"Come," said the Baker, "come!"
"Where?" asked Smith, with a sick heart.
And looking at his chum, he saw the horror in the poor fellow's face. For it was wrinkled and seamed, and the courage and hope, which had helped them both so often, had, for that time at least, left him utterly.
"I don't know," said the Baker, and he caught Smith's hand, and then let it go, and took hold of Kitty, who was also the victim of extreme terror. The sight of the others broken down brought back strength to the older man.
"What are you scared of?" he cried contemptuously. "Do you funk death so much, Baker?"
"No," said the Baker in a whisper, "but to go down into a pit, when one is asleep, oh, my Gawd! it's 'orrible."
He kept glancing round him uneasily, and anxiety made him stare. He stamped on the loose sand.
"How did you notice it?" asked Smith.
"I slid," said the Baker, "and I saw the sand trickle and trickle. And we was on an 'ill when we lay down, but when I slid, we was in a sort of cup, Smith. What was it, Smith?"
But Smith shook his head.
"Let's come on," he said.
"Where?" asked the Baker. "Smith, old man, I'm scared."
His shaking hands and his loosed lips bore witness to the truth of that.
"Where?" said Smith. "Why, out of this, and as soon as we can. I'll go first."
And then he heard again the sound of distant thunder. Or perhaps it was subterranean, for, once more in the hot morning light, they saw ahead of them big jets and spurts of dun sand thrown up against the sun, as though some strange beast blew blasts like the spouting of a whale in that dry sea. And with each dust spout the ground was shaken, and the sound was heard.
Smith caught the Baker muttering mixed prayers, half child-like entreaty to an anthropomorphous god, half savage blasphemy against a treacherous fetish. He remembered, with a smile, the old story of the sailor who prayed for help, and, as an inducement for the deity to assist him, said that he had never asked before, and wouldn't again. He turned and looked at Kitty, who walked like one dazed. It had taken the courage out of her too.
They walked slowly towards the west, where the tall pine was now visible. Beyond it was a low range of hills. But their progress was slow. They avoided every sand hollow, and wound in and out across the little ridges. If some sand went sliding from under him, the Baker whimpered like a dreaming hound. And then they stopped again.
"A pit, a pit!" cried Mandeville, with staring eyes, and they saw an open, black hole before them, crater-shaped and crumbling.
"God help us!" said Smith. "Shall we get off this before the night? Be a man, Baker. Do you want to spend the night here, and be sucked down like sand in an hour-glass?"
"I'm coming," said the Baker, gulping down his horror. "Come, Kitty."
But the sun would soon set. It shot level over the desert, and turned the pine, now some five miles away, into a black bar across the mouth of a furnace. Then it touched the range, bit out a red gap, plunged, and left a red star on a blue crest for a moment, and died. The night came with a swing from the east of lucid stars, and a moon, with its horns turned westward, was sharply visible towards the north.
"Come," said Smith, "while there's a little light left."
He led the way as fast as he dared, and did not stop even when the last daylight was gone on the wings of the after-glow, for, on the whitish-red sand, the light of moon and stars showed the way almost as clearly as in the thin day of an Arctic winter. Yet every now and again there came the noise of subterranean thunder. He began to guess at its cause. If they could but get off that road of pits, it bade him hope.
Yet now he, too, was so terribly fatigued that he could hardly lift his feet; every motion he made required resolution, and his eyelids dropped as he walked. The Baker was in worse case physically, and only Kitty held out. Sleep, as heavy as that which takes men in deep frost, laid hold of Mandeville; he rocked to and fro like a drunken man. He implored Smith to stop.
"Lemme sleep," and he pitched upon his face.
"Wake him," said Smith, and Kitty lifted him on his feet.
"We are close to the edge of the sand," said the leader. "Let's try a bit more."
He caught the Baker by the hair; he wrenched his ear till it almost bled, and Mandeville struck at him blindly. Kitty cried out aloud in anger, and yet she understood. But at last they could not move. The Baker lay down like a dead man, and Kitty took him in her arms. She was asleep in a moment, and then a sudden dream caught the Baker.
