They headed the creek, crossed out through the grass paddocks, where the dairy cows were grazing, skirted the maize and sugar-cane patches until they arrived at the last farm opposite the island. Then Tom stopped.
“Whose place is this?” asked Dave.
“Ole M’Dermid’s,” replied Tom. “I say, can you see any light in the house?”
“No,” replied Dave. “I reckon they must ’a’ turned in.”
“Dave,” mused Tom, pulling little splinters off the top rail of the fence on which he was leaning, “I wonder if any of them watermelons of M’Dermid’s is ripe?”
“I dunno,” responded Dave. “I wonder if they are?”
“Suppose we go into the maize patch and see?” suggested Tom.
“It ain’t right,” began Dave doubtfully, “is it?”
“Not under or’nery circumstances,” replied Tom, “but when a cove’s chucked out of house and home an’druv to turn pirate, he’s got to look out and get tucker wherever he can. I reckon it ain’t right for a cove to thieve when he’s got a good home and plenty of tucker, but when a cove’s druv an’ he’s piratin’ round on a dark night on his own, I reckon it ain’t no harm to take a bloomin’ melon from a stingy ole Scotchman that’s got more’n he can use, do you?”
“I dunno,” said Dave. “I don’t reckon it ought to be.”
“Well, we’ll chance it,” said Tom, putting one leg through the fence. “You stay there and keep ‘nit.’”
Dave waited patiently at the fence until Tom came back with a huge melon on his shoulder.
“We’ll take it acrost to our island,” he explained. “It ain’t safe to do it in here. You don’t want never when you’re out on a pirate cruise to leave no more evidence be’ind you than you can help.”
“Is it ripe?” queried Dave.
“Ripe!” replied Tom. “You bet it’s ripe. I put my knee on it ’an squoze, and you could ’ear it go kerrack inside.”
The bank opposite the island on that side was steep and high, so Tom went first and Dave lowered the melon down to him, and he put it in the water and showed Dave how it would float.
“You tie my clothes on your back along with yours, an’ I’ll shove her ahead of me,” he explained.
It was a warm tropic night, and they found the short swim across freshening and pleasant; so much so that, when they landed the melon and their clothes, they slid into the water again and stayed a while floating andkicking about. Tom said it was no use trying to work their way through the scrub until daylight, so they found a little clear grassy place after a lot of trouble, and Dave got out his pocket knife.
They dug into the red heart of the melon and ate as much as they could, carefully hurling the rind into the water as it occurred, because, as Tom said, solemnly, “Dead melons tell no tales.”
At last, tired out, they unrolled their tent, spread it on the grass, and lay down with a ragged blanket over them which Dave had “borrowed” from home.
Tom went to sleep at once and snored; but Dave, who was younger and less hardened, lay there thinking.
The more Tom snored the more restless and lonesome Dave got.
There is nothing so trying as hearing another person snoring when you cannot get to sleep yourself.
Two or three times Dave asked his companion softly if he was asleep, and got no definite reply.
A dog howled away up on the flat somewhere, and another dog answered him from across the river. Then they organised a sort of mournful canine conversation at long range, and woke a third dog, who took up the thread of the discourse. Now and again the sharp sound of a Texas bell was carried across from the hills, where some timber getters were camped.
Some unknown danger caused a mob of wild ducks, which had come in from the lagoons at nightfall, to get up quacking loudly.
Dave heard the burr of their wings as they flew over his head.
He could not stand it any longer. He reached down and pinched Tom on the calf of the leg.
Tom jumped clean out of the blanket.
“What’s up?” asked Dave, pretending to wake out of a sound sleep. “What’s the matter with you?”
“Light a match!” yelled Tom. “I’m bit!”
“Bit!” cried the other boy. “What bit yer?”
“A snake!” shouted Tom. “A black snake! I felt him!”
“Where did he bite you?” demanded Dave, apparently much concerned.
“He’s bit me on the leg,” groaned Tom, in a voice of awful apprehension. “Strike a match, quick!”
“It couldn’t a been a snake,” cried Dave, trying hard to keep solemn.
“It was, I tell you,” insisted Tom. “This island is crowded with snakes. I felt ’im cold again me leg; gimme the match; gimme the match, quick!”
“It wuz a black snake,” he mourned, “an’ I’ll die, I know I will.”
“There’s no teeth marks on yours leg,” said Dave, holding a lighted match while Tom made a fevered examination. “You must a been dreamin’.”
“I wasn’t dreamin’,” protested Tom. “I felt something bite me. See,” he said in a voice of hollow despair, “here’s a mark on me leg—a red mark!”
“That ain’t mo snake bite,” said Dave. “It’s a moskiteer.”
“It’s a snake bite!” insisted Tom. “You’ll have to cut the bit outer me leg and tie a string round, and swim across an’ get a doctor!!”
Dave exploded in ribald laughter.
“You’re a dam scoundrel, Dave Gibson!” shouted Tom, hysterically. “I tell you I am bit by a snake!”
“No you ain’t,” chortled Dave, “No you ain’t.”
“I am!” cried Tom. “I tell you I am, an’ if I die I’ll come and haunt you, you brute!”
“Oh! oh!” roared Dave. “Oh—ow—oh!”
“Get up,” shouted Tom, kicking his mate furiously in the ribs. “Get up an’ tie some string round me! Get up an’ cut the bit out, I tell you! Good God, Dave Gibson, ain’t you got any sense or feeling or understandin’?”
“Ah, Oh!” cried Dave. “Let up, you fool! You ain’t bit; I only pinched yer!”
Tom rubbed his leg.
“Pinched me!” he said, in a suppressed voice. “What did you do that for?”
Dave noticed the threat in Tom’s voice.
“I thought I heard a noise in the bush,” he explained.
“You thought you heard a nise!” repeated Tom, with great scorn. “I thought you wuz asleep!”
“So I was; but I woke up. Don’t you hit me, Tom Pagdin, or I’ll swim back and go home.”
“Hit you!” replied Tom; “I ain’t going to hit you. I wouldn’t be bothered hittin’ you. If you don’t know no better than to act the goat wakin’ your mate up in the middle of the night with a monkey trick like that, I got nothin’ to say.”
“Well,” said Dave, apologetically, “I thought it wuz the best way to. I did hear a nise.”
“There wasn’t no nise,” replied Tom, “an’ if therehad a been, you went the right way to put the whole thing away.”
