The pain in his arms and legs, and about his neck, was quickly easing beneath his fingers. Cocaine from Java! Of course! Along that two thousand miles of unguarded coast they could land anything. As the Colonel had said an army could invade unobserved. No wonder there had been agitation to have modern seaplanes stationed at Port Darwin.
He now managed to walk with little difficulty from his prison to the side wool-room door before which the girl was crouched. “Where do we hide?” he asked.
“We can both squeeze into the fire box of the steam engine which runs the machinery, or we can take a chance and get out of the building from the back and make for the breakaways,” she replied, glancing down at the Colonel’s bar of iron which Tremayne carried.
“How long have you been in the shed?”
“About two hours. I crept in from the back when they were taking those boxes from the flying machine. I wanted to know what they were doing so that I could tell Miss Frances.” Suddenly she smiled. “Miss Frances and me are friends,” she informed him proudly. “Miss Frances said so.”
Again she stooped to look through the crack between the door and the jamb below the heavy lock. Then she was up again – quick as a clock spring.
“Buck Ross is coming here from the house,” she breathed, her voice a soft hiss.
“Alone?”
When she nodded, he grinned and drew her away from the door. “Hide,” he commanded. “When I’ve fixed Ross you hunt around for rope and a piece of cloth. He shall take my place at the pillar.” When she hesitated, he added sternly: “Hide, do you hear? I want his gun.”
Running from him, she disappeared among the wool bales like a rabbit dashing down a burrow. Tremayne moved quietly back to the walls of wool-packs, his eyes flaming and his brain like ice.
They heard the door being opened and closed. Then came Buck’s dry chuckle. “So, my flash gentleman! I’m to nurse you for quite a time,” he said, before his hand left the door, eagerness in his voice and an underlying vindictiveness striking a dreadful note of triumph. “Gonna squirt cocaine into you presently, but before that a match or two held against your fingernails for old times’ sake.”
That threat brought him to the wool-packs, a great, strong-boned, evil brute of a man. He was again chuckling when he rounded an angle and so came to see the wooden pillar to which Tremayne had been tied. There he stopped short, triumph replaced by perplexity, and then a realisation that he must have come to the wrong place within the shed. Possibly it was intuition which made him look up to see Tremayne’s grinning face and the bar of iron then descending. It struck him across the forehead, and he collapsed as though shot. Tremayne jumped down from the position he had taken between two bales.
The interior of the shed was once again ruled by silence. The light was dim. The man lashed to the wooden pillar did not move. Anyway, his movement was restricted and his eyes were closed. He might have been dead, for the skin across his forehead was split open in a red-raw gash. Blood assisted the gag to mask his face.
Abruptly footsteps sounded beyond the side door. When the door was opened, yellow light silhouetted the tops of the wool bales against the roof. Men’s boots tramped across the wooden floor.
“You there, Ross?” Tonger called sharply. “Come on, dinner’s ready.”
He and Lawton came into the cleared space about the pillar and the bound man. They looked round for the figure of Ross, not yet having realised that it was he who sat motionless and made the gurgling sounds. Then swiftly Tonger stooped and thrust the lamp he carried close to Buck’s face.
“There’s Ross,” he said with remarkable calmness. “I told you to fix Tremayne when we had him. I objected to you telling him everything. Now if we don’t get him quick we’ll be done.”
When Ross was released, he grinned like an ape. “I don’t want no dinner,” he snarled. “I want a drink. Can’t you see that Tremayne downed me with a bar of iron. He’s got my gun for sure.”
“What a great pity it is that he didn’t kill you – you fool!” remarked the Colonel.
CHAPTER XXXII
FALLING DARKNESS
“I don’t like it!” murmured Colonel Lawton, although neither dislike nor perturbation showed on his smooth round face or in his ice blue eyes.
“I still can’t get over your stupidity in telling Tremayne everything,” Tonger snapped.
“Why harp on one matter like a woman wanting to have her throat cut?” exploded the Colonel with such shattering violence that both Tonger and Ross blanched.
