When Sybil at length travelled up-country with her husband the shearing season had already commenced. They went by easy stages, for the heat was great, and she was far from strong. She knew that Mercer was anxious to reach his property, and she would have journeyed more rapidly if he would have permitted it, but upon this point he was firm. At every turn he considered her, and she marvelled at the intuition with which he divined her unspoken wishes. Curt and rough though he was, his care surrounded her in a magic circle within which she dwelt at ease. With all his imperiousness she did not find him domineering, and this fact was a constant marvel to her, for she knew the mastery of his will. By some mysterious power he curbed himself, and day by day her confidence in him grew.
They accomplished the greater part of the journey by rail, and then when the railway ended came the long, long ride. They travelled for five days, spending each night at an inn at some township upon the road. Through dense stretches of forest, through great tracts of waste country, and again through miles of parched pasture-land they rode, and during the whole of that journey Mercer's care never relaxed. She never found him communicative. He would ride for hours without uttering a word, but yet she was subtly conscious of his close attention. She knew that she was never out of his thoughts.
At the inns at which they rested he always saw himself to her comfort, and the best room was always placed at her disposal. One thing impressed her at every halt. The innkeepers one and all stood in awe of him. Not one of them welcomed him, but not one of them failed to attend with alacrity to his wants. It puzzled her, for she herself had never found him really formidable.
On the last morning of their ride, when they set forth, she surprised a look of deep compassion in the eyes of the innkeeper's wife as she said good-bye, and it gave her something of a shock. Why was the woman sorry for her? Had she heard her story by any strange chance? Or was it for some other reason? It left an unpleasant impression upon her. She wished she had not seen it.
They rode that day almost exclusively through Mercer's property, which extended for many miles. He was the owner of several farms, two of which they passed without drawing rein. He was taking her to what he called the Home Farm, his native place, which he still made his headquarters, and from which he overlooked the whole of his great property.
The brief twilight had turned to darkness before they reached it. During the last half hour Mercer rode with his hand upon Sybil's bridle, and she was glad to have it there. She was not accustomed to riding in the dark. Moreover, she was very tired, and when at last they turned in through an open gateway to one side of which a solitary lantern had been fixed, she breathed a deep sigh of thankfulness.
She saw the outline of the house but vaguely, but in two windows lights were burning, and as they clattered up a door was thrown open, and a man stood silhouetted for a moment on the threshold.
"Hullo, Curtis! Here we are!" was Mercer's greeting. "Later than I intended, but it's a far cry from Wallarroo, and we had to take it easy."
"The best way," the other said.
He went forward and quietly helped Sybil to dismount. He did not speak to her as he did so, and she wondered a little at the reserve of his manner. But the next moment she forgot him at the sight of a hideous young negro who had suddenly appeared at the horses' heads.
"It's only Beelzebub," said the man at her side, in a tired voice, as if it were an effort to speak at all.
She realized that the explanation was intended to be reassuring, and laughed rather tremulously. Finding Mercer at her side she slipped her hand into his.
He gave it a terrific squeeze. "Come inside!" he said. "You are tired."
They went in, Curtis following.
In a room with a sanded floor that looked pleasantly homely to her English eyes a meal was spread. The place and everything it contained shone in the lamplight. She looked around her with a smile of pleasure, notwithstanding her weariness. And then her eyes fell upon Curtis, and found his fixed upon her.
He averted them instantly, but she had read their expression at a glance—surprise and compassion—and her heart gave a curious little throb of dismay.
She turned nevertheless without a pause to Mercer.
"Won't you introduce me to your friend?" she said.
"What?" said Mercer. "Oh, that's Curtis, my foreman. Curtis, this is my wife."
Curtis bowed stiffly, but Sybil held out her hand.
"How nice everything looks!" she said. "I am sure we have you to thank for it."
"Beelzebub and me," he said; and again she was struck by the utter lack of animation in his voice.
He was a man of about forty, lean and brown, with an unmistakable air of breeding about him that put her at her ease at once. His quiet manner was a supreme contrast to Mercer's roughness. She was quite sure that he was not colonial born.
