“Five hundred sovereigns unaccountably missing from bank safe. Locked safe yesterday afternoon before leaving. Found locked on opening bank this morning, but money gone. Chard says slept premises last night. Await instructions.”
“Five hundred sovereigns unaccountably missing from bank safe. Locked safe yesterday afternoon before leaving. Found locked on opening bank this morning, but money gone. Chard says slept premises last night. Await instructions.”
The same afternoon came a reply wire bidding themanager place the matter in the hands of the police, and the Northern Inspector of the Bulk and Bullion received instructions to proceed to Wharfdale at once and make full inquiries into the alleged robbery.
George Chard thought of his years of service that day, and of his mother and the girls.
Before midday all Wharfdale knew that the bank had been robbed, and the news had travelled up and down the river before sunset.
Business in the little riverside town was practically adjourned for that day. The citizens gathered in groups or sat on their heels under the shade of a tree opposite the bank door, formulating theories and discussing them.
The religious crank took advantage of the opportunity to address the assemblage upon the state of its immortal soul. Despite the great earnestness of his prayerful speech, little attention was paid to him.
It was old Dugald M’Donald who first whispered the theory that perhaps the coves in the bank knew more about where the money had gone to than anybody else.
Dugald put out this view of the matter with a mysterious wink which would have convinced any twelve men in the place.
The audience agreed that, after all, Dugald had no doubt hit the mark, and, thus encouraged, the astute M’Donald with many a “Mind, I’m no’ for sayin’ that it is so,” put forward enough arguments to shake the reputation of an archangel.
As people shouted for Dugald, he became less discreetand choice in his hints, and before nightfall Wharfdale was evenly divided into three factions.
The first faction held that the manager had taken the money. The second faction was convinced that it was George Chard, basing their conclusions on the assumption that because the latter was quiet and reserved he must be deep and clever, and capable. The third party contended that the manager and George were in a conspiracy together. Some went so far as to say that the manager got £350, and George £150, the swag being divided according to seniority.
Everybody was convinced that there would be more sensational developments.
Consequently Wharfdale hung around the bank premises sympathising at every opportunity with its two officials, and offering its services generally to the bank and the police.
People who met at the post-office exchanged views on the bank robbery. It was the first that had ever occurred in Wharfdale, and the evil rumours probably arose from the fact that the inhabitants felt it as a general stigma on their own honesty, so that it was not long before Dan Creyton overheard a qualified hint which roused his Irish anger.
He took his hat and went down to the bank.
George was sitting on his stool with an open ledger before him, but the pen did not move upon its pages. Dan took his friend’s hand and held it as he had done once before in a day of trouble.
George listened to what Dan had to say to him, by way of sympathy. It seemed that there was a fire inhis throat, but it was only when he spoke that Dan knew how badly he was hurt. Then Dan Creyton shook hands with George again and went away.
“This has got to be cleared up,” Dan told himself in a resolute voice as he went up the street. “He can’t have any indefinite charge like that hanging over him. Neither can the other fellow!”
At that moment he came face to face with the “other fellow,” who had been taking more whisky than was good for him. Dan stopped him and unburdened his mind. He was perhaps the only man in Wharfdale who would have dared to do it, because he was the only man who was convinced that George Chard was innocent. Nor did he suspect the manager, whom he believed to be too great a coward to run risks. But Dan had not exchanged a dozen sentences with the man before he knew that he was quite prepared to sacrifice George to save himself. The knowledge brought him more anxiety than he cared to confess. But his anxiety reached a climax when Rumour, in a female tongue, sharp and bitter, told him that a warrant was to be issued for the arrest of his friend, George Chard!
Dan stood by the door of the office irresolute. He turned at his sister’s voice. She had just rowed over in the cool of the afternoon breeze to get their tea ready.
George Chard was to have sat to table with them. Dan, who guessed at many things, could not see his way clear for the moment; but when it occurred to him that if he were not the news-bearer another would be, and before long he called his sister in.
“I have something to tell you, Nora,” he said, simply; “better sit down.”
“What is it?” she asked. “You look worried; is anything wrong. The heat to-day has been awful!”
“I haven’t felt it,” said Dan. “It is not the heat; something else. The bank has been robbed!”
