Part 9

From one of the men-of-war in Farm Cove floated Japan's white flag with its red chrysanthemum; France had her war-ship, with its red, white, and blue ensign, also in the cove. All the others, half a dozen of them, floated the white ensign of England.

Up at the quay lay the mammoth Friedrich der Grosse, Germany's black, red, and white ensign flying in the wind amid her gay strings of bunting, and round the corner, in Darling Harbour, among the boats that had come down heavily laden from the rivers, the boats from all the other colonies and Fiji and Noumea. Russia and Norway both were represented.

And the city--had the City of Blue Waves gone mad?

As the Utopia made her slow progress up the harbour, those on board were able to catch a breath of the excitement from the land.

The wharves at Woolloomooloo seemed a black mass of humanity; the windows of the warehouses were lined with faces, men and small boys had taken up vantage-points on scaffolding, cranes, the very roofs of the wharf buildings. On the green park-like slopes of the Domain thousands were patiently waiting, white and gay coloured parasols and dresses enlivening the sombre garments of the men.

Challis stood at the side of the boat with trembling knees and rounded eyes. Mrs. Cameron was beside her, very pale, struggling hard for composure, putting her hand to her throat secretly now and again, to smooth the lumps that seemed to be rising there. A warm reception she had had no doubt her child would have; indeed, the Melbourne papers she had seen had said big preparations were to be made for her reception, for was not this the city of her birth, the eager, open-handed city that had made it possible for the world to judge of her genius? But the mother's wildest thoughts had never dreamed of anything like this; royalty itself had never on any of its journeyings been welcomed in more magnificent fashion.

She paled and paled--she slid down her hand, and caught and held tightly in it one of the small thin hands of her gifted child.

Yet, great as the honour undoubtedly seemed, had the power to change things been hers, she would have swept the wharves clear of all that strange-faced crowd, and have had, standing there alone, looking up at her, the husband her heart was throbbing for, the children she yearned for, and yet would hardly know.

The lady who had begged the photograph pressed her way up.

'What does it all mean? Did ever you see such excitement? Is it really as Mrs. Graham says--the welcome for Miss Cameron? I never saw anything to equal it in my life. My dear, my dear, you are the most fortunate girl in the world. I am proud to have shaken hands with you, honoured to have sat at the same table. See, here is my travelling ink-pot and a pen, write me your autograph, darling.'

Mrs. Goodenough bustled up and caught at the mother's arm.

'Such excitement is enough to kill her; give her two of these quinine tablets, and keep these in your pocket, to give if you notice a sign of flagging. It will be a most exhausting day for her. And you are pale--here, I have my flask of tonic--you must, you must indeed take some. You will never bear up through all the congratulations, if you do not. Well, well, I must say I have never seen anything like this in my life.'

Challis stood as white as if carved in marble; sometimes her little soft underlip quivered, sometimes she gave an almost piteous glance round, as if seeking an impossible escape. She had had warm welcomes and even cheers and a little bunting in many towns, but what was this she had fallen upon?

The gangways were hardly down before there hurried on board from the wharf a gentleman in a tall hat, and two others with the ungroomed, long-haired appearance of the musician the world over. One of them bore a moderate-sized bouquet of white flowers, and another a small harp of roses that looked a little dashed with the sun and dust.

'Miss Cameron, Miss Cameron!' was the call echoed all along the deck. The captain himself came up and took the little girl and her mother down to the men. They were warmly shaken hands with, their healths and the voyage asked after, and the flowers presented. Then one of the musicians began to read an address couched in the most flattering terms, but half-way through the tall-hatted gentleman tapped his arm and whispered and looked at his watch. And the musician nodded and turned over the leaves of the address, and shook his head doubtfully and looked hastily also at his watch.

'My dear Miss Cameron,' he said, and rolled the big paper up, 'I shall really have to keep this for a more opportune time. We had thought the Utopia would not have been here until four this afternoon, when all our arrangements would have gone well. But now the mayor and the Euterpe Society, and all the musical bodies in the town are of course engaged in seeing the Bush Contingent off. We expect the procession any minute--indeed, it must be nearly in Pitt Street by this.'

