PAX IN BELLO
In happier circumstances the rabbiter's camp would have had less charm for Moya. Its strings of rabbit-skins would have offended two senses, and she would have objected openly to its nondescript dogs. The tent among the trees would never have struck Moya as a covetable asylum, while the rabbiter himself, on his haunches over the fire, could not have failed to impress her as a horrid old man and nothing else. He was certainly very ragged, and dirty, and hot; and he never said "sir," or "miss," or "glad to see you." Yet he could cook a chop to the fraction of a turn; and Moya could eat it off his own tin platter, and drink tea by the pint out of a battered pannikin, with no milk in it, but more brown sugar than enough. The tea, indeed, she went so far as to commend in perfectly sincere superlatives.
"Oh, the tea's not so dusty," said the rabbiter grimly; "it didn't ought to be at the price you charge for it in your store, mister! But the tea don't matter so much; it's the water's the thing; and what's the matter with the water in these here tanks, that you should go shifting all your sheep, Mr. Rigden?"
This was obviously Rigden's business, and Moya, pricking an involuntary ear, thought that he might have said so in as many words. But Rigden knew his type, and precisely when and in what measure to ignore its good-humoured effrontery.
"It's the sort of thing to do in time, or not at all," said he. "You catch me wait till my sheep begin to bog!"
"Bog!" cried the rabbiter. "Who said they were beginning to bog? I tell you there's tons of good water in this here tank; you come and look!"
And he made as if to lead the way to the long yellow lip of excavation that showed through the clump. But Rigden shook his head and smiled, under two scrutinies; and this time he did not say that he knew hisown business best; but his manner betrayed no annoyance.
Moya, however, contrived to obtain a glimpse of the water as they rode away. It looked cool and plentiful in the slanting sunlight—a rippling parallelogram flecked with gold. There was very little mud about the margin.
"So it is quite an event, this mustering?"
The question had been carefully considered over a mile or so of lengthening shadows, with the cool hand of evening on their brows already. It was intended to lead up to another question, which, however, Rigden's reply was so fortunate as to defer.
"Oh, it's nothing to some of our other functions," said he.
And Moya experienced such a twinge of jealousy that she was compelled to ask what those functions were; otherwise she would never know.
"First and foremost there's the shearing; if this interests you, I wonder what you'll think of that?" speculated Rigden, exactly as though they had no quarrel. "It's thething to see," he continued, with deliberate enthusiasm: "it means mustering the whole run, that does, and travelling mob after mob to the shed; and then the drafting; that's another thing for you to see, though it's nothing to the scene in the shed. But it's no good telling you about that till you've seen the shed itself. We shore thirty-eight thousand last year. I was over the board myself. Two dozen shearers and a round dozen rouseabouts——"
"I'm afraid it's Greek to me," interrupted Moya dryly; but she wished it was not.
"—and no swearing allowed in the shed; half-a-crown fine each time; that very old ruffian who gave us tea just now said it was alapsus linguawhen I finedhim! You never know what they've been, not even the roughest of them. But to come back to the shed: no smoking except at given times when they all knock off for quarter-of-an-hour, and the cook's boy comes down the board with pannikins of tea and shearers' buns. Oh, they take good care of themselves, these chaps, I can tell you; give their cook half-a-crown a week per head, and see he earnsit. Then there's a couple of wool-pressers, a wool-sorter from Geelong, Ives branding the bales, Spicer seeing the drays loaded and keeping general tally, and the boss of the shed with his eye on everything and everybody. Oh, yes, a great sight for you—your first shearing!"
Moya shook her head without speaking, but Rigden was silenced at last. He had rattled on and on with the hope of reawakening her enthusiasm first, then her sympathy, then—but no! He could not keep it up unaided; he must have some encouragement, and she gave him none. He relapsed into silence, but presently proposed a canter. And this brought Moya to her point at last.
"Cantering won't help us," she cried; "do let's be frank! It's partly my fault for beating about the bush; it set you off talking against time, and you know it. But we aren't anywhere near the station yet, and there's one thing youaregoing to tell me before we get there. Why did you move those sheep?"
Rigden was taken aback.
"You heard me tell that rabbiter," he replied at length.
"But not the truth," said Moya bluntly. "You know you don't usually have these musters at a moment's notice; you know there was no occasion for one to-day. Do let us have the truth in this one instance—that—that I may think a little better of you, Pelham!"
It was the first time that she had called him by any name since the very beginning of their quarrel. And her voice had softened. And for one instant her hand stretched across and lay upon his arm.
"Very well!" he said brusquely. "It was to cover up some tracks."
"Thank you," said Moya; and her tone surprised him, it was so free from irony, so earnest, so convincing in its simple sincerity.
"Why do you thank me?" he asked suspiciously.
"I like to be trusted," she said. "And I like to be told the truth."
"If only you would trust me!" he cried from his heart. "From the first I have toldyou all I could, and only asked you to believe that I was acting for the best in all the rest. That I can say: according to my lights I am still acting for the best. I may have done wrong legally, but morally I have not. I have simply sheltered and shielded a fellow creature who has already suffered out of all proportion to his fault; but I admit that I have done the thing thoroughly. Yes, I'll be frank with you there. I gave him a start last night on my own horse, as indeed you know. I laid a false scent first; then I arranged this muster simply and solely to destroy the real scent. I don't know that it was necessary; but I do know that neither the police nor anybody else will ever get on his tracks in Big Bushy; there has been too much stock over the same ground since."
There was a grim sort of triumph in his tone, which Moya came near to sharing in her heart. She felt that she could and would share it, if only he would tell her all.
"Why keep him in Big Bushy?" she quietly inquired.
"Keep him there?" reiterated Rigden. "Who's doing so, Moya?"
"I don't know; but he was there this morning."
