The Bushranger's Secret Part 15

"You're right, partner; I'm beat. You've got the best of it this time.

Now help me back again, and I'll tell you all I know."

Gray helped him back to the hillock, and put his foot in as comfortable a position as possible.

"I'll be back to you before many hours are over, Lumley. I'll make all the haste I can," he said, his tone softened by a sudden pity for the disabled man.

Lumley looked up at him with implacable eyes.

"Ill believe you when I see you, mate. But you've bested me all round, and I've got to trust you, you see."

He dragged out the flat bottle from his pocket, and held it up to Gray.

"Turn your back on the moon and walk straight on; and if I ever see you again you're a bigger fool than I take you for."

"I shall come back," Gray said briefly.

He pocketed the bottle, and turned sharply away in the direction Lumley had pointed out.

He was hardly conscious of fatigue as he pressed across the sandy waste. Even the torture of thirst had grown less since hope had come to him. He hurried on with strong, eager footsteps, expecting every moment to see the trees lift themselves against the sky. Once the terrible thought came to him that Lumley had been deceiving him all the time, and his story of the water was a lie; but as he remembered Lumley's looks and words, and recalled the intensity of excitement in his face when he had left him, he knew that there was indeed water close at hand. Then, again, when he seemed to have been walking for a long time, and the horizon still lay before him bare and unbroken, he began to suspect that Lumley had wilfully misled him, and the water lay in another direction.

But it was almost immediately after this that his foot struck against a shrub, and looking down he saw he had come upon a banksia, a sign, as he was bushman enough to know, that better country was close ahead.

The green leaves of the pretty little shrub were a welcome sight, and it was shortly after pa.s.sing this that he saw the tops of the cypresses begin to show themselves against the sky-line, as the mast of a ship lifts first above the sea-line.

Gray pushed on with renewed energy, and it was not long before he was close to the gloomy trees. A cloud of birds, the crows Lumley had spoken of, rose from the trees as Gray approached, and flew screaming over his head. He listened to their harsh voices with a shudder, and hastily struck away to the left, where a low ridge crossed the plain and hid what lay beyond.

It took him some time to reach and breast the ridge, and his strength was nearly at an end when he at last gained the top and looked down on the shallow valley below. He could not see the shining stretch of water Lumley had spoken of, the valley was too thickly covered with shrubby undergrowth for that. But even in the moonlight Gray could see that this undergrowth was densely green, and that the trees that sprang above it were full of life and vigour.

And as he descended the ridge he came upon a faint track through the underwood--a native track, Gray felt sure, and one that led to the water. He hurried along it, piercing deeper and deeper into the dark recesses of the wood. But the darkness had no terrors for Gray. He felt the track under his feet, and pressed boldly onward, pushing away the interlacing boughs with his hands as he went. And presently there came a faint light through the trees ahead, and in a few more steps he came out into a little open s.p.a.ce, and saw the reflection of the moonlight in a round, deeply-fringed pool close before him.

For the moment he saw nothing but the glimmering sheen of that water.

He flung himself down with a cry, and plunged his face in it. It was stagnant, it was thick with mud and floating weeds, but it was fresh, and to Gray it was purest nectar. He had self-control enough left not to drink too much at once, but he lay by the side of the pool with hands and arms buried deep in it, utterly oblivious for the moment of everything but the mere physical delight the water brought to him.

How long he lay there he never knew. He could never recall that time except as a vague memory. He could remember breaking out of the wood and seeing the little moonlit pool before him, but after that it was all confused. What brought him back to clear consciousness was a movement somewhere on the other side of the pool, where the branches of a tree cast a flickering shadow on the gra.s.s. Gray started up, dizzy and trembling; but his first glance showed him what it was. His horse had found its way to the water before him, drawn by some sure and marvellous instinct, and now had drawn close again to the pool, gazing across at its master with mild recognizing eyes.

Gray cautiously approached it, fearing it might start away; but it showed no desire to escape. It arched its neck and whinnied joyfully when Gray came close. It was evidently delighted to feel its master's hand again. Gray stood by its side, patting it and speaking to it, finding strange delight in its joyful welcome. The wallet containing the money still hung at the saddle, with the rough bag in which Lumley had carried the food.

Gray, standing by the horse, took out some food and hurriedly ate it.

He would not trust himself to sit down again; he felt that sleep might suddenly overcome him unawares. When he had eaten a few morsels--he found it too difficult to swallow to be able to eat much--he carefully filled the bottle he carried, and the larger bottle that was in the bag with the food, drank a deep draught himself and allowed his horse to drink, and then, holding the horse by the bridle, he began to pick his way along the path by which he had come.

