CHAPTER XX.

A CONFERENCE OF BUSHRANGERS.

Most of the bushrangers had dismounted to ease their jaded horses, whose heaving flanks and expanded nostrils spoke plainly enough of the great exertion they had made in the chase that was just ended. The men were standing about Starlight, who was leaning against the charred stump of a burnt tree, flicking the side of his shapely leg with the whip he carried. He looked up as the two men who had hold of Alec brought the boy before him, and with a winsome smile he turned to him and said--

"Well, young fellow, what do you think of yourself for having given us such a chase as this? Aren't you ashamed of yourself?"

Alec made no reply. He thought, and rightly so, that this sort of remark required no answer. Starlight did not seem to notice the omission, but went on in the same light, bantering tone--

"Don't look so sullen; you have done very well for a beginner. We have killed your brother--oh, you need not lock surprised, I know all about you, and besides you are as like as two peas--but you have killed two of my men in return, and that ought to satisfy you. Now one of you fellows there, just look about and see if you can find a little water for the horses. I suppose it is no use asking you where we can find it, Mr. Law, though it would only be hospitable of you on your own run to show us where there is some."

Although Starlight spoke so lightly and, seemingly, was so careless of what went on around him, he kept a keen watch over every one and everything, and the quick catch in the breath that Alec made when he spoke of Geordie did not escape his rapid glance. Like the brute that he was, he determined to torture the poor lad with references to his dead brother from a sheer love of cruelty. Whilst some two or three of the men went to search for water, giving the bridles of their horses to the others to hold, Starlight continued his cruel amusement. To see him, as he leaned so carelessly and gracefully against the burnt stump, with the moonlight falling on his young and handsome face, and lighting up the dimple that fluttered in his cheek when he smiled, one would have thought him some happy fellow talking with a friend instead of the cruel, heartless outlaw that he was.

"It was hardly a fair struggle, was it, for Pearson was so much stronger than your brother, who must have been tired too? It must be unpleasant to have one's brother killed before one's face. Do you find it so?" He looked up with a simple, inquiring glance at Alec as he spoke, and laughed to see how white the boy had grown.

Whilst he was speaking, one of the men who was holding the horses walked up to him and remonstrated with him for his brutal behaviour. He was a great, big, honest-looking fellow, with kind blue eyes and a short curly yellow beard, who looked strangely out of place in the company he was with, and whose reckless, dare-devil expression did not seem quite natural to him. Alec could not hear what he said, but he recognised the voice as being that of the man who had shouted out an answer to Keggs when he was boasting that he was equal with the boys at last.

Starlight listened to what this young fellow had to say, and then, without turning his head, he looked at him between his half-shut lids and said in a slightly sardonic voice--

"You don't seem to enjoy your new profession, Mr. Crosby. Don't you think you had better go back to that pleasant old fellow, your uncle, and act the prodigal nephew? But understand this, once for all, I don't put up with contradiction or allow interference. So let's have no more of these sanctimonious airs; remember you are just as much a bushranger--I'm not frightened of the word--as I am, although you have not tried your hand at sticking any one up yet, or anything else, as far as I can see, but eat and drink with the best of us."

"And never will do anything for you, Heaven willing, from to-night," said Crosby, as he stepped a pace or two to one side.

"Oh, he'll come round," whispered Starlight to Wetch, the man on his left, a trusty henchman this, who had no qualms of conscience, and who had sold himself body and soul to his leader.

A moment or two after this the men who had been looking for water came back and said that they could find none, and Starlight, who owed his success to the quickness of his movements, and to the fact that he never lost time in unnecessary halts during his forays, ordered a start. Whilst Alec was standing, guarded by the two men who had hold of him, Como came bounding to his side. The dog had rushed to Geordie when he was thrown to the ground by Pearson, but as the lad had made no responsive movement when he had licked his hands and face he had left him and sought Alec. The dog was wild with delight at finding one of his masters, and sprang up and licked Alec's white cheek and fawned upon him. One of the men kicked the dog to one side, and it howled with pain. Starlight, whose back had been turned for a moment, looked round and, seeing what it was, sang out--

"Quiet that dog; put a bullet through his head, some one."

But this was too much for Alec to bear passively. A passionate love for animals was one of his strongest feelings, and to hear the order given for Como's death was more than he could endure. With a sudden wrench he tore himself out of the grasp of the two men that held him, for he had been standing so quietly that their hold upon him had gradually grown slack. He knelt on the ground, and flung his arms round the dog that his brother had loved so much, and with his black brows drawn down he looked up at Starlight, and said, quite calmly--

"Don't shoot the dog."

"Yes, I shall. I can't have that noisy brute yelping about me."

"Then you'll shoot him through me," said Alec, in the same determined voice.

"I'm going to shoot you, I know, but not just yet," remarked Starlight in a casual tone.

"We want a dog up at Norton's Gap; why not take this one? It is a handsome brute," said one of the men.

"That alters the case," said Starlight, pleasantly. "I'm always open to conviction. Will he follow us?"

"Yes, he'll follow, if I tell him to," said Alec, unconsciously caressing the velvety ear of the dog, who stood quite still now that he had found his master.

"All right, let him go, I won't hurt him," said Starlight; and then, as Alec looked at him doubtfully, and still retained his hold on the dog, he added, "Oh, I'm not a liar as well as a thief."

"Stow that," growled one of the men.

Starlight laughed, and, with a wave of his hand towards his companions, he said to Alec, "Look at these fellows, they daren't call a spade a spade. They have taken to the bush for years some of them, and lived by robbing ever since, yet they have such tender feelings that they can't bear to be told so. They are not afraid of the substance, but they fear the shadow. I'm a thief and a murderer too, and I don't mind saying it. And so are all of you," said he suddenly, turning to the men, who were always silenced by his scorn. "What about the Denisons, and the Longs, and that man up at Menyp, eh, and others besides? How did they come by their deaths? So don't make fools of yourselves; you know as well as I do that what I say is the truth. I shall be shot or hanged some day, and so will every one of you. Deservedly too."