He sat at table with them, and waited also, but he did not utter a word except now and again in answer to some brief query from Mercer. When the meal was over he cleared the table and disappeared.
She looked at Mercer in some surprise as the door closed upon him.
"He's a useful chap," Mercer said. "I'm sorry there isn't a woman in the house, but you'll find Beelzebub better than a dozen. And this fellow is always at hand for anything you may want in the evening."
"He is a gentleman," she said almost involuntarily.
Mercer looked at her.
"Do you object to having a gentleman to wait on you?" he asked curtly.
She did not quite understand his tone, but she was very far just then from understanding the man himself. His question demanded no answer, and she gave none.
After a moment she got up, and, conscious of an oppression in the atmosphere, took off her hat and pushed back the hair from her face. She knew that Mercer was watching her, felt his eyes upon her, and wished intensely that he would speak, but he did not utter a word. There seemed to her to be something stubborn in his silence, and it affected her strangely.
For a while she stood also silent, then suddenly with a little smile she looked across at him.
"Aren't you going to show me everything?" she said.
"Not to-night," he said. "I will show you your bedroom if you are too tired to stay up any longer."
She considered the matter for a few seconds, then quietly crossed the room to his side. She laid a hand that trembled slightly on his shoulder.
"You have been very good to me," she said.
He stiffened at her touch.
"You had better go to bed," he said gruffly, and made as if he would rise.
But she checked him with a dignity all her own.
"Wait, please; I want to speak to you."
"Not to thank me, I hope," he said.
"No, not to thank you." She paused an instant, and seemed to hesitate. "I—I really want to ask you something," she said at length.
He reached up and removed her hand from his shoulder.
"Well?" he questioned.
"Don't hold me at arms' length!" she pleaded gently. "It makes things so difficult."
"What is it you want to know?" he asked without relaxing.
She stood silent for a few seconds as if summoning all her courage. Then at length, her voice very low, she spoke.
"When you said that you wanted me for your wife, did you mean that you—loved me?"
He made an abrupt movement, and his fingers closed tightly upon her wrist. For a moment or more he sat in tense silence, then he got to his feet.
"Why do you want to know?" he demanded harshly.
She stood before him with bent head.
"Because," she said, and there was a piteous quiver in her voice, "I am lonely, and I have a very empty heart. And—and—if you love me it will not frighten me to know it. It will only—make me—glad."
He put his hand on her shoulder. "Do you know what you are saying?" he questioned.
"Yes," she said under her breath.
"Are you sure?" he persisted.
She raised her head impulsively, and, with a gesture most winning, most confident, she stretched up her arms to him.
"Yes," she said. "I mean it! I mean it! I want—to be loved!"
His arms were close about her as she ended, and she uttered the last words chokingly with her face against his breast. The effort had cost her all her strength, and she clung to him panting, almost fainting, while panic—wild, unreasoning panic—swept over her. What was this man to whom she had thus impulsively given herself—this man whom all men feared?
Nevertheless, she grew calmer at last, awaking to the fact that though his hold was tense and passionate, he still retained his self-control. She commanded herself, and turned her face upwards.
"Then you do love me?" she said tremulously.
His eyes shone into hers, red as the inner, intolerable glow of a furnace. He did not attempt to make reply in words. He seemed at that moment incapable of speech. He only bent and kissed her fiercely, burningly, even brutally, upon the lips. And so she had her answer.
It was a curious establishment over which Sybil found herself called upon to preside. The native, Beelzebub, was her only domestic, and, as Mercer had predicted, she found him very willing if not always efficient. One thing she speedily discovered regarding him. He went in deadly fear of his master, and invariably crept about like a whipped cur in his presence.
"Why is it?" she said to Curtis once.
But Curtis only shrugged his shoulders in reply.
