CHAPTER XXVI.

ESCAPE FROM NORTON'S GAP.

Whilst Starlight was joking with Kearney, Alec got up from his seat by the table, and without taking any notice of Yesslett he strolled to the open window, at which, as was his frequent custom, Crosby was leaning out whistling softly to himself. Supporting himself carelessly against the warped frame, from which the paint had bubbled up and chipped away, and with his brown flushed face turned up to the stars, which now began to burn in the fast darkening sky, Alec said in a low voice to his friend--

"Go on whistling, don't look round. That fellow who has just come in is my cousin, Yesslett Dudley. He has come to try to get us off. They have had my letter. He says my brother is not dead; I could hardly help yelling with delight."

Alec spoke in a whisper, and Martin kept on whistling his tune as though in utter vacancy of mind, but, without looking at Alec, he nodded his head in time to the music to show that he heard him and understood.

"When he has had his supper--plucky beggar, how well he does it," Alec went on in the same low voice--"and goes out with that letter of Starlight's, you must follow him, and hear what he has to say."

Fearing to attract attention by remaining more than a minute or two at the window with Alec, Martin stepped back to the table, where Yesslett, with an appearance of great enjoyment, was pitching into a piece of cold meat and a great lump of damper.

People say there is such a thing as honour amongst thieves; there may be, but thieves seem very doubtful of it themselves, for living in a state of outlawry, and often with a price upon their heads, they grow exceedingly suspicious of each other, and are in constant fear of treachery from one member or another of the gang. This was the case just now. The letter that Starlight had just written, which he had hired Yesslett to take to Lingan's, was the present object of suspicion, and several of the men had whispered together about it. At last Yesslett, having finished his supper; pushed the seat back and rose from the table, and Starlight handed him the letter, saying--

"There now, be off. Mind you fulfil your part of the contract. I've given you the shilling and the supper; you therefore must deliver the letter, and say what I told you."

"Before the boy takes the letter, me and one or two wants to know what's in it," said Middance, a short, stout man, who was standing by the door rather sheepishly swinging one leg.

"Know what's in it!" said Starlight, turning towards him as quick as lightning, and speaking with an angry tone in his voice, which all the music of it failed to hide. "That's just like you. A miserable, sneaking lot of pickpockets that cannot trust me to do a single thing for your benefit and my own without doubting me and poking and prying into it. Stand out of the way there, Middance, and let the boy through," said Starlight, in a voice that somehow the man obeyed without a murmur. Then turning to Yesslett, he added, "and now, boy, be off, and don't let me catch you stopping to listen to what I say."

Martin Crosby had quietly slipped out of the room before Middance had placed himself in the doorway, so that when Yesslett, who was quickly outside the house, had crossed to the path, he found the great fellow awaiting him in the shadow of a mossed and stunted tree.

Directly that he thought Yesslett was out of hearing, Starlight turned again to the startled looking men.

"I will tell you what that letter contained, since you must know. Oh, never mind that fellow Law," said Starlight, impatiently, in answer to the nods and signals of one of the more cautious of the men, "we have got him safe enough, for some time at least, and he knows who and what we are, so it's no good our humbugging him. He knows we're thieves, so what's the use of our aping honest men. Well, that letter was one I have manufactured for the purpose of inducing Lingan and that lubberly son of his to go to Bateman to-morrow. They'll rise to the fly, I know. And this is the reason I've done it.

"We have made Norton's Gap our headquarters for some time past, and it is about time we flitted. I don't hold with keeping in one place too long, as you know, and I've a sort of notion that our whereabouts is suspected, and that won't do for us. What I mean to do is this. To-morrow both the Lingans will start early for Bateman, and when they are out of the way we'll just drop down there in a friendly way, make a clean sweep of everything in the house--I know there is a pile of dollars--and then quietly vamose the ranche."

This was such a piece of base ingratitude--for the Lingans had been invariably faithful and friendly to the bushrangers--that some of the men murmured a feeble dissent, but none of them had the moral courage to boldly oppose Starlight's determination. There is a sort of bravado in vice amongst a band such as this; none of the men likes to own himself feebler in evil-doing than his fellows. Besides this there was something so fiendish in Starlight's unblushing iniquity, in his total want of morals, and in the pride he seemed to take in his own infamy and degradation that it overpowered the men, whose sense of right and wrong was dulled, if not destroyed, by the life of crime that they lived.

