As much of Lance's leisure time while at exercise as he could devote to this sort of reconnoitring he managed to concentrate on the mud flats, which at low tide were hardly a mile distant. These he carefully examined. He learnt by heart their bearings from the shore; satisfied himself that once there he could manage for himself. Of course there was the reverse side of the shield. The hulks—more especially thePresident, as holding a sample of the worst and most desperate criminals of the whole prison population—were most closely watched. No boats but those of the water police were permitted to come within an area marked by buoys, more than half a mile square. Was it worth while to run the risk of being caught and run down by these, or would it be more prudent to await his transfer to theSuccessand take the chance of escaping from the quarries?
The latter idea seemed feasible. Amid a regiment of convicts nearly a thousand strong, who worked from 7A.M.to 5P.M.in the quarries, at the piers, or the building of a lighthouse—surely amid such an army of labourers some opportunity of escape would be afforded him.
Meanwhile, in spite of adverse circumstances, matters were decidedly improving. His friendly gaoler showed him how he could keep his port-hole open in fine weather, even after locking-up time for the night, and by other concessions materially lightened for him the weary hours.
More than once too had he received a letter from Tessie, carefully written on the smallest possible scrap of paper, but with its few words of priceless value and comfort to the captive. In the last one a distinct plan of escape was devised.
At this time, among the various pursuits and avocations by means of which men of gentle nurture who had been unsuccessful at the goldfields procured a living while leading an independent life, that of wild-fowling ranked high. Game of all sorts was readily saleable at fabulous prices to the hotel and restaurant keepers of Melbourne. Every day scores of men, with pockets stuffed with bank notes, came to the metropolis eager to embark for England with what seemed a fortune to them, or to enjoy a season of revelry preparatory to returning to Ballarat or Bendigo. There was, as the miner's phrase then went, 'plenty more where that came from.' With such free-handed customers arecherchédinner, with fish, game, and fruit, preceding a theatre party, was indispensable. The cost was not counted. Bills were despised in those days when every river in favoured districts was a Pactolus. Hotel-keepers and tradesfolk were reproached for their meanness in not swelling their totals to a respectable sum. The free-handed miner, whose drafts, payable in the rich red gold Dame Nature was so proud to honour, mocked at expense, and exacted profusion at his quasi-luxurious banquets. Such being the state of affairs, with teal and widgeon at ten shillings a brace, and black duck at a sovereign the pair, a reduced gentleman, with a punt and duck gun, was enabled to lead a philosophical, remunerative, and far from laborious existence.
It came at last—the week—the day—the very night to which Lance had looked forward with such nervous anxiety. When compelled to pace the deck for the last morning, as he trusted, with his chained comrades, he barely concealed his exultation at the thought that on the morrow he might be a free man once more. He feared it would be visible in his countenance, in his very step, which in spite of himself was almost elastic, causing his chains to clank unusually. Indeed one of his fellows in adversity noticed it.
Keen to detect the slightest change from the stereotyped prison bearing, he growled out, 'What the —— are ye at, step-dancing with your bloomin' irons, ye —— fool? They'll clap the fourteen-pound clinks on ye if ye try the shakin' lay. Stoush it, ye ——'
The words were perhaps unfit for publication, but the intention was not all unkind. The trainedforçathad quickly divined that something not in the programme—an 'extra,' so to speak—was likely to be played, and thus warned him against premature elation.
Lance felt his heart stop as the possibility occurred to him that the caprice of a warder might order him to wear irons weighing a quarter of a hundredweight in place of the comparatively light ones which at present confined his limbs. He at once 'dropped,' as the adviser would have phrased it, and falling into the chain-gang shuffle as if instinctively, said, 'All right, Scotty, this foggy day makes a fellow want to warm his feet.'
'Warm your feet!' scoffed the convict, 'you'll be lucky if you can raise a trot without hobbles these years to come. When your time's up they'll have ye for something else, like they did me. Once they've got a cove on these —— hell-boats they don't like to let him go again.'
'How long have you been lagged, Scotty?' inquired Lance, less indeed impelled by curiosity than desirous of turning the conversation from what he felt was a dangerous direction.
'Me?' growled the convict hoarsely, glaring for a moment at Lance with his wolfish eyes—eyes which rarely met those of another steadfastly. 'I did ten stretch on the Derwent afore I come across the Straits—ten long years. That warn't enough for 'em, for I hadn't been a year at Bendigo when I was "lumbered" for robbing a cove's tent as I'd never been nigh. No! God strike me dead if I had! I knew the chap as did the "touch" as well as I know you. He and Black Douglas did it between 'em. But I'd a bad name. I'd come from the other side, and I was picked upon. I was seen going towards the tent the night before. The chaps that lost their gold swore to me; they wanted to "cop" somebody. And there was I, as was going straight and had a good claim and didn't need to rob nobody, and thought I had a chance in a new country, there was I—"lagged" and dragged aboard again, and me no more in it than a sucking child. I wentmadpretty well, and here's the end of it. But by ——' and here the half-insane felon swore a terrible oath, 'I'll give 'em something to talk about afore I'm done, and it'll be true this time—true as death—death—death!'
Here the unfortunate creature, whose features had gradually assumed an expression of ungovernable rage, lashed to fury by the thought of real or fancied injustice, raised his voice to a shriek like the cry of a wild beast, and with every feature working like those of an epileptic, fell on the floor of the deck helpless and insensible.
'What's all this?' demanded a warder, marching to the spot, yet cautiously, as always doubtful of a rush among the fierce animals over which he and his comrades ruled. 'Dash it all, you fellows are like a lot of old women—jabber, jabber. I shall have to put some of you in the black hole if you don't look out.'
'It's only Scotty, sir,' answered a crafty-looking convict who had been looking on, with a strange mysterious smile. 'He's got a fit or somethink. He's always mad when he gets on that Bendigo yarn of his.'
'Oh, Scotty, is it?' replied the warder carelessly. 'Throw a bucket of salt water over him; he'll come to directly. Your hour's up all but five minutes, men. You can go below and keep quiet, or it'll be worse for some of you.'
So below they went, in tens and tens, one after the other, murmuring and cursing among themselves, devoting Scotty, Lance, and the warder to the least respectable deities, yet not daring to raise their voices lest the dreaded 'black hole' or the more terrible 'box' should be apportioned to some of them with indiscriminate severity.
Lance, perhaps, was the only one who retired to his cell with a feeling of satisfaction. Gloomy was the evening, dark yet not stormy. Brooding over all things hung an enshrouding, clinging fog. The lights of the vessels in the bay were invisible until the boats almost ran against their sides, then they appeared like blurred and wavering moons. The invisible flocks of sea-birds flying landwards, true precursors of a storm, wailed and shrieked in curiously weird cadence, like the ghosts of shipwrecked mariners. Yet no breath of rising wind or gathering tempest stirred the black waveless plain which stretched for so many a mile seaward and lay illimitable between the murky shores. To those long versed in sea signs—and there were many such on board this mockery of a ship—a storm was imminent. Phantom-like, motionless, lay thePresidenton the oily moveless deep, a corpse-like hull upon the lifeless water. In that hour she seemed a derelict of that dread fleet which the poet dreamed of in his weirdest, grandest poem:
'And ships were drifting with the deadTo shores where all were dumb.'