“Robbed! The bank! Tell me!” she cried, springing up. “Has anything happened? Is George Chard hurt?”
Nora’s hand grasped her bodice tightly. Her face was pale. A wild concern showed in her eyes.
Dan noticed these things, and his mouth tightened.
“No.” he said, “he is not hurt in body, but in mind. His character—”
“Character!” ejaculated the girl, wonderingly. “What! What do you mean, Dan; I don’t understand?”
“Five hundred pounds have been removed from the safe!” said Dan, tersely. “The money was put there yesterday. George had the keys in the afternoon. Bullen went away early, I believe. When he went to the safe this morning the money was gone!”
“Gone! But who could have taken it, Dan?”
He explained the circumstances of the robbery.
“Could not the doors have been opened with a skeleton key?” asked Nora.
There was a note of exaggerated anxiousness in the inquiry at which Dan would have smiled under more pleasant circumstances.
“No doubt,” he said, “they could, and were; but the trouble is that the keys are never out of the possession of one or other of them.”
“But I cannot see——” Nora began and stopped, looking closely into her brother’s face.
“No, nor I,” mused Dan. “But one thing is certain: George Chard never had anything to do with it!”
“George Chard!” cried Nora, all her woman’s feeling rising up in her soul, “Who says George Chard had anything to do with such a thing? Who dare say——”
“Hush, Nora!” interrupted Dan, gently. “They are already saying it!”
Nora was Irish, too, and a great wrath grew upon her.
“Do you mean to tell me that you stood by and listened to a cruel lie like that? It is a lie, a malicious, horrid lie, and I—I—I. Oh, I’ll tell them so! Tell them in their teeth!
“George Chard a thief! Good God! Who could be so wicked to dream of such a thing! The best, the bravest—and truest—why, Dan,” she blurted out, “Don’t you know I LOVE HIM! I love him more than anything or anybody on earth!”
And Nora, her face as red as fire, threw her arms round Dan’s neck and burst into a perfect maelstrom of thoroughly feminine sobs.
George Chard felt it bitterly hard that after his years of service he should earn not only the reproof of the head office, but that suspicion should in some way indefinitely be attached to him.
There had been an inquiry into the robbery, and although there was nothing in the evidence to directly implicate either himself or his manager, the tone of head-office letters was by no means comforting.
George had done his best to clear his superior officer. Truth is good, but it is not always a matter of telling the whole truth in every-day life.
If people were to say all they knew about each other, society would fall to pieces rapidly—as rapidly as an iceberg might melt in a volcano.
George Chard knew this, and certain matters of carelessness on his manager’s part had not come out. It is one thing for a directorate or a department to frame an elaborate code of rules, and another thing for their servants to follow them to the letter.
No rules, natural or man-made, can ever be exactly adhered to.
In repayment for his subordinate’s fealty, the Pig had whispered certain private insinuations against George to the inspector.
Consequently he became a “marked man.”
In every branch of Government employment, in every big commercial organisation there are “marked men.” They remain in the employ, pending a valid excuse for their dismissal, perhaps for years, but they do not get on. They are never promoted; they never receive an increase in salary, and they are never placed in any position of responsibility.
George Chard knew this, and he saw, as soon as the inquiry had closed, that his career in the Bulk and Bullion was practically at an end.
The thought stung him like nettles. He was a proud man, and his pride had been humbled; he was a conscientious man also, and the thought of his responsibility—of the mother and the five girls dependent on him—alone prevented him writing at once to the head office and demanding either an honourable acquittal or an honourable discharge. But then, again, what charge was he to be acquitted of? None had been brought against him. No one had accused him. No one had dared insinuate to him openly that he had anything to do with the removal of the money from the bank safe, yet he felt that an unseen sword of Damocles hung over his head.
It is this anticipation of disaster—this hourly expectation of something going to happen—that wears out the strongest energy and shatters the strongest nervous system.
The town of Wharfdale, unknown to George, was still indefinitely divided into factions upon the question of the bank robbery, and it was not improbable that in a very little time someone would have accidentally given him evil news if the matter of the robbery had not sunk into insignificance before the discovery of the body of a murdered man down the river.