The horse followed him quietly; it was only when they emerged from the wood and began to ascend the slope of the ridge that it showed the first signs of unwillingness. Gray had to encourage it by voice and hand before he could prevail upon it to take the upward path.

Gray was able to discern more clearly now how worn out the poor creature was by all it had gone through. He felt an impulse once to let it have its way, and let it remain in the valley, but he dismissed the impulse at once. The horse was too useful, too necessary to be dispensed with.

They reached the brow of the ridge, and there Gray rested for a while.

He had not mounted the horse, he had determined to go on leading it for some time longer at least. He doubted if it had strength left to carry him. He stood beside the horse with the bridle in his hand, and looked down upon the vast plain stretching away from the foot of the ridge.

Up to that point Gray, since finding the horse, had acted instinctively, almost as an automaton might act. He was so worn out, so numb with privation and fatigue, that he had not gone in thought beyond the present moment. But now it was as if a cloud had lifted from his brain; he saw the whole position in a glance. What had been his heart's dearest wish was fulfilled for him. All he had coveted, all he had betrayed his mate Harding to get, was at last within his grasp. He had but to turn his horse's head away from that silent, secret-keeping bush, and the gold was safely his.

Gray did not thrust the thought from him; he let his mind dwell upon it, he regarded it steadily; for his eyes had been opened to see in what the real happiness and worth of life consisted. Through suffering and humiliation he had learnt to measure things at their right value.

In contact with a man who had deliberately chosen evil to be his good he had been taught what evil meant. The temptation that had once been too strong for him was no longer a temptation. He could see the full baseness of it now. Better death, better open confession and a dishonoured name, than life and honour bought by treachery and guile.

The trees stood up dark and funereal against the cloudless sky. His path lay beneath them, and on towards the moonlit east.

"Come, we must start, old fellow," Gray said to the reluctant horse, and he began to descend the slope of the ridge.

CHAPTER X

A GRIM SORT OF PICNIC.

The dawn was breaking when Gray approached the spot where Lumley lay.

He had walked the whole distance, for his horse was evidently too dead-beat to carry him. He had had no difficulty in keeping to the right track. Indeed he had calculated so well, that when he first stopped and "coo-eed" to make sure he was going right, Lumley's answer had come from a point straight ahead, and no considerable distance off.

Lumley had seen him before that call. Though he had told himself again and again that Gray would never come back, that it was too much in his interest to leave him there to die, his eyes had anxiously watched the western horizon.

There had been something in Gray's look when he had spoken his last words that had impressed Lumley powerfully, and so it was not altogether a surprise to him when he at last could distinguish a dark, moving object against the sky. The surprise came later when he was able to discern that Gray was leading his horse with him.

A strange change came over Lumley's face when he realized that; his thin lips set themselves together, his brows contracted with a frown of anxious thought, his eyes grew like the stealthy, waiting eyes of a beast of prey which has not the strength to attack its victim in the open, but lurks in ambush and springs upon it unawares.

With that look on his face he watched Gray approaching him through the clear rosy light of the sunrise, but it was gone before Gray came near enough to see his face clearly. He made an effort at a smile of grateful welcome.

"So you haven't left me to the crows, partner?" he said, raising himself on his elbow as he spoke to grasp the bottle Gray held out to him. "I'm glad enough to see you, I can tell you that."

Gray nodded silently, and then went back to the horse and took the bags from the saddle. He brought them to the spot where Lumley was lying, and flung them down at his side. He saw that Lumley had done little more than wet his lips from the bottle, but that he had torn some strips from the lining of his coat, and was proceeding to pour water on them with a careful hand.

"You'd better let me do that for you," Gray said quietly. "And there is more water, Lumley; take another pull. I can fill the bottles again if they are empty before you can move."

He had knelt down as he spoke, and taken the wet rags from Lumley's hand to bind round his injured foot.

"The horse will have to carry me," said Lumley after watching Gray's bandaging for a moment. "You found him by the water, didn't you, partner?"

"Yes, close by it."

Lumley eyed the horse with a quick furtive glance, and then looked at Gray again.

"Did you tramp it all the way, partner? I'd have let the horse save my legs if I'd been you."

"He's dead beat," Gray said briefly. "He had enough to carry."

Lumley's eyes turned involuntarily to the bags at his side. He had avoided looking at them since Gray had placed them by him.

"'Tis a mercy we've got the grub all right, ain't it, partner?" he said. "Though I'm blessed if I feel a bit peckish. 'Twas water I wanted."

He drank a little from the bottle and corked it again. Gray marvelled at the self-control he showed in taking so little.

"I'd finish that bottle right away if I were you, Lumley," he said.

"It's only a few mouthfuls after all. I sha'n't want any more for a good time yet."