"This morning?"
"Yes, in the hut. I saw him."
"You saw him in the hut? The fool!" cried Rigden. "So he let you see him! Did you speak to him?"
"No, thank you," said Moya, with unaffected disgust. "I was riding up to see whether there was any water at the hut. I turned my horse straight round, and did without."
"And didn't Ives see him?"
"No, he was with the sheep; when I joined him and said I could see no tank, which was perfectly true, he wanted to go back for the water himself."
She stopped abruptly.
"Well?"
"I wouldn't let him," said Moya. "That's all."
She rode on without glancing on either hand. Dusk had fallen; there were no more shadows. The sun had set behindthem; but Moya still felt the glow she could not see; and it was in like manner that she was aware also of Rigden's long gaze.
"The second time," he said softly at last.
"The second time what?"
This tone was sharp.
"That you've come to my rescue, Moya."
"That I've descended to your level, you mean!"
He caught her rein angrily.
"You've no right to say that without knowing!"
"Whose fault is it that I don't know?"
He loosed her rein and caught her hand instead, and held it against all resistance. Yet Moya did not resist. He hurt her, and she welcomed the pain.
"Moya, I would tell you this moment if I thought it would be for your good and mine. It wouldn't—so why should I? It is something that you would never, never forgive!"
"You mean the secret of the man's hold upon you?"
"Yes," he said, after a pause.
"You are wrong," said Moya, quickly."It shows how little you know me! I could forgive anything—anything—that is past and over. Anything but your refusal to trust me ... when as you say yourself ... I have twice over...."
She was shaking in her saddle, in a fit of suppressed sobbing the more violent for its very silence. In the deep gloaming it might have been an ague that had seized her; but some tears fell upon his hand holding hers; and next moment that arm was round her waist. Luckily the horses were tired out. And so for a little her head lay on his shoulder as though there were no space between, the while he whispered in her ear with all the eloquence he possessed, and all the passion she desired.
In this she must trust him, else indeed let her never trust him with her life! But she would—she would? Surely one secret withheld was not to part them for all time! And she loved the place after all, he could see that she loved it, nor did she deny it when he paused; she would love the life, he saw that too, and again there was no denial. They had been so happy yesterday! Theycould be so happy all their lives! But for that it was not necessary that they should tell each other everything. It was not as if he was going to question her right to have and to keep secrets of her own. She was welcome to as many as ever she liked. He happened to know, for example (as a matter of fact, it was notorious), that he was not the first man whom she had fancied she cared about. But did he ask questions about the others? Well, then, she should remember that in his favour. And yet—and yet—she had stood nobly by him in spite of all her feelings! And yes, she had earned the right to know more—to know all—when he remembered that he was risking his liberty and her happiness, and that she had countenanced the risk in her own despite! Ah, if only he were sure of her and her forgiveness; if only he were sure!
"You talk as though you had committed some crime yourself," said Moya; "well, I don't care if you have, so long as you tell me all about it. There is nothing I wouldn't forgive—nothing upon earth—except such secrets from the girl you profess to love."
She had got rid of his arm some time before this, but their hands were still joined in the deepening twilight, until at this he dropped hers suddenly.
"Profess!" he echoed. "Profess, do I? You know better than that, at all events! Upon my soul I've a good mind to tell you after that, and chance the consequences!"
His anger charmed her, as the anger of the right man should charm the right woman. And this time it was she who sought his hand.
"Then tell me now," she whispered. "And you shall see how you have misjudged me."
It was hard on Moya that he was not listening, for she had used no such tone towards him these four-and-twenty hours. And listening he was, but to another sound which reached her also in the pause. It was the thud and jingle of approaching horsemen. Another minute and the white trappings of the mounted police showed through the dusk.
"That you, Mr. Rigden?" said a queervoice for the sergeant. "Can you give us a word, please?"
Rigden had but time to glance at Moya.
"I'll ride on slowly," she said at once; and she rode on the better part of a mile, leaving the way entirely to her good bush steed. At last there was quite a thunder of overtaking hoofs, and Rigden reined up beside her, with the sergeant not far behind. Moya looked round, and the sergeant was without his men, at tactful range.
"Do they guess anything?" whispered Moya.
"Not they!"
"Sure the others haven't gone on to scour Big Bushy?"
"No, only to cross it on their way back. They've given it up, Moya! The sergeant's just coming back for dinner."
His tone had been more triumphant before his triumph was certain, but Moya did not notice this.
"I'm so glad," she whispered, half mischievously, and caught his hand under cloud of early night.
"Are you?" said Rigden, wistfully."Then I suppose you'll say you're glad about something else. You won't be when the time comes! But now it's all over you shall have your way, Moya; come for a stroll after dinner, and I'll tell you—every—single—thing!"
THE TRUTH BY INCHES
He told her with his back against the gate leading into Butcher-boy. Moya heard him and stood still. Behind her rose the station pines, and through the pines peeped hut and house, in shadow below, but with each particular roof like a clean tablecloth in the glare of the risen moon. A high light or so showed in the verandah underneath; this was Bethune's shirt-front, that the sergeant's breeches, and those transitory red-hot pin-heads their cigars. Rigden had superb sight. He could see all this at something like a furlong's range. Yet all that he did see was Moya with the moon upon her, a feathery and white silhouette, edged with a greater whiteness, and crowned as with gold.
"Your father!"
"Yes, I am his son and heir."
Her tone was low with grief and horror, but his was unintentionally sardonic. It jarred upon the woman, and reacted against the man. Moya's first feeling had been undefiled by self; but in an instant her tears were poisoned at their fount.
"And you told me your father was dead!"
The new note was one of the eternal scale between man and woman. It was the note of unbridled reproach.
"Never in so many words, I think," said Rigden, unfortunately.
