CHAPTER XXVII

A WILD NIGHT-RIDE.

The instant Yesslett felt that his bridle was free, he leaped upon his horse; how he managed to scramble up he could not tell, but grasping the pommel of his saddle, and with it a good handful of his horse's mane, he succeeded somehow in hauling himself to his seat. Alec turned as he heard the report of the pistol; he knew not what new misfortune had happened to them.

"What's that? Are you hurt, Yess?"

"No, no, ride on!" rang out Yesslett's clear boy's voice. "They've shot one of their own men who tried to stop me."

And now the rain began to fall in earnest. Whilst in the bush they were sheltered from it, though they could hear the rustling and the pattering of it on the leaves as it fell on the dense mass of the foliage overhead. Out in the open, when they had passed the belt of bush, they were wet to the skin in a moment. Their shirts clung close about their bodies, and as Alec and Martin were hatless, the rain streamed and trickled from their hair.

Notwithstanding his double load Amber kept up nobly, though Alec well knew that their present pace could not be maintained, but as long as he could hold out Alec did not mean to give in. Trusting entirely to his horse, for the darkness was profound in the depth of the bush, Alec tore madly along the rough and treacherous path. Wet leaves and twigs lashed his face as he passed, and once Amber stumbled and almost fell over a smooth bare root that lay exposed across the track. But fortune was kind, and no accident befell them. Yesslett followed close behind him, riding as recklessly as he.

At first it was as much as Alec could do to keep Martin in the saddle, for the half-swooning fellow swayed and lurched terribly from side to side. Once he lost consciousness entirely, and his heavy head fell back upon Alec's shoulder, and his body became inert and helpless. But the pouring rain which beat upon his upturned face when next they crossed a stretch of open ground seemed to revive him, for with a mighty effort he pulled himself together and sat up.

They had lost all trace of path by this time, having left the better marked bush track behind them, and neither Alec nor Yesslett had any idea which direction to take; but here Crosby came to their assistance, for dark though it was, he was able to recognise some landmarks, and could guide them aright. They were now close to the Dixieville road, he said, and they struck it shortly afterwards some good distance below Badger's Creek, and to the westward of it.

"Here, collar the reins," Alec had said, as soon as he found that Martin had recovered a little, and knew where they were. "I can't see where we are going, and my left arm is quite stiff, and as I don't mean to loose my hold of you, old fellow, my right arm is employed. I wish I could ease you, for you must be suffering agonies with that broken arm of yours."

"I can bear it," said Crosby, in a low voice.

"Shall we go slower now that we have distanced them?" said Alec. "Amber is about knocked up, and no wonder, poor old chap, with two great men on his back."

"Distanced them! What do you mean?" said Yesslett, who was now riding alongside of Alec. "Listen! Can't you hear the galloping of their horses? They are not a hundred yards behind!"

"I hear them if you can't," said Martin, faintly. "This horse of yours cannot carry two of us, and still keep up his speed. Let me slip off, you could outstrip them then. They'd pass me by without seeing me. It doesn't matter if they don't, for I'm nearly done for."

Alec did not waste breath in contradicting him; he only turned his head sideways to Yesslett, clasping Crosby's body even tighter than before.

"Yes, I hear them now. I thought we had left them far behind. Give me back the reins, I can manage. Our work is not all done yet. Yesslett, it again depends on you. We will dash on ahead a little way, and then I'll turn Amber off the road. You tear on at full gallop towards Bateman; let them hear you, they may not notice that one of us has dropped behind. Which horse is it you have?"

"Herring."

"He'll carry you well enough. Take it out of him. They dare not follow you into Bateman. Now then for a dash."

Amber answered to Alec's voice and heel, for the horse had as brave a spirit as his master, and, although labouring terribly, managed a very quick burst of a hundred yards or so. Saying to his cousin, "Now Yesslett, keep on; ride like mad; don't spare the horse," Alec then suddenly wheeled to one side, and quietly pulled up some little way from the road. He could hear Yesslett tearing along, and a moment after, like the gust of a storm, three or four horses dashed madly past.

In a few minutes afterwards, thundering and splashing along the muddy road, Yesslett reached Badger's Creek. He recognised it as the place where he had turned off the road to ride to Norton's Gap that afternoon. Plunging along, at times fetlock deep in mud, he was passing Badger's Creek at racing speed, when a body of horsemen, coming in the opposite direction, managed to catch his foaming horse and pulled him up short. Yesslett, of course, could recognise no one of them, but he hoped they might be honest men, and hardly giving himself time to take breath, he began--

"I don't know who you are, but will you help me? My name is Yesslett Dudley; my cousin, Alec Law, and a wounded man are just behind, and Starlight and his men are after us. Here they come, here they come!" said the boy, mad with excitement.

"A' richt, Yasslutt. Ye're amang frens."

As Macleod spoke--for it was he, with a little band of police and friends which he had collected in Bateman for the purpose of seizing Starlight and his gang at Norton's Gap--the four bushrangers came rushing to their doom. As they dashed up quite close to where he and his friends were standing, Yesslett heard Starlight say to the men, for he had to raise his voice to make himself heard above the noise of the horses--

"Where on earth have those plucky young beggars got to? I can't hear them. If they escape us I shall think my luck has gone at last."

As he spoke, the leader of the capturing party--Collman, the chief store-keeper of Bateman--sprang out from the side of the road, and snatched at his bridle, saying--

"Your luck _has_ gone at last. We've got you this time, Starlight."