'And ships were drifting with the deadTo shores where all were dumb.'
If there was a period of comparative rest and peace in that lazar ship, choked to the gunwales with human nature's foulest disorders, it was between the second and third hour after midnight. Before that time there was little or no repose, much less silence. The restless felons, debarred from work or exercise, were loath to sleep or to permit such indulgence to others. But from about an hour after midnight to the lingering winter dawn a certain, or rather uncertain, quantity of sleep was procured. Not incorrectly may it be said that then in all abodes of sin and wretchedness.
'The wicked cease from troublingAnd the weary are at rest.'
'The wicked cease from troublingAnd the weary are at rest.'
The hush of nature, the strange compulsion of the tangible darkness and solemn stillness of the night, was unbroken save by the flights of sea-fowl and the occasional sound from the shore, when softly yet distinctly touching the very stern of the vessel a grating sound was heard by Lance, secreted in an old state-room. Two large-sized ports, through which a man could easily crawl and drop himself into the water or on a boat below, were open. 'Lower away,' said a carefully modulated voice, 'and look sharp.'
As he spoke a stout rope was let down, of which the man in the boat-punt laid hold. Lance leaned out through the wide port of the state-room and could just distinguish the outline of a small boat. 'Drop slowly down,' said the strange voice; 'gently does it.'
The captive had by this time seated himself on the window-sill with his legs outward. His irons were wrapped and muffled with portions of his blanket, which he had sacrificed for the purpose. A twisted rope was made of strips of the same material, a stout gray woollen, woven and milled in Pentridge, and therefore free from shoddy and mixture.
Adown this Lance cautiously lowered himself—how cautiously and anxiously! A slip—a touch of foot on the side instead of the centre of the frail bark, and failure—recapture even—were imminent. The splash would at once alarm the vigilant ears of the sentries, whose rifle-bullets would be spurting in and about the spot in no time. Inch by inch he lowered himself until he felt a man's hand touch and steady him. His feet were on the flat bottom of a ducking canoe which floated low on the surface of the stirless deep. Lower still and lower he sank down until he found himself sitting on the floor of the punt with an arm on either thwart and his back nearly touching the stern. With one strong noiseless stroke the strange boatman sent his light craft yards away from the prison-ship, and as the hull vanished abruptly, swallowed up in the Egyptian darkness of the night, Lance felt a great throb at his heart. He inhaled joyously the salt odour of the tide, for he knew that, bar accidents, he was again a free man.
'Steady,' said the boatman in a low but distinct voice as he settled to his sculls, 'another quarter of a mile and we may talk as much as you please. We shall make the shore before yon black cloud bursts, and after that no boat leaves any ship in the bay till sunrise.'
Lance sat carefully still, and indeed had little inclination to talk for a while. Swiftly, smoothly, they seemed to speed through the ebon darkness lit up from time to time by the phosphorescent scintillations which fell from the black water at each dip of the oars.
'How do you steer?' he said at length. 'It wouldn't do to get lost in this fog; we might easily be picked up, and then my fate would be worse than before.'
'See that light?' said the rower, pointing to a tiny speck like a beacon, miles away on the main.
'I do see a very small glimmering,' said Lance; 'are you sure that is the right direction?'
'That light,' said the stranger slowly, 'is a fire in a nail can which is kept alight by my mate. It stands before our hut in Fisherman's Bend, and there could not be a better place to land.'
'How so?'
'Because it is cut off before and behind by marshes. There is no track to Liardet's Beach, which is only half a mile off. There is a mud flat in front, and hardly any one but ourselves knows the channel. It's dead low water now; any boat, even if they chased us, would be stuck in the mud in ten minutes, and it isn't every one that knows how to get off again.'
'Then we're right, and I'm a free man once more. Great God of Heaven! what a feeling it is. May I ask your name, the name of a man that's saved my life?'
'My name's Wheeler. Not that it matters much, unless I'm had up for being so soft-hearted as to mix myself up with the law's victims. But one gentleman takes a fancy to help another now and then in this topsy-turvy country. I've heard and can see for myself that you're one.'
'Iwas,' groaned out Lance. 'People called me one. Shall I ever be one again?'
Here his irons, stirred with an involuntary movement, made a slight sound.
'That is the answer. My God, what had I done that I should be tortured thus?' His head sank down upon his knees, and he made no sound or sign till the boat glided up to the verge of the small beacon light and a second man appeared out of the darkness, taking hold of the painter which was thrown out to him.
'Haul her up, Joe, as far as you can,' said the boatman, stepping out on the low sedgy bank, so low as to be barely distinguishable above the water. 'Stop, I'll help you. Sit quiet then till we come to you.'
The shallow canoe, with the prow released from weight and tilted up, was pulled bodily on to the land. Then the men stood on either side of Lance, and, raising him from his cramped position, helped him to step on toterra firma, and thence into the door of a small hut, in front of which stood the nail can aforesaid.
The hut was small, but weather-tight and snug as to its interior fittings, displaying the extreme neatness coupled with economy of space often observable where men live by themselves, especially if one of the celibates happens to have been a sailor.
'This is my mate, Trevanion,' said the first mariner. 'His name's Joe Collins, formerly second lieutenant of Her Majesty's shipAvenger. My name you know, so we needn't stand on ceremony with one another. We are well posted up in your story, thanks to your plucky pretty friend, so there's no need for explanation. You and I are ready for supper, I suspect, so we'll turn to while Collins sees to the canoe and makes all tight for the night. There's the first storm-note; it's going to blow great guns before long, just as I thought it would.'
Mr. Wheeler rattled on in a cheery, careless sort of way, while his friend went in and out, fed the dogs, of which they had two or three couples—retrievers, terriers, and one of the tall handsome greyhounds, the kangaroo dog of the colonists. Lance knew that the talkativeness was assumed for the sake of putting him at his ease. Too strange and excited to converse himself, he could but sit in a rude but substantial chair, fashioned out of a beer-barrel and covered with a kangaroo skin, and look silently from one to the other.
Meanwhile the tea was made, the corned beef and bread set forth in a tin dish, pannikins placed ready, and the substantial bush meal, always fully adequate to the needs of a healthy man in good training, was ready. Before commencing, however, Mr. Wheeler fished forth from a species of locker a square bottle, apparently containing Hollands. From this he poured into each pannikin a pretty stiff 'second mate's glass.'
'Do us no harm this cold night,' he said. 'Your health, Trevanion, and a good journey to follow a bad start. It often happens here, take my word for it.'
The three men raised the tin pints and looked at each other. 'Thank you; from my heart I thank you,' Lance gasped out. 'God bless you both, if my wishing it will do you any good. I shall never forget this night.'