Dave said nothing.
“Gimme some blanket,” remarked Tom, disgustedly, “and lemme go to sleep. I’m sorry I let you come now!”
Tom rolled himself up sulkily, and Dave lay and thought a while longer, and then fell asleep.
The sun was just rising when Tom woke again, rather cold and stiff.
He sat up and dug his elbow into Dave’s ribs.
“It’s daylight,” he said; “we’ll have to get into the scrub before anybody sees us.”
They rolled up the tent and blanket hurriedly, lifted their swags, and made for cover, Tom leading the way, stooping every now and then beneath the brambles, or pausing to disentangle himself from the insidious clutch of the lawyer vines, which reached out their long tentacles armed with strong, curved teeth to stay him.
Very often the boys had to crawl on their hands and knees under the dense, scrubby growths for yards.
At length they reached the centre of the island.
They were almost under the fig-tree when Tom Pagdin stopped suddenly and caught Dave by the arm.
Dave stepped back.
“What’s the matter?” he whispered. “What do you see?”
“Ssh!” hissed Tom. “Look through the clearin’ there to the right!”
“I can’t see nothin’,” began Dave. “Yes I do; it’s a man!”
“Nick into the scrub here!” commanded Tom. “Quick! Lie down.”
The two lads crouched in the tangled growth.
“Ouch!” exclaimed Dave, as a lawyer vine caught him. “Me ear is tore off!”
“Shut up you howlin’ idiot,” murmured Tom, angrily. “You’ll get us found out afore you’re done.”
“What is it?” queried Dave, carefully hitching his lacerated ear from the persistent grip of the lawyer.
“How do I know?” queried Tomsotto voce. “I ain’t a clairvoyant; it might be a opposition pirate for all I know.”
“Tom,” asked Dave, after a pause, “do you think there is any pirates now—real pirates, I mean?”
“Of course,” replied Tom, “and if there ain’t there ought to be. We’re going to be pirates, anyhow!”
“But,” persisted Dave, “didn’t pirates used to get hung?”
“Sometimes,” returned the other boy, “when they wuz ketched; but they mostly got killed after they’d had an all right rippin’ round an’ plunderin’ an’ buryin’ great piles of sovereigns an’ bars of gold in caves on desert islands. Any pirate that thought anything of ’imself as a pirate would go down into the powder magazine when he found it was all up an’ fire ’is pistol into the powder, an’ blow ’imself up with ’is pirate crew.”
“Was the first mute blowed up too?” asked Dave, anxiously.
“Of course!” replied Tom, “if he wasn’t killed on the fore-’atch furst.”
“What’s the fore-’atch?”
“Why, the front part of the ship, Dave Gibson; you don’t know anything. I say, what is that cove doin’?”
“He’s buryin’ something,” replied Dave.
“Buryin’ somethin’!” murmured Tom, raising himself on his elbows to get a better view. “By gosh it must be treasure out of a plundered ship. It is too, a whole barrel of it! No, he ain’t buryin’ it; he’s just throwin’ bushes an’ leaves over it. By gosh!” he continued, breathlessly, “we’ve struck it rich.”
“How?” asked Dave. “How have we struck it?”
“Never mind,” replied Tom; “you leave that to me. You’ve got no more sense nor a coot!”
The man’s movements were certainly mysterious.He had apparently selected the island for the concealment of something; that the cask which he was covering with leaves and branches contained doubloons Tom Pagdin was hardly justified in concluding in the circumstances.
After he had made his plant the stranger looked round the vicinity carefully, as if taking a mental note of the position, and went away noiselessly towards the upper end of the island.
The boys kept quiet for fully half an hour; then enjoining Dave to stay where he was, Tom crept out stealthily and followed in the direction the stranger had taken. Dave lay flattened out among the dry leaves and waited. His mate re-appeared at the edge of the clearing and beckoned him across.
“Who was it?” he asked, in a suppressed voice. “What’s in the cask?”
Tom was on his knees before the barrel smelling it.
“It’s whisky!” he said, disgustedly. “I thought it was gold out of a captured galleon!”
“Whisky!” ejaculated Dave.
“Yes; somebody’s runnin’ a still round here, an’ this is the plantin’ place. I bet ’arf-a-crown somebody else will come along to-night and take it off!”
“Where’ll they take it?”
“Down the river, I suppose, to some public house. If we put ’em away to the pleece they’d be fined a hundred quid, an’ their still took an’ broke up. We’d get a reward, too!”
“Why don’t we, then?”
“Because,” said Tom, emphatically, “we ain’t informers,we’re pirates! If a poor cove is makin’ a drop of grog out of his maize on the quiet, let ’im. It ain’t no business of ours. Besides, we’d be putting ourselves away. An’, besides, if we did a thing like that we wouldn’t get no credit for it neither. They’re all in the same boat about here.”
“What’s became of the cove that hid it?” asked Dave.
“I followed his trail, all right,” replied Tom. “I never knowed about this track, either. They ain’t bin usin’ the island for a plant long, I reckon. The cove went off in a boat quiet. There’s a regular pathway wore where they been rollin’ in the casks; but it don’t take long to make a road like that.”
“He might come back?” said Dave.
“Not to-day, he won’t,” observed Tom Pagdin, sagaciously. “He just brings the stuff acrost ’ere an’ leaves it. Somebody else knows where to come, and they take it away at night. It’s a moral they don’t come in the daytime.”
“I’m as hungry as old Nick,” remarked Dave, rubbing his stomach.
“So’m I,” said Tom; “I’m as hungry as ole Nick’s mother. Let’s go an’ get a feed.”
They went back, and carried their swags in under the fig tree, and Tom, after due consideration, pronounced it safe to light a small fire to boil the billy, providing they didn’t use brushwood, because brushwood makes too much smoke, and providing, also, that they put the fire out as soon as the water was boiled.
So Dave gathered the wood, and Tom went downand filled the billy, and they made tea and brought out some cold corned meat and bread, which Dave had abstracted from the paternal safe, the paternal safe being a flour-bag split at one end and fastened up with a strip of greenhide to exclude flies, with a piece of bark in the bottom to stand the plates on.
It seemed to both youths that it was the sweetest meal they had ever had in all their lives, and after it was through they lay on the ground feeling good and brave, and Tom unfolded a plan of campaign.