The news was brought up by theGreenwichthe morning after George, the deck-hand, had had such remarkable fishing.
First came the outlines which Rumour filled in for herself, dwelling lovingly on the knife wounds.
Then gossiping tongues began to shape fancies into main facts. A body had certainly been discovered, and people who saw it were convinced that a foul and brutal murder had taken place.
The craving for sensation, like the craving for opium or chloral, is progressive—the patients must keep on increasing the dose. The newspaper down the river published an “extraordinary” on the morning following George’s discovery. The “extraordinary,” printed on a “galley-slip,” was sold all over the district at a penny.
As the day wore on a second edition of the “extraordinary” was issued containing two or three additional paragraphs of news, and the opinion which the “authorities” were supposed to entertain on the subject.
The publication of the paper proper was deferred a day to enable the particulars of the inquest to be inserted.
Then the little sheet put up a record circulation.
The editor congratulated himself on the headlines. Years afterwards, when strangers came into the office, he would take down the file and point them out with pride. The first word. “Murder,” was set in woodblock type an inch and a half deep: “And Inquest,” in the German decorative capitals usually used for illuminated texts by printers of religious literature.
The actual evidence adduced at the inquest was meagre.
George, the deck-hand, was examined by the Coroner at great length. The court went into the minutest details regarding the finding of the body, even bringing out the witness’s private opinions about the matter—what he thought and what he felt at the time and afterwards.
The Sergeant was sworn. He corroborated George in respect to the fishing; detailed the appearance of the corpse—to which the audience listened lovingly—told how he had left the body tied up by the wharf until daylight, removed same with the assistance of a constable to a shed, and summoned the doctor.
The doctor was an heroic figure at the inquest. It was with difficulty that the crowded court refrained from cheering when he stepped into the witness-box. With the greatest urbanity the presiding J.P., who was acting Coroner, requested him to explain the technical terms he used in his evidence. The doctor bowed—a perfectly splendid bow it was generally admitted—and courteously gave the common English of the thing to his audience.
A sigh of satisfaction went round when he sworepositively that it would be impossible for deceased to have inflicted upon himself the wounds as detailed.
The district had not had such a sensation for years. The identity of the deceased would have remained a matter of absolute doubt had it not been for an accident. A religious crank, whose name was casually “Joe,” happened to arrive in the place on the morning of the discovery.
Numbers of people had been taken to the shed by the police.
Some thought they might be able to say who it was, and others wanted to tell their friends in future years that they had seen an approved hall-marked murder in cold flesh.
None of those people had thrown the least light on the subject. The body remained unrecognised until the religious crank went in.
He kissed the book with a reverent smack, and stood awaiting the interrogations of the Sergeant and the J.P.
The audience, with bated breath, leaned eagerly forward to catch every word of the religious crank’s low replies.
“It happened quite accidentally,” he said, that he had gone into the shed where the body on which enquiry was being held had been conveyed, he believed, from the wharf. He could not swear that it was the same body which had been taken out of the river in the morning.
He knew Constable Flanagan. He was upon theLord’s work when he was requested to enter the shed. He had not heard the constable’s evidence.
It was not a fact that he had recognised the body. (Murmur of disappointment ran throughout the court). All he had said to Constable Flanagan was that he believed he had seen deceased before at a meeting in one of the river towns. He would not swear positively that it was deceased, but he believed it was. If he remembered rightly, the man’s name was Gooch-Peter. He could not say what occupation he followed. This happened about six or eight weeks before. That was all he knew about the matter. The name might have been Good; he was not sure.
The witness, instead of throwing light upon the case, seemed to have added to its mystery.
Nobody knew of a person named Good or Gooch along the river, not even the oldest residents, and oldest residents know everything. Still, the crank had given the police a clue. Up to that they had been hopelessly fogged. Now there was some sort of a trail to follow.
The Sergeant applied for an adjournment and wired up the river. He wired to various persons; none of them could positively swear that they knew a man answering to the description of deceased.
The crank held a great revival meeting opposite the courthouse that night. He spoke eloquently, and his testimonies drew a hat full of small change from the crowd. He preached mostly about the evils of murder and homicide, and strong drink.