He was a continual puzzle to her, this man. There was no servility about him, but she had a feeling that he, too, was in some fashion under Mercer's heel. He made himself exceedingly useful to her in his silent, unobtrusive way; but he seldom spoke on his own initiative, and it was some time before she felt herself to be on terms of intimacy with him. He was an excellent cook; and he and Beelzebub between them made her duties remarkably light. In fact, she spent most of her time riding with her husband, who was fully occupied just then in overlooking the shearers' work. She also was keenly interested, but he never suffered her to go among the men. Once, when she had grown tired of waiting for him, and followed him into one of the sheds, he was actually angry with her—a new experience, which, if it did not seriously scare her, made her nervous in his presence for some time afterwards.
She had come to regard him as a man whose will was bound to be respected, a man who possessed the power of impressing his personality indelibly upon all with whom he came in contact. There were times when he touched and set vibrating the very pulse of her being, times when her heart quivered and expanded in the heat of his passion as a flower that opens to the sun. But there were also times when he filled her with a nameless dread, when the very foundations of her confidence were shaken, and she felt as a prisoner behind iron bars. She did not know him, that was her trouble. There were in him depths that she could not reach, could scarcely even realize. He was slow to reveal himself to her, and she had but the vaguest indications to guide her. She even felt sometimes that he deliberately kept back from her that which she felt to be almost the essential part of him. This she knew that time must remedy. Living his life, she was bound ultimately to know whereof he was made, and she tried to assure herself that when that knowledge came to her she would not be dismayed. And yet she had occasional glimpses of him that made her tremble.
One evening, after they had spent the entire day in the saddle, he went after supper to look at one of the horses that was suffering from a cracked hock. Curtis was busy in the kitchen, and Sybil betook herself to the step to wait for her husband. She often sat in the starlight while he smoked his pipe. She knew that he liked to have her there.
She was drowsy after her long exercise, and must have dozed with her head against the door-post, when suddenly she became conscious of a curious sound. It came from the direction of the stable which was on the other side of the house. But for the absolute stillness of the night she would not have heard it. She started upright in alarm, and listened intently.
It came again—a terrible wailing, unlike anything she had ever heard, ending in a staccato shriek that made her blood run cold.
She sprang up and turned into the house, almost running into Curtis, who had just appeared in the passage behind her.
"Oh, what is it?" she cried. "What is it? Something terrible is happening! Did you hear?"
She would have turned into the kitchen, that being the shortest route to the stable, but he stretched an arm in front of her.
"I shouldn't go if I were you," he said. "You can't do any good."
She stood and stared at him, a ghastly fear clutching her heart. "What—what do you mean?" she gasped.
"It's only Beelzebub," he said, "getting hammered for his sins."
She gripped her hands tightly over her breast. "You mean that—that my husband—?"
He nodded. "It won't go on much longer. I should go to bed if I were you."
He meant it kindly, but the words sounded to her most hideously callous. She turned from him, sobbing hysterically, and sprang for the open door.
The next moment she was running swiftly round the house to the stable. Turning the corner, she heard a sound like a pistol-shot. It was followed instantly by a scream so utterly inhuman that even then she almost wheeled and fled. But she mastered the impulse. She reached the stable-door, fumbled at the latch, finally burst inwards as it swung open.
A lantern hung on a nail immediately within. By its light she discovered her husband—a gigantic figure—towering over something she could not see, something that crouched, writhing and moaning, in a corner. He was armed with a horsewhip, and even as she entered she saw him raise it and bring it downwards with a horrible precision upon the thing at his feet. She heard again that awful shriek of anguish, and a sick shudder went through her. Unconsciously, a cry broke from her own lips, and, as Mercer's arm went up again, she flung herself forward and tried to catch it.
In her agitation she failed. The heavy end of the whip fell upon her outstretched arm, numbing; it to the shoulder. She heard Mercer utter a frightful oath, and with a gasp she fell.
When she came to herself she was lying on her bed. Someone—Curtis—was bathing her arm in warm water. He did not speak to her or raise his: eyes from his occupation. She thought he looked very grim.
"Where is—Brett?" she whispered.