"The pits, the pits!" he shrieked, and again deep sleep had him, as Smith smiled wanly and drifted into dreamland.
And in his dream he saw the desert, and under the desert the sunken riven which, for long generations had eaten away the foundations of the desert until the flat rocks and baked earth under the sand was supported by little columns that melted day by day. And he heard the columns give, and then the ruptured rocks cracked. There were distant sounds of thunder, and the huge tilted slabs threw sand into the air. Down each rift, as through horrible funnel-holes, the sand fell which measured human lives. He saw himself slip; he heard the others cry. And then there was loud thunder in his dream, and the blown sand filled his mouth. He heard an awful scream, and woke with it in his ears.
"Help, Smith, help!"
He sprang to his feet, and saw a dark body, which was Kitty, sliding on the flat in front of him towards a great cup, whose edge was within six feet. He threw himself down, and grasped the girl by her ankles, and, digging his toes into the sand, he wrenched her back.
But as he did so, she screamed dreadfully, and on her scream there came another further cry, half-choked, half dream-like—such a cry as a man would make in a nightmare, if he could free his chest form the horrible squat beast that chokes him. And Kitty, whom he had saved, writhed round on him, and struck at him.
"Let me go!" she screamed.
"Where's Baker?" he said.
And she writhed and shrieked terribly.
"The pit—in the pit!"
And rising, he saw the big, black cup which held death. Kitty rose, too, and half escaped him. In another moment she would have been beyond help. He caught hold of her, and they fought upon the increasing verge of the slipping sand, which was like quicksand, and seemed to cling to them. But Smith lifted her desperately, and ran ten yards, and, throwing her down, held her till the mad fit passed.
And shaking with horror, and sick at the loss of friend and lover, they sat there till dawn, with deep holes about them.
But Kitty perpetually wailed for the man who was gone, and half she said was unintelligible to her companion. For now, not caring to be understood, she used the commoner talk of the Brodarro, which was mixed strangely with fragments of many aboriginal dialects.
"My man is gone," she cried; "my little man who was strong and brave."
Yes, the Baker was gone; gone without a farewell, without a handshake, and his good-bye was a terrible shriek, which still rang in Smith's ears. Perhaps those who were left would now escape, but all the joy was gone out of him at the loss of his faithful companion, whose courage was proof against any natural horror, and only failed in dangers which appeared ghastly beyond all imagination. But he was gone, gone, said Smith, for ever.
And the dawn came up in the east upon the plain, and he saw, within half a mile of him, the big pine tree which had been their landmark. He rose and took Kitty by the hand. She wished to look into the crater which had swallowed her man, but he drew her away towards the west. She walked quietly, with her head hanging down.
As he approached the pine, Smith began to see other smaller timber about it, and further on, what seemed like the usual gums lining a river.
"If I'm right," he said, "we shall come to the river; we need it badly."
The ground was now more broken and not altogether sandy. Here and there he saw rocks projecting, and once they came to hard ground. They passed one or two of the ghastly funnel holes, and finally came out of the sand upon a little higher ground. Right beneath them was the silver lost river, running slowly through a flat which rose gradually to the north in the low range they had seen the day before.
As they came in sight of the stream, Kitty broke down and cried.
"Oh, Baker," she said.
But Smith knew what she meant. And he touched her arm.
"Come, Kitty."
Even as he spoke he stayed
"What is that on the bank, Kitty?" he asked.
For, two hundred yards away, there was a black spot on the white sand.
"It looks like a body," said Kitty with a shiver.
And they went slowly towards the stream, wondering what this could be. Was the dead man black or white? It might mean so much to them. It might mean further hazard, or strange, quick release from all their anxiety. But suddenly, when they came upon the level ground, Kitty loosed her hold of Smith, and ran along the river's edge like a deer. Smith stopped, and then ran, too.
Was it possible—possible?
Yes, it was possible. For Kitty had the Baker's head against her bosom, and she was crying over him like a mother.
He was still alive.
Smith dropped on his knees.
"It's half a miracle," he said. "Yes, he's alive, Kitty. Rub his hands. He dropped into the river, the sunken river. Good old Baker."
