IN the previous chapter I described to you at some length the strange challenge offered by the still stranger girl to whom I had played the part of a protector during the previous night. I have also told you the belief I felt bound to entertain concerning her mental balance. She had declared to me most positively that her companion, a man, had been struck by lightning and killed, and it was his body she desired that I should accompany her to see. In itself this would have been a rational enough wish, but, when taken in conjunction with her tirade against him and the curious language she had employed, I think I may be excused if I felt some little doubt as to her sanity. However, as she seemed so bent on my going with her, I saw nothing for it but to acquiesce in her proposal. Tired though she must have been after all she had gone through during the night, she nevertheless sped along before me at such a pace that, active man as I am, I found some difficulty in keeping up with her. I have already remarked on her graceful carriage. I may say that I was now permitted an opportunity of observing it to greater advantage. Her step was as light and sure as that of a fawn, and, rough as the walking was, she never once stopped or appeared to experience the least inconvenience. Her glorious hair she had brought into something approaching order, though for lack of the necessary toilet appliances she was unable to make a very artistic affair of it.

For more than a mile she hurried me on, never once looking behind, but taking it for granted, I suppose, that I was following her. How she knew what course to steer, seeing that by her own confession she had only come through it once before, and then in the dark, I could not for the life of me understand. We left the hillside at last, and descended the plain, crossed a small stream by means of a fallen tree, which acted as an impromptu bridge--how had she crossed it during the storm, when she could not have seen her own hand before her face?--and then continued our march over a stretch of open ground towards some thick timber on the further side. Still she did not look round. Personally, I felt as if I were engaged in a walking tour in which I took but little or no interest. We entered the timber and began to climb a slight rise; then it was that I noticed that her speed was slackening. What, I asked myself, was going to happen next? Could her curious statement have been true after all?

Having reached a curiously-shaped little plateau, she stopped suddenly, and facing round on me bade me look. I followed the direction in which she was pointing with outstretched arm and saw, lying on the ground some ten yards away, what at first I took to be a bundle of clothes carelessly thrown down. Another look, however, was sufficient to convince me that it was a human body. Realising this I hastened to her side, and together we approached it. It was the body of a man, and a white man, there could be no doubt on that point. Reaching his side I knelt down to examine him, and as I did so uttered a cry of horror. Never before had I seen anything so repulsive as his face. It was convulsed into the most hideous grimace that the most imaginative mind of man could conceive. It was for all the world as if he had known that he was about to die and was caught by death in the act of laughing at his terrors. There was one other peculiarity I noticed. One side of his head was burnt almost to a cinder, as was his left side and leg. Since then I have seen the body of a man who had perished in a Bush fire, and I can liken it to nothing so much as that. That he had perished instantly was quite certain; so terrible were his injuries that he wouldn’t have had time to suffer any pain. There was some consolation in that knowledge.

In age he might have been anything between forty and fifty. It was impossible to tell with any degree of certainty for obvious reasons. His hair on the right side of the head was tinged with grey; the face, which would probably have been by no means unhandsome under other circumstances, was decorated with a short grey beard and moustache. His clothes were those of a townsman and not of a Bushman; like the girl’s they were well cut, but had seen much wear. I examined his pockets, to see if I could discover any clue as to his identity, but could discover nothing save a pipe, a broken penknife, a broken lead pencil, and an empty tobacco pouch--which last is a thing seldom to be found in the possession of a Bushman, preferring, as he does, to carry his smoking mixture in the solid plug. Having convinced myself that nothing else remained, I rose from my knees and turned to the girl. She looked at me with what I thought was almost a contemptuous expression on her face.

“You see I told you the truth,” she said, as calmly as if she were stating a self--evident fact “There is the man I spoke to you of; the man who has spoilt my life, and whom I hated as I never thought it possible one human being could hate another. Times out of number I would have killed him without compunction, but something always prevented me; now, however, he has received his deserts.”

“Hush, hush,” I said, for though I am far from being as straightlaced as I might be, it seemed infinitely shocking to hear such vindictive sentiments fall from a woman’s lips. “However he may have treated you, the man is dead, therefore let him rest in peace.”