Curtis did not answer her, but a moment later she looked beyond him and saw Mercer leaning upon the bed-rail. His eyes were fixed upon her and held her own. She sought to avoid them, but could not. And suddenly she knew that he was angry with her, not merely displeased, but furiously angry.
She made an effort to rise, but at that Curtis laid a restraining hand upon her, and spoke.
"Go away, Mercer!" he said. "Haven't you done harm enough for one night?"
The words amazed her. She had never thought that he would dare to use such a tone to her husband. She trembled for the result, for Mercer's face just then was terrible, but Curtis did not so much as glance in his direction.
Mercer's eyes remained mercilessly fixed upon her.
"Do you wish me to go?" he said.
"No," she murmured faintly.
Her arm was beginning to hurt her horribly, and she shuddered uncontrollably once or twice. But that unvarying scrutiny was harder to bear, and at last, in desperation, she made a quivering appeal.
"Come and help me!" she begged. "Come and lift me up!"
For an instant he did not stir, and she even thought he would refuse. Then, stiffly, he straightened himself and moved round to her side.
Stooping, he raised and supported her. But his expression did not alter; the murderous glare was still in his eyes. She turned her face into his breast and lay still.
After what seemed a very long interval Curtis spoke.
"That's all I can do for the present. I will dress it again in the morning, and it had better be in a sling. Mercer, I should like a word with you outside."
Sybil stirred sharply at the brief demand. Her nerves were on edge, and a quaking doubt shot through her as to what Mercer might do if Curtis presumed too far.
She laid an imploring hand on her husband's arm.
"Stay with me!" she begged him faintly.
He did not move or speak.
Curtis stood up.
"Presently, then!" he said, and she heard him move away.
At the door he paused, and she thought he made some rapid sign to Mercer. But the next moment she heard the door close softly, and knew that he had gone.
She lay quite still thereafter, her heart fluttering too much for speech. What would he say to her, she wondered; how would he break his silence? She had no weapon to oppose against his anger. She was as powerless before it as Beelzebub had been.
Suddenly he moved. He turned her head back upon his arm and looked straight down into her eyes. She did not shrink. She would not. But her heart died within her. She felt as if she were gazing into hell, watching a soul in torment.
"Well?" he said at last. "Are you satisfied?"
"Satisfied?" she faltered.
"As to the sort of monster you have married," he explained, with savage bitterness. "You've been putting out feelers ever since you came here. Did you think I didn't know? Well, you've found out a little more than you wanted, this time. Perhaps it will be a lesson to you. Perhaps"—sheer cruelty shone red in his eyes—"when you see what I've done to you, you will remember that I am not a man to play with, and that any one, man or woman, who interferes with me, must pay the price."
"I don't know what you mean," she answered with an effort. "What happened was an accident."
"Was it?" he said brutally. "Was it?"
Still she did not shrink from him.
"Yes," she said. "It was an accident."
"How do you know?" he asked.
She answered him instantly. She had not realized till then that she was fighting the flames for his soul. The knowledge came upon her suddenly, and it gave her strength.
"Because I know that you love me," she said. "Because—because—though you are cruel, and though you may be wicked—I love you, too."
She said it with absolute sincerity, but it was the hardest thing she had ever done in her life. To tell this man who was half animal and half fiend that he had not somehow touched the woman's heart in her seemed almost a desecration. She saw the flare of passion leap up in his eyes, and she was conscious for one sick moment of a feeling of downright repulsion. If she had only succeeded in turning his savagery into another channel she had spoken in vain; or, worse, she had made a mistake that could never be remedied.
Abruptly she felt her courage waver. She shrank at last.
"I want you to understand," she faltered; and again, "I want you to understand."
But she could get no further. She hid her face against him and began to sob.
There followed a silence, tense and terrible, which she dared not break.
Then she felt him bend lower, and suddenly his arms were under her. He lifted her like a little child and sat down, holding her. His hand pressed her head against his neck, fondling, soothing, consoling. And she knew, with an overwhelming thankfulness, that she had not offered herself in vain. She had drawn him out of his hell by the magic of her love.