“We can’t stay here no longer than to-day,” he explained. “One thing, it’s too close to home, an’ another thing, we can’t make a camp, because these fellars that has the still would be sure to see it. We got to get right down the river to-night after those other coves come back with out boat. We got to get right down far as we can before daylight. There’s lots of islands in the river where we can make a headquarters camp, an’ if we don’t get an island we kin get in the bush on the mainland. There’s all sorts o’ bays an’ creeks an’ lagoons, an’ we’ll explore ’em all. We’ll go digging for buried treasure, an’ lookin’ fer gold, an’ we’ll have an all-right time. But, first of all, we got to organise things. You got to organise things if you want to make this piratin’ game pay.”
“How are we goin’ to do it?” queried Dave, who was developing a strong taste for pirating.
“Well,” said Tom, “I’ll look after the tucker. I’ll fossick for the grub an’ you’ll cook it.
“You got to learn to bake damper,” continued Tom, “and to bile fowls an’ fry eggs. That’s about the mostof the cookin’ there’s goin’ to be, for a while, anyway. I reckon if we get an island we’ll borry a couple of settin’ hens an’ two or three clutches of eggs, an’ raise chickens of our own.”
Meanwhile they went and turned over logs to get black crickets for bait. Then with the crickets in an empty tin, with a perforated lid, which formed part of Tom’s kit, they tried their luck for perch, and were rewarded.
As Dave was only a green hand, Tom showed him how to cook the perch by digging a hole and filling it with hot ashes, covering them in whole and unsealed. When the fish were cooked they “peeled” them, and took the insides out, and they went well. The pigeon had been duly plucked and roasted on a very small fire, because it was not safe to light a big fire on account of the smoke; and the two boys ate their meal with an additional relish—a relish which is known only to the true hunter, and they lay down and slept.
Dusk came down quickly, and our two juvenile adventurers awoke in the warm stillness of evening wondering where they were.
“By gosh!” exclaimed Tom Pagdin, sitting up, “it’s comin’ night an’ it smells like a storm.”
“We’ve slept too long,” remarked Dave, anxiously examining the small patch of red-looking sky visible through the trees. “We oughter set our watches.”
“It don’t matter for this time,” returned Tom, “because we ain’t likely to get too much sleep to-night. We got a lot of adventures to go through. I reckon our real adventures is only just beginnin’.”
“I’m as hungry as old Nick,” remarked Dave.
“So am I,” replied Tom. “We’ll have a feed of cold meat an’ bread an’ go.”
They refilled themselves, and then, before it was quite dark, rolled up their bundles and took them across to the edge of the island.
“Now,” said Tom, “we got to swim across and go back and plant in the scrub an’ watch for them fellars that are going to borry our boat to-night.”
The water was dark and felt colder. Both boys shivered at the brink. They had taken off their clothes and tied them carefully on their shoulders to keep dry; but when they got over the river their clothes were more or less wet, and they shivered again getting into them. Just as they were dressed the first flash of lightning lit the sky, bringing out the ice palaces and snow battlements in vivid detail.
“Hist!” exclaimed Tom. “Count!”
“One, two, three,”—he went up to sixty.
Then a low muffled sound of thunder and the leaves of the trees rustled at a passing breath of wind.
“It’s a long way off yet,” said the elder lad, “an’ it mightn’t come this way either. I ain’t frightened of thunder, are you?”
“No,” replied Dave, “thunder can’t do you no harm unless there’s lookin’ glasses about, but it’s gettin’ awful dark.”
“Come on,” cried Tom, “we’ll go up an’ hide in the lantana. We won’t get wet there, even if it does rain.”
By the time they reached the creek where the boat was moored it was pitch dark, excepting now and thenwhen a great flash of lightning lit up the whole jungle in weird bluish light, and made everything visible for a short second, even to the water shadows of overhanging trees.
Tom and Dave crept in under the thicket and hid waiting.
It seemed hours and hours.
The lightning flashes became more frequent and wicked; the thunder grew louder.
“They won’t come to-night, I don’t think,” whispered Tom in Dave’s ear. “We’ll wait a while longer an’ then cut across to old Dobie’s barn an’ shelter till the storm goes over.”
But even as he spoke, in the lull between two thunder growls, they heard a low whistle, followed by the noise of someone forcing a way through the scrub.
A voice, which sounded hollow and unearthly in the dense gloom, called out:
“This way; keep to your right a bit.”
“God-dam!” came the response, followed by some choice curses in French.
“Keep to your right,” repeated the first voice. “The boat’s just about here.”
“Ze devil,” replied the other voice, “I am torn wis my clothes! Oui and wis also ze arm an’ ze leg!”
“You’re all right now,” said the first man speaking from the water side. “Hold on till it lightens again. I can’t see the log, it’s that dark.”
The foreigner stumbled down alongside his companion, copiously swearing.
It seemed to the two boys that the sound of thatunknown tongue added a further mysterious terror to the drama which was enacting.
Tom was clutching Dave feverishly by the arm, and Dave was trying hard not to breathe. A great flash of lightning suddenly lit up the whole scene, and they saw the faces of both men distinctly. Then before the thunder came they heard one announce to the other that the boat was all right.
Tom and Dave, listening and watching from their cover, heard the sound of feet on the thwarts, heard the shipping of oars in the rowlocks, and the murmur of voices dying out in the stream as the paddles dipped further and further away in the night.
“They’ve gone!” said Tom, in a hollow whisper.
“My leg’s asleep,” remarked Dave, sitting up and rubbing it.
“So’s both mine,” observed Tom, following suit. “I’ve got cramps all over me.”
“What are we going to do now?” asked Dave. “The storm’s comin’!”
“Can’t be helped,” exclaimed Tom. “When you’re out piratin’ you’ve got to put up with storms. Pirates ain’t supposed to take any notice of ’em. We’ll wait till them two fellars come back, storm or no storm.”
It was lonesome and dark. An impressive, significant stillness hung over all Nature. The night animals and birds, which ordinarily filled the bush with noises, seemed to have retired to their lairs and nests. No morepoke called, and no scrub-wallaby hopped through the undergrowth.
After each lightning flash a shudder ran through the forest, the branches murmured softly, and the leaves sighed.
Tom thought the matter over, and calculated.