"What about Big Eliza?" asked one of the men.

"Oh," said Starlight, with a smile that would not have disgraced an angel, "she'll squeal a bit, and perhaps call me some hard names, for the fool thinks that I like her just because she chooses to like me. _She_ won't do us any harm. I verily believe I could tell her what I intend doing without her saying a word to her husband, or trying to stop us."

And so he truly might have done. He knew only too well what his influence over women was. He was aware of his own beauty, and recognised its power; he therefore never neglected his appearance, and was always becomingly dressed. "From no sense of vanity I can assure you," he once said to Crosby, smoothing down his breeches to the curves of his thighs as he spoke, "but I know the value of my stock-in-trade too well to let it deteriorate as long as I can help it."

"Don't be too sure of Big Eliza," squeaked Foster from somewhere in the background. "She've got a temper of her own."

"Did you never like or respect any one?" said a quiet voice from the window where Alec still was leaning.

Before Starlight had made the light reply that was on his lips as he turned his smiling face to the window, the mocking, sneering voice of Middance, who was striving to emulate his leader in cynicism, said--

"That shows you don't know much o' we wicked uns, or you wouldn't ask that question. Don't you know that the wust of us," here the blackguard assumed what he thought was a religious snuffle, "the very wust, al'ys loves one pussun. Starlight loves his mother."

Swift as the swoop of an eagle Starlight turned on the fellow, and, for the first time in the memory of the gang, livid with passion, struck him a crashing blow full on his jeering mouth. Middance fell like a log, for although Starlight was not tall his muscles and sinews were of steel. Standing over the prostrate man, Starlight said, in a voice that literally quivered with rage--

"Dare to mention her name again, and, as I live, I'll strangle you!"

Middance did not move or speak: he was awed by Starlight's unusual passion, for there was something grand about the anger of this generally unmoved man.

Starlight soon regained command of himself, and, as though ashamed of his display of emotion and anger, he moved to the window where Alec stood astonished at the sudden scene, and in his customary low tone, he said--

"I have surprised you, I see. You think a man is all good or all bad. Ah, wait a few years longer, and you will learn to take wider views. Men are many-sided cattle."

And then, as though to correct any false impression he might have created as to his possessing more than one side himself, he crossed the room and said something, in the same melodious voice, to one of the men, so blasphemous that, accustomed though he was to the not too choice language of a station, Alec flushed hot, as if the very hearing of it seared him.

Shortly after supper the men went off to bed. They did not sit smoking late that night, for a feeling of restraint was upon them after the unusual scene of that evening. Crosby had come in some time before, looking, Alec thought, eager and excited; he said in answer to one of the men that he had seen the boy go towards Lingan's and had then come in. Alec dare not court the attention of the men by crossing the room and speaking to Martin, and he had to wait till Starlight had put out the light and sprung into his hammock, which he had let down from the hooks in the ceiling to which it was fastened in the daytime.

Besides Starlight and Alec there were two other men sleeping in the room, which was a good sized one, and it was to the circumstance that he was thus so well guarded that Alec owed the fact of his not being secured in any way. These two men were Kearney and Martin Crosby.

Alec lay in a perfect fever of anxiety, his very flesh tingling. For some little time sounds could be heard about the place, as Foster, who was general factotum and drudge, moved in the passage or the other rooms, but at length these subsided and the house grew still. Gradually silence fell upon the room, and Alec could hear the breathing of the men grow rhythmical and deep. The night was very dark, for heavy clouds had rolled up from the sea, which lay beyond the eastern hills. As Alec lay gazing with wide open eyes at the dull grey square of the unclosed window he could not see a star. Every now and then warm puffs of air, heavy with the scent of the white jasmine growing wild and rampant in the ruined garden, came in from the outer night.