One is far from recommending, or indeed palliating, the continuous use of alcohol, but there is no evading the fact that when people are more or less exhausted, beside being chilled and dispirited, a glass of spirits, be it sound cognac, 'the real M'Kay,' or, as in this instance, good square gin, produces an effect little less than magical. There are those who, in the joyous season of early youth, or fixed in the higher wisdom of abstinence, require it not. But strictly in moderation and under exceptional circumstances it is a medicine, a luxury, anelixir vitae.
No sooner had the powerful cordial commenced to produce its ordinary effect than the heart of the ransomed captive was conscious of a feeling of lightness to which it had long been a stranger. Hope, timidly approaching, whispered a soothing message; a vision of distant lands and brighter days assumed form and colour. The cramped limbs recovered warmth; the sluggish blood commenced a quicker circulation. He found appetite for the simple meal, and listened with interest and amusement to the tales of moving incidents by flood and field with which, between their pipes, the woodsmen beguiled the winter evening. Lastly, the door was bolted, the dogs let loose, and Lance was invited to avail himself of a comfortable shakedown, where opossum cloaks and wallaby rugs protected him from the searching night air, now keen-edged with the fury of a howling storm. The wearied fugitive slept soundly, as he had not done for months. He awakened to find that the sun had risen and that his hosts had left him to complete his slumbers undisturbed by their exit.
His feelings when he arose and looked around were instinctively tinged with apprehension. By this time at least his escape had been made known. What excitement must have been caused! What despatches to the other prison-ships and their guards! To the water police! To the hunters of men on land and sea whose beards had been mocked at! Their energy would be further stimulated by the offer of a reward, as well as by the certainty of promotion in the event of recapture. As the captive sat up on his couch and looked through the open door upon the still waters of the river-mouth, from which the fog, now that the storm had blown itself out, was slowly lifting, he felt a shudder thrill through his frame as he realised how near he was still to his prison home, how helpless too, manacled as he was. He struggled to his feet, however, with a renewal of hope and confidence in the future. The fresh and unpolluted air acted like a cordial as he breathed it with long gasps of enjoyment. The close walls of lofty ti-tree which shut in on three sides the nook of land, indistinguishable from the water until at close quarters, provided at once a shelter and a hiding-place almost impossible of surprise. The wild-fowl swam and dived and splashed and squatted, heedless of their chief enemy man. He found himself reverting in thought to the sports of his youth, to the happy days when, gun in hand, he would have joyed to have crawled within range of the shy birds and rattled in a right and left shot.
One of his irons clanked; the rag had slipped. How the sound brought him back to the present! His lips had shaped themselves into a curse, his brow had darkened, when his hosts suddenly appeared, emerging from a creek which wound sinuously through the marshy level. Fastening up the invaluable punt, they stepped lightly out, bearing with them a goodly assortment of wild-fowl—noble black duck, delicate teal, and that lovely minute goose, theAnas boscha, commonly known as the 'wood duck.'
'Grand bird this,' said Wheeler, throwing down a magnificent specimen of that finest of all the family—the 'mountain duck'—with his bronzed-fawn and metallic plumage. 'Splendid fellow to look at, but that's all. Pity, isn't it? Not worth a button to eat. Why do we shoot them? you'll ask. We sell them to the bird-stuffers. They pay well at the price they give us. Now then, we'll proceed to business, which means breakfast. Spatch duck—a couple of teal, eh? How do we do it? Pop 'em into boiling water. Feathers off in a jiffy. Cut them in four, broil, and serve hot. Tender as butter, these flappers, for they're not much older. After breakfast we'll unfold the plot. Slept well? I thought so. Hope you've got an appetite.'
Lance was well aware that Mr. Wheeler's cheery, garrulous tone, not by any means characteristic of men who live lonely lives, was assumed for the purpose of concealing his real feelings and saving those of his guest. But he appeared to take no heed, merely performing his toilet with the aid of a bucket of water and a rough towel, and treating himself to a more thorough lavation than had been lately possible. Mr. Collins, R.N., had been setting-to with a will as caterer, and in far less time than one would think, a meal, in some respects not to be disdained by an epicure, appeared on the small table which, fixed upon trestles, was placed before the hut door.
'Try this teal, Trevanion; it's as plump as a partridge. Here's cayenne pepper; lemons in that net. Cut one in half and squeeze—"squeeze doughtily," as Dugald Dalgetty advises Ranald M'Eagh to do when he has his hand on the Duke of Argyle's windpipe, in the event of His Grace attempting to give the alarm. I readA Legend of Montroseover again last week. What a glorious old fellow Sir Walter is, to be sure! When you've finished your first beaker of tea, there's more in the camp-kettle, Australice "billy." Did I ever think—or you either, Trevanion—that we should drink tea out of a "billy," or be our own cooks, housemaids, washerwomen, and gamekeepers all in one. Still, there are worse places than Australia, and that I'll live and die on.'
While Wheeler's tongue was going at this brisk rate, it is not to be supposed that his jaws were idle. The friends played a real good knife and fork, and Lance, between invitation and the natural temptation of, in its way, a dainty and appetising meal, followed suit. The other man gave a lively sketch of their morning's sport, and by the time breakfast was finished and pipes lighted, a well-worn briar-root having been made over to Lance on the previous evening, the gnawing feeling of consuming anxiety commenced to be somewhat allayed.
'Now we open the council of war,' began Wheeler, after two or three solemn puffs. 'Collins and I have to make a littledétouron business which will occupy us till mid-day. Half an hour after we leave, a mysterious artificer will suddenly appear, not out of the ground, like Wayland Smith inKenilworth(pray excuse any excessive quotation of Sir Walter, but the fact is we got a second-hand edition cheap last month, and have been feasting upon him ever since). Well, this lineal descendant of Tubal Cain will arise out of the ti-tree and will disembarrass you of, say, any garniture which you may consider inconvenient to travel with. I don't know him; you don't know him; he don't know us; nobody knows anybody. You apprehend? Butthe work will be done. Afterwards look in that bag and you will find a rig-out, half-worn but serviceable, and somewhere about your measure.'
'Stop a minute—just permit me one minute,' proceeded Wheeler hurriedly, but ever courteously. 'A trifle more explanation is necessary. Here is your route arranged for you by your good angel, your admirable friend and protectress, with whom Collins and I are madly enamoured—but this by the way. Listen again. When you feel ready for the road, take this left-hand path through the ti-tree. You see it starting behind that bush. You cannot get off it once you are on it. Follow it for three miles. You will meet there, by a reedy lagoon, a man with two horses. Mount the one which he leads, asking no questions. He will say "Number Six?" you will say "Polwarth." Of course you are the Mr. Polwarth of Number Six on a tour of inspection. He will ride with you the whole night through, stopping only at necessary intervals. At daylight you will find yourself more than fifty miles on the Gippsland road. He will take you by "cuts" and by-tracks to a part of Gippsland from which you may make your way to Monaro, to Twofold Bay, to Omeo—all A1 places for a man who wishes rest and seclusion for a season. You will take your choice. On the led horse—a good one, as I am informed—you will find valise, waterproof, and other necessaries. Here is a pocket-book, which I am commissioned to hand to you, in which are £50 in notes and gold, besides a letter from her to whom you owe so much.'