"In so many words!" echoed Moya, but the sneer was her last. "I hate such contemptible distinctions!" she cried out honestly. "Better have cheated me wholesale, as you did the police; there was something thorough about that."
"And I hope that you can now see some excuse for it," rejoined Rigden with more point.
"For that, yes!" cried Moya at once. "Oh, dear, yes, no one can blame you for screening your poor father. I forgive you for cheating the police—it would have beenunnatural not to—but I never, never shall forgive you for whatwasunnatural—cheatingme."
Rigden took a sharper tone.
"You are too fond of that word," said he, "and I object to it as between me and you."
"You have earned it, though!"
"I deny it. I simply held my tongue about a tragedy in my own family which you could gain nothing by knowing. There was no cheating in that."
"I disagree with you!" said Moya very hotly, but he went on as though she had not spoken.
"You speak as though I had hushed up something in my own life. Can't you see the difference? He was convicted under another name; it was a thing nobody knew but ourselves; nobody need ever have known. Or so I thought," he ended in a wretched voice.
But Moya was outwardly unmoved.
"All the more reason why you should have told me, and trusted me," she insisted.
"God knows I thought of it! But I knewthe difference it would make. And I was right!"
It was his turn to be bitter, and Moya's to regain complete control.
"So you think it's that that makes the difference now?"
"Of course it is."
"Would you believe me if I assured you it was not?"
"No; you might think so; but I know."
"You know singularly little about women," said Moya after a pause.
And her tone shook him. But he said that he could only judge by the way she had taken it now.
There was another pause, in which the proud girl wrestled with her pride. But at last she told him he was very dull. And she drew a little nearer, with the ghost of other looks behind her tears.
But the high moon just missed her face.
And Rigden was very dull indeed.
"You had better tell me everything, and give me a chance," she said dryly.
"What's the use, when the mere fact is enough?"
"I never said it was."
"Oh, Moya, but you know it must be. Think of your people!"
"Why should I?"
"They will have to know."
"I don't see it."
"Ah, but they will," said Rigden, with dire conviction. And though the change in Moya was now apparent even to him, it wrought no answering change in Rigden; on the contrary, he fell into a brown study, with dull eyes fixed no longer upon Moya, but on the high lights in the verandah far away.
"There's so little to tell," he said at length. "It was a runaway match, and a desperately bad bargain for my dear mother, yet by no means the unhappy marriage you would suppose. I have that from her own dear lips, and I don't think it so extraordinary as I did once. A bad man may still be the one man for a good woman, and make her happier than the best of good fellows; it was so in their case. My father was and is a bad man; there's no mincing the matter. I've stood by him for what he isto me, not for what he is in himself, for he has gone from bad to worse, like most prisoners. He was in trouble when he married my mother; the police were on his tracks even then: they came out here under a false name."
"And your name?" asked Moya, pertinently yet not unkindly; indeed she was standing close beside him now.
"That is not false," said Rigden. "My mother used it from the time of her trouble. She would not bring me up under an alias; but she took care not to let his people or hers get wind of her existence; never wrote them a line in her poorest days, though her people would have taken her back—without him. That wouldn't do for my mother. Yet nothing else was possible. He was sent to the hulks for life."
Moya's face, turned to the light at last, was shining like the moon itself; and the tears in her eyes were tears of enthusiasm, almost of pride.
"It was fine of her!" she said, and caught his hand.
"Shewasfine," he answered simply. YetMoya's hand had no effect. He looked at it wistfully, but let it go without an answering clasp. And the girl's pride bled again.
She hardly heard his story after that. Yet it was a story to hear. The villain had not been a villain of the meaner dye, but one of parts, courage among them.
"There have been no bushrangers in your time," said Rigden; "but you may have heard of them?"
"I remember all about the Kellys," said honest Moya. "I'm not so young as all that."
"Did you ever hear of Captain Bovill?"
"I know the name, nothing more."
"I am glad of that," said Rigden, grimly. "It is the name by which my unhappy father is going down to Australian history as one of its most notorious criminals. The gold-fields were the beginning of the end of him, as of many a better man; he could not get enough out of his claim, so he took it from an escort under arms. There was a whole band of them, and they were all taken at last; but it was not the last of Captain Bovill. You have seen the old hulkSuccess? He was one of the prisoners who seized the launch and killed a warder and a sailor between them; he was one of those sentenced to death and afterwards reprieved. That was in '56; the next year they murdered the Inspector-General; and he was tried for that with fifteen others, but he got off with his neck. He only spoilt his last chance of legal freedom in this life; so he tried to escape again and again; and at last he has succeeded!"
The son's tone was little in keeping with his acts, but the incongruity was very human. There was Moya beside him in the moonlight, but for the last time, whatever she might say or think! And her mind was working visibly.
"Why didn't the police say who it was they were after?" she cried of a sudden; and the blame was back in her voice, for she had found new shoulders for it.
Rigden smiled sadly.
"Don't you see?" he said. "Don't you remember what Harkness said at the start about my fellows harbouring him? But he told me that evening—to think that it wasonly last night!—as a great secret and a tremendous piece of news. The fact is that my unhappy father was more than notorious in his day; he was popular; and popular sympathy has been the bugbear of the police ever since the Kellys. Not that he has much sympathy for me!" cried Rigden all at once. "Not that I'm acting altogether from a sense of filial duty, however mistaken; no, you shan't run away with any false ideas. It was one for him and two for myself! He had the whip-hand of me, and let me know it; if I gave him away, he'd have given me!"
"If only you had let him! If only you had trusted me," sighed Moya once more. "But you do now, don't you—dear?"
And she touched his coat, for she could not risk the repulse of his hand, though her words went so far—so very far for Moya.
"It's too late now," he said.