“Bah!” she answered, with a scorn that it would be futile for me to attempt to reproduce with any likelihood of success. “Why should you pity him because he is dead? If you knew him alive, you would hate him as I do. But simply because he no longer lives you try to make me believe that I must play the hypocrite, and pretend to feel towards him as no saint could ever bring herself to do. Why should I pity him, who showed no pity to man, woman, or child? Why should I forgive him, who did not know the meaning of the word--save as a gibe? Were I lying where he lies now, and he stood looking down at me, do you think he would have had anything for me better than a sneer? No! I knew him better than that. But I see that it gives you pain to hear me talking like this. Forgive me, I pray. Since you do not wish it I will say no more. You have proved yourself my friend, and I must do something to show my gratitude. Alas! it is all I can do, for I do not know what is to become of me. I have not a living being in the world to whom I can turn for help, and I have nothing wherewith to support life. What will become of me?”

Here the spirit which had carried her so impetuously forward hitherto gave way altogether, and she seated herself upon a boulder and fell to weeping bitterly. Feeling that it would do her good, I allowed her to have her cry out, and occupied myself meanwhile in building a cairn of large stones above the dead man. I had nothing where-with to dig a grave, so that this was all I could do for the poor body until I could send men out to give it proper sepulture. By the time my task was finished my companion had dried her eyes and was watching me from her seat upon the rock. From her expression I could see that she was not taking the slightest interest in my labour, and still less in the subject that had occasioned it. She must have suffered greatly, I argued, to have come to this, poor girl. Though I would have given much to know, I could not ascertain, without putting the question too bluntly to her, in what sort of relationship the dead man had stood to her. At any rate, she did not volunteer the information, while I, of course, could not ask her for it. And now I found myself face to face with a curious situation. The girl had herself told me that there was not a being in the world to whom she could appeal for help, she was both friendless and penniless. What, therefore, was to be done with her? She could not be allowed to wander about the Bush alone and unprotected, that was out of the question. I knew all the managers’ wives of the district, and felt sure that she would be unable to find a home with them. She could not go on to Condolba, that was out of the question; and what would Flaxman, who was a pronounced woman--hater, say if I took her home with me to Montalta, for that seemed the only course open to me? Though this would appear, by reason of the length of time it has taken me to write it, to have occupied my thoughts for a considerable period, it was not so. A couple of minutes, probably, decided the whole matter and brought me to the conclusion that I would retrace my steps, endeavour to find my horse, and then carry her back with me to the head station, and brave the upshot of my partner’s wrath. I knew his kind heart too well to think for a moment that he would raise any objection. The mere fact that I had deemed it the right thing to do would be sufficient to settle everything.

“I think, if you have no objection, we will now set off in search of my horse,” I remarked, as I placed a last stone upon the cairn. “If you will accept our hospitality at the head station, which is about ten miles distant, I am sure my partner will join with me in doing all we can to make you comfortable. You will need a rest after all you have been through.”

She gave a little shudder as I said this, and I noticed that her eyes turned instinctively towards the heap of stones I had just erected.

“You are more than good to me,” she answered, with what was for her unusual humility. “I thankfully accept your offer. If I do not I must perish of hunger, I suppose, and yet I would not be a burden to you for anything. If you will give me food enough to carry me on, I could doubtless make my way to some town where I might obtain employment. I can teach music and singing--there must be many ways in which I could make a living for myself.”

“We will talk of that later,” I said. “In the meantime, do you feel equal to walking back as far as the place where I left my horse and saddle last night? If you do, I could leave you somewhere and pick you up when I have collected my things. I should not be gone very long if the animal has not strayed far.”

“No! no! let me go with you,” she cried vehemently. “I could not bear to be left alone. I believe it would kill me, I do indeed. Mr. Tregaskis, you hate me, I know, for my behaviour just now, but that is because you do not know--wait, and when the opportunity offers you will find that I can be as grateful as I seem to be vindictive. I owe you my reason, if not my life, for had I not found you last night I should have been a mad woman by this time.”

“You must not allow your mind to dwell on such things,” I said soothingly. Then, descending to the practical, I continued, “I wish I had some breakfast to offer you, I am afraid you must be very hungry.”

“I believe I could eat an elephant,” she laughed, with a sudden change to levity, which I later on discovered was one of her strangest characteristics. “However, you are in just as bad a plight, so that the sooner we move from here, the sooner we shall be able to satisfy our hunger.”

As she spoke she rose from the rock on which she had hitherto been sitting, and thus gave me to understand that she was ready to proceed. I gave one last look at the cairn, and then, side by side, we set off down the hillside to go in search of my horse.

