlit rock and dark, gloomy trees, of sleeping cattle, of wild and awful midnight terror.
but it is only for an instant. then he pulls himself together, and half unconsciously lifts his hand to wipe away the cold dew that even the memory of that fearful night has called forth upon his brow.
“you must know then,” commences “the squire,” after the manner of master tommie in “sandford and merton,” “that, like most new chums in australia, i wandered about a good deal over this great, sunburnt island before ever i settled down as head stock-keeper at murdaro. during part of that time i followed the calling of an overlander. an ‘overlander,’ mr. angland,—for, as you haven’t any of the breed in new zealand, i’ll explain what that is,—is queensland-english for a long-distance drover; and a rough, hard life it generally is. cattle have to be taken long distances to market sometimes from these ‘up-country’ runs. i have taken several mobs of ‘fats’ (fat bullocks) from the never never land to sydney,—a distance of about fifteen hundred miles.
“now, when my story begins i was ‘boss’ of a road-party taking fat cattle down to sydney from contolbin station on the lachlan. in fine weather, when there’s plenty of grass or herbage, and water every twenty miles or so, a drover has rather a jolly time of it, after he’s trained the cattle to camp properly, take it altogether: an open-air life, with just enough exercise to make him enjoy his ‘tucker’ (food). but, like most lines of life, there are more 263 bitters than sweets connected with the ‘overlanding’ profession. sometimes there’s no water for forty, fifty, perhaps ninety miles at a stretch,—for instance, on the birdsville and kopperamana track,—and keeping awake for days and nights together, you must push on (with the sun at 120° in the shade, sometimes) taking your cattle, at their own pace, along the parakelia-covered sand-hills till the next water-hole is reached. and at other times there is too much water, and it is a case of swimming rivers every few miles, or else sitting down for a stream to run by for a few weeks,—riding through mud, sleeping on mud, drinking mud, and eating it too, for the matter of that, for weeks at a time. i’ve done that at the wyndham crossing of the cooper more than once. but on the particular trip i am going to refer to, the weather was more what you, as an englishman, will understand better than most australians, for it had been snowing hard for several nights in succession upon the swollowie mountains, over which our road, from orange to bathhurst, lay, and the air was almost as cold and chilly as it ever is in the old country.
“i never shall forget the sight that poor old sanko, one of my native boys, was when he came off the middle watch, the first night we reached the high country. sanko was a ‘white-haired boy’ when he came off watch to call me that morning, and no mistake about it, although his waving locks and beard had been as black as night the day before.
“no, mr. angland, he hadn’t seen a ghost! you’re a bit too fast.
“but he had seen something strange to him, and 264 that was a fall of snow. and when he poked his head in at the door of the ‘fly’ (tent) and called me, his good-humoured, hairy face was white with snow crystals. he really gave me a kind of ‘skeer,’ as our american cousins call it, for a moment. he looked like the apparition of some one i had known in life. i thought i was dreaming at first; and i had had fever a little while before, and was still rather weak from its effects. i mention this because the scare sanko gave me may have made a more lasting impression upon me than i thought at the time, and had something to do with what happened the next night. all i did at the time, however, was to tell sanko not to call the next watch, as the cattle would not shift in the snow. and rolling myself up in my blankets, i was soon asleep again.
“one of the greatest hardships of cattle droving is the watching necessary at night. all sorts of things may occur to frighten them; and when that does happen, off they rush, a resistless flood of mad animals, into the darkness, breaking each other’s necks and legs, and the remainder getting lost. cows that want to return to where they dropped a calf will sometimes start a mob. the cunning brutes will watch you as you ride past them on your ‘night horse’ on your way round the mob, and then slink off into the shadows, and be miles back along the track by daylight. a thunderstorm is also a frightful cause of mobs stampeding. but the worst thing to be dreaded by the drover is a deliberate attempt to frighten the cattle by cattle-thieves, or ‘duffers,’ as we call them, who used in my time—there’s little of it done now, i believe—sometimes to steal the 265 larger part of a travelling herd by this means. well, the plan of these midnight robbers is to watch till your horses have wandered a bit from the camp, and then, getting amongst them, slip their hobbles and drive them quietly away. then, knowing you can do nothing to stop them, the rascals proceed to startle the cattle by shouting, a gun-shot, or some such means; and you are lucky if you get half your horses, let alone half your cattle, back again.