But it was incredible! Even now he seemed not to see her hand—hers! Vanity invaded her once more, and her gates stood open to the least and meanest of the besetting host.Shemake advances tohim, to theconvict's son! What would her people say? What would Toorak say? What would she not say herself—to herself—of herself—after this nightmare night?
And all because (but certainly for the second time) he had taken no notice of her hand!
When found, however, Moya's voice was as cold as her heart was hot.
"Oh, very well! It is certainly too late if you wish it to be so, and in any case now. But may I ask why you are so keen to save me the trouble of saying so?"
Rigden looked past her towards the station, and there were no more high lights in the verandah; but elsewhere there were voices, and the champing of a bit.
"If you go back now," he said, "you will just be in time to hear."
"Thank you. I prefer to have it here, and from you."
Rigden shrugged his shoulders.
"Then I am no longer a free agent. I am here on parole. I am under arrest."
"Nonsense!"
"I am, though: harbouring the fugitive!They can't put salt on him, so they have on me."
Moya stood looking at him in a long silence, but only hardening as she looked: patience, pity and understanding had gone like so many masts, by the board, and the wreckage in her heart closed it finally against him in the very hour of his more complete disaster.
"And how long have you known this?" she inquired stonily, though the answer was obvious to her mind.
"Ever since we met them on our ride home. They showed me their warrant then. The trooper had done thirty miles for it this afternoon. They wanted to take me straight away. But I persuaded Harkness to come back to dinner and return with me later without fuss."
"Yet you couldn't say one word to me!"
"Not just then. Where was the point? But I arranged with Harkness to tell you now. And by all my gods I've told you everything there is to tell, Moya!"
"You should have told me this first. But you tell nothing till you are forced! I mighthave known you were keeping the worst up your sleeve! I shouldn't be surprised if the very worst were still to come!"
"It's coming now," said Rigden, bitterly; "it's coming from you, in the most miserable hour of all my existence; you must make it worse! How was I to know the other wouldn't be enough for you? How do I know now?"
"Thank you," said Moya, a knife in her heart, but another in her tongue.
The voices drew nearer through the pines; there was Harkness mounted, with a led horse, and Theodore Bethune on foot. Rigden turned abruptly to the girl.
"There are just two more things to be said. None of them know where he is, and none of them know my motive. You're in both secrets. You'd better keep them—unless you want Toorak to know who it was you were engaged to."
The rest followed without a word. It might have been a scene in a play without words, and indeed the moon chalked the faces of the players, and the Riverina crickets supplied the music with an orchestrasome millions strong. The clink of a boot in a stirrup, a thud in the saddle, another clink upon the off side; and Rigden lifting his wideawake as he rode after Harkness through the gate; and Bethune holding the gate open, shutting it after them, and taking Moya's arm as she stood like Lot's wife in the moonlight.
BETHUNEv.BETHUNE
"I don't want to rub things in, or to make things worse," said Theodore, kindly enough, as they approached the house; "but we shall have to talk about them, for all that, Moya."
"I'm ready," was the quick reply. "I'll talk till daylight as long as you won't let me think!"
"That's the right child!" purred her brother. "Come to my room; it's the least bit more remote; and these youths are holding indignation meetings on their own account. Ah! here's one of them."
Spicer had stepped down from the verandah with truculent stride.
"A word with you, Bethune," said he, brusquely.
"Thanks, but I'm engaged to my sister for this dance," replied the airy Theodore.Moya could not stand his tone. Also she heard young Ives turning the horses out for the night, and an inspiration seized her by the heels.
"No, for the next," said she; "I want to speak to Mr. Ives."
And she flew to the horse-yard, where the slip-rails were down, and Ives shooing horse after horse across them like the incurable new chum he was.
"Wait a moment, Mr. Ives. Don't have me trampled to death just yet."
"Miss Bethune!"
And the top rail was up again. But it was not her presence that surprised him. It was her tone.
"A dreadful ending to our day, Mr. Ives!"
"I'm glad to hear you say that," cried the boy, with all his enthusiasm; "to our day, if you like, but that's all! This is the most infernally unjust and high-handed action that ever was taken by the police of any country! Iniquitous—scandalous! But it won't hold water; these squatters are no fools, and every beak in the district's asquatter; they'll see Rigden through, and we'll have him back before any of the hands know a word of what's up."
"But don't they know already?"
"Not they; trust us for that! Why, even Mrs. Duncan has no idea why he's gone. But we shall have him back this time to-morrow, never you fear, Miss Bethune!"
"How far is it to the police-barracks, Mr. Ives?"
"Well, it's fourteen miles to our boundary, and that's not quite half-way."
"Then they won't be there before midnight. Is it the way we went this morning, Mr. Ives?"
"Yes; he's going over the same ground, poor chap, in different company. But he'll come galloping back to-morrow, you take my word for it!"
Ives leant with folded arms upon the restored rail. The animals already turned out hugged the horse-yard fence wistfully. The lucky remnant were licking the last grains of chaff from the bin. Moya drew nearer to the rail.
"Mr. Ives!"
"Miss Bethune?"
"Would you do a favour for me?"
"Would I not!"
"And say nothing about it afterwards?"
"You try me."
"Then leave a horse that I can ride—and saddle—in the yard to-night!"
Ives was embarrassed.
"With pleasure," said he, with nothing of the sort—and began hedging in the same breath. "But—but look here, I say, Miss Bethune! You're never going all that way——"
"Of course I'm not, and if I do it won't be before morning, only first thing then, before the horses are run up. And I don't want you, or anybody, least of all my brother, to come with me, or have the least idea where I've gone, or that I've gone anywhere at all. See? I'm perfectly well able to take care of myself, Mr. Ives. Can I trust you?"
"Of course you can, but——"
"No advice—please—dearMr. Ives!"