Now there was a curious thing that afterwards afforded me food for considerable reflection. As you will remember, she had on the previous night found her way to me across the plain, the stream, and through the thick scrub on the other side; after daylight she had led me without stop or hesitation by the same route back to the spot where her companion, the man, had been struck dead by the lightning. Yet now, she appeared to have no notion of the direction we should take in order to reach the friendly rocks beside which we had met some hours before. I asked her if she could remember the way, but she only shook her head. It had all gone from her, she said. She could not find her way if she tried. She was as hopelessly bushed as a new chum would have been. Now what had brought this about? Had her terror endowed her with a sense of which she knew nothing, for guesswork it certainly could not have been? But again the question, what was it? And why had this strange faculty departed from her now? I determined to put the question to Flaxman later on and to find out what explanation he could give for it. That he would have one pat for the occasion, I could easily believe.

Whether she had been frightened by the storm, I cannot say; but the fact remains that my horse had gone a-wandering despite her hobbles. Nearly two hours elapsed before I found her, and by that time my companion was well-nigh worn out. Her thin boots were torn by the rough walking, and she was faint from fatigue and want of food. Yet she plodded steadily on by my side, trying, I believe, to make up by her cheerfulness for the bad impression she believed that she had made upon me on that little plateau where I had built the cairn. At last we came upon the horse, calmly feeding beside the same small creek which we had crossed and recrossed that morning some miles lower down. She looked none the worse for the storm of the past night, but submitted to be caught and saddled with all the patient equanimity of a trained camp-horse. This work done, I turned to my companion, who was standing behind me watching me. It then struck me for the first time that while I had told her my name, she had not, as yet, given me hers. I informed her of the fact, where-upon she stood for a moment confused, as if she did not know what answer to give me.

“Please do not tell me if you would rather not,” I said, I am afraid a little coldly, for I must confess her hesitation did not please me. “I have no right to ask the question. Why should you, therefore, tell me?”

“It was not because I would not tell you that I hesitated,” she flashed out, with something of her old fire. “It is because I am ashamed of it. My name is Moira Pendragon, so now you know it. Once, I believe, we were a noble family--now--” she stopped and threw her hands apart with an expressive gesture. Both were strange names--the Christian name was, I believed, Irish; the surname Cornish, without a doubt.

“It would seem, then, that by our names we both hail from the same part of the world,” I observed, “You remember the old rhyme--‘By Tre--Pol--and Pen, You may know the Cornishmen!’”

“I am a Tregaskis, you are a Pendragon, we only require someone with the prefix Pol to make our number complete. And, by Jove, now I come to think, we are complete, for my old mare’s name here is Polly, which divested of the ‘ly’ would come to the same thing. It looks like an omen, does it not?”

“An omen of what?” she asked, with her dark eyes fixed upon me. “I distrust such things.”

“An omen of friendship,” I replied. “Unless you would prefer not to look upon me as a friend.”

She laughed scornfully, just as she had done earlier in the morning when I had asked her to remember that the man was dead. “I never had a friend worthy of the name in my life,” she answered. “Why should you offer to be kinder to me than the rest of the world has been? Ever since my childhood I have stood alone--the world against me. But what would I not give to know that there was someone whom I could trust implicitly, as sometimes men trust their comrades, but as women never trust a woman.”

“Let us try to be such friends then,” I replied, fired with unusual enthusiasm, not so much by what she said as by the way she said it. “When you know me better you will discover that I am not one who gives his friendship lightly, but having once given it, it takes more than a little to break it. Will you trust me?”

“I will,” she answered, and held out her hand to me as she did so. “I will trust you as I have never trusted anyone before.”

And so our compact--surely one of the strangest, as you will afterwards see for yourself, that was ever made by man and woman--was sealed between us.

“Now,” I said, when mere formalities were at an end, “I am going to put you upon my mare, and we will proceed to the station as quickly as possible. I am afraid you will not be very comfortable, but, at least, it will not hurt you or tire you as much as walking.”

At first she declared that she was quite able to walk, but eventually I persuaded her to do as I wished. Without further demur she placed her foot in my hand and allowed me to swing her up into the saddle. I next arranged the stirrup in such a fashion as to give her some sort of support, and then we commenced our march for Montalta, which I hoped, all being well, to reach by mid-day. It was a long and tiring walk, for the ground was heavy after the rain we had had during the night. However, I plodded steadily on, talking to my companion on almost every subject I could think of, in order to divert her thoughts from her own unenviable position and all she had been through in the last twenty-four hours. So far as I was able to judge, I found her a clever conversationalist, and whatever else she may have lacked, her education had certainly not been neglected.

