The Bushranger's Secret Part 17

"I know it well enough. You won't get lost again, I promise you."

He was slowly rubbing his leg as he spoke, with his face turned from Gray.

"Couldn't I find it by myself?" said Gray after a moment. "They'd send a wagon back for you."

Lumley gave a curious sort of chuckle.

"We'll see, partner, we'll see. We won't part company again unless we're forced to. And while I think about it, there's a little point we've got to settle." He stopped rubbing his leg, and turned his pale blue eyes full on Gray. "What about this?" He touched the wallet of money with his elbow. "Share and share alike, eh?"

Gray had been expecting a question of this sort. He returned Lumley's glance as steadily as he could.

"I shall tell the whole story to the first responsible person we meet, and hand the money over to him for safe keeping."

"Which story are you goin' to tell, if I may make so bold as to ask?"

said Lumley with an ugly smile. "You've forgot, maybe, about the reward you meant to claim. You told me that was all you wanted when first we met, you know, mate."

"I told you a lie. I meant to steal the money just as much as you did," returned Gray quietly. He waited a moment, and then went nervously on. "I need not mention your name to the authorities, Lumley, but I wish you could come to see as I do. When a man's been face to face with death, as you and I have, he begins to learn the truth about himself."

Gray's voice faltered before he stopped speaking, and he did not say all he had wished to say. Lumley's cold mocking glance was too hard to bear.

"You're as good as a parson, ain't you, partner? But you've always took the virtuous line, ever since we've been together. Why, the first time I set eyes on you you preached to me; and now you're at it again!

I never did see such a chap for sermons."

Gray's face grew scarlet.

"You can't think worse of me than I do of myself," he returned; "but I mean what I say about the money, Lumley,--I mean every word of that."

"Well, you're master, I s'pose," the other returned with an odd look that Gray remembered afterwards. "But no tricks, mind; no going in for the reward when my back's turned, mate; though, p'r'aps, you'll not get the chance."

"I think I've proved to you whether or not you can trust me now," said Gray, with just a touch of the old superiority in his tone.

Lumley gave a short laugh.

"Yes, you'd best stick to the virtuous line, partner. You're not cut out for any other; you're too soft-hearted and afraid. P'r'aps you thought my ghost would haunt you unless you came back--but I don't believe in ghosts, mate."

Gray made some answer, he hardly knew what, and presently he got up and moved away.

A shiver went over him once or twice as he stood talking to his horse, who had come up to him as he left Lumley. He had involuntarily recalled Lumley's mocking, incredulous look when he had tried to speak of the change his sufferings had wrought in him.

Next morning Lumley complained that his foot was worse than ever, and that it would be impossible for him to mount the horse that day. Gray did his best to persuade him at least to try, but with no effect. And Lumley positively declined to let Gray ride on to the station.

"I shall be able to start to-morrow," he declared; "and we can do all right till then."

There followed a day that Gray found very hard to bear. The moments seemed to lengthen themselves out into hours, the hours into weeks--the day seemed as if it would never end. It pa.s.sed at last, and the night came--a lovely moonlight night like the last.

Gray had not slept during the day, and he hardly expected to sleep during the night; he felt too feverishly eager for the morning. But sometime after midnight he fell into a troubled, restless slumber. It was still bright moonlight when he awoke; the east showed no sign of dawn.

He woke suddenly with a strange sense of terror upon him. He started up, and looked suspiciously round. The horse was there, not far from the spot where he had last seen it, but Lumley was no longer lying against the hillock, and in his first hasty glance Gray failed to find him. But a rough laugh broke on his ear.

"Don't go off your head with fright, partner," called out Lumley, who was crouching on the ground close beside the horse. "I've just been tryin' my strength a bit. We can start at sunrise, if you like."

Gray walked slowly across to him.

"How did you manage to get here?" he said wonderingly.

Lumley had got hold of the bridle of the horse, but he let it go as Gray approached.

"Crawled on my hands and feet," he said. "And a pretty hard bit of work it's been."

Gray could see he was much exhausted. His face was deathly pale, and there were great drops of sweat upon it, brought there by the pain he had gone through. He had been trying to mount the horse by his unaided efforts, and had given up the attempt in despair just before Gray woke.

But he did not tell Gray this, and Gray did not guess it.

"You should have waited till I could help you," Gray said after a moment. "I hardly understand how you can have got so far. Your foot must be much better."

He was still looking down on Lumley with a wondering look He saw that he had fastened the wallet of money round his shoulders, and was half lying upon it with one arm tightly grasping it.

"P'r'aps you think I was tryin' to clear off?" said Lumley sulkily; "what would be the good of tryin' that. You know the way now, don't you? You'd be pretty soon on my tracks. And, besides, I'm not much better than a log; I can't do without you yet, partner."

Suspicion after suspicion flashed through Gray's mind, only to be dismissed at once.

It was impossible, he said to himself, that Lumley could be meditating foul play against the man who had saved his life. And, besides, it was as he said, he could not do without him.

Lumley read his thoughts correctly enough.

"You needn't stare at a cove like that," he said in the same sulky tone. "You were so mighty anxious to get off I thought I'd try what I could do. And we can start at sunrise, mate. You'll not have much longer to spend in company with me; you'll be glad of that, won't you?

I'm not good enough for the likes of you."

"Couldn't we start before sunrise?" Gray said quietly; "it's almost as light as day now."

"It'll be dark as pitch in another hour when the moon goes down. And I want a rest," returned Lumley; "I'm not goin' to stir from here till sunrise for anybody, Mr. Gentleman Gray."

His sulky rage rea.s.sured Gray more than smooth language would have done, as Lumley perhaps had guessed.

"Very well, at sunrise, then," he said, and turned away to lie down again in his old place.

The moon went down, and, as Lumley had said, there followed an hour of darkness in which the stars shone forth with undimmed splendour.

Gray lay on the ground staring up at them. A little way off Lumley was stealthily watching him, wondering what his thoughts were. But Gray had forgotten Lumley--he was thinking of Harding.

CHAPTER XI.

A RUTHLESS VILLAIN.

It was just before sunrise that they started on their way; Lumley riding the horse, and Gray walking by the horse's side. It was with great difficulty that Gray had managed to get his companion on the horse. Lumley had made it more difficult than it need have been. He was anxious that Gray should believe his foot was much worse than it really was. The night before he had found himself quite capable of getting rapidly along on hands and feet, and even of standing for a moment, holding on by the horse.

"Goes like a lamb, don't he?" he said to Gray as they went across the plain. "No fear of his kicking up his heels again, is there?"