DURING the next few days Moira made steady progress towards recovery, owing to the excellent nursing and unceasing attention lavished upon her by the overseer’s wife. Nothing could equal the devotion shown to her gentle patient--with her night and day, waiting upon her hand and foot, attending to the slightest wish as soon as expressed. It was small wonder that the colour began to return once more to Moira’s cheeks and the brightness to her eyes. In a week she was strong enough to be taken out on to the verandah, where she could enjoy the sunlight and obtain benefit from the fresh air, while we made every effort to interest and amuse her, for we knew it was most important that she should forget the episodes of the last few weeks.
I watched the signs of her returning health and strength with the sincerest pleasure. There was nothing in the world that I would not have done to promote her happiness and welfare. She had only to ask for anything, and I would have gone to the end of the earth to obtain it. For I was hopelessly and desperately in love with her. She was in my thoughts night and day, as I went about my work on the Station, or rode to the distant parts of the run; often, I confess, to my danger, for so engrossed did I become in my reveries that I narrowly escaped severe falls more than once owing to not watching where my horse was treading.
Everything connected with the Station prospered exceedingly. After the good rains that had fallen all looked so bright and hopeful, that we were led to fancy these halcyon days would last, and that we should never again be subjected to the unwelcome visits of O’Connor and his rascally friends. At this time we determined to send a large draft of store cattle down to the market, and I made arrangements with a former acquaintance, Dick Marsland, a drover, one of the best overlanders in Australia, to come up and take charge of them, and to deliver safely at the sale yards.
Pending his arrival, our time was fully occupied in riding to the different parts of the run, cutting out and bringing in the pick of the beasts, and the scene in the drafting yards was one of continual interest and excitement. The cattle proved quite up to our expectations; a finer lot no man could have wished to own. We were proud men as we sat on our horses, and noted the splendid bullocks that passed before us, for more than two-thirds had been bred upon the run, and it was pretty evident that we should obtain very substantial prices when they had been sold. Montalta had always earned a splendid reputation for the quality of its stock, and there was no doubt that the beasts now being sent would enhance this reputation still more.
When the lot had been brought in, we took one last look at them, and then turned our horses’ heads to the Station, dog-tired, man and beast, as we had for days risen at sunrise and been in the saddle nearly all the time till sundown, and the task is far from an easy one.
We ordered a good supply of grog to be taken to the hands, for they one and all had worked like niggers and deserved their extra allowance. As for ourselves, we changed into comfortable togs, dined, and afterwards dropped asleep in our chairs on the verandah.
Next morning we began to head the cattle down to splendid grazing land by the creek, where they were to await the arrival of Marsland, who was expected at the camp in the evening.
I stood by the rails and counted the mob as they passed out, and found that they numbered over six hundred. There were some splendid young bullocks and heifers amongst them, too, in the prime of condition, and I felt delighted that I was able to hand over such a fine lot to Marsland’s charge, who was as good a judge of cattle as I was myself, and perhaps better.
Dick turned up punctually as was his wont, and I sent a note down to the camp, inviting him to come up and have a smoke and chat over old times, in response to which he made his appearance during the evening, whereupon I placed him in a big chair in the verandah, gave him a cigar, and filled a noggin of grog for him, and then we began to talk of many things dear to us both.
Good old Dick! I can see him now, with his long grey beard, of which he was inordinately proud, passing it through his fingers continually, even when riding along, as if it were spun silk. He possessed a large hooked nose, and a pair of brown, twinkling eyes, over which bristled bushy grey eyebrows. His hair was white and thin, over a broad and high forehead. It was a very shrewd and honest face, and few men tried to take him in; if, however, they did, it was ten to one they came off second best. He was a thin, wiry man, standing about six foot two, and as strong as a lion, despite his fifty-eight years. I have never run across anyone equal to him on a horse. Ride! Why, he could ride anything on earth that ever went on four legs, Good, bad, or indifferent, mad or sane, they were all the same to him. And what a hand he was with cattle! It was a lesson to any man to watch him cutting out a half-mad bull in thick, scrubby country, or heading and turning beasts in rough, rocky districts. He generally had a gentle way with him, but when occasion required it, he could be a very devil. Altogether he was what he looked, a born Bushman, and anything he didn’t know about the game wasn’t worth learning.