The jury considered the evidence carefully, and then brought in a verdict to the effect that deceased, whose name was supposed to be either Good or Gooch, met his death at the hands of some person or persons unknown.
They added a rider to the effect that George, the deck-hand, the Sergeant, and the witnesses generally had behaved themselves with credit, and thanked the coroner and the doctor for their kindness and attention.
Altogether, it was a very successful affair, and the jury got more or less drunk, because everybody wanted to shout for them and be seen talking to them.
In Australia you cannot expect to talk very long to any distinguished person without shouting for him.
The excitement remained at fever heat for some days, during which the movements of the police were watched with absorbing interest.
The police did their best, but the mystery of the murder remained as it was at first. The people began to get impatient for developments. On the advice of the authorities, the Government issued a proclamation offering £500 reward for the conviction of the murderer, adding a free pardon to any accomplice who would turn Queen’s evidence.
Placards to this effect were posted up on the trees and cross roads, at the approaches to punts, on wharves, and other places.
Scores of amateur detectives were at work following out all sorts of impossible theories, and suspicions were cast on almost every doubtful character on the whole country side.
But day followed day, and the mysterious puzzle still remained without a key.
Jean Petit had formally adopted Tom and Dave.
So terrified were the lads of the convict and their secret knowledge of his crime that they obeyed him in fear and trembling.
It was not until the morning after the capture that they managed to get together and talk. Petit had forbidden them holding converse with one another, and any signs of communication had brought out the knife.
So Tom and Dave lived for twenty-four hours on that island in awful bad company, hardly daring to look at one another.
Petit had drawn the boat up in the scrub, hidden it, and so secured it that they could not launch it without his knowledge and aid.
They might have swum ashore, and each prisoner meditated it, but the opportunity had not offered, and they were, moreover, still too terrified to make the attempt.
But now Petit was asleep and snoring, and Tom motioned Dave to sneak after him into the lantana. They had almost reached the opposite edge of the island before they drew together and spoke in scared whispers.
Dave broke out first: “I’ll never go piratin’ no more,” he said, with a dry sob.
“Nor me!” said Tom. “Not without a gun, anyway.”
“Suppose he wakes up now,” said Dave, and shuddered.
Tom had taken the precaution to pick up the billy-can. There was a swamp in the centre of the island, which Petit had brought them to the evening before.
“We’ll say we went for a billy of water to bile tea for him,” replied the elder adventurer.
“What are we going to do?” asked Dave.
“Get away,” replied Tom, “as soon as we see a chance.”
“Why can’t we go now?” queried Dave, looking longingly across the bank of the river. “I ain’t never swum so far; but I’d as lief be drowned as stay here. What is he stayin’ here so quiet for?”
“He’s hidin’,” replied Tom, sagaciously. “He’s waitin’ here for a chance to escape. I say, did you notice the belt?”
“That canvas thing around his waist? I see the end of it stickin’ out when he stooped over the fire last night.”
“Hsh!” said Tom. “He’s got the money in that!”
“The money that he stole?”
“The money that him and the other cove stole. The money he killed his mate for!”
“Hush!” cried Dave, looking anxiously around. “Don’t get talkin’ about that; for God’s sake, Tom don’t.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” said Tom emphatically. “I wish I never see it, nor him either. We’d had a all-right time only for him. ’E keeps croppin’ up, croppin’ up just when things is goin’ straight, andnow ’e’s nailed us ’ere an’ took our boat an’ our tent, an’ our tucker, an’ everything!”
“Yes,” agreed Dave, feeling his neck fearfully; “an’ the next thing he’ll do is cut our throats an’ dig a hole an’ bury us, or throw us in the river. I’m dead full of the whole thing.”
“Shut up!” retorted Tom; “you’re a nice kind o’ cove to start yelping like this.”
“Well, so did you last night.”
“I never. It was the smoke got in me eyes.”
“Well, the sun’s got in mine now. What are we goin’ to do?”
“We’ll have to swim!” said Tom, sadly.
“An’ leave ’im the boat? We can’t do any more piratin’ then?”
“There was a note of gladness in Dave’s voice.
“Yes,” replied Tom, savagely; “an’ I’ll have to go back to the old man and get whaled. It’s his fault, and I’ll—I’ll——”
The boss pirate clenched his fist angrily.