When morning came Mercer departed alone, and Curtis was left in charge. Sybil lay in her room half dressed, while the latter treated her injured arm.
"You ought not to be up at all," he remarked, as he uncovered it. "Have you had any sleep?"
"Not much," she was obliged to confess.
"Why didn't you stay in bed?"
"I don't want—my husband—to think me very bad," she said, flushing a little.
"Why not?" said Curtis. And then he glanced at her, saw the flush, and said no more.
She watched his bandaging with interest.
"You look so professional," she said.
He uttered a short laugh.
"Do I?"
"I mean," she said, unaccountably embarrassed, "that you do it so nicely."
"I have done a good deal of veterinary work," he said rather coldly. And then suddenly he seemed to change his mind. "I was a professional once," he said, without looking at her. "I made a mistake—a bad one—and it broke me. That's all."
"Oh," she said impulsively, "I am so sorry."
"Thank you," he said quietly.
Not till he was about to leave her did she manage to ask the question that had been uppermost in her mind since his entrance.
"Have you seen Beelzebub yet?"
He paused—somewhat unwillingly, she thought.
"Yes," he answered.
"Is he"—she hesitated—"is he very bad?"
"He isn't going to die, if that is what you mean," said Curtis.
She felt her heart contract.
"Please tell me!" she urged rather faintly. "I want to know."
With the air of a man submitting to the inevitable Curtis proceeded to inform her.
"He is lying in the loft over the stable, like a sick dog. He is rather badly mauled, and whimpers a good deal. I shall take him some soup across presently, but I don't suppose he'll touch it."
"Ok, dear!" she said. "What shall you do then?"
"Mercer will have to lend a hand if I can't manage him," Curtis answered. "But I shall do my best."
She suppressed a shudder.
"I hope you will be successful."
"So do I," said Curtis, departing.
When she saw him again she asked anxiously for news; but he had none of a cheering nature to give her. Beelzebub would not look at food.
"I knew he wouldn't," he said. "He has been like this before."
"Mr. Curtis!" she exclaimed.
He shrugged his shoulders.
"It's Mercer's way. He regards the boy as his own personal property, and so he is, more or less. He picked him up in the bush when he wasn't more than a few days old. The mother was dead. Mercer took him, and he was brought up among the farm men. He's a queer young animal, more like a dog than a human being. He needs hammering now and then. I kick him occasionally myself. But Mercer goes too far."
"What had he done?" questioned Sybil.
"Oh, it was some neglect of the horses. I don't know exactly what. Mercer isn't precisely patient, you know. And when the fellow gets thoroughly scared he's like a rabbit; he can't move. Mercer thinks him obstinate, and the rest follows as a natural consequence. I must ask you to excuse me. I have work to do."
"One moment!" Sybil laid a nervous hand on his arm. "Mr. Curtis, if—if you can't persuade the poor boy to take any food, how will my husband do so?"
"He won't," said Curtis. "He'll hold him down while I drench him, that's all."
"That must be very bad for him," she said.
"Of course it is. But we can't let him die, you know." He looked at her suddenly. "Don't you worry yourself, Mrs. Mercer," he said kindly. "He isn't quite the same as a white man, though it may offend your Western prejudices to hear me say so. Beelzebub will pull through all right. They are wonderfully tough, these chaps."
"I wonder if I could persuade him to take something," she said.
He shook his head.
"I don't suppose you could. In any case, you mustn't try. It is against orders."
"Whose orders?" she asked quickly.
"Your husband's," he answered. "His last words to me were that I was on no account to let you go near him."
"Oh, why?" she protested. "And I might be able to help."
"It isn't at all likely," he said. "And he's not a very pretty thing to look at."
"As if that matters!" she exclaimed.
"Well, it does matter, because I don't want to have you in hysterics, as much for my own sake as for yours." He smiled a little. "Also, if Mercer finds he has been disobeyed it will make him savage again, and perhaps I shall be the next victim."
"He would never touch you!" she exclaimed.
"He might. Why shouldn't he?"
"He never would!" she reiterated. "You are not afraid of him."
