Chapter Seventeen.

Chapter Seventeen.My Patient the Warehouseman.“I don’t grudge a man a glass of beer or anything of the sort,” I said to a patient of mine whom I was attending, and who it was said look more than was good for him; “beer is very well in its way, but I’m certain of one thing, and that is that a man is better without either beer or spirits.”“What! in moderation, doctor?” he said.“Yes, even in moderation; men existed and were well and strong and happy, depend upon it, long before beer or mead was invented.”“Ah, doctor, I see you’re a teetotaller,” he said.“Not I, my man, unless one who seldom takes wine, spirits, or beer be a teetotaller. When you get as old as I am, you will probably begin to think that it is as well to take as much care as possible of the machine in which you live. Suppose you had some clean, pretty mechanism—your watch, say, or a musical box, you would be very careful not to injure it.”“Of course, doctor.”“Then, why take anything that is likely to destroy so wonderful a piece of work as the human body?”“But, does drinking beer destroy the body, doctor?”“That depends,” I said. “If you have your half-pint or pint of beer for dinner and supper, I believe, honestly, you would be better without it, speaking as a doctor; but I don’t believe that indulgence would keep you from living in fair health to seventy, eighty, or ninety.”“Then where’s the harm, doctor.”“The harm is drinking when you don’t want it, and causing in yourself an unnatural thirst or desire for strong drink that can never more be quenched. Look around among your fellow workmen, and see how many you know who must have their half-pint before going to work, and their half-pint at eleven o’clock, and at four o’clock, and after leaving off; and at last get so that their machine won’t go without oiling, and they can’t pass a public-house without wanting more and more.”“That’s a true word, doctor.”“And what does it mean,” I said; “in the more moderate cases decided dejection; unnatural features; bloated face; injured intellect and general discomfort; and in the worst cases delirium tremens, and death.”“Ah, but you are speaking of the worst cases, doctor, the regular drunkards.”“No,” I said, “I was speaking of the regular drinkers, the men who rarely get drunk, for they are inured to the liquor they consume.”“I suppose you are right, doctor,” he said; “Jacob Wood went regularly mad with drink.”“I don’t know Jacob Wood,” I said; “but you may depend upon it if he did go regularly mad, as you call it, he had drunk until his internal organs were all in a state of disease that affected the brain; and if you’ll take my advice, my man—”“You’d turn teetotaller?”“No, I don’t put so heavy a tie upon you,” I replied, “you have been used to your beer; well, if you feel to want it make a stringent rule that you will never take any except with your meals; you’ll be a better man in a month, and will not need to come to me.”“Pity poor old Jacob Wood didn’t come to you, doctor.”“It’s a pity he did not,” I said. “Let me see, you are a warehouseman, are you not?”“Yee, sir, I work up in one of the great Tooley Street warehouses, seven stories above the ground, and everywhere around me wool—bales upon bales of wool which we crane up from waggons or lighters and in at an open door, where, if a fellow had had a little drop too much and slipped—well, seven stories would be an awful fall.“Ours is a place worth going over, sir. There’s floors upon floors beneath, stored with jute and dye-woods, teas, coffees, spices, tobaccos, and lowest of all on the ground floor and in the cellarage, tallows in great hogsheads. Ah, it’s a busy place, and the stores there is worth some money, and no mistake.“I remember Jacob Wood doctor,” he said, drawing in a long breath as if of pain, “and no wonder; but it’s strange, how very little people see danger when it’s coming to them.“I was at our warehouse one day, and had been down for half-a-pint, when, ‘What’s the matter with Jacob Wood this afternoon?’ says one of the men.“But, excepting that he looked a little wild about the eyes, I didn’t see anything more about him than might often be seen in men who will drink heavily at times; and so I said. But at last, towards evening, when I was longing to get away home to spend my evening comfortably, I was left alone upon that floor with him, and felt a bit startled to see him go all at once to the open door where the crane landed the bales, and cut some strange capers, like a man going to dive off a board into the sea.“Putting down my work, which was getting ready two or three burst bales for the hydraulic press, so that they might be tied up again, I slipped quietly up behind him, and laid my hand upon his shoulder, when, with a yell, he shrieked out.“And the next moment, by the light of the gas on that foggy winter’s afternoon, we two were wrestling and fighting together, within a few feet of the door, out of which we should have fallen clear a hundred feet upon the stones of the wharf below.“I should have shouted, but all power of speech seemed taken away, as locked together we wrestled here and there, while his hot breath hissed against my cheek, and I could look close into his wild, glowering eyes as, flushing with rage, he bore me nearer and nearer to the doorway.“Used as I was at all times to standing close to the edge and receiving bales and packages, I could lean over usually without a shudder; but now, with this madman slowly forcing me back towards the certain death, I could feel the cold sweat standing upon my face, and trembled so with dread that my resistance became feebler and feebler; till as a last resource I managed to get my leg between my opponent’s, and tripped him, when we fell heavily.“Fortunately for me my enemy was undermost, and the force with which his head came against the warehouse floor partly stunned him, so that I shook myself free, and turned and fled towards the stairs. But the next moment I thought of the open doorway, and the state the poor fellow was in, so turned back to lock it, to ensure that he did not come by his death by falling out before I could get assistance.“My hand was on the door, but I could not close it, for Wood lay in the way; and shuddering at how near he lay to the gulf, I stooped to draw him on one side, when he started up and seized me again.“To beat up his hands, and turn, and ran down between the piled-up bales didn’t take long, while roaring with rage I could hear him tearing after me.“The stairs were pretty close, but as I ran round the end of the bales I found the door closed, and had to dart past to avoid being caught; when I turned down another opening between the packages, and ran panting on.“Big as the floor was, there was passage after passage between the wool, which was piled-up eight or nine feet high, and I tore on in the hope o’ getting ahead so that I could dart through the stairs door, fasten it after me, and so escape or summon assistance. On and on I ran, now getting ahead, and now with the panting breath close to my shoulder, so that I expected every moment to feel a savage hand laid upon me to drag me down. At last he got so near that his hand brushed me; but, with a yell of horror, I leaped forward again, dodged round a corner, ran down a short passage, and again on, past pillars and piles, when turning round I found that I was alone; and hurrying to about the centre of the narrow passage, between the high walls of wool, I leaned against the side panting and breathless.“‘Now, if I could but reach the door while he was at the other end,’ I thought, ‘I should be safe;’ and I kept on nervously watching the two ends of the passage lest I should be taken by surprise; when, to my horror, I saw by the gas shining upon it a savage head peer round from the end nearest the way of escape, watch me for a moment, and then disappear. It was now quite dim and twilight in all the passages, and my first idea was to dart off in the opposite direction; but a little thought told me that perhaps the wretch did not see me, and therefore I had better stay where I was; and so I stood minute after minute expecting to see him come round one end or the other, and dash down upon me.“I knew that about half-past five the watchman would come round, and then I could give the alarm; but it wanted nearly an hour of that time, and how I was to hold out till then I could not tell; for the very thought unnerved me; and, overcome with fear, I could feel my knees tremble and seem ready to give way beneath my weight.“Five minutes passed—ten minutes—and still no sign. My spirits rose a little, and I began to hope that escape was yet possible, but abated nothing of my watchfulness. Another five minutes, and I had almost determined upon trying to steal down towards the door, where the reflection from the gaslight made the end of the passage quite bright, while where I stood was in a fast-deepening shadow. I took two steps forward noiselessly, and then stopped; stole on again and stopped with a dead silence all around, through which I could hear the singing of the gas and the loud ‘throb, throb’ of my heart. I had somewhat recovered my breath, and kept slinking silently on, every now and then looking back to see that there was no pursuit. What I should have liked, and which would have been in accordance with my feelings at the moment, would have been to dash forward; but I kept down the desire, and crept slowly on between the two huge walls of wool bales piled some eight or nine feet high.“Only another three yards, and here I stopped, trembling in dread lest Wood might be watching for me; but calling myself fool, coward, and cur, I stepped on again; and at last, with the light shining full upon me, leaned forward to peer cautiously round the edge of the bales. Slowly and quietly, nearer and nearer, till I looked round; and then, with a horrible fascination upon me, I stopped still—for, in precisely the same position, Wood was craning his neck forward to peep round at me; and with eyes looking into eyes, and only three or four inches apart, we stood what seemed minutes immovable. Move I could not, speak I could not, for my throat felt dry and hot; while my eyes, fixed and staring, looked into those glaring, wild-beastlike orbs, which seemed to hold me fixed to the earth as if some horrible nightmare was upon me. I felt that if I closed my eyes but for a moment he would spring at me; and at last, clutching the wool firmly with one hand, I drew myself slowly back, fixing his eyes the whole while, and then, as my strength seemed to come back, I leapt round and fled down the passage once more, as I heard a hideous yell, and saw Wood dash into the entrance.“But there was silence again directly, and looking back as I reached the middle, I could see that I was not pursued; when, fearing that with all a madman’s cunning he had gone round to try and trap me at the other end, I stopped once more where I was, mentally praying for aid, as I strained eyes and ears to catch sight of or hear my enemy.“A quarter of an hour must have passed without a sound meeting my ears, and I was hopefully calculating upon aid soon coming, when a slight rustling noise seemed to have been made close by me, and I started and looked eagerly towards the dark and then towards the light end of the narrow passage I was in.“Nothing to be seen; and the minutes again passed slowly on, when all at once came the most horribly unearthly yell I ever heard from just above my head, and then, overcome with terror as I shrank to the floor, I looked up and knew that Wood had climbed over the top of the wool; and as the thought flashed through my mind, he bounded down upon me and had me by the throat.“I struggled for a few moments, and then lights seemed dancing before my eyes, blood rushing to my head; and, in a half-insensible state, I have some recollection of being dragged along the floor into the gaslight, and then pulled and thrust about for a few moments, when there came the regular thud-thud of the little pump close by, and I could feel myself moving upwards. But all seemed so calm, and such a desire for sleep was upon me, that it was not till there was a fearful sense of oppression and tightness that I awoke to the consciousness that the wretch had forced me on to the traveller of the hydraulic press, and was now forcing in the water beneath the ram, so that in a few more seconds my life would be crushed out.“Thud-thud, thud-thud went the pump, and the pressure was awful; while at the same time, as I vainly writhed and tried to press down the heavy plate that was crushing me, I was conscious of a great light which shone around, and which I thought was caused by the flushing sensation in my eyes; but no, for directly there came the noise of shouting, louder every moment; and then I made out, ringing up from the yard, those horrid words, ‘Fire! fire!’ and then I knew that Wood must have fired the warehouse.“Shouts, cries, and the noise of hurrying feet; and Wood stood in the glare of light, looking first one way and then the other, as if confused, for he had quitted the pump on the first noise of shouting. All at once he darted away; and half fainting and suffocated with the pressure, I could do nothing but groan feebly, after struggling a little, to find every effort vain; and then with sharpened senses gaze at the flames licking the roof of the floor I was on, and escaping up the sides of wool bales, and the more inflammable goods that were in the warehouse. The smoke soon became blinding and the heat stifling; and for me there seemed no hope, since I was sure no one would be able to penetrate to where I was; when again I gave a struggle, and stretched down my hand backwards to try and reach the tap, which would let off the water and set me at liberty, or at least place me in a position to try and escape the horrible death that seemed my fate.“But no, the handle was far out of my reach; and I groaned and wept at my helpless condition. The press held me by the chest with awful power, but my hands and arms were at liberty; while my head hanging down backwards enabled me to see the flames creeping along faster and faster, as I saw them reversed, and began to calculate how long it would be before they would reach me and end my misery.“All at once, when nearly fainting, my hand came in contact with the iron bar used to lengthen the handle of the pump, to force in the water with more ease when greater power was required; and then my heart gave a leap as I thought I might be able to strike the handle of the tap and let out the water.“I grasped the bar, and then I began swinging it about slowly, to try and strike the tap; but in vain, for I could do nothing with it from only being able to swing it at random, for I could not see. Nearer came the flames, louder rose the shouts; and as I looked along the warehouse I could see that all escape was out off by the stairs, even if I had been at liberty; and now, completely overcome by the pressure and the horror of my position, I groaned heavily, and the bar fell from my grasp.“‘The last hope gone,’ I thought; when at the same moment a familiar sound struck my ear, for in falling the bar had struck upon the tap, when there came the fierce gush of the compressed water, and the ram began slowly to descend till I could crawl out, to fall fainting upon the floor.“But I was up again directly, for there was a fierce glow in the place; and now I could see Wood busily at work tearing out wool to feed the flames, and dashing everything else he could lay his hands upon into the fire, which seemed at times to singe him.“I looked round, for he took no notice of me; and I had before seen there was no escape by the door, so, running to the open door by the crane, I caught hold of the rope, and began lowering it down as fast as possible, with the light shining full upon me, and the people below either groaning with horror or cheering me on as I tore at the stout rope, and sent the crane handle spinning round and round.“Could I but get enough rope out before Wood’s attention was taken, I felt safe, for I knew that I could slide down easily enough; but, as I dreaded, he caught sight of me, and leaving his fiery task, he rushed towards the door; when, with a yell of terror, I leaped from the flooring, clinging tightly to the rope, which began to run swiftly out as I swung to and fro till it was all out, when the jerk nearly dashed me off. But, after sliding down some little way, I recovered myself, and letting the rope glide slowly through my hands, I went lower and lower, with my eyes fixed on the blazing floor above.“All at once I felt the rope jerked and swung about, and I could see the figure of Wood at it; and then again I was being drawn up, and I knew he must be busy at the crane handle; but the next minute he must have loosened his hold.“There was a yell from the crowd, something dark dashed by me with a rushing noise, and as I clung trembling to the rope I heard a horrible dull thud, and slipping swiftly down the rope for the remainder of the distance, I suppose I fell fainting by the side of Wood’s mutilated form.“The fire was got under when our floor was burned out, though much damage was done by water; but with the exception of a strange, nervous timidity that I fancy I shall never get the better of, I was not much the worse.”“And was Jacob Wood killed?”“No, sir,” he said; “he fell upon some bales of wool; but he was dreadfully hurt, and never man enough to take his turn in the warehouse again, and very glad we all were.”“And yet you men rather need an example.”“Well, yes, sir, we do,” he said, thoughtfully; “but I’m going to turn over a new leaf.”

“I don’t grudge a man a glass of beer or anything of the sort,” I said to a patient of mine whom I was attending, and who it was said look more than was good for him; “beer is very well in its way, but I’m certain of one thing, and that is that a man is better without either beer or spirits.”

“What! in moderation, doctor?” he said.

“Yes, even in moderation; men existed and were well and strong and happy, depend upon it, long before beer or mead was invented.”

“Ah, doctor, I see you’re a teetotaller,” he said.

“Not I, my man, unless one who seldom takes wine, spirits, or beer be a teetotaller. When you get as old as I am, you will probably begin to think that it is as well to take as much care as possible of the machine in which you live. Suppose you had some clean, pretty mechanism—your watch, say, or a musical box, you would be very careful not to injure it.”

“Of course, doctor.”

“Then, why take anything that is likely to destroy so wonderful a piece of work as the human body?”

“But, does drinking beer destroy the body, doctor?”

