The Squatter's Dream

“Hang that fire,” he said, at last, “I think we big fools for making it; black fellow coming to rush the camp; I hear ’em stick break just now.”

Not a sound had fallen upon the less delicate organs of the two men, and Redgrave, but for the corroboration of Help’s evidence, would have felt almost inclined to discredit Doorival’s information.

“Sticks break all night in the bush,” he said, “still there’s something up by the old dog’s bristles. If it were a dingo he would walk out to meet it; but you see he cowers close by us. Listen again.”

“Your hear ’em now?” said Doorival, in a hoarse whisper, as a very faint but continuous murmur of voices came in on the breeze. “Black fellow – no mistake.”

“Every man to his tree,” said Guy. “I vote we clear out to the rear of the fire, so that we may deliver a converging fire upon the scoundrels when they come near the light. I call it devilish unhandsome to try and pot us now we are so near civilized society. However, they’ll get it hot, that’s one comfort.”

“It was a strange experience,” Redgrave thought, as he coolly picked out the largest available tree where none were very big, and with Guy awaited the attack. In utter desolation of that nameless solitude, with the hour midnight, and the faint but distinct sounds as of the light tread and hushed voices of the advancing savages, Redgrave felt as if they were enacting a scene in some weird drama, and were awaiting the Demon with whose intercourse their fate was interwoven.

That they would come off victorious, with the advantage of preparation and the immense superiority of fire-arms, he never doubted. Still the blacks had the advantage of numbers, and of that instinctive cunning which renders the savage man no mean antagonist.

The noises ceased; for some minutes, an unpleasant period of suspense, they awaited the onset. Then the dog suddenly burst into a loud, fierce bark, as the still, warm midnight air was rent by a storm of yells; and a shower of spears, apparently from every point of the compass, covered the fire and every foot of ground within some distance with thirsty spear-points.

A double volley, fired low and carefully in the direction of the thickest spears apparently had some effect, as a sudden cry, promptly checked, implied. For some time this curious interchange of missiles took place. Whenever the blacks pressed forward, desirous of discovering the exact hiding-place of the daring white men, a steady discharge repulsed them. The whites were well supplied with ammunition, and the rapidity with which they loaded and fired deceived the attacking party. More than one man of note had fallen, and they became less eager in the attack upon a party so well prepared, so skilled in defence. Apparently a last attack was ordered. Some kind of flank movement was evidently arranged, and some of the boldest of the fighting men of the tribe ordered to the front. The spears commenced to fall very closely among the resolute defence corps. They appeared as if thrown from a shorter distance. Guy could have sworn that the spear which whizzed so closely by his head, as he leaned over to fire in the direction of a suspiciously opaque body, was thrown from behind yon small clump of mulga. With the decision of intelligence, or the recklessness of despair, the dog Help suddenly rushed out and assaulted what appeared to be a man at the base of the clump referred to. Guy dashed forward to the smouldering fire, and seizing a fire-stick threw it in the direction of the combat where the dog was baying savagely, and occasional blows and spear-thrusts showed that a fight à l’outrance was proceeding. The brand blazed up for a moment, just sufficient to display the burly form of a savage warrior engaged in the ignoble contest. With practical quickness Guy took a snap shot and sent a bullet through the broad chest, the arms of which at once collapsed.

In the excitement of the moment Guy moved forward, displaying the whole of his grand and lofty figure in the uncertain light. A score of spears from the concealed enemy hurtled around him with the suddenness of a flight of arrows. One of the puny-looking missiles – they were reed spears, tipped with bone – pierced his arm, another struck him in the side. Snapping the former short off, and carelessly drawing forth the other, the wounded man stalked back to his cover, from whence he, with Jack and Doorival, kept up a ceaseless fusillade. So deadly was the fire that their assailants dared not approach more nearly the desperate strangers, who fought so hard and shot so straight. From time to time a yell, a smothered cry, proclaimed that a shot had taken effect.

The explorers took advantage of a pause in the attack to draw together and hold converse.

“Redgrave, old fellow,” said Guy, in tones which were strangely altered, “I fancy that I’ve lost more blood than shows, or else I’m hard hit, for I feel deuced faint and queer.”

“You don’t mean it, Guy; surely you can’t be serious in thinking those two needle punctures could stop you.”

