Complete Works of E W Hornung

by E. W. Hornung

  It was the glint of firelight upon a pair of spurs that hung motionless in the scrub — not a yard from the ground — not ten paces from the fire.

  He looked again; the spurs were fixed to a pair of sidespring boots; the boots hung out of a pair of moleskins, with a few inches of worsted sock in between. All were steady, immovable as the stars above. He could see no higher than the knees; but that was enough; a hoarse cry escaped him, as he pointed with a quivering finger, and turned his white face from man to man.

  Neither Simons nor the Bo’s’n would meet his look; but Bill gripped his arm, with a loud laugh, and dragged him to his feet.

  “Come and have a look at him,” he said. “He isn’t pretty, but he’ll do you good.”

  Next instant Engelhardt stood close to the suspended body of the unfortunate Rowntree. Both hands were tied behind his back, his hair was in his eyes, and the chin drooped forward upon his chest like that of a man lost in thought.

  “See what you’ll come to,” said Bill, giving the body a push that set it swinging like a pendulum, while the branch creaked horribly overhead. “See what you’ll come to if you don’t speak out! It was a good ten minutes before he stopped kicking and jingling his spurs; you’re lighter, and it’d take you longer. Quarter of an hour, I guess, or twenty minutes.”

  Engelhardt had reeled, and would have fallen, but the Bo’s’n jumped up and caught him in his arms.

  He did more.

  “Listen to reason, messmate,” said the sailor, with a touch of rude friendliness in his lowered tone. “There ain’t no sense in keeping mum with us. If you won’t speak, you’ll swing at the yard-arm along with t’other cove in a brace of shakes; if you will, you’ll get a chance whether or no. Besides, what good do you think you can do? We know all that’s worth knowing. Anything you tell us’ll make less trouble in at the homestead — not more.”

  “All right,” said Engelhardt, faintly. “Let me sit down; I’ll tell you anything you like.”

  “That’s more like. Take my place, then you’ll be stern-on to that poor devil. Now then, Bill, fire away. The little man’s hisself again.”

  “Good for him,” growled Bill. “Look at me, you stuck pig, and answer questions. Where’s that chest?”

  “In the store.”

  “Didn’t I say so! Never been shifted! Whereabouts in the store?”

  “Inside the counter.”

  “Much of a chest to bust into?”

  “Two locks, and clamps all over.”

  “Where’s the keys?”

  “I don’t know. Miss Pryse keeps them.”

  “She won’t keep ‘em long. See here, you devil, if you look at me again like that I’ll plug your eyes into your mouth! You seem to know a fat lot about this silver. Have you seen it, or haven’t you?”

  “I have.”

  “What is there?”

  “Not much. A couple of candlesticks; a few spoons; some old skewers; a biscuit-box; a coffee-pot — but it’s half ivory; an epergne — —”

  “What the ‘ells that? None o’ your Greek, you swine!”

  “It’s a thing for flowers.”

  “Why didn’t you say so, then? What else?”

  “Let me see — —”

  “You’d best look slippy!”

  “Well, there’s not much more. A cake-basket, some napkin-rings, and a pair of nut-crackers. And that’s about all. It’s all I saw, anyhow.”

  “All silver?”

  “I shouldn’t think it.”

  “You liar! You plucky well know it is. And not a bad lot neither, even if it was the lot. By the Lord, I’ve a good mind to strip and sit you on that fire for not telling me the truth!”

  “Easy, mate, easy!” remonstrated the Bo’s’n. “That sounds near enough.”

  “By cripes,” cried Simons, “it’s near enough for me. ‘Tain’t the silver I want. It’s the gold, and that’s the girl!”

  “You won’t get her,” said Engelhardt.

  “Why not?”

  “She’ll put a bullet through you.”

  “Can she shoot straight?”

  “As straight as her father, I should say. I never saw him. But I’ve seen her.”

  “What do?”

  “Stand in the veranda and knock a crow off the well fence — with her own revolver.”

  “By cripes, that’s a lie.”

  (It was.)