“It’ll take them an hour and-a-half,” he said, “to get down where they want to go. They won’t be more than half-an-hour breakin’ into the bank and openin’ the safe. Then they’ll come up with the tide in an hour. They’ll be in a bigger hurry to get away than they were to go down. That will fetch ’em home some time before twelve o’clock. Je-rusalem!”
“I say,” asked Dave, as the storm began to abate, “do you believe in ghosts?”
“I dunno,” said Tom, peering round the barn; “did you see anything?”
“No,” replied Dave, looking round also; “did you?”
“No; I thought you did. I’ve heard a good deal about ghosts, though. There used to be a ghost of a woman up at Mackenzie’s Crossing. She used to stand just by the fence goin’ down to the punt. I heard the old man and Jock Mackenzie talking about it. Lots o’ people seen her. Jock Mackenzie he seen her ’imself one night comin’ home from the pub, an’ he swore off the liquor, an’ never teched a drop; an’ twelve months to the day he seen the woman’s ghost he died.”
Dave shuddered.
“That woman must a’ been murdered,” he said.
“Yes,” replied Tom, “I never heard of a ghost that hadn’t been murdered. They never ketched the man that did it yet, but he will be ketched, because murder’s got to come out.”
“I say,” queried Dave, presently, “suppose these coves that’s goin’ down the river to-night murders somebody?”
“Well, suppose they do?” repeated Tom.
“It ’ud be awful wouldn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Tom, “it would; but it ’ud be a throw-in for us.”
“I don’t see how it would.”
“No, you don’t, because you got no sense, but I do. I reckon there’d be a big reward, and we’d git the money.”
“But,” asked Dave, after consideration, “they might say we oughter gone an’ told about it when we heard ’em plannin’ to do it.”
“Who’s to know we ’eard ’em plannin’?” asked Tom.“Look ’ere, Dave Gibson, it strikes me you better leave things to me, an’ keep your mouth shut, or you’ll put the whole game away. You know as much about this detective an’ pirate business as a dog knows about Sunday.”
“Well,” retorted Dave, “I ain’t frightened, or I wouldn’t be ’ere.”
“No,” replied Tom, magnanimously. “I give you credit for what you deserve, but an ounce o’ discretion’s worth a pound o’ taller, as I heard the old schoolmaster say, an’ you got no discretion to speak of.”
“Anyhow,” replied Dave, in self-defence, “you’re older than me twelve months; but I ain’t funked any more than you ’ave.”
“Ain’t I givin’ you credit for it?” said Tom. “I say, the storm’s breakin.’ It’s gettin’ quite bright out under.”
The rain fell less heavily, the thunder was not so loud and frequent. Gradually the heavy pall of black cloud lifted, and the stars shone out brightly beneath.
As soon as it cleared up and the drip was finished, the lads shinned down the pole, and went back and hid in the lantana again.
Tom said they’d go watches. Dave could have first watch.
It might have been near midnight when Dave woke out of a doze to hear the sound of oars coming up stream.
He put his hand over Tom’s mouth and pinched him.
Tom let out a muffled roar.
He had been fast asleep and dreaming.
“Hist!” exclaimed Dave. “They’re comin’.”
“I wasn’t frightened,” whispered Tom, in explanation, “but I thought you was the devil. Yes, that’s them. They’re close in too.”
The boat came in quietly.
The men landed. One of them struck a match and lit a lantern. The light flickered round the bushes, and Tom and Dave by a spontaneous impulse tried to make themselves invisible.
“Give us the lantern. Frenchy,” said the man who was holding the match, “and let us have a look at the spoil.”
The other man lifted a heavy bag out of the boat.
“Sovereigns!” cried the first speaker; “must be four or five hundred of ’em.”
Tom’s heart thumped against his ribs.
“Vere shall ve cache our riches?” asked the foreigner. “Eet ees not for long, but ve must get ze place of safety.Oui.”
“That’s so,” replied the other. “Along the bank in the scrub ’ere’s as good as anywhere. We don’t want to go too far in. We’ll leave the boat just as we found her.”
They stumbled along the edge.
The foreigner carried the bag, and the other man went ahead with the lantern.
“It ain’t good to hang round any longer than we can help,” he said, presently. “Somebody might see the light. There’s a myrtle with a hollow butt about here somewhere. Let’s see! Yes, here it is. This is good enough for now.”
“Oui, zat vill do,” agreed the Frenchman.
Tom and Dave, looking through the bushes, saw two shadowy figures apparently scraping at the foot of a tree!
“They’re hidin’ the money there,” whispered Tom in Dave’s ear.
He could hardly speak for excitement.
Dave was trembling like a top-heavy jelly in the hands of a hurrying waiter.
“What will we do if they see us?” he asked.
“Run,” replied Tom. “Them coves wouldn’t think twice about cuttin’ our throats. The German cove’s got a knife in ’is belt. Keep quiet!”
The admonition was unnecessary. Dave was devoting all his energies to keeping quiet. His whole soul was in it.
The robbers took some time to hide their booty. Tom and Dave could see that the foreigner was holding the lantern against the trunk of the tree, shading it with his body on one side and concentrating the light as much as possible on his companion, who knelt down, and was carefully covering the bag over with loose soil and leaves.
The faces of both men were towards them.
Suddenly they saw the Frenchman, acting, perhaps, on some swift murderous impulse, draw his knife and plunge it to the hilt in his accomplice’s back!
The latter, uttering a choking cry, fell forward. The light went out. The bush was in darkness. The boys clung to each other in a convulsion of fear and horror!
The Murder.Tom Pagdin, Pirate.Page 56.
The Murder.
Tom Pagdin, Pirate.Page 56.
A murder had been committed right before their eyes! A human being had been stricken down, knifed, killed, almost at their feet.
Either boy felt that he could have screamed aloud, but the icy hand of fear was on the heart of each.
They dared not utter a word, but held one another, trembling, palpitating, sick with dread.
Then they heard other sounds. A groan, as if a dying man in agony, a muffled voice—which Tom described after as if someone had thrust a knife into cold meat—the noise of somebody dragging a heavy body along the ground, and then an ominous splash in the water, which sent their blood cold.
After this came an interval seemingly centuries in length. The murderer was groping for the lantern. He found and lit it, and holding it close to the ground, began scraping over the loose soil about the tree with his foot hurriedly—as Tom told Dave afterwards to cover up the blood.
Something, a wild animal, stirred in the bush. The assassin blew out the light again quickly. The stillness which followed was almost beyond their endurance.