“That depends,” I said. “If you have your half-pint or pint of beer for dinner and supper, I believe, honestly, you would be better without it, speaking as a doctor; but I don’t believe that indulgence would keep you from living in fair health to seventy, eighty, or ninety.”

“Then where’s the harm, doctor.”

“The harm is drinking when you don’t want it, and causing in yourself an unnatural thirst or desire for strong drink that can never more be quenched. Look around among your fellow workmen, and see how many you know who must have their half-pint before going to work, and their half-pint at eleven o’clock, and at four o’clock, and after leaving off; and at last get so that their machine won’t go without oiling, and they can’t pass a public-house without wanting more and more.”

“That’s a true word, doctor.”

“And what does it mean,” I said; “in the more moderate cases decided dejection; unnatural features; bloated face; injured intellect and general discomfort; and in the worst cases delirium tremens, and death.”

“Ah, but you are speaking of the worst cases, doctor, the regular drunkards.”

“No,” I said, “I was speaking of the regular drinkers, the men who rarely get drunk, for they are inured to the liquor they consume.”

“I suppose you are right, doctor,” he said; “Jacob Wood went regularly mad with drink.”

“I don’t know Jacob Wood,” I said; “but you may depend upon it if he did go regularly mad, as you call it, he had drunk until his internal organs were all in a state of disease that affected the brain; and if you’ll take my advice, my man—”

“You’d turn teetotaller?”

“No, I don’t put so heavy a tie upon you,” I replied, “you have been used to your beer; well, if you feel to want it make a stringent rule that you will never take any except with your meals; you’ll be a better man in a month, and will not need to come to me.”

“Pity poor old Jacob Wood didn’t come to you, doctor.”

“It’s a pity he did not,” I said. “Let me see, you are a warehouseman, are you not?”

“Yee, sir, I work up in one of the great Tooley Street warehouses, seven stories above the ground, and everywhere around me wool—bales upon bales of wool which we crane up from waggons or lighters and in at an open door, where, if a fellow had had a little drop too much and slipped—well, seven stories would be an awful fall.

“Ours is a place worth going over, sir. There’s floors upon floors beneath, stored with jute and dye-woods, teas, coffees, spices, tobaccos, and lowest of all on the ground floor and in the cellarage, tallows in great hogsheads. Ah, it’s a busy place, and the stores there is worth some money, and no mistake.

“I remember Jacob Wood doctor,” he said, drawing in a long breath as if of pain, “and no wonder; but it’s strange, how very little people see danger when it’s coming to them.

“I was at our warehouse one day, and had been down for half-a-pint, when, ‘What’s the matter with Jacob Wood this afternoon?’ says one of the men.

“But, excepting that he looked a little wild about the eyes, I didn’t see anything more about him than might often be seen in men who will drink heavily at times; and so I said. But at last, towards evening, when I was longing to get away home to spend my evening comfortably, I was left alone upon that floor with him, and felt a bit startled to see him go all at once to the open door where the crane landed the bales, and cut some strange capers, like a man going to dive off a board into the sea.

“Putting down my work, which was getting ready two or three burst bales for the hydraulic press, so that they might be tied up again, I slipped quietly up behind him, and laid my hand upon his shoulder, when, with a yell, he shrieked out.

“And the next moment, by the light of the gas on that foggy winter’s afternoon, we two were wrestling and fighting together, within a few feet of the door, out of which we should have fallen clear a hundred feet upon the stones of the wharf below.

“I should have shouted, but all power of speech seemed taken away, as locked together we wrestled here and there, while his hot breath hissed against my cheek, and I could look close into his wild, glowering eyes as, flushing with rage, he bore me nearer and nearer to the doorway.

“Used as I was at all times to standing close to the edge and receiving bales and packages, I could lean over usually without a shudder; but now, with this madman slowly forcing me back towards the certain death, I could feel the cold sweat standing upon my face, and trembled so with dread that my resistance became feebler and feebler; till as a last resource I managed to get my leg between my opponent’s, and tripped him, when we fell heavily.

“Fortunately for me my enemy was undermost, and the force with which his head came against the warehouse floor partly stunned him, so that I shook myself free, and turned and fled towards the stairs. But the next moment I thought of the open doorway, and the state the poor fellow was in, so turned back to lock it, to ensure that he did not come by his death by falling out before I could get assistance.

“My hand was on the door, but I could not close it, for Wood lay in the way; and shuddering at how near he lay to the gulf, I stooped to draw him on one side, when he started up and seized me again.

“To beat up his hands, and turn, and ran down between the piled-up bales didn’t take long, while roaring with rage I could hear him tearing after me.

“The stairs were pretty close, but as I ran round the end of the bales I found the door closed, and had to dart past to avoid being caught; when I turned down another opening between the packages, and ran panting on.

“Big as the floor was, there was passage after passage between the wool, which was piled-up eight or nine feet high, and I tore on in the hope o’ getting ahead so that I could dart through the stairs door, fasten it after me, and so escape or summon assistance. On and on I ran, now getting ahead, and now with the panting breath close to my shoulder, so that I expected every moment to feel a savage hand laid upon me to drag me down. At last he got so near that his hand brushed me; but, with a yell of horror, I leaped forward again, dodged round a corner, ran down a short passage, and again on, past pillars and piles, when turning round I found that I was alone; and hurrying to about the centre of the narrow passage, between the high walls of wool, I leaned against the side panting and breathless.

“‘Now, if I could but reach the door while he was at the other end,’ I thought, ‘I should be safe;’ and I kept on nervously watching the two ends of the passage lest I should be taken by surprise; when, to my horror, I saw by the gas shining upon it a savage head peer round from the end nearest the way of escape, watch me for a moment, and then disappear. It was now quite dim and twilight in all the passages, and my first idea was to dart off in the opposite direction; but a little thought told me that perhaps the wretch did not see me, and therefore I had better stay where I was; and so I stood minute after minute expecting to see him come round one end or the other, and dash down upon me.

“I knew that about half-past five the watchman would come round, and then I could give the alarm; but it wanted nearly an hour of that time, and how I was to hold out till then I could not tell; for the very thought unnerved me; and, overcome with fear, I could feel my knees tremble and seem ready to give way beneath my weight.

“Five minutes passed—ten minutes—and still no sign. My spirits rose a little, and I began to hope that escape was yet possible, but abated nothing of my watchfulness. Another five minutes, and I had almost determined upon trying to steal down towards the door, where the reflection from the gaslight made the end of the passage quite bright, while where I stood was in a fast-deepening shadow. I took two steps forward noiselessly, and then stopped; stole on again and stopped with a dead silence all around, through which I could hear the singing of the gas and the loud ‘throb, throb’ of my heart. I had somewhat recovered my breath, and kept slinking silently on, every now and then looking back to see that there was no pursuit. What I should have liked, and which would have been in accordance with my feelings at the moment, would have been to dash forward; but I kept down the desire, and crept slowly on between the two huge walls of wool bales piled some eight or nine feet high.

“Only another three yards, and here I stopped, trembling in dread lest Wood might be watching for me; but calling myself fool, coward, and cur, I stepped on again; and at last, with the light shining full upon me, leaned forward to peer cautiously round the edge of the bales. Slowly and quietly, nearer and nearer, till I looked round; and then, with a horrible fascination upon me, I stopped still—for, in precisely the same position, Wood was craning his neck forward to peep round at me; and with eyes looking into eyes, and only three or four inches apart, we stood what seemed minutes immovable. Move I could not, speak I could not, for my throat felt dry and hot; while my eyes, fixed and staring, looked into those glaring, wild-beastlike orbs, which seemed to hold me fixed to the earth as if some horrible nightmare was upon me. I felt that if I closed my eyes but for a moment he would spring at me; and at last, clutching the wool firmly with one hand, I drew myself slowly back, fixing his eyes the whole while, and then, as my strength seemed to come back, I leapt round and fled down the passage once more, as I heard a hideous yell, and saw Wood dash into the entrance.

“But there was silence again directly, and looking back as I reached the middle, I could see that I was not pursued; when, fearing that with all a madman’s cunning he had gone round to try and trap me at the other end, I stopped once more where I was, mentally praying for aid, as I strained eyes and ears to catch sight of or hear my enemy.

“A quarter of an hour must have passed without a sound meeting my ears, and I was hopefully calculating upon aid soon coming, when a slight rustling noise seemed to have been made close by me, and I started and looked eagerly towards the dark and then towards the light end of the narrow passage I was in.

“Nothing to be seen; and the minutes again passed slowly on, when all at once came the most horribly unearthly yell I ever heard from just above my head, and then, overcome with terror as I shrank to the floor, I looked up and knew that Wood had climbed over the top of the wool; and as the thought flashed through my mind, he bounded down upon me and had me by the throat.

“I struggled for a few moments, and then lights seemed dancing before my eyes, blood rushing to my head; and, in a half-insensible state, I have some recollection of being dragged along the floor into the gaslight, and then pulled and thrust about for a few moments, when there came the regular thud-thud of the little pump close by, and I could feel myself moving upwards. But all seemed so calm, and such a desire for sleep was upon me, that it was not till there was a fearful sense of oppression and tightness that I awoke to the consciousness that the wretch had forced me on to the traveller of the hydraulic press, and was now forcing in the water beneath the ram, so that in a few more seconds my life would be crushed out.

“Thud-thud, thud-thud went the pump, and the pressure was awful; while at the same time, as I vainly writhed and tried to press down the heavy plate that was crushing me, I was conscious of a great light which shone around, and which I thought was caused by the flushing sensation in my eyes; but no, for directly there came the noise of shouting, louder every moment; and then I made out, ringing up from the yard, those horrid words, ‘Fire! fire!’ and then I knew that Wood must have fired the warehouse.

“Shouts, cries, and the noise of hurrying feet; and Wood stood in the glare of light, looking first one way and then the other, as if confused, for he had quitted the pump on the first noise of shouting. All at once he darted away; and half fainting and suffocated with the pressure, I could do nothing but groan feebly, after struggling a little, to find every effort vain; and then with sharpened senses gaze at the flames licking the roof of the floor I was on, and escaping up the sides of wool bales, and the more inflammable goods that were in the warehouse. The smoke soon became blinding and the heat stifling; and for me there seemed no hope, since I was sure no one would be able to penetrate to where I was; when again I gave a struggle, and stretched down my hand backwards to try and reach the tap, which would let off the water and set me at liberty, or at least place me in a position to try and escape the horrible death that seemed my fate.

“But no, the handle was far out of my reach; and I groaned and wept at my helpless condition. The press held me by the chest with awful power, but my hands and arms were at liberty; while my head hanging down backwards enabled me to see the flames creeping along faster and faster, as I saw them reversed, and began to calculate how long it would be before they would reach me and end my misery.

“All at once, when nearly fainting, my hand came in contact with the iron bar used to lengthen the handle of the pump, to force in the water with more ease when greater power was required; and then my heart gave a leap as I thought I might be able to strike the handle of the tap and let out the water.

“I grasped the bar, and then I began swinging it about slowly, to try and strike the tap; but in vain, for I could do nothing with it from only being able to swing it at random, for I could not see. Nearer came the flames, louder rose the shouts; and as I looked along the warehouse I could see that all escape was out off by the stairs, even if I had been at liberty; and now, completely overcome by the pressure and the horror of my position, I groaned heavily, and the bar fell from my grasp.

“‘The last hope gone,’ I thought; when at the same moment a familiar sound struck my ear, for in falling the bar had struck upon the tap, when there came the fierce gush of the compressed water, and the ram began slowly to descend till I could crawl out, to fall fainting upon the floor.

“But I was up again directly, for there was a fierce glow in the place; and now I could see Wood busily at work tearing out wool to feed the flames, and dashing everything else he could lay his hands upon into the fire, which seemed at times to singe him.

“I looked round, for he took no notice of me; and I had before seen there was no escape by the door, so, running to the open door by the crane, I caught hold of the rope, and began lowering it down as fast as possible, with the light shining full upon me, and the people below either groaning with horror or cheering me on as I tore at the stout rope, and sent the crane handle spinning round and round.

“Could I but get enough rope out before Wood’s attention was taken, I felt safe, for I knew that I could slide down easily enough; but, as I dreaded, he caught sight of me, and leaving his fiery task, he rushed towards the door; when, with a yell of terror, I leaped from the flooring, clinging tightly to the rope, which began to run swiftly out as I swung to and fro till it was all out, when the jerk nearly dashed me off. But, after sliding down some little way, I recovered myself, and letting the rope glide slowly through my hands, I went lower and lower, with my eyes fixed on the blazing floor above.

“All at once I felt the rope jerked and swung about, and I could see the figure of Wood at it; and then again I was being drawn up, and I knew he must be busy at the crane handle; but the next minute he must have loosened his hold.

“There was a yell from the crowd, something dark dashed by me with a rushing noise, and as I clung trembling to the rope I heard a horrible dull thud, and slipping swiftly down the rope for the remainder of the distance, I suppose I fell fainting by the side of Wood’s mutilated form.

“The fire was got under when our floor was burned out, though much damage was done by water; but with the exception of a strange, nervous timidity that I fancy I shall never get the better of, I was not much the worse.”

“And was Jacob Wood killed?”

“No, sir,” he said; “he fell upon some bales of wool; but he was dreadfully hurt, and never man enough to take his turn in the warehouse again, and very glad we all were.”

“And yet you men rather need an example.”

“Well, yes, sir, we do,” he said, thoughtfully; “but I’m going to turn over a new leaf.”

