A Crime of the Under-seas

One moonlight night, after leaving "Gib," he was leaning over the rails of the promenade deck, feeling sympathetically inclined to the world in general, when somebody stepped up beside him. It was Miss Hinks. She prefaced her conversation with two or three questions about the sea, and he made the astounding discovery that her voice possessed just the note of sympathy he required for his complaint. He had felt sorry for her because other people snubbed her, and she for him because she had been told exaggerated stories about his love affair. Together they made rather a curious couple.

When, under the supervision of the "Kangaroo Girl," the shore parties for Naples were being organized, Miss Hinks was tacitly left out. Somehow the impression got about that she was poor, and no one cared about paying her expenses. But eventually she did go, and it was in the charge of the fourth officer. When she thanked him for his kindness, he forgot for the moment his pledge "to live henceforth only in a memory."

The "Kangaroo Girl," on discovering that Miss Hinks had been on shore, under the escort of that "dear little pink officer," was vastly amused, and christened them Cupid and Psyche.

Now, the end of it all was, that Teddy began to find himself caring less and less for the thumb-stained photograph in his locker, and more and more for the privilege of pumping his sorrows into a certain sympathetic ear. Shipboard allows so many opportunities of meeting; and, strange as it may appear, a broken heart is quickest mended when subjected to a second rending. This cure is based on the homœopathic principle of like curing like.

By the time they reached Aden he had convinced himself that his first love affair had been the result of a too generous nature, and that this second was the one and only real passion of his life.

At Colombo Miss Hinks went ashore with the doctor's party – tiffined at Mount Lavinia, dined at the Grand Oriental, and started back for the ship about nine o'clock.

Teddy, begrimed with coal-dust, watched each boat load arrive, and as he did so his love increased.

On account of the coal barges it was impossible for boats to come alongside, consequently their freight had to clamber from hulk to hulk. Miss Hinks was the last of her party to venture; and just as the doctor, holding out his hand, told her to jump, the hulk swayed out and she fell with a scream into the void. Then, before any one could realize what had happened, the barge rolled back into its place. Miss Hinks had disappeared.

Teddy, from half-way up the gangway, tore off his coat, leapt into the water, and, at the risk of having his brains knocked out, dived and plunged between the boats, but without success. Then he saw something white astern, and swam towards it.

The half-drowned couple must have come to an understanding in the rescuing-boat, for next day their engagement was announced.

The "Kangaroo Girl" gave evidence of her wit when she said, "It was fortunate they were Cupid and Psyche, otherwise they would find love rather insufficient capital to begin housekeeping upon!"

Teddy wrote to his mother from Adelaide, and she, poor woman, was not best pleased to hear the news. But a surprise was in store for us all.

On the Cambrian Prince's arrival in Sydney, Miss Hinks was met by an intensely respectable old gentleman, who, it appeared, was her solicitor. On being informed of the engagement, he examined Teddy with peculiar interest, and asked if he were aware of his good fortune. Miss Hinks smiled.

Half an hour later we learnt that the girl whom we'd all been pitying for her poverty was none other than Miss Hinks-Gratton, the millionairess and owner of innumerable station and town properties!

The Teddy of to-day is a director of half a dozen shipping companies, and he quite agrees with me "that everything in this world is ordained to a certain end."

Misplaced Affections

"Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,Old Time is still a-flying:And this same flower that smiles to-day,To-morrow will be dying."Then be not coy, but use your time;And while ye may, go marry:For having lost but once your prime,You may for ever tarry."– R. Herrick.

The point I wish to illustrate is, that it is not safe, at any time, to play with such an inflammable passion as Love, even though it be to oblige one's nearest and dearest friend. Once upon a time pretty Mrs. Belverton used to laugh at me for warning her, but she is compelled to admit the truth of my argument now.

It was Mrs. Belverton, you will remember, who originated the famous Under Fifty Riding Club, whose initials, U.F.R.C., over two crossed hunting-crops and a double snaffle, were construed, by irreverent folk, to mean Unlimited Flirtation Religiously Conserved. The Club is now defunct, but its influence will be traceable in several families for many years to come.