They were impulsed to get up and run for their lives, but their fears held them chained, glued to the spot.
Having waited long enough to assure himself that there was nobody about, the murderer crept to the water’s edge. They could hear him softly washing his hands, and then at last he sneaked away in the thick darkness.
The younger boy, overwrought and almost crazed with fear, commenced sobbing bitterly.
Tom held him in his arms and tried to soothe him in hollow whispers.
His own voice was broken and hysterical.
“Let us go home and tell them,” sobbed Dave. “I wish I hadn’t come. Oh! I wish I hadn’t ever gone piratin’, I do! It’s awful!”
Tom thought a while.
“No,” he muttered. “We better not do that; not yet.”
“Why?” asked Dave. “Why not? I will if you don’t!”
“You’d better not,” said Tom.
“I will!” protested Dave. “I will!”
“If we do,” said Tom, grimly, “that cove will kill us both. Besides we mightn’t be believed. An’ besides they might say we did it ourselves.”
“Us?” said Dave, a new horror overtaking him.
“Yes,” replied Tom; “an’ it’s ten to one we’d both get ’ung.”
“But we never did it,” cried Dave.
“No,” responded Tom; “but there’s many an innocent cove gets ’ung.”
“What’ll we do?” sobbed Dave. “It’s too horrible for anything. What will we do?”
“I dunno,” replied Tom, in a shaky voice. “I never reckoned on anything like this. I wouldn’t a’ come either if I had. I’d rather be larruped!”
“So would I,” moaned Dave, “I’d rather be whaled every day an’ twice on Sunday all me life. I would.”
“Lemme think a minute,” said Tom. “I’m all froze.”
“I’m sick and froze,” groaned Dave.
“So’m I. I saw the knife. Did you?”
“Yes,” sobbed Dave. “I saw him draw it out an’ stick it into ’im.”
“Yes,” shuddered Tom, “an’ I saw him fall on his face.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Dave. “Did you ’ear ’im?”
“Don’t!” said Tom, “I can ’ear ’im now. Hist! what’s that?”
Dave lay still and shivering.
He was too terrified to speak.
“It’s only a paddymelon,” remarked Tom, presently.
“Do you think he’s gone?” whispered Dave.
“Yes,” replied Tom. “I heard him go. He wouldn’t stay round after doin’ a thing like that.”
“Do you think the other cove’s dead?”
“Yes,” replied Tom. “He must be. He killed him first and drowned him afterwards.”
“Good Gawd!” said Dave.
“Look ’ere,” observed the elder lad, after a pause. “The best thing we kin do is to get in the boat and pull down the river an’ get our swags, an’ go an’ hide for a while, anyhow.”
“But,” argued Dave, ruefully, “if we’re ketched we might get ’ung just the same.”
“We musn’t get ketched,” said Tom, sententiously.
“It’s this way,” he went on, after further consideration. “Murder will out. That German must be found out sooner or later. Suppose you an’ me went up an’ told on ’im now. He might a’ got away before we told. Or even if ’e didn’t, ’e might be arrested an’break out of gaol. Then he’d lay for us sure. He’d know he wuz goin’ to get ’ung any’ow, an’ it wouldn’t matter to ’im killin’ a couple more. He wouldn’t think twice about stickin’ ’is knife into you and me. He’d lay for you when you were roundin’ up the cows one night and out your throat—like a bull calf——”
“Don’t!” interrupted Dave, “Don’t!”
“Well, ’e would,” persisted Tom. “An’ he’d cut mine too. I don’t want to be round with my throat cut, Dave Gibson, if you do.”
“I don’t,” protested Dave, “I don’t.”
“Vary well,” continued Tom. “The only thing to do is to go down the river and ’ide till we see what turns up. Let us go an’ get the boat.”
Tom stood up shakily, and Dave trembling in every limb, followed suit.
They crawled rather than walked to the edge of the creek. Tom drew the boat up to the log as noiselessly as possible and helped his mate in.
Poor Dave was likely to faint at any moment.
“I wish I never came piratin’,” he sobbed.
“Piratin’s right enough,” muttered Tom, sticking an oar in the mud and pushing out, “but these Germans is ruinin’ the country. I’ve heard the old man say that often when he wuz talkin’ politics on the punt, but I never see the meanin’ of it afore—not the true meanin’.”
They slipped out into the middle of the stream and breathed a trifle easier.
The sky was clear, and white with stars. They could hardly realize what had happened. It seemed likea dream—a horrible nightmare, or some tragedy that had been played on the stage.
The boys pulled hard until they got abreast of the island. Each stroke which took them further away from the scene of that sudden horror lifted a weight off their minds.
It was almost daylight when they got there. But a thick fog came up with the dawn, and hidden under its friendly canopy they rowed round until they struck a little reedy bay, where they could not be seen from the opposite bank or noticed by chance steamers. Tired out, they ran in here, and, getting their tent unrolled, spread it over them in the boat, and stretching themselves out on the bottom, with a seat for a pillow, fell fast asleep.
The dreams of the adventurers were troubled. Their minds went over the recent tragedy, of which they had been the unwilling and unexpected witnesses.
They heard again the low groaning of the departing storm, saw the wicked glare of the sheet lightning, the darkness, and the deed.
At times either lad would start up and murmur in his sleep; but they were young and healthy, and it was not till the sun rose high overhead that they awoke.
The morning was cool, bright, and lovely.
Tom suggested a swim before breakfast.
They stripped and dived out of the boat, and paddled round, and then they went ashore and boiled their billy in the scrub, and had breakfast.
Dave had commandeered two or three bottles of home-made jam from the farm cupboard, and they had enough bread to do for the meal.
After breakfast, Tom called a council.
“Look ’ere,” he began, “I reckon we better go an’explore this island for a start. If she turns out all right we’ll stay on, and make it our headquarters till we see what happens.”
Tom, on a good sleep and a well-filled stomach, was already forgetting the tragic event of the night before. Not so Dave, who was younger, and probably less hardened.
“But,” he argued, “what about the people that’ll be goin’ up an’ down the river lookin’ for the cove that did the murder?”
“Nobody knows he did a murder except you an’ me,” responded Tom, “an’ we ain’t goin’ to tell till the trial. Then we’ll come up in court an’ be put in the box, an’ swore.”