At last, when, I must confess, I was beginning to feel a little tired myself, I saw the boundary fence of Montalta come into sight, and pointed it out to her. Ten minutes later we had reached it, and I was lifting her down at the foot of the steps. Just as I did so, Flaxman appeared on the verandah, and I noticed the look of astonishment upon his face as he saw my companion. He did not remark upon it, of course, but I knew as well as possible that he was wondering what it all might mean. Having given my horse to one of the boys, I turned to Miss Moira and bade her welcome to Montalta, after which I conducted her up the steps to the verandah and introduced her to my partner. In a few brief words I told him of our meeting during the storm of the previous night, and added that I had persuaded her to accept our hospitality for the time being. Whatever he may have thought, and woman-hater though he was, Flaxman was too true a gentleman to permit her to see that her presence was unwelcome. On the contrary, he escorted her into the house as if she were a princess honouring us with a visit. I remained behind for a minute in the verandah to give some instructions to the boy and then rejoined them in our sitting--room, where I found them conversing together in a most satisfactory manner. Needless to say, my mind was considerably relieved.

Remembering all she had been through, and how tired she must be, I persuaded her after a while to go to the room which had been prepared for her, and whither I had seen a substantial meal conveyed. I escorted her myself as far as the door, where she stood facing me.

“How can I thank you?” she began, and doubtless would have said more had she not broken down. Thereupon I hastened to inform her that if she desired to prove her gratitude for such small service as I had rendered her, she could best do so by making a good meal and afterwards sleeping soundly for several hours to come. She gave me a faint little smile and then retired, when I returned to the sitting-room, where I found Flaxman awaiting me.

“My dear fellow,” he began, “what on earth does this mean? I did not like to ask any questions before the girl, but where did you pick her up? She’s the most extraordinary looking young woman I ever set eyes on. You could have knocked me down with the proverbial feather when I saw you two coming up the track. Tell me all about it!”

I did so, commencing with my losing myself in the dark, and finishing with their introduction to each other in the verandah a short time before.

“But who can she be?” he asked. “And who was the man who was struck by lightning? What relation was he to her?” I shook my head. “She will not tell me,” I replied. “All I know about their relationship is that she declares he had treated her badly and that she hated him for it.”

“And she told you nothing of where she came from, nor where she was going?”

“Nothing at all. And I did not like to ask her. She was too distressed to stand much questioning. You’re not angry with me for bringing her here, are you?”

“Angry, my dear fellow,” he said. “Why should I be? I hope I’m not such a cur as to be angry with a man because he does the right thing by a woman in distress. But I confess I don’t understand the young lady. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone quite like her before. To use a word I detest, it seems to me as if there is something uncanny about her. Had we been in England I should have inclined to the belief that there is gipsy blood in her veins. Those dark eyes and black hair would be quite in keeping with the Romany race. Cornish I should certainly not have taken her to be.”

“And yet the name? Does not that suggest association with the Duchy? You remember the distich, ‘Tre, Pol, and Pen’? Arthur and Uther were both Pendragons.”

“And to you belongs the honour of having rescued a descendant of the ancient leaders from imminent peril in the Australian Bush. It is quite a romance.”

“I can assure you it did not seem so to me in the middle of the night,” I answered; “I don’t think I was ever more miserable in my life. When I saw her standing before me in that lightning flash I felt sure I was looking upon an inhabitant of another world. You cannot imagine anything more ghostly than the picture she presented.”

“You won’t be so ready to laugh at me for the future,” he said, with a smile.

“I would not laugh at you at all,” I hastened to say, “if I thought it gave you pain. Put it down to my stupidity that I am unable to believe in all that you do. Sometimes I almost wish that I could. And now I must be off about my work. I’m behind-hand enough as it is.”

So busily occupied was I kept that the afternoon was well advanced before I reached the homestead again. One of my first acts was to despatch a couple of men to bury the unfortunate man who had been killed by lightning; that done I felt easier in my mind, though for the life of me I could not have said why.