  “I’m not so blooming sure,” said Bill. “I recollect how the old man dropped Tigerskin at nigh twenty yards. She was with him, too, at the time — a kid out of bed. I took a shot at her and missed. She’d be as likely as not to knock a hole through one or other of us, lads, if you hadn’t got me to see you through. You trust to Bill for ideas! He’s got one now, but it’ll keep. See here, you swine, you! When was it you saw all what you pretend to have seen, eh?”

  Engelhardt laughed. His answer could do no harm, and it gave him a thrill of satisfaction to score even so paltry a point against his bestial antagonist.

  “It was the day you two came around the station.”

  “That morning?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where did you see it?”

  “In the store.”

  “Before we came?”

  “While you were there. When Miss Pryse locked the door, it was all over the place. While we were in the kitchen she got it swept out of sight.”

  “Good God!” screamed Bill; “if only I’d known. You little devil, if only I’d guessed it!”

  His vile face was convulsed and distorted with greed and rage; his hairy, four-fingered fist shaking savagely in Engelhardt’s face. Bo’s’n remonstrated again.

  “What’s the sense o’ that, messmate? For God’s sake shut it! A fat lot we could ha’ done without a horse between us.”

  “We could have rushed the store, stretched ‘em stiff — —”

  “And carried a hundredweight o’ silver away in our bluies! No, no, my hearty; it’s a darn sight better as it is. What do you say, Simons?”

  “I’m glad you waited, but I’m bleedin’ dry.”

  “An’ me, too,” said Bill, sulkily, as he uncorked a black bottle. “Give us that pannikin, you spawn!”

  Engelhardt handed it over unmoved. He was past caring what was said or done to him personally. Bill drank first.

  “Here’s fun!” said he, saluting the other two simultaneously with a single cross-eyed leer.

  “‘An’ they say so — an’ we hope so!’” chanted the Bo’s’n, who came next. “Anyway, here’s to the moon, for there she spouts!”

  As he raised his pannikin, he pointed it over Engelhardt’s shoulder, and the latter involuntarily turned his head. He brought it back next moment, with a jerk and a shudder. Far away, behind the scrub, on the edge of the earth, lay the moon, with a silvery pathway leading up to her, and a million twigs and branches furrowing her face. But against the top of the great white disc there fell those horrible boots and spurs, in grisly silhouette, and still swaying a little to the mournful accompaniment of the groaning bough above. Surely the works of God and man were never in ghastlier contrast than when Engelhardt turned his head without thinking and twitched it back with a shudder. And yet to him this was not the worst; he was now in time to catch that which made the blood run colder still in all his veins.

  CHAPTER XIII A SMOKING CONCERT

  Simons was toasting Naomi Pryse. It took Engelhardt some moments to realize this. The language he could stand; but no sooner did he grasp its incredible application than his self-control boiled over on the spot.

  “Stop it!” he shrieked at the shearer. “How dare you speak of her like that? How dare you?”

  The foul mouth fell open, and the camp-fire flames licked the yellow teeth within. Engelhardt was within a few inches of them, with a doubled fist and reckless eyes. To his amazement, the man burst out laughing in his face.

  “The little cuss has spunk,” said he. “I like to see a cove stick up for ‘is gal, by cripes I do!”


  “So do I,” said Bo’s’n. “Brayvo, little man, brayvo!”

  “My oath,” said Bill, “I’d have cut ‘is stinkin’ throat for ‘alf as much if I’d been you, matey!”

  “Not me,” said Simons. “I’ll give ‘im a drink for ‘is spunk. ‘Ere, kiddy, you wish us luck!”

  He held out the pannikin. Engelhardt shook his head. He was, in fact, a teetotaler, who had made a covenant with himself, when sailing from old England, to let no stimulant pass his lips until his feet should touch her shores again. The covenant was absolutely private and informal, as between a man and his own body, but no power on earth would have made him break it.

  “Come on,” said Simons. “By cripes, we take no refusals here!”

  “I must ask you to take mine, nevertheless.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t drink.”

  “Well, you’ve got to!”

  “I shall not!”