“What box?” asked Dave. “Do they put you in a box?”
“Of course; the witness-box, you coot.”
“I don’t want to go in no box,” replied Dave. “What’s it like?”
“Something like a hen-coop,” exclaimed Tom, cheerfully inventing. “You got to put your tongue out through a hole and kiss the book.”
“What book?” asked Dave, innocently.
“Why, the Bible, you fool.”
“What do they make you kiss it for?”
“Why, to take an oath, you ass.”
“What is an oath?” asked Dave.
“Callin’ God to strike you dead if you tell a lie,” exclaimed Tom reverently. “You don’t want to tell no lies when you’re on your oath. There was a cove in Bourke who was struck dead in the witness-box.”
“Where’s Bourke?” queried Dave, who happened to be in a more than usually inquiring mood that morning.
“Bourke,” replied Tom, scratching his head; “Bourke! Oh, Bourke’s away up in Northern Queensland somewhere. It’s so ’ot all you’ve got to do is to put your eggs in a pan, and lay the pan out in the sun to fry ’em.”
Both boys were silent for a while thinking. Then Dave spoke.
“Don’t you think we better give up piratin’?” he asked.
“What for?” queried Tom.
“Well it don’t look lucky!”
“Of course, it ain’t lucky. It never is lucky; not at first; but after you get properly goin’ it’s all right. When we get a proper pirate ship an’ a crew——”
“Crew!” exclaimed Dave, “where we goin’ to get ’em?”.
“You leave that to me. Dave Gibson; I’m runnin’ this show; you just got to do what you’re told, and don’t you talk no more about goin’ an’ giving’ evidence in this murder case. When the time’s ripe I’ll be there, and you kin come along an’ back me up.”
“I’ll back you up,” replied Dave, promptly. “I’ll say anything you say; I’ll swear it, too.”
“Y’see, it’s this way,” Tom explained confidentially, “we might get into a bit o’ trouble ourselves about the boat an’ one thing an’ another, an’ if we was to come forward jist at the right time an’ tell the true story about the murder, we’d be let off, an’ maybe get areward, too, or get a billet in the Government, or somethin’.”
“What’ll they do to the cove?” asked Dave.
“Hang ’im!” replied Tom, emphatically. “By gosh, if I thought they wouldn’t, you wouldn’t catch me goin’ an puttin’ ’im away!”
“Why?”
“Why, ain’t you got no sense at all? Suppose he got off. D’you think it ’ud be safe for you an’ me to stay round anywhere?”
“No,” said Dave, candidly, “I’ll be hanged if I do!”
“Look ’ere,” said Tom, “we better not talk about this any more till we got to.”
“How’s that?” asked the junior pirate. “Why bettern’t we?”
“Because,” replied Tom, looking into the scrub, “trees ’as got ears. We’ll have to take a oath not to do it.”
“We ain’t got no Bible,” ventured Dave.
“Pirates don’t always take a oath on the Bible,” explained Tom. “They take some oaths, ’specially oaths like this, on a knife.”
Dave turned a trifle pale.
“It sounds horrid,” he said.
“So it is,” observed Tom, “but it’s got to be done. ’Ere, you take the knife an’ ’old the pint towards me an’ swear.”
Dave did as he was told, repeating an elaborate formula, which Tom made up specially for the occasion.
Then Tom held the point of the knife to Dave, pressed it against where he judged his mate’s heart to be, and swore in the same way.
“Now,” he resumed, when the vow of secrecy had been thus solemnly taken, “that’s done, an’ it can’t be undone, an’ we better go now an’ have a look round the island.”
“We better look out an’ get some tucker for dinner, too,” ventured Dave. “There’s nothing left except about three inches of crust an’ an inch an’ a half o’ jam.”
“Well, we’ll whack that now, an’ start fair,” suggested Tom. “I’m as ’ungry as ole Nick.”
“So am I,” agreed Dave. “I’m ’ungry all the time.”
It was true. The free, open-air, healthy life, the exercise and the freshness acted like a tonic. They ate like cormorants, and felt like trained pugilists.
Care cannot dwell long at the door of youth and health, and the wild and gloomy impressions of the previous night faded rapidly from their minds, especially as each was under a vow to his fellow not to mention the subject.
They took their tomahawk and bows and arrows and set out.
The island was nearly a quarter of a mile wide, and perhaps something more than half a mile long. Neither Dave nor Tom had ever been ashore there before, so they proceeded cautiously, arranging as they went along that in case they were surprised by any casual resident or visitor they should separate and make back to camp by different routes.
This scheme, Tom Pagdin announced, would be sure to put possible pursuers off the track.
“If anybody’s lookin’ for us,” he answered, “they’llreckon on findin’ us both together, an’ if they come acrost only one set o’ tracks they’ll reckon it’s somebody else.”
Dave did not question the logic of this argument. He had confidence in his senior.
They might have gone about five hundred yards when both boys stopped.
Before them, plainly visible through the scrub, was a clearing, in the centre of which stood a deserted hut.
To make sure that there was nobody hiding there, Tom made a detour and crawled up through the long “bladey” grass till he got quite close.
After a careful survey he stood up and beckoned Dave to come on.
“Some cove’s been doin’ a bit of cultivating an’ give it up,” he explained.
“It’s an all-right slab house,” cried Dave, exploring round. “Got a chimney in the kitchen an’ a old Colonial oven, set on bricks. It’s an all-right oven only the bottom’s burned out of it.”
“Yes,” said Tom, “an’ there’s two good rooms; they’ve left a table an’ a couple of stools. I say, we’ll take possession of this place.”
“Hooray!” cried Dave, capering round the earthen floor. “I’m on.”
“I reckon it’s all right,” said Tom, enthusiastically. “We’ll call it the Pirates’ Camp. I reckon we could stay ’ere twelve months an’ nobody would find us.”
“There ought to be a well round somewhere,” remarked Dave, “that we can get fresh water out of.”
“Let’s go an’ see,” shouted Tom. “This is all-right.I reckon if we ’ad a gun we could use the cracks in the slabs for loop holes and stand a siege.”
“What’s a siege?” asked Dave, whose education had been neglected.
“It’s this way,” explained Tom, sitting on the kitchen table (which consisted of the top of a packing case nailed at the corners to four stakes driven into the ground), “a siege is like this. When one side takes up a position—”
Just here the stakes,—which had rotted in the ground, gave out, and Tom and the top of the table came down together.
