CHAPTER XVI

Chapter 172,016 wordsPublic domain

IN THE MIDST OF DEATH

The candle-ends had burnt out in the store; the moon no longer shone in through the skylight; but the latter was taking new shape, and a harder outline filled with an iron-gray that whitened imperceptibly, like a man's hair. The strange trio within sat still and silent, watching each other grow out of the gloom like figures on a sensitive film. The packet of meat and bread was reduced to a piece of paper and a few crumbs; the little flask was empty, and the water-bag half its former size; but now that all was over, the horror of the night lay heavier upon them than during the night itself. It was Naomi who broke the long silence at last.

"They have evidently gone," she said. "Don't you think we might venture now?"

"It is for you to decide," said Engelhardt.

"What do you think, Mrs. Potter?"

"If you ask me, Miss Naomi, I think it's beneath us to sit here another minute for a couple of rascals who will be ten miles away by this time."

"Then let us go. I will take the Winchester, and if they are still about we must just slip in again quicker than we came out. But I think it's good enough to chance."

"So do I," said the piano-tuner, "most decidedly."

"Then down with the props. They have served us very well, and no mistake! You must keep them in your kitchen, Mrs. Potter, as a trophy for all time."

The old woman made no reply. Of what she was thinking none ever knew. Her life had run in a narrow, uneventful groove. Its sole adventure was probably the one now so nearly at an end. Ten years ago she had been ear-witness of a somewhat similar incident. And now she had played a part, and no small part, in another and a worse. At her age she might have come out shaken and shattered to the verge of imbecility, after such a night. Or she might have felt inordinately proud of her share in the bushrangers' repulse. But when at last the battered door stood wide open, and the keen morning air chilled their faces, and the red morning sky met their eyes, the old woman looked merely sad and thoughtful, and years older since the day before. Her expression touched Naomi. Once more she threw her young arms about the wrinkled neck, and left kisses upon the rough cheek, and words of grateful praise in the old ears. Meanwhile Engelhardt had pushed past them both and marched into the middle of the yard.

"It's all right, I think," said he, standing purposely between the women and the hideous corpse by the well-palings. "Yes, the coast is clear. But there's the horse you rode, Mrs. Potter, and Bill's horse, too, apparently, tied side by side to the fence."

"May God forgive them all," said Mrs. Potter, gravely, as she walked across the yard at Naomi's side.

They were the last words she ever uttered. As she spoke, the crack of a rifle, with the snap of a pistol before and after, cut the early stillness as lightning cuts the sky. Naomi wheeled round and levelled her Winchester at the two men who were running with bent backs from a puff of smoke to a couple of horses tethered among the pines beyond kitchen and wood-heap. She sighted the foremost runner, but never fired. A heavy fall at her side made her drop the Winchester and turn sharply round. It was Mrs. Potter. She was lying like a log, with her brave old eyes wide open to the sky, and a bullet in her heart.

"Take me away," said the girl, faintly, as she got up from her knees. "I can bear no more."

"There are the horses," answered the piano-tuner, pointing to the two that were tied up to the fence. "I should dearly like to give chase!"

"No, no, no!" cried Naomi, in an agony. "Hasn't there been enough bloodshed for one night? We will ride straight to the shed. They have taken the very opposite direction. Let us start at once!"

"In an instant," he said, and ran indoors for something to throw over the dead woman. The girl was again kneeling beside her, when he came back with a table-cloth. And she was crying bitterly when, a minute later, he slipped his left hand under her foot and helped her into the saddle.

They never drew rein until the long, low wool-shed was well in sight. The sun was up. It was six o'clock. They could see the shearers swarming to the shed like bees to a hive. The morning air was pungent as spiced wine. Some color had come back to Naomi's cheeks, and it was she who first pulled up, forcing Engelhardt to do the same.

"Friday morning!" she said, walking her horse. "Can you realize that you only came last Saturday night?"

"I cannot."

"No more can I! We have been through so much----"

"Together."

"Together and otherwise. I think you must have gone through more than I can guess, when you were lost in Top Scrubby, and when you fell in with those fiends. Will you tell me all about it some time or other?"

"I'm afraid there will be no opportunity," said Engelhardt, speaking with unnatural distinctness. "I must be off to-day."

"To-day!"

Her blank tone thrilled him to the soul.

"Of course," he said, less steadily. "Why not? I did my best to get away the night before last. Thank God I didn't succeed in that!"

"Why did you go like that?"

"You know why."

"I know why! What do you mean? How can I know anything?"

"Very easily," he bitterly replied, staring rigidly ahead with his burning face. "Very easily indeed, when I left you that letter!"

"What letter, Mr. Engelhardt?"

"The awful nonsense I was idiot enough to slip into your book!"

"The book I was reading?"

"Yes."

"Then I have never had your letter. I haven't opened that book since the day before yesterday, though more than once I have taken it up with the intention of doing so."

"Well, thank Heaven for that!"

"But why?"

"Because I said----"

"Well, what _did_ you say?"

She caught his bridle, and, by stopping both horses, forced him to face her at last.

"Surely you can guess? I had just got to know about Tom Chester, and I felt there was no hope for me, so I thought----"

"Stop! what had you got to know about Tom Chester, please?"

"That he cared for you."

"Indeed! To me that's a piece of news. Mind, I care for him very much as a friend--as a hand."

"Then you don't----"

"No, indeed I don't."

"Oh, Naomi, what am I to say? In that letter I said it all--when I had no hope in my heart. And now----"

"And now you have called that letter awful nonsense, and yourself an idiot for writing it!"

She was smiling at him--her old, teasing smile--across the gap between their horses. But his eyes were full of tears.

"Oh, Naomi, you know what I meant!"

"And I suppose it has never occurred to you what I mean?"

He stared at her open-eyed.

"Will you marry me?" he blurted out.

"We'll see about that," said Naomi, as he took her hand and they rode onward with clasped fingers. "But I'll tell you what I _am_ on to do. I'm on to put Taroomba in the market this very day, and to back you for all that it fetches. After that there's Europe--your mother--Milan--and anything you like, my dear fellow, for the rest of our two lives."