Mr. Wheeler rattled out this full and complete code of instructions with his customary rapidity, finishing off with the delivery of the pocket-book to Lance, who held out his hand mechanically and stood staring at him for a few moments like a man in a dream.
Then he found his tongue.
'You have done for me that which many a man's brother would have declined. I am a poor creature now, and can't speak even as once I could. But may Heaven help you in your need, as you have stood by me. Some day it may be. I cannot say, but the day may come when a scion of the house of Wychwood may repay some slight portion of the debt of gratitude its most ill-fated son has incurred. Farewell, and God for ever bless you.'
The men looked in each other's eyes for a little space, one strong hand-clasp, after the manner of Englishmen, was exchanged, and they parted.
'That's a man of birth and breeding who has been wrongfully convicted, I'll stake my life,' said Wheeler to his friend, as, with gun on shoulder and long steady stride, they left the hut behind them. 'Had I not been convinced of it, all Ballarat would not have tempted me to go into the affair. But between pity and admiration for that trump of a girl, I gave way. I wonder whether his luck will turn now and all come right.'
'There's a great deal in luck in this world,' said Mr. Collins sententiously. 'It's hard to say.'
Within a few minutes after the time specified, and for which Lance waited with ever-increasing impatience, a quietly-dressed individual so suddenly appeared as to startle him. He came around the side of the hut while Lance was deep in the perusal of Tessie's letter, which also contained a few lines from Mr. Stirling, telling him that his order for cash, worded in a certain way, would always be paid to any person whom he might name at any place.
He looked up for an instant and saw the broad frame and steady eye of the stranger confronting him. 'Could this be a detective in plain clothes? The thought was madness.'
The stranger smiled. 'All right,' he said; 'I'm the blacksmith; come to take the clinks off—not the first job of the sort I've done. Sharp's the word—sit down, sir.'
Here the stranger produced from his pockets and a bag an assortment of tools of various sorts, including files of marvellous finish and temper. Seating himself, Lance freely yielded his limbs to the man of iron, who, in something under half an hour, produced remarkable results. How the heart of Lance Trevanion swelled with joy when he saw the hated manacles drop heavily upon the rug on which he had been sitting!
'So far so good,' remarked the liberator artisan. 'One of 'em's chafed your ankle, but you'll soon get over that. Ugly, ain't they? If you'll dress yourself while I take a walk along the river I'll show you what I'll do with them.'
A few minutes sufficed for the inspection of the beauties of the Yarra. When he returned, the good-looking young man with the clean-shaved face and short hair did not look in the least like the hunted convict of the previous day.
'My word,' quoth the smith, dragging out an old sugee bag, 'you look fust-rate—never see any one change more for the better—for the better. Here goes!' Thus speaking, he placed the irons in the bag, which he afterwards nearly filled with the prison clothing of which Lance, even to his boots, had denuded himself. These he took into the punt, and rowing to a deep place in the river near the bank he threw in the sack, which the weight of the irons caused to sink at once. 'Many a poor fellow's been buried like that at sea,' he remarked, in soliloquy. 'I wonder if it ain't as good a way as any. The p'leece won't find them in a hurry, I bet. And now Mr. Never-Never, I'll show you the left-hand road, as I was told to. There's your track, and good luck to you.'
Lance had good reason to believe that this service had been paid for, but he could not bear that the man who had rendered him such material aid should go even temporarily unrewarded. So he extracted one of the five-pound notes from the pocket-book and presented it to him at the close of proceedings.
'You're a gentleman,' said the smith, unconsciously using the stereotyped expression of those receiving a gratuity in advance of expectation.
'I was once,' replied Lance, with a sadly humorous half-smile. 'God knows if I ever shall be one again.'
'No fear,' quoth the hammerman, with a cheery, consoling accent. 'You've got the world afore you now. Many a man in this country has been a deal lower down that holds his head high enough now. Keep up your "pecker." It'll all come right in the end.'
On the narrow marshy track, which led between thick-growing walls of ti-tree eight or ten feet high, there was not, as Wheeler averred, much chance of losing the way. Lance plodded on cheerfully for about an hour. Once he could have done the distance in far less time, but from want of exercise and other reasons he had contracted the habit of taking short steps, which he found it difficult to change. He felt altogether out of sorts, and was by no means sorry to see near a deep reed-fringed lagoon a man who looked like a stock-rider sitting on a log watching two hobbled horses that, saddled and bridled, fed close by the water's edge.
As the foot traveller emerged from the ti-tree thicket, the man walked to the horses' heads, and, after one look at the newcomer, commenced to unloose the hobbles. These he buckled on to each saddle, and, tightening the girths, said interrogatively, 'Number Six?'
'Polwarth,' was the answer returned.
Upon this he held the bridle of one of the horses and motioned for Lance to mount, after altering the stirrup to suit the stranger's length of limb. This done, he mounted and rode forward at a steady pace, turning neither to the right nor left, except when apparently some advantage would seem to be gained by it. Both horses walked fast, particularly the one which Lance bestrode, which he found to be good in all his paces, free, clever, and in all respects a superior style of hackney.
Mile after mile did they ride after this fashion, walking, trotting, or cantering as the roads, both deep and difficult in places, permitted. The rate at which they travelled was on the whole rapid, though the guide evidently husbanded the powers of both horses in view of a toilsome journey still to be made.
An hour before midnight, pursuing a by-track for some distance, they came upon a hut in a forest near a deserted saw-pit. It had once been a snug and substantial dwelling, but the timber had long been cut and carted away, so the hut was no longer needed. The grass grew thick and green around. The guide, with practised hand, first lighted a fire in the large mud-lined chimney, and then unsaddled and hobbled out the horses. He produced from a rude cupboard bread and cold meat, tea, sugar, and the quart pot and pannikins necessary for a bush meal. These had evidently been placed there in anticipation of such a visit. Besides all this, there were a couple of rugs, and as many double blankets of the ordinary gray colour used by travelling bushmen.
The fire having burned well up, and a couple of dry back logs having been placed so as to ensure a steady glow for at least half the evening, his taciturn guide relaxed a little. 'Here we are for the night,' he said, 'though we'd best make an early start, and I don't know as we could be much more comfortable. We've plenty to eat and drink and a fire to sleep by, no cattle to watch, and a good roof over us. I've often had a worse night along this very road.'
'I daresay,' said Lance, who began to shake off his fears of immediate capture. 'This must be a queer road in wet weather.'
'I believe yer,' answered the guide. 'Many a mob of fat cattle I've drove along this very track. It's a nice treat on a wet night, sitting on your horse soaking wet through, nearly pitch dark, and afraid to give the bullocks a chance for fear they'd rush. This here's a picnic in a manner of speaking.'
'I suppose it is,' quoth Lance. 'Things might be worse, I daresay. I shall sleep well, I don't doubt. I haven't been riding much lately. Where shall we get to-morrow night?'
'Somewhere about the Running Creek; it's a longish pull, but the horses are good and in fine buckle. You can do a long day's journey with an early start.'
