Chapter 17

As night fell fires were lit within the stockade. A slaughtered bullock lay on its skin, near the smithy, and from this the rebels who remained on Eureka cut steaks, and they cooked their own rough meal. It was Saturday, and a number of the diggers left the encampment to participate in the gaieties peculiar to the evening in the Main Road dancing-booths and in the pubs and shanty bars. As yet, so backward were the preparations, there was only the feeblest attempt at military discipline in the stockade, and the password was common property. A few zealous recruits continued their drilling by the light of the fires, and the smith toiled nobly at his pikes. His hammer rang a spirited tattoo on the anvil till far into the Sunday morning, and he and his grimy but tireless boy helper made a dramatic picture against the night in the glow of their open forge. The rebels played and sang, and there was a little skylarking amongst the younger men; but Done and his companions, wearied by their long tramp and the drilling, had spread their blankets on the ground, and made themselves as comfortable as possible, Jim watching the antics of the rebels through half-closed eyes, the others smoking thoughtfully.

'Well, ole man, what d'yer think of it?' said Josh.

'I don't like it,' answered Jim, feeling himself addressed.

'Mus' say there ain't a very desperate air about the business so far.'

'Why doesn't Paisely attack?' continued Done. 'He must know what's going on here. There's nothing to hinder him knowing as much of the rebels' business as Lalor himself, so far as I can see. Why doesn't he come on?'

'You might join me in a little prayer that he won't,' said Mike. 'What sort o' chance 're we goin' to have if he drops in on us here with his mounted men?'

'Mighty poor, and you can bet the Colonel knows it. Unless he's afraid of precipitating a general rising, he'll charge down here and wipe this place out.'

'If there should be any fightin', gi' me a call, won't you?' said Harry, with a yawn.

The others laughed and took the hint. Slowly the fires faded, and the encampment sank into stillness and silence, save for the slow movements of the sentinels and the clang of the smith's hammer. The night had been warm, the early hours of Sunday morning were cold, but the men were all accustomed to camping in the open, and, huddling together, they slept soundly. The lights of Ballarat had flickered out; the whole field lay in darkness. The slow hours stole on, the sentinels were changed, and absolute quiet descended upon Eureka, for even the heroic blacksmith had stretched himself by his forge, and was sleeping, with the boy by his side.

'The swaddies are on us!'

At about three o'clock that one fierce cry shook the camp into action. The men sprang from the ground; there was an almost simultaneous rush into position--the pikemen nearest the pickets, the rifle men to the left, the revolver corps to the right. It was a false alarm, but it gave Jim more confidence in the men, who had shown much better order than he had expected, and their promptness and determination pleased him.

'They'll make a good fight of it when the swaddies do come,' he said cheerfully, as they settled down in their blankets.

'My oath!' replied Mike. 'But we were chumps to give up our revolvers. What good can a man do pokin' round in the dark with a blanky spike?'

The men lay with their primitive weapons in their hands. There was a little growling and cursing and once more the encampment was given over to sleep.

Jim Done awoke as the grayness of dawn was creeping through the night--awoke with an idea that he was sleeping under the gum-trees. There was a vague belief in his head that he and his mates were on the wallaby, but where they were going to, he was too sleepy to decide. A slight drizzle was falling, but he curled himself in his blanket, and disposed himself to sleep again. Then, with the shock of a heavy blow, he heard a sharp voice challenging. A gunshot followed.

This time there was no mistake. The men rushed to their positions, and the sudden confusion fell as suddenly into order. Jim found himself standing with his column, his pike grasped firmly in two hands, without quite realizing how it had come about that he was there. Mike was on his right; on his left was a little wild Irishman, and even in the intense excitement of that moment, when he could see the black line of infantry coming down upon them through the heavy dusk of early dawn, he marked the fierce, semi-conscious jabbering of the Paddy, with an inclination to laugh aloud.

'Glory be, they're comin'! they're comin'! they're comin'! Plaze the pigs, I'll have wan! Jist wan 'll satisfy me. Blessed saints, make it the wan that shot O'Keif! Och, they're comin', th' darlin's! Hit home, Tim Canty, an' Holy Mary make it the wan that shot Barty O'Keif!'