The following events, you must know, occurred the summer before William Belverton received the honour of knighthood, and while he was renting Acacia Lodge at the corner of the Mountain Road, the house below Tom Guilfoy's, and nearly opposite the residence of the Kangaroo Girl of blessed memory.

It was by extending her sympathies as guide, philosopher, and friend to all unhappy love affairs that Mrs. Belverton made herself famous in our Australian world; and many and extraordinary were the scrapes this little amusement dragged her into. Could her drawing-room curtains have spoken, they would have been able to throw light upon many matters of vital interest, but matters of such a delicate nature as to absolutely prohibit their publication here.

The Otway-Belton couple, for instance, owe their present happiness to her assistance at a critical juncture in their family history; while the Lovelaces, man and wife, would to-day be separated by the whole length and breadth of our earth, but for her tact during a certain desperate five minutes in the Greenaways' verandah. So on, in numberless cases, to the end of the chapter.

You must know that for three months during the particular year of which I am writing, we had with us a young globe-trotter, who rejoiced in the name of Poltwhistle. I can't tell you any more about him, save that he was a big Cornishman, rawboned, and vulgarly rich. His people should have been more considerate; they should have kept him quietly at home counting his money-bags, instead of allowing him to prowl about God's earth upsetting other people's carefully thought-out arrangements.

The trouble all commenced with his meeting pretty little dimpled Jessie Halroyd at a Government House tennis-party and convincing himself, after less than half an hour's disjointed conversation, that she was quite the nicest girl he had ever encountered. He met her again next day at the Chief Justice's dinner-party. Then by dint of thinking continually in the same strain, he fell to imagining himself in love. But as she had long since given her affections to Lawrence Collivar, of the Treasury, and had not experience enough to conduct two affairs at one and the same time, his behaviour struck us all as entirely ridiculous.

Having called on Mrs. Halroyd the Monday following, where he was fed and made much of, he set to work thenceforward to pester the daughter with his attentions. It was another example of the Lancaster trouble, of which I've told you elsewhere, only with the positions turned wrong-side uppermost.

For nearly a month this persecution was steadily and systematically carried on, until people, who had nothing at all to do with it, began to talk, and the girl herself was at her wits' end to find a loophole of escape. I must tell you at this point, that, even before the Cornishman's coming, her own selection had been barely tolerated by the Home Authorities; now, in the glare of Poltwhistle's thousands, it was discountenanced altogether. But Jessie thought she loved Collivar, and she used to grind her pretty little teeth with rage when Poltwhistle came into the room, and say she was not going to give up Lawrence, whatever happened. Then she suddenly remembered Mrs. Belverton, and with desperate courage went down, told her all, and implored her aid.

Now it so happened that Mrs. Belverton had nothing to do just then, and stood in need of excitement. Moreover, Collivar was her own special and particular protégé. In fact, it was neither more nor less than her influence that had given him his rapid advancement in the Public Service, and through this influence his love for little Jessie Halroyd. She was educating him, she said, to make an ideal husband, and she was certainly not going to allow a rawboned New Arrival to upset her plans.

At the end of the interview, taking the girl's hand in hers, she said comfortingly, —

"Go home, my dear, and try to enjoy yourself; snub Mr. Poltwhistle whenever you see him, and leave the rest to me!"

When she was alone, this excellent woman settled herself down in her cushions, and devoted half an hour to careful contemplation.

She understood that with a man whose skull went up to nothing at the back of his head, like Poltwhistle's, ordinary measures would be worse than useless, so she decided upon a scheme that embodied an honour which even kings and princes might have envied.

That same night she was booked to dine with Arthur and Guinevere, of whom I have also told you, on the Mountain Road, and Providence (which is more mixed up in these little matters than most people imagine) placed on her left hand none other than the Cornishman himself.

Having heard a great deal of the famous Mrs. Belverton and her sharp sayings, he was prepared to be more than a little afraid of her. She observed this and utilised it to the best advantages.

Neglecting every one else, even her own lawful partner, who, I may tell you, was a globe-trotter of no small importance, she made herself infinitely charming to the angular gawk beside her, and to such good purpose that, before Belverton began, according to custom, to brag about his port, he was in a whirlwind of enchantment, and had forgotten his original admiration for good and all.