Their meal over, the two men sat before the glowing fire on the rude seats which they had found in the hut. The soothing pipe helped still further to produce in Lance's case a calm and equable state of mind. To this succeeded a drowsily luxurious sensation of fatigue, which he did not attempt to combat, and, stretching himself on his rug, he covered himself with the blanket; he and his companion were soon asleep.
The stars were still in the sky when he started at a touch on the shoulder, and found that his companion had noiselessly arisen and prepared breakfast. The horses also, ready saddled and bridled, were standing with their bridles over the fork of a tree near the door. Lance was soon dressed. Breakfast over, they were in the saddle and away while as yet the first faint tinge of the dawn light had scarcely commenced to irradiate the mountain peaks which stood ranked like a company of Titans near the eastern sky-line.
With this, the second day's journey, a change commenced to make itself apparent in Lance Trevanion's mien and bearing. The fresh forest air was in his lungs, the great woodland through which they were now riding commenced to endue him with the fearless spirit of the waste. He could hardly imagine that it was so short a time since he was in fettered bondage. What a difference was there in his every movement and sensations! He began unconsciously to act the free man in tone and manner. He praised the paces of the horse he was riding, and criticised that of his guide in a way which showed that experienced person that he was no novice in the noble science of horse-flesh. He began to draw out his companion. In him he perceived, as he thought, the ordinary bushman, an experienced stock-rider, or, perhaps, confidential drover, and thence he began to wonder how much of his past history he had been made acquainted with. A chance question supplied the information.
'Where are ye thinking of going, boss, when we get to Bairnsdale? Twofold Bay's a terrible long way off to go prospectin'. I'd a deal sooner chance Omeo. It's only twenty miles farther on.'
'Omeo, Omeo!' repeated Lance. 'Why should I go to Omeo?'
'Haven't ye heard? There's a big show struck close by the old township. They say they're leaving Ballarat, lots of 'em, to go there. It's the richest find yet, by all accounts; shallow ground too!'
'Omeo, Omeo!' Lance again repeated half unconsciously to himself. Had not Tessie made reference to it in the coach from Ballarat? Had she not said that Lawrence Trevenna was there, the man to whose baleful shadow he owed ruin and dishonour, the ineradicable disgrace which would always be associated with his name? He had a heavy account to settle with him. When they met all scores would be cleared off. This much he had vowed to himself in the prison cell at Ballarat, in the hulkPresidentin the silence of midnight, in that fœtid hold of the prison-ship, where he could scarcely breathe the polluted atmosphere, laden with crime, heavy with curses. There, in that time of horror and dread, again and again had he sworn to take his enemy's life—that one or other should die when next they met, be it where it might.
And then again, as he hoped to efface himself, to feel secure from the pursuit which he heard in every breeze and feared in every echoing hoof, where could he find so safe and unsuspected a refuge as this new digging—wild, rough, isolated as Omeo must necessarily be? Far from civilisation of any kind, on a lone mountain plateau, snow-covered in winter, only to be reached by paths so devious and precipitous that wheels could not be employed, where every pound of merchandise or machinery was fain to be carried on pack-horses. There could be no better place for a hunted man to disappear, to obliterate himself. There he could remain for the present,—unknown, invisible to all who had known the former Lance Trevanion,—until he matured his plans and could make his way to a foreign shore.
Here, as he recovered health and strength under the influence of the mountain breezes and the wild woodlands which lay so near the river-sources and the snow summits, it would be comparatively easy to transmit his share of the Number Six washings, still safe in the Joint-Stock Bank in the custody of Charlie Stirling. Here, once located and established as Dick, Tom, or Harry—surnames were in the nature of superfluities at goldfields of the class which Omeo was pretty sure to be—he could make arrangements for selling out to Jack Polwarth. Quietly and without suspicion he could arrange to have the whole of his property transferred to him in cash, and some fine morning, under cover of a trip to Melbourne on business or pleasure, he would show Australia a clean pair of heels, and in America, North or South, in some far land where his name was never heard, would live out the rest of a life with such solace as he might, might even—when Time, the healer, should have dulled the heart-pangs which now throbbed and agonised so mordantly—might even reach some degree of contentment, if not of happiness.
And Estelle! Estelle! There was the sharpest sting—the bitterest grief—the direst pang of all. Could he ever look again into those lovely, trusting eyes, having undergone what he had done? Could he ask her—angel of purity that she was; the embodiment of the refinement of generations of stainless ancestors; sheltered, as she had been, by the conditions of her birth and education from all knowledge of the evil that there is in the world,—could he ask her to lay her head upon a felon's breast?—to take his hand in life-long pledge of happiness, when at any time, in any land where this long arm of extradition could reach, the hand of justice might seize him? No! Such companionship, such love, could never be his in the future. He had lost them for ever. On the lower level to which he had sunk he must remain. To its privations he must accustom himself; the surroundings he must endure. There was no help for it. If Tessie Lawless chose to share his lot he might not deny her. She knew the whole of his story. She loved him. She had been faithful and true. She deserved any poor recompense, such as the damaged future of his life, that of a nameless man, could offer, if she chose to accept it. For Trevanion of Wychwood was dead, and his early love, with all his high hopes and noble aspirations, lay deep in the grave of his buried honour.
From the day of Lance Trevanion's arrest at Balooka, no word, by letter or otherwise, had reached Wychwood of the fortunes of its heir. Days, weeks, months succeeded each other in the uneventful round into which country life in England has a tendency to settle when ordinary interests are withdrawn or unduly concentrated. It was pitiable to note the squire's anxiety when the Australian mail was due. For him, as for Estelle, there seemed to be but one man whose fortunes were worth following in the whole world—from whom letters were as the breath of life. And now these tidings from a far land, regular, if brief and sententious, up to this time, were suddenly withheld.
With the failing health of the Squire—for he suffered from one of the mysterious class of complaints before which strong men go down like feeble children—passed away much of his fierce obstinacy, his pride and arrogance. He thought of his son as he had last seen him,—haughty, tameless, defiant, with all his faults a true Trevanion,—and now, when he hoped to have seen him once again, grown and developed, though bronzed and possibly roughened by the rude life of a colony, when he had schooled himself to recall rash words and to make theamendeas far as his nature would permit, here he was thwarted, bewildered, maddened by this sudden arrest of all knowledge of his fate.
'The boy has had the best of the fight,' he groaned out.
Ever at his side, at this crisis chief counsellor and consoler, Estelle here rose to her true position in the house. Awakened to the necessity of taking a leading part in the family fortunes, the added weight of responsibility appeared to nerve and mould her to a loftier resolve, to a more sublimely unselfish purpose. She it was who suggested to the desponding father every shade of excuse for the stoppage of the letters which were as the life-blood to his failing constitution. She it was who ransacked the newspapers for reports, meagre as they mostly were, of the great Australian gold fields. She it was who looked up maps and authorities upon the colonies, until she even acquired the recondite knowledge, granted to so few Britons, that Victoria is not situated in New South Wales, nor Tasmania the capital of Western Australia.
