Chapter 21

Macdougal's face was literally convulsed with the fury of his hate; he spat at Ryder as he spoke, and then, with the swiftness and the strength that had marked them in health, the outlaw's fingers fastened upon his hairy throat. The long, thin hands clamped themselves upon his neck, and for a moment Monkey Mack was helpless in the agonies of suffocation. Then his left hand pointed the revolver at Ryder's ear; there was a sharp report, and the outlaw fell limply, and rolled back upon the flat water-worn rock, his shattered head to the stone, his arms out thrown, his lifeless face turned up to the blue sky.

XXIII

MONKEY MACK stood for a few seconds gazing down upon the dead man, unconscious of the fact that at the moment his shot was fired Lucy Woodrow and Jim Done had come suddenly upon the scene around one of the huge boulders with which the gorge was strewn. He was recalled to himself by the exclamation of horror uttered by the girl, and discovered Jim, revolver in hand. Turning, he fled up the right side of the gorge, where the timber offered good cover. Jim raised his revolver, and took deliberate aim at the flying figure, but Lucy seized his arm and bore it down, and, clinging to him, she cried:

'No, no! for God's sake, not that!'

Jim tore himself from her with bitter words, and the next moment they saw Macdougal riding furiously along the side of the gorge, swinging his apparently maddened horse through the thick timber with marvellous dexterity. Done uttered a cry, and ran for the horses, and Lucy followed him, calling piteously. She saw Jim spring upon Wallaroo and turn his head down the gully, and, knowing his intention, snatched the revolver from Yarra's hand and fired at the stallion. The shot took effect in the horse's neck, and he plunged forward, throwing Jim heavily, and, rolling on his side, lay half submerged in the water of the creek.

Done was stunned and shaken by the fall, and it was some minutes before he quite recovered. Then, turning upon Lucy in the blind fury that filled his soul, he said:

'You have saved that foul murderer, and while he lives I swear I'll never forgive you!'

She made no reply, but followed Jim to Ryder's side, trembling in every limb, with a bursting pain at her heart and a feeling of utter desolation upon her. Done knelt by the dead outlaw, looking into the white face, and remembered standing as a boy gazing into another dead face wonderfully like this, the face of his mother. He felt no sorrow; there was room in his soul only for his black wrath. For some minutes he remained kneeling, with set teeth, his hands clenched, his blood hot with rage. When he arose Lucy was by his side, but her eyes were bent upon the dead man.

'You stood between me and my brother's murderer,' he said.

She looked at him vaguely, as if she had not heard aright, and passed a faltering hand across her eyes.

'Your brother's murderer?' she said.

'The man lying there is my brother. For no crimes for no wrong against man or woman, his life was made a horror to him. And this is the end, butchered by a foul beast.'

'Don't!' she murmured. She put out her hands appealingly, and continued in a choking voice: 'I can bear no more. All my strength is gone. For pity's sake, no more, no more!' She turned from him, and, falling to her knees, sank her face upon Ryder's breast, and gave way to a fit of sobbing that shook her from head to foot. Her attitude was one of complete abandon; one hand lay upon the cheek of the dead outlaw, suggesting an ineffable caress.

Done sat upon a rock, watching her without understanding. Yarra, who had stolen near to Ryder's body, crouched upon the rock, staring intently at the face of his friend. Presently Jim noticed that Lucy was lying inert, and he lifted her to the pool and bathed her forehead with the cool water. Yarra brought a pannikin and a bottle containing brandy from the cave, and Jim poured a little of the spirit between the girl's lips. Lucy revived after a few minutes, and lay for a time in the shade before she was strong enough to walk.

'I must go,' she said with a strange listless ness.

'Take the boy with you,' Jim answered. 'He will see you safely to Boobyalla.'

'And you?' she asked.

'There is something for me to do here.'

She looked at the body, and said, 'Yes, yes, of course,' but the only expression in her face was one of utter weariness.

He helped her on to the horse. She did not thank him. No words of farewell were spoken, but as the horse moved away he said:

'Contrive to let Yarra bring me a shovel.'

'Yes.'

'At least the brute beast shall not have the price of his head

'No.' She repeated the word quite mechanically. 'No, no!'

Done returned to his brother. He lifted the body into the shade, and composed the limbs, and then seated himself and gave his mind over to bitter reflection. Ryder's face exerted a strong influence upon him. In death it had assumed a delicacy almost effeminate. It was the face of a saint and an ascetic. What was most evil in him had been grown in the forcing-house of vice and crime society had set up, and for being the thing it had made him society had butchered him like a mad dog. Jim recognised Monkey Mack only as the instrument of society. His logic may not have been perfect: his mind was in no state to deal with ethical nuances; he saw only the ruined life, remembered what Ryder had endured, and, above all, that he had been an innocent man, crushed, tortured, brutalized into an enemy of the law and the existing order. He felt himself capable of taking up his brother's fight. In his heart he was resolved to seek out Macdougal and kill him. That much must be done. He never questioned his capability for murder, and it is probable that had the chance come to him in cold blood his spirit would have failed him.