It was Moya at her sweetest, with the moon all over her. She wondered at thetime how she forced that smile; but it gained her point.
"Very well," he sighed; "your blood——"
"I shan't lose one drop," said Moya brightly. "And no more questions?"
"Of course not."
"And no tellings?"
"Miss Bethune!"
"Forgive me," said Moya. "I'm more than satisfied. And you're—the_—dearest young man in the bush, Mr. Ives!"
The jackeroo swept his wideawake to the earth.
"And you're the greatest girl in the world, though I were to be drawn and quartered for saying so!"
Moya returned to the house with pensive gait. She was not overwhelmed with a present sense of her alleged greatness. On the contrary, she had seldom felt so small and petty. But she could make amends; at least she could try.
Horse-yard and house were not very far apart, but some of the lesser buildings intervened, and Moya had been too full ofher own sudden ideas to lend an ear to any or aught but Ives and his replies. So she had missed a word or two which it was just as well for her to miss, and more even than a word. She did notice, however, that Mr. Spicer turned his back as she passed him in the verandah. And she found Theodore dabbing his knuckles in his bedroom.
"What's the matter? What have you done?"
"Oh, nothing."
But tone and look alike betokened some new achievement: they were self-satisfied even for Bethune of the Hall.
"Tell me," demanded Moya.
"Well, if you want to know, I've been teaching one of your back-blockers (yours no more, praises be!) a bit of a lesson. Our friend Spicer. Very offensive to me all day; seemed to think I was inspiring the police. Just now he surpassed himself; wanted me to take off my coat and go behind the pines; in other words to fight."
"And wouldn't you?"
"Not exactly. Take off my coat to him!"
"So what did you do?"
"Knocked him down as I stood."
"You didn't!"
"Very well. Ask Mr. Spicer. I'm sorry for the chap; he meant well; and I admire his pluck."
"What did he do?"
"Got up and went for me bald-headed."
"And you knocked him down again?"
"No," said Theodore, "that time I knocked him out."
And he took a cigarette from his silver case, while Moya regarded him with almost as much admiration as disgust, and more of surprise than of either.
"I didn't know this was one of your accomplishments," said she at length.
"Aha!" puffed Theodore; "nor was it, once upon a time. But there's a certain old prize-fighter at a place called Trumpington, and he taught me the most useful thing I learnt up at Cambridge. The poetic justice of it is that I 'read' with him, so to speak, with a view to these very bush bullies and up-country larrikins. They're too free with their tongues when they'rein a good temper, and with their fists when they're not. I suffered from them in early youth, Moya, but I don't fancy I shall suffer any more."
Moya was not so sure. She caught herself matching Theodore and another in her mind, and was not ashamed of the side she took. It made no difference to her own quarrel with the imaginary champion; nothing could or should alter that. But perhaps she had been ungenerous. He seemed to think so. She would show him she was neither ungenerous, nor a coward, before she was done. And after that the deluge.
Hereabouts Moya caught Theodore watching her, a penny for her thoughts in either eye. In an instant she had ceased being disingenuous with herself, and was hating him heartily for having triumphed over an adherent of Rigden, however mistaken; in another she was sharing that adherent's suspicions; in a third, expressing them.
"I shouldn't wonder if Mr. Spicer was quite right!"
"In accusing me of inspiring the police?"
"You suspected the truth last night. Oh, I saw through all that; we won't discuss it. And why should you keep your suspicions to yourself?"
Bethune blew a delicate cloud.
"One or two absurd little reasons: because I was staying in his house; because you were engaged to him; because, in spite of all temptations, one does one's poor best to remain more or less a gentleman."
"Then why did you go with the policemen?"
"To see what happened. I don't honestly remember making a single comment, much less the least suggestion; if I did it was involuntary, for I went upon the clear understanding with myself that I must say nothing, whatever I might think. I was a mere spectator—immensely interested—fascinated, in fact—but as close as wax, if you'll believe me."
Moya did believe him. She knew the family faults; they were bounded by the family virtues, and double-dealing was notwithin the pale. And Moya felt interested herself; she wished to hear on what pretext Rigden had been arrested; she had already heard that it was slender.
"Tell me what happened."
Theodore was nothing loth: indeed his day in the bush had been better than Moya's, more exciting and unusual, yet every whit as typical in its way. Spicer had led them straight to the clay-pans where Rigden had struck his alleged trail, and there sure enough they had found it.
"I confess I could see nothing myself when the tracker first got off; but half a glance was enough for him; and on he went like a blood-hound, with his black muzzle close to the ground, the rest of us keeping a bit behind and well on one side. Presently there's a foot-print I can see for myself, then more that I simply couldn't, then another plain one; and this time Billy—they're all called Billy—simply jumped with joy. At least I thought it was with joy, till I saw him pointing from his own marks to the others, and shaking his black head. Both prints were about the same depth.
"'Him stamp,' says Billy. 'What for him stamp?'
"But we pushed on and came to some soft ground where any white fool could have run down the tracks; and presently they brought us to a fence, which we crossed by strapping down the wires and leading our horses over, but not where Rigden had led his. Well, we lost the tracks eventually where Rigden said he'd lost them, at what they're pleased to call a 'tank' in these parts; the black fellow went round and round the waterhole, but devil another footmark could he find. So then we went back on the tracks we had found. And presently there's a big yabber-yabber on the part of William, who waddles about on the sides of his feet to show his bosses what he means, and turns in his toes like a clown.
"Well, I asked the sergeant what it was all about; but he wouldn't tell me. And it was then that this fellow Spicer began to play the fool: he had smelt the rat himself, I suppose. He made a still greater ass of himself at the fence, where the blackfellow messed about a long time over Rigden'smarks when we got back there. After that we all came marching home, or rather riding hell-to-leather. And the fun became fast and furious; so to speak, of course; for I needn't tell you it was no fun for me, Moya."