“The one in the arm is only a scratch, though it makes one wince; but this confounded one in the flank has bitten more deeply, and I don’t know what to say about it.”

“Then there is nothing for it,” said Jack, decisively, “but to beat a retreat. If these black devils think you are badly hurt nothing will stop their rush when they choose to make it. We must take stars for our guide, and move steadily back, keeping our course as well as we can.”

“And what about the horses?”

“They must be left to their fate; we should risk our lives, and perhaps lose them, if we attracted notice now by trying to catch them.”

“Pacha and all?” asked Guy, incredulously.

“I believe I could almost suffer my hand to be hacked off rather than lose him if it were optional,” confessed Jack; “but we must choose between life and death: the time is short.”

Having communicated the decision to Doorival, and pointed out the direction, that young person selected a star, and, marching with eyes steadfastly fixed upon it, the others followed him.

They were not pursued, probably because they were near the boundary of the tribe that had assailed them. No people while unmolested are more punctilious in preserving a proper attitude to friends and foes than the untaught aborigines. They respect the hunting-grounds of their neighbours in the most conscientious manner, and are always ready to hunt up an outlaw or criminal who has taken refuge in the territory of a foreign tribe. Such was one element of safety upon which the little party reckoned, and by great good fortune it did not fail them.

By the merest chance it happened that the spot where the unlucky camp-fire had been lighted was within a short distance of the ancient and scarcely-observed tribal boundary. So that when John Redgrave with his wounded comrade and their henchman abandoned their position they were unwittingly in perfect safety before they had left the scene of the conflict three miles behind them. It afterwards transpired that the second chief of the tribe had been mortally wounded in the last volley. The excitement and grief caused by his fall aided the retreating party in their silent flight.

All the night through they travelled slowly but steadily onward, having for their pilot the untiring Doorival, and for their guidance one friendly star.

As day broke, and the red dawn stole soft and blushing over the gray plain and duller foliage, they found themselves upon a pine-clothed sand-hill, from whence they could survey the landscape in all directions. By the clear dawn-light each man was enabled to scan the face of his comrade. The pale and changed countenance of the once gay and volatile Guy Waldron struck Redgrave with a feeling of wonder and dread.

“Well, it seems that we are clear of these highly patriotic ‘burghers of this desert city,’” said he, with an attempt at his old manner, though the pained and fixed expression of his features belied the jesting words. “Do you think there is a medical practitioner within hail, Redgrave? though I fear me he would come late.”

“Good God!” said Jack, “you don’t say – you can’t think, old man, you are really hurt. I thought it was a mere scratch. Let us look and see; surely something can be done.”

“’Tis not ‘as deep as a draw-well, or as wide as a church-door,’ as Mercutio says, but I am really afraid that I shall see the old hall no more, not even the modified home of a club smoking-room. It’s hard – deuced hard, isn’t it, to die by the hand of miserable savages, in a place only to be vaguely guessed at as within certain parallels; just when we had hit the white too.”

“Don’t think of that, my dear old boy,” said Jack, gently, “you lie down and have a sleep, and perhaps we shall find that you have over-rated the damage.”

They made a fire; Jack and the boy Doorival kept watch, while the sore-fatigued and wounded man slept. No sound of fear or conflict smote upon their ears, as toil-worn and saddened, they passed the mournful hours. Towards evening Guy Waldron stirred, but moaned with fresh and increasing pain.

“Where am I?” he asked, as he looked around, with eyes which incipient delirium had begun to brighten. “Oh, here, on this miserable sand-hill – and dying – dying. Yes, I know that I am going fast. Do you know, Redgrave, that I dreamed I was back in the old place in Oxfordshire, and I saw my mother and the girls. I wish – I wish you could have met my people, but that’s over – as plain as I see you and Doorival. Don’t cry, you young scamp. Mr. Redgrave will look after you, won’t you? Well, I thought the governor looked quite gracious, and said I was just in time for the hunting season. Every one was so jolly glad to see me, and then I woke and felt as if another spear was going slap through me. Oh, how hard it is to die when a fellow is young and has all the world before him! I don’t want to whine over it; but it seems such awful bad luck, doesn’t it now?”