The three of them were seated in the Breakaway House dining room eating rapidly, although without appreciation, the well-cooked food the cook had taken such care to preserve long after the scheduled hour was passed. Despite his assertion on being released, Ross ate heartily, the blue kerchief round his head giving him the appearance of a pirate.
“No – I don’t like it,” reiterated the Colonel with regained composure. “Ross, step out to Whitbread and tell him to have two men on guard over the plane. How many road miles are we from Mount Magnet, Morris?”
“Eighty-one.”
“Time? Ah! Ten minutes to nine. Bowgada rang Mount Magnet at seven-fifty-five. We may assume that the doctor and the policeman – there will, I think, be only one policeman –
probably left Mount Magnet by eight-fifteen. As it hasn’t rained sufficiently to impede progress, they should arrive before eleven-thirty. It’s essential that they’re not held up by Tremayne. Who, do you think, cut him loose, if he did not free himself?”
“A maid named May. She cannot be found. I never liked her. It was Frances who insisted upon retaining her. Her disappearance just now points to the obvious.”
“You never made love to her?”
“No,” replied Tonger abruptly.
“She and Tremayne will have to be located.”
The Colonel fell into reverie and Tonger continued eating, his face glowering. The squatter was visualising a prison, for a sense of inevitability was mastering him.
“Let’s reason,” said Lawton presently. “Tremayne doesn’t know what’s happened at Bowgada, and, therefore, doesn’t know that a doctor and policeman are coming from Mount Magnet. Further, he doesn’t know that that fool cut the telephone wire beyond Bowgada. Depend on it, he’ll make for Bowgada, or send the girl to Bowgada with instructions, although I don’t think he’ll do that. It’s a dark night. Whichever one of them does go, or if they both go, they’ll keep to the road. We have to decide, being limited in number, whether to concentrate on capturing Tremayne, or on getting the stuff out of those bales and put in a safe hiding place so that we can deny all knowledge of it. Which shall it be?”
“We should concentrate on Tremayne. The last consignment is still at sea and won’t reach Jefferson in Bradford until next Thursday. If Tremayne gets clear the police will cable to have that consignment held up and examined anyway.”
“Of course! Yes, we must pick up Tremayne and that girl before they can do any damage. Ross’s crowd ought to be back soon with the brother. We’ll return him.”
Buck Ross returned, and before he could resume his dinner he was ordered to bring the dry batteries from the telephone box in the office. When he grumbled the Colonel’s eyes emitted blue gleams.
“We should have dismantled that telephone before this,” Lawton pointed out when Ross had departed. “You’re not very helpful tonight, Morris. Order all your reliable hands to come here immediately. Can you count on any of those at the camp?”
“Yes – nearly all the adults and many of the women. In fact I could rely on the whole damn lot.”
“Leave the women. Send for the men. Get them all here as quickly as possible. A large scale map of the district would be helpful. Bring one.”
When the eleven hands entered the dining room, they regarded the big man seated at the table studying a map he had spread over the cloth and the remaining table appointments with curiosity. They murmured among themselves and the Colonel looked up, sharply comma
nding them to be silent. The truck which had sped away returned in a few minutes, and fifteen more came in, along with Tonger and Ross. Lawton spoke for some time to Tonger in low tones before Tonger addressed the gathering.
“For many years I’ve been your father and your mother,” he said earnestly. “All of you know me, and I know every one of you. I’ve fed you and allowed you to make your camping grounds on Breakaway House. Now there’s a man come to Bowgada as the overseer who wants to harm me. May, the daughter of old Johnson, is helping him. They’re either hanging about here, or they’re making for Bowgada. If they reach Bowgada, I’ll have to leave Breakaway House, and then you’ll lose your father and your mother, and your happy days will be gone. Will you let that be?”
“No!” they chorused fiercely.
