Tom Gerrard
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“I can’t resist that,” said Aulain eagerly. It was just the very thing he wished—to have a talk with Jim. “But I know the place you mean, Gerrard. My troopers and I have often bathed there when I was in charge of the N.P. Camp at Red Beach.”
Jim ran off to catch and saddle a couple of horses, for although the bathing place was only three miles distant, no Australian would walk so far (except to catch a horse) when he could ride.
“Take your fishing-line, Jim,” said Mrs Westonley, when he returned leading the horses, “and catch some bream for supper. No, Mary, certainly not—you cannot go. No, not even to help Jim to catch and clean the fish. This is a terrible girl, Mr Aulain,” and with a smile she drew Mary to her, “I know exactly what she wants to do—ride into the surf and get wet through.”
“Aunt, you are a wonder. However did you guess?” and Mary, now almost as tall as Jim, hugged Mrs Westonley’s slender waist; “that’s exactly what I did mean to do. But I also meant to catch fish as well.”
“Then you can ‘catch’ me some guinea-fowl eggs instead, to make egg and bread-crumb to fry the fish. Mr Aulain, do you know that Tom brought some guinea-fowl from Port Denison, and now we have hundreds of them? They are horrid things, though. Instead of laying in the fowl-house in an ordinary Christian fowl-like way, they go miles away, and of course the carpet snakes and iguanas, and kookaburras,6 get most of the eggs and chicks—except those which Jim and Mary find.”
Aulain laughed as he swung his light, wiry figure into his saddle, and then he and Jim cantered off.
A few hours later, as he and the lad were returning to the station, he lit his pipe and said:
“So your aunt doesn’t care about the beach, and the sea, and the old Dutch ship buried in the sand, eh, Jim?”
“No, Mr Aulain. She says she cannot look at the sea without shuddering—it always makes her think of her father and mother, and the wreck of the Cassowary. But Uncle Tom and Miss Fraser like the beach, and always went there in preference to anywhere else when they went for a ride.”
Poor Jim, never for one moment imagining the cause of Aulain’s interest in Miss Fraser’s movements, was then led on by him to relate nearly everything that had occurred at the station during her last visit. “Was she fond of fishing?” Aulain asked. “Oh, yes, and so was Uncle Tom. They would go out nearly every day either to the beach for bream, or up one of the creeks for spotted mullet.”
Sometimes he (Jim) and Mary would go with them, and then it would be a regular all-day sort of fishing and shooting picnic Miss Fraser used to shoot too, and Uncle Tom was teaching her to shoot from the left shoulder as well as the right—like he could. Then he went on to say that next time Kate came to Ocho Rios she, Gerrard and Mary and himself were all going to Duyphen Point, where there was a small coco-nut grove.
“It will be grand, won’t it, Mr Aulain? You see we are going to take two pack-horses, and our guns and fishing-lines, and will camp there for three or four days and come back with a load of coco-nuts.”
“It ought to be splendid, Jim. When is it to be?”
“In about a month. Miss Fraser is coming to stay with aunt for three whole months. Uncle Tom and I are going to Black Bluff Creek for her, if Mr Fraser can’t spare the time to come with her. You see, it’s ninety miles, and you can’t do it in one day, because some of the country is very rough, and none of our horses have ever been shod. Look at this colt’s hoofs,” and he pointed to them; “ain’t they an awful size?—real ‘soft country’ hoofs, and no mistake.”
Aulain gave a short nod, and then became silent, scarcely noticing Jim’s further remarks concerning such interesting subjects as kangarooing, alligator-shooting, the big tribe of cannibal niggers on the Coen River, who had killed and eaten sixteen Chinamen diggers, etc., etc.
For the rest of the day he was, Gerrard and Mrs Westonley noticed, very restless, and the former observed with some surprise that he helped himself freely and frequently to the brandy; hitherto he had known him as a somewhat abstemious man in the matter of liquor.
He left soon after daylight, declining Gerrard’s pressing invitation to stay for breakfast on the ground of wishing to “do a good twenty miles before the cursed sun got too hot,” and somehow the master of Ocho Rios was not sorry to say good-bye to him, for his manner seemed to have undergone a very great, and not pleasant change.
“Take care of the niggers, Aulain,” he said as they parted.
The ex-officer smiled grimly, and he touched the Winchester carbine slung across his shoulder. Then leading his pack-horse, he rode away.