"We shall all be lagged, and scragged too, as you say, guv, if we stay here much longer," said one of the men with a laugh that was a coarse imitation of Starlight's own.

"That's the first sensible thing I've heard to-night. The horses are breathed by this time. I've only one more thing to do and then we can start." He was drawing his pistol from his belt as he spoke. "The whole affair has been a fool's errand, and I'm heartily glad that that brute Keggs has got what he deserved for telling us such a cock-and-bull story of gold and making us waste so much time."

"What's yer goin' ter do?" asked Middance, one of the two men who had again taken hold of Alec.

"Going to give the dingoes a feast, and to send that young person you've got hold of into the pleasant company of his dear departed brother. So perhaps you had better loose him. I don't suppose I shall miss him, but, being so nervous, I might."

This was enough for Middance and the other man who held Alec; they loosed the lad and nimbly sprang aside. For one awful second Alec stood like a statue in the dread presence of Death; he felt as though his heart were grasped in an icy hand which froze his blood within his veins. He could not stir, for the frightful thought of the sudden death he was threatened with had benumbed and deadened every limb.

Starlight cocked his pistol, raised it--Alec saw the moonlight gleam upon the polished barrel--took a rapid aim at the breast of the motionless boy, and, without a tremor of hesitation, fired full at him.

The loud explosion rang across the open moonlit plain.

But the smoke rolled away and the boy still was there, standing as he had stood before; for just as Starlight fired, Crosby, who had seen what he was about to do, sprang to his side and knocked up his arm. The bushranger leaped round, his eye flashing ominously, and in a voice that was unsteady with anger, he said--

"What now--what do you mean by that?"

"Why, I mean that you are a fool to think of killing your golden goose in that way. Do you think, just because he has no gold with him, that he does not know where it is to be found. I know better than that. Keggs' story was true enough, take my word for it. Don't let us lose all the benefit of our work by killing the only person who can help us in getting what we want. Let me ask the lad; I'll back he tells me."

Crosby spoke so naturally and assumed a manner of such keen interest in the affair that the astute Starlight himself was taken in. As the young fellow walked across to where Alec was standing alone, Starlight turned to Wetch, and said--

"Didn't I say he'd come round. He's just as mad after the gold as any of us. He has got his head screwed on right, too. Leave him alone to manage the boy."

Whilst Starlight was thus whispering to his lieutenant, Crosby had crossed over to Alec, and taking hold of his hand, and giving the lad a little shake to rouse him from the half stupefied condition he was in, he rapidly whispered in his ear in a low voice--

"You must say that you know where the gold is. It is your only chance. Trust to me, and I'll help you out of this mess if it costs me my life. Look me in the face, lad," said he, laying his two hands on Alec's shoulders, "so that you will know me again. Say something, anything, it doesn't matter what; only let them see that you are speaking."

"I shall know you again well enough," said Alec, looking deeply into the honest grey eyes before him, for the two men were of a level height. "I have not so many friends," he added, with a dreary sigh, "that I can afford to mistake one when he offers himself."

"All right, Boss," Crosby sang out aloud as he turned again and faced Starlight; and then, leaving Alec, he walked to the place where the men were clustered together, and with a wink and a knowing little nod of the head which satisfied Starlight that he was heartily one with them, he said, "He knows where the gold lies; I shall be able to get it all out of him, for he thinks I'm a friend, so if any of you fellows spot us talking very friendly, just hold your tongues and don't let on."

This last sentence was a bold stroke of policy on Crosby's part, for he knew that if the men saw him talking with Alec they would be sure to suspect something, so he thought he would disarm suspicion by telling them some part of the truth. He was a shrewd, clear-headed fellow enough, and knew that to tell the truth in part was the best way to conceal the whole truth from them.

"Ah," said Starlight, "that comes of having an honest face, and a pair of innocent-looking eyes. Now you, Wetch, could never have made the boy believe that you were anything but a villain."

Starlight little thought that it was the pure and kindly soul that shone from Crosby's eyes which made his whole face good and honest, or that Wetch himself, ugly brute though he was, might have looked as honest as Crosby had but his spirit been as guiltless and bright. It is not noses and features and colour that mark a man's face as that of an upright, honourable fellow; but it is the steady light that shines from the eyes and the pleasant expressive lines of the honest mouth that show the character of a man, and these things no knave or rogue can imitate, stare though he may and smirk as he will.

"Well, bring the boy along, then. Let him have Pearson's horse; it seems he knows how to ride that beast," said Starlight, laughing as he thought of the way Alec had stuck on the horse, "and his own has bolted, more's the pity, for I should have liked that chestnut myself."

"Now, then, look sharp, you fellows," said Wetch, impatiently; "the moon has begun to sink, and it is a blarmed dark ride to Norton's Gap."

Without further delay they all sprang to horse. One of the men brought up Pearson's horse to Alec, and at a glance from Crosby he mounted it without a word. Giving the signal to start, Starlight placed himself at Alec's off-side, and drawing his pistol from his belt and showing it him, he said--

"Look here, my young friend, if you try to make a bolt of it, I'll let daylight--or, rather, Starlight--into that headpiece of yours; but if you don't make a fool of yourself, and come along quietly, why you'll be all right, and shall have something to eat in an hour or so into the bargain."

Without more ado the whole party set in motion, and, casting a last look to the place where poor Geordie lay all white and still in the moonlight, with a choking throat Alec turned his back upon Wandaroo, and rode off at a good round pace southwards.