Those same dark hours of this eventful night were also the slowest and the dreariest¹ on record in the mind of Naomi Pryse. She too had waited for the moon. At sundown she had stabled her horse, and left it with a fine feed of chaff² and oats as priming for the further work she had in view. This done, she had consented, under protest, to eat something herself; but had jumped up early to fill with her own hands a water-bag and a flask³ of which she could have no need for hours. It made no matter. She must be up and doing this or that; it was intolerable sitting still even to eat and drink. Besides, how could she eat, how could she drink, when he who should have shared her meal was perhaps perishing of hunger and thirst in Top Scrubby? It was much more comforting to cut substantial slices of mutton and bread, to put them up in a neat packet, and to set this in readiness alongside the flask and the water-bag. Then came the trouble. There was nothing more to be done.  
It was barely eight o'clock, and no moon for two hours and a half.
 
Naomi went round to the back veranda⁴, picked up the book she had been reading the day before, and marched about with it under her arm. She had not the heart to sit down and read. Her restless feet took her many times to the kitchen and Mrs. Potter, who shook her good gray head and remonstrated⁵ with increasing candor⁶ and asperity⁷.
 
"Go to look for him?" she cried at last. "When the time comes for that, you'll be too dead tired to sit in your saddle, miss. If you start before the moon's well up, there'll be no telling a hoof-mark from a foot-print without getting off every time. You've said so yourself, Miss Naomi. Then why not go straight to your bed and lie down for two or three hours? I'll bring you a cup of tea at half-past eleven, and you can be away by twelve."
 
Naomi sighed.
 
"It is so long to wait—doing nothing! He may be dying, poor fellow; and yet what can one do in the dark?"
 
"Lie down and rest," said Mrs. Potter, dryly.
 
"Well, I will try, but not on my bed—on the sitting-room⁸ sofa, I think. Will you light the lamp there, please? And bring the tea at eleven; I'll start at half-past."
 
Naomi took a short stroll among the darkling pines—the way that she had taken the piano-tuner in the first moments of their swift friendship—the way that he had taken alone last night. She reached the sitting-room with moist, wistful eyes, which startled themselves as she confronted the mirror over the chimney-piece whereon stood the lamp. She stood for a little, however, looking at herself—steadfastly—inquisitively—as though to search out the secrets of her own heart. She gave it up in the end, and turned wearily away. What was the use of peering into her own heart now, when so often aforetime she had seemed to know it, and had not? There was no use; and as it happened, no need. For the first thing her eyes fell upon,[Pg 197] as she turned, was the pile of music lying yet where Engelhardt had placed it, on the stool. The next was his little inscription⁹ on the uppermost song. She knelt to read it again; when she had done so the two uncertain, left-handed, pencilled lines were wet and blotched with her tears, and she rose up knowing what she had never known before.
 
At eleven-thirty—she had set her heart upon that extra half hour if let alone—Mrs. Potter rattled¹⁰ the tea-tray against the sitting-room door and entered next moment. She found her mistress on the sofa certainly, but lying on her back and staring straight at the ceiling. Her face was very white and still, but she moved it a little as the door opened. She had not slept? Not a wink¹¹. Her book was lying in her lap; it had never been opened. Mrs. Potter was not slow to exhibit her disappointment, not to say her disgust. But Naomi sprang up with every sign of energy, and finished her tea in five minutes. In ten she had her horse saddled. In twelve she had cantered back to the veranda, and was receiving from Mrs. Potter the water-bag, the flask, and the packet of bread and meat.
 
"Have his room nice and ready for him," said the girl, excitedly, "and the kettle boiling, so that we may both have breakfast the instant we get in. It will be a pretty early breakfast, you'll see! Do you think you can do without sleep as long as I can?"
 
"Well, I know I sha'n't lie down while you're gone, miss."
 
"Then I'll be tremendously quick, I will indeed. I only wish I'd started long ago. The moon is splendid now. You can see miles——"
 
"Then look there, Miss Naomi!"
 