“What’ll you do?” asked Dave, anxiously.
The first mate was not for taking any risks.
“You’ll see what I’ll do,” cried the chief, “an’ so will he!”
A vengeful light shone in Tom Pagdin’s eye.
Dave started.
“What’s that nise?” he whispered.
“Rollicks!” ejaculated Tom, peering through the bushes. “Hist! There’s a boat! Two men in it! They’re comin’ across the island! They got guns! They’re after flock pigeons! As soon as they get innear enough we’ll make a bolt for the edge, an’ swim out to ’em an’ tell ’em!”
They were breathless with excitement and hope.
“Hide!” cried Dave. “Hide! He might a’ heard them coming!”
They heard a soft footstep close behind them, turned, and saw Jean Petit!
The look in Petit’s eyes when he perceived the boat was not calculated to reassure Tom and Dave. Dave’s face showed gruesomely pale in contrast with his red hair, and no one would have recognised in Tom the high-spirited youth, who, garbed in nothing but a sense of injury, had defied his tyrannical parent only a few days before.
Dave, who had got into the habit of taking his cue from his superior officer, was ready to bolt, but Tom made no sign. After a visible effort to control his emotion, he began to gaze abstractedly round at the fig-trees.
Petit crept up to them.
“Hist!” he exclaimed, with a significant glance at the boat, which was making towards the point of the island.
“We just came acrost for a billy of water,” explained Tom,sotto voce, “we was goin’ to have the tea biled again you woke up.”
He was trying to catch Dave’s eye.
Petit had crouched down beside them; his knife between his teeth.
“Make ze leetle noise,” he hissed; “make ze evair so leetle an’ I will keel you both.”
“I ain’t goin’ to make no nise,” said Tom, emphatically.
“Neither am I,” pleaded Dave, in an earnest voice. “We never seen the boat till just when you came along.”
This attempt to allay Petit’s suspicions may have been successful or otherwise. The Frenchman made no sign.
Dave fully expected that his throat was to be cut at last.
He dared not look at the boat, but watched the face of the escapee as a condemned criminal might watch the face of his executioner.
The boat was within twenty yards of the shore, and not more than a hundred from where they lay in the scrub.
It happened that the day being a public holiday, Dan Creyton and George Chard had decided to go out shooting. On all the large islands in the river Moreton Bay figs grew profusely, and the pigeons and flying foxes came down from the hills to feed on the ripe fruit.
They had determined to try this particular island before breakfast. Hence all that followed.
The boat was certainly going to land. Petit, watchingwith lynx eyes, scowled angrily. Conflicting emotions of hope and fear surged in Tom Pagdin’s breast.
The rowers turned the corner of the point, and were hidden from view, but they could hear the noise of the oars being drawn in; hear the voices of two strangers in conversation; hear them taking the gear out of the boat, and making her fast.
Again and again Tom tried to catch Dave’s eye.
At last he succeeded.
Dave saw that his mate meant to run.
It was only a lightning glance, but it said plainly enough, “chance it.”
Dave trembled all over.
He withdrew his eyes guiltily; they had only wandered for a second—and looked again in Petit’s face. He seemed fascinated, as a victim might be in watching the axe of a headsman waiting for its descent—were he permitted to see the axe. Petit was actually meditating killing the two boys, but he was also calculating the after chance. As far as the act was concerned he had no qualms once he made up his mind that it would be better for him to have them out of the way. The youth and presumed innocence of Tom and Dave would not deter a person of his gentle nature for a moment. He would have no more compunction about the matter than he would about the matter of drowning a couple of blind kittens. Had he the slightest inkling of the knowledge possessed by his hostages regarding the murder of his accomplice on the night of the bank robbery the career of the pirates would have ended abruptly the previous day.
But Petit was a true criminal—he only killed when he thought it necessary. It is the act of a lunatic, he had often explained to his fellows, to do otherwise. Why make evidence against oneself without reason. The career of the true professional was a game in which he played his life and liberty against Society and the Law. He could not, therefore, afford to throw away a chance. But if any of his crimes had been discovered—if these strangers in the boat were come to arrest him—of course there would no longer be any need for caution.