Alec could feel, he hardly knew how, that there was one person still awake in the room besides himself; he felt sure that it was Crosby, that he was watching his opportunity, and that he only bided his time till all the men had sunk to rest. It must have been nearly midnight. At last, when all the house was hushed in sleep, and when the very sighing of the trees outside seemed but the breathing of their slumber, Alec felt, before his quick ears had heard a sound, Crosby's warm breath upon his cheek. Martin had left his corner of the room, and, lying on the floor, had drawn himself, like a serpent, to where Alec lay. Knowing that the slightest sound broke Starlight's sleep, he placed his lips close to Alec's ear, and in the faintest whisper, he said--

"Your cousin has horses just beyond Lingan's. Get up and creep through the window. Don't make a sound. I'll follow."

Without a word, only grasping Crosby's great arm to show that he understood, Alec slowly rose up, and like a ghost began to steal across the room. He scarcely dared to breathe, and although his bare feet made not the least sound upon the floor he paused for a second after taking every step. As he passed by Starlight's hammock the bushranger turned in his sleep, and threw back the blanket from his throat. Alec felt the little draught of air it made. For a moment he stood quite still, fearing that Starlight might wake, but with a sigh he sank again into the depths of sleep. Alec reached the window, and leaning over the sill he glided, rather than climbed, through it without a sound.

The sweat was standing in beads upon his forehead, and the backs of his wrists were damp from anxiety and excitement as he stood out there in the scented darkness awaiting the coming of his friend. A moment passed, and another, still no Crosby. Had anything happened to him? Time passed so slowly to Alec in his agony of suspense that he thought something must have befallen his friend. He had made one step towards the window to see what was causing the delay when he saw Martin--for his eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness of the night--slowly rising to the window ledge.

For a moment not a sound was heard; then, just as Crosby was half through the window, the woodwork, unaccustomed to the strain, cracked, and with a loud noise a great piece of it gave way.

Without wasting a second, Martin rushed to where Alec was standing. He knew it was useless then to attempt any concealment, for the noise was enough to have roused the seven sleepers. He seized Alec by the arm and said, as he turned him towards the valley--

"This way. Come along. Speed is our only chance now."

He was right, for as they stumbled blindly across the broken ground of the garden, tripping over some obstacle at every other step, and travelling very slowly for all their haste, they heard Starlight spring from his hammock and strike a light. Although only just aroused from his first deep sleep the bushranger had all his wits about him at once, and he seemed to know instinctively what had happened. Whilst still quite close to the window, the fugitives heard him shout out in a clear, loud voice--

"Kearney, Kearney, Crosby, wake up! Look alive! The boy has gone!"

But Starlight was a man of action; he was never one to wait for others when he could do a thing for himself. Before Alec and Martin, with all their eagerness, had travelled forty yards, he was leaning out of the window holding the candle above his head. The flame never flickered in the still and sultry air. In an instant he had seen them; either the light had fallen on them from the window or else their white clothes showed up against the line of dark trees beyond them. Anyway Starlight saw them, and Alec heard him sing out--

"There he is--why, there are _two_!"

Crosby also had heard it, and judging from the sound of Starlight's voice he knew he was at the window. He turned for one second and saw the light gleaming on the bright barrel of the pistol that Starlight was pointing at them. He just had time to lay his powerful hands on Alec's shoulder and swing the lad in front of him that he might cover him with his own great body from Starlight's fire.

Alec did not know what he meant by this, and half looked round, but Crosby urged him on. That moment Alec heard two reports of a pistol follow each other in instantaneous succession, and feeling his shoulders gripped with a convulsive clutch he heard Martin say in a broken voice--

"_I'm shot!_"

He understood then what his friend had done for him; he knew that to screen him from Starlight's fire he had interposed his own body, and to save his life Martin had risked his own. He could not say anything of this just then; his feeling of his friend's devotion was too deep for words, and all his thoughts and all his energy were at once centred on getting Martin safely away. There was no time to waste in talking, for Alec heard answering shouts from the men in the other part of the house, and he knew that in a moment they would be in full pursuit. All that he said was--

"Can you keep up?"

Martin just said, "I'll try," and seizing Alec's right arm, partly to guide him and partly to support himself, he tore along again. Although his right arm hung broken and useless by his side, and although he could feel the hot blood pouring down his body from the wound in his broad breast, where the bullet had struck him after passing through his arm, he never faltered. For one brief second when he was struck the world seemed to swim before him, but clenching his strong teeth together he regained command of himself and resolved, with the noble obstinacy of natures such as his, that he would hold out until he had taken Alec to the place where the horses were, or die attempting it.