  Simons seemed bent upon it. Perhaps he had taken a drop too much himself; indeed, none of the three were entirely above such a suspicion; but it immediately appeared that this small point was to create more trouble than everything that had gone before. Small as it was, neither man would budge an inch. Engelhardt said again that he would not drink. Simons swore that he should either drink or die. The piano-tuner cheerfully replied that he expected to die in any case, but he wasn’t going to touch whiskey for anybody; so he gave Simons leave to do what he liked and get it over — the sooner the better. The shearer promptly seized him by his uninjured wrist, twisted it violently behind his back, and held out his hand to Bo’s’n for the pannikin. Engelhardt was now helpless, his left arm a prisoner and in torture, his right lying useless in a sling. Bo’s’n, however, came to his rescue once more, by refusing to see good grog wasted when there was little enough left.

  “What’s the use?” said he. “If the silly devil won’t drink, we’ll make him sing us a song. He says he tunes pianners. Let him tune up now!”

  “That’s better,” assented Bill. “The joker shall give us a song before we let his gas out; and I’ll drink his grog. Give it here, Bo’s’n.”

  The worst of a gang of three is the strong working majority always obtainable against one or other of them. Simons gave in with a curse, and sent Engelhardt sprawling with a heavy kick. As he picked himself up, they called upon him to sing. He savagely refused.

  “All right,” said Bill, “we’ll string him up an’ be done with him. I’m fairly sick o’ the swine — I am so!”

  “By cripes, so am I.”

  “Then up he goes.”

  “The other beggar’s got the rope,” said Bo’s’n.

  “Then cut him down. He won’t improve by hanging any longer. We ain’t a-going to eat him, are we? Cut him down, and sling this one up. It’s your job, Bo’s’n.”

  Bo’s’n was disposed to grumble. Bill cut him short.

  “All right,” said he, getting clumsily to his feet, “I’ll do it myself. You call yourself a bloomin’ man! I’d make a better bloomin’ man than you with bloomin’ baccy-ash. Out of the light, you cripple, an’ the thing’ll be done in half the time you take talking about it!”

  Engelhardt was left sitting between Simons and the ill-used Bo’s’n. The latter had his grumble out, but Bill took no more account of him. As for the shearer, the ferocity of his attitude toward the doomed youth was now second to none. He sat very close to him, with a hellish scowl and a great hand held ready to blast any attempt at escape. But none was made. The piano-tuner stuck his thumbs into his ears, covered his closed eyes with his palms, and tried both to think and to pray. He could not think; vague visions of Naomi crowded his mind, but they formed no thought. Nor could he pray for anything but courage to meet his fate. Within a few yards of him was the body of a dead man murdered by these thieves among whom he himself had fallen. He could not but doubt that they were about to murder him too. His last hour had come. He wanted courage. That was all he asked for as he sat with plugged ears and tight-shut eyes.

  He was aroused by a smart kick in the ribs. As he got up to go to his doom, Bill seized him by the shoulders and pushed him roughly toward the hanging rope; it hung so low, it bisected the rising moon.

  “Let me alone,” he cried, wriggling fiercely. “I can get there without your help.”

  “Well, we’ll see.”

  He got there fast enough. A little deeper in the scrub he could see a shapeless mass of moleskin and Crimean shirting, with a spurred boot half covered by a stiff hand. He was thankful to turn his face to the blazing camp-fire, even though the noose went round his neck as he did so.

  “Now then,” said Bill, hauling the rope taut, “will you give us a song or won’t you?”

  He could not speak.

  “If you sing us a song we may give you another hour,” said the Bo’s’n from the ground. Simons and he had been whispering together. Bill shook his head at them.

  “That rests with me,” said he to Engelhardt. “Don’t you make any mistake.”

  “Another hour!” cried the young man, bitterly, as he found his voice. “What’s another hour? If you’re men at all, put an end to me now and be done with it.”

  “How’s that?” said Bill, hauling him upon tip-toe. “No, no, sonny, we want our song first,” he added, as he let the rope fall slack again.

  “Sing up, and there’s no saying what’ll happen,” cried the Bo’s’n, cheerily.

  “What shall I sing?”

  “Anything you like.”

  “Something funny to cheer us up.”