He questioned Tom with a threat.
“Zese men in ze boad,” he growled in a low guttural, “know you, eh? Spik me visout untruth,” he added, “else——”
The knife in his hand was sufficient termination for the sentence.
Tom understood.
“Yes,” said the latter, looking right into Petit’s eyes. “I know ’em both. One’s name’s Joe Saunders, an’ the other cove’s Dan Creed. They’re duck shooters.”
“Vat?” exclaimed Petit.
“Shooters,” interposed Dave, with a quivering lip and an exaggerated expression of veracity. “They go shooting ducks in the swamps for the market, and pigeons.”
“Yes,” observed Tom, “they come up the river a piece. That cove in the nose of the boat, he’s got a bit of a farm up there.”
He was looking at Dave.
Dave took up the story.
“Yes,” he went on; “that’s Dan Saunders.”
“Joe Saunders,” interrupted Tom.
“Joe Saunders, I mean,” replied Dave, correcting himself quickly; “an’ the other cove’s Dan MacCreedy.”
“Dan Creed,” said Tom.
It would have delighted him very much to punch Dave’s head.
“That’s what I said—Dan Creed,” resumed Dave. “We know ’em both.”
Petit silenced them by a motion.
The sportsmen were trooping along the track, gun in hand, with their eyes in the air looking up at the fig-trees, watching for pigeons.
It had been Dan Creyton’s idea, that expedition. He wanted to get George out in the open air, away from his troubles, to occupy his mind in some sport. There is no medicine like this for the mind and nerves, and already George was forgetting the black cloud which had recently lowered upon him. The primal instinct of the hunter can always be reverted to by a sane man, whom civilization has in one way or another made sick. An hour’s fishing, by some shady pool, under the open sky is worth more than a bottle of drugs.
They strode along in the cool morning air, making little noise on the jungle path, carpeted with leaves. Closer and closer they came to that group of three in the scrub.
Tom and Dave could hear their hearts beating in their heads. Petit lay upon the ground, flattened out like a panther, his knife ready to his hand. He hadput Tom on one side and Dave on the other, within reach of his arm, giving them to understand plainly enough that at the first attempt to communicate with the strangers he would choke the life out of them.
The boys knew well enough they would have little chance in the strong clutch of those vice-like fingers, because Petit had given their necks a sample squeeze with his huge forefinger and thumb.
So they lay still, fearing, hoping, despairing—both more or less hysterical, both experiencing great difficulty in restraining something which kept rising up in their throats—something choking and unpleasant which would otherwise have developed into a sob.
Dan Creyton and George passed them within a distance of ten yards, and they dared not cry out or give the slightest sign of warning. Tom said afterwards that he never felt like he did then except once, and that was when he crawled down a hollow log after a bandicoot and got stuck. It was just the same smothering, suffocating feeling.
The shooters went by and entered a clump of figs. They sat there a long time waiting for pigeons. The trio laying concealed in the bushes could hear the murmur of their voices occasionally. They talked in very low tones, because it is good not to make any noise when one is out hunting; but as they were not many yards little bits of conversation drifted down to Tom, whose ears were strained to catch it.
Presently they shifted their position to the butt of a big fig-tree not more than ten yards outside the scrubin which the others were concealed. Tom almost cried out when Dan Creyton said suddenly:
“Do you know, George, I’ve got an idea that there were at least two men in that business.”
“I don’t know,” replied George. “God knows I have thought the thing over and over night and day, and it is still the greatest mystery on earth to me. What makes you think that, Dan?”
“I’ll tell you later,” said Dan, “when I work my theory out. I’m not going to let the matter rest, even if the police give it up. This murder case has put everything else out of their heads. It is my opinion that the murder and the robbery were carried out by the same man!”
Tom Pagdin started, and stole a glance at Jean Petit.
The look he saw on Petit’s face made his hair stand on end.
Dave was evidently engaged in trying to swallow something without making a noise. What Dave was trying to swallow is not quite certain, but it was probably a yell.
“I don’t know,” said George Chard, thoughtfully. “I cannot see anything at present to connect the two crimes.”
“Neither can the police,” resumed Dan. “But that is simply because the police, like everybody else along the river, have got a wrong theory about the robbery.”