“it is necessary to tell you all this in order that you may understand my ghost tale.
“these mountains we were coming to, as i knew, had been the scene of several exploits of this kind, and it made me anxious to get through by daylight. there was a very rough lot of cornish miners working on the hills, in the icely goldmines; and, rightly or wrongly, we drovers mostly used to put these midnight stampedes down to these ‘cousin jacks.’ but some of the older cattle-men upon the road, and all the inhabitants of the (then) sparsely peopled district, declared that these occurrences were due to no human interference. they said that the gorge in the mountains, that i should have to pass through to-morrow with my cattle, was haunted by the spirit of a murdered man, whose corpse was ‘planted’ where he had fallen many years since, with the knife of a treacherous mate still sticking in his ribs. it was this deceased gentleman’s nightly constitutionals that were supposed to account for the various disastrous rushes of mobs of cattle in the mountain glen during past years. i had often heard it used as an argument, in favour of those who upheld the spectre-theory, that the camp horses had been found still 266 hobbled after these rushes,—an oversight of which no experienced ‘cattle-duffer’ would be guilty. well, i felt rather anxious about the matter, but as i had arranged my stages so as to camp at the foot of the ranges that night, i thought i should be able to push on over the fatal pass before the next sun went down.
“you may imagine my annoyance then, on the morning when sanko poked his ‘frosty paw’ into my tent, to discover that the snow would delay our progress for some hours. the creeks would be ‘big’ till midday, and there were several reasons why i could not camp another night where i was. i determined, therefore, to push on and try my luck.
“the sun blazed out, and the white, patchwork mantle on the blue-grey hills disappeared as if by magic. but the fates were against us. first our horses did not turn up till late; then the cows we had with us kept on getting bogged in the muddy billabongs, and had to be hauled out. and what with one delay and another, i saw the sunset redden the cliffs before us as we crossed chamber’s creek and entered the pass, and knew that i must camp my cattle there for the night, and no help for it.
“leaving my men to bring on the cattle and horses, i pricked my spurs into my steed’s sides, and made him scramble up the stony track; and, after half an hour’s search, found a good place to camp the cattle in a narrow part of the gorge, between two cliffs of gnarled and distorted rock. there was plenty of long grass, and the melting snow had left puddles of water all round amongst the rocks, that in the evening light looked like so many pools of blood.
267
“soon the cattle arrived, and i was glad to see that, tired with their scramble up the mountain-side, they were evidently contented with their camp, and seemed likely to remain quiet all night.
“‘not so bad after all,’ i said to myself, as i rode back to our campfire, after seeing the cattle safely put on camp.
“but the words were hardly out of my mouth when i noticed, in the twilight, a little fence of rough-split shingles, up against the cliff, exactly opposite the cattle. it was the grave of the murdered man. i knew it from having had it so often described to me. we must be then located exactly on the spot where, six years before, a mob of cattle had suddenly been seized with maddening terror, and stampeding over the drover’s camp, killing two men in their wild rush, had been lost entirely from that day to this.
“well, there was no help for it, so i turned my horse’s head from the solitary corner in the rocks and rode on towards our fire. was it fancy or what? i know not, but as i left the grave behind me i heard a sound like a low moan. it was followed by a low, plaintive cry overhead, in the air.
“‘well, this is a creepy kind of place,’ i thought to myself, ‘but i won’t tell the other fellows my fears, but just double the watches to-night.’
“i saw at a glance, however, on reaching the camp, that my four white companions had evidently learned of the close proximity of the grave, and knew the history connected with it. and the black ‘boys’ had, contrary to custom, made their fire close to ours, a change that i thought it policy not to notice.