“I wish I had been hit instead,” groaned Jack. “I’m used to bad luck, and it seems only the order of nature with me. Try and sleep again, there’s a good fellow.”

“I shall never sleep again – except the long sleep,” answered Guy, mournfully. “I feel my head going, and I shall begin to rave before long. So we may as well have our last talk. When I’m gone send my watch and these things – they are not of any great value – to my agents in Sidney, and ask them to send them to my people. They know my address – and, Doorival, come here.”

The boy came, with deepest sorrow in every feature, and knelt down by his master’s side.

“Will you go home to my father, my house across the big sea, and tell them how I was struck with a spear in a fight, and all about me.”

“I go, Misser Walron,” said the boy, cheerfully. “I tell your people.”

“You not afraid of big one water, and big canoe?”

“Me not afraid,” said the boy, proudly. “I go anywhere for you– you always say, Doorival afraid of nothing.”

“All right, Doorival; you were always a game chicken. I should have made a man of you if I had lived. Mr. Redgrave will give you new clothes when you go down the country, and put you on board ship. Mind you are a good boy, and remember what I told you, when you go to my country, and see father belonging to me. Now good-night.”

The boy threw himself on his face beside the dying man, and with many tears kissed his hand, and then, raising himself, walked to a tree at some distance and sat with his head upon his knees, in an attitude of the deepest dejection.

“Look here, old fellow,” continued Guy, “there’s a hundred or two to my credit at the agents’. I’ll scrawl an order in your favour. You take it and do what you can for the honour of the firm, and my share of the profits, if there be any, in time to come, can go to my sisters. It will remind them of poor Guy. I shall die happier if I think they will get something out of it when I’m gone. Let the boy take all my traps home in the ship with him. It will comfort the girls and the old people at home, who have seen the last of their troublesome Guy. I wish you all the luck going; and some day, when you are thinking of the first draft of fat cattle, remember poor Guy Waldron, who would have rejoiced to knock through all the rough work along with you; but it cannot be. Somebody gets knocked over in every battle, and it’s my luck, and that’s all about it. Good-bye, Redgrave, old fellow. I’m done out of my share of hut-building, stock-yard-making, and all the rest of it. I feel that as much as anything. Give me your hand – my eyes are growing dim.”

All the long night John Redgrave and the boy watched patiently and tenderly by the dying man. Shortly before daylight there was a period of unusual stillness. Jack lighted a torch and took one look at the still face which he had learned to love. The features still wore the calm air habitual to the man. The parted lips bore recent traces of a smile. The square jaw was set and slightly fallen – Guy Waldron was dead! – dead in this melancholy desert, thousands of miles from any one of his own name or kindred.

John Redgrave closed the fearless blue eyes, which still bore unchanged their steadfast look of truth or challenge. He covered the still face, placed by his side the arm, carelessly thrown, as in life’s repose, above the head, and, casting himself on the sand beside the dead, was not ashamed to weep aloud.

How well-nigh impossible to realize was it that, but one short night before, that clay-cold form had been full of glowing life, high hope, and generous speech. A fitting representative of the old land, which has sent forth so many heroes, conquering and to conquer. The darling of an old ancestral home – the deeply-loved son of a gallant father. The long-looked-for, dreamed-of wanderer, a demi-god in the eyes of his sisters. And now, there lay all that was left of Guy Waldron – lonely and unmarked in death amid that solitary waste, as a crag fallen from the brow of their scarce-named peak, as a tree that sways softly but heavily to its fall amid the crashing undergrowth of the desert woodlands.

That night John Redgrave and the wailing Doorival buried him at the foot of a mighty sighing pine, covering up their traces as completely as the boy’s woodcraft enabled them to do, and marking the spot in a sure but unobtrusive manner, so that in days to come the burying-place of Guy Waldron should not be suffered to remain undistinguished. This duty being performed, Jack gathered up the small personal treasures of the dead man, and long before dawn, steering by the southern stars, they pursued their mournful progress towards the settlements.

CHAPTER XXII

“I loved him well; his gallant part,His fearless leading, won my heart.” —Scott.

For several days they had an average measure of privation only. The resources of Doorival were found equal to supplying them with food and water. From the course pointed out to him he had never varied, and Jack was, from observation and calculation, perfectly certain that it would bring them, if carried out, well within the line of the settled districts.