He did not say that the theory was that either George or the manager, or both of them together, had removed the money.
“I believe,” resumed Dan, “that that body was the body of an accomplice. He was put out of the way, either because he knew too much, or because the other man wanted all the plunder for himself, and, what’s more, I’m convinced that whoever did it was a stranger.”
“It is a pity that religious crank could not properly identify the murdered man,” exclaimed George. “What is that jumping in the bushes?”
“A paddymelon,” said Dan; “these scrubs are full of them.”
It was Jean Petit. He had involuntarily half-jumped to his feet.
Tom and Dave thought the critical moment had come. But the convict sank softly to the ground again. His face was working horribly. Tom Pagdin said he looked more like a devil let loose out of hell than anything, and a boss devil, at that.
“Well,” said George Chard, with a sigh, “I wish you could clear it up, Dan, for my sake, if for nothing else. You’d be welcome to the £250 reward offered by the bank as well as the £500 the Government are giving!”
“I am trying my hand at a little amateur detective work,” said Dan, quietly; “but it is not the money I’m after.”
“And you wouldn’t have to apply for the pardon, either,” said George, smiling.
“No,” replied Dan; “the bitterest old woman in Wharfdale would hardly accuse me of being an accompliceto a brutal murder. So the pardon would have to go to someone else who wanted it!”
Tom Pagdin started in turn, but checked himself. He dreaded Petit’s eyes.
But Petit, like a listening wolf who has caught the bay of pursuing hounds on his trail, thought of other things. His mind was so crowded with serious reflections that he did not notice the discrepancies between the boys’ account of the strangers and the latter’s conversation about themselves and their business.
Presently Dan and George shouldered their guns and continued their walk along the track which led directly to the convict’s camp.
Petit stirred uneasily, and sat up. His face betrayed conflicting emotions of fear, anger, and hate.
He was evidently looking for a way of speedy escape without attracting the notice of the strangers.
Suddenly he caught both boys and shook them.
“Come wis me!” he growled. “Make no noise!”
He made towards the boat in which the young men had rowed over.
He had made up his mind that there lay his best chance of getting away.
It would be some time before the young men returned from the other end of the island.
When they came back the boat would be gone.
They would probably discover the camp. Their suspicions might be aroused. One of them at least had a theory about the murder. The incident might be connected with the crime, and lead to a sure clue. The loss of their boat would, however, delay them.Perhaps they would not discover the boat in which the boys had landed—his, Petit’s boat—which he had hidden very carefully.
Petit so argued, and arriving at his conclusion, acted without delay.
He strode along the jungle path, driving the boys noiselessly before him like a couple of sheep.
They were within ten yards of the point when the convict, putting his hand to his waist, uttered an imprecation.
The money which he had been carrying about with him in a canvas belt was gone.
He had left it at the camp whither the two strangers had directly gone.
With fearful oaths and threats he bade Dave and Tom stay where they were until he returned, and wheeling about, he went back quickly along the track.
Tom waited until the jungle hid him from view, and then he grabbed Dave by the hand.
“Quick!”
They sprang to the boat together.
“Off with the painter!” he gasped, and stopped.
Standing against the seat aft was Dan Creyton’s Winchester rifle, and beside it was a box of cartridges!
At heart Tom Pagdin was not a coward.
Real cowardice is a thing few Australian bush lads have any use for.
Tom had been out kangaroo shooting, and he knew the mechanism of a Winchester.
In less time that it takes to write, the pirate had therifle out of the boat, twelve cartridges in the magazine, and the balance of the box loose in his pocket.
His hand shook with excitement but there was a fire in his eye that boded no good for Jean Petit.
“Let him come now!” sobbed Tom, pulling the hammer back to full cock. “Let the d——hound come!!”
“What are you goin’ to do?” asked Dave from behind.
Tom laid down behind the drifted log, and sighted the Winchester along the track.
“Keep down be’ind me,” he said excitedly, “and lay close!”
“Suppose you kill ’im, we might get ’ung,” ventured Dave.
“I don’t care.” replied Tom. “I’ll ’ang for ’im, the blood-thirsty hound. ’E’d a’ killed us afore ’e left the island most likely.”