He looked contemptuous for a second; and then his expression changed.
"You are right," he said. "That is my chief safeguard; and, permit me to say, yours also. It may be worth remembering."
"You think him a coward!" she said.
He considered a little.
"No, not a coward," he said then. "There is nothing mean about him, so far as I can see. He suffers from too much raw material, that's all. They call him Brute Mercer in these parts. But perhaps you will be able to tame him some day."
"I!" she said, and turned away with a mournful little smile.
She might charm him once or even twice out of a savage mood, but the conviction was strong upon her that he would overwhelm her in the end.
For nearly an hour after Curtis had left her she sat still, thinking of Beelzebub. The afternoon sunlight lay blindingly upon all things. The heat of it hung laden in the air. But she could not sleep or even try to rest. Her arm throbbed and burned with a ceaseless pain, and ever the thought of Beelzebub, lying in the loft "like a sick dog," oppressed her like an evil dream.
The shadows had begun to lengthen a little when at last she rose. She could bear it no longer. Whatever the consequences, she could endure them more easily than this torture of inactivity. As for Curtis she believed him fully capable of taking care of himself.
She went to the kitchen and was relieved to find him absent. Searching, she presently found the bowl of soup Beelzebub had refused. She turned it into a saucepan and hung over the fire, scarcely conscious of the heat in her pressing desire to be of use.
Finally, armed with the hot liquor, she stole across the yard to the stable. The place was deserted, save for the horse she usually rode, who whinnied softly to her as she passed. At the foot of the loft ladder she stood awhile, listening, and presently heard a heavy groan.
She had to make the ascent very slowly, using her injured arm to support herself. When she emerged at last she found herself in a twilight which for a time her dazzled eyes could not pierce. The heat was intolerable, and the place hummed with flies.
"Beelzebub!" she said softly at length. "Beelzebub, where are you?"
There was a movement in what she dimly discerned to be a heap of straw, and she heard a feeble whimpering as of an animal in pain.
Her heart throbbed with pity as she crept across the littered floor. She was beginning to see more distinctly, and by sundry chinks she discovered the loft door. She went to it, fumbled for the latch, and opened it. Instantly the place was flooded with light, and turning round, she beheld Beelzebub.
He was lying in a twisted heap in the straw, half naked, looking like some monstrous reptile. In all her life she had never beheld anything so horrible. His black flesh was scored over and over with long purple stripes; even his face was swollen almost beyond recognition, and out of it the whites of his eyes gleamed, bloodshot and terrible.
For a few moments she was possessed by an almost overpowering desire to flee from the awful sight; and then again he stirred and whimpered, and pity—element most divine—came to her aid.
She went to the poor, whining creature, and knelt beside him.
"See!" she said. "I have brought you some soup. Do try and take a little! It will do you good."
There was a note of entreaty in her voice, but Beelzebub's eyes stared as though they would leap out of his head.
He writhed away from her into the straw. "Go 'way, missis!" he hissed at her, with lips drawn back in terror. "Go 'way, or Boss'll come and beat Beelzebub!"
He spoke the white man's language; it was the only one he knew, but there was something curiously unfamiliar, something almost bestial in the way he spat his words.
Again Sybil was conscious of a wild desire to escape before sheer horror paralysed her limbs, but she fought and conquered the impulse.
"Boss won't beat you any more," she said. "And I want you to be a good boy and drink this before I go. I brought it myself, because I knew you would take it to please me. You will, won't you, Beelzebub?"
But Beelzebub was not to be easily persuaded. He cried and moaned and writhed at every word she spoke. But Sybil had mastered herself, and she was very patient. She coaxed him as though he had been in truth the sick dog to which Curtis had likened him. And at last, by sheer persistence, she managed to insert the spoon between his chattering teeth.
He let her feed him then, lying passive, still whimpering between every gulp, while she talked soothingly, scarcely knowing what she said in the resolute effort to keep her ever-recurring horror at bay. When the bowl was empty she rose.