Chapter Eighteen.My Patient in the River Police.“Don’t you find it very dreary at night upon the river?” I said to one of my regular patients—a river policeman—who preferred my services to those of the divisional surgeon for a long bout of sciatica.“Just like the old woman’s eels, sir, and the skinning: one gets used to it. It’s lonesome like of a night upwards; but there you have the lights on the bridges and there’s gas here and gas there; and a faint roar comes over the housetops from out of the streets. It’s when you’re below bridge that it seems dull; where the big vessels are moored in the black muddy stream, that goes hurrying by them with a low, rushing noise—creeping and leaping at their slimy sides, covering their anchor chains, or the buoy to which they swing, with all sorts of muddy refuse; and sometimes of a night there’ll be a body get hanging on somehow, ready for us to find and take ashore.“Now, if I give you a bit of tight chain going from a ship’s bows to an anchor down in the mud, on one side; and if I give you a dead body floating along on the other side, you’d think directly as there’d be no chance of the one stopping by the other—you’d think as one would float down all slimy and horrible, touch against t’other, and then rising, it would ride far enough out to sea. But, Lor’ bless you, that’s where you’re wrong; for how it is I can’t tell you, but it always seems to me, and has seemed ever since I was in the river police, that dead bodies lash and hang themselves somehow against mooring chains, on purpose that they might be found, and get a decent burial. Else how could they stop as they do, over and over again? I can’t tell, nor you can’t tell, nor nobody can’t tell; it’s a nat’ral mystery, and mysteries is things as gets over all of us.“Since I was nearly being found myself, hitched on to a mooring chain—for I’ll lay any money that if I had been bested I should have gone quite naturally all the same to where I’d seen so many before—I’ve got to take a little more than a business interest in such things. It’s very awful, you know; and though I’m an ignorant man, it often sets me thinking on the dark nights when our galley’s going slowly with the stream, floating along the black, rushing river—yes, it often sets me thinking about the state of affairs in our great city, and wondering whether all our great civilisation’s so good after all, when it brings down stream to-night a decently-dressed body with the pockets inside out, and marks as of blows on the swollen face; to-morrow night a well-dressed body with no marks, and money and watch and all there; next night the body of a young woman with an oldish face, but on that face a weary, despairing look, that seems to say there was no rest anywhere but in the river, and into the river she had come; next night, again, perhaps another well-dressed body, most likely with a bit of paper and a half washed-out address pinned inside the torn dress bosom—and this one, perhaps, would be young, and fair, and pale, and sometimes not at all horrible to look at.“There, I’ve seen great, strong, rough men, used to all sorts of things, stand with their hats off by such sights, and speak in even choky voices, as if they could hardly keep back something that they would be ashamed for others to see, down by some river stairs, where the muddy tide has gone ‘lap, lap,’ at one, two, or three o’clock in the morning. Why, at such times I’ve often felt creepy myself; for people may say what they like, but you never do get used to death, and whenever you meet it you feel a strange sense of quietness stealing over you; and one of the first things generally done when we land a body is, old or young, to cover it with sheet or sack; and even then there’s a horrible sort of drawing of you in it; and I’ve sat before now watching, and unable to get away from the uncouth covered thing, with the stream of water trickling slowly away to get back to the river.“But, there, I think you’ve had enough about what goes floating down the river and floating up the the river, backwards and forwards, with the tide grinding it against wharf, and pier, and buttress, till there’s no telling who or what it was. I dare say you’ve had enough; but it’s a thing I could go on talking about for hours—beginning with me, or one of my mates, or a River Jack finding of them, and then going on, through the giving notice, and the inquest, and all the rest of it; and it’s all going on day after day, month after month, year after year. Talk of the River Jacks, though, what a singular thing it is: they never by any chance find a body with any valuables about it; but always, when they come across it, watch, money, pins, brooches, they’re all gone; and when, quite serious-like, I’ve asked them how they can account for it, I’ve always got the same answer—a knowing wink of the left eye.“Ours is a strange sort of life, and lots hardly know of our existence; but, bless you, there’d soon be some rum goings-on if our little row galleys were not always busy at work up and down the river. You take plenty of precautions on shore, don’t you, where there’s wealth? Well, don’t you think there’s as much need afloat, where there’s millions of pounds’ worth of stuff almost at the mercy of the thief? For though sailors are pretty good at keeping watch out at sea, get ’em in port, and watching with them means choosing the softest plank under the bulwarks, and having a good caulk. So that’s where we come in useful—working along with the Custom House officers to keep down the plundering and smuggling that, but for us, would be carried on to an awful extent. For, you see, there are gangs who make it a practice to work with lightermen and with sailors; and sometimes by night, sometimes in open day—they carry off prizes that are pretty valuable.“River pirates you may call them, though they’ve got half a score of cant names, and tea chests, bags of rice or sugar, kegs of spirits, rolls of tobacco, all’s fish that comes to their net; and if they can’t get things of that sort, why they’ll go in for bits of sails, ropes and chains, or blocks, anything even to a sheet of copper or a seaman’s kit—once they get their claws into it, there’s not much chance of its being seen again.“It used to be ten times worse than it is now, and in those days there was a fellow whom I’ll call River Jack, who was about the most daring and successful rascal that ever breathed. We knew his games, but we could never catch him in the fact; and at last of all I got so riled at the fault found with us, as robbery after robbery took place, that one night, after a row about a ship’s bell stolen off the deck of a large Swedish corn barque, I made up my mind that I’d never let things rest till I’d caught Mr River Jack at some one or other of his games, and had him sent out of the country.“Now, talking was one thing and doing another, and just at that time I’d been making arrangements for putting a stop to my activity by hanging a weight round my neck. I needn’t mention any names, but there was a young lady there—my wife now—that I used to go and see, and as soon as ever it came to my time for going off to duty there used to be a scene, for she got it into her head that I should be sure to meet with some terrible accident on the river; and at last, from being rather soft after her, what with the talk and tears, I used to be in anything but a good trim for my spell.“‘There, don’t be such a chicken,’ I used to say, when she’d laid her little head on my shoulder, and been talking a whole lot of unreasonable nonsense; but it was of no use to talk, she would be a chicken; and one night I went away, feeling as if I had caught the infection, for I never felt more chicken-hearted in my life.“An hour after I was on the river, with three more, pulling very gently along in and out amongst the shadows of the great ships. But whether we were in the shadow or out, it did not make much difference, for a darker night I never saw, and one and all we came to the conclusion that if we were lucky, there must be something for us to do; for that some of River Jack’s gang would be at work we were one and all sure. You see, it was just the sort of night they would like; for looking out was no use, since we could see nothing four yards ahead; all we could do was to wait in the hope that our friends might come near us—and come they did.“We had been paddling gently about for a couple of hours, and at last had pulled under the stern of a great vessel that had come up the river that evening, but had been too late to get into dock. She was fresh over from the East Indies; and besides saltpetre, and tea, and cochineal, she had on board a large freight of odds and ends—curiosities and such-like. Of course we did not know this then; but a big vessel like she was seemed very likely to prove a bait to the river pirates, and there we lay holding on to the rudder chains.“‘I wish I was a-bed,’ says Jack Murray, one of the men under me that night.“‘I wish I was over a pipe and a glass of grog,’ says Tom Grey, who was another.“And then we sat still again, knowing that we should be sure to hear of something wrong in the morning, and knowing, too, that even if there was some game carried on within a dozen yards of us we should not hear it.“We were in luck, though, this night, for a minute after there was a soft plash heard above the rushing of the river, something dark passed over where a miserable glim of a lamp was shining. Then there was a faint low whistle from over our heads, another from out of the black darkness where we heard the plash, and then a boat brushed close by us; there was the sound as of something being lowered down, and before you could say ‘Jack Robinson’ we’d grappled that boat, and the man in it; slipped on the handcuffs, and got him fast, with a bale of silk handkerchiefs in his boat; and in a few minutes we’d got a couple of the sailors as well.“You may guess my surprise and delight when I took a look at our prisoner with a lantern, to find that it was River Jack himself; and, to make a long story short, he was convicted and sentenced to ten years’ transportation.“‘But I’ll be back before that, Tom Johnson,’ he shouts to me as soon as he had got his sentence; ‘and when I do come—look out.’“He was hurried out of court before he could say any more; but those words somehow, for a time, sunk into my memory, and worried me a deal, till I got married, and then I forgot them.“Well, my married life was just the same as any other man’s married life, except that my wife always had such a dislike to my way of business. Twenty times over she would have had me leave it for something else; but, as I said to her, ‘a bird in the hand’s worth two in the bush, ’specially if the one’s bread and cheese and the other ain’t.’ For, you know, what was the good of me giving up the certain sure for the certain chance?“‘But I do have such horrible dreams about you,’ she says.“‘Dreams never come true,’ says I.“‘Oh, yes, they do,’ she says. ‘My aunt once dreamt that they were going to have the bailiffs in; only a month after, in they came.’“‘Well, I don’t mind believing that,’ says I, ‘for it’s a very likely thing to happen to any of us.’“‘But I’m always dreaming you’re being drowned,’ she says.“‘Well, then don’t dream so any more,’ I says huffishly, for I was in a hurry to be off.“And I ask you, just as a fair question, is it pleasant, if your duty takes you on the water all day or all night, as the case may be, to have the wife of your bosom always dreaming that you are brought home drowned?“I got to be obstinate at last, for it was all nonsense to think of giving up a decent position on chance; so the more my wife dreamed about me being drowned, the more I came home at regular times, sound as a roach, and dry as a bone, except in wet weather. Matters went on as usual; chaps were caught stealing or smuggling, and they were imprisoned or fined; and all this time I’d forgotten about River Jack, till one evening, when, from information I’d received, I had myself rowed, as soon as it was dark, on to one of half a score of lighters moored off the Surrey shore, and loaded with the freight they had been taking out of a full-rigged ship, just about a hundred yards ahead. For, you see, some owners won’t go to the expense of having their vessel in dock, but have it unladen where she lies. I had had a hint or two that there was likely to be something on the way; but as it was a light night, I knew very well that if our boat lay anywhere on the watch, the consequence would be that the plundering party would never come near.“Well, I had myself rowed there, crept on to one lighter quietly, loosened an end of a tarpaulin, got underneath, and made myself snug as possible, giving my men orders to lay off behind a brig two hundred yards away, ready to come up to my help when they heard me whistle. Then, in a moment or two, I heard the oars dip, growing fainter and fainter each moment, till all was still but the sighing of the wind, and the lapping, rushing noise of the tide running down hard.“What an easy thing it is to plan out anything on paper, or in your own head, and what a different affair it turns out when you work it out in practice! Here was I lying snug in hiding, and all I’d got to do was to wait patiently till anybody came to plunder the lighters, then jump up, staff or pistol in hand, and arrest the lot; whistle, when our galley would come up; the men be transferred into the boat; taken to the station; and praise and promotion for me would most likely follow.“That’s how it was on paper; this is how it turned out in practice.“I’d lain there for quite half an hour, in not the most comfortable of positions, when, growing tired, I took a glance out through a hole I slit with my knife in the tarpaulin; but all was still—nothing to be heard but the rushing of the river past the great barge, and I lay back once more, wondering whether the enemy would come, and, if they did come, how long they would be first.“I don’t think I’m more of a coward than most men, but somehow just about then I began to wish that I had made a couple of our fellows stay with me; then I wished that it was morning; and then, as I turned cold and shivering, I began to think about that dream of my wife’s; and from being cold I now grew hot and wet with perspiration, so that I was thinking of lifting the tarpaulin a little, when I stopped the idea, for I heard all at once a sharp, scratching noise.“‘Bats,’ I said to myself; and I began to think of the amount of mischief the little wretches do on shipboard, getting carried out, too, in the bales to the lighters, and from them into warehouse and bonded store.“Then came the scratching again, and a slight rustling; and I uttered a loud, sharp hiss to drive them away; for, shut up as I was, I did not much like the idea of being nibbled by rats.“That hiss did it; for it was all that some one wanted to know. My whereabouts was nearly guessed at: that showed it exactly.“The rats seemed to have gone, and I was peering about in the darkness, when there came another faint rustling noise, and then—crash—it was as though half a dozen bales of cotton had been thrown upon me. I was nearly suffocated; but I had sense enough to know that several men had thrown themselves upon the tarpaulin; that my enemies had been too much for me, and had been lying in hiding beneath the coverings when I came, and had now taken me at a disadvantage.“The thoughts ran rapidly through my brain, and I struggled hard to get myself sufficiently at liberty to blow my whistle, when a voice that I seemed to know whispered—“‘Lie still, or we’ll drive a knife through to you.’“Struggling was, I knew, useless then; so I prepared myself for an effort when opportunity offered. But they were too much for me. As the tarpaulin was raised, three men crept under; a lot of oakum was thrust into my mouth; my whistle taken away; the handcuffs in my pocket, ready unlocked, thrust upon my own wrists; and, with many a warning growl, I was rolled off the lighter side into a boat that I had supposed to belong to one of the barges.“‘Now, Jack, you and Dick take him off,’ was whispered; and I thought I caught the word ‘Erith.’“‘They’ll lay me in one of the reed-beds, bound hand and foot,’ I thought; ‘and the others will help clear this lighter the while.’“I was so excited that I made a bit of a struggle, but only to have the end of an oar brought down heavily across my forehead; and the next moment some one leaned over me, and for a few seconds the glaring light of a bull’s-eye rested upon my face.“The next minute my blood ran cold; for there was a low laugh at my ear, and a voice I seemed to know said—“‘Every dog has its day, my lad. It’s my turn now!’“I wanted no telling—I could understand all plainly enough. River Jack had come back, and he meant to have his revenge.“But what would he do? He would not mur—“Pooh! nonsense! his companions would interfere. But there was only one here, and they were softly but swiftly rowing me down with the tide. If they would land me at Erith! They said so; but then this scoundrel had not known me, and now that we had openly recognised one another, he could not afford to have me as a witness to his having returned before his time.“Was my wife’s dream coming true? I shuddered from head to foot as I heard the washing of the water beneath the boat’s keel; and then I thought of the bodies I had seen brought out, and the mooring chains; and then it seemed to me that I was to be as I had seen others, and a horrible sweat of terror broke out on me. But just then my attention was taken up by a low muttering between the men, and Hope whispered that one of them was opposing the other’s plans. Whatever was said, though, silence followed, and they rowed on swiftly for what must have been a quarter of an hour, though to me it seemed an age, when, before I could do more than utter an inarticulate roar of despair, I was lifted quickly to the boat’s gunwale, and in another moment I was beneath the cold, rushing water.“A struggle or two brought me to the surface again, and I made an effort with my fastened hands to reach the boat; but, with brutal indifference, Jack placed the blade of his scull against my chest, and thrust me under; and when I again rose, it was out of sight of those who had thrown me in.“Even in that time of agony, with the water burning and strangling in my nostrils, and thundering in my ears, I could think of the plunder the scoundrels would get; of how my men would stay waiting for my whistle; of my wife’s dream; and lastly, of the finding of my handcuffed body, floating up and down with the tide. The papers would call it a mysterious murder, for I was sure to be found; but that River Jack would have it brought home to him was not likely.“I could do but little; every struggle seemed to send me lower; I tried to float, but in vain; and the water whirled me round and round, drove me against vessel sides that I could not clutch, past lights that I could not hail, and I was fast lapsing into insensibility, when I struck something hard, raised my arms over it, and clung there with my nostrils above water—learning the secret of how bodies could hang to a mooring chain.“At the end of a fortnight’s fever, I learned how that I had been found soon after by another of our galleys, clinging to the mooring chain of a great vessel; but it was for some time a question of doubt whether our men had found a body with or without life.“That’s many years ago now, and such deeds have happily grown rare; though you don’t know of all that goes on down the river. I’m in the force still, and mean to stay; for River Jack was taken, and report says he was shot by a sentry while attempting to escape, out in one of the penal settlements.”

“Don’t you find it very dreary at night upon the river?” I said to one of my regular patients—a river policeman—who preferred my services to those of the divisional surgeon for a long bout of sciatica.

“Just like the old woman’s eels, sir, and the skinning: one gets used to it. It’s lonesome like of a night upwards; but there you have the lights on the bridges and there’s gas here and gas there; and a faint roar comes over the housetops from out of the streets. It’s when you’re below bridge that it seems dull; where the big vessels are moored in the black muddy stream, that goes hurrying by them with a low, rushing noise—creeping and leaping at their slimy sides, covering their anchor chains, or the buoy to which they swing, with all sorts of muddy refuse; and sometimes of a night there’ll be a body get hanging on somehow, ready for us to find and take ashore.

“Now, if I give you a bit of tight chain going from a ship’s bows to an anchor down in the mud, on one side; and if I give you a dead body floating along on the other side, you’d think directly as there’d be no chance of the one stopping by the other—you’d think as one would float down all slimy and horrible, touch against t’other, and then rising, it would ride far enough out to sea. But, Lor’ bless you, that’s where you’re wrong; for how it is I can’t tell you, but it always seems to me, and has seemed ever since I was in the river police, that dead bodies lash and hang themselves somehow against mooring chains, on purpose that they might be found, and get a decent burial. Else how could they stop as they do, over and over again? I can’t tell, nor you can’t tell, nor nobody can’t tell; it’s a nat’ral mystery, and mysteries is things as gets over all of us.