He suggested that I should go with them for the first two days, as cattle generally travel badly at first out of their own country; so I arranged to take with me one of our own hands and Snowball, who was as good as an average two. So over our smokes and grogs we discussed the prospects of an early start on the morrow, and then passed to other topics.
After having talked of many old mutual friends, I asked him if in his travels about the country he had ever run across a man called Black.
“Black, Black?” he said. “Let me see, the only Black I can remember was a card that got into devilish hot water, in fact, was lagged once or twice for dirty work; you can’t, of course, mean him. I think he was called ‘The Captain,’ but that was years after I first met him.”
“Yes, that’s the man,” I answered, “the very one. What do you know of him? I’m particularly anxious to hear.”
“Well,” he said, “it’s rather a curious story, that of my first meeting with the gentleman, for I reckon it as one of the episodes of my life. I’ll tell you all about it, if you like.”
I was quite agreeable, so I replenished his glass, and bade him set to work. The old chap took a puff at his pipe, and settled himself comfortably in his chair prepared to spin me a yarn. All Bushmen love to yarn, it’s one of their greatest pleasures, and Dick Marsland was no exception. Many and many a time at the camp fire have I listened to the deep voice of the weather-beaten old drover, relating, in most dramatic tones, some thrilling story that he swore had happened to himself; while the burning logs threw up great lurid flames, weirdly illuminating the stems of the gum trees near at hand, intensifying the darkness beyond, and bringing into high relief the figures of the eager listeners who stood or reclined in the cheerful blaze. They were gruesome stories, too, some of them, yarns that made the hair stiffen on the scalp and cause a feeling of chill on the spine. Of course they mostly emanated from his fertile brain, but that did not matter to us; they were blood-curdling enough to make one jump at the sound of a breaking twig, kick the fire into a blaze, and throw on more wood to keep the darkness out.
So the old man shifted the tobacco in his pipe, made it draw to his satisfaction, took a pull at his grog, cleared his throat, and gave me the following story:
“It’s nigh upon sixteen years ago now since I first set eyes on Black. I was asked by old Johnny Luscombe, who owned the place, to go to a station on the borders of the ‘Never, Never Land;’ about the worst part of Australia, I reckon. If I remember right it was called Baroomba. What for, Heaven only knows; I should have called it Hell, if I’d been asked to name it, on account of the dry heat of the hole. I remember the old man told me he had placed a manager in, and wanted me to go and see exactly how the land lay on his behalf, for he was in no way satisfied with the existing methods of the management. I was to report to him how I found things in general, and to give my opinion of the manager and of his ways. I didn’t much like the job, but I wanted it badly at the time, and needs must when the devil drives, so I accepted Mr. Luscombe’s offer; he had always been a good friend to me one way and another, and I felt that this job might lead to others, perhaps good ones, so I arranged to start forthwith. He told me that the manager’s name was Black, and black he proved, as you will see when I have finished my yarn.
“After receiving a letter of introduction, I set off. I can recollect as if it were only yesterday my feelings when I began to travel over some of the most wretched country that it has ever been my lot to see. Arid plains of burnt up grass, poor even in the wet seasons, which, by the way, they don’t get much of, but during the hot times scorched to a cinder, the earth really hot to walk on. Flat as your hand for miles and miles, then sand and spinnifex, spinnifex and sand, in deadly monotony, until you feel that you would give anything for a blade of green grass to look at. Hardly a tree to be seen, and what there is, stunted and almost dead by the heat, and deuced little animal life, but rock-wallaby and crows.
“By the time that I arrived within view of the iron shanties forming the Station I had fairly got the hump. Old Luscombe must have been a dashed fool to have bought the place at all; but, there, it wasn’t my business to discuss the wisdom of my employer’s investments, but I couldn’t help wondering what induced him to touch such a dog’s hole as this.