“‘now then, sanko,’ said i to that worthy, after 268 supper, ‘you and merrilie sit down alonger yarraman (horses) till i come.’
“the two ‘boys’ went off unwillingly enough,—another unusual thing that i, also, pretended not to observe. then, knowing that no one would attempt to interfere with the cattle for an hour or two, i lay down by the blazing mulga-branches for a short nap, before sitting up for the rest of the night.
“i had not been asleep ten minutes, i suppose, before i woke to find sanko tumbling off his horse by my side in his hurry to speak to me, and could see he was in a great state of terror about something.
“‘mine no like it sit down longer horses,’ he grumbled, gaspingly,—his eyes rolling excitedly, as he turned his head right and left over his shoulders, as if in fear of something behind him. ‘too much the devil-devil all about. him yabba-yabba, and make it the walk about longer minga (grave) longer white beggar. mine no like um.’
“i saw that it would be useless to try and get him to go back alone, and there was evidently something that required watching. i, therefore, sent all the whites and blacks off to guard the horses, keeping one of the former with me to mind the cattle. telling the latter to follow me ‘when he was girthed-up,’ i left him by the fire, and commenced to ride slowly round the cattle, who were mostly lying down and contentedly chewing their cud-suppers. the silver light of a true australian alpine starlit night made the bare cliffs above stand out on either hand with an almost phosphorescent contrast to the dark indigo shadows at their feet. one could almost imagine that the rugged rocks had absorbed a certain amount of sunlight 269 during the preceding day, and were now themselves light-giving in a small degree,—after the fashion of those life-buoys that i’m told they cover now with a sort of luminous paint. the light of our camp-fire warmed to colour a few projecting rocks and the trunks of the smooth, white-stemmed gums, and now and then the soft, purring sound of far-off falling water came up the glen; no other sound but from the chewing cattle, and all was quiet so far.
“suddenly my horse stopped short, with outstretched neck and pricked ears; then suddenly wheeling round would have dashed into the middle of the cattle, if i had not checked him in time. i could not see anything to frighten him, and the cattle were not alarmed; they, happily, apparently saw nothing strange. then i noticed that we were close to the grave. it was in deep shadow, but i could not look at it comfortably over my shoulder, and, do what i could, my trembling night-horse would not face in that direction.
“there was nothing for it; so, as i could not finish my patrol in that direction, i turned and rode round the cattle the other way. by the fire, on my return to the camp, i found my fellow-watcher charley.
“‘look here, boss,’ he said excitedly, ‘there’s some beggar trying to duff the cattle, and make them string this way, so i thought i’d wait here till you returned.’
“‘did you see any one?’ i asked.
“‘well, i believe as how i did; but this moke got that skeered, and well—i didn’t know how many there might be, and——’
“it was no time to expostulate with charley for his cowardice and negligence, so simply saying ‘follow 270 me!’ i turned and rode towards the grave. the place seemed awfully weird in the starlight, and you could make out little besides the white-backed cattle here and there amongst the shadowy trees, and the great pile of rocks towering upwards on either hand. the air was very cold and my feet felt dead against the icy stirrup-irons. as before, i could not get my horse to pass in front of the grave; that was now in such deep shadow that nought of it could be seen.
“charley’s horse would not come so near as mine, and both of them trembled and snorted with terror; and every moment tried to wheel round and escape from the awful something that they were watching.
“we sat in our saddles and listened, but there were no sounds but from the reposing cattle, and the squeaking, here and there, of the branches overhead, rubbing one upon another, as a passing breeze swept sighing by.
“presently the horses became less excited; then, for the first time that night, i was able to get my animal past the grave. i rode round the cattle followed by charley.
“‘you’re right, there are duffers about,’ i said; and, telling him to keep a sharp look-out till i returned, i hurried off, as fast as the darkness would allow, and, finding the men looking after the horses, presently returned with one of them. we all watched together for an hour; and then hearing nothing i ‘turned in,’ telling the men to call me when the morning star rose. they did so, and fearfully cold it was when i turned out. i was very glad to hear the watchers report that nothing had happened to disturb the cattle.