Mrs. Cameron said a few graceful words, in which she begged them not to waste time now; she was assured by all their kind speeches of the welcome her daughter had in this her native city, and she expressed her sense of the good fortune that had awaited them, inasmuch as the Utopia had arrived in time to see an event of such national importance as the departure of the Bush Contingent. No one could have guessed at the dear fatuous notion she had been nursing in that sensible head of hers until a moment back.

As for Challis--Challis put her head over her fast-fading harp and laughed, laughed uncontrollably a minute or two. Then she stretched out her hand and touched one of the musician's sleeves. 'Couldn't we get off and see the procession?' she said.

The musician looked at her eagerly, admiringly. 'Just what I was going to suggest,' he cried. 'Come on, come on--we've got a carriage out here for you, and if we've any luck we'll just get up into Macquarie Street in time.'

He and his friends swept the two voyagers off their feet, and carried them with the pushing throng to the gangway. None of the passengers had any time to look at them; all were a little off balance at the time, rushing about with faces broken up into tears and laughter, kissing and throwing arms round those they had been long parted from, wildly imploring stewards for gladstones and handbags from their cabins.

In the crush Challis whispered to her mother, 'Oh, aren't I glad it's not for me!' in a tone of fervent thankfulness.

When they were down on the wharf, the rapturous meetings on all sides sent their eyes hungrily searching the crowd again for their own home welcomers. But there seemed no one, no one, look as they would, and they went slowly down the company's wharf with the welcomers the city had sent to the hired open carriage outside.

Challis and her mother sat facing the horses, the tall-hatted gentleman and one musician sat opposite to them, the other went on the box. It had been the committee's intention to bid the coachman wear white favours, in honour of the visitor's youth. But the item had been forgotten, and the man wore instead three of the Contingent medals boys were selling in the streets. The carriage made a snail's progress along the quay crowded with the emptyings of the ferry-boats, and slowly, slowly climbed up to Bridge Street, which was on the line of march. The multitude looked at the vehicle.

'Who's the kid?' shouted a youth.

And a bright young Australian yelled:

'The colonel's kid--going to meet her pa and say good-bye.' On which the human sea lifted up its lungs and hurrahed wildly, till something new came along to attract its interest.

So Challis had her cheers.

But in Macquarie Street all traffic was suspended, and a hoarse, red-faced man in some sort of a uniform charged at the open carriage, and ordered it to go back, as if it were no more important than a broken-springed buggy with one horse.

'Have to take yer up Castlereagh Street, ladies,' said the driver regretfully. 'If yer'd been 'arf an hour sooner, we'd have just got up to the 'ospital, and yer'd 'ave seen it all fine.'

'Oh,' said Challis eagerly to the musicians, 'see! see that lovely heap of wood--look--over there--those women are getting off--there would be lots of room for us. Oh, do let's get out!'

In three minutes the little party was sitting, clinging, or standing on a pile of timber outside a half-built house, and the carriage had backed, backed away to take a clear course up deserted Castlereagh Street.

The sudden roll of a drum sent its electric vibration through the tense multitude. The cry of, 'Here they come!' raised falsely a dozen times during the last two hours, now had the positive ring in it that carried entire conviction.

'Oh, look, mother! See here come the horses! Doesn't it remind you of the Jubilee crowd in London?' said Challis.

But Mrs. Cameron pushed roughly at her shoulder. 'Come here,' she said hoarsely; 'change places with me. Don't fall--there, hold fast. Let me get lower down.'

A man was fighting his way through the throng--a grey-bearded man in a well-cut light grey suit and a white helmet; and such was his determination that five minutes after Mrs. Cameron had seen him he had worked his way through twenty yards of solid crowd and was standing just below her.

Mrs. Cameron turned to the musician who had been at much pains to secure a little room for himself on the timber.

'Mr. Jardine,' she said, 'will you please get down and give up your place to my husband? I--I have not seen him for six years.'

Jardine climbed down cheerfully--but also of necessity. Cameron pulled himself into the vacant place.

They were side by side at last, and neither could speak; they just looked at each other with white faces--looked, looked.

Finally their hands went together.