Torn and rent as was her own heart when she allowed herself to think of her lover,—lost to her in the wilds of a far country, perishing in the wilderness for all she knew, exposed to dangers among savages and outlaws even more ruthless,—she yet braced up her courage. She nerved herself to bear the worst, if only she might soften the pain and anxiety which began increasingly to sap the strength of the failing head of the ancient house.
More than once had she interviewed the passengers in vessels returning from Melbourne, hungrily eager for any shred of news from Ballarat. Did they know a miner named Trevanion, or even Polwarth? How long was it since they had seen him, and what were his present circumstances? But these inquiries were vain. Few of the returning adventurers had troubled themselves to remember the names of their chance acquaintances. Others indeed had heard of the untoward fate of the young Englishman, but thought it no kindness to tell his friends. They could not possibly aid him or alleviate his condition. Better to let the bad news unfold itself in due time.
So the weary days went on. Spring glided into summer. The ancient oaks and 'immemorial elms' of Wychwood Chase were clothed anew with tender greenery. The glad, brief life of the northern summer burst into joyous fulness, then paled and waned. Autumn, with slow pace but ruthless hand, despoiled the glades and strewed the forest aisles with withered leaves and fallen chaplets. Ere the blasts of winter had commenced to herald the doom of the dying year, it became generally known that the Squire of Wychwood was failing fast—would, indeed, hardly last over the coming Christmastide. It was observed that he buried himself in his library, that he had given up all habitual modes of exercise. No guests were invited to the house, and Miss Estelle more often dined by herself than not in the great, lonely dining-room which had so often echoed with festive mirth, or, in older days, still rang with ruthless revelry.
As the Squire's health declined his affections seemed to concentrate themselves upon his niece. She had in all respects borne herself as a daughter to him—had shown even more than a daughter's sympathy and constant, watchful care.
The younger son was at college. He would be the heir to Wychwood in case the adventurer on the far Australian goldfield never returned to claim his inheritance. Amiable, well conducted, of respectable ability and fair attainments, he had never (such is the perversity of the human heart) been a favourite of his father's. The stern old man—bitterly as he had quarrelled with the disobedient elder brother, whose nature was in so many respects a reflex of his own, yet in his heart owned him for the higher nature—recognised in him the befitting heir to his ancient demesne, to the hall in which nobles had sat and princes feasted. Now to his gloomy and brooding soul all hope was lost. Some dire misfortune, even a fatal accident, had doubtless happened—must have occurred, indeed, or Lance's chronicle of his life and adventures, meagre as to detail, but of regular recurrence, would have continued. If only he could have set eyes on Lance before he died! Could he but have told him how he had regretted the rash words and bitter speech, the prayers he had prayed for his safe return; ay, the tears he had shed in the agony of his remorse—he, the proud, inexorable Trevanion of Wychwood! It was well-nigh incredible. None of his old-time comrades and fellow-roysterers could have believed it of the Dark Squire, as the villagers then named him, with lowered tones and bated breath. But in the days of sorrow and failing strength,—when the strong man is brought low; when those hours, so long approaching, so long menacing, have come; when death seems no longer a strange visitant but a familiar friend, more welcome in truth than the sad alternation of sorrow and unrest,—the haughtiest pride of man is lowered. In those hours of lonely grief and dark despair many a recantation is made—many a vow recorded undreamed of in life's festal season.
The death-day came at last. He lingered on past the season fixed by general expectancy; but ere the first bud of the swelling leaflet had been set free by the breath of spring in his ancestral glades, the Squire lay with his warrior forefathers in the historic vault, which had not been opened since the last Lady of Wychwood had been carried there, long ere her beauty had faded. The retainers of the house, and not a few of the notables of the county, assembled to pay the last form of respect to one whom, in despite of his latter-day life of seclusion, they recognised as one of the born leaders of the land. As the long procession passed slowly along the winding road, which at one point skirted the sea-cliff, to the venerable chapel which had seen so many solemn ceremonies celebrated connected with the family, more than one inquiry was made for the absent heir, and uniform regret expressed that he should not have returned from the far south land to claim his own and assume his rights.
When the last sad duties had been paid to him whom, in spite of his stormy outbursts of temper, Estelle could not help holding in love and pity, a strong resolve appeared to actuate the once timid girl, shrinking, as carefully-nurtured women do, from independent action and strange surroundings. The estate would go, of course, to the heir-at-law, strictly entailed as it had been for many generations. But it had been in the old man's power to dispose as he pleased of the large amount accruing from the savings of late years, and from the sale of an estate which was not included in the entail. This bequest, which had been made while the testator was of perfectly sound mind and body, was of such amount as to render Estelle perfectly independent for the rest of her life; indeed, to exalt her somewhat to the position of an heiress.
In the long conversations held in his latter days of decadence between the Squire and his niece, it had been definitely agreed that Estelle should proceed to Australia and there seek out the errant heir—should bring him back if possible by force of entreaty or persuasion to the land of his forefathers, to the rank and position handed down from the fierce warriors and splendid courtiers whose presentments frowned or smiled down upon their descendants in the old hall.
'I have such faith in you, my darling Estelle,' said the Squire, in one of his later confidences, 'that I shall die more peacefully knowing that you will search this far country for my lost unhappy boy. You have sense and courage in a degree rarely bestowed upon women. Your heart has been true to him during his long absence—this more than anxious period of doubt and dread. If he be in the neighbourhood of the place from which we last heard from him, you will be sure to gain some tidings of him. If you see him, your influence over him, powerful for good, always for good, as in the past, will save him, and once more the old ancient race, which has never yet failed of a male heir in the direct line, will be fittingly represented. If Lance, the son of whom I was so proud, returns no more from that far country, the estate will of course pass into the hands of his brother. But you are in any casewellprovided for. May God bless and reward you, my darling Estelle, for your forbearing kindness to a broken-spirited man. And now, kiss me, darling; I think I could sleep.'
He slept the sleep which knows no awakening on earth.
The parting words of her uncle had for Estelle almost the sacredness of a dying command. She had vowed, kneeling by his bedside, to leave no region unexplored, to carry through the search with the completeness which characterised all her proceedings. The high courage and resolute will which were hers by inheritance from the Trevanions stood her now in good stead. With an air of quiet resolve she arranged all her personal affairs without parade or hesitation; within a fortnight her passage had been taken, a few letters of introduction procured, also a very moderate outfit suitable for a young lady travelling, if not incognito, in a very unobtrusive way. And at the appointed day and hour Estelle found herself speeding away over the waters blue in company with a stranger crowd of enforced acquaintances, borne over an unknown sea on a wild and desperate quest. Before her, in imagination, she pictured the rude solitudes of an unknown land—even the fancied perils of a lawless goldfield.