"Perhaps you will go to sleep now," she said kindly. "Suppose you try!"
He stared up at her from his lair with rolling, uneasy eyes. Suddenly he pointed to her bandaged arm.
"Boss did that!" he croaked.
She turned to close the door again, feeling the blood rise in her face.
"Boss didn't mean to," she answered with as much steadiness as she could muster. "And he didn't mean to hurt you so badly, either, Beelzebub. He was sorry afterwards."
She saw his teeth gleam in the twilight like the bared fangs of a wolf, and knew that he grinned in derision of this statement. She picked up her bowl and turned to go. At the same instant he spoke in a piercing whisper out of the darkness.
"Boss kill a white man once, missis!"
She stood still, rooted to the spot. "Beelzebub!"
He shrank away, whimpering.
"No, no! Boss'll kill poor Beelzebub! Missis won't tell Boss?"
To her horror his hand shot out and fastened upon her skirt. But she could not have moved in any case. She stood staring down at him, cold—cold to the very heart with foreboding.
"No," she said at last, and it was as if she stood apart and listened to another woman, very calm and collected, speaking on her behalf. "I will never tell him, Beelzebub. You will be quite safe with me. So tell me what you mean! Don't be afraid! Speak plainly! When did Boss kill a white man?"
There must have been something of compulsion in her manner, for, albeit quaveringly and with obvious terror, the negro answered her.
"Down by Bowker Creek, missis, 'fore you come. Boss and the white man fight—a dam' big fight. Beelzebub run away. Afterwards, Boss, come on alone. So Beelzebub know that Boss kill' the white man."
"Oh, then you didn't see him killed! You don't know?"
Was it her own lips uttering the words? They felt quite stiff and powerless.
"Beelzebub run away," she heard him repeating rather vacantly.
"What did they fight with?" she said.
"They fight with their hands," he told her. "White man from Bowker Creek try to shoot Boss, and make Boss very angry."
"But perhaps he wasn't killed," she insisted to herself. "Of course—of course, he wasn't. You shouldn't say such things, Beelzebub. You weren't there to see."
Beelzebub shuffled in the straw and whined depreciatingly.
"Tell me," she heard the other woman say peremptorily, "what was the white man's name?"
But Beelzebub only moaned, and she was forced to conclude that he did not know.
"Where is Bowker Creek?" she asked next.
He could not tell her. His intelligence seemed to have utterly deserted him.
She stood silent, considering, while he coiled about revoltingly in the straw at her feet.
Suddenly through the afternoon silence there came the sound of a horse's hoofs. She started, and listened.
Beelzebub frantically clutched at her shoes.
"Missis won't tell Boss!" he implored again. "Missis won't——"
She stepped desperately out of his reach.
"Hush!" she said. "Hush! He will hear you. I must go. I must go at once."
Emergency gave her strength. She moved to the trap-door, and, she knew not how, found the ladder with her feet.
Grey-faced, dazed, and cold as marble, she descended. Yet she did not stumble. Her limbs moved mechanically, unfalteringly.
When she reached the bottom she turned with absolute steadiness and found Brett Mercer standing in the doorway watching her.
He stood looking at her in silence as she came forward. She did not stop to ascertain if he were angry or not. Somehow it did not seem to matter. She only dealt with the urgent necessity for averting his suspicion.
"I just ran across with some soup for Beelzebub," she said, her pale face raised unflinchingly. "I am glad to say he has taken it. Please don't go up! I want him to get to sleep."
She spoke, with a wholly unconscious authority. The supreme effort she was making seemed to place her upon a different footing. She laid a quiet hand upon his arm and drew him out of the stable.
He went with her as one surprised into submission. One of the farm men who had taken his horse stared after them in amazement.
As they crossed the yard together Mercer found his voice.
"I told Curtis you weren't to go near Beelzebub."
"I know," she answered. "Mr. Curtis told me."
He cracked his whip savagely.
"Where is Curtis?"
"I don't know," she answered. "But, Brett, if you are angry because I went you must deal with me, not with Mr. Curtis. He had nothing whatever to do with it."