“Since I was nearly being found myself, hitched on to a mooring chain—for I’ll lay any money that if I had been bested I should have gone quite naturally all the same to where I’d seen so many before—I’ve got to take a little more than a business interest in such things. It’s very awful, you know; and though I’m an ignorant man, it often sets me thinking on the dark nights when our galley’s going slowly with the stream, floating along the black, rushing river—yes, it often sets me thinking about the state of affairs in our great city, and wondering whether all our great civilisation’s so good after all, when it brings down stream to-night a decently-dressed body with the pockets inside out, and marks as of blows on the swollen face; to-morrow night a well-dressed body with no marks, and money and watch and all there; next night the body of a young woman with an oldish face, but on that face a weary, despairing look, that seems to say there was no rest anywhere but in the river, and into the river she had come; next night, again, perhaps another well-dressed body, most likely with a bit of paper and a half washed-out address pinned inside the torn dress bosom—and this one, perhaps, would be young, and fair, and pale, and sometimes not at all horrible to look at.

“There, I’ve seen great, strong, rough men, used to all sorts of things, stand with their hats off by such sights, and speak in even choky voices, as if they could hardly keep back something that they would be ashamed for others to see, down by some river stairs, where the muddy tide has gone ‘lap, lap,’ at one, two, or three o’clock in the morning. Why, at such times I’ve often felt creepy myself; for people may say what they like, but you never do get used to death, and whenever you meet it you feel a strange sense of quietness stealing over you; and one of the first things generally done when we land a body is, old or young, to cover it with sheet or sack; and even then there’s a horrible sort of drawing of you in it; and I’ve sat before now watching, and unable to get away from the uncouth covered thing, with the stream of water trickling slowly away to get back to the river.

“But, there, I think you’ve had enough about what goes floating down the river and floating up the the river, backwards and forwards, with the tide grinding it against wharf, and pier, and buttress, till there’s no telling who or what it was. I dare say you’ve had enough; but it’s a thing I could go on talking about for hours—beginning with me, or one of my mates, or a River Jack finding of them, and then going on, through the giving notice, and the inquest, and all the rest of it; and it’s all going on day after day, month after month, year after year. Talk of the River Jacks, though, what a singular thing it is: they never by any chance find a body with any valuables about it; but always, when they come across it, watch, money, pins, brooches, they’re all gone; and when, quite serious-like, I’ve asked them how they can account for it, I’ve always got the same answer—a knowing wink of the left eye.

“Ours is a strange sort of life, and lots hardly know of our existence; but, bless you, there’d soon be some rum goings-on if our little row galleys were not always busy at work up and down the river. You take plenty of precautions on shore, don’t you, where there’s wealth? Well, don’t you think there’s as much need afloat, where there’s millions of pounds’ worth of stuff almost at the mercy of the thief? For though sailors are pretty good at keeping watch out at sea, get ’em in port, and watching with them means choosing the softest plank under the bulwarks, and having a good caulk. So that’s where we come in useful—working along with the Custom House officers to keep down the plundering and smuggling that, but for us, would be carried on to an awful extent. For, you see, there are gangs who make it a practice to work with lightermen and with sailors; and sometimes by night, sometimes in open day—they carry off prizes that are pretty valuable.

“River pirates you may call them, though they’ve got half a score of cant names, and tea chests, bags of rice or sugar, kegs of spirits, rolls of tobacco, all’s fish that comes to their net; and if they can’t get things of that sort, why they’ll go in for bits of sails, ropes and chains, or blocks, anything even to a sheet of copper or a seaman’s kit—once they get their claws into it, there’s not much chance of its being seen again.

“It used to be ten times worse than it is now, and in those days there was a fellow whom I’ll call River Jack, who was about the most daring and successful rascal that ever breathed. We knew his games, but we could never catch him in the fact; and at last of all I got so riled at the fault found with us, as robbery after robbery took place, that one night, after a row about a ship’s bell stolen off the deck of a large Swedish corn barque, I made up my mind that I’d never let things rest till I’d caught Mr River Jack at some one or other of his games, and had him sent out of the country.

“Now, talking was one thing and doing another, and just at that time I’d been making arrangements for putting a stop to my activity by hanging a weight round my neck. I needn’t mention any names, but there was a young lady there—my wife now—that I used to go and see, and as soon as ever it came to my time for going off to duty there used to be a scene, for she got it into her head that I should be sure to meet with some terrible accident on the river; and at last, from being rather soft after her, what with the talk and tears, I used to be in anything but a good trim for my spell.

“‘There, don’t be such a chicken,’ I used to say, when she’d laid her little head on my shoulder, and been talking a whole lot of unreasonable nonsense; but it was of no use to talk, she would be a chicken; and one night I went away, feeling as if I had caught the infection, for I never felt more chicken-hearted in my life.

“An hour after I was on the river, with three more, pulling very gently along in and out amongst the shadows of the great ships. But whether we were in the shadow or out, it did not make much difference, for a darker night I never saw, and one and all we came to the conclusion that if we were lucky, there must be something for us to do; for that some of River Jack’s gang would be at work we were one and all sure. You see, it was just the sort of night they would like; for looking out was no use, since we could see nothing four yards ahead; all we could do was to wait in the hope that our friends might come near us—and come they did.

“We had been paddling gently about for a couple of hours, and at last had pulled under the stern of a great vessel that had come up the river that evening, but had been too late to get into dock. She was fresh over from the East Indies; and besides saltpetre, and tea, and cochineal, she had on board a large freight of odds and ends—curiosities and such-like. Of course we did not know this then; but a big vessel like she was seemed very likely to prove a bait to the river pirates, and there we lay holding on to the rudder chains.

“‘I wish I was a-bed,’ says Jack Murray, one of the men under me that night.

“‘I wish I was over a pipe and a glass of grog,’ says Tom Grey, who was another.

“And then we sat still again, knowing that we should be sure to hear of something wrong in the morning, and knowing, too, that even if there was some game carried on within a dozen yards of us we should not hear it.

“We were in luck, though, this night, for a minute after there was a soft plash heard above the rushing of the river, something dark passed over where a miserable glim of a lamp was shining. Then there was a faint low whistle from over our heads, another from out of the black darkness where we heard the plash, and then a boat brushed close by us; there was the sound as of something being lowered down, and before you could say ‘Jack Robinson’ we’d grappled that boat, and the man in it; slipped on the handcuffs, and got him fast, with a bale of silk handkerchiefs in his boat; and in a few minutes we’d got a couple of the sailors as well.

“You may guess my surprise and delight when I took a look at our prisoner with a lantern, to find that it was River Jack himself; and, to make a long story short, he was convicted and sentenced to ten years’ transportation.

“‘But I’ll be back before that, Tom Johnson,’ he shouts to me as soon as he had got his sentence; ‘and when I do come—look out.’

“He was hurried out of court before he could say any more; but those words somehow, for a time, sunk into my memory, and worried me a deal, till I got married, and then I forgot them.

“Well, my married life was just the same as any other man’s married life, except that my wife always had such a dislike to my way of business. Twenty times over she would have had me leave it for something else; but, as I said to her, ‘a bird in the hand’s worth two in the bush, ’specially if the one’s bread and cheese and the other ain’t.’ For, you know, what was the good of me giving up the certain sure for the certain chance?

“‘But I do have such horrible dreams about you,’ she says.

“‘Dreams never come true,’ says I.

“‘Oh, yes, they do,’ she says. ‘My aunt once dreamt that they were going to have the bailiffs in; only a month after, in they came.’

“‘Well, I don’t mind believing that,’ says I, ‘for it’s a very likely thing to happen to any of us.’

“‘But I’m always dreaming you’re being drowned,’ she says.

“‘Well, then don’t dream so any more,’ I says huffishly, for I was in a hurry to be off.

“And I ask you, just as a fair question, is it pleasant, if your duty takes you on the water all day or all night, as the case may be, to have the wife of your bosom always dreaming that you are brought home drowned?

“I got to be obstinate at last, for it was all nonsense to think of giving up a decent position on chance; so the more my wife dreamed about me being drowned, the more I came home at regular times, sound as a roach, and dry as a bone, except in wet weather. Matters went on as usual; chaps were caught stealing or smuggling, and they were imprisoned or fined; and all this time I’d forgotten about River Jack, till one evening, when, from information I’d received, I had myself rowed, as soon as it was dark, on to one of half a score of lighters moored off the Surrey shore, and loaded with the freight they had been taking out of a full-rigged ship, just about a hundred yards ahead. For, you see, some owners won’t go to the expense of having their vessel in dock, but have it unladen where she lies. I had had a hint or two that there was likely to be something on the way; but as it was a light night, I knew very well that if our boat lay anywhere on the watch, the consequence would be that the plundering party would never come near.

“Well, I had myself rowed there, crept on to one lighter quietly, loosened an end of a tarpaulin, got underneath, and made myself snug as possible, giving my men orders to lay off behind a brig two hundred yards away, ready to come up to my help when they heard me whistle. Then, in a moment or two, I heard the oars dip, growing fainter and fainter each moment, till all was still but the sighing of the wind, and the lapping, rushing noise of the tide running down hard.

“What an easy thing it is to plan out anything on paper, or in your own head, and what a different affair it turns out when you work it out in practice! Here was I lying snug in hiding, and all I’d got to do was to wait patiently till anybody came to plunder the lighters, then jump up, staff or pistol in hand, and arrest the lot; whistle, when our galley would come up; the men be transferred into the boat; taken to the station; and praise and promotion for me would most likely follow.

“That’s how it was on paper; this is how it turned out in practice.

“I’d lain there for quite half an hour, in not the most comfortable of positions, when, growing tired, I took a glance out through a hole I slit with my knife in the tarpaulin; but all was still—nothing to be heard but the rushing of the river past the great barge, and I lay back once more, wondering whether the enemy would come, and, if they did come, how long they would be first.

“I don’t think I’m more of a coward than most men, but somehow just about then I began to wish that I had made a couple of our fellows stay with me; then I wished that it was morning; and then, as I turned cold and shivering, I began to think about that dream of my wife’s; and from being cold I now grew hot and wet with perspiration, so that I was thinking of lifting the tarpaulin a little, when I stopped the idea, for I heard all at once a sharp, scratching noise.

“‘Bats,’ I said to myself; and I began to think of the amount of mischief the little wretches do on shipboard, getting carried out, too, in the bales to the lighters, and from them into warehouse and bonded store.

“Then came the scratching again, and a slight rustling; and I uttered a loud, sharp hiss to drive them away; for, shut up as I was, I did not much like the idea of being nibbled by rats.

“That hiss did it; for it was all that some one wanted to know. My whereabouts was nearly guessed at: that showed it exactly.

“The rats seemed to have gone, and I was peering about in the darkness, when there came another faint rustling noise, and then—crash—it was as though half a dozen bales of cotton had been thrown upon me. I was nearly suffocated; but I had sense enough to know that several men had thrown themselves upon the tarpaulin; that my enemies had been too much for me, and had been lying in hiding beneath the coverings when I came, and had now taken me at a disadvantage.

“The thoughts ran rapidly through my brain, and I struggled hard to get myself sufficiently at liberty to blow my whistle, when a voice that I seemed to know whispered—

“‘Lie still, or we’ll drive a knife through to you.’

“Struggling was, I knew, useless then; so I prepared myself for an effort when opportunity offered. But they were too much for me. As the tarpaulin was raised, three men crept under; a lot of oakum was thrust into my mouth; my whistle taken away; the handcuffs in my pocket, ready unlocked, thrust upon my own wrists; and, with many a warning growl, I was rolled off the lighter side into a boat that I had supposed to belong to one of the barges.

“‘Now, Jack, you and Dick take him off,’ was whispered; and I thought I caught the word ‘Erith.’

“‘They’ll lay me in one of the reed-beds, bound hand and foot,’ I thought; ‘and the others will help clear this lighter the while.’

“I was so excited that I made a bit of a struggle, but only to have the end of an oar brought down heavily across my forehead; and the next moment some one leaned over me, and for a few seconds the glaring light of a bull’s-eye rested upon my face.

“The next minute my blood ran cold; for there was a low laugh at my ear, and a voice I seemed to know said—

“‘Every dog has its day, my lad. It’s my turn now!’

“I wanted no telling—I could understand all plainly enough. River Jack had come back, and he meant to have his revenge.

“But what would he do? He would not mur—

“Pooh! nonsense! his companions would interfere. But there was only one here, and they were softly but swiftly rowing me down with the tide. If they would land me at Erith! They said so; but then this scoundrel had not known me, and now that we had openly recognised one another, he could not afford to have me as a witness to his having returned before his time.

“Was my wife’s dream coming true? I shuddered from head to foot as I heard the washing of the water beneath the boat’s keel; and then I thought of the bodies I had seen brought out, and the mooring chains; and then it seemed to me that I was to be as I had seen others, and a horrible sweat of terror broke out on me. But just then my attention was taken up by a low muttering between the men, and Hope whispered that one of them was opposing the other’s plans. Whatever was said, though, silence followed, and they rowed on swiftly for what must have been a quarter of an hour, though to me it seemed an age, when, before I could do more than utter an inarticulate roar of despair, I was lifted quickly to the boat’s gunwale, and in another moment I was beneath the cold, rushing water.

“A struggle or two brought me to the surface again, and I made an effort with my fastened hands to reach the boat; but, with brutal indifference, Jack placed the blade of his scull against my chest, and thrust me under; and when I again rose, it was out of sight of those who had thrown me in.

“Even in that time of agony, with the water burning and strangling in my nostrils, and thundering in my ears, I could think of the plunder the scoundrels would get; of how my men would stay waiting for my whistle; of my wife’s dream; and lastly, of the finding of my handcuffed body, floating up and down with the tide. The papers would call it a mysterious murder, for I was sure to be found; but that River Jack would have it brought home to him was not likely.

“I could do but little; every struggle seemed to send me lower; I tried to float, but in vain; and the water whirled me round and round, drove me against vessel sides that I could not clutch, past lights that I could not hail, and I was fast lapsing into insensibility, when I struck something hard, raised my arms over it, and clung there with my nostrils above water—learning the secret of how bodies could hang to a mooring chain.

“At the end of a fortnight’s fever, I learned how that I had been found soon after by another of our galleys, clinging to the mooring chain of a great vessel; but it was for some time a question of doubt whether our men had found a body with or without life.

“That’s many years ago now, and such deeds have happily grown rare; though you don’t know of all that goes on down the river. I’m in the force still, and mean to stay; for River Jack was taken, and report says he was shot by a sentry while attempting to escape, out in one of the penal settlements.”