"Quite sure? Well, never mind; go on."
"There was no end of a row. Harkness and Myrmidons entered the barracks, and Spicer ordered them out. They insisted on searching Rigden's room. Spicer swore they shouldn't, and appealed to me. What could I do, a mere visitor? I remonstrated, advised them to wait, and so forth; further resistance would have been arrant folly; yet that madman Spicer was for holding the fort with the station ordnance!"
"Go on," said Moya again: she had opened her lips to say something else, but the obvious soundness of Theodore's position came home to her in time.
"Well, the long and short of it is that the sergeant came to me on the verandah with the very pair of boots with which the tracks had been made; a heel was off oneof them; they were too small for Rigden, yet they were found hidden away in his room. The astounding thing is that the blessed blackfellow had spotted that the tracks were not made by the man to whom the boots belonged. He had turned in his toes and walked on the outside of his feet; it wasn't so with the trail they followed up to these pines yesterday; and diamond had cut diamond about as neatly as you could wish to see it done. It was smart of Rigden to run alongside his horse and make it look as though he were riding alongside the trail; but it wouldn't do for the wily savage, and I'm afraid the result will be devilish unpleasant."
There was no fear, however, in the clean-cut and clean-shaven face, nor did Theodore's tone suggest any possible unpleasantness to him or his. Moya could have told him so in a manner worthy of himself, but again she showed some self-restraint, and was content to thank him briefly for putting her in possession of all the facts.
"Ah!" said Theodore, "I only wish I could do that! You talked a little while agoabout my suspecting the truth; well, I give you my word that I haven't even yet the ghost of an idea what the real truth can be."
"You mean as to motive?"
"Exactly. Why on earth should he risk his all to save the skin of a runaway convict? What can that convict be to him, Moya? Or is the sole explanation mere misplaced, chuckle-headed chivalry?"
"What shouldyousay?" asked Moya quietly.
"I'll tell you frankly," said Theodore at once; "as things were I should have hesitated, but as things are there's no reason why I shouldn't say what I think. It's evidently some relation; a man only does that sort of thing for his flesh and blood. Now do you happen to remember, when this—I mean to say that—engagement was more or less in the air, that some of us rather wanted to know who his father was? Not that——"
"I know," Moya interrupted; "I'm not likely to forget it. So that's what you think, is it?"
"I do; by Jove I do! Wouldn't you say yourself——"
"No, I wouldn't; and no more need you. What are your ideas, by the way, if this is not the ghost of one? I congratulate you upon it from that point of view, if from no other!"
Theodore stuck a fresh cigarette between his lips, and struck the match with considerable vigour. It is not pleasant to be blown from one's own petard, or even scathed in one's own peculiar tone of offence.
"I simply wanted to spare your feelings, my dear girl," was the rejoinder, the last three words being thrown in for the special irritation of Moya. "Not that I see how it can matter now."
The special irritant ceased to gall.
"Now!" echoed Moya. "What do you mean by now?"
"Why, the whole thing's off, of course."
"What whole thing?"
"Your late engagement."
"Oh, is it! Thanks for the news; it's the first I've heard of it."
"Then it won't be the last. You're not going to marry a convict's son, or a convict either; and this fellow promises to be both."
"I shall marry exactly whom I like," said Moya, trembling.
"Don't flatter yourself! You may say so out of bravado, but you're the last person to make a public spectacle of yourself; especially when—well, you know, to put it brutally, this is pretty well bound to ruin him, whatever else it does or does not. Besides, you don't like him any more; you've stopped even thinking you do. Do you suppose I've got no eyes?"
"Theodore," said Moya in a low voice, "if I were your wife I'd murder you!"
"Oh, no, you wouldn't; and meanwhile don't talk greater rot than you can help, Moya. Believe me it isn't either the time or the place. We must get out of the place, by the way, the first thing to-morrow. I see you're still wearing his ring. The sooner you take that off and give it to me to return to him the better."
"It will come to that," said Moya's heart;"but not through Theodore; no, thank you!"
"It shall never come to it at all!" replied her heart of hearts.
And her lips echoed the "Never!" as she marched to the door. Theodore had his foot against it in time.
"Now listen to me! No, you're not going till you listen to reason and me! You may call me a brute till you're black in the face. I don't mind being one for your own good. This thing's coming to an end; in fact it's come; it ought never to have begun, but I tell you it's over. The family were always agreed about it, and I'm practically the head of the family; at all events I'm acting head up here, and I tell you this thing's over whether you like it or not. But you like it. What's the good of pretending you don't? But whether you do or you don't you shall never marry the fellow! And now you know it you may go if you like. Only do for God's sake be ready in the morning, like the sane person you always used to be."
Moya did not move an inch towards theopened door. Her tears were dry; fires leapt in their stead.
"Is that all?"
"Unless you wish me to say more."
"What a fool you are, Theodore!"
"I'm afraid I distrust expert evidence."
"With all your wits you don't know the first thing about women!"
"You mean that you require driving like Paddy's pig? Oh, no, you don't, Moya; go and sleep upon it."
"Sleep!"
It was one burst of all she felt, but only one.
"I'm afraid you won't," said Theodore, with more humanity. "Still it's better to lose a night thinking things over, calmly and surely, as you're very capable of doing, than to go another day with that ring upon your finger."
Moya stared at him with eyes in which the fires were quenched, but not by tears. She looked dazed.
"Do put your mind to it—your own sane mind!" her brother pleaded, with more of wisdom than he had shown with her yet."And—I don't want to be hard—I never meant to be hard about this again—but God help you now to the only proper and sensible decision!"