Mercer was silent, and she divined with no sense of elation that he would not turn his anger against her.
They entered the house together, and he strode through the passage, calling for Curtis. But when the latter appeared in answer to the summons, to her surprise Mercer began to speak upon a totally different subject.
"I have just seen Stevens from Wallarroo. They are all in a mortal funk there. He was on his way over here to ask you to go and look at a man who is very bad with something that looks like smallpox. You can please yourself about going; though, if you take my advice, you'll stay away."
Curtis did not at once reply. He gravely took the empty bowl from Sybil's hand, and it was upon her that his eyes rested as he finally said, "Do you think you could manage without me?"
She looked up with perfect steadiness.
"Certainly I could. Please do as you think right!"
"What about Beelzebub?" he said.
Mercer made a restless movement.
"He will be on his legs again in a day or two. One of the men must look after him."
"I shall look after him," Sybil said, with a calmness of resolution that astounded both her hearers.
Mercer put his hand on her shoulder, but said nothing. It was Curtis who spoke with the voice of authority.
"You will have to take care of her," he said bluntly. "Bear in mind what I said to you last night! I will show you how to treat the arm. And then I think I had better go. It may prevent an epidemic."
Thereafter he assumed so businesslike an air that he seemed to Sybil to be completely transformed. There never had been much deference in his attitude towards Mercer, but he treated him now without the smallest ceremony. He was as a man suddenly awakened from a long lethargy. From that moment to the moment of his departure his activity was unceasing.
Sybil and Mercer watched him finally ride away, and it was not till he was actually gone that the fact that she was left absolutely alone with her husband came home to her.
With a sense of shock she realized it, and those words of Beelzebub's—the words that she had been so resolutely forcing into the back of her mind—came crowding back upon her with a vividness and persistence that were wholly beyond her control.
What was she going to do, she wondered? What could she do with this awful, this unspeakable doubt pressing ever upon her? It might all be a mistake, a hideous mistake on Beelzebub's part. She had no great faith in his intelligence. It might be that by some evil chance his muddled brain had registered the name of Bowker Creek in connection with the fight which she did not for a moment doubt had at some time taken place. Beelzebub was never reliable in the matter of details, and he had not been able to answer her question regarding the place.
Over and over again she tried to convince herself that her fear was groundless, and over and over again the words came back to her, refusing to be forgotten or ignored—"the white man from Bowker Creek." Who was this white man whom Mercer had fought, this man who had tried to shoot him? She shuddered whenever she pictured the conflict. She was horribly afraid.
Yet she played her part unfalteringly, and Mercer never suspected the seething anguish of suspense and uncertainty that underlay her steadfast composure. He thought her quieter than usual, deemed her shy; and he treated her in consequence with a tenderness of which she had not believed him capable—a tenderness that wrung her heart.
She was thankful when the morning came, and he left her, for the strain was almost more than she could endure.
But in the interval of solitude that ensued she began to build up her strength anew. Alone with her doubts, she faced the fact that she would probably never know the truth. She could not rely upon Beelzebub for accuracy, and she could not refer to her husband. The only course open to her was to bury the evil thing as deeply as might be, to turn her face resolutely away from it, to forget—oh, Heaven, if she could but forget!
All through that day Beelzebub slept, curled up in the straw. She visited him several times, but he needed nothing. Nature had provided her own medicine for his tortured body. In the evening a man came with a note from Curtis. The case was undoubtedly one of smallpox, he wrote, and he did not think his patient would recover. There was a good deal of panic at Wallarroo, and he had removed the man to a cattle-shed at some distance from the township where they were isolated. There were one or two things he needed which he desired Mercer to send on the following day to a place he described, whence he himself would fetch them.
"Beelzebub can go," said Mercer.
"If he is well enough!" said Sybil.
He frowned.
"You don't seem to realize what these niggers are made of. Of course, he will be well enough."
She said no more, for she saw that the topic was unwelcome; but she determined to make a stand on Beelzebub's behalf the next day, unless his condition were very materially improved.