The low coast of the island-continent line, irregular and faint, appearing from out the southern sky, so long unbroken. A new land—a new city. Melbourne at last! The land how strange! The city how new! The people how foreign-appearing andbizarreto the voyager from the region of tradition and settled form. Estelle looked and moved like a strayed princess amid a horde of nomads. She had schooled herself into the belief that in her quest she would be called upon to suffer all kinds of privations, and to mingle with every variety of 'rough colonists.' She resolved to make a trial essay. In pursuance of this heroic resolution she preferred to go to an hotel upon her own responsibility, before delivering the letters of introduction with which she had armed herself. She was not exactly fortunate in her choice, as indeed was to be expected. However, she was agreeably surprised at the civility with which she was treated, as well as by the absence of 'roughness,' as displayed by thehabitués, many of whom were patently uneducated. Still Estelle made the discovery shortly, that even so recently constructed a city as Melbourne, in the fret of a gold-fever, was not essentially unlike an English town—that a handsome young woman was more or less an object of attraction and curiosity. Tolerably well veiled, doubtless; nevertheless an inquiring tone displayed itself unmistakably. And, in spite of her resolve to brave all the social inclemencies of her novel surroundings, Estelle Chaloner shrank from the implied doubtfulness to which her unprotected condition led up. Escape was easy. She smiled as she thought of her boasted independence; how soon it had failed her! Being a sensible girl, however, in the least restricted sense of the word, she capitulated forthwith, resolving to present one of the letters of introduction without delay.
Having packed up her belongings,—not too extensive,—paid her bill, and arranged all things ready for departure, Estelle picked out a 'nice' looking letter, and resolved to abide the hazard of the die. The address was, 'Mrs. Vernon, Toorak, South Yarra, near Melbourne.' The aboriginal sounding names gave no information as to distance. 'Near' might mean two miles or twenty. A man's next-door neighbour in Australia was sometimes fifty miles distant, she had heard. Happily she bethought herself of asking information of the landlady of her hotel.
'Toorak, Toorak!' said that important personage. 'Oh yes; I know it well enough, and a nice place it is—all the swell people live there! Mrs. Vernon's place is one of the best there. A grand house, and everything in style. You'd better have a cab called; they'll take you there for ten shillings, luggage and all.'
'I may not be asked to stay,' replied Estelle diffidently, 'and if I am, I am not sure that I——'
'Oh yes you will,' interposed the hostess. 'Don't talk that way. Wait till you see what sort of a place it is. And Mrs. Vernon's a lady that won't let you go, I'll answer for it.'
A short half-hour's drive across Princes' Bridge, through or around the maze of Canvastown, past the Botanic Gardens, and along a newly made and recently metalled road, brought Estelle to a pair of massive ornate iron gates, on the northern side of the road leading along an avenue of some length.
'This is Charlton Lodge,' said the driver. 'Shall I drive to the front?'
'Certainly,' she replied, as she smiled at the question. The winding avenue was well gravelled, with a border of shaven grass, beyond which were beds filled with flowering shrubs, planted amid and underneath tall pines, with an admixture of elms, oaks, and Australian cedars. Everything exhibited careful tendance, demonstrating that although many of the best labourers had levanted to the goldfields there were still some few servitors who preferred comfort to independence. Estelle was beginning to wonder how long the preliminary approach was to last, when a velvet-piled lawn came into view, around which the carriage-drive took a sweep, her charioteer halting underneath a spacious portico of classical proportion and finish.
The cabman rang the bell, and receiving assurance from a neatly dressed parlour-maid that her mistress was at home, returned to his seat and awaited events, while Estelle was duly ushered into a handsomely furnished drawing-room of unquestionable modernity of tone.
After a reasonably short interval, employed by Estelle in a comprehensive survey of the apartment, which, indeed, bore tokens of intelligent and appreciative taste, a well-dressed elderly lady appeared.
'Miss Chaloner!' she exclaimed. 'I am truly glad to see you at last. I have been wondering what had become of you. My dear friend, Mary Dacre, wrote to me to say that you were coming out by the mail, and that you had kindly brought a letter to me. I heard of the vessel's arrival, and that you had left the vessel and gone to an hotel. I called at Scott's and Menzies's, but they had not heard of you.'
'I went to the Criterion,' said Estelle smilingly. 'I rather regretted it afterwards.'
'Of course you did, my dear, and permit me to say that it partly served you right. Why did you not come to meat once? Melbourne is such a queer place now since the diggings have broken out. There are all sorts of strange characters and curious people about. It is hardly a place for a young lady just now, unless under efficient chaperonage.'
Estelle gazed at the kindly old lady, whose eyes at that moment shone with maternal tenderness for an instant before she answered. Her voice softened as she said—
'You must remember, as no doubt Miss Dacre told you, that I came to Australia for a special purpose; and that if I expect to be successful in my search I cannot afford to let small obstacles stand in my way.'
'Small obstacles! That is very well, but surely you don't intend to go up to the diggings and to horrid places in the bush all by yourself?'
'That is just what Idointend, my dear Mrs. Vernon,—neither more nor less. I have thought over the matter scores—yes, hundreds of times—and I can see no other way. If I merely wished to see the country I might arrange things differently. But I have one important, principal, all-absorbing purpose in view. It is my star. I fix my eye on that, and all other things, even those which appear to be insuperable difficulties, must give way.'
'Dangers and difficulties, traps and pitfalls, do all those count for nothing in your list of drawbacks?'
'I must use a man's argument. I see other women have done—are doing the same—why not I? Suppose I were a sempstress or a poor governess on her way to an engagement, should I not have to do the same?—to travel unattended; to take my chance of rough or uncongenial companionship? Why am I so much more precious than other girls of my age, that I have to be fenced round with so many precautions?'
'All this is fine talking, my dear Miss Chaloner, and it's very nice of you to say so; but a young lady of position and fortune cannot—must not—travel about by herself as if she were a barmaid or a music-hall singer. Thereisa difference beside that of age and sex—and the disagreeables—you have no idea of the nature of them.'
'I don't know much about them, though I may partly guess, my dear Mrs. Vernon, but we Chaloners and Trevanions are said in Cornwall to be an obstinate race. My mind is made up. I must take a seat in the Ballarat coach for next Monday.'
'I am afraid youarean obstinate girl,' said Mrs. Vernon good-naturedly. 'Well, a wilful woman must, I suppose, have her own way. I have relieved my mind, at any rate. Now the next thing is to see how we can help you in your perilous adventure. Let me think. Do I know any Ballarat people? No, but Mr. Vernon does; if not, his friends do, which comes to the same thing.'
'I hope that you won't take all this trouble about me,' said Estelle earnestly. 'I know how to get there, with my own unaided intelligence. You would be surprised how much I know about Port Phillip from books and newspapers.'
'And you are bent upon acquiring your own colonial experience? Well, my dear, it may be all for the best in the end; but if you were a daughter of mine I should not have one happy moment from the time I lost sight of you till you returned. Do you know any one at Ballarat, or have you letters to people there?'
'There is one gentleman there whom I seem to know quite well through my cousin's letters. He was never tired of praising him. He spoke of him as his best friend. His name was Charles Stirling. He was a banker. Then there was a Mr. Hastings, and John Polwarth, Lance's partner,—both miners.'
'A banker and two miners! Chiefly young and unmarried, I suppose. And are these all your introductions in a strange town, and that town Ballarat, you dear innocent lamb that you are? Well, well; we have five days before us. Mr. Vernon will be home to dinner at seven, and we can have a council of war. Here comes afternoon tea, after which we go for a drive if you are not tired.'