So was he beginning to send his juries about their vital business; and, after all, Moya went to hers with as much docility as the twelve good men and true.
Theodore was right about one thing. She must put her mind to it once and for ever.
AN ESCAPADE
She put her mind to it with characteristic thoroughness and honesty. Let there be no mistake about Moya Bethune. She had faults of temper, and faults of temperament, and as many miscellaneous faults as she was quick to find in others; but this did not retard her from seeing them in herself. She was a little spoilt; it is the almost inevitable defect of the popular qualities. She had a good conceit of herself, and a naughty tongue; she could not have belonged to that branch of the Bethunes and quite escaped either. On the other hand, she was not without their cardinal merits. There was, indeed, a brutal honesty in the breed; in Moya it became a singular sincerity, not always pleasing to her friends, but counterbalanced by the brightness and charm of her personality. She was incapableof deceiving another; infinitely rarer, she was equally incapable of deceiving herself; and could consider most things from more standpoints than are accessible to most women, always provided that she kept that cornerstone of all sane judgment, her temper. She had lost it with Rigden and lost it with Theodore, and was in a pretty bad temper with herself to boot; but that is a minor matter; it does not drive the blood to the brain; it need not obscure every point of view but one. And there were but two worthy of Moya's consideration.
There was her own point of view, and there was Rigden's. Moya took first innings; she was the woman, after all.
She began with the beginning of this visit—this visit that the almanac pretended was but fifty hours old after all these days and nights: Well, to believe it, and go back to the first night: they had been happy enough then, still happier next day, happiest of all in the afternoon. Moya could see the shadows and feel the heat, and hear Rigden wondering whether she would ever care for the place, and her own light-hearted replies;but there she checked herself, and passed over the memorable end of that now memorable conversation, and took the next phase in due order.
Of course she had been angry; anybody of any spirit, similarly placed, would have resented being deserted by the hour together for the first wayfarer. And the lie made it worse; and the refusal to explain matters made the lie incalculably worse. He had put her in an abominable position, professing to love her all the time. How could she believe in such love? Love and trust were inseparable in her mind. Yet he had not trusted her for a moment; even when she stooped to tell a lie herself, to save him, even then he could not take her into his confidence. It was the least he could have done after that; it was the very least that she had earned.
Most of the next day—to-day!—even Moya shirked. Why had it laid such a hold upon her—the bush—the bush life—the whole thing? Was it the mere infection of a real enthusiasm? Or was it but the meretricious glamour of the foregone, andwould the fascination have been as great if all had still been well? Moya abandoned these points; they formed a side issue after all. Her mind jumped to the final explanation—still ringing in her ears. It was immeasurably worse than all the rest, in essence, in significance, in result. The result mattered least; there was little weakness in Moya; she would have snapped her fingers at the world for the man she loved. But how could she forgive his first deceit, his want of trust in her to the end? And how could she think for another moment of marrying a man whom she could not possibly forgive?
She did not think of it. She relinquished her own point of view, and tried with all her honesty to put herself in his place instead.
It was not very difficult. The poverty-stricken childhood (so different from her own!) with its terrible secret, its ever-hidden disgrace; small wonder if it had become second nature to him to hide it! Then there was the mother. Moya had always loved him for the tone of his lightest reference to his mother. She thought now of the irreparableloss of that mother's death, and felt how she herself had sworn in her heart to repair it. She thought of their meeting, his sunburnt face, the new atmosphere he brought with him, their immediate engagement: the beginning had come almost as quickly as the end! Then Moya darkened. She remembered how her people had tried to treat him, and how simply and sturdily he had borne himself among them. Whereas, if he had told them all ... but he might have told her!
Yet she wondered. The father was as good as dead, was literally dead to the world; partly for his sake, perhaps, the secret had been kept so jealously all these years by mother and son. Moya still thought that an exception should have been made in her case. But, on mature reflection, she was no longer absolutely and finally convinced of this. And the mere shadow of a doubt upon the point was her first comfort in all these hours.
Such was the inner aspect; the outward and visible was grave enough. It was one thing to be true to a prisoner and a prisoner'sson, but another thing to remain engaged to him. Moya was no hand at secrets. And now she hated them. So her mind was made up on one point. If she forgave him, then no power should make her give him up, and she would wear his ring before all her world, though it were the ring of a prisoner in Pentridge Stockade. But she knew what that would mean, and a brief spell of too vivid foresight, which followed, cannot be said to have improved Rigden's chances of forgiveness.
There was one thing, however, which Moya had unaccountably forgotten. This was the sudden inspiration which had come to her an hour ago, among the station pines. She was reminded of it and of other things by the arrival of Mrs. Duncan with a tray; she had even forgotten that her last meal had been made in the middle of the afternoon, at the rabbiter's camp. Mrs. Duncan had discovered this by questioning young Ives, and the tea and eggs were the result of a consultation with Mr. Bethune.
"And after that," smiled Moya, "you willleave me for the night, won't you? I feel as if I should never want to get up again!"
"I'm sure you do, my dear," the good woman cried.
"I shall lock my door," said Moya. "Don't let anybody come to me in the morning; beg my brother not to come."
"Indeed I'll see he doesn't."
And Mrs. Duncan departed as one who had been told little but who guessed much, with a shake of her head, and a nod to follow in case there was nothing to shake it over; for she was entirely baffled.
Moya locked the door on her.
"To think I should have forgotten! My one hope—my one!"
And she ate every morsel on the tray; then undressed and went properly to bed, for the sake of the rest. But to sleep she was afraid, lest she might sleep too long. And between midnight and dawn, she was not only up once more, but abroad by herself in the darkest hour.
Her door she left locked behind her; the key she pushed underneath; and she stepped across the verandah with her ridinghabit gathered up in one hand, and both shoes clutched in the other.