But the bushranger was too quick for him. He instantly saw the trap he had tumbled into, and pulling his mare up suddenly and lifting her head round by sheer strength he put her straight at the fence which divided the road from the edge of the precipitous side of the creek. As the beautiful grey rose to the leap, Starlight shouted out, with a laugh--

"No, not you; you haven't got me yet!"

They could hear him crashing down the steep, rocky side of the ravine, brushwood and dead scrub cracking before him, and loosened stones leaping down, and then, at last, a great sudden splash as the horse and rider plunged into the swollen stream of the flooded creek. No one dared risk his neck by following; indeed, it would have been useless to seek him that night, it was so dark.

When a search was made the following morning no trace of Starlight or his horse could be found, though the party sought him far down the creek. Thus, as mysteriously as he had lived--for no one knew who he really was or whence he came--Starlight vanished from the country side which he had infested and plundered for so long with impunity. As his body was not found they could not even tell whether he was really dead or whether he had added another to his long list of daring escapes. He disappeared without a sign, leaving no one to mourn him but Mrs. Lingan--for Big Eliza's heart was womanly and tender if her exterior was masculine and hard--and she, poor soul, could only weep for him in secret, She never learned his intended treachery towards herself.

The three other men, who had not been quick enough, or who had not had the courage to follow Starlight's bold example, were quickly captured by Macleod and the party with him. Although they fought like demons, they were soon overpowered, and with their hands secured behind their backs they were ignominiously led into Bateman, a couple of hours afterwards, in the charge of the valiant Collman. These three were Wetch, Middance, and a German named Schnadd. They were sent down by the police to Bowen, where they were tried, some weeks after, and hanged for murders they had committed in the spring of that year. Thus Starlight's gang was broken up, the only two members of it remaining, Foster and one other man, decamping before the raid was made next day upon Norton's Gap.

When the three bushrangers had been secured and sent off in safe custody to Bateman, Yesslett at once led Macleod, and the one or two men of the band that remained, to the place where Alec and Crosby had turned off from the road, but though they spent some little time looking for them they were unable to find them.

"Don't fash yoursel' aboot it, Yasslutt," said Macleod. "Alec knows verra weel whaur he is, an' he's joost gan hame ower Taunton's auld roon. If we ride back shairply we wull be theer befure him."

It had happened just as Macleod had suspected; not knowing of the relief party that was coming to their rescue, and believing that Yesslett would ride into Bateman without stopping, Alec had determined to turn away from the road, so that crossing Taunton's and getting on to their own run he could reach home quicker than by following the road. He had become terribly anxious about Crosby, for when he next spoke to him, after the bushrangers had dashed past, he gained no reply. The man had fainted from loss of blood. Amber, full of spirit though he was, could no longer go at more than a foot pace; the last wild burst, with his double burden on his back, had quite exhausted him; thus Alec was compelled to slowness when more than ever he wished for speed. He still managed to keep Martin from falling from the horse, but the strain upon him was growing very severe, for the inert body of the man swayed with every movement of the horse, and he had by sheer strength to sustain his whole weight. Crosby's broken arm hung limp and useless by his side, and his heavy head fell back on Alec's shoulder.

In his impatience it seemed to him that they did not more than creep; how slowly the night rolled past; it must surely soon be day. He felt that Martin's body began to grow cold in his arms, his wet clothes clinging about him, and chilling him to stone. He feared that he might slip from insensibility to death before the help, that was now so near at hand, could be reached. The horror of those long hours, in the silence and the darkness, with the dead or dying man, he knew not which, lying inertly in his stiffening arms, he never forgot.

The rain had ceased, and above the dark outline of the distant hills the late rising moon rode slowly through the sky. Dimly, through the widening rifts between the clouds, she shone upon them, tinging the drifting vaporous edges with a dull ochreous yellow. By her pale light Alec saw that Martin's wound still bled. This gave him some faint hope, for he saw that life was not extinct. Pulling up a handful of his blood-stained shirt, and crumpling it into a ball, Alec placed it over the wound and firmly pressed it there to stop the bleeding. He was very tender with him, and he almost felt, despite his anxiety to get his friend safely home, that there was something akin to happiness in thus being the one to minister, however roughly, to his wants; and to feel that he alone, with his right arm, upheld him on the horse, added a sort of suppressed exultation to his love for the man who had sacrificed so much to his friendship for him.

As the night cleared, familiar sounds awoke in the bush, the edge of which he was skirting; the very voices of the night birds seemed to give him welcome home to Wandaroo. At last he reached the fence of the great home paddock, and managed with his one arm to move the top rail of the slip panels. He passed through, Amber neatly stepping the bottom rail. How near he felt to home at last. The very fragrance of the moistened earth seemed different from any other in his loving nostrils. At length the last hill was climbed, and the house, with many windows ablaze with lights, was in full view.

With a wildly beating heart, Alec crossed the yard and reached the door. He could not get off his horse without some help, so sitting where he was he called to those within. The door was flung open, a blaze of light poured out and fell upon the foam-flecked, sweating horse, the blood-stained, hatless, and white-faced rider, and the apparently lifeless burden that he held in his arms. Half terrified, the woman who appeared drew back, and Margaret, beautiful, calm Margaret, took her place.

"_Alec!_ Is it you? Thank God!"

For a moment Alec tried to speak; but in vain. The words would not come. Margaret saw his trouble, and guessed its object.

"All goes well," she said.

Others then came rushing out from the house and took Alec's burden from him, and helped him from the horse, but it was Margaret who first caught Martin in her brave strong arms; it was Margaret who helped to carry him into the house; and when she stooped over the bed on which they laid him to see if still he breathed, it was Margaret who, with her warm red lips, kissed life back again to the cold pale ones of her lover.