It was three o'clock in the afternoon when Yarra returned with pick and shovel, and Jim had already selected the spot for Ryder's resting-place, beside a great boulder above the waterfall. There he started to dig the grave.

'Him brother belonga you?' asked Yarra.

'Yes,' said Jim.

'Good feller,' continued Yarra, and his black eyes gleamed maliciously. 'Boss belonga me kill him. You kill mine Boss?' Perhaps it was the remembrance of the many kicks and cuts he had received at the hands of Monkey Mack that inspired the impish eagerness in Yarra's face, perhaps his affection for the dead man moved him.

Jim Done looked at the boy curiously. 'Boss belonga you sit down by Boobyalla?' he asked.

Yarra shook his head. 'No fear,' he said. 'Yarra stop 'way pretty quick when Boss bin there.'

'Suppose Yarra catch up track of Boss belonga him, come back when sun jump up, tell me.'

'My word! Budgery that! Mine tink it Boss yabber-yabber longa trooper.'

Yarra set off at once, and Done continued his work. He was determined that the grave should be deep enough to protect the body froth burrowing animals, and secret enough to save it from human brutes eager for the price on Solo's head. This task was not complete when Yarra returned, his eyes ablaze with excitement.

'Hell bin jump up, mine tink it!' he cried. 'Boss belonga me sit down there all right. You come!'

'You know where Macdougal is?'

'My word! Come longa me.'

Jim took up his revolver and followed the half caste, leaving the body between the sheets of bark with which he had fashioned a rude coffin.

'Boss close up here,' said Yarra as they scrambled up the side of the gorge, after following the creek for about a quarter of a mile. The boy proceeded with out caution, and presently they came upon a saddled horse lying under a big white gum. The animal' neck was broken; evidently it had collided with the tree when at a gallop.

'Boss make big smash up here,' said Yarra. He pointed to a huddled, shapeless heap lying amongst the scrub-ferns at a distance of about twenty feet.

Done stood over the body of Macdougal, and felt for a moment a resentment against the Fates that had robbed him of his revenge. The squatter had dreaded the probability of confederates coming to the assistance of the outlaw, and his ride for safety had been absolutely desperate. He lay within a quarter of a mile of the waterfall, and had been killed on the spot. His head was crushed and hideous. Done turned from the sight with a shudder.

Jim buried Ryder by the light of the moon. He spent the night in the gorge, but slept little, and Yarra, who had all the superstitions of his mother's race, crouched close to the white man, and his teeth chattered with fear the whole night through. He had conceived the idea that the spirit of Macdougal had taken possession of the gorge, and for the future the place must be a haunt of terror to him. After daybreak, with the boy's assistance, Done hid all traces of the new-made grave, and by this time he was grateful for the food Yarra brought from the cave. Breakfast strengthened him greatly. He had eaten nothing for close upon twenty hours, and the exhaustive experiences of that time told heavily upon his enfeebled frame. As a result of his night's reflection and the judgment that had come with cooler blood, he was determined to visit Lucy at the station. Yesterday's bitterness towards her had been real enough, but he assured himself that it was the effect of the extraordinary excitement worked in his brain by the events of the day. This morning there was upon him a physical and moral apathy: the reaction left him without interest. The invalid lassitude possessed him again, and he stood over his brother's grave for a few minutes, without feeling any recurrence of the resentments that had so recently blazed within him.

Lucy met him in the garden; she was still pale, but showed no sign of physical weakness.

'I treated you brutally,' he said abruptly. I am sorry; I was mad with rage.'

'I know; I understood then. You know I am sorry for you.'

'You saved Macdougal for my own sake, not for his,'

'Yes. Innocent or guilty, your brother was an outlaw, Legally, Macdougal was justified in killing him, but if you kill Macdougal it will be murder. Ah! that terrible thought has gone from your mind?'

'Yes; Macdougal is dead.'

'Dead!' She caught his hand, and looked into his face with terror. 'You have killed him!'

'No. His horse must have collided with a tree as he galloped down the gorge. Yarra found him.'

'Thank God vengeance was not left to you!'

'It is best. I have buried my brother. The whereabouts of his grave must be kept secret.'

'Tell me where he lies.' She spoke with eagerness. 'I swear none shall know from me!'

Done was impressed by her emotion, and the picture of her sobbing figure prostrate over the body of the outlaw was recalled to his mind. 'Under the great round boulder above the waterfall to the left, just where the shadow falls at noon,' he said. 'Better never speak of his death even. I have warned Yarra, and I think he will be faithful.'