"It is dreadful! I am as bad as he is. But I can't help it. There's nobody else to do it for me—unless I tell them first. And at least I can keep his secret!"
The various buildings lay vague and opaque in the darkness: not a spark of light in any one of them. And the moon had set; the stars alone lit Moya to the horse-yard.
Luckily she was not unused to horses. She not only had her own hack at home, but made a pet of it and kept her eye upon the groom. A single match, blown out in an instant, showed Moya the saddle and bridle which she had already used, with a water-bag hanging hard by, in the hut adjoining the yard. The bag she filled from the tank outside. The rest was an even simpler matter; a rocking-horse could not have stood quieter than the bony beast which Ives had left behind with the night-horse.
It proved a strong and stolid mount, with a hard, unyielding, but methodical canter, and only one bad habit: it shaved trees and gateposts a little too closely for a rider unaccustomedto the bush. Moya was near disaster at the start; thereafter she allowed for the blemish, and crossed Butcher-boy without mishap.
It was now the darkest quarter of the darkest hour; and Moya was quite thankful that she had no longer a track to follow or to lose. For in Big Bushy she turned sharply to the left, as in the morning with young Ives, and once more followed the fence; but this time she hugged it, and was not happy unless she could switch the wires to make certain they were there.
It was lighter when she reached the first corner: absolute blackness had turned to a dark yet transparent grey; it was as though the ink had been watered; but in a little it was ink no more. Moya turned in her saddle, and a broadening flail of bloodshot blue was sweeping the stars one by one out of the eastern sky.
Also Moya felt the wind of her own travelling bite shrewdly through her summer blouse; and she put a stop to the blundering, plodding canter about half-way down the east-and-west fence whose easternangle contained the disused whim and hut.
It was no longer necessary to switch the wires; even the line of trees in Blind Man's Block had taken shape behind them; and that sinister streak soon stood for the last black finger-mark of the night.
Further down the fence a covey of crows got up suddenly with fouloutry; and Moya, remembering the merino which had fallen by the way, steeled her body once more to the bony one's uneasy canter.
The beast now revealed itself a dapple-grey; and at last between its unkempt ears, and against the slaty sky to westward, Moya described the timbers of the whim.
She reined in again, her bent head puzzling over what she should say.
And again she cantered, the settled words upon her lips; but there they were destined to remain until forgotten; for it was at this point that Moya's adventure diverged alike from her purpose and her preconception.
In the first place the hut was empty. It took Moya some minutes to convince herself of the fact. Again and again she calledupon the supposed occupant to come out declaring herself a friend come to warn him, as indeed she had. At last she dismounted and entered, her whip clutched firmly, her heart in her mouth. The hut was without partition or inner chamber. A glance proved it as empty as it had seemed.
Moya was nonplussed: all her plans had been built upon the supposition that she should find the runaway still skulking in the hut where she had seen him the previous forenoon. She now perceived how groundless her supposition had been; it seemed insane when she remembered that the runaway had as certainly seen her—and her sudden flight at sight of him. Unquestionably she had made a false start. Yet she did not see what else she could have done.
She led her horse to the whim itself. Twin shafts ran deep into the earth, side by side like the barrels of a gun. But this whim was finally forsaken; the long rope and the elaborate buckets had been removed and stored; and the slabbed shafts ended in tiny glimmering squares without break or foot-hole from brink to base.
Moya stood still to think; and very soon the thought of the black tracker put all others out of court. It came with a sigh: if only she had him there! He would think nothing of tracking the fugitive from the hut whithersoever his feet had carried him; was it only the blacks who could do such things?
How would he begin? Moya recalled her brother's description, and thought she knew. He would begin by riding down the fence, and seeing if anybody had crossed it.
She was doing this herself next minute. And the thought that had come with a sigh had already made her heart beat madly, and the breath come quicker and quicker through her parted lips; but not with fear; she was much too excited to feel a conscious qualm. Besides, she had somehow no fear of the unhappy man,hisfather.
Excitement flew to frenzy when she actually found the place. She knew it on the instant, and was never in doubt. There were several footmarks on either side of the fence; on the far side a vertebrate line of them, pointing plainly to the scrub; evenher unskilled eye could follow it half the way.
The next thing was to strap down the wires, but Moya could not wait for that. She galloped to a gate that she had seen in the corner near the whim, and came up the other side of the fence also at a gallop.
The trail was easily followed to the scrub: among the trees the ground was harder and footprints proportionately faint. By dismounting, however, and dropping her handkerchief at each apparent break of the chain, Moya always succeeded in picking up the links eventually. Now they gave her no trouble for half-an-hour; now a check would last as long again; but each half-hour seemed like five minutes in her excitement. The trees grew thicker and thicker, but never any higher. Their branches swept the ground and interlaced; and many were the windings of the faint footmarks tenaciously followed by Moya and the dapple-grey. They were as divers wandering on the bed of a shallow sea; for all its shallowness, the patches of sunlight were fewer and fewer, and farther between;if they were also hotter, Moya did not notice the difference. She did not realize into what a labyrinth she was penetrating. Her entire attention was divided between the last footprint and the next; she had none over for any other consideration whatsoever. It was an extreme instance of the forcing of one faculty at the expense of all the rest. Moya thought no more even of what she should say when she ran her man to earth. She had decided all that before she reached the hut. No pang of hunger or of thirst assailed her; excitement and concentration were her meat and drink.
Yet when the end came her very first feeling was that of physical faintness and exhaustion. But then it was an exceedingly sudden and really terrifying end. Moya was dodging boles and ducking under branches, the dapple-grey behind her, her arm through the reins, when all at once these tightened. Moya turned quickly, thinking the horse was unable to follow.
It was.
A gnarled hand, all hair and sinew, held it by the bridle.