Dave laughed. Not just ordinary laughter, either. He sat down on the floor on his hams holding his sides and laughing, and then he laid on his back and kicked his heels over his head and laughed, until Tom, discovering that he had broken no bones, got up and kicked him.
And even then, every time he thought about Tom clawing the air, and the comical look of surprise on face, he laughed again.
They went round the site of the deserted homestead exploring. There was a well about twenty yards from the back of the kitchen, and they got a tin and attached it to a piece of rusty fence wire and dipped up some of the water, and it looked clear and tasted good.
“There’s plenty of wood an’ water,” said Dave, “an’ them’s the main things.”
“Yes,” said Tom, “an’ I spot a lemon tree with a lot of lemons on it.”
Dave spotted it at the same time, and they had a race for it.
There were plenty of lemons and they filled their pockets and chewed.
Anything in the shape of fruit is edible to the Australian bush boy. Tom and Dave thought the lemons sweet until they discovered an orange tree soon afterwards.
They sat under the orange, and filled themselves.
The original resident had evidently gone in for planting an orchard. There were guavas and ripe mangoes, which had run wild, some banana trees, and a lot of pineapple plants in bearing.
They found a charm about the exploration which kept them pleasured all the afternoon.
Their delight was complete when they discovered that they could bring the boat right up a little creek nearly abreast of the hut, and within less than a hundred yards of it.
Tom declared that the place had been just made for a pirates’ camp. He said he had no doubt that it was really occupied by pirates in days gone by. It was pirates who had planted the orchard and dug the well, and when he came to think of it, it stood to reason that they had left those cracks in the slabs purposely, so they could stick their muskets out through them and shoot when they were attacked. He even found traces of gunpowder on the walls and outside, where the whitewash had fallen off, he discovered the marks of bullets.
“Them fellars had a all right time,” said Tom; “they must ’a’ had lashin’s o’ fights.”
“I say,” Dave asked, “was there ever any wimmen pirates?”
“No,” replied Tom, scornfully; “it wuz only men.”
“Well,” went on Dave, “there must ’a’ bin some women pirates here, because here’s a piece of a woman’s dress an’ the busk of a woman’s stays!”
“Where?” asked Tom, incredulously.
“Here,” replied Dave, rooting out the articles which had no doubt appertained to the late resident’s wife or one of his grown-up daughters.
Tom examined them with the air of a detective.
“They’re women’s things,” he admitted; “but how did they get here?”
He thought a while.
“I know,” he resumed: “it was one of the beautiful captives they took out of an Indiaman. She fell in love with the captain of the pirates an’ followed ’im through thick an’ thin. All the most beautiful captives did. Then, when he was hard put, she saved the ship. Then the ship got wrecked, an’ ’e swum ashore with ’is arm round ’er neck. Half of the crew wuz drowned an’ the other half wuz saved, and they got in ’ere and built this place an’ fortified it while they wuz buildin’ a new ship outer the timber that wuz washed ashore. That’s how them things come to be ’ere.”
“But,” said Dave, “’ere’s a ole washin’ tub an’ a piece of washin’ board.”
“Well, couldn’t they ’ave come ashore out of the pirate’s ship?” asked Tom.
“I didn’t know they had washtubs an’ things like that on pirate ships,” pleaded Dave.
“Of course you don’t know—you don’t know nothin’ about these things. You ain’t read nothin’ about ’em, but I ’ave; I’ve read stacks of books about pirates. The ole man ’e uster make me read out of ’em, too, at nights.”
“I say!” exclaimed Dave, “we better get our swags up and bring the boat round.”
“Yes, we better,” agreed Tom, “we got to hook round an’ pirate some tucker, too, as soon as it grows dark.”
They went back to the landing-place and brought the boat up the creek.
Then Tom said they’d have to bake a damper with some of the flour he had borrowed from the old man.
So he stripped a short sheet of bark off a tree with his tomahawk, measured out about a pound of flour, wetted it, and began to roll the damper. The paste was too thin first, and seemed to be trying to get away from him. Dave received orders to stand by and pour on more flour gently. And Dave let the bag slip and lost half the flour in the grass, and Tom said, wrathfully, that he was the biggest fool of a pirate on the river, and it seemed that he was never going to get any sense either.
At length the pirate captain evolved a sticky, stringy sheet of paste, which looked more like variegated marble than anything else, and he raked out the ashes and dropped it in and covered it over.
For about an hour the pirates kept raking the ashes off and covering the damper up again, and then Tompronounced the dish cooked. It was afternoon, and they proceeded to have some four o’clock damper and tea.
“It’s all right damper,” said the chief architect; “only a bit burned on the bottom. If you scrape the charcoal off the bottom, though, it’ll be good.”
Dave absent-mindedly chipped the chunks of charcoal and cinders off the lower side, and then he cut into the daily loaf and it cut queer. There were streaks of dry flour, and streaks of wet dough, and what wasn’t powder or paste was old Silurian rock.
“It don’t look none too good,” ventured Dave, doubtfully.
“It’s all right,” insisted the elder boy, “only a bit underdone in spot.”
Dave took a slice and toyed with it.
“It don’t taste like it was properly mixed up,” he said.
“Oh, it’s all right,” replied Tom. “It’s real good, I reckon, for the first try. Shake the dry flour out, an’ cut the sticky part off and scrape the black off the crust.”
“But it’s all dry flour an’ sticky part an’ crust,” argued Dave.
“Oh, dammit, then, throw it away!” exclaimed Tom, who had gotten a piece in his hollow tooth. “You’re too soft for this piratin’ game, an’ the way you whine an’ go on puts me off me feed, too.”
“Well, I’m dashed hungry,” persisted Dave.
“So’m I,” replied Tom. “We’ll take the boat an’ go acrost to the mainland.”
Creeping out of the creek in their boat, Tom and Dave caught sight of the new moon hung like a silver horn in the dusky western sky.
“Hold on,” said Tom, “till I turn me money.”
“I’ve got fourpence,” replied Dave, drawing in his oar also; “I reckon I’ll turn it, too.”
And just at that moment a thought struck Tom.
“Good Lord!” he cried, “we’ve forgot all about them bags o’ sovereigns that was stole and hid.”
“I didn’t,” replied Dave; “I thought about ’em this mornin’, an’ I been thinkin’ about ’em all day, but we took a oath not to talk about it, didn’t we?”