  “Ay, ay, a comic song!”

  Engelhardt wavered — as once before under the eyes and ears of a male audience. “I’ll do my best,” he said at last. And Bo’s’n clapped.

  A minute later the bushrangers’ camp was the scene of as queer a performance as ever was given. A very young man, with a pallid, blood-stained face, and a rope round his neck, was singing a “comic” song to a parcel of cut-throats who were presently to hang him, as they had hanged already the corpse at his heels. Meanwhile they surrendered themselves like simple innocents to a thorough enjoyment of the fine fun provided. The replenished camp-fire lit their villanous faces with a rich red glow. They grinned, they laughed, they displayed their pleasure and satisfaction each after his own fashion. The fat man shook in his fat; the long man showed his grinning teeth; the sailor-man slapped his thighs and rolled on the ground in paroxysms of spirituous mirth. It must have been the humor of the situation, rather than that of the song, which so powerfully appealed to them. The former had the piquant charm of being entirely their own creation. The latter was that poetic paraphrase of the early chapters of the Book of Genesis which the singer had tried upon another back-block audience but a few nights before. Of the two, this audience, as such, was decidedly the better. At any rate they let him get to the end. And when that came, and Bo’s’n clapped again, even the other two joined in the applause.

  “By cripes,” said Simons, “that’s not so bad!”

  “Bad?” cried the enthusiastic Bo’s’n. “It’s as good as fifty plays. We’ll have some more, and I’ll give you a song myself.”

  “Right!” said Bill. “The night’s still young. Stiffin me purple if we haven’t forgot them weeds we laid in at the township! Out with ‘em, mateys, an’ pass round the grog; we’ll make a smokin’ concert of it. A bloomin’ smoker, so help me never!”

  The cigars were unearthed from the pockets of Bill himself. He and Simons at once put two of them in full blast. Meantime, Bo’s’n was trying his voice.

  “Any of you know any sailors’ chanties?” said he.

  A pause, and then —

  “Yes, I do.”

  The voice was none other than Engelhardt’s.

  “You? The devil you do! How’s that, then?”

  “I came out in a sailing ship.”

  “What do you know?”

  “Some of the choruses.”

  “‘Blow the land down?’”

&n
bsp; “Yes — best of all.”

  “Then we’ll have that! Messmates you join his nibs in the chorus. I sing yarn and chorus too. Ready? Steady! Here goes!”

  And in a rich, rolling voice, that had been heard above many a gale on the high seas, he began with the familiar words:

  Oh, where are you going to, my pretty maid? —

  Yo-ho, blow the land down!

  Oh, where are you going to, my pretty maid? —

  And give us some time to blow the land down!

  The words were not long familiar. They quickly became detestable. The farther they went, of course, the more they appealed to Simons, Bill, and the singer himself. As for Engelhardt, obviously he was in no position to protest; nor could mere vileness add at all to his discomfort, with that noose still round his neck, and the rope-end still tight in Bill’s clutch. Then the refrain for every other line was no bad thing in itself; at all events, he joined in throughout, and at the close stood at least as well with his persecutors as before.

  It now appeared, however, that sailors’ chanties were the Bo’s’n’s weakness. He insisted on singing two more, with topical and impromptu verses of his own. As, for instance:

  The proud Miss Pryse may toss ‘er ‘ead —

  An’ they say so — an’ we hope so —

  The proud Miss Pryse will soon be dead —

  The poor — old — gal!

  Or again, and as bad:

  Oh, they call me Hanging Johnny —

  Hurray! Pull away!

  An’ I’ll soon hang you, my sonny —

  Hang — boys — hang!

  These are but opening verses. There were many more in each case, and they were bad enough in all respects. And yet Engelhardt chimed in at his own expense — even at Naomi’s — because it might be that his life and hers depended upon it. He was beginning to have his hopes, partly from the delay, partly from looks and winks which he had seen exchanged; and his hopes led to ideas, because his brain had never been clearer and busier than it was now become. He was devoutly thankful not to have been twice forced to sing. The second time, however, was still to come. It was announced by a jerk of the rope that went near to dislocating his neck.