But as to one condition of success he felt undecided. For some weeks there had been no rain, and a stretch of country lay yet before them in which, according to the rainfall, they might, or might not, find water; in the language of explorers, signifying that they might, or might not, perish. Desperate from the death of Guy Waldron, he had been too reckless to take this risk into the account. He would dare the hazard, and put his last chance upon the die.

So it fared that, after leaving the last watercourse and entering upon the wide untrodden system of plain, scrub, and sand-hill – scrub and sand-hill and plain – which divided the rivers, Jack was compelled to admit, after two days’ short allowance of water, and one with none at all, that he had been foolhardy. The third day passed without the slightest appearance of moisture. It was inexpedient to diverge from the line for more than a short distance in search for fear of wasting their failing strength. The boy, strong in passive courage, held out unflinchingly. John Redgrave had the fullest faith in the accuracy of his reckoning. They must, without the shadow of a doubt, strike the waters of the Wondabyne, if they could hold out. But that was the vital question. By his closely-examined and re-examined calculation they should sight the great eucalypti that towered above those deep and gleaming waters (oh, thought of Paradise!) hurrying beneath the carved limestone cliffs on the following sunset, or at least before midnight. Were but one day longer necessary, then were they both lost. The boy was failing now in spite of his courage. For himself, he would not, could not, consciously yield as long as he could stand or crawl on hands and knees. Yet a certain swelling of his parched throat, a murmur in his ears, a disposition to talk aloud and unbidden, all these signs announced to him, as a practised bushman, that the fourth day, if passed without water, would find them delirious and dying. Shutting out these thoughts as far as his volition availed, he strode on, followed feebly by the boy, during the long terrible day.

At sunset they halted for a few minutes upon the inevitable sand-hill, with pine and shrub and long yellow grass, the exact fac-simile of scores which they had crossed since they had left Raak. Jack faced the west and gazed for a few moments upon the gorgeous blazonry of scroll-like clouds, the rolling wavelets of orange, splashed with crimson and ruddy with burning gold, which rose and fell in shifting masses, as if rent by Titans from the treasure-house of Olympus. Far away northward, far as the eye could see, lay the dim green desert, measureless, lifeless, and life-denying.

“It is the last sunset that I shall see, possibly. It seems hard, as poor Guy said; but when he and better men had gone on the battle-field and elsewhere with the sound of victory in their ears, John Redgrave may well go too. It is a fitting end of the melodrama of life. Doorival, shoot that crow.”

This highly inconsequent concluding remark was occasioned by the alighting of the bird of ill-omen, which had been following them since dawn with the strange instinct of its kind, on a branch almost immediately above them. The boy, wayworn almost to the death, and looking well-nigh lifeless as he lay at Jack’s feet, could not resist the irony of the situation, and, noiselessly sliding his carbine into aim, sent a bullet through the breast of the unlucky “herald of the fiend,” who dropped down before them, like the raven at the feet of Lucy Ashton and her fateful, fascinating companion.

“To tear the flesh of princesAnd peck the eyes of kings.”

Murmured Jack, “If one ever could smile again, it would be at this transposition of situations. A minute since this unprejudiced fowl had a well-grounded expectation that he was about to dine or sup upon us. Now we are going to eat him.”

“Stupid fellow this one waggan,” said Doorival, taking a long and apparently satisfactory suck at the life-blood of the incautious one; “he think we close up dead.”

“He wasn’t far wrong either,” answered Jack, grimly. “Now light a fire, and let us roast him a little for the look of the thing.”

Stimulated by even this unwonted repast, the forlorn creatures struggled on till midnight. The night was comparatively cool, and with parched throats and fevered brain John Redgrave judged it better, in spite of the increasing weakness of the boy, to press forward and make their last effort before dawn.

The Southern Cross, burning in the cloudless azure, with, as it appeared to the despairing wayfarer, a mocking radiance and intensity of lustre, had shown by its apparent change of position that the night was waning, when the boy, who had been going for the last hour like an over-driven horse, fell and lay insensible. Jack raised him, and after a few minutes he opened his eyes and spoke feebly.