“That wuz only about the—the—you know what wuz done,” replied Tom; “the money’s different; we kin talk about that.”
“Well, it’s hid,” said Dave.
“Yes; it’s hid again the myrtle tree.”
“I clean forgot till this mornin’, and then when you wuz talkin’ about pirate hoards I thought of it.”
“I never thought of it till now,” said Tom, passing his hand across his forehead in an anguished way.“Seein’ that—that—you know the thing we ain’t got to talk about must a sent me ratty.”
“What are you goin’ to do about it?” asked Dave.
“I dunno,” replied Tom, doubtfully; “onless we go back there by night an’ dig it up.”
Dave shuddered.
“I wouldn’t go near that place at night,” he said; “not for all the money in Australia.”
“Neither would I,” said Tom, “but I’d go an’ get it in the daylight.”
“We can’t go nosing round there in the daytime,” remarked Dave; “we might get ketched.”
“Well, if we don’t go an’ get it soon,” pronounced Tom, “it won’t be there long. That cove won’t leave it there. Soon as he’s ready to git away, he’ll go an’ dig it up. An’ he won’t stay round no longer than he kin help, you take yor oath.”
“It’s a bit rough,” said Dave, “after all we’ve went through.”
“Pirate’s luck,” sighed Tom. “It wuz always that way. Jist when a pirate wuz gettin’ up to a ship loaded chokker-block with gold-dust an’ dubloons an’ things, a gale of wind u’d come an’ she’d get away. Or supposin’ they’d bin firin’ their cannons an’ fightin’ ’er fer a whole day, she’d sink an’ take all er’ cargo down with ’er jist as they got alongside. It’s pirates’ luck, an’ you got to put up with it.”
“I dunno,” mused Dave; “we mightn’t get ketched if we was careful. Suppose we did go there in the daytime? We could sneak up near in the night, and camp in the scrub, an’ go acrost an’ get the sovereigns, andwait till the next night to come down the river again.”
“You leave it to me,” said Tom, after some thought; “I’ll fix up a scheme. You can’t organise a piratin’ expedition like that in ten minutes. It wants thinkin’ out.”
The boat’s nose ran into the mud on the opposite side, and the boys landed.
Having climbed the bank they found themselves in a field of maize.
Presently Dave stooped down and felt something with an affectionate touch.
“Melons!” he said in a glad, soft voice.
“Good shot!” ejaculated Tom; “we’ll load some into the boat, and take ’em acrost to the pirate’s camp. We’ll gammon they’re chests of gold and plate and ingots of silver.”
They loaded half a dozen large water melons into their pirate barque on this principle, and it added to their joy.
“That’ll do for the ballast,” said Tom, when the cargo was aboard. “Now, we’re got to go and make a raid for provisions.”
“How will we?” queried Dave.
“We’ll sneak up through this corn patch, and storm the fowlhouse,” said the older pirate grimly. “We got to get meat to eat.”
They approached the farmhouse cautiously, sneaking round between the tall rows of rustling maize till they located the chicken roost at the rear.
“You stay on watch,” whispered Tom, “an’ I’ll nick in an’ cop a couple o’ young hens. I’ll ketch ’em bythe necks so they can’t sing out. If you hear any noise, whistle three times loud an’ cut to the boat.”
The first mate hid behind the fence, and the pirate captain crept softly upon his prey.
It was pretty dark inside the fowl-shed and the feathered occupants stirred uneasily, and made some enquiring remarks, when Tom fell over a box which had been left for the hens to lay in. The chief pirate waited for the row to subside, and then put out his hand quietly and grabbed a likely-looking rooster tightly by the neck.
The bird uttered a gutteral cry, which the adventurer stilled by revolving his quarry round on its own axis several times with great rapidity.
He was just preparing to commandeer further poultry when three shrill whistles echoed through the night, followed by the sound of voices and a noise of somebody running through the maize.
A second later, Tom, beating a retreat through the fowlhouse door, ran right into the arms of a burly figure.
A strong hand grabbed him by the collar, and a strong voice remarked, with vengeful satisfaction:
“I’ve ketched ye, ye varmint.”
Tom dropped the birds and endeavoured to wriggle out of his captor’s clutch.
“Lemme go,” he whined; “I ain’t done nothink to you.”
“Ain’t you,” cried the enraged farmer; “ain’t done nothink, eh?”
“No,” replied Tom, endeavouring to kick the captor’s shins. “I wuz just comin’ up to the house to ask you about somethink.”
“An’ you thought you’d wring a couple of my fowls’ necks an’ bring ’em with ye, to make you welcome.”
“I never wrung ’em,” replied the Pirate Captain.
“Well, I’m struck!” exclaimed the farmer; “after I ketched ye with a fowl in each hand.”
“I heard a noise in the fowlhouse,” said Tom, speciously, “jist as I wuz comin’ along. I knowed it wuz a native cat after the fowls. So I went in——”
“An’ you found the cat ’ad killed two of ’em,” interrupted the farmer.
“Yes,” said Tom; “I did.”
“An’ you thought you’d bring ’em along an’ show ’em to me.”
“That’s jist what I did think.”
“So you picked ’em up, an’ wuz goin’ out when I stopped yer?”
“Yes, I wuz goin’ straight up to your house with ’em.”
“Maria!” cried the farmer, loudly; “fetch a lantern; I’ve ketched somethink!”
“What have you ketched, Jacob?” called back a woman’s voice from the kitchen of the farmhouse; “a tiger cat?”
“No!” hollered the farmer; “I’ve ketched the infernallest liar thet ever wuz on the Clarence River! I doubt if there’s sich another infernal liar in the world.”
The farmer’s wife, shading a candle with her hand, peered out into the dark.
“Where is it?” asked the woman, who was hard of hearing.
“It’s here! You needn’t be frightened, Maria; he can’t get away.”
“What is it, Jacob?” asked Maria, bringing the light carefully.
“I dunno rightly,” replied Jacob, “what breed it is; but I kin see it’s death on fowls.”
“How many has he took?”
“Two. One of ’em’s your best Spanish rooster!”
“Why didn’t you shoot the thing?” asked Maria.
“Fetch the light an’ I’ll show you,” cried Jacob, who was pleased with his catch. “This is where our laying hens an’ pullets has been goin’ lately.”