A choked little voice came from above after a minute or two.

'Me too, daddie--speak to me too.' And it was then he remembered his child as well as his wife was come back to him.

He reached up and squeezed the eager hand, he put his other hand round her little shoe and squeezed that too. Challis leaned down and kissed the top of his helmet.

'I said you'd have a helmet on,' she said, with a hysterical little laugh.

His hand went back to his wife's.

'Is there no way of getting out of this rabble?' she said.

'You might be crushed to death. There's nothing for it now, but to sit still till it is over.'

'Why--why weren't you on the wharf?'

'I was--of course I was--I saw you both plainly just as they put the gangway down. But there was an accident: a little child near me was knocked down by a luggage truck, badly hurt, at the moment: there seemed no one else to give the mother a hand. By the time I'd got him up and into a cab and found a fellow willing to go with her to a doctor's, you had gone. They told me the carriage had come up Bridge Street. I have been fighting my way and looking for you ever since.'

'The children?' said the mother.

'All well, quite well; I couldn't bring them.'

'No. Oh, to get out of this hateful crowd!'

'Here they come,' Challis said; 'no, they are only policemen.'

The fine horses and men of the mounted police rode by, then a small body of Lancers; after these marched some two hundred sailors of the Royal Navy, and perhaps half that number of Royal Marines.

Then the Bushies.

And now the crowd took the reins off itself, and gave head to its madness. It hurrahed itself hoarse; it waved its arms, and its handkerchief, and its hat, and its head; it flung flowers, and flags, and coloured paper; it hung recklessly from roofs, and walls, doors, chimneys, fences, lamp-posts, balconies, verandah-posts, and it yelled, 'There's Jack,' 'Good-bye, Joe,' 'Come back, Wilson,' 'Shoot 'em down, Tom,' 'Hurrah, Cooper!' 'Luck to you, Fogarty,' 'There's Storey,' 'Hurrah, Watt!' It handed up drinks to the thirsty horsemen, it pressed handkerchiefs, cigars, and sweets indiscriminately upon them.

In return the sunburnt Bushies waved their helmets and little toy flags; one held up a small fox-terrier, another an opossum by the tail; they rode along with one arm free for handshaking all along the route, threw kisses to the excited women, even at times leaned down and kissed some tip-toe eager girl in a white dress and a wonderful hat.

They looked as military as one could wish now; Cameron was amazed to think this was the same material he had seen drilling. A finer body of men had never passed down the streets of any city. They sat their magnificent horses magnificently; you knew there was nothing they could not do with the splendid beasts. The khaki uniform and khaki helmet, and the sunburnt ruddy faces made a healthful, workmanlike study in brown.

'That's the dog Bushie,' said Cameron to Challis. 'Every one in the colony is interested in him; the men say he will be very useful.'

The crowd yelled, 'Bushie, Bushie--hurrah! good old doggie,' as the intelligent sheep-dog came into sight.

'Here's Stevenson--see, the man on the left, Molly,' Cameron said; 'our best friend. Good-bye, Mortimer, good luck! Good-bye, old fellow, good-bye.'

Mortimer waved his helmet gaily.

'What a fine fellow!' said Mrs. Cameron, and what a good face! Who is the old man?'

'Why, it's old Stevenson. Yes, just like him to do that,' Cameron answered. The old squatter had ridden alongside the Bushmen the whole of the line of march. His face was working with excitement; every time a cheer went up from the crowd he cheered too, standing up from time to time in his saddle and waving his soft felt hat. He kept beside his son as much as he could; he was almost bursting with the pride of his position.

Challis's eyes were full of tears.

'Oh,' she said, 'what a very dreadful thing if that nice man should be killed!' She was quite captivated by the sunny smile Mortimer had given their group.

'There's not a better fellow in the world,' Cameron said warmly.

The khaki died away in the distance, the prancing horses were gone, the sound of the band grew fainter and fainter.

Yet a little time, and the transports would be plunging through the Heads with them, carrying them forward as fast as might be to dye the veldt red with their own blood or that of the Boers.