Jim's eyes were fixed upon the dark mass charging the stockade. The soldiers were now not more than sixty yards off, and he could see a horseman leading. He heard the order to charge, and heard Lalor's sharp, stern reply. There followed a blast of rifles from the stockade, and the shadowy equestrian figure leading the Imperial infantry became blurred and broken in the dusk and the thin rain, and the riderless horse at the head of the column cantered on, and leapt into the stockade through the smoke.

'First blood!' muttered Mike, as the officer fell.

Finding the attack concentrated on one point of the stockade, Lalor gathered his handful of rifles here, and they met the charge of the regulars with another volley, checking their advance. A volley from the carbines replied, and the lead whistled into the stockade. A pikeman ran forward a few steps, plunged on his face at Jim's feet, and lay still.

'Holy Mother, if I can git wan iv them I'll be content--almost!' continued the little Irishman in his fierce monologue.

'Down, men! Take cover under the logs!' said the captain of the pikes, and Done obeyed with the rest; and crouching there, hearing the cracking of the carbines, the terrible impatience of Canty began to work in his own blood. He felt himself to be utterly useless; his pike was impotent against the carbines of the enemy, and the lust of battle was in him. He burned for the stress of action, longed for the order to dash upon the enemy. It was difficult to repress the impatience that spurred him to jump to his feet, and, calling his mates to follow to throw himself against, the soldiers.

That wait under the logs seemed interminable, and meanwhile the riflemen within the stockade and the carbineers without exchanged several volleys, and in between there was an indecisive pattering of independent rifles, and Jim saw the vague figures of his comrades falling in the gloom, falling falteringly, without apparent motive. He could not connect the discharge of the guns with the dropping of the wounded: it was all so cold-blooded, so dispassionate.

'They're not comin'!' cried Canty, whose frenzy would not permit of his keeping cover. 'Why don't they come on like min? God sind me wan--jist--'

He fell like a man whose legs had suddenly lost all power, and lay there, his face pressed to the moist earth, and Jim felt the dying man's fingers moving upon his leg in a trifling way. Presently a hand clutched his own, and he was drawn down.

'Are you hit badly, old man?' said Done.

'Mortal! I'm hit mortal bad!' The hand clung desperately, and Jim peered into Canty's face, and saw a smear of blood about his mouth. He was shot through the breast. 'Mate,' he said eagerly, 'kill wan fer me! Kill wan--if it's only a little wan!'

'I'll do my best, old man.'

'But one fer me, an' fer the good man they murthered. Say "Take that for Barty O'Keif!" when you hit him.'

'So help me God, I will!'

Jim placed Canty well under the cover of the logs, with his head pillowed on a clod.

'Give me me pike here in the right hand. Good enough!' He lay quite still now, and muttered no more, but Jim could see his bright eyes stirring in the semi-darkness.

The firing from without was maintained, but the swaddies were in no hurry to cover the patch of ground that lay between them and the stockade, although the insurgents had already almost exhausted their ammunition. Lalor sprang to the top of the barrier, and stood for a moment, turning as if to give an order, but the order was never spoken. A ball struck him, and he fell into the enclosure, severely wounded. The rebels had fought bravely so far. While their powder lasted they beat off the well armed, well trained regulars, and for twenty minutes held the swaddies at bay across their poor palisade; but at the expiration of that time there were not two dozen charges left in the stockade, and now the riflemen were ordered to retreat to the shallow shafts and use them as pits; and presently the noble 40th finding the resistance broken, was tearing at the logs and pickets, and at last the pikemen were on their feet and face to face with the foe.

The infantry poured into the stockade with fixed bayonets, and against their experience and their efficient weapons the insurgents made a poor show; but they fought stubbornly, if clumsily, and now Jim found himself fighting in grim earnest. He saw a big Lanky spring at him from the logs, with bayonet set stock to hip, and with a lucky twist of, his pole he beat down the other's weapon. But the long hafts of the pikes made them most unwieldy, and in the few seconds that followed Jim stood cheek-by-jowl with death. Suddenly his eyes encountered the face of Canty over the left shoulder of the swaddy. The little Irishman had pulled himself to his feet, his back was to the logs, his pike raised in his two hands. Lurching forward, he plunged the blade into the neck of the soldier. The Lanky's bayonet dropped from his hand, and he fell backwards. The haft of the pike striking the ground stopped him for a moment, and then he swung sideways and dropped on to his face; the pike remaining wedged in his spine, the shaft sprang into the air in a manner that was never after quite free of a suggestion of the hideously ludicrous in Jim's mind. Canty stared for a moment at his fallen enemy, and then, uttering a strange Irish cry of exultation, he fell back across the logs, never to stir again.