'I am not in the least tired,' replied Estelle. 'And now that my departure is decided upon I am ready for anything.'
So the carriage was ordered out—a costly enough equipage in those days of unexampled enhancement of prices—the three-hundred-guinea pair of horses that consumed oats at twelve shillings a bushel and hay at seventy pounds a ton, driven by a coachman at three pounds a week. But Mr. Vernon was a merchant who had made one fortune by the lucky cargoes of mining necessaries, and was fast making another by gold-buying. Such an additional item of expense as a carriage for his wife was the merest bagatelle.
So the ladies drove to St. Kilda for a breath of sea air, taking the Botanic Gardens on their way back, where there was a flower-show patronised by His Excellency, Mr. Latrobe, and all the rank and fashion of the metropolis, chiefly represented by a few squatters and club men, with a sprinkling of gold commissioners on leave.
Mrs. Vernon was not averse to the company of so distinctly aristocratic-looking a damsel as Estelle Chaloner, whose appearance, quietly dressed as she was, elicited, in that day of matrimonial competition and proportional scarcity of young ladies, endless admiring comment.
At dinner, for which they had barely time to dress, they were enlivened by the society of Mr. Vernon—a shrewd, good-humoured mercantile personage—and a gentleman whom he introduced as Mr. Annesley and described as a Goldfields Commissioner. This last was a very good-looking and correctly dressed young man, not long from England. He was in Melbourne, on leave after twelve months' hard work on the diggings, according to his own account, and had some flavour of the high spirits and abounding cheerfulness of the naval officer on shore about him. His host 'drew' him judiciously about mining life and adventure, on which he was by no means loath to enlarge. He was evidently gratified by the intense interest with which Estelle listened to his amusing and justifiably egotistic rattle, and in the innocence of his heart essayed to complete her subjugation. But, to Estelle's intense regret, he did not come from Ballarat—'had been quartered in quite a different district.' She was deeply interested in him, however, as marking a type with which Lance must necessarily have often come into contact, and she concluded an agreeable evening, widely different from her expectation of things Australian, with an assurance from Mr. Vernon that he would bring her a budget of definite information about Ballarat and its social condition on the morrow.
Had she been in a position to listen to the conversation of her host and his guest when she and Mrs. Vernon had retired for the night, and the gentlemen had adjourned to the smoking-room, she would have scarce slept so soundly.
'Lance Trevanion? of course Ihadheard of the beggar,' said the Commissioner, as he threw himself back in a settee and lighted one of Mr. Vernon's choice cigars. 'We had a fellow from Ballarat staying at the camp at Morrison's who had been at the trial and knew all about him. But how could I tell the poor thing? What a sweet girl she is, by the way! why, she'll have half Melbourne pursuing her with proposals if she only lets them see her. Don't know when I've seen such a girl since I left England. Why she should bother her head about Trevanion now, I can't imagine.'
'Well, he's her cousin, my wife tells me, for one thing. They were engaged, it seems, too, before he left home. Sad pity that such a girl should spoil her chances here and throw herself away. But that's their nature, we all know. Tell us the tale, Annesley; I never heard.'
'As it was told to me, this was about it. This fellow Trevanion, a good-looking, well-set-up youngster, seems to have been a bad lot or a d—d fool, one can hardly say which. Anyhow, he was fond of play, and got mixed up with a crooked Sydney-side crowd. There was a girl in it, of course. They won from him, it was said. He, like a young fool, thought he might choose his own company at an Australian diggings, "all people out here being alike," or some such rot. The end of it was that he was run in for horse-stealing, or having a stolen horse in his possession. Got two years. I've heard since that he was the wrong man, but the Sergeant—queer card and deuced dangerous, that Dayrell—wanted a case—the diggers had lost so many horses that they wanted a conviction. So poor Trevanion had to pay for all.'
'What an infernal shame!' said Mr. Vernon. 'Couldn't anything be done for him?'
'Well (by Jove, this is a cigar, I must have another by and by), looks so, doesn't it? But it's necessary to be hard and sharp at the diggings or the country would go to the devil. Wrong man shopped now and then, like Tom Rattleton in California, but can't be helped. Ever hear that yarn? No! Well, I'll just light number two, and here goes: Tom, you must know, was a bit fastish before he left the paternal halls in another colony. After one of his escapades, a friend of the family, good fellow, observes one day, "Tom, it's no use talking, you'll come to be hanged." "Thank you," says Tom, "I think I'll try San Francisco; this place is too confined for a man of my talents." Gold at Suttor's Mill had just been reported.'
'And did he go?'
'Like a bird, with lots of Australian "bloods," as they used to call them. Had to work their way back before the mast, most of them. Tom had, anyhow. After the fatted calf had been duly potted, friend of the family arrives.
'"Hulloa, Tom! home again? Proud to see you, my boy. Safe back to the old place, hey?"
'"That is so," answered Tom, putting on a little Yankee touch, "do you remember what you said to me as I was leaving?"
'"No, my boy, what was it?" Friend didn't like to own up, you see.
'"Well, you said I'd come to be hanged, and, by Jove!I nearly wasin 'Frisco.The rope was round my neck, sure as you're there. Took me for a gambler who'd shot a man the night before. He turned up in time to be turned off, or I should have been—well, Ishouldn'thave been here to-day."
'Friend turned quite pale, grasped his hand, and sloped. Affecting, wasn't it?'
'Good story, very,' quoth the host. 'Like Tom Rattleton. Reckless young beggar he always was—but turned out well afterwards.Experientia docet.Near thing, though. Now, touching this poor girl's cousin. Nothing earthly will prevent her going to look for him.'
'H—m! Does she know any one in Ballarat?'
'Mr. Charles Stirling, a banker; Hastings and Polwarth, Trevanion's mates.'
'Charlie Stirling! I've heard of him. Awfully good sort, people say. Well, he'll do all he can. If she goes up he's the man to break it to her. Dalton's Sub-Commissioner there. I'll leave a line for him. Between them both they'll see no harm come to her. Well, Number Two rivals his predecessor. It's a fair thing, I suppose. Good-night.'
A couple of days were spent pleasantly enough in Melbourne. A few of the South Yarra notables dropped in, not quite accidentally, to Mrs. Vernon's afternoon tea, whose manner and appearance rather altered Estelle's preconceived notion of colonial society. They expressed the wildest astonishment at hearing that she was about to explore Ballarat, much as in London might a South Kensington coterie at hearing that a cherished classmate thought it necessary thus to satisfy her doubts about the Patagonians or the Modoc Indians, always ending their politest commiseration with an invitation.
Finally, all entreaties proving unavailing, Estelle was driven in before sunrise, and at 6A.M.found herself on the box-seat of the Ballarat coach, specially commended to the care of Mr. Levi, the driver, who was waiting for the clock of the Melbourne post-office to strike, preparatory to the customary sensational start of Cobb and Co.'s team of well-groomed, high-conditioned grays.