*CHAPTER XV*

*Heart to Heart*

'We will not speak of years to-night; For what have years to bring, But larger floods of love and light, And sweeter songs to sing?'

They were in a quiet room at the hotel at last. They had lost sight of the tall-hatted gentleman and one musician entirely; the other had said thoughtfully that he would not intrude.

'This is not the way we meant to welcome your daughter, Mrs. Cameron,' he said, laughing, as he clung by one hand to the timber, 'but, as you see, we're all mad together to-day. By to-morrow we shall have calmed down a little, and there will be a deputation and everything in order. You'll be at the Australia, of course?'

'Yes, I have rooms waiting for them,' Cameron said quietly.

So the pleasant, long-haired fellow drifted away, and Cameron, at the first chance, steered his little family out of the thinning crowd, and found a cab to take them to the peace of the hotel.

They took their hats off. Waiters seemed to think eating was a necessity, and brought in a meal, and stood, two of them, to help serve.

Mrs. Cameron turned her head.

'We would rather wait on ourselves,' she said. 'We have everything that we shall need, thank you, so you may go.'

Cameron drew a relieved breath, though he would as soon have thought of dismissing the men himself as of calmly ordering one of those magnificent colonels out of his way during the afternoon.

'Now we can be cosy,' Challis said, and sat down on her father's knee, instead of using the chair the waiter had placed for her. 'Are we like what you thought?' she asked. 'Someway I can't think now how I could have fancied you would be any different. Oh, I'm sure you're just like what I thought, only----' She paused then, and a little sensitive flush ran up into her cheeks. She had almost said, 'Only your beard is grey.'

But her eyes had gone to its greyness.

'Yes,' he said a little sadly, 'I didn't wait for you, Molly, did I? We always said we would grow old together, but I have left you far behind.'

He hardly knew his wife. Time seemed to have turned back for her. There was not a wrinkle on her skin, the sharp winters had given a bloom like girlhood's to her cheeks, and the varied life and rest from domestic worries had brought the spring back into her blood.

The wife who had gone away had been shrinking, careworn; she had worn shabby bonnets of her own trimming, dresses she had turned and turned about again. This one had the quiet, assured manner of a woman accustomed to travel. She wore a tailor-made fawn coat and skirt, whose very severity accentuated their style. There was the hall-mark of Paris on her bonnet of violets.

Cameron sent a fleeting thought of gratitude to Mortimer, who had made it possible for his own clothes not to blush beside such garments. They were a quiet little party, and Challis did most of the talking. Cameron looked at his wife when she was occupied with the tea-cups; her searching eyes fastened on him when he turned to speak to his little daughter.

Once, when he passed a plate to Challis, she noticed his hands against the snow of the tablecloth--hands she did not know at all, so rough and weather-marked and deeply brown they were. But she asked no question; instinctively she felt there was something to be told to her, and she hung back from the knowledge, knowing the telling would be pain to him.

'Oh dear,' said Challis, 'if only you had brought Bart down, too, daddie, and he was sitting just here on this chair next to me!'

'I thought it was Hermie you wanted most,' the mother said.

'Ah, Hermie! I want Hermie to sleep with. No, not to sleep with, for we sha'n't shut our eyes at all, but just to lie in the dark and talk and talk.'

'Roly wanted to come,' Cameron said. 'He's war mad, of course. He's painted the name Transvaal Vale on the sliprails.'

'On the what?' said Mrs. Cameron.

Cameron went darkly red.

'The--gate,' he said.

'What else does he do? I want to know about Roly,' Challis said eagerly.

'He wears a football jersey most of the time,' said the father, 'and is to be met at any hour of the day hung all over with the table-knives and the tin-opener and the cork-screw and the sharpening-steel. Also, he carries round his neck a string of what I think he calls double bungers. These are his cartridges. And he came possessed of an old tent in some way--the railway navvies gave it to him, I believe--and he has pitched it just outside the back door, and sleeps in it all night.'

'Oh dear, oh dear! The night air; he will catch a dreadful chill!' cried the mother, used now to English nights.

'Not he! He's a hardy little chap,' said Cameron.

'More, more,' said Challis. 'He's great fun, I think. Tell some more about him, daddie.'