271
“‘them blessed duffers hev found as ’ow we’re too wide awake fur em,’ said one of the men,—who, i found out afterwards, had slept nearly all through his watch.
“i felt now that the risk of losing my cattle was over for that night, at any rate, and, mounting, rode down to them. nothing disturbed the first part of my lonely watch; and i rode round the cattle more asleep than awake, i confess, for half an hour or so, when my steed, this time a very steady old night-horse, suddenly showed signs of uneasiness, and i found we were by the grave again.
“i pulled up, and, sitting firm with both hands on the reins and head thrust forward, listened intently. the pale light of the morning star was creeping over the face of the tall rocks. its light would soon penetrate the shadows at their foot, and reveal the something in the darksome corner of the cliffs.
“all of a sudden there was a little rattle, as of tumbling pebbles, in front of me; and then the sound as of a sack or heavy piece of drapery being dragged over the low split-shingle fence that i knew was there, but could not see. a moment more, and a low, hollow moan came from just where the grave was situated.
“i bit my lip to make sure i was awake, and then, straining my eyes into the darkness, i could just distinguish something, what i could not make out, moving slowly towards me from the shadows.
“my horse swerved round just at this moment, and when i got him back to his old position nought could i see. i confess i was really alarmed now. old stories of ghosts and wraiths, which i had been 272 accustomed to consider so much childish rubbish, rushed through my brain, do what i would to keep calm. i pulled myself together, however, sufficiently to determine to wait and see the up-shot of it all. then the thought struck me that it might only be duffers after all, and nothing supernatural; and i could not overcome the idea that some one was aiming a gun at me in the darkness in front. i rode back once more to the camp-fire, and by that time felt pluckier again, and was thoroughly ashamed of myself. i then took up my position before the grave, determined to find out, single-handed, the cause of all the trouble.
“the blessed star of morning had risen fast since my last visit, and i could now see the outline of the tumble-down fence around the lonely resting-place of the murdered bushman. my horse was trembling as before, but with spur and knee i got him to within thirty feet of the grave.
“the starlight crept more and more into the mysterious corner. i sat and waited.
“then suddenly i felt my hair raise the ‘cabbage-tree’ upon my head, and my skin broke into a cold sweat, for there i could see a curious something lying upon the mound, a something that had not been there last evening. every moment the light grew stronger, and i sat in a helpless state of terror as i became aware of the figure of a man sitting on the grave, with awful, sorrowful face turned towards me, and bright, unearthly eyes looking into mine.
“the apparition was that of a man below the average height, and was apparently wrapped round, as far as i could make out, in a grey, soft, filmy kind of cloak. it was the rotten remains of the blanket in273 which he had been buried. he moved not, but sat in awful silence gazing into my very soul.
“my horse trembled violently, but remained rooted to the spot. then the figure rose slowly, and with eyes still fixed on mine began creeping, or rather gliding, noiselessly towards me.
“oh, horror! i tried to shout; i could not. my tongue was dry and useless. the awful figure came slowly, slowly on. it was crouching now as if to spring upon me. oh, heavens! would nothing save me from that fearful, ghastly face, those awful eyes, that came nearer, nearer mine?
“there i sat in a kind of trance, watching the thing as it silently approached.
“then suddenly an awful cry of agony burst forth close by my side; and from the air above, and from the dark wood behind, moans, groans, and hysterical bursts of laughter, shrill and blood-curdling, came in thick and bewildering succession.
“i nearly fainted. and, as the figure came on, and reached a spot where the early morning light fell upon it, i saw that it was a little, harmless animal of the sloth species, called a bear by australian settlers. others of its kind were barking and groaning their curious morning cries all round me upon the branches.”
