I WAS up at daybreak next morning, and found my horse ready for me, with my swag strapped before the saddle and Snowball at his head. I drank a cup of tea, said good-bye to Flaxman, who had risen to see me start, mounted, and passed out at the slip-panels, where I was joined by the hand that was to accompany me, and followed by Snowball bringing up the rear on a rawboned, half-wild horse, which very few men would have cared to mount.
Soon we were at the camp, to find all busy, and the cook-man preparing the breakfast. It was a very picturesque scene, and one that is not easily forgotten. I saw before me the herd of splendid cattle, quietly grazing on the excellent herbage that grew abundantly by the creeks, watched over by statuesque figures of man and horse only dimly seen through the morning mists, each man with a stock whip balanced on his hip ready for any emergency; while nearer, a group at the fireside anxiously awaited the call to breakfast. Dick Marsland’s tall figure I perceived standing apart from the others, superintending the general proceedings. All around stretched a green plain, dotted here and there with blue gums, just showing ghostlike through the mist.
I shouted a cheery good-morning to Dick as I came near, and he turned on hearing my call and walked forward with outstretched hand to bid me welcome. As I looked down at him I thought that I had never seen so striking a figure as he presented, with his red Crimea shirt and cord breeches and stout leather gaiters, and his broad--brimmed cabbage-tree hat pushed back on his head, while he eternally toyed with his beard, a typical Bushman from top to toe, wiry, alert, and keen, ready to face any difficulty, and possessed of a decisive action that told well the nature of his calling.
“Morning to you, Mr. Tregaskis,” he cried, as we shook hands warmly. “You’re one of the right sort. Get early to work is my motto. One can move cattle fifty times better before the sun is high.”
“You’re right there, Dick,” I replied, as I dismounted and handed over my horse to Snowball. “I see you are well on with the breakfast.”
“Yes, you’re just in time. We’ll get ahead with it now, and then we can think about making a move with the cattle, after we have sent on the ration cart. Now then, Billy, look alive, man; we shall be asking for dinner before you have given us our breakfast.”
“All right, it’s ready now,” replied the cook-man as he began to help the savoury--smelling concoction. In a very short space we were all busy sampling the substantial and excellently cooked meal that was set before us. Having finished, blankets were rolled, “billy” cans and other utensils stowed away on the ration cart, the cook given his final instructions and sent off, so that a meal might be prepared when we arrived with the cattle at the next camp, the situation of which he was to choose for its general convenience and proximity to water.
This very necessary portion of the proceedings having been accomplished to Dick’s satisfaction, everything was now ready for the start of the beasts. When we were mounted, Dick gave his orders as to the positions that we were to take up.
I was given the extreme right with my own man, while Dick took the left with one of his men, and two others acted as whippers-in, and Snowball, with another quick hand, was told off to act as galloper after stragglers and bolters.
Everything being finally fixed up, we tightened girths, and Marsland, riding into the mob, cut out a splendid bull as leader and headed him in the direction we wanted to travel; then the whole herd was put on the move, following the bull, who strode with his splendid head thrown well in the air, bellowing loudly as if to declare his exalted position.
We had all our work cut out to keep the lot going as we wanted them, and many a hard gallop was necessary to bring in breakers and stragglers, while the sound of the cracking of twenty-foot stock whips was continually in the air, and I can tell you that there was some pretty good execution done with them, too, for there wasn’t a man amongst us that could not flick a blow-fly off a beast’s back with the cracker, going pretty fast as well.
At noon we halted by a water-hole to give the animals a rest and drink, and take one ourselves, for the first few hours after starting are tiring with a strange mob of cattle.
Very little of interest occurred after we left the water-hole, but we eventually picked up the cook’s camp and found a meal; then made ourselves comfortable for the night, but of course doing turn and turn about as guard over the cattle. After my two hours were done I was not sorry to roll myself in my blankets and fall asleep.
Next day I started off with them until the first rest, when it seemed that we were not necessary any longer, as the beasts had settled down to travel. I therefore said good-bye to Dick, and received his promise to let me hear of his safe arrival with the mob. I was just about to mount my horse when he came near and said:--
“By the way, Mr. Tregaskis, I don’t think I told you the night before last the name of the poor, wretched lady your friend Black desired to make capital out of. I couldn’t recall it at the time I was spinning the yarn, but it came back to me in a flash to-day. The name on the will was Mary Flaxman, and the letter she wrote was to her husband, Robert Flaxman; the solicitors were to deliver it. Curious, wasn’t it?”
I staggered back from my horse’s side as if I’d received a blow. Marsland saw my intense surprise, for he continued--
“The coincidence is too strange for there to be no connection. Your partner’s name is Robert, isn’t it?”
“Yes, and, by Jove, that in a manner is a clue to our now being troubled by Black. Stay, do you ever remember hearing the name of Mrs. Flaxman’s daughter?”
“Yes, I remember it well, because I considered it a very sweet name and suited to the pretty child. ‘Moira’ it was.”
“‘Moira?’ Ah! how very strange. Did you ever hear what happened to her afterwards?”
“Yes, I believe--mind you, it’s only hear-say, I’m not certain of it--that she married a chap with money named Jim Pendragon. They lived in Melbourne for about a year, then moved away.”
“What sort of a man was he?”
“Well, they used to call him Flash Jay Pen; I always had my suspicions that he was a cardsharper and a cheat, but p’raps I’d better not say so, however; that’s what I have been told.”