'A neighbour, young Stevenson--you remember the Stevensons of Coolooli, Molly?--gave him half a crown the other day, and of course he went off to Wilgandra and laid in a stock of crackers. He made a rather ingenious fortification that he called Spion Kop, and invited us all out to see it. You don't know Darkie, the cattle dog, of course--we've only had him four years; Darkie naturally came too. He's rather a curiosity in his way, old Darkie; seems to have a natural love for fire, and goes off his head with excitement whenever a cracker is let off or the boys make a bonfire. Well, he made enough noise barking and yelping over Roly's display to satisfy even that young man. Presently Roly Put a whole packet of his double bungers on the top of his fort, and--what he did not tell me till afterwards--a quantity of blasting powder he had purloined from the navvies. Then he put a lighted match near a long piece of string, and cut down to us as hard as he could. Just at the critical moment, when we were getting our ears ready for the big explosion, Darkie gave a frantic bark of delight, bounded to the fort and seized the whole packet in his mouth. There wasn't time even to shout at him; there came a tremendous explosion, and the air seemed full of stones and earth and Darkie. The old fellow must have been blown six feet up in the air. I think we all shut our eyes, not liking the thought of seeing the poor old dog descend in a thousand pieces. But when we opened them he was down on the ground barking and yelping with more furious delight than ever, and except for a badly singed coat and a burnt tongue, not a bit the worse for his elevation.'

Mrs. Cameron was looking disturbed.

'He seems to do very dangerous things,' she said.

Cameron laughed.

'That's what Miss Browne says,' he answered; 'but he always turns up safe and sound.'

'Miss Browne?' repeated Mrs. Cameron.

Cameron's eyes dropped to his plate, and he drank deeply at his tea, to put off the moment of his answer.

'Who is Miss Browne?' his wife asked again.

Cameron moved his eyes to a button on her coat.

'I was obliged to change lady-helps,' he said.

Mrs. Cameron's face expressed absolute alarm.

'Miss Macintosh--is not Miss Macintosh still with you? You did not tell me. Why did she go? How long has she been gone?'

Cameron looked white. 'Some--little time,' he said; 'she--went to be married.'

'And is this other--is Miss Browne as good? Oh, it would almost be impossible. Have you had to change much?'

Cameron reassured her on that point. Miss Browne had been with them ever since Miss Macintosh left.

'But how long is that? You don't tell me,' she cried.

Cameron looked at a lower button.

'Some--time,' he repeated faintly.

'Jim,' she cried, and almost sharply, 'have you been keeping things from me? How long has Miss Macintosh been gone?'

He lifted his eyes and looked at her. The day of reckoning had come.

'She left six months after you went,' he answered.

The news held Mrs. Cameron speechless for three minutes.

'This other person--Miss Browne--is she as good?' she asked at length.

Cameron breathed hard, and cut a slice of bread.

'She does her best,' he said, 'but she is not--very capable.'

'Jim,' said Mrs. Cameron, 'is there anything else? Have you lost your position?'

He bent his head a little. He merely nodded, and she might have thought it a careless nod, only her eyes suddenly saw the trembling of his work-marked hands.

'Challis,' she said, 'go away--leave us alone.'

The child put down her spoon and fork, and vanished.

Cameron stood up, looking fixedly at the carpet, waiting with bowed head for her questions.

'Have you hidden anything else?' she said, 'Are any of the children dead?'

'None of them are dead,' he said.

'Are any of them deformed or hurt in any way?'

'None of them are hurt--they are in good health,' he said.

'Have you ceased to love me?'--her voice was losing the note of fear that made it hard and unnatural.

He looked at her, and his eyes swam.

Her arms were round him, she was kissing him, kissing his wet eyes, his trembling lips, stroking his cheeks, crying over him.

'You are afraid to tell me--me, your own little wife--something that does not matter at all. What can anything matter? We are all alive, and we love each other as we have done always. Darling, darling, don't look like that! Put down your head here, here on my breast--my husband, my darling! This is Molly, who went all through the ups and downs with you; you never used to be afraid to tell her anything.'

He tried to speak, but sobs shook him instead.