“Well, we’ve got to get Tremayne and that girl. We’ve got to find them. They must be brought here and kept quiet. Whitbread, you take four men on one of the trucks to Bowgada. When you reach the top of the breakaway, park the truck and walk on to the homestead and lie in wait. Should you capture them, bring them back at once. Ross, you take the second truck and fifteen men as far as the boundary gate. Park the truck off the road. Never mind about Ellis at Acacia Well. Then spread out your men either side of the track and beat back. If you meet a car on its way to Bowgada, stop it and see if Tremayne or the girl is in it. If either or both are passengers, let me know as quickly as you possibly can. You others – hunt round the homestead, look into every place, hunt like you were dingoes after rabbits.
“You each know your work and you all know what will happen to Breakaway House and you if Tremayne and that girl get away. For this night’s work you’ll be paid five pounds each, and whoever gets them will be paid fifty pounds. Go to it! Remember, you’ve got to capture them. That’s all.”
The crowd drifted out silently, fierce eyes glinting in the light. A few minutes later two trucks roared away eastward, and among the homestead buildings flitted almost invisible shadows.
“If Ross does find them in the doctor’s car we’ll have to get the boxes out of the bales in mighty quick time,” decreed the Colonel. “To shoot up the doctor and the policeman as well as them would make matters worse. Ah, that cat coming now – it must be Ross’s crowd with young Tremayne for it’s too early for the Mount Magnet people. That Mount Magnet car will be the weakest part of our line. I don’t like it.”
Matthews came in to report that they had brought John Tremayne from their secret treatment plant. “He’s out in the car,” he said, an evil leer about his mouth. “Trussed up like a fowl.”
“See that he’s locked up in a secure place, and lock a guard in with him,” Lawton directed Tonger. “We might want the car as your trucks and car are away.”
Morris Tonger went out with Matthews. He came running back half a minute later to gasp out, his face purple: “John Tremayne’s gone! He’s escaped! Someone must have cut him loose.”
Lawton gave one of his rare smiles. He stood up, shaking himself like a dog. “Good!” he ejaculated. “We now know that Tremayne’s still in the vicinity of Breakaway House.”
IT was now ten minutes to midnight and there had still been no results of the efforts of some twenty-five men to locate and capture Harry Tremayne and his brother, and the girl, May. Colonel Lawton and Morris Tonger sat on stiff-backed chairs in the deep shadow of the house veranda. It was not so much raining as trying to rain. A soft warm wind came from the west. The night was so dark they could not distinguish the adjacent buildings save that usually occupied by the men, from which poured a solitary light.
“I don’t think it’ll rain now,” Tonger said irritably, his nerves strung taut. “The wind is veering to the south, and it’s too late to bring rain. What are we going to do if they don’t find the Tremaynes by daybreak?”
“I have a secret retreat,” replied the Colonel smoothly. “In fact, I’ve several lines to which to retreat, prepared for such an emergency as this might prove to be. Assuming that we don’t locate the enemy by sunrise, we’ll fly away – you, your niece, and I. You needn’t worry unduly, my dear Morris, about us. What does concern me is that consignment at sea. It’ll be necessary to have a cable sent to the Bradford people warning them. Shouldn’t Frances have returned from Bowgada by now?”
“I told her she needn’t leave till midnight if she was having a good time.”
“Oh! Well, I can’t think that Bowgada would be providing her with a good time. Do you think she might remain to nurse Brett Filson?”
“Perhaps,” Tonger agreed doubtfully. “If it comes to a getaway, we’ll leave her behind. She’d be all right. She could take over Breakaway House.”
“You forget that she’s to marry me.”
“I thought she’d declined your offer of marriage?” Tonger said, stiffening.
“So she did, but women always alter their decisions. She will go with us, Morris. She will be the price you’ll have to pay for your freedom – if we have to retire temporarily.”
“That’s a price I shan’t permit her to pay,” Tonger announced angrily. “You don’t intend to marry her. You’ll leave her alone.”
“Even if you go to gaol?” Lawton asked smoothly.
“Even if that. I know you, and you know me. You will not get your hands on a Tonger woman. I’ve sunk pretty low, but I can sink a hell of a long way further, and I am not going to.”
“Well, well! We won’t quarrel over it. I can hear a car coming from the south-west.”
“I can’t!” Tonger countered surlily.