“Thanks for the information, old chap. You don’t know the interesting things that you have told me; when I see you again I will give you a yarn that will surprise you. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye,” he shouted as he watched me ride off to join Snowball and the hand. Well, well, what a wonderful world it is, I thought to myself; just fancy that a few words spoken by this queer old drover should throw the true light upon this mystery!
Now I could appreciate Flaxman’s motive in not showing me Moira’s letter after our most unfortunate quarrel, and also his remarks during our ride back to the Station from the township, when he declared that with Moira’s coming to Montalta his peace of mind had gone for ever; doubtless he saw a likeness in her to her mother, for, now I came to think of it, I could remember him gazing at her often, very earnestly, which fact I, in my unreasoning jealousy, had set down to his love for her. Ah! fool that I was, it was all made plain to me now, and I cursed myself again and again for my blind folly and contemptible selfishness; I swore that in word and deed, for the future, I would try to make it up to him.
But how true is the saying that “Man proposes, and Heaven disposes.” Even now as I sit here writing this story I feel that had I always acted in a better spirit to my friend the course of events might have been changed, and much of the pain that my conduct caused us both would have been saved, and I, on my side, would have had less to reproach myself with.
It was a long ride back to the Station, and darkness had begun to fall when we saw its roofs. In my mind’s eye I pictured Moira on the verandah waiting and wondering if I should return that night, I thought of the pleasant dinner table with its cheerful surroundings and merry conversation, how she would ask me to tell her all that had occurred, from the moment that we started until I reached home, for she took the very greatest interest in all that concerned the Station and desired to acquaint herself with even the slightest details of its management. Again, I thought of the delightful evening in the drawing-room afterwards, how she would sit down at the piano and play my favourite “Nocturne,” of Chopin, the “Eleven o’clock Nocturne,” that would send me to my bed more in love with her than ever. These were the thoughts that passed through my mind as we trotted along on our tired horses in the gathering darkness.
As the hand lived at the distant home-stead, I bade him good-night, after requesting him to come to the Station next morning for orders, whereupon he turned his horse in the direction of his home, and Snowball and I made for the paddock together.
At the slip-panels I gave him my tired beast, with instructions that he was to give him an extra feed and then come to the house for his “grub.”
With that I made my way across the lawn and round towards the verandah, and I remember wondering why it was that I could not see the lights from any of the rooms shining over the grass, for by now it was quite dark.
Perhaps they had closed the curtains, as it was slightly cold; or, maybe, they were sitting waiting for me on the verandah. I coo-eed, but there came no answering cry, nothing but the weird echo of my own, that rang round the place like a Banshee’s shriek.
Then there stole over me a sensation of intense fear that chilled me to the marrow. Good God! what if Black and his gang had been there while I was away, and . . . No, no, I would not allow myself to think of anything so awful. I felt in my hip--pocket for the revolver that I always carried now in case of emergency. Finding that it was properly loaded, I slowly mounted the verandah steps, but I could not see anything at all in the gloom. I felt in my pocket for my match-box, but only to discover that I had used every one; however, I knew where I could put my hand on some.
I stood quite still, opposite the spot where I was certain the dining-room door should be, and listened intently for any sound that would tell of the existence of my people, but none came, only the thud, thud of my beating heart, which seemed to echo in my very brain.
No one but those who have been through experiences of this terrible nature can realise the sense of abject terror that laid hold of me. Here I was, returning to my home in expectation of receiving the warmest of welcomes, but only to find darkness, silence, and perhaps death . . . no, I could not, I would not believe it. There must be some accountable reason for the absence of my friends. Perhaps they had gone for a ride and lamed one of their horses, or perhaps they had lost their way and would turn up shortly. Yes, a thousand trivial things might have happened; but, stay, where were the servants, surely they were about somewhere.
Anyway, I must pull myself together and not act like a poor-spirited and frightened child. I should find myself laughing at my fears very soon, when my people appeared.
Trying to bolster up my courage with these hopes, which I almost knew to be false, I took a few steps into the room. Suddenly my foot struck something heavy, and I pitched headlong over it, and fell prone; as I tried to raise myself my hand came in contact with the thing, and to my intense horror I felt the face of a dead man, cold and set. I remember giving vent to the most terrific yell, that went echoing away into the pall of darkness outside, intensified by the hollow roof of the verandah, until it died away somewhere in the blackness of the garden, with a wail like a demented soul.
Even now I go through it all again in my sleep, and wake in terror, and I suppose it will haunt me as long as I live.
In less time than it takes to tell, I was out of that room, across the verandah, and down into the garden, shaking like an aspen. Many minutes passed before I could pull myself together sufficiently to make up my mind once again to go near that form, lying so cold and still up there in the house. But it was evident a most terrible tragedy had been enacted only a few hours since, and, horrible as it was I felt compelled to find out without further delay who the dead man was, for a great dread was in my heart and I feared to learn to what further extent the crime had been perpetrated. I made my way in the darkness towards the horse-paddock, where I knew that I should find Snowball and a lantern. Any human being, even a black boy, would prove an agreeable companion under existing circumstances.
As I went along in the dark, stumbling like a drunken man over the flower beds and borders, I saw Snowball coming towards me with his light; I called out to him in a hollow voice, which, I fear, he could hardly recognise as mine; I saw him stop dead. My appearance, I suppose, must have scared him a bit, for he hesitated as if he meant bolting. But when I addressed him again he was satisfied that I was not a spook, although I must have looked like one, for I expect I was as pale as death.
“Snowball,” I said, “while we’ve bee............