As I rode up to the house I became conscious of a tall dark figure standing on the verandah. On closer inspection, it proved to be Miss Moira, but so transformed that I might well have been excused had I not recognised her at first glance. Her glorious hair was now brought into order, she had also done something to her dress, what I cannot say, that to my mind made it appear like a different costume altogether. Though the hunted look was still to be seen in her eyes, it was not as marked as it had been when I had first brought her to the homestead. And to think that, had it not been for her accidental meeting with me, this girl might even now be wandering in the scrub, mad, starving, and homeless! Under such circumstances in all probability it would not have been long before death claimed her for his own. Now, for the time being at least, she was safe.

On hearing my horse’s step she turned and saw me. There was a smile of welcome on her face. It was wonderful the difference it made in her, one would scarcely have believed it to be the same countenance, certainly not that which I had seen staring wildly at me in the lightning flashes of the previous night.

“You have rested, I can see,” I called to her. “You look better already.”

“It is you whom I have to thank for it,” she answered; and then continued, in a lower voice, “I scarcely dare to think of last night. It seems as if it must all have been an evil dream from which I have only just awoke.”

“Why think of it at all?” I continued. “Try to forget it if you can. You are safe now, nothing can harm you here. The best thing you can do is to let the dead past bury its dead.”

I realised that I had said a foolish thing, so to divert her attention, I called up a boy and gave him my horse, after which I ascended the steps and joined her on the verandah. The change in her appearance was, to say the least of it, remarkable. She was more womanly, more ladylike I ought perhaps to say, than I had thought it possible for her to become in so short a time. There was, it is true, the same curious litheness of movement, the same air of unconventionality, the same panther-like grace that I had noticed before, but it was now controlled, like a would-be masterful horse which, while it obeys its driver, is none the less conscious of its power to kick over the traces at any moment should occasion present itself.

One way and another we had seen some curious things at Montalta since we had taken the station over, but I do not fancy we had ever spent so strange an evening as we did on this particular occasion. Had anyone told us a few days before that we should be acting as hosts to a young girl, of whose antecedents, by the way, we knew nothing, I doubt very much if we should have believed it. Yet not only were we doing so, but it was evident that we were deriving considerable satisfaction from the fact. Never before had I seen Flaxman lay himself out to be amiable as he did on this occasion. Hitherto I had always found him reserved, I might almost be excused if I said “bearish,” in the presence of the opposite sex. On this occasion, however, he came out of his shell completely and talked as I had never heard him do before. Among other things, we had some months before indulged ourselves in the luxury of a piano, my partner being a musician of more than average ability.

During the evening he sat down to it and began to play. I watched the girl’s face as he did so, and noticed the eager look that took possession of it. I forget now what he played, but I remember as distinctly as if it were but yesterday the way in which she appeared to hang upon every note. When he stopped, he turned on his chair and looked at her. Her hands were clasped upon her knees and she was looking straight before her, as if she were watching something that we could not see. Then Flaxman rose, and, after a short pause, during which none of us spoke, she left her chair, almost involuntarily, and took his place. After a moment’s hesitation, she struck a few chords and began to sing. What her voice was I could not tell you, a mezzosoprano would, I fancy, be the proper description; I only know that it thrilled me to the very centre of my being. The song she sang was one of Schubert’s, a sad little melody that was destined to haunt me for many a long day to come. On Flaxman her music produced an effect as extraordinary as hers on him. He lay back in his chair, with closed eyes, drinking in every note that fell from her lips, as if he were afraid of losing a single one. When the last chords died away and she rose from the instrument, we almost forgot to thank her, so completely had she held us in her thrall.

Later, when she had retired for the night, I went to the office to look up some information I required for the next day’s work. Having obtained it, I strolled out on to the verandah, according to custom, for a smoke before turning in. It was a beautiful moonlight night, and the view down the valley was like a glimpse of fairyland. Flaxman was at the further end, leaning upon the rails, pipe in mouth. Apparently he did not hear me approaching him. Assuming a cheerfulness I certainly did not feel, I offered him a penny for his thoughts. He gave a start of surprise, and, without turning answered bitterly:--

“My thoughts! Bah! They are not worth even a penny. They are only ghosts, such as you affect not to believe in. Ghosts of what was once, can never be again, yet must always be remembered. Do you understand? I think you do, but should you not, listen to Themistocles, ‘Memini etiam quae nolo: oblivisci non possum quae volo, and you have it in a nutshell. But when you’ve finished your pipe, let’s to bed, old friend, it must be nearly midnight, and you are probably tired out.”

My partner always thought of others before himself.

So ended the first day of Miss Moira’s stay at Montalta.