'You can trust me.' She paused for a moment falteringly, and then continued with an effort and in a low voice: 'I must respect the grave, for in it my heart is buried. More than my heart,' she continued with passion--' a part of my very soul. I loved him!' She had made this confession, feeling that it was her duty to let Jim know that the tenderness she had felt for him had been swept away in the tide of an overwhelming love for the other.

Whatever Done's feelings may have been, neither face nor voice betrayed him. 'Good-bye,' he said, and turned away.

She followed him a few paces, and seized his arm.

'You are not going with unkindness in your heart?' she pleaded.

'No,' he answered. 'I am very sorry for you.'

'I want your friendship always.'

It is yours.'

He held her hands in his, and noticed that there were tears upon her cheeks. He was certainly sorry for her; it was pitiful to think that her new happiness had been wrecked in this way, but he could not overcome the coldness that was about him; and so they parted on the spot where a few months earlier Jim had said good-bye with a heart full of love and longing.

XXIV

A BITTER time followed with Jim Done. He had rejoined Harry Peetree at Blanket Flat, and continued working there; but his strength returned slowly, and the joy of life had fled from his heart again, leaving him more miserable than he had been as a youth in his native village. In those days his resentments helped to sustain him; he took pride in the spirit with which he faced the enmity of the people, and not a little comfort came to him from the egotism he had cultivated as a refuge from the common contempt. Now the fighting spirit was gone all hatred had gone with it, and his self-confidence had degenerated. For a few weeks after Ryder's death he made a deliberate effort to stir himself into a state of passionate revolt, dwelling long upon the barbarous sufferings his brother had endured, drawing upon his affection for Mike Burton to stimulate his fading emotions; but he failed to lift himself out of the slough of despond into which he had fallen.

Jim fled from his nurses too early, and the trials he subsequently endured served to retard his restoration. He had pretty good health, without either strength of body or spirit. Half an hour's work at the windlass wearied him, and this weariness irritated him with a dull, abiding anger. He spent much of his time when not at work lying on his bunk. The life on the field was not different from that which had delighted him at Diamond Gully; there was the same cheerfulness amongst the men, the shanties flared at night, and the diggers roared, and gambled, and drank with no less enthusiasm. He alone was changed.

These moods and the manner of life he was leading fostered a most unhealthy habit of introspection. He was for ever examining his emotions. He thought much about Lucy Woodrow, and of the love he had borne her, but without sorrow for the loss of her. He tried to account for the fact that there was no grief in his heart on Lucy's accounts whilst keeping Aurora jealously in the background. He was unconsciously dishonest to himself in these self-examinings, and one day this dawned upon him. He laughed over the discovery, laughed aloud at himself, but the amusement was grim.

'So, then, it is Aurora I need after all,' he said in satirical soliloquy, 'and my soul has been playing the hypocrite these few weeks. What a marvel of constancy is man! Lucy is lost to me, and secretly the baffled heart sneaks back to the other love.'

Behind all this was a fretful longing for the past happiness to which the new country, the new conditions, Aurora Mike, and his own abounding vitality, had contributed. He shunned the conditions, and was angry because the object eluded him. Done, in his sick desire to know himself ceased to be truly himself. Had he been content with the fact that he loved Aurora and needed her--needed her love, her beauty, her fine joyousness and splendid vitality--the rest would have been easy.

He had written from Ballarat to Mike Burton's family in New South Wales, and at about this time there came a letter from a relative, asking his assistance in Melbourne to secure the money lying to Burton's credit in the bank. Jim went to Melbourne, and a quiet trip and the change improved him considerably. When he returned again there was a letter from Mary Kyley, It was brief:

'DEAR JIMMY,

'We are at Tarrangower. Joy is back with us, well and strong again, and as pretty as a picture; but the mischief is she doesn't forget the boy who isn't fit to kiss the boots she wears--meaning your self, you scamp! 'Tisn't a far ride! Maybe you'll come one of these fine Sundays.

'Your middle-aged friend,

'MARY KYLEY.'

Jim spent nearly three days over that letter, and then determination came suddenly on top of much contrary argument. He would go. No sooner had he made up his mind than a consuming eagerness to see Aurora seized him. All other considerations were lost. He must go at once, take her in his arms, plead with her with all the fervour of his heart, compel her with every argument love could advance, beseech her with all the humility of the conquered to be his wife.

Now his love of Lucy appeared as a mere aberration. His overwhelming eagerness for life, for new faces, scenes, sensations, had whirled him from the true path of his happiness. Thank God, it was not too late! Joy alone was his true mate, his true love, the real need of his being, and he had never loved her as now. The passion came back upon him like a dammed torrent. His impatience made his mate open his eyes in grave wonder.