Chapter Nineteen.My Patient the Emigrant.Talking of penal settlements naturally suggests settlements that are not penal, where our most enterprising unsuccessful men go to seek the home and prosperity that they have not been able to discover here. One such man as this was Samson Harris, who, after twenty years of Australian life, returned home with a comfortable competency for a man of his class. He was no millionaire, but he had made enough to live upon to the end of his days, and then leave enough for his children.I attended his family, the little that they needed of medical aid, and finding him a thoroughly well-informed man, full of general knowledge, a certain amount of intimacy ensued, and he at various times told me so much of his life out at the Antipodes, that I was pretty well able to picture it from beginning to end.He gave me one very vivid account of an incident in his career which I have endeavoured to reproduce.From his description of his home, it might have been in one of the midland counties, the scene was so calm and peaceful. The roughly-built cottage, with its familiar English objects here and there—the loudly-ticking clock, the cleanly-scrubbed three-legged table; the big old family Bible; the cage of white wicker, with its ragged-tailed thrush hopping from perch to perch; and I picture to myself Samson Harris seated there upon a stool in the midst of the humble room, before a tin bucket of water, Englishman written boldly in the lines of his rugged, ruddy, sun-tanned face, as he bent to his task of washing out the barrel of his rifle—a necessity for protection in those early settling days—making the water play up like a fountain from the nipple, to the great delight of two rosy children who were looking on.It might have been here, in one of the midland counties, but there was something about the brightness of the afternoon sun which streamed in at the open door, the blueness of the sky, the clearness of the atmosphere, and the scenery around, that was not English. The flowers that clustered about the door and nodded round the rough window-frame, and the objects that peeped here and there from some corner, too, told of a foreign land; while the huge pines that shot up arrow-like towards the sky were such as could be seen nowhere but in Australia.“The poor brutes have been calling you, lass, for the last half-hour,” said he, looking up as a tall, fair-haired girl entered the room where he was busy, milking-pail in hand, and stood to watch the task with as much interest as the children.“They shan’t wait any longer, father,” said the girl; and she passed slowly through the door, humming a cheery old country ditty, and was gone.The barrel was taken from the water, and wiped out; and then Harris set to work oiling the lock.“Hallo, what are you back for?” he exclaimed as a roughly-dressed, heavy-faced man came up to the hut-door at a trot, his forehead streaming with perspiration, which had marked its course in lighter lines through his dust-grimed face. Directly behind him came, at an easy, loping swing, a tall, thin, fleshless-looking native, whose black skin shone as he came into the hut after his companion.“Blacks out,” panted the heavy-faced man, seizing the door as if to shut it, at the same time examining the cap upon the rifle he carried—“Blacks out, master.”“Blacks out, Tom?” said Samson; “blacks out? ’Pon my word, I never saw such a coward in my life. Now what in the world were you lagged for that your conscience must make you see a nigger in his paint behind every tree, or peeping up above the scrub? Blacks! Poor, inoffensive beggars. Why, you had your rifle, hadn’t you, ready to scare off a hundred? This makes six times you’ve run home to cry wolf. And you’ve left those sheep to take care of themselves,” he continued, forcing the ramrod into its place as he rose as if to leave the hut.“’Tain’t wolf this time, master; ’tain’t, indeed,” cried the man earnestly; and then, seeing Harris’s smile of incredulity, he relapsed into a look of sullen injury, and stood leaning upon his rifle-barrel.“Here, come along,” said Samson.“Load up first, master,” said Tom. “’Tis true, indeed,” he exclaimed, once more seeking to obtain credence for his story. “I saw scores. Ask Teddy here.”Now Teddy—or, as he was known in his tribe, Bidgeebidgee—stood spear in hand, showing his white teeth, and apparently listening intently, from the way in which his nostrils expanded and twitched. That something was amiss was evident, for, leaning his spear against the wall, he now took off the ragged blue shirt he wore, unfastened his girdle, and set free a formidable-looking waddy, or club, before throwing himself flat upon the ground to listen.Samson paused, startled, and though uncharged, he involuntarily cocked his piece as Teddy, the black shepherd, leaped up and exclaimed—“Black fellows all a-coming—one—two—ten hundred.”The next instant he threw himself into an attitude of attack, poising his spear for hurling at the first who should cross the threshold.“Get out,” exclaimed Samson, recovering himself; “here have I lived now two years and only seen a party or two of the poor wretches begging, and—”“But they burned Riley’s hut, and butchered his wife and children,” said Tom, earnestly.“Don’t believe it,” said Samson, sturdily, “only a bugbear made up by some of them pioneering chaps to frighten new-comers from going up country and taking claims, so that they may have best choice themselves.”“Wallace’s boy’s head was battered in,” said Tom.“Gammon,” said Samson, who, however, could not help looking uneasily towards the black.“Then there was Ellis’s poor gal; you know how they served her.”“Hold your tongue, will you?” growled Samson; “do you want to frighten the women to death?” and as he spoke he clapped his hand over his convict servant’s mouth, and glanced uneasily towards the door which led into the interior of the hut—one that was unusually large, for during Samson’s pleasant sojourn in this smiling wilderness, matters had prospered with him, and bit by bit he had added to his dwelling, and found himself compelled to make fresh arrangements for his flocks and ever-multiplying herds.“Did you call?” said a pleasant voice, and then the door opened, and Samson’s comely wife made her appearance.“No,” said Samson, “I didn’t call, but—”“Here a come,” said Teddy, and all present heard the rapid beat of feet, audible to the black’s keen sense some time before. Tom cocked and raised his rifle; Samson snatched down a revolver from a hook over the fireplace, knocking down and breaking a little china group of the children in the wood, an ornament brought from the far-off English home.But the next moment arms were lowered, and Teddy’s spear was not thrown, for two men, whose faces were known to all present, dashed panting into the hut.“Look out,” one of them gasped, “the blacks are out.”“Now then, master!” cried Tom triumphantly.“Don’t see nothing blacker about than your face, neighbour,” said Samson dryly, as he turned to one of his visitors. “Ain’t neither of you killed, are you?”The man did not answer, but turning up the sleeve of his woollen shirt to the elbow, showed a long, jagged but superficial scratch from the upper joint to the wrist, with here the blood drying fast, there still standing in beads upon the lips of the wound.“I might have been,” said the new-comer grimly, “if the fellow who threw the spear that made that long scratch had been truer in his aim. The blacks are out strong, well armed, and in their war-paint; and if you don’t want them in here, Samson Harris, you’d better shut that door.”Half-grudgingly, the squatter made two steps towards the door; then he stopped for he caught sight of his wife, standing with blanched and drawn face, holding tightly her two children. She did not speak; but, as their eyes met, her lips parted to form one word which the father read in an instant. Thought after thought rushed lightning-like through his brain; all the old colonists’ tales and their horrors seemed to force themselves upon him; the burning of Riley’s hut, and the cruel butchery of wife and children, and the other barbarities said to have been committed; the child of a squatter named Wallace beaten to death with clubs; the death of the blooming daughter of one Ellis. A mist seemed to swim before his eyes for an instant; but the next he had shouted, “Come on, such of you as are men;” for he had again encountered the agonised face of his wife—again interpreted that one word her lips had parted to form, and he dashed to the hut-door; but only to be grasped tightly by his convict servant, Tom.“Let me go!” he shouted, “are you mad?” and he dealt the man a heavy blow in the chest, and sent him staggering back, shouting—“Hold him, hold him!”“Let me go, Anderson—Jones!” cried Samson, again struggling to reach the door, but held back by the new-comers. “Are you mad, are you men, when poor Mary is out there in the scrub?”The wounded man gave more of a yell than a cry, as Samson Harris uttered those words, and, loosing his hold of the father, he made for the door himself, but only to fall heavily, tripped up by the waddy the black shepherd had cunningly placed between his legs.The fall was heavy; but as he went down two spears darted through the open door, and stuck quivering one in the floor, the other in the table. The next moment the door was dashed to by Teddy, and its rough wooden bar laid across.“Better there, than through you, Master Anderson,” said Tom, dragging the quivering spear out of the table, and passing it to Teddy.The young man did not speak; but his eyes glared, and the curls of his black beard seemed to move and writhe as his features worked. Then, grasping the rifle he held in his hand, he turned to Samson Harris, saying in a husky voice—“Are you ready?”Samson forced a bullet down upon the powder of the rifle he was now engaged in charging, and nodded his head by way of reply.There was no opposition made now, and as Samson and Anderson prepared to make a dash out to reach the scrub, Tom the convict, Anderson’s companion, and the black made as if to accompany them.“No,” said Samson hoarsely, “stay and protect them,” and he pointed to his wife and the two astonished children. “Now open the door.”At his words, Teddy threw the door widely open, but before any one could pass through, he dashed it to again, while as he did so, Samson groaned, for, “thud—thud—thud” came the sound of three spears as they stuck in the stout woodwork, one passing right through; and he knew that had they stood in the doorway, it would have been to their death.“Frank Anderson,” said Samson in a low voice, holding out his hand, “I always set my face against your coming here, for I didn’t think you were in earnest, my boy; and now—now—if it’s to come to that—” and he pointed to the spears, his voice shaking a little the while, “I should like to make friends first, though I have gone on against you. Frank Anderson, I beg your pardon!”The young man groaned, as he took the proffered hand, and then in the same low voice he whispered—“But Mary, when did she go? Which way?”“Heaven forgive me,” exclaimed the wretched father, “and I’d forgotten her tillsheshowed me my duty,” and he nodded towards his trembling wife. “She took the pail and went to the cows, half—three-quarters of an hour ago.”“But we must go to her,” whispered the young man.“Then you’ll have to go with your skin as full of spears as a porkypine’s back, master,” said Tom, who had crept closer to them. “There; hark at that!” he exclaimed, as a burst of yells arose. “There’s a good two hundred of the black devils dancing about.”“It would be madness to go,” said Samson, “and like sacrificing three more lives; but she may have hid herself, and escaped.”The young man shuddered, and then raised his rifle, for a spear came crashing through the window, but happily without striking any one.“Here,” said Samson, rousing up, “lend a hand?” and with the help of those present, he half carried his wife and two children up a short ladder to a roughly-formed loft, full of wool fleeces, and formed in the low-pitched roof.“There, creep under them,” he cried, “and first pull up the ladder. Now hide yourselves there, you’ll be safe for the present.”“Look out,” shouted Tom, as Mrs Harris dragged up the ladder, and its last rounds were beyond reach, while at the warning cry, Teddy the black and Anderson discharged spear and rifle at a couple of blacks who appeared at the inner door, having climbed in by one of the windows. Then ensued a sharp struggle, in which desperate blows were given on either side, and the inner room was cleared; but not before three of the savage assailants lay writhing upon the floor, their life-blood staining the white boards of the plain bed-chamber.It was a dangerous task, and more than one spear flew through the window as the bodies were hoisted up and thrown through: then the opening was barricaded as well as those of the other little front windows of the hut, and one or two stood at each, ready to meet the next assault.The thin blue smoke of the discharged pieces floated slowly upwards, and seemed to wreathe about over the trampled blood-stains, when a cry came from Tom the convict, and almost at the same instant the report of his piece, summoned help to the back half-kitchen, half wash-house, whose little window was the only opening in the rear of the house.The help was needed, for about a score of the blacks had dashed up to the opening, and were trying to force their way in; but a well kept up fire from rifle and revolver drove them back, with several of their number bleeding, upon the ground.“It’s of no use to be merciful,” exclaimed Anderson. “They must be shot down, or we shall be all butchered. Take a steady aim, sir, for your wife and children’s sake; but I’d keep two or three shots left in my revolver for the last.”Samson Harris turned and glared at the wild countenance of the young man by his side, as if to ask what he meant, but the look was unnoticed, for, as if thirsting for blood, Anderson kept on loading and firing whenever one of their enemies offered his body as a fair mark.At every shot that took effect, there was a wild yelling, above which might be heard the shrieking and wailing of the gins as some famous warrior of the tribe slackened his muscles, let fall spear, waddy, shield, or boomerang, that he should hurl no more; but, in spite of their losses, the attack was kept up now on one side, now on the other, spear after spear flying through the little windows, or sticking in the bedding with which they were barricaded, to be dragged out and sent flying back by Teddy the black, who in his excitement had reduced his costume still farther, only wanting a little yellow, red, and white paint to emulate the warrior uniform of his enemies.But at last the evening had set in, for the short twilight was past, and the stars were looking down calmly upon the scene of the afternoon’s bloodshed. Though but shortly before, dusky figure after dusky figure might have been seen gliding from tree to tree, or darting across some open spot, yelling and brandishing spear or club, now all was silent, save at times the distant lowing of some of Samson’s cattle or the bleating of sheep. Now and again, too, would come the barking and howling of the dogs that had been driven away by the fierce native onslaught—one of those raids made upon the settlers, whom they looked upon as usurping their land.Samson Harris seemed utterly prostrated by his agony of soul, for again and again—almost incessantly—he kept picturing to himself the child he accused himself of neglecting, struggling in the hands of the blacks. He would have gone to seek her now, mad as the act would have been, in the darkness of the night, surrounded as they were by enemies, but for the prayers of his wife; and their only hope seemed to be that poor Mary had taken the alarm and sought for refuge in the scrub, which extended for some, distance in one direction. This, he knew, would be but an act of folly if she had been seen, for they would have tracked her footsteps to the place of refuge with the greatest of ease; their prayer was that she might have taken the alarm in time. Anderson and his companion had had a very narrow escape at the station they occupied some few miles from Samson’s home; but a bold front and a daring charge had enabled them to combine their forces, so, as Anderson had hoped, to be of some protection to Mary Harris, for whom he had, in spite of her father’s opposition, long entertained a warm feeling of admiration.There was a chance that, under cover of the darkness, Mary might thread her way amongst the blacks and reach the hut; and in this hope Anderson stood at the open door watching the night through hour after hour, his senses on the stretch. More than once, too, with Teddy for companion, he walked for some little distance round the hut; but stumbling over the body of one of their enemies, he fell amongst the bushes with so loud a crash that he was glad to retreat, and stand watching once more at his post.An inspection after the afternoon’s struggle had proved that, beyond a few scratches, the defenders of the hut had escaped unharmed; and but for the fearful anxiety which oppressed all present, they would hopefully have looked for the morning, ready to meet their enemy again with renewed courage. Provisions they had in plenty to sustain them, if needs were, for weeks. Ammunition, too, showed no sign of running short, till Samson opened a little keg, to find that the powder it should have contained was powder no more, but one hard mass, into which it had been turned by the dripping from the roof. The bad news was conveyed from one to the other, and in grim silence the men examined their powder-flasks, to find that he who was most wealthy possessed but two charges beyond the one in his rifle.