“I took a spell of rest in the shade of a rock, near by a stagnant water-hole, where I could get a view of the wretched place, for I didn’t want to arrive there until sundown. When that time came I mounted and rode to the principal building, which was little more than a fair-sized wool-shed, and proved to be the manager’s house. As I came near it, all the dogs upon the place began to bark, and there were plenty of them too, poor half-starved mongrels at best.
“As I sat on my horse and looked around in the fast declining light at the miserable hovels, expecting to see someone about, I got the hump worse than ever, and this desolation absolutely finished me off. Where on earth had I got to, I wondered; not a soul about, nothing alive but dogs. I felt that for two pins I could turn tail and make off again without waiting to interview my Black friend. Then I remembered that I was hard up and wanted the job, so I dismounted, tied up my horse, and went and rapped at the door with my whip handle. By and by a black boy came, and I inquired whether everyone was dead or asleep; if not, would he very kindly fetch the boss. So off he started to call Black, leaving me to cool my heels, metaphorically, on the doorstep in the stifling heat.
“I waited a goodish time until I heard someone coming through the house.
“It turned out to be Black, who was a good-looking chap enough, but with a nasty, cruel look in his eye, that I could not help remarking at once. He was evidently used to something better than this life, as I could easily see from his hands, which were clean and smooth, not those of a working-man, and there was little doubt that he was a gentleman born.
“He wanted to know my business, and I produced my letter of introduction from Luscombe, asking him to put me up for a day or two, as I was passing through the district. As he opened and read the letter I watched him very narrowly, and I could easily see that he was not best pleased with my call, but, of course, he expressed his pleasure at seeing me, the while he inwardly wished me at the devil. However, we shook hands, while he said he hoped that I would stay as long as I liked, and he would endeavour to make me comfortable, so far as the limited capabilities of the place would admit.
“When I informed him that my stay would probably be very brief, as I was making my way South, he brightened up pretty considerably, and suggested that I should turn my horse into what he was pleased to call the horse paddock. I agreed, and he showed me the place. We gave the beast some bush hay and a drink, then returned to the house, where he offered me a refresher, which I was glad enough to accept, for the heat had fairly parched me up, just as it did the grass.
“The living room into which he brought me was a bare, wretched place, just like the rest of the dog-kennel of a house, and the furniture, if you could call it so, consisted of four wooden chairs, a deal table, a broken looking-glass on the wall, and one or two coloured prints torn out of illustrated papers and nailed on to the walls; altogether it was a room calculated to make one a fit candidate for a mad house.
“The view, too, from the verandah was equally dreary, and one saw nothing but the arid, treeless waste of burnt-up plain, with the ranges showing purple on the horizon.
“Having brought my things with me, I asked him to let me have a clean-up, and he took me into a room where I was to sleep, which was furnished even more plainly than the other--a truckle bed with two blankets not over clean, a piece of broken looking-glass on the wall, a wooden box doing duty as a washstand, a tin basin, and a bucket of water completed the arrangements. However, I could rough it with anyone, so I didn’t worry on that account. I had a wash aud felt more comfortable. When I arrived in the sitting-room, I found that he had prepared a meal of corned beef and bread, with tea, so we sat down and discussed it, and as I was pretty peckish I did justice to it. After the meal we went on the verandah and smoked our pipes, and he told me all about the Station, how the cattle died off, the general desolation and decay of the place, and how he had come to it full of hope, but soon lost even that, and now didn’t care a d--what happened to him, whether he lived or died, it was all the same to him, for the desolate hole had given him the terrors. He told me that the former manager went mad, murdered his wife, and hanged himself in one of the rooms, and that his ghost wandered about the place and shrieked at night, setting all the dogs howling and moaning.
“As you know, I am not the sort of man that’s easily frightened, and I took all this yarn as the outcome of a disordered brain, for I felt that the horrid monotony of the place had got upon his nerves.
“I told him that I was pretty tired and should like to turn in, and I therefore wished him good-night and went to my room.
“It took me a very short time to get between the blankets, and soon I was asleep, for I was dead beat after my ride.
“How long I had been in the land of dreams I cannot say, but suddenly I was awakened by finding myself sitting bolt upright in my bed, with that curiously uncanny s............