CHAPTER XXV
“Oh, men who have, or have had fever as badly as Aulain has, often act very queerly, Lizzie, so don’t be too hard on him.”
“I know that, Tom. But at the same time there is something about him—those strange eyes of his—that made me afraid of him. When I told him last night that Kate Fraser was coming here on a long visit, he did not answer; his eyes were fixed on your face in such a strange, intense look that it made me feel quite ‘creepy’.”
Gerrard laughed. “Were they? I didn’t notice it.”
“No, of course not. You were too busy showing Jim how to unscrew the nipples of his gun, and perhaps did not even hear what I was saying.”
“Oh, I did. But I didn’t make any comment, as I noticed that at supper, whenever you or I spoke of the Frasers, he answered in curt monosyllables.”
“Did you tell him she was coming here next month?”
“No. I daresay I should have done so if I had thought of it.”
“Tom, I am not a female Lavater, but when I saw him looking at you like that, I disliked and distrusted him.”
“Poor Aulain! Why, Lizzie, he’s one of the straightest fellows that ever lived, and I am sure he has a sincere regard for me. You must never take notice of the queer looks and actions of men who have had fever badly.”
“Tom! I’m a woman, and I know. He was thinking of Kate Fraser—and you. And he is suffering from another fever—the fever of violent jealousy.”
Gerrard looked up—they were at breakfast. “Well, if that is the case, it is a bad complication of diseases, and I am sorry for him. He has no earthly reason to be jealous of me.”
“He is jealous, Tom, ‘deadly jealous,’ as Jim would say, and I dislike him, dislike him intensely for it You have been so good to him, too.”
“Only keeping things quiet about Big Boulder Creek, as I promised him I should. And then, you see, Lizzie, his not getting the Government reward of five thousand pounds, as he thought he should, has been a big disappointment to him.”
Mrs Westonley rose, came over to him, and placed her two hands against his bronzed cheeks.
“Thomas Gerrard, Esquire?”
“Mrs Elizabeth Westonley!”
“You are to marry Kate Fraser!”
“Am I, old woman? You’re a perfect jewel of a sister to find me such a charming wife. But you see there are one or two trifling formalities to be observed. First of all, I should have to ask her her views on the subject.”
“You ought to have done that a year ago.”
“And have met with a refusal like poor Forde and Aulain.”
“No, you would not have been refused. I know that much,” was his sister’s emphatic observation. “But you are letting the time go by, Tom. And I am sure she is wondering why you don’t ask. I know that she loves you.”
“Do you really?” and he shook his head smilingly.
“Yes, I do. I’m certain. And I know you are fond of her.”
“Been long in the clairvoyant business, Lizzie?”
“Don’t talk nonsense, Tom. I am very serious—and it would make me very happy. Ask her this time, Tom. You must—else you have no right to be with her so much. It is not fair to the girl.”
“We are very great friends, Lizzie. I like her better than any woman I have ever met. And I have sometimes thought—but anyway, I’m not in a position to ask her.”
“Nonsense! Your affairs are improving every day.”
Gerrard was silent for a minute, then he said:
“I think Aulain means to try again.”
“I am sure of it. But he is wasting his time. High-spirited as she is, she is almost frightened of him. She told me so. She resented very much a letter she received from him in reply to hers telling him she could not marry him; and moreover she told me that even if she cared ever so much for a man, she would never marry a Roman Catholic.”
“I don’t think she will ever marry, Lizzie, so it is no use my indulging in ridiculous visions; she is too much attached to her father to ever leave him. And you will always be mistress of Ocho Rios and master of Tom Gerrard.”
Mrs Westonley laughed, and pulled his short, dark-brown, pointed beard. “Silly man! I know better than that; and I know also that Douglas Fraser would be pleased to see Kate become Mrs Tom Gerrard, for he likes you immensely. Now, promise me you will ask her?”
Gerrard rose and made his escape to the door, then he turned.
“I’ll think it over, you match-making creature,” and then he went off to the stockyard, apparently unconcerned, but secretly delighted at what his sister had told him, and she smiled to herself, for she knew that when he spoke of thinking about a matter, he had already decided.