“Can’t go no furder, not one blessed step. You go on, Misser Redgrave, and leave me here. I go ’long a Misser Waldron.” Here his dark eyes gleamed. “He very glad to see Doorival again. I believe Wondabyne ahead; you make haste.”

Jack’s only reply to this was to pick the boy up and to stagger on with him across his shoulder. For some distance he managed by frantic effort and sheer power of will to support the burden; but his failing muscles all but brought him heavily to the earth over every slight obstruction. He was compelled to halt, and, placing the lad at the foot of a tree, he extemporized a sort of couch for him of leaves and branches.

“Now look here, Doorival,” he said; “you and I are not dead yet, though close up, I know. I will go on, and if I get to the water before daylight I will come back and bring you on. I will keep the same track till I drop. I know the river is ahead, perhaps not very far. I break the branches and leave track. You come on to-morrow morning if you don’t see me. Now, good-night. I’ll leave Help with you.”

The boy’s dull eye glistened as he placed his arm round the neck of the dog, who, with the wondrous sympathy of his race, sat in front of the exhausted lad, looking wistfully into his face. Famishing as was the brute himself, he had made no independent excursions for the water he so sorely needed, but had followed patiently the feeble steps of his comrades in misfortune. At his master’s word he lay down in an attitude of watchfulness by the fainting boy, and remained to share a lingering death, as Jack’s steps died away in the distance.

John Redgrave shook the boy’s hand, parting as those who, in a common adventure, have been more closely knit together by the presence of danger and of death. Then he strode on – weak, weary, alone, but still defiant of Fate. For more than two hours he pressed forward unwaveringly, though conscious of increasing weakness of mind and body. The timber became more dense, and his progress was retarded by small obstacles which still were sufficient to entangle his feeble feet. Then his brain began to wander. Sometimes he thought he was at Marshmead. He heard plainly the musical cry of the swans in the great meres, and the shrill call of the plover, circling and wheeling over the broad marshes. If he could only get through this timber he would see the reed-brake ahead, and, falling into the knee-deep water, would lap and lave till his fevered soul was cooled. Then a white shape walked beside him, and extended a hand pointing towards that bright star. It was Maud Stangrove, though her face was turned away – and the Shape was misty, transparent, indistinct – he knew every curve and outline of that faultless figure, the poise of her head, the swaying grace of her step. She had come to tell him that her pure spirit had passed from earth, that his hour was come – that they would be united for ever beyond yon fair star – that toil and weariness, hope, fear, and mordant anxiety, the fierce pangs, the evil dreams of this vain life, were over. Be it so – he was content. Let the end come.

Then the fair shape floated onward, gazing on him with sad, luminous eyes, as of farewell. The look of despairing fondness, of unutterable pity, was more than his overwrought senses could bear. He threw up his arms, and calling on the name of his lost love dashed madly through the dense undergrowth. Suddenly he was sensible of a crushing blow, of intense pain, then of utter darkness, and John Redgrave fell prone, and lay as one dead.

He awoke at length to full consciousness of his position and surroundings, more clear, perhaps, from the loss of blood which had followed the blow against his brow from the jagged limb of a dead tree against which he had staggered and fallen. The moon shone clearly, the night was cool almost to coldness. He felt revived, but full of indignation. It was the ingenious cruelty which restores the fainting man to the dire torments of the rack. His swollen tongue, which all that day his mouth had been unable to contain, was covered, as were his face and throat, with ants. His throat was parched still, but his brain was revived. He rose to his feet, sternly obstinate while life yet flickered. Onward still. He would die with his face to the river. He would crawl when he could no longer walk. He would die as a man should die.

Onward – still onward; he remembered his course, and the star which Doorival called Irara. Weak at first, but gradually rallying, he walked steadily and more cautiously forward. An hour passed. The temporary feeling of excitement has subsided, and overpowering, leaden drowsiness is pressing heavily upon his brain. Again he sinks to the earth, half fearing, half wishing to rise no more. Suddenly he hears the whistling wings of a flight of birds which sweep overhead. His languid senses are aroused; he watches mechanically the dark, swift forms cleave the air in relief against the clear sky. They are wild-fowl, on their way, no doubt, to distant waters. His gaze follows them as they glide forward in swaying file, and suddenly, with the plummet-like fall, drop and disappear.