"Where?"
 
"Past the stables—across the paddock—toward the fence."
 
Naomi looked. A black figure was running toward them in the moonlight.
 
"Who can it be, Mrs. Potter? Not Mr. Engelhardt——"
 
"Who else?"
 
"But he is reeling and staggering! Could it be some drunken roustabout? And yet that's just his height—it must be—it is—thank God!"
 
Her curiosity first, and then her amazement¹², kept Naomi seated immovable in her saddle. She wondered later why she had not cantered to meet him. She did not stir even when his stertorous¹³ breathing came painfully to her ears. It was only when the quivering, spent, and speechless young man threw his arms across the withers¹⁴ of her horse, and his white face fell forward upon the mane, that Naomi silently detached the water-bag which she had strapped¹⁵ to her saddle, and held it to his lips with a trembling hand. At first he shook his head. Then he raised his wild eyes to hers with a piteously anxious expression.
 
"You have heard—that they are coming?"
 
"No—who?"
 
"You have heard, or why are you on horseback?"
 
"To look for you. I was on the point of starting. I made sure you must be bushed¹⁶."
 
"I was. But I got to a camp. They looked after me; I am all right. And now they are coming in here—they're probably on their way!" Each little sentence came in a fresh gasp¹⁷ from his parched¹⁸ throat.
 
"But who?"
 
"Those two tramps who came the other day, and Simons, the ringer of the shed. Villains—villains every one!"
 
"Ah! And what do they want?"
 
"Can't you guess? The silver! The silver! That fat brute¹⁹ who insulted you so, who do you suppose he is? Tigerskin's[Pg 200] mate—just out of prison—the man whose finger your father shot off ten years ago! You remember how he kept his hands in his pockets the other day? Well, that was the reason. Now there isn't a moment to lose. I listened to their plans. Half an hour ago—or it may be an hour—they lay down for a spell. They were drunk, but not very. They only meant to rest for a bit; then they're coming straight here. They left me tied up—they were going to bring me with them—I'll tell you afterward²⁰ how I got loose. I daren't stop a moment, even to cut adrift their horses. I just bolted for the moon—I'd heard them say the station lay due east—and here I am. Thank God I've found you up and mounted! It couldn't have been better; it's providential. Now you mustn't get off at all; you must just ride right on to the shed."
 
"Must I?" said Naomi, with a tight lip and a keen eye, but a touch of the old banter²¹ in her tone.
 
"We could follow on foot. Meanwhile you would rouse them out at the shed——"
 
"And my silver?"
 
Engelhardt was silent. The girl leant forward in her saddle, and laid a hand upon his shoulder.
 
"No, no, Mr. Engelhardt! Captains don't quit their ships in such a hurry as all that. I'm captain here, and I'll stick to mine. It isn't only the silver. Still my father smelt²² powder for that silver, and the least I can do is to follow his lead."
 
She slid to the ground as she spoke²³.
 
"You will barricade²⁴ yourself in the store?" said Engelhardt.
 
"Exactly. It was fixed²⁵ up for this very kind of thing, after the first fuss with Tigerskin. They'll never get in."
 
"And you mean to stick to your guns inside?"
 
"To such as I have—most certainly."
 
"Then I mean to stick to you."
 
"Very well."
 
"But think—think before it's too late! They are devils, Miss Pryse—beasts! I have seen them and heard them. Better a hundred times be dead than at their mercy. For God's sake, take the horse before they are upon us!"
 
"I stop here," said Naomi, decidedly.
 
"Yet Mrs. Potter and I could hold the store as easily as you could. They shall not get your silver while I'm alive."
 
"My mind is made up," said the girl, in a voice which silenced his remonstrances²⁶; "but I agree with you that somebody ought to start off for the shed. I think that you should, Mr. Engelhardt, if you feel equal to it."
 
"Equal to it! It's so likely I would ride off and leave two women to the mercy of those brutes²⁷! If it............