The Colonel persisted. “I can,” he said. “My hearing is infinitely better than yours.”
Morris Tonger was listening for the car when from out of the darkness towards Bowgada a man shouted. Those on the veranda waited tensely. A rifle shot electrified them, although the Colonel moved not a muscle. A woman screamed. They heard padding feet, and presently, into the shaft of light streaming from the house door, the figure of a woman appeared at the gate. Then she was running along the short path to the veranda step. Tonger lurched to his feet with an oath which expressed neither pleasure nor anger. The woman was Miss Nora Hazit.
“Why have you come, Nora?” the squatter demanded sharply before shouting to an approaching figure: “It’s all right, Moses.”
Nora halted at the veranda step, the hall light partially blinding her. Then she made out the squatter’s bulk within the shadow and with a little rush was beside him, clinging frantically to his arms.
“N’gobi come,” she panted. “He came to Bowgada, he and his relations. He came for me, and to kill Ned for taking me. Mr Filson, he say me and Ned to go with Millie into one of the homestead rooms and wait.”
Nora paused, fighting to regain normal breath, Tonger’s left arm supporting her. Further in the shadow, Colonel Lawton sat listening and watching. Had he thought of it, Morris Tonger then would have been able to hear the throbbing hum of the approaching car.
“There was shooting,” Nora went on. “I heard Miss Sayers cry out that Mr Filson was killed with a spear. The men were firing from the kitchen windows, and I knew N’gobi would come and take me. I ran out through the front, and came straight down the breakaway and so here.
“I saw N’gobi behind me just this side of the boundary. He was running fast, but I ran faster. Near here I see other men – N’gobi’s relations, I think. They’re all after me; they were all round me. They’re all round here, Morrie.” Her voice rose, broken by breath-catching sobs. “One of them shouted at me to stop, and when I didn’t, he shot at me. I heard the bullet. I cried out. I was frightened. I not go back with N’gobi. Morrie! Morrie! Let me stay here! Let me stay here! Send Miss Frances away and let me stay here with you always.”
“Silly! That wasn’t N’gobi after you. It was some of my boys. N’gobi’s dead. Jackson shot him when Mr Filson was speared. Miss Winters told me so.”
“N’gobi dead! You sure, Morrie?”
“Yes. Miss Winters telephoned for the Magnet doctor. Look
, here’s his car coming now. Presently I’ll see what we can do.”
“I wait! You’ll come soon?”
Colonel Lawton pondered on the weaknesses of men, their primitiveness despite education, training and tradition; the way they could be easily mastered by emotion. The corners of his mouth twitched when Morris Tonger picked up the woman in his arms, and strode with her into the house, an arm round his neck, a wavy-haired head cuddled against his shoulder.
“And I’m not to look at a Tonger woman!” the Colonel murmured to himself.
The car came humming down the long grade from the western high land, its headlights illuminating a strip of ground beyond the house fence. Tonger reappeared at the door, the courteous, welcoming host. But without reducing speed the machine swept on towards Bowgada, presenting those on the veranda with a brief glimpse of a man’s set face.
“I wonder, now, why didn’t they stop?” Lawton said.
CHAPTER XXXIII
VENGEANCE
“WISH I’d known that car was coming,” Harry Tremayne murmured thoughtfully. “I could have sent word to Brett to keep Frances over there until tomorrow.”
“Not being me, I’m glad she’s chosen you,” the man at his side whispered in a rasping hiss. “It could never be me now. It’ll be years before I’m a man again.”
“Rot, John! You’ll be all right. Wonder what the time is. Must be after midnight.”
“Haven’t you a watch?”
“No,” replied Harry grimly. “I threw it away. It ticked too loudly.”
They were laying full length on the cart-shed roof which was thatched with cane grass. They had been there since Harry freed John from the police manacles fettering his feet using the key of his regulation policeman’s handcuffs; severed the rope which bound his arms; and then carried the numbed figure to the cart-shed roof. Together they had observed the human bloodhounds beginning the hunt about the homestead buildings. They had heard several efficiently searching the shed below them, and now they spoke in low whispers.
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