Black Bluff Creek was a purely alluvial gold-field, and was in the very zenith of its prosperity when, towards sunset, Randolph Aulain looked down upon it from an ironstone ridge a mile distant from the workings. It had been given its name on account of a peculiar formation of black rock, which rose abruptly from the alluvial plain, and extended for nearly two miles along and almost parallel with the creek, from the bed of which so much gold was being won by two hundred diggers. The top of this wall of rock was covered with a dense scrub, and presented a smooth, even surface of green, which even in the driest seasons never lost its verdant appearance. Some of the diggers had cleared away portions of the scrub, and erected sun-shelters of bark, under which they slept when their day’s toils were over, and enjoyed the cool night breeze—free from the miasmatic steam of the valley five hundred feet below. Almost on the verge of the steep-to wall of rock was a large and regularly built “humpy,” in which Douglas Fraser and Kate lived. The ascent to the summit of the bluff was by a narrow path that had been found by Kate in one of the many clefts riven in the side of the black-faced cliff, and her father’s mates had so improved it with pick and shovel that Aulain could discern it quite easily.
As he walked his horse down into the camp, the diggers had just ceased work for the day, and with clay-stained and soddened garments were returning to their various tents or “humpies” of bark, all of them contentedly smoking, and ready for their usual supper of salt beef, damper, and tea. Many of the stalwart fellows recognised the ex-officer of Black Police, and bade him a pleasant “good evening, boss,” and presently he was hailed by Sam Young, Cockney Smith, and others of Fraser’s party. He dismounted and shook hands with Young, and asked him where was the “pub,” as he intended to put up there for the night.
Young protested against his going there. “There it is, Mr Aulain, over there,” and he pointed to the bush public house, a low, bark-roofed structure on the edge of the creek; “but you can’t stay there to-night It’s Saturday, you see, and the boys will be there in force to-night, and you’ll get no sleep. Besides, Mr Fraser would be real put out if you didn’t go to him. He’s just gone home. He and Miss Kate live up on the bluff.”
“I know. I’ll go and see them after supper, but I’d rather camp down here for to-night.”
“Then come to our tent. There’s plenty of room, and plenty of tucker, and any amount of grass along the creek for your horses.”
Aulain accepted the offer, and after unsaddling and turning out his horses, he was provided with a piece of soap, an alleged towel, and a bucket of water, and made a hasty wash in company with Young and his mates. Then came supper and the interchange of the usual mining news. Two years before, not one of his present companions would have addressed him without the prefix of “Mister”; but now he was one of themselves, a digger, and would himself have felt awkward and uncomfortable if any one of them had had the lack of manners and good sense to “Mister” him.
Supper over he lit his pipe, and telling Young he would be back about ten and take a hand at euchre, he set out and took the mountain path to the summit of the bluff. It was a beautifully clear moonlight night—so clear that every leaf of the trees which stood on the more open sides of the rocky track showed out as if it were mid-day, and a bright sun was shining overhead.
When he was within sight of Fraser’s dwelling, he heard two shots above him, and then Kate speaking.
“I’ve got four of the little villains, father.”
The sound of her voice thrilled him, and he hastened his steps. In a few minutes he saw Douglas Fraser, who was seated outside smoking his after-supper pipe.
“How are you, Fraser?” he cried.
The big man sprang to his feet, and came towards him with outstretched hand.
“Aulain, by Jove! I am pleased to see you again. I saw some one leading a pack-horse coming into the camp below, but never dreamt it was you. Come inside. Kate will be here in a few minutes. We have a bit of garden close by, and the confounded bandicoots and paddymelons ravage it at nights, and she has just been knocking some over. She will be delighted to see you.”
CHAPTER XXVI
Kate was not pleased to see Aulain, but did not show it; for she guessed why he had come, and could not but feel a little frightened. But after a little while she felt more at her ease, when he began to tell her father and herself of his mining experiences, and said laughingly that malarial fever was not half as bad as gold fever.
“You see,” he said, turning to Kate, “the one only takes possession of your body: the other takes your soul as well. The more gold you get, the more you want; and one does not feel that he has a corporeal existence at all when he turns up a fifty or sixty ounce nugget—as I did on three or four occasions. You feel as if you belonged to another—a more glorious world; and before you, you see the open, shining gates of the bright City of Fortune.”
The grizzled ex-judge laughed. “You have missed your vocation in life, Aulain. Man, you’re a poet But I know the feeling, and so does Kate. Well, I am pleased that you have had such luck.”
“And so am I,” said Kate incautiously, “and I wish you better luck still at the new rush at Cape Grenville; but I think what has pleased me most, Mr Aulain, is that you have left the Native Police. Do you know that when the escort was here a few weeks ago with ten black troopers, and your successor came here to see us, I could hardly be civil to him, although he was very nice, and gave us some very late newspapers—only two months old.”