And Smith broke down himself, as the Baker opened his eyes, and then shut them, relapsing once more into unconsciousness.
They stripped off his wet clothes, and laid him in a sunny, sheltered place. Smith wiped his body with his own shirt, which he took off; and presently the Baker opened his eyes and saw them.
"Such a bally nightmare," he said. "Where's Kitty?"
And Kitty bent and kissed him. "Good old girl," he said; "what's wrong?"
"Nothing, nothing," cried Smith cheerfully; "we're out of it all now."
"Ah!" said the Baker, "I remember."
He sat up, and, as real consciousness came back, memory returned, too, and he shivered. A strange, wan, pinched look was on his face. He looked a worn, broken man, and much, much older. From that hour his hair rapidly whitened. But he was quite sane.
"Do you feel all right now?" asked Smith.
"Will I ever feel right?" asked the Baker. "But I feels 'ungry, and I suppose that's a good sign."
But there was nothing to eat. They held a bit of a council while the Baker's clothes dried.
"Tell us all about it," said Smith.
But the Baker shook his head.
"Give me a bit of time, old un," he pleaded. "Can you get any tucker, Kitty?"
She said she thought she might get a lizard. But if she did, they might have to eat it raw, for the only matches among them had been in the Baker's possession, and they were wet through. This reminded them of that, and they spread them out to dry.
"Never mind," said Smith cheerfully, "if they are done for. Mrs. Mandeville will make a fire aboriginal fashion."
And she acknowledged that she might be able to do that if she tried, though it was a man's job.
Fortunately, however, there was no necessity for her to attempt it, as they saved at least half a box of the wet matches. Their dinner was made of a particularly objectionable-looking lizard, with spurs and frills, and of a couple of bull-frogs, which Kitty caught near the river. It made their courage rise again.
"And now it's for the coast," said Smith. "D'ye think you can travel, Baker?"
"I can that," said Mandeville. "Ain't I a new man? Last night I was killed. I died, and went down into the pit."
"Tell us," said Smith.
"I'll show you where I came out," said the Baker; and they walked up stream till they came to the place whence the river issued.
There were several mouths to it along the edge of the sand desert, some large, and some small, but it was evident that it had once issued from a single big cave. The new mouths were made by slabs of rock fallen together or resting on huge lumps of sandstone, mixed with a harder conglomerate, and they were, pretty evidently, the result of the last night's destruction.
"I guess I came out 'ere," said the Baker, pointing to a triangular opening near the north bank. "For this one close to us is very shaller, and I should 'ave come ashore. But I drifted considerable after I got into the light. I'll tell you about it."
They all sat down on a sand heap to listen.
"I don't remember going to sleep, Smith—"
"No," said Smith, "you went to sleep walking."
"Anyhow, I don't remember it, and the first thing I do remember, was doing the bloomin' sliding trick again. And then Kitty 'ere collars me, and I 'eard 'er 'oller for you plain."
"I caught her by the ankles," said Smith.
"And that done me," said the Baker, "because I was tore out of 'er 'ands before I could ketch 'old myself. And then I gives a yell, and I just slid, and I thinks, 'Now you're done, Baker,' for I keeps on fallin' for h'ever. I guess it warn't reely far, but it seemed so, and then I was over'ead in water all of a sudden, and chokin' with sand and water at once. Of course, I strikes out blind, and swims easy, but near choked with the 'orrible scare. And the darkness was stinking thick, I never see the like, no, never. And I thinks little bits of you and Kitty over'ead, not able to 'elp me. And you may believe it or you may do the other thing, but I feels quite sorry for you. I remember, too, what a bloomin' coward I was over them pits. And I thinks of 'ome and the Mile End Road of a Saturday night. Then my 'and touches a rock; I tries to grab the thing, but it was smooth, and it 'ad nothing to hold by. Then I finds I was slipping past it easy. And mind you, h'all this time I made sure I was dead; I couldn't see h'other than that I'd drown. But when I finds the water was going, another bloomin' horror strikes me. I thinks, 'Now, am I going into another bloomin' water-pit?' I screams then, and my voice comes back on me, and a'most stuns me, I grabs at the rock, though what for I dunno, and just then I thinks, 'Why, to be sure, this is the blooming sunk river, and maybe it comes out.' So I lets up trying to 'old, and swims easy with the current. And I believe that I swum steady for years, for years, yes, and as I got tired I felt old. Oh, but it was bad, Smith. And just as I thinks I'm done, I sees that three-square 'ole of light, and afore I knowed, I was through it, and I seed the stars and the banks. I scrambled to it and clawed out a yard or so, and then I tumbles flat where you found me, you and Kitty 'ere; Gawd bless 'er and you."