Next day as he was riding down to tennis at the Halroyds', he met Mrs. Belverton outside the library. Looking at him through the lace of a pretty red parasol, and with the most innocent of faces, she asked his advice as to the sort of literature she should peruse. Of course that necessitated sending home his horse and overhauling the bookshelves – with any woman a dangerous proceeding, but with Mrs. Belverton an act of more than suicidal folly. A child might have foreseen the result. Before they had reached shelf B he had completely lost his head, and when they left the library, he disregarded his tennis appointment and begged to be allowed to carry home her books for her.

She kept him with her until all chance of tennis was over, then having filled him with pound cake, tea, and improving conversation, sent him away, vowing that he had at last met perfection in womankind.

Her scheme was succeeding admirably, for Poltwhistle from that hour forsook his former flame altogether. Mrs. Halroyd wondered; but her daughter professed delight, and seeing this, Collivar prosecuted his wooing with renewed ardour.

But Mrs. Belverton, with all her cleverness, had made one miscalculation, and the effect was more than usually disastrous. She had forgotten the fact that Jessie Halroyd was, in spite of her heart trouble, little more than a child. And the upshot of this was that when that young lady saw Poltwhistle no longer worshipped at her shrine, but was inclining towards another woman, prettier and more accomplished than herself, she allowed her school-girl's vanity to be hurt.

Within a week of her visit to Acacia Lodge, she had developed an idea that, all things considered, Poltwhistle was by no means bad looking, and certainly everybody knew that he was rich. Within a fortnight, Collivar having offended her, she was sure that she liked him quite as much as most men; and in less than three weeks (so strangely perverse is woman) she had snubbed Collivar, and was hating Mrs. Belverton with all her heart and soul for enticing the Cornishman's attentions away from herself.

Then it became Collivar's turn to seek assistance; and at this juncture, as the situation looked like getting beyond even her, Mrs. Belverton lost her temper and said some very bitter things about everybody concerned, herself included.

However, to sit down and allow herself to be beaten formed no part of that lady's nature; so carefully reviewing the case, she realized that the only possible way out of the difficulty was a reversal of her former tactics. To this end she dropped Poltwhistle and took up Collivar, hoping thereby to turn the jealous girl's thoughts back into their original channel.

The Hillites stared and said to each other: —

"Dear, dear! What a shocking flirt that Mrs. Belverton is, to be sure! First it was that nice Mr. Poltwhistle, and now it's young Collivar, of the Treasury. Her conduct is really too outrageous!"

One muggy Saturday afternoon, towards the end of the hot weather, the Under Fifty Riding Club met opposite the library to ride to The Summit for tea and strawberries. There was a good attendance of members, and Mrs. Belverton, Miss Halroyd, Poltwhistle, and Collivar were among the number.

Every one paired off in the orthodox fashion, and as Collivar annexed Mrs. Belverton, Poltwhistle was obliged to content himself with Miss Halroyd. He was not too polite in consequence.

Before they reached the summit of the mount, thick clouds had gathered in the sky, and heavy thunder was rumbling along the hills. The Club members ate their strawberries, flirted about the grounds, and started for home just as dusk was falling.

The same pairing was adopted on the return journey, and Poltwhistle, from his place in the rear, watched the other couple with jealous, hungry eyes.

It was a tempestuous evening. Heavy thunder rolled continuously, and when, nearly half-way home, the clouds burst and the rain poured down, there was a general rush for shelter. Mrs. Belverton, to her dismay, found herself, in the half darkness, sitting on her horse, beneath a big gum-tree, with both Collivar and Poltwhistle for her companions.

The latter, whose manners were about on a par with his modesty, had left Miss Halroyd on the road to seek shelter for herself.

With a hurricane of rage in her heart, the poor girl, now, according to her lights, thoroughly in love, saw the reason of his conduct and followed him, reaching the other side of the tree unperceived. It was so dark you could hardly distinguish your hand before your face, and the rain was simply pouring down.