As they rushed down towards Lingan's they plainly heard the men leaving the house and starting after them. There was some confusion at first, which gave them a little advantage, but Starlight, who remained quite cool at this crisis, calmly gave instructions to the men, and said that it was towards Lingan's that Alec and Crosby were running. Directly after this they heard two or three men start in pursuit, with the directions to shoot the runaways if they were unable to catch them. The rest of the gang, with Starlight at the head of them, rushed to the little paddock to saddle their horses.

Both Law and Crosby were barefooted, as Alec had left the house without thinking to bring his shoes, and Martin, although he had had his in his hand, had been unable to put them on. Both of them badly cut and bruised their feet against the sharp stones of the valley, but neither of them stopped, or even slackened speed, for that; indeed, in the great dread of being caught before they could reach the horses, neither of them so much as felt the pain.

At last they reach the entrance to the valley, and behind them, not far off, they hear the heavy tramping of the men. Neither of them speaks, but Alec feels that Martin is leaning more heavily each moment on his arm. One thing only is in their favour; their bare feet fall noiseless on the coarse rough grass on to which they now have turned, and their pursuers cannot tell which way they go. At this moment heavy drops of rain begin to fall from the lowering clouds above them--great, heavy drops of water that the heated air has warmed. Now they pass by Lingan's. The house is dark and wrapped in sleep. A sheep-dog hears the footsteps of the men, as they tear down the hill, and barks once. How strange it sounds with all else so still. As they reach the little open space of ground, on the other side of which the long low line of black bush stretches, where Yesslett and the horses await them, they hear behind them the laboured breathing of the men. It is evident that they are gaining fast upon them. Crosby, growing faint from loss of blood, goes slower every moment; he feels he cannot maintain this killing pace. Alec hears his breath grow short. At last, when they have almost reached the place where Yesslett stands waiting with the horses, he says--his words are broken and his voice is faint--

"I can't--keep--up. Run on. He's waiting--horses--little way--straight ahead."

For answer Alec takes Crosby's arm that holds his own, places it round his shoulders, and putting his strong right arm about Martin's waist, half lifting him, he helps him forward. As he does so he feels the poor fellow's shirt is warm and thick with blood. Close behind him now Alec hears the men in pursuit. Kearney--he knows him by his voice--growls an oath as he kicks his foot against a stone. Crosby hears nothing, he is too faint.

Now the men wander away from them, a little to one side, and now--"Thank Heaven!--here are the horses!"

Yesslett stands between them, holding both. He has stood so long, gazing with aching eyes into the darkness, that when at last he suddenly sees the two figures before him, he almost shrieks aloud.

"Oh, Alec--" he begins.

"_Hush_, don't speak. Keep Amber still; he must bear two of us to-night. Now, Crosby, mount," he says, in an intense, low whisper.

But Martin only shakes his head; he has no strength left.

"For Heaven's sake, try!"

No, he cannot do it. But Alec, though almost in despair, for every second he expects to feel the hands of the bushrangers upon him, will not give in. He pushes Crosby to the horse. "Stand still there. Whoa there, Amber!" and placing one bare heavy foot of the fainting man in the stirrup, he stoops, and half lifts, half pushes Martin into the saddle. Then, springing up behind, he holds him up with one rigid arm--he seems to have the strength of ten to-night--and grasps the reins with the other.

"Now, Yesslett--_quick!_" he says, and puts his horse in motion.

As he starts a figure wildly crashes through the bushes, and, grasping Yesslett's bridle, Kearney, in a triumphant voice, yells out--

"Not so fast, my master."

That very moment Starlight, who, with the mounted men of the gang, had followed them at a break-neck pace from the house, dashes on to the open ground, and dimly catching sight of something moving at the edge of the bush, draws his fatal pistol from his belt and fires.

A blinding blaze, a crash, one wild shriek of agony, and Yesslett feels his bridle free; for Kearney falls by the hand of his own leader.