He kissed Kitty, and held out his hand to his old chum.
They rose, and began their journey once more.
They camped that night on a clear little flat, close by the river, and again Kitty found a 'possum for them to eat.
"If it hadn't been for you, Kitty, I believe we should have died of hunger long ago," said Smith. "You're a darling."
"Ain't she just," cried the Baker proudly. "Kitty, my girl, when we gets into a town, and you 'as your 'air trimmed, and gets a good dress on you, you'll be the belle of the ball, that's what you'll be."
And he explained to her in simpler language that she was very good-looking, which was indeed true, for her figure was magnificent and her walk perfect. If her feet and hands were rather big, that was nothing to the Baker, and her carriage would prevent any male critic from being severe on minor details.
"But I'm sorry for Kitty when she gets among the so-called civilized lot," said Smith. "They will be for tearing her in pieces."
"I'll tell them she carries poison in 'er finger nails," said the Baker, "and you see they'll be civil. Besides, we'll be rich, old son, and if Kitty's rollin' in gold, she can wear skins and eat lizards if she likes."
And Kitty, who was beginning to get curious about the women of her lover's tribe, inquired about their manners and customs. The Baker got so entangled that Smith fairly screamed.
"'Old your row," said the Baker, "and you an old bushman, too. You'd bring black-fellows from ten mile, you would."
"That's true," said Smith; "I forgot."
But, then, to hear the Baker distinguishing in terms of the East End between a lady and one who was not a lady, was too exquisitely ridiculous, especially when his pupil in the difficult art of social estimation was one to whom every term he used was blank mystery. For, roughly speaking, Baker's definition of a lady amounted to asserting that a woman who could go out on Sunday in a pony-cart was one. And if she or her husband kept a public-house, was no doubt of her status. Smith refrained from upsetting any of the Baker's statements, but the notion of Kitty in Whitechapel, was not to be endured.
"You won't take Kitty to London, will you?" he asked.
"Of course," said the Baker. "D'ye think I'm ashamed of 'er? She'll bang the 'ole crowd."
"But she won't be happy, Baker," said Smith. "If you want to do her a good turn, you'll buy a big cattle station when we land the rhino."
"Do you think so?" asked the Baker.
"I'm sure of it."
"It's not a bad notion," said the Baker. "And I'll 'ave a real swell governess from H'england to teach 'er the tricks. And are you goin' 'ome, Smith?"
Smith nodded.
"I'm not going to do any more mining, old man. I'll float a company, or get a syndicate together, to come out at once, and take up the mine. And, Baker, you keep your mouth shut. If we come across any one, pitch them the beastliest yarns about the country. And don't let Kitty give us away."
"I see," said the Baker. And they turned in for the night.
They walked next day along the river bank without much difficulty, for the country was fairly free of scrub. They camped at noon, and made a dinner of smoke. For Kitty could not find them anything but a few grubs, which they were not yet hungry enough to eat. They were hungry enough, however, to lose some of their spirits. It was all very well to talk about London, as if they were out of their troubles, but were they out? They did not know in the least where they were. They might yet be a thousand miles from the mouth of the river, they might be eaten by black-fellows any day, and if they were in no immediate danger of thirst, yet hunger fairly walked with them cheek by jowl. No, the end was yet unknown.
But as Smith lay on his back a little apart from the others, it seemed to him once or twice that he heard a curious noise in the far distance. It was so faint that he could not be sure, and he did not draw the Baker's attention to it. Sufficient for the day was the hunger and trouble of it.