“the squire” having terminated his story, claude expressed his appreciation of its merits, and then the two men cantered their horses the remainder of the way to the station.
here, after bidding his companion “good-night,” young angland discovers that it is long past eleven o’clock; and a black boy, who runs out to take his274 horse, informs him that the young ladies have retired to rest, also that mr. giles has not yet returned home.
so, after partaking of some supper which lies waiting his appearance upon the dining-room table, angland goes out on to the verandah, feeling somehow more inclined for a thoughtful half-hour with a manilla, beneath the stars, than to go to bed at once.
he sits there puffing, thinking first of billy, then of glory, and lastly of “the squire’s” ghostly experiences.
“spot,” he calls presently to the fox-terrier, who was sitting near him, in the flood of light that streams forth from the hall door, when he first lighted his cigar. “spot, i wonder how you’d behave, if you saw a ghost?”
spot, however, instead of prancing up to be petted, as he usually does when strangers take any notice of him, pays no attention to claude’s remark. so the smoker lazily turns his head round to see if the dog is still there. there stands spot, having been apparently disturbed by something, looking down towards the dark end of the verandah, with his knowing little head cocked on one side.
“i wonder what he sees,” thinks claude; “the cat, i suppose.” but turning his eyes in the direction of the dog’s inquiring gaze, the young man becomes grimly aware of the fact that he and the dog are not alone upon the shadowy portico. seated in one of the great cane-chairs, his widely opening eyes descry a dimly visible figure. it remains silent and motionless.
claude has studied professor huxley’s “physiology,” 275 and remembers the celebrated case of the plucky “mrs. a.” and her spectral annoyances. but notwithstanding all this, on seeing the unexpected apparition near him, the young man exhibits one of those interesting automatic actions, attributable to what scientists, we believe, call “spontaneous activity,”—in other words, sits up with a start.
but before angland has time to investigate matters, or even indulge, were he so minded, in any of those eye-ball-pressing experiments recommended by dry fact physiologists to all wraith-pestered persons, spot had taken the initiative, and with perfect success.
he runs forward, wagging his tail, and jumps up against the chair in which is seated the mysterious figure.
“oh my!” exclaims a musical girl’s voice, the tones of which make claude’s heart beat as blithely as an excursion steamer’s paddle-wheel.
“wherever——oh! spot, is that you? why, you quite frightened me, i declare.”
then the sound of a dear little yawn is heard in the darkness, and soon afterwards miss glory giles makes her appearance, and on seeing claude motions to him to be quiet and refrain from speaking.
“oh, mr. angland, i’ve been waiting up to see you, and i really believe i’ve been asleep,” whispers the young lady. “here, come with me. be as quiet as you can; for goodness’ sake, don’t let her hear us.”
claude rises obediently; and, overcome with surprise, is unresistingly led out into the darkness on to the dried-up lawn in front of the house by his charming escort.
“oh! hide that horrid light of your cigar, please,” 276 glory suddenly exclaims, in a low, excited voice. “somebody might see us. it’s too dreadful to think of.”
then, with her warm, balmy breath fanning her admirer’s cheek and her little hands clutching at his arm, she pants out to claude the story of the intercepted letter.
“i’ve never liked her,” glory exclaims with pretty anger, as she finishes her account of the discovery of her cousin’s plot; “but she’s dreadfully clever and strong-minded, and poor papa couldn’t get on without her, i do believe. but read this paper: it’s a copy of the letter. she did not sign it. ain’t she cute? meet me at the new stable before breakfast to-morrow; i go there every morning to see my mare coryphée groomed. but i mustn’t wait. good-night!”
the little figure flits away like a fairy ghost into the darkness—silently as a moth—and is gone.
when claude presently opens the paper that miss giles has given him in his own room, he finds the following words scratched upon it in pencil, in a school-girl’s unformed hand:—
copy of her letter.
“ burn this directly you have read it. he is here, and is on the eve of discovering all. send him the message we agreed upon at once; to-morrow, if possible to arrange matters so soon. delay is dangerous. burn this now. ”