“Will they attack again to-morrow?” was the oft-repeated question. One thought they would for revenge, and never rest content until all within the hut were destroyed; another was of opinion that they would be too demoralised, and that the morning light would find them all miles away; but this last supposition was too fall of hope to be believed in. Anderson and Harris rarely spoke, but while the others, fearless in the knowledge that the natives never attack by night, slept heavily, they watched on, repeating to themselves, as they pictured the solemn silence of the vast woods around, the camp of the natives, and their savage cruelties, the same words over and over again—“Where was Mary?”Watching the long night through, with straining eyes constantly directed at every spot that seemed never so little darker than the night itself. Bush, tree, farming implement, all in their turn were magnified into enemies, performing the same duty as the inmates of the hut, and waiting to spy out their weakness and the best place for the morrow’s assault. But as the night wore on, and the watchful stars still shed their peaceful light, a change came over the wakeful ones, and objects that had before been looked upon as enemies, were taken for the figure of her whose absence had created such a void in more than one heart. But though Anderson started hopefully again and again, and roused the sleeping black by his side, there was no rustling, gliding step, no eager light form of the young girl, who, with beating heart, had threaded her way amidst her sleeping enemies, and now bounded towards the hut for shelter.Anderson groaned, and could have torn his hair, as, disappointed, feverish, and restless, he once more walked round the hut, listening attentively for some sound where all was still in the vast region around, even to solemnity. But in vain; and could he have done so, he might have sought in sleep that rest and refreshing his jaded body needed.Morning at last: first, the pale pearly grey; then the far-up faint pink tinge; then the blushing, glowing clouds; then the gorgeous golden arrows darting to the zenith; and lastly, as if with a bound, came the glorious sun himself, to beam upon the earth with smiles, as though all were peace, and sorrow a thing unknown. But there was neither rest nor peace, for with a series of frantic yells the blacks again showed themselves, crying, leaping, dancing, shouting, partly to alarm their enemies, partly to work themselves up to the fighting pitch. Their faces were streaked with a kind of red ochre and pipe-clay, while upon the bark shields they carried, grotesquely-hideous human faces were depicted, to intimidate those whom they attacked. Nude, save for the opossum-skin strip knotted loosely round their loins, they once more came boldly up to their attack upon the hut, hurling spear and boomerang—that singular weapon, which, failing to strike the object aimed at, returns to the thrower’s hand.There was nothing for it, so far as the inmates were concerned, but to fire till the last bullet and grain of powder should be expended, and then trust to such weapons as they could muster for close quarters, giving up being a question never once mooted; and now, as shot after shot was fired, it was pitiful to see the effect in the bright red spot or long gash in the flesh, where a bullet had struck obliquely. But when fighting in defence of life, men have but little compunction for those who would rob them of the gift, and it was with a grim feeling of satisfaction that savage after savage was seen to fall, till a tall, daring fellow, who had dashed up to the hut, clapped his hand to his chest, leaped in the air, and fell motionless, when Anderson threw down his rifle, saying, “That’s the last charge.”A gloomy silence ensued. Men gazed from one to the other; then fixed long and anxious looks upon those who had been their leaders in the fight, as if expecting them to hit upon some plan of escape from the death that seemed imminent. Now they swept the approaches to the hut, in hopes that some strong party of settlers might be on the way to them, either bound for a new station, or, knowing that they were attacked, with a mission for their rescue. But in a place where a fresh face was not seen once in three months, they knew well that such succour was next to impossible.Mrs Harris, patient, and calmer than any one present, still lay with her little ones hidden in the wool-loft; but as from time to time, when she came to the edge, her eye met that of Anderson, there was a mutual reading of the agony each suffered, hidden though it was beneath the semblance of stoicism.The stillness that had followed upon the excitement of the fight seemed at length to have grown unbearable: men felt that treachery was at work somewhere, and momentarily expected an attack from some unguarded part. They grew distrustful, and more than once Anderson caught himself going from window to window, to see that a proper watch was kept where he anticipated danger.At length, half-maddened by the mental pain he suffered, Anderson cast himself despairingly upon the floor of the hut, turning his face from those around, that they might not see its workings.The young man’s action was not without its effect; for his companion, the friend who had escaped with him from the blacks’ assault upon the previous day, now broke the silence, saying, in utter forgetfulness of the woman and children—“It’s all over, my lads: we may as well shake hands all round, and make a rush of it, right into the black mob, as stop here and be burnt out like squirrels in a tree. I can’t hear this standing still any longer.”But though he looked from face to face, no man answered him, but on the whole avoided his gaze, and watched on at the dusky figures of the savages as they moved incessantly to and fro. When, seeing that his words were of none effect, he coolly laid aside his rifle, rolled up his shirt sleeve, and opening a large knife, began to rub and sharpen it upon the hearthstone.The mental anxiety was frightful; for, let alone the thoughts of poor Mary’s fate, it was as though death were about to descend upon the watchers from moment to moment, while they were debarred from making a single struggle for life.The morning fled, and noon came; and still there was no further attack, and wounded figures had been seen to struggle and gradually stiffen into the rigidity of death within their sight; others to crawl by slow degrees into the shelter of the bushes, unheeded by their savage companions. But still no further attack was made, it seeming evident that the blacks were holding a consultation amongst themselves in the shelter of the trees and bushes but a short distance off.Now a black figure would glide into sight, and look menacingly towards the hut before darting out of sight once more. Then there was a long interval before another was seen; and then eyes were strained amongst the trees in vain for a sight of their enemies.The heat had been excessive, and the small supply of water within the hut being exhausted, the men began to suffer terribly, what little they had having been nobly given up to Mrs Harris and the children. All at once, though, Teddy seized a pail, and, lolling out his tongue like a thirsty dog, began to pant and to make signs that he should be let out to fetch water—signs that were quite unnecessary, for he had no difficulty in making himself understood in his master’s language.But Harris was immovable, and ordered him back. The black’s fidelity had been too often tried, and Samson felt that he could not afford to risk the loss of one faithful servant at a time like this. So Teddy put down the pail upon seeing his master’s mood, seized again waddy and spear, and, panting and tongue-lolling, took his place at one of the windows to watch again for his enemies.His face was a study as he stood there watching: his eyes half closed, mouth twitching, and nostrils working. He was evidently perplexed, and more than once made a movement as if to climb out of the window; but at length his face changed into a fixed immobility, and he seemed waiting till his master should command.Hour after hour passed by, and all was still silent. From watching, Samson took to examining the powder-keg once more. But it all seemed turned to a solid mass, till with a hatchet he knocked off hoop after hoop, cleared away the little staves, and struck the block heavily with the hatchet, to find, when the shell was broken, that within were some pounds of uninjured powder, at the sight of whose grimy grains men’s hearts rose, and rifles were loaded, and flasks eagerly filled.In readiness once more, they waited the next attack; but the sun had long begun to descend, and for hours they had neither heard a yell nor seen a single figure gliding from amongst the trees.“Um all gone,” cried the black shepherd suddenly; “here Juno.”And in effect, frisking and playing about in front of the hut, one of Samson’s dogs had made its appearance, whining and howling till it was admitted; but fearing that the blacks might still be within reach, Samson kept his companions within doors, only yielding to the appeal of Teddy that he might go out and see.Teddy glided like a great snake out of the back window, and was soon lost to sight; but before long a horse or two, some sheep, and the cows came bleating and lowing about the hut, affording abundant proof that the savages, of whom they had a wholesome dread—fleeing rapidly at the sight of their spears—had departed.And now began the search for Mary, all present knowing that sooner or later they must find her, living or dead; though almost all felt, as they set about their search with heavy hearts, that the wailing mother’s fears were not without cause.In case of a surprise, they all kept together, fearing to shout, but encouraging the dog to hunt around, when suddenly Anderson’s rifle rose to his shoulder, and he was about to fire, but perceived just in time that the black figure rapidly approaching was that of Teddy the shepherd.“All gone right ’way,” he said, nodding his head sagaciously as he pointed out the faintly-marked trail made by the departing savages, while he was loud in his declarations that they were “too much fright, come back never—ever.” When asked what he thought about the missing girl, he only shook his head, and would not answer till pressed, when his reply was, “No know—try find;” and bending down, he began to scan every footprint in the direction she would have been likely to take, till darkness put a stop to the search, and all save Samson and Anderson returned to the hut.No one saw the agony of those two men, as now, slowly working their way through the bushes, stumbling with utter weariness, they strode on till nature would hold out no longer, and they sank down, worn out, to sleep for an hour or two beneath the watching stars; but only to leap up, reproaching themselves for their relaxed efforts, as they went back to the hut to try and hear some tidings of the lost girl.The haggard, drawn countenance of Samson Harris’s wife saluted them as they hurried up to the door of the hut, and in that encounter, where each sought for news or hope, it was plain enough to read the bitter tidings written in each anxious face. Anderson turned away with a groan, and was proceeding towards the dense scrub, when Samson called to him to halt, as he kicked at the black shepherd to rouse him from his heavy sleep.Ten minutes after, with Teddy leading the way, they were examining the ground, step by step, in the hope of finding the track by which Mary had entered the scrub; but the grass was so trampled in every direction that the task seemed hopeless. Footprints and trails there were lacing and interlacing, one destroying the identity of the other; but though seeking, as it were, entirely in the dark, they pressed on hour after hour. Ever and again, either the father or Anderson shuddered when they came upon some spot where blood sullied the fair green herbage with its crimson stains; and when such a place occurred, they traced the blood-spots tremblingly, and in dread lest they should stumble in their next step upon the body of her they sought.But no such harrowing sight met their gaze; and still to and fro they searched, shouting at intervals, till night again put a stop to their efforts.Day after day passed of indefatigable search, and the thought occurred again and again to Samson that the blacks must have dragged the poor girl off with them in their retreat; but Teddy would not hear of it, saying, “Wait a bit—find um soon; black feller no take white girl away.” Anderson, too, seemed of opinion that Mary was still near at hand, and with torn and bleeding hands and face he still kept up the weary search, till long after it was certain that if the poor girl were found in the scrub, life would be there no more.Dense—impenetrable almost—the scrub extended mile after mile, mile after mile, to an indefinite distance, presenting ever the same features; so that if the poor girl had been alarmed by the savages and hurried for safety into the wilderness, guide there was none; and, like many another, she might toil on till she fell exhausted, to perish of inanition. To a dweller in England the idea of being lost in the bush seems absurd; but out in the great Australian wilds, where everything is on so grand—so apparently illimitable—a scale, strong and ardent men have been before now known to wander from the beaten track to where pathway there was none, and to wander on and on till death put an end to their sufferings.But had Mary wandered away in dread, fleeing for safety through the thorny waste? They could not answer the question; and, in spite of making an ever-widening circle to try and discover the trail, all seemed vain. Samson would have pushed off by the track taken by the savages, but for the persuasions of Anderson; and though so far disappointment had attended his efforts, Teddy seemed pleased at the trust reposed in him, and often, down upon hands and knees, he examined every blade of grass and leaf.The traces left by the marauding party extended right round the hut, and for some distance back into the wild in every direction; and it was beyond that circle that the principal efforts of the seekers were directed; but days wore on without any success, the difficulty growing greater each hour, in a land where vegetation is rapid and grass would soon spring up where the foot had pressed, as was very apparent; for on the eighth morning, when they again started upon their apparently hopeless task, the tracks of the savages were in many places hardly to be seen. All dread of their enemies’ return seemed lost in this great trouble, and they wandered on, heedless of danger, till on this last day they were at a spot many miles from home, where there was an opening in the dense scrub—the rough head of rock and huge boulder being thrust here and there through the soil to form a desolate wilderness, far as eye could reach—mile after mile of rugged stony undulation, upon which the sun beat down with a heat that was all but unbearable.For days past Teddy had been taciturn and moody, hunting on still, and apparently examining every inch of ground; but he hardly answered when spoken to, apparently under the impression that Samson and Anderson were disappointed in his tracking abilities, of which he was very proud, and had before now often proved to be of no mean order.Evening was fast approaching, when it seemed to Anderson that the black had made some discovery, for he was pressing on in one particular direction, though, when shouted to, he took no heed. Tired and worn, however, sick at heart with many disappointments, father and lover sat down to rest, when at the end of about an hour they heard the well-known “cooey” of the black, reiterated again and again. So, desponding, they rose and proceeded in the direction of the sound, to meet the black at last, looking eager and yet startled—apparently afraid to communicate his intelligence to Samson—and turning in his track to retrace his steps for a couple of miles, when, just as night was falling, he halted, stepped aside, and pointed onwards to where there was a little eminence visible in front.“For Heaven’s sake push on,” cried Anderson, huskily; but Samson grasped at his arm, and would have stayed him had he not thrust him aside and dashed forward, to be out of sight in a few moments amongst the bushes which here grew thickly.Five minutes passed and he did not return, when, staggering like a drunken man, Samson followed in his steps, with eyes bent upon the ground, and brain apparently stunned, feeling that some dread horror was about to be revealed to him, but only in a numb, helpless way. The black came close behind, watching him intently, till, parting the bushes, he came in sight of Anderson, kneeling by the figure they had so long sought; for, lying as if peacefully sleeping, beneath the scanty shadow of a stunted bush, through whose thin sharp leaves the evening breeze sighed mournfully, was the sleeping girl, whose torn garments, lacerated feet, and arm bent beneath her head, showed that she had indeed fled from the approach of the savages, and wandered on and on hopelessly till she had lain down, as she imagined, to sleep her last, long sleep. The hand which Anderson grasped was tightly clenched; but in spite of its coldness, the thin blue lips, sunken eyes, and the unnatural pallor of her face, it was evident that she lived. The father, though, knew it not, neither did Anderson; for, weeping like children, they knelt on either side, dreading to move her, for she seemed now doubly sacred in their eyes.“Better than that we should never have found her,” said Samson, in a broken voice.“Teddy sure a find her some day. Now fetch a water, and give her drink,” exclaimed the black; and taking up what neither of the others had noticed—the milking-pail that the poor girl must have carried from day to day in her many wanderings—he went off and soon returned with water.“Keep back, fool!” exclaimed Anderson, as the black pushed up to Mary’s head, and scooping up some water in the hollow of his hand, he made as if to pour it upon her lips.“No dead,” exclaimed Teddy; “give her drink. Dah!” he ejaculated; for at that moment Anderson gave a cry of joy on seeing a slight quivering in one eyelid, while the thin blue lips parted to emit a sigh, faint as that of the wind above their heads.They had reached the poor girl in time; but so near had she been to her last breath, that weeks elapsed, during which she lay almost insensible upon the borders of that unknown land to which she had so nearly travelled, before she could be said to be out of danger.Hers was a simple story—one that she often told in after years to Anderson’s children, as, a happy wife, she sat beneath his prosperous roof—a story of how she had finished milking one cow, and was carrying her pail to the next, when the gliding form of a black in his war-paint attracted her attention. Her first idea was to flee to the hut; but that she soon saw was utterly impossible, for figure after figure appeared between her and safety, and all she could do was to back quietly into the scrub, and then, with the pail she carried catching in the bushes, so that the white milk splashed out from time to time, she fled on hastily—always with the impression that she was being tracked.How it was she clung to the pail always seemed to her a mystery; but it was her salvation, for, utterly worn out at last, she had fallen on her knees in the dense wood as darkness came on, dreading to move, and now for the first time she remembered the milk, and drank eagerly of the remaining but sadly-diminished supply. The next day she wandered on and on, helplessly lost, ever changing her course, and fleeing in dread from the blacks she felt assured were on her trail. The sour milk gave her life and strength that day and the next, and the next, as she husbanded and eked out the failing drops with water, till the time came when all seemed a feverish dream, wherein she was struggling on through thorny wastes, with the hot sun pouring its fervid beams upon her head.She knew no more, for her next recollection was of waking in her own old bed at the hut, as from a long and troubled dream, till a glance at her wasted hands, and an attempt to rise, told her that the dream was true.