The fight at the logs was brief, but fierce. Finding the pikes useless for thrusting, many of the diggers clubbed them. Following this example, Jim swept a second soldier off his feet, and was laying about him with all his strength, when a cavalryman drove his horse at the stockade, and came over almost on top of him, slashing wildly right and left as he came. The soldier's sword struck Done on the left side of the head, inflicting a wound extending from the neck almost to the crown. Jim fell against the horse, clinging weakly to his pike, feeling the hot blood rolling down his neck. He saw the sword raised again, but at that instant a revolver flashed over his shoulder, and the mounted man dived forward, rolled on the neck of his horse, and slid slowly to the ground--dead. Jim turned and recognised the pale face of his brother in the dim light of morning, but at the same instant was struck again, and fell with a bullet in his shoulder.

Wat Ryder uttered a fierce oath, and sprang at the bridle of the riderless horse. With the rein over his arm, he knelt by Jim's side, and endeavoured to rouse him. The infantry were now all within the stockade, pressing forward, firing amongst the scattered insurgents and into the holes where the riflemen were, and the cavalry and mounted troopers were pursuing the rebels, cutting them down ruthlessly.

Ryder succeeded in getting Jim to his feet, and he clung limply to the horse's mane, only dimly conscious of what was happening.

'For God's sake, make an effort, Jim!' cried Ryder. 'Here, up with you, stranger! I'll give the boy a lift,' said an insurgent, suddenly appearing from a hiding-place amongst the logs.

Ryder vaulted to the back of the horse, and, with the assistance of Levi Long, for it was the American who had intervened, soon had Jim in the saddle. A few blows from Long's pike started the nag, and Ryder rushed him blindly at the slabs of the stockade, and the powerful animal blundered through. A shot from an infantryman, intended for the riders, struck the charger, and he plunged forward, snorting with pain, and bolted madly across the broken ground of Eureka, and Ryder, clinging to the unconscious man with one arm, made no attempt to check or regulate their dangerous flight.

XIX

IT was now almost day; the fighting was over. A smart shower had fallen during the struggle, and the wet pipeclay within the stockade was strewn with dead and wounded diggers, and along the line of attack taken by the three companies of infantry wounded and dead soldiers lay scattered, their red coats dotting the white ground with curious blotches of colour, the figures of the men still vague and indefinite in the mist and the feeble light of the dawning day. A wounded soldier near the logs writhed in his agony, with worm-like movements terrible to see. Confusion remained within the stockade. The killing was ended, but the prisoners were to be collected and guarded. Many of the insurgents had escaped, some by hiding in the claims, others by making a run for the surrounding diggings. A few brave friends who had hidden Peter Lalor under slabs sloped against a log succeeded in carrying the wounded leader away under the noses of the soldiers, and he escaped.

The fight had not lasted half an hour, and by the time the people of Ballarat fully realized what was happening it was too late to give help to the devoted few within the stockade; and the men gathered as near the miniature battlefield as they were permitted to go, with white faces, awed and penitent, many feeling the keenest pangs of remorse, knowing how bitterly the earnest souls had paid for their neglect.

One woman had made her way into the stockade within a few minutes of the firing of the last shot. She passed unnoticed in the confusion; her face was hidden in a shawl, and she went quickly amongst the fallen rebels. Some of the wounded men lay in puddles--these she helped; but it was evident that she was seeking someone she knew as she passed from one to another, peering into their faces, seeking to identify them in the feeble light.

This was Aurora Griffiths, and she was seeking Jim Done, cherishing an agonized hope that she might not find him. One wounded man dragged himself to a puddle to satisfy his craving for drink, and died with his face in the thick water; another, a mere boy, was sitting with his back to a log, staring with a puzzled expression at the gory fingers he had dipped in his wound. Presently, coming to a man lying face downward where the soldiers had broken through, Aurora uttered a sharp cry. The figure was familiar. Quickly she turned the face to, the light. It was pale and bloodless; the only disfigurement was a small purple wound in a slight depression near the temple, but the man was dead.