Sometimes, when she is in a communicative mood, Mrs. Belverton can be persuaded to tell the story of that half-hour under the gum-tree, and she catalogues it as the funniest thirty minutes she has ever experienced. But though she laughs about it now, I fancy she did not enjoy it so much at the time.

From each hinting that the other should retire, both men fell to justifying their presence there, and finished by whispering into the lady's ears, between the thunder-claps, protestations of their undying love and devotion.

Then, while the thunder was crashing, the lightning flashing, the rain soaking them through and through, and Mrs. Belverton was wondering how it was all to end, Jessie Halroyd rode round the tree.

They all stared, you may be sure, and because Mrs. Belverton had adventured the whole miserable business for her sake, she naturally hissed, —

"False friend, false friend, I hate you! Oh, Mrs. Belverton, how I hate you – I could kill you!"

A flash of lightning showed her face. It was all white and quivering, like a badly made blanc-mange pudding. There was a pause till somebody said very innocently, and I am told it was the funniest part of the whole affair, —

"My dear child, you're getting wet through; do bring your horse into shelter!"

But before the sentence was finished the girl had turned her horse's head and was galloping down the streaming road at break-neck speed.

Then Mrs. Belverton gathered her wits together and set to work to undeceive her two admirers. All things considered, the operation must have been a curious one. When it was accomplished she rode home alone, meditating, I presume, on the futilities of this mundane existence.

The sad conclusion we, the Hillites, have come to, is that both Poltwhistle and Collivar hate their would-be benefactress most cordially for endeavouring to promote their happiness, and abominate each other still more for interfering and spoiling sport. While Miss Halroyd, who goes home next mail-day, hates all three with an undying hatred, and of course cannot be made to understand that her own folly alone is responsible for everything that happened. Personally, I should be more interested to know what easy-going William Belverton thinks about it all.

In Great Waters

"Short shrift! sharp fate! dark doom to dree!Hard struggle, though quickly ending!At home or abroad, by land or sea,In peace or war, sore trials must be,And worse may happen to you or to me,For none are secure and none can fleeFrom a destiny impending."– Adam Lindsay Gordon.

"Don't thank me; I'm sure I'm equally obliged to you. I haven't seen a strange face these three months; and though I am that despised animal, a broken-down gentleman, I've never quite been able to overcome a foolish hankering after some dealing with my old caste again. Pardon the implied compliment!

"You'd better hobble your horses and turn them loose towards the creek. I'll run them up in the morning with my own.

"Having done that, if you're hungry, you'll find tea in the billy, and damper and meat in those ration bags. It's Queensland boundary rider's fare, but the best I can offer you.

"Monotonous country? By Heavens, yes! The children in exile knew no worse. On all sides, sand, mulga, and desolation – desolation, mulga, and sand, and unceasing regret, the portion of every man who has his lot in it!

"Have you quite finished? Then light your pipe. No, no! not with a vesta like a new chum, but with a fire-stick – so! When you've been in the Bush as long as I have, you will see in a match something more than a pipe-light. But by that time you will be on the high road to a still more peculiar wisdom, which will never be of service to you.

"Now, draw your blankets to the fire and cease thinking of your horses. They're on good feed, so let them eat their fill. If what I hear of the country out back is true, they'll get no more this side of the Barcoo.

"What do I say? How do I know that you are new to the country? Simply enough! By the light in your eyes, the palms of your hands, and the freshness of your voice. Besides, when a man has been long in the West, does he stand up for want of a chair? Forgive my rudeness, but you'll learn it all soon enough.

"Talking of classes! Consider the class I represent. In this country it is a numerous one, and the Bush is both our refuge and our cemetery. As we wish to know nobody, so we desire that nobody shall ever know us; and being beyond the reach of pride or shame, we live entirely in memories of the past, through which we enjoy a keener torture than any creed or sect can promise us hereafter. If you have the understanding, you might write the book of our misery, and, believe me, you'd have an inexhaustible reservoir upon which to draw.

"Before you came out you had a different notion of Australia? Exactly! Folk who live sixteen thousand miles away, and own bank-books and fat stomachs, have one idea of it; while we, who exist like Esau, in the Red Sand itself, if you approached us properly, would give quite another. Now, I knew of a case once – but I beg your pardon!