“The Black Police are certainly your bêtes noire, Kate,” said her father with a smile, as he pushed the bottle of whisky towards his guest.
“They are, dad. They are very especial black beetles to me—beetles with Snider rifles and murderous tomahawks for shooting and cutting down women and children.”
Aulain’s dark face flushed, and Kate reddened too, for she was sorry she had spoken so hastily. Then, to her relief, there sounded a sudden outburst of barking from Fraser’s kangaroo dogs.
“Oh, those horrid paddy melons and bandicoots at the garden again!” and she rose and seized her gun.
“May I come and have a shot, too?” said Aulain.
“Do. It is as clear as noon-day. Take father’s gun, Mr Aulain. I have plenty of cartridges in my pocket.”
They stepped out together into the brilliant moonlight, and then Kate, driving the dogs away, led the way to the garden—a small cleared space enclosed with a brush fence. Peering over the top, the girl saw more than a dozen of the energetic little rodents busily engaged in their work of destruction. Indicating those at which she intended to fire, she motioned to Aulain to shoot at a group which were further away, and occupied in rooting up and devouring sweet potatoes. They fired together, and three or four of the creatures rolled over, dead. The rest scampered off.
“They will come back in ten or fifteen minutes,” said Kate; “shall we wait? See, there is a good place, under that silver leaf ironbark, where it is rather dark. There is a log seat there.”
Aulain eagerly assented. This would give him the opportunity to which he had been looking forward.
As soon as they were seated he took Kate’s gun from her hand, and leant it with his own against the bole of the tree.
“Kate,” he said, speaking very quickly, “I am glad to have this chance of speaking to you alone. I want to ask your forgiveness for that letter I wrote when–”
“I did forgive you, long ago, Randolph. I was very, very angry when I read it, and I daresay you too were angry when you wrote such cruel things to me, but then”—and she smiled—“you have such a very hasty temper.”
He placed his hand on hers. “Only you can chasten it, Kate. And now you know why I have come to Black Bluff.”
“It is very good of you, Randolph, but, as I have said, I forgave you long ago, and I am sorry that you have come so far just to tell me that you are sorry for what occurred, although both father and I are sincerely glad to see you.”
“Ah, Kate! You don’t understand what I mean. In asking for your forgiveness I ask for your love. I came here to ask you to be my wife.”
“Don’t, please, Randolph,” and she drew herself away from him. “I cannot marry you. I like you—I always liked you—but please do not say anything more.”
“Kate,” and the man’s voice shook, “you cared for me once. Forget my mad, angry letter, and–”
“I have forgotten it. Did I not say so? But please do not again ask me to marry you. Come, let us go back to the house. You will only make me miserable—or else angry.”
“Why have you changed so towards me?” he asked quickly.
“I have not changed in any way towards you,” she answered emphatically with a slight accent of anger in her tones. “Please do not say anything more. Let us go in,” and she rose.
“Kate,” he said pleadingly, and he placed his hand on her arm gently, “just listen to me for a minute. I love you. I will do all that a man can to make you happy. I have left the Native Police, and I am now fairly well off–”
She made a swift gesture. “For your sake I am pleased—very pleased—that you have left the Police, and have made money. But, Randolph,” and though she was frightened at the suppressed vehemence in his voice, and the almost fierce look of his dark, deep-set eyes, she smiled as she put her hand on his, “please don’t think that—that—money, I mean—would make any difference to me. Come, let us go back to father. I am sure he wants you to play chess.”
Aulain’s face terrified her. He had lost control of himself, and his hand closed around her wrist.
“So you throw me over?” he said in almost savage tones.
“‘Throw you over’! How dare you say such a thing to me!” and she tore her hand away from him, and faced him with blazing anger in her eyes. “What have I ever said or done that you can speak to me like this?”
“I know who has come between us–”
“Between us! What do you mean?” she cried scornfully. “What has there ever been ‘between us’? And who do you mean?”
Aulian’s face whitened with the anger of jealousy, and he gave full vent to the unreasoning passion which had now overmastered him.
“I mean Gerrard.”
“Mr Gerrard—your friend?” she said slowly.
“Yes,” he replied with a sneer; “my dear friend Gerrard—the man who, professing to be my friend, has steadily undermined me in your regard ever since he first saw you.”