'It's Mike!' murmured Aurora. She knelt in the mud; her trembling hand sought his heart. 'Dead!' she cried. She looked about her in terror, then, rising to her feet, she ran to others lying near. They were strangers. 'Thank God!' she cried--' thank God!' Aurora returned to Mike's side, and, kneeling there, gazed upon him with streaming eyes. Burton's face had assumed a Spartan dignity in death. 'Poor, poor boy!' she said, and with her fingers upon his eyelids she whispered a prayer for his soul. It was long since she had minded to pray for her own, but the dead are so helpless. They invite even the intercession of the faithless.

A soldier touched her on the shoulder.

'You'll have to get out of this, miss,' he said. Glancing at the dead face, he corrected himself, and called her Mrs.

Aurora went with him. She looked closely at the prisoners as they passed, but Jim Done was not amongst them. Beyond the cordon of troopers she was liberated, and returned wearily to Mrs. Kyley's tent, for the Kyleys had shifted their prosperous business to the vicinity of Bakery Hill a month before. At the tent-door she was met by Mary.

'He is not amongst the dead, thank God!' said Aurora, 'and he's not with the prisoners. Jim is safe, but poor Mike Burton--'

'Wounded, is he?'

'Dead. Shot through the head.'

Mrs. Kyley threw up her hands. 'My God!' she said. 'The poor lad! Oh, Aurora, my dear girl, it's a bad, bad business!' The tears were trickling down Mrs. Ben's plump cheeks.

'Why, Mary, what else has happened?'

Mrs. Kyley had set her large bulk before the girl, barring the door.

'You'd better not go in yet awhile, Joy darling.'

'What is it--is it Ben?'

'No, no, it's not Ben, but someone is in there who is hurt pretty badly.'

Somebody I know?' Aurora clutched Mary Kyley's arm, and stared into her face with a sudden new fear.

'Yes, deary, somebody you know.'

It's Jim!'

Mary Kyley nodded her bead, and mopped her tears. 'Yes, it's Jimmy Done.'

Aurora paled to her eyes, her lips tightened to thin purple lines across her white teeth, and she fought with Mary for a moment, seeking to make her way into the tent; but Mrs. Kyley was a powerful woman, and in her grasp, when she was really determined, Aurora was as a mere child.

'For God's sake, let me see him!' said the young woman.

'You mustn't be a fool, Aurora,' the washerwoman said firmly. 'I can't let you go blundering in on to a sick man--and this one is a very sick man.'

'He's dying!'

'No, no; he'll not die easily--he's tough stuff; but he's got two ugly wounds, and we'll have to handle him fine and gently. Pull yourself up, Aurora dear.' She wound her strong arms fondly about the girl and kissed her cheek, and, with a restraining arm still about her, led her into the tent.

Jim Done lay on Mary Kyley's comfortable white bed. His face was ghastly. Aurora uttered a little cry of pain and terror at the sight of him. There was blood upon the sheets and the pillows, and Wat Ryder, working in his shirt-sleeves, was deftly closing a gaping scalp wound with horsehair stitches.

Ryder had carried Jim straight to Kyley's tent, and Mrs. Ben received the wounded man with open arms.

'We may be followed,' he said. 'I've brought him out of the thick of it. Keep watch, please, and give me warning if you see anything of the troopers. May I use your bed?'

'My bed! Yes, and my blood and bones if they're any good to you.'

'Your eyes can do me better service. I'm a done man if the police lay a hand on me, and Jim here needs attention.'

'Then, go to work with an easy mind.'

So Mary kept watch while Ryder worked over Jim with the quickness and decision of a surgeon. It was not the first time by many that he had dealt with ugly wounds.

'Don't neglect the watch,' he said, a minute after Aurora's entrance.

Mary looked at Aurora. The girl was now apparently quite composed; she had cast aside the shawl, and was hastily tying on an apron. So Mrs. Kyley slipped out again, quite reassured.

'It would be better, perhaps, if I held his head,' said Aurora.

'Yes,' answered Ryder shortly.