"That old hut at the Creek Bend you passed at mid-day? Three black posts and a wreck of charred timber, yellow boulders against an umber cliff, and two dingoe pups rioting on the threshold – isn't that the picture?

"Well, if you think it dreary and lonesome to-day, try and imagine it when it was the furthest boundary west, with only the Great Unknown between the ranges at our back and the Timor Sea.

"For reasons which could not interest you, I was the first to live there. Curiously enough, my hut-keeper was also of our caste. By nationality he was a Hungarian, and in addition to other things, he was a studious disciple of Goethe, and the finest zither player I have ever heard. It's about his connection with that hut that I wish to tell you.

"As men seldom quarrel when ambition has gone out of their lives, for a year we came as near a certain sort of happiness as a remorseless Heaven would permit. Then everything suddenly changed.

"One day, after a long stretch of dry weather that looked almost like settling in for a drought, welcome storm-clouds gathered in the west, and night closed in with a vigorous downpour. The creek, which for months past had been merely a chain of half-dry waterholes, began to trickle briskly round its bends, and in the morning had risen to the size of a respectable torrent. Next day, Thursday, it was a banker, and still the rain continued. By Friday evening the flood was upon us. And such a flood as you never in your life saw or dreamed of!

"To give you some idea of its size, you must imagine this plain, from the mountains behind you to the scrub yonder, one vast sheet of foaming, roaring, rushing, eddying water.

"Opposite the old hut we are talking of it was many miles in width, and for more than a week we were hemmed in upon a tiny island (the hut stands on a slight elevation, as you perhaps have observed), with the waters drawing a line of yeast-like foam daily closer and closer to our door. There was no escape, and I doubt if either of us would have taken advantage of it if there had been.

"Morning, noon, and night, the flood went roaring and rushing by, carrying on its bosom forest trees, and hopeless beasts of all sorts, sizes, and descriptions. And each moment saw us waiting for the lip-lap upon the threshold which should signal the destruction of the hut and our immediate departure for Eternity!

"Now you must remember that in life there is no such thing as chance. Every existence has its allotted span, and to avoid the pre-ordained termination is impossible for any man. You may smile, but I am convinced that what I say is correct, and this is a case in point.

"On the ninth night of our imprisonment we were sitting in our one room, trying to keep warm, and listening to the storm outside. The wind, moaning through the logs, played with the firelight and threw a thousand fantastic shadows on the rough-hewn walls.

"When life carries no future for a man, you will readily understand that he becomes callous, even as to the means of his death; so, even with destruction hovering over him, Yadeski sought company in his music. Drawing his zither from its case, he laid it on the table and allowed his fingers to stray across the strings. The sweet, sad melody that followed lent an air of almost reverence to the bare walls and homeless aspect of the room.

"The storm outside yelled and muttered by turns; but, heedless of it, he played on, wandering from the folk-songs of the old grey Magyar villages to the pæans of victorious hunters, from mighty trampling war-chants to tender, crooning cradle-songs.

"Suddenly a shout rang out clear and distinct above the storm. It was the cry of a man who, feeling the hand of Death clutching at his weasand, knows that unless help comes quickly that grip will tighten and his life go from him. Before he could call again, we had rushed into the storm.

"The wind blew a hurricane, the waters snarled at the tiny hill and rolled in black waves, that might almost have been taken for the sea, to our feet. Battling in the direction whence the sound proceeded, Yadeski called with all the strength of his lungs. His voice, however, was lost in the general turmoil. But at the same instant, as if in answer, a white face rose through the foam not a dozen paces from our feet. Yadeski instantly plunged in, the face vanished, and for a moment I lost sight of both. Then they rose within an arm's length of where I stood, and I went in and dragged them out – the working of Fate, mind you!

"Between us we carried the stranger to our hut and laid him before the fire.

"For more than an hour, despite our exertions, he remained unconscious; then his eyes slowly opened, and in a few moments his power of speech returned to him. Two words escaped his lips, and when he heard them my hut-keeper fell back against the wall with ashen face.