Still, he did hear something at intervals, and it made him uneasy. Was it like the cry of some distant and strange bird, or what was it like? It might be some black-fellow's call. He got uneasy, and, rising, walked to the river's bank, passing the Baker and Kitty, who were both asleep in the shade of some ti-tree scrub, which came out on their flat.
He lay down where he could get a view of the stream, and hearing nothing, began dreaming about England, and the troubles that had sent him to the devil. He had been very weak. He wondered if any woman was worth it all? He decided that the Carrie of his dreams was worth it, and fell asleep.
He woke half an hour later with a strange sound yet ringing in his ears, and as he awoke, he looked across the river, and saw a party of black-fellows running as if for their lives. They were not coming their way, and in any case, the river was between them, so he lay still and watched. As the aboriginals ran, and disappeared in the thicker bush, he heard a peculiar and strange throbbing.
What could it be? He turned to call the Baker, but as he turned his head, there was a tremendous whistling scream, which echoed through the bush, and woke the others for him. They came running.
"What is it?" said the Baker, as Kitty clung to him.
And Smith tried to speak, but could not. He pointed down the river, A steamer was coming round the point! This was then their deliverance, and the very seal upon his luck.
"What is it?" cried Kitty. "Can you kill it, Baker?"
But he took her in his arms, and hugged her till she cried out.
"It's all right, Kitty," he said; "it's only a white man's fire canoe. Don't be scared."
And pulling out his revolver, he fired it into the air, dancing like a mad-man.
In twenty minutes, Smith, the Baker, and Mrs. Mandeville were on an exploration steamer which had come from King's Sound, and had tried their river.
They were received as if they had risen from the dead, for an account of their probable loss had been published in all the colonial papers. Smith found he knew the engineer, and in five minutes they were seated in the stuffy little cabin drinking bottled beer. Kitty, who was the admiration of the whole crew, refused it in terror. But she was glad to eat what they gave her.
"Where did you pick her up?" asked the captain.
"It's a long story," said Smith, and he gave them a rough outline of their adventures.
"And no other luck?" he asked.
"No," said Smith, "and there's no need to go any further. It's not navigable for more than thirty miles now."
He told them the story of the river sink.
Then the gentleman who was the scientific head of the small party, tried to interrogate Kitty. She shook her head, and referred him to the Baker, who spun him a yarn that got into print, and was universally and most rightfully disbelieved. For the Baker considered that the real yarn was Smith's, and that Smith's injunction to keep the gold dark was a sort of general order to mislead every one in every possible way.
The expedition returned to the Sound in about a fortnight, and Smith raised enough money to take them south, and to carry him to England on his errand of finance. But before he went he saw Kitty dressed in the garments usually affected by the women of the tribe to which her husband belonged. For the Baker considered it his duty to marry her, and he did so, in spite of Kitty's violent remonstrances.
The ceremony, which was witnessed by a larger crowd than had ever gathered together on a similar occasion in the whole history of Western Australia, affected her nerves worse than the desert of pits, and to this day she cannot understand why it was necessary, or what good it did her or those who saw it. Among the crowd were Tom the water-carrier and Hicks.
It is possible that Smith's, or rather Archibald Gore's, wife may have explained the meaning of the ceremony to her. For, two months after Smith left for England, the Baker received a cable from him:
"Syndicate formed; am coming out with wife. Sailing to-day."
"Smith's coming out, Kitty," said the Baker, when he received it.
"I'm glad," cried Kitty.
"He's got a wife, too," said the Baker. "I suppose it's bound to 'appen to a man if 'e only lives long enough."
"Yes," said Kitty; "and will she like me?"
The Baker looked at her indignantly.
"If she don't, she ought to come through what we went through, old girl. And 'ave you alongside to show 'er what's what."
For the Baker was firmly convinced that Mrs. Mandeville, in spite of some eccentricities, was absolutely the best woman in the world. And what she did not know about civilisation was compensated for by what she knew of the bush. When he got that governess out, he had great hopes of his wife's taking a prominent position in society.
THE END.
Printed by Cowan & Co., Limited, Perth.