“Your mind is wandering, I fear,” and the icy contempt with which she spoke brought his anger to white heat. “I shall stay here, no longer, Mr Aulain,” and she stepped over to the tree, and took up her gun. Aulain was beside her in an instant.
“Do you think I do not know?” he said thickly, and the gleam of passion in his eyes struck terror to her heart, “It was he who made you leave Fraser’s Gully to come here, so as to be near him. At first I thought that it was that Scotch hound of a parson—but now I know better.”
Kate flushed deeply, then she whitened with anger. “Oh, I wish I were a man! I could strike you as it is! Ah, you should never have left the Black Police. I shall not fail to let the man who befriended you know how you have vilified him.”
“You need not. I will tell him myself what I have told you. By – he shall suffer for robbing me of you!” and it needed all Kate’s courage to look into his furious eyes.
“Good-night, Mr Aulain,” she said, trying to speak calmly; “I do not wish to—I hope I never may—see you again.”
“No doubt,” was the sneering response. “Mr Thomas Gerrard, the squatter, is in a very different position from Randolph Aulain, the digger, with a paltry three or four thousand pounds.”
Kate set her teeth, and tried hard to choke a sob.
“My father and I thought that you were a gentleman, Mr Aulain. I see now how very much we were mistaken. And as far as Mr Gerrard is concerned, he will know how to deal with you. I will ask my father to write to him to-morrow.”
“Why not expedite your proposed visit to him, and tell him personally?” said Aulain with a mocking laugh.
Kate made no answer, but walked swiftly away. Five minutes later, Aulain, without going to the house to say good-bye to Douglas Fraser, descended the rocky path to the main camp.
At daylight next morning, to the wonder of Sam Young and his mates, he was missing. He had risen at dawn, caught and saddled his horses, and gone off without a word of farewell.
CHAPTER XXVII
“Hansen’s Rush” was one of the richest, noisiest, and the “rowdiest” of all the many newly-discovered fields, and contained more of the elements of villainy amongst its six hundred inhabitants than any other rush in the Australian Colonies. Perhaps about two-thirds of the men were genuine diggers, the rest were loafers, card-sharpers, horse and cattle thieves, sly grog-sellers, and men “wanted” by the police for various offences, from murder down to simple robbery with violence. So far, however, the arm of the law had not yet manifested its power at “Hansen’s,” although at first when the field was discovered by the prospector after whom it was named, a solitary white trooper and one native tracker had reached there, expecting to be reinforced. But one day he and the aboriginal rode out of camp to visit a party of diggers, who were working at the head of the creek, and never returned.
Months afterwards, the body of the white man was found lying near a heap of huge boulders, and it was concluded that either the unfortunate trooper had been thrown from his horse and killed, or that he had been murdered by his black subordinate, for the latter was never seen again at the camp, and most of the diggers asserted that he had deserted to the coastal blacks, where he would be safe from capture. When the body was discovered a careful search was made for some gold which had been entrusted to the policeman, but it could not be found; and this confirmed the theory of the tracker being the murderer.
Then, nearly three months after, “Moses,” as the black tracker was named, walked into Somerset carrying his carbine and revolver, and told another story, which was accepted by the authorities as true. The party of miners whom he and the trooper visited, had complained of their tent having been entered when they were absent at their claim, and some hundreds of ounces of gold stolen. This was some weeks previously, and heavy rain, since then, had obliterated all traces of the robbers’ tracks. The diggers, said Moses, then gave the trooper a bag of small nuggets containing about fifty ounces, and asked him to take it to Hansen’s to await the monthly gold escort.
That night he and Moses camped near the boulders, and at daylight the latter went after the horses, leaving the poor trooper asleep. Half an hour later, he heard the sound of a shot, and saw three mounted men galloping towards him. They halted when they saw him, and then all three fired at him, but missed. Then they tried to head him off—he was on foot—but he was too fleet, and after an hour’s pursuit he gained some wild country in the ranges, where he was, he thought, safe. Feeling hungry as the morning went on, he penetrated a thick scrub in the hope of finding a scrub turkey’s nest. He did find one, and whilst engaged in eating the eggs, was dealt a sudden blow from behind with a waddy, and when he became conscious, found he had been captured by a wandering tribe of mountain blacks. They did not treat him harshly, but kept a strict watch on him for two months. One wild night, however, securing his carbine and revolver, he managed to escape, and finally reached Somerset.