“Are you goin’ to call on him to surrender first?”
“Not a call! ’E’s an outlaw. They can’t touch you for shootin’ outlaws.”
“Suppose you miss ’im.” whimpered Dave.
“I ain’tgoin’to miss ’im,” replied Tom, grimly.
“If you do he’ll kill us both.”
“’E won’t never get the chance!” said Tom. “I got her lined jest in front of that myrtle, in the clear. ’E’s got to come by there. It ain’t more’n sixty yards at the outside. If I don’t drop ’im first shot, there’s eleven more, an’ I got a pocketful o’ cartridges, an’ we’re between ’im an’ the boat.”
Tom shut his left eye and sighted. His forefingerwas crooked over the trigger. The barrel of his rifle rested steadily on the log.
Jean Petit broke into view, running. The canvas belt was in his hand.
“They’ve seen him,” whispered Dave. “Maybe they’re following him.”
Tom made no reply. He held his breath, as a kangaroo shooter does just before he squeezes the trigger gently to him.
Petit rounded the myrtle tree.
Tom Pagdin’s crooked forefinger closed on the trigger. The sharp cr-r-rack of the Winchester was answered by a howl of pain from Jean Petit.
The bullet had penetrated the fleshy part of his arm.
Tom wrenched back the lever, ejected the smoking shell, slid another cartridge out of the magazine into the barrel, and lifted the rifle to his shoulder again.
Petit, taken by surprise, had pulled up short.
The unexpected had happened!
“Shoot him in the stummick!” yelled Dave. “Shoot him in the stummick, Tom!”
The love of war is in our Australian youth. When first the Colonial troops rode on to the veldt, seasoned British veterans admitted this.
The first mate had armed himself with a paddle, and was standing behind his chief waving his clubbed oar above his head in a state of great excitement. He shouted defiance at Petit, and wildly urged Tom to kill the latter without benefit of clergy.
George Chard and Dan Creyton, hearing the shotand the shouting, were running in the direction of the boat.
Tom covered Petit with the Winchester.
They were not twenty yards apart.
The expression on the convict’s face as he grasped the situation would under ordinary circumstances have turned the pirates cold.
But a bush boy of thirteen with a loaded Winchester at full cock and a grievance such as Tom Pagdin was labouring under, had to be reckoned with.
Bang! went the rifle.
Petit leaped into the air like a kangaroo which had been shot through the body by a Martini, and sprang into the scrub.
At the same moment Dan and George broke into sight through the jungle.
“After him!” yelled Tom.
He re-charged his rifle as he ran, with Dave close at his heels.
“Look out!” cried Dave, frantically waving and shouting to the two strangers. “Head him off!”
At that moment Petit, twice wounded, desperate, and murderous, hurled himself upon Dan and attempted to seize his shot gun.
Dan was an athlete, but this unexpected attack took him at a disadvantage. He stumbled, caught his foot in a vine, and fell backwards.
The gun was loaded with number six shot in both barrels.
Dan Creyton’s hand was on the triggers and as he went down the two charges exploded, tearing out thetwigs and scattering green perforated leaves in the air overhead.
As Dan Creyton fell, George threw himself upon Petit.
The frenzied convict fought and struggled like a mad lion.
He was more than a match for them both. Besides, this unexpected development of a morning’s peaceful sport had taken them completely by surprise.
They did not know whether their assailant was an escaped lunatic, a murderer, or a law-abiding citizen, who was labouring under an impression that he had struck an island of homicides. The question was, who was justified? They had heard the shots fired and the shouting, but they were absolutely ignorant of the meaning of it all.
However, the average Anglo-Saxon does not pause to reason about things when he is attacked—he hits out.
They struggled with the escapee, who knew his only chance of making things even was to get possession of a gun. Escape from the island, his instinct told him, had been cut off. He was in a tight place, wounded and must kill and smash a way out. One murder more or less did not matter to him. He fought for a little longer life, a few hours’ further liberty—that was all. He bled, but he did not feel his wounds. Tom’s bullets had not hit him in any vital part of the body.
Dan Creyton was stunned by the force of the fall, by the weight of the aggressor, and by Petit’s rapid blows.