Talking of penal settlements naturally suggests settlements that are not penal, where our most enterprising unsuccessful men go to seek the home and prosperity that they have not been able to discover here. One such man as this was Samson Harris, who, after twenty years of Australian life, returned home with a comfortable competency for a man of his class. He was no millionaire, but he had made enough to live upon to the end of his days, and then leave enough for his children.

I attended his family, the little that they needed of medical aid, and finding him a thoroughly well-informed man, full of general knowledge, a certain amount of intimacy ensued, and he at various times told me so much of his life out at the Antipodes, that I was pretty well able to picture it from beginning to end.

He gave me one very vivid account of an incident in his career which I have endeavoured to reproduce.

From his description of his home, it might have been in one of the midland counties, the scene was so calm and peaceful. The roughly-built cottage, with its familiar English objects here and there—the loudly-ticking clock, the cleanly-scrubbed three-legged table; the big old family Bible; the cage of white wicker, with its ragged-tailed thrush hopping from perch to perch; and I picture to myself Samson Harris seated there upon a stool in the midst of the humble room, before a tin bucket of water, Englishman written boldly in the lines of his rugged, ruddy, sun-tanned face, as he bent to his task of washing out the barrel of his rifle—a necessity for protection in those early settling days—making the water play up like a fountain from the nipple, to the great delight of two rosy children who were looking on.

It might have been here, in one of the midland counties, but there was something about the brightness of the afternoon sun which streamed in at the open door, the blueness of the sky, the clearness of the atmosphere, and the scenery around, that was not English. The flowers that clustered about the door and nodded round the rough window-frame, and the objects that peeped here and there from some corner, too, told of a foreign land; while the huge pines that shot up arrow-like towards the sky were such as could be seen nowhere but in Australia.

“The poor brutes have been calling you, lass, for the last half-hour,” said he, looking up as a tall, fair-haired girl entered the room where he was busy, milking-pail in hand, and stood to watch the task with as much interest as the children.

“They shan’t wait any longer, father,” said the girl; and she passed slowly through the door, humming a cheery old country ditty, and was gone.

The barrel was taken from the water, and wiped out; and then Harris set to work oiling the lock.

“Hallo, what are you back for?” he exclaimed as a roughly-dressed, heavy-faced man came up to the hut-door at a trot, his forehead streaming with perspiration, which had marked its course in lighter lines through his dust-grimed face. Directly behind him came, at an easy, loping swing, a tall, thin, fleshless-looking native, whose black skin shone as he came into the hut after his companion.

“Blacks out,” panted the heavy-faced man, seizing the door as if to shut it, at the same time examining the cap upon the rifle he carried—“Blacks out, master.”

“Blacks out, Tom?” said Samson; “blacks out? ’Pon my word, I never saw such a coward in my life. Now what in the world were you lagged for that your conscience must make you see a nigger in his paint behind every tree, or peeping up above the scrub? Blacks! Poor, inoffensive beggars. Why, you had your rifle, hadn’t you, ready to scare off a hundred? This makes six times you’ve run home to cry wolf. And you’ve left those sheep to take care of themselves,” he continued, forcing the ramrod into its place as he rose as if to leave the hut.

“’Tain’t wolf this time, master; ’tain’t, indeed,” cried the man earnestly; and then, seeing Harris’s smile of incredulity, he relapsed into a look of sullen injury, and stood leaning upon his rifle-barrel.

“Here, come along,” said Samson.

“Load up first, master,” said Tom. “’Tis true, indeed,” he exclaimed, once more seeking to obtain credence for his story. “I saw scores. Ask Teddy here.”

Now Teddy—or, as he was known in his tribe, Bidgeebidgee—stood spear in hand, showing his white teeth, and apparently listening intently, from the way in which his nostrils expanded and twitched. That something was amiss was evident, for, leaning his spear against the wall, he now took off the ragged blue shirt he wore, unfastened his girdle, and set free a formidable-looking waddy, or club, before throwing himself flat upon the ground to listen.

Samson paused, startled, and though uncharged, he involuntarily cocked his piece as Teddy, the black shepherd, leaped up and exclaimed—

“Black fellows all a-coming—one—two—ten hundred.”

The next instant he threw himself into an attitude of attack, poising his spear for hurling at the first who should cross the threshold.

“Get out,” exclaimed Samson, recovering himself; “here have I lived now two years and only seen a party or two of the poor wretches begging, and—”

“But they burned Riley’s hut, and butchered his wife and children,” said Tom, earnestly.

“Don’t believe it,” said Samson, sturdily, “only a bugbear made up by some of them pioneering chaps to frighten new-comers from going up country and taking claims, so that they may have best choice themselves.”

“Wallace’s boy’s head was battered in,” said Tom.

“Gammon,” said Samson, who, however, could not help looking uneasily towards the black.

“Then there was Ellis’s poor gal; you know how they served her.”

“Hold your tongue, will you?” growled Samson; “do you want to frighten the women to death?” and as he spoke he clapped his hand over his convict servant’s mouth, and glanced uneasily towards the door which led into the interior of the hut—one that was unusually large, for during Samson’s pleasant sojourn in this smiling wilderness, matters had prospered with him, and bit by bit he had added to his dwelling, and found himself compelled to make fresh arrangements for his flocks and ever-multiplying herds.

“Did you call?” said a pleasant voice, and then the door opened, and Samson’s comely wife made her appearance.

“No,” said Samson, “I didn’t call, but—”

“Here a come,” said Teddy, and all present heard the rapid beat of feet, audible to the black’s keen sense some time before. Tom cocked and raised his rifle; Samson snatched down a revolver from a hook over the fireplace, knocking down and breaking a little china group of the children in the wood, an ornament brought from the far-off English home.

But the next moment arms were lowered, and Teddy’s spear was not thrown, for two men, whose faces were known to all present, dashed panting into the hut.

“Look out,” one of them gasped, “the blacks are out.”

“Now then, master!” cried Tom triumphantly.

“Don’t see nothing blacker about than your face, neighbour,” said Samson dryly, as he turned to one of his visitors. “Ain’t neither of you killed, are you?”

The man did not answer, but turning up the sleeve of his woollen shirt to the elbow, showed a long, jagged but superficial scratch from the upper joint to the wrist, with here the blood drying fast, there still standing in beads upon the lips of the wound.

“I might have been,” said the new-comer grimly, “if the fellow who threw the spear that made that long scratch had been truer in his aim. The blacks are out strong, well armed, and in their war-paint; and if you don’t want them in here, Samson Harris, you’d better shut that door.”

Half-grudgingly, the squatter made two steps towards the door; then he stopped for he caught sight of his wife, standing with blanched and drawn face, holding tightly her two children. She did not speak; but, as their eyes met, her lips parted to form one word which the father read in an instant. Thought after thought rushed lightning-like through his brain; all the old colonists’ tales and their horrors seemed to force themselves upon him; the burning of Riley’s hut, and the cruel butchery of wife and children, and the other barbarities said to have been committed; the child of a squatter named Wallace beaten to death with clubs; the death of the blooming daughter of one Ellis. A mist seemed to swim before his eyes for an instant; but the next he had shouted, “Come on, such of you as are men;” for he had again encountered the agonised face of his wife—again interpreted that one word her lips had parted to form, and he dashed to the hut-door; but only to be grasped tightly by his convict servant, Tom.

“Let me go!” he shouted, “are you mad?” and he dealt the man a heavy blow in the chest, and sent him staggering back, shouting—“Hold him, hold him!”

“Let me go, Anderson—Jones!” cried Samson, again struggling to reach the door, but held back by the new-comers. “Are you mad, are you men, when poor Mary is out there in the scrub?”

The wounded man gave more of a yell than a cry, as Samson Harris uttered those words, and, loosing his hold of the father, he made for the door himself, but only to fall heavily, tripped up by the waddy the black shepherd had cunningly placed between his legs.

The fall was heavy; but as he went down two spears darted through the open door, and stuck quivering one in the floor, the other in the table. The next moment the door was dashed to by Teddy, and its rough wooden bar laid across.

“Better there, than through you, Master Anderson,” said Tom, dragging the quivering spear out of the table, and passing it to Teddy.

The young man did not speak; but his eyes glared, and the curls of his black beard seemed to move and writhe as his features worked. Then, grasping the rifle he held in his hand, he turned to Samson Harris, saying in a husky voice—

“Are you ready?”

Samson forced a bullet down upon the powder of the rifle he was now engaged in charging, and nodded his head by way of reply.

There was no opposition made now, and as Samson and Anderson prepared to make a dash out to reach the scrub, Tom the convict, Anderson’s companion, and the black made as if to accompany them.

“No,” said Samson hoarsely, “stay and protect them,” and he pointed to his wife and the two astonished children. “Now open the door.”

At his words, Teddy threw the door widely open, but before any one could pass through, he dashed it to again, while as he did so, Samson groaned, for, “thud—thud—thud” came the sound of three spears as they stuck in the stout woodwork, one passing right through; and he knew that had they stood in the doorway, it would have been to their death.

“Frank Anderson,” said Samson in a low voice, holding out his hand, “I always set my face against your coming here, for I didn’t think you were in earnest, my boy; and now—now—if it’s to come to that—” and he pointed to the spears, his voice shaking a little the while, “I should like to make friends first, though I have gone on against you. Frank Anderson, I beg your pardon!”

The young man groaned, as he took the proffered hand, and then in the same low voice he whispered—

“But Mary, when did she go? Which way?”

“Heaven forgive me,” exclaimed the wretched father, “and I’d forgotten her tillsheshowed me my duty,” and he nodded towards his trembling wife. “She took the pail and went to the cows, half—three-quarters of an hour ago.”

“But we must go to her,” whispered the young man.

“Then you’ll have to go with your skin as full of spears as a porkypine’s back, master,” said Tom, who had crept closer to them. “There; hark at that!” he exclaimed, as a burst of yells arose. “There’s a good two hundred of the black devils dancing about.”

“It would be madness to go,” said Samson, “and like sacrificing three more lives; but she may have hid herself, and escaped.”

The young man shuddered, and then raised his rifle, for a spear came crashing through the window, but happily without striking any one.

“Here,” said Samson, rousing up, “lend a hand?” and with the help of those present, he half carried his wife and two children up a short ladder to a roughly-formed loft, full of wool fleeces, and formed in the low-pitched roof.

“There, creep under them,” he cried, “and first pull up the ladder. Now hide yourselves there, you’ll be safe for the present.”

“Look out,” shouted Tom, as Mrs Harris dragged up the ladder, and its last rounds were beyond reach, while at the warning cry, Teddy the black and Anderson discharged spear and rifle at a couple of blacks who appeared at the inner door, having climbed in by one of the windows. Then ensued a sharp struggle, in which desperate blows were given on either side, and the inner room was cleared; but not before three of the savage assailants lay writhing upon the floor, their life-blood staining the white boards of the plain bed-chamber.

It was a dangerous task, and more than one spear flew through the window as the bodies were hoisted up and thrown through: then the opening was barricaded as well as those of the other little front windows of the hut, and one or two stood at each, ready to meet the next assault.

The thin blue smoke of the discharged pieces floated slowly upwards, and seemed to wreathe about over the trampled blood-stains, when a cry came from Tom the convict, and almost at the same instant the report of his piece, summoned help to the back half-kitchen, half wash-house, whose little window was the only opening in the rear of the house.

The help was needed, for about a score of the blacks had dashed up to the opening, and were trying to force their way in; but a well kept up fire from rifle and revolver drove them back, with several of their number bleeding, upon the ground.

“It’s of no use to be merciful,” exclaimed Anderson. “They must be shot down, or we shall be all butchered. Take a steady aim, sir, for your wife and children’s sake; but I’d keep two or three shots left in my revolver for the last.”

Samson Harris turned and glared at the wild countenance of the young man by his side, as if to ask what he meant, but the look was unnoticed, for, as if thirsting for blood, Anderson kept on loading and firing whenever one of their enemies offered his body as a fair mark.

At every shot that took effect, there was a wild yelling, above which might be heard the shrieking and wailing of the gins as some famous warrior of the tribe slackened his muscles, let fall spear, waddy, shield, or boomerang, that he should hurl no more; but, in spite of their losses, the attack was kept up now on one side, now on the other, spear after spear flying through the little windows, or sticking in the bedding with which they were barricaded, to be dragged out and sent flying back by Teddy the black, who in his excitement had reduced his costume still farther, only wanting a little yellow, red, and white paint to emulate the warrior uniform of his enemies.

But at last the evening had set in, for the short twilight was past, and the stars were looking down calmly upon the scene of the afternoon’s bloodshed. Though but shortly before, dusky figure after dusky figure might have been seen gliding from tree to tree, or darting across some open spot, yelling and brandishing spear or club, now all was silent, save at times the distant lowing of some of Samson’s cattle or the bleating of sheep. Now and again, too, would come the barking and howling of the dogs that had been driven away by the fierce native onslaught—one of those raids made upon the settlers, whom they looked upon as usurping their land.

Samson Harris seemed utterly prostrated by his agony of soul, for again and again—almost incessantly—he kept picturing to himself the child he accused himself of neglecting, struggling in the hands of the blacks. He would have gone to seek her now, mad as the act would have been, in the darkness of the night, surrounded as they were by enemies, but for the prayers of his wife; and their only hope seemed to be that poor Mary had taken the alarm and sought for refuge in the scrub, which extended for some, distance in one direction. This, he knew, would be but an act of folly if she had been seen, for they would have tracked her footsteps to the place of refuge with the greatest of ease; their prayer was that she might have taken the alarm in time. Anderson and his companion had had a very narrow escape at the station they occupied some few miles from Samson’s home; but a bold front and a daring charge had enabled them to combine their forces, so, as Anderson had hoped, to be of some protection to Mary Harris, for whom he had, in spite of her father’s opposition, long entertained a warm feeling of admiration.

There was a chance that, under cover of the darkness, Mary might thread her way amongst the blacks and reach the hut; and in this hope Anderson stood at the open door watching the night through hour after hour, his senses on the stretch. More than once, too, with Teddy for companion, he walked for some little distance round the hut; but stumbling over the body of one of their enemies, he fell amongst the bushes with so loud a crash that he was glad to retreat, and stand watching once more at his post.

An inspection after the afternoon’s struggle had proved that, beyond a few scratches, the defenders of the hut had escaped unharmed; and but for the fearful anxiety which oppressed all present, they would hopefully have looked for the morning, ready to meet their enemy again with renewed courage. Provisions they had in plenty to sustain them, if needs were, for weeks. Ammunition, too, showed no sign of running short, till Samson opened a little keg, to find that the powder it should have contained was powder no more, but one hard mass, into which it had been turned by the dripping from the roof. The bad news was conveyed from one to the other, and in grim silence the men examined their powder-flasks, to find that he who was most wealthy possessed but two charges beyond the one in his rifle.

“Will they attack again to-morrow?” was the oft-repeated question. One thought they would for revenge, and never rest content until all within the hut were destroyed; another was of opinion that they would be too demoralised, and that the morning light would find them all miles away; but this last supposition was too fall of hope to be believed in. Anderson and Harris rarely spoke, but while the others, fearless in the knowledge that the natives never attack by night, slept heavily, they watched on, repeating to themselves, as they pictured the solemn silence of the vast woods around, the camp of the natives, and their savage cruelties, the same words over and over again—

“Where was Mary?”