'I want to reach Tarrangower before noon to' morrow, Harry,' he said. 'Can it be done?'

'You could cover the distance in 'bout five hours on a decent horse. But what's struck you, ole man?'

'The idea that I've been playing the melancholy fool. I've been questioning life, bargaining with it like a suspicious huckster --suspecting, doubting, rejecting, instead of opening wide my arms and taking the good to me wherever it offered.'

'I dunno what you're drivin' at, Jim; but if it means you're goin' to cheer up I'm all-fired glad to hear it. You've been as miserable as a dingo in a springer since Eureka.'

'It means that, Harry. Can we get horses?'

'We--meanin' me too?'

'Yes; you'll come with me? I don't know the lay of the country, and I must go.'

'Oh, I'll go fast enough. You can get horses from Croker, but they'll cost you a bite.'

This was on Saturday. Jim was in Tarrangower an hour before noon on Sundays The first digger they met directed them to Mary Kyley's tent. Mary was busy preparing dinner, but dropped everything, and rushed at the visitors, half' smothering Jim in a motherly hug.

'Murder! you're looking peeky and thin, Jimmy!' she cried.

'Never mind me, Mrs. Ben; I'm all right. Where's Joy?'

'She's gone for a bit of a walk in the sun.'

'Could I find her?'

'Deuce take your impatience! This isn't flattering to me!'

'Harry will comfort you. I want Aurora, and I want her badly. If she doesn't want me, you'd better have left me to die when I had the good chance down there at Eureka, Mary Kyley.'

'That's good to hear. On my soul, I like the ring of it! Keep round the bend of the hill to the left. You'll see her among the saplings.'

He found her within a few minutes. Seeing her in the distance, he ran like a schoolboy, and arrived at her side breathless. She was sitting on a log; her hat was at her feet. She was radiant with health and colour again. It seemed to him that she had a peculiar affinity with the sunshine. He sank on his knees, seizing her hands, speaking nothing, seeking a verdict in her face. She slipped her hands from his and clasped them about his neck, and her face sank down to his.

'Oh, ma bouthal, you have come back to me,' she murmured.

'Yes, I've come back, Joy he said hoarsely.

'And with the true light in eyes.'

'With my soul full of love for you, my Joy.'

'And the other?'

'There is no other! There never was another! There was a childish waywardness, a summer madness--God knows what! But I know now Joy, that you are mistress and master of me, that without you I am worthless. I want you, my darling.'

'You have me!--you have me, Jim! Every beat of the heart of me!'

She pressed her face to his, and their first kiss had not the rapture of that kiss. In it mingled the old sweet emotions, and new ones born of sorrow that were sweeter still.

'I only understood one side of my love for you,' he said presently. 'I had to be taught the rest in a hard school.'

'I knew you would come back to me, sooner or later. You have come soon.'

'You knew?' He looked at her wonderingly for a moment, but the surprise passed. It only seemed strange that he had not recognised all along how inevitable was his return. 'Now that I have come I go no more,' he said. 'I cannot spare you from my side. I want the ties. I would clamp you to my heart with iron if I could.'

'Arrah! 'tis a happy girl I am, Jimmy,' she whispered. 'Hush! d'ye hear the song in heart?'

He laughed at the brogue, and pressed his lips amongst her thick hair.

'I want you for my wife,' he said.

She clung to him closely in silence for a moment and then he raised her gently and they walked back to the tent, hand in hand.

Nearly a year later Mr. and Mrs. Done were in Melbourne together when the Petral sailed for England. Amongst the ship's passengers were Mrs. Donald Macdougal, her two children, and Lucy Woodrow. Mrs. Macdougal, a wealthy and attractive widow, had sold Boobyalla, and intended to make her home in England. Lucy was still her companion, and, bidding them farewell, Jim was glad to know that the girl was well and not unhappy.

Jim and Aurora followed the rushes for some years after their marriage, and when they settled down in a substantial house at Ballarat, Done long regretted the canvas walls and the stir and gaiety of the tented fields.

By this time Ballarat was a prim town of many churches and strong Wesleyan proclivities, and Eureka had been justified by the concession of nearly all that the diggers fought for. One-armed Peter Lalor was a staid Parliamentarian and a stout Constitutionalist now, and the grave in which Micah Burton and the other rebels lay buried was an honoured spot. But by this time, too, new interests had been born into Done's life, new existences had been incorporated with his own, and he had a quaint fellowship with the youngsters, for in his heart remained a sneaking delight in the folly that is the scorn of fools. There were people who called Joy a hoyden at forty, but she retained the invincible soul of the woman who laughs.

THE END