She seated herself on the bed, and took Done's head between her hands, raising it, and Ryder continued his work rapidly. No further words were spoken till the scalp wound was stitched, and Aurora, gazing into the seemingly lifeless face of the patient, had a strange feeling of insensibility, as if all her emotions were numbed for the time. There was not a tremor in her fingers; she felt that under the influence that possessed her she could have suffered any trial without a cry.

'Now hunt up anything that will do for bandages,' said the man.

She lowered Jim's head gently to the pillow again, and made haste to obey, while Ryder examined the bullet-wound. He showed her how to tear the material, and then bandaged the patient's head.

'I was assistant in a hospital for a time,' he said, in explanation of his masterly work, but he did not say that it was a gaol hospital in which he had gathered his experience.

Aurora watched the man's hands. They were extraordinary hands, long and very narrow--wonderfully capable they seemed. They inspired her with complete faith. He was feeling for the ball in Jim's shoulder. She helped him to turn the young man upon his face, and the slim, dexterous fingers probed the flesh above the shoulder-blades.

'Ah!' he said, with a sigh of relief; and taking his knife, he cut boldly, and, behold--the bullet! It was like a feat of legerdemain. This cut was washed with fluid from a small bottle on the table, smartly stitched, and then, after the wound in front had been treated, the shoulder was firmly bandaged, and Ryder seemed satisfied. He was none too soon, for at that moment Mary Kyley darted in.

'Half a dozen troopers are coming along the hill,' she said.

'Bluff them!' said Ryder quickly. 'If they insist on searching, swear the boy was hurt at a blast. Cover his shoulders. Show no surprise in any alteration in my appearance. I am a customer.' 'He snatched his coat and revolver, and sprang into the next tent.'

At that moment the sound of horses' hoofs was heard on the gravel, and a voice cried 'Halt!' Mrs. Kyley's broad figure filled the doorway.

'How many of those blackguard rebels are you hiding in your tent, Mother Kyley?' said the sergeant.

'Is that you, Sergeant Wallis? Was there ever so attentive an admirer? You'd follow me to the world's end for the love you have of me. I've a dozen rebels inside. Come and be introduced.'

A tall bearded digger with a loaf of bread under his arm had slouched from the business tent, and stood watching the scene with incurious eyes.

'Who the devil are you, and where did you spend last night, my man?' said the trooper.

'I'm a party by the name of Smith, Ephraim Smith--called Eph. I spent last night in my bunk, bein' too damn drunk to join the boys down there, worse luck!'

'Your license, Mr. Ephraim Smith.'

The license was handed up, and found correct. 'You had too much discretion to burn your license with the rest of the seditious blackguards, at any rate, Mr. Smith.'

As it happens.'

'And your ruffianly husband, Mrs. Kyley?'

'I haven't such a thing about me; but if you mean Ben Kyley,' said Mary, 'come down in your private capacity, sergeant, and put the question to him in the same gentlemanly way. I'll hold your coat and see you get fair play, if I have to referee the argument myself.'

'Where is Kyley, you harridan?'

'He went out an hour ago to watch the murder and manslaughter going on down at Eureka, Sergeant Wallis, and if you miscall me again, you Vandemonian pig-stealer, I'll drag you from your horse and drown you in a tub of suds!'

Wallis struck his horse with his open hand, and rode away, followed by his men, laughing back at the seemingly furious Mrs. Kyley, whose assumed anger, however, suddenly gave place to a broad grin as they passed from sight, and she winked a mischievous aside at the bearded digger.

'My oath, but that's a beautiful beard you have,' she said. 'I've a mind to see how it would suit me.'

'Get a doctor to Done as quickly as you can. There are several among the diggers who'll stand by you,' said Ryder, disregarding Mary's levity. 'You'll look after him? You can draw on me for money to any amount.'

'I'll look after the poor boy, and I won't draw on you for a sixpence.'

'He's with good friends, I know.'

'He is. There's a girl in there who would work the fingers off her two hands to serve him.'

'I will call again when I can, and as often as I can, but I'm in no little danger myself.

I understand. You were one of Lalor's men.' Ryder nodded. That idea would suit him very well.

Then, if it wasn't that I love the boy in there, I'd do it for your sake as a good man and true,' continued Mary.