Watching the long night through, with straining eyes constantly directed at every spot that seemed never so little darker than the night itself. Bush, tree, farming implement, all in their turn were magnified into enemies, performing the same duty as the inmates of the hut, and waiting to spy out their weakness and the best place for the morrow’s assault. But as the night wore on, and the watchful stars still shed their peaceful light, a change came over the wakeful ones, and objects that had before been looked upon as enemies, were taken for the figure of her whose absence had created such a void in more than one heart. But though Anderson started hopefully again and again, and roused the sleeping black by his side, there was no rustling, gliding step, no eager light form of the young girl, who, with beating heart, had threaded her way amidst her sleeping enemies, and now bounded towards the hut for shelter.

Anderson groaned, and could have torn his hair, as, disappointed, feverish, and restless, he once more walked round the hut, listening attentively for some sound where all was still in the vast region around, even to solemnity. But in vain; and could he have done so, he might have sought in sleep that rest and refreshing his jaded body needed.

Morning at last: first, the pale pearly grey; then the far-up faint pink tinge; then the blushing, glowing clouds; then the gorgeous golden arrows darting to the zenith; and lastly, as if with a bound, came the glorious sun himself, to beam upon the earth with smiles, as though all were peace, and sorrow a thing unknown. But there was neither rest nor peace, for with a series of frantic yells the blacks again showed themselves, crying, leaping, dancing, shouting, partly to alarm their enemies, partly to work themselves up to the fighting pitch. Their faces were streaked with a kind of red ochre and pipe-clay, while upon the bark shields they carried, grotesquely-hideous human faces were depicted, to intimidate those whom they attacked. Nude, save for the opossum-skin strip knotted loosely round their loins, they once more came boldly up to their attack upon the hut, hurling spear and boomerang—that singular weapon, which, failing to strike the object aimed at, returns to the thrower’s hand.

There was nothing for it, so far as the inmates were concerned, but to fire till the last bullet and grain of powder should be expended, and then trust to such weapons as they could muster for close quarters, giving up being a question never once mooted; and now, as shot after shot was fired, it was pitiful to see the effect in the bright red spot or long gash in the flesh, where a bullet had struck obliquely. But when fighting in defence of life, men have but little compunction for those who would rob them of the gift, and it was with a grim feeling of satisfaction that savage after savage was seen to fall, till a tall, daring fellow, who had dashed up to the hut, clapped his hand to his chest, leaped in the air, and fell motionless, when Anderson threw down his rifle, saying, “That’s the last charge.”

A gloomy silence ensued. Men gazed from one to the other; then fixed long and anxious looks upon those who had been their leaders in the fight, as if expecting them to hit upon some plan of escape from the death that seemed imminent. Now they swept the approaches to the hut, in hopes that some strong party of settlers might be on the way to them, either bound for a new station, or, knowing that they were attacked, with a mission for their rescue. But in a place where a fresh face was not seen once in three months, they knew well that such succour was next to impossible.

Mrs Harris, patient, and calmer than any one present, still lay with her little ones hidden in the wool-loft; but as from time to time, when she came to the edge, her eye met that of Anderson, there was a mutual reading of the agony each suffered, hidden though it was beneath the semblance of stoicism.

The stillness that had followed upon the excitement of the fight seemed at length to have grown unbearable: men felt that treachery was at work somewhere, and momentarily expected an attack from some unguarded part. They grew distrustful, and more than once Anderson caught himself going from window to window, to see that a proper watch was kept where he anticipated danger.

At length, half-maddened by the mental pain he suffered, Anderson cast himself despairingly upon the floor of the hut, turning his face from those around, that they might not see its workings.

The young man’s action was not without its effect; for his companion, the friend who had escaped with him from the blacks’ assault upon the previous day, now broke the silence, saying, in utter forgetfulness of the woman and children—

“It’s all over, my lads: we may as well shake hands all round, and make a rush of it, right into the black mob, as stop here and be burnt out like squirrels in a tree. I can’t hear this standing still any longer.”

But though he looked from face to face, no man answered him, but on the whole avoided his gaze, and watched on at the dusky figures of the savages as they moved incessantly to and fro. When, seeing that his words were of none effect, he coolly laid aside his rifle, rolled up his shirt sleeve, and opening a large knife, began to rub and sharpen it upon the hearthstone.

The mental anxiety was frightful; for, let alone the thoughts of poor Mary’s fate, it was as though death were about to descend upon the watchers from moment to moment, while they were debarred from making a single struggle for life.

The morning fled, and noon came; and still there was no further attack, and wounded figures had been seen to struggle and gradually stiffen into the rigidity of death within their sight; others to crawl by slow degrees into the shelter of the bushes, unheeded by their savage companions. But still no further attack was made, it seeming evident that the blacks were holding a consultation amongst themselves in the shelter of the trees and bushes but a short distance off.

Now a black figure would glide into sight, and look menacingly towards the hut before darting out of sight once more. Then there was a long interval before another was seen; and then eyes were strained amongst the trees in vain for a sight of their enemies.

The heat had been excessive, and the small supply of water within the hut being exhausted, the men began to suffer terribly, what little they had having been nobly given up to Mrs Harris and the children. All at once, though, Teddy seized a pail, and, lolling out his tongue like a thirsty dog, began to pant and to make signs that he should be let out to fetch water—signs that were quite unnecessary, for he had no difficulty in making himself understood in his master’s language.

But Harris was immovable, and ordered him back. The black’s fidelity had been too often tried, and Samson felt that he could not afford to risk the loss of one faithful servant at a time like this. So Teddy put down the pail upon seeing his master’s mood, seized again waddy and spear, and, panting and tongue-lolling, took his place at one of the windows to watch again for his enemies.

His face was a study as he stood there watching: his eyes half closed, mouth twitching, and nostrils working. He was evidently perplexed, and more than once made a movement as if to climb out of the window; but at length his face changed into a fixed immobility, and he seemed waiting till his master should command.

Hour after hour passed by, and all was still silent. From watching, Samson took to examining the powder-keg once more. But it all seemed turned to a solid mass, till with a hatchet he knocked off hoop after hoop, cleared away the little staves, and struck the block heavily with the hatchet, to find, when the shell was broken, that within were some pounds of uninjured powder, at the sight of whose grimy grains men’s hearts rose, and rifles were loaded, and flasks eagerly filled.

In readiness once more, they waited the next attack; but the sun had long begun to descend, and for hours they had neither heard a yell nor seen a single figure gliding from amongst the trees.

“Um all gone,” cried the black shepherd suddenly; “here Juno.”

And in effect, frisking and playing about in front of the hut, one of Samson’s dogs had made its appearance, whining and howling till it was admitted; but fearing that the blacks might still be within reach, Samson kept his companions within doors, only yielding to the appeal of Teddy that he might go out and see.

Teddy glided like a great snake out of the back window, and was soon lost to sight; but before long a horse or two, some sheep, and the cows came bleating and lowing about the hut, affording abundant proof that the savages, of whom they had a wholesome dread—fleeing rapidly at the sight of their spears—had departed.

And now began the search for Mary, all present knowing that sooner or later they must find her, living or dead; though almost all felt, as they set about their search with heavy hearts, that the wailing mother’s fears were not without cause.

In case of a surprise, they all kept together, fearing to shout, but encouraging the dog to hunt around, when suddenly Anderson’s rifle rose to his shoulder, and he was about to fire, but perceived just in time that the black figure rapidly approaching was that of Teddy the shepherd.

“All gone right ’way,” he said, nodding his head sagaciously as he pointed out the faintly-marked trail made by the departing savages, while he was loud in his declarations that they were “too much fright, come back never—ever.” When asked what he thought about the missing girl, he only shook his head, and would not answer till pressed, when his reply was, “No know—try find;” and bending down, he began to scan every footprint in the direction she would have been likely to take, till darkness put a stop to the search, and all save Samson and Anderson returned to the hut.

No one saw the agony of those two men, as now, slowly working their way through the bushes, stumbling with utter weariness, they strode on till nature would hold out no longer, and they sank down, worn out, to sleep for an hour or two beneath the watching stars; but only to leap up, reproaching themselves for their relaxed efforts, as they went back to the hut to try and hear some tidings of the lost girl.

The haggard, drawn countenance of Samson Harris’s wife saluted them as they hurried up to the door of the hut, and in that encounter, where each sought for news or hope, it was plain enough to read the bitter tidings written in each anxious face. Anderson turned away with a groan, and was proceeding towards the dense scrub, when Samson called to him to halt, as he kicked at the black shepherd to rouse him from his heavy sleep.

Ten minutes after, with Teddy leading the way, they were examining the ground, step by step, in the hope of finding the track by which Mary had entered the scrub; but the grass was so trampled in every direction that the task seemed hopeless. Footprints and trails there were lacing and interlacing, one destroying the identity of the other; but though seeking, as it were, entirely in the dark, they pressed on hour after hour. Ever and again, either the father or Anderson shuddered when they came upon some spot where blood sullied the fair green herbage with its crimson stains; and when such a place occurred, they traced the blood-spots tremblingly, and in dread lest they should stumble in their next step upon the body of her they sought.

But no such harrowing sight met their gaze; and still to and fro they searched, shouting at intervals, till night again put a stop to their efforts.

Day after day passed of indefatigable search, and the thought occurred again and again to Samson that the blacks must have dragged the poor girl off with them in their retreat; but Teddy would not hear of it, saying, “Wait a bit—find um soon; black feller no take white girl away.” Anderson, too, seemed of opinion that Mary was still near at hand, and with torn and bleeding hands and face he still kept up the weary search, till long after it was certain that if the poor girl were found in the scrub, life would be there no more.

Dense—impenetrable almost—the scrub extended mile after mile, mile after mile, to an indefinite distance, presenting ever the same features; so that if the poor girl had been alarmed by the savages and hurried for safety into the wilderness, guide there was none; and, like many another, she might toil on till she fell exhausted, to perish of inanition. To a dweller in England the idea of being lost in the bush seems absurd; but out in the great Australian wilds, where everything is on so grand—so apparently illimitable—a scale, strong and ardent men have been before now known to wander from the beaten track to where pathway there was none, and to wander on and on till death put an end to their sufferings.

But had Mary wandered away in dread, fleeing for safety through the thorny waste? They could not answer the question; and, in spite of making an ever-widening circle to try and discover the trail, all seemed vain. Samson would have pushed off by the track taken by the savages, but for the persuasions of Anderson; and though so far disappointment had attended his efforts, Teddy seemed pleased at the trust reposed in him, and often, down upon hands and knees, he examined every blade of grass and leaf.

The traces left by the marauding party extended right round the hut, and for some distance back into the wild in every direction; and it was beyond that circle that the principal efforts of the seekers were directed; but days wore on without any success, the difficulty growing greater each hour, in a land where vegetation is rapid and grass would soon spring up where the foot had pressed, as was very apparent; for on the eighth morning, when they again started upon their apparently hopeless task, the tracks of the savages were in many places hardly to be seen. All dread of their enemies’ return seemed lost in this great trouble, and they wandered on, heedless of danger, till on this last day they were at a spot many miles from home, where there was an opening in the dense scrub—the rough head of rock and huge boulder being thrust here and there through the soil to form a desolate wilderness, far as eye could reach—mile after mile of rugged stony undulation, upon which the sun beat down with a heat that was all but unbearable.

For days past Teddy had been taciturn and moody, hunting on still, and apparently examining every inch of ground; but he hardly answered when spoken to, apparently under the impression that Samson and Anderson were disappointed in his tracking abilities, of which he was very proud, and had before now often proved to be of no mean order.

Evening was fast approaching, when it seemed to Anderson that the black had made some discovery, for he was pressing on in one particular direction, though, when shouted to, he took no heed. Tired and worn, however, sick at heart with many disappointments, father and lover sat down to rest, when at the end of about an hour they heard the well-known “cooey” of the black, reiterated again and again. So, desponding, they rose and proceeded in the direction of the sound, to meet the black at last, looking eager and yet startled—apparently afraid to communicate his intelligence to Samson—and turning in his track to retrace his steps for a couple of miles, when, just as night was falling, he halted, stepped aside, and pointed onwards to where there was a little eminence visible in front.

“For Heaven’s sake push on,” cried Anderson, huskily; but Samson grasped at his arm, and would have stayed him had he not thrust him aside and dashed forward, to be out of sight in a few moments amongst the bushes which here grew thickly.

Five minutes passed and he did not return, when, staggering like a drunken man, Samson followed in his steps, with eyes bent upon the ground, and brain apparently stunned, feeling that some dread horror was about to be revealed to him, but only in a numb, helpless way. The black came close behind, watching him intently, till, parting the bushes, he came in sight of Anderson, kneeling by the figure they had so long sought; for, lying as if peacefully sleeping, beneath the scanty shadow of a stunted bush, through whose thin sharp leaves the evening breeze sighed mournfully, was the sleeping girl, whose torn garments, lacerated feet, and arm bent beneath her head, showed that she had indeed fled from the approach of the savages, and wandered on and on hopelessly till she had lain down, as she imagined, to sleep her last, long sleep. The hand which Anderson grasped was tightly clenched; but in spite of its coldness, the thin blue lips, sunken eyes, and the unnatural pallor of her face, it was evident that she lived. The father, though, knew it not, neither did Anderson; for, weeping like children, they knelt on either side, dreading to move her, for she seemed now doubly sacred in their eyes.

“Better than that we should never have found her,” said Samson, in a broken voice.

“Teddy sure a find her some day. Now fetch a water, and give her drink,” exclaimed the black; and taking up what neither of the others had noticed—the milking-pail that the poor girl must have carried from day to day in her many wanderings—he went off and soon returned with water.

“Keep back, fool!” exclaimed Anderson, as the black pushed up to Mary’s head, and scooping up some water in the hollow of his hand, he made as if to pour it upon her lips.

“No dead,” exclaimed Teddy; “give her drink. Dah!” he ejaculated; for at that moment Anderson gave a cry of joy on seeing a slight quivering in one eyelid, while the thin blue lips parted to emit a sigh, faint as that of the wind above their heads.

They had reached the poor girl in time; but so near had she been to her last breath, that weeks elapsed, during which she lay almost insensible upon the borders of that unknown land to which she had so nearly travelled, before she could be said to be out of danger.

Hers was a simple story—one that she often told in after years to Anderson’s children, as, a happy wife, she sat beneath his prosperous roof—a story of how she had finished milking one cow, and was carrying her pail to the next, when the gliding form of a black in his war-paint attracted her attention. Her first idea was to flee to the hut; but that she soon saw was utterly impossible, for figure after figure appeared between her and safety, and all she could do was to back quietly into the scrub, and then, with the pail she carried catching in the bushes, so that the white milk splashed out from time to time, she fled on hastily—always with the impression that she was being tracked.

How it was she clung to the pail always seemed to her a mystery; but it was her salvation, for, utterly worn out at last, she had fallen on her knees in the dense wood as darkness came on, dreading to move, and now for the first time she remembered the milk, and drank eagerly of the remaining but sadly-diminished supply. The next day she wandered on and on, helplessly lost, ever changing her course, and fleeing in dread from the blacks she felt assured were on her trail. The sour milk gave her life and strength that day and the next, and the next, as she husbanded and eked out the failing drops with water, till the time came when all seemed a feverish dream, wherein she was struggling on through thorny wastes, with the hot sun pouring its fervid beams upon her head.

She knew no more, for her next recollection was of waking in her own old bed at the hut, as from a long and troubled dream, till a glance at her wasted hands, and an attempt to rise, told her that the dream was true.

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