E. W. Hornung

“ It was a heavenly night; the pale blue stars were reflected in the black still mirror of the Thames, the endless song of the weir was the only sound that broke the absolute stillness of the meadow. No voices reached them from the house, no strains of music. As though influenced by the night, the two were silent for some minutes; then Alice said lightly:
"I am glad you brought me out; I was beginning to stifle. What a lovely night! But I thought there would be a moon. When is there a moon, Mr. Miles?" ”

“ She could see the night attack in the silent forest, and a face of wild, picturesque beauty—the ideal highwayman—was painted in vivid colour on the canvas of her brain.
"Fanny, I half think I might be tempted to do something like that," said Dick gently. "I have precious few maxims, but one is that he who does me a good turn gets paid with interest—though I have a parallel one for the man who works me a mischief."
"So it is a good turn not to rob a man whom you've already assaulted!" observed Flint ironically.
"It is a good turn to save a man's life." ”

“ Alice was flushed, and her eyes sparkled, but her self-possession was complete.
"Well, you come back after four years, and, it seems, expect to find me still a child. Instead of that, I am a woman—a sensible woman," with a good humoured twinkle of the eyes, "disinclined to go on with the old nonsense just where it left off—you must admit that that would be absurd? But for the rest, I am as fond of you, Dick, as I was then—only without the childish nonsense. No one is more delighted to see you back, and welcome you, than I am; no one is more your friend. ”

“ You may be Mrs. Ryan, but Mrs. Ryan is a widow; there's no Ned Ryan now. There's a Mr. Miles, an Australian gentleman, in his skin, and, mark me, there'll be a Mrs.—"
He stopped, for Liz Ryan turned on him so fiercely that it looked as though she was gathering herself to spring at his throat.
"You liar!" she shrieked. "Tell him, Ned! Give him the lie yourself! Quickly—speak, or I shall go mad!"
Her husband uttered no sound.
"He can't, you see," sneered Pound. "Why, if you'd only come in with me into the garden, you'd have seen the two together sweethearting in the starlight!" ”

“ She repeated the question:
"I want to know when there will be a moon. It would be so delicious now, if it shot up right over there, to be reflected right down there—but why don't you speak, Mr. Miles?"
Still no answer. She drew back a step. He was standing like a monument, tall and rigid, with his hands clasped tightly in front of him and his face turned slightly upward. He seemed unconscious of her presence at his side. Something in his motionless attitude, and the ghastly pallor of his face in the starlight, sent a thrill of vague fear to the heart of Alice. ”

“ After her dance with Dick she found it would suit her admirably to recognise them all.
For Dick had no word of apology or regret; in fact, he did not speak at all. He did not even look sorry; but only hard and cold and bitter. It was not in the power of woman to treat such a man too harshly.
Alice therefore threw herself into these dances with Miles with a zest which brought about one good result: the mere physical effort gradually allayed the fever of her spirit; with the even, rhythmical motion sufficient peace stole into the heart of the girl to subdue the passionate tumult of many hours. ”

“ Of course you gave him your version as to who I am?"
"My version!" exclaimed Edmonstone scornfully. "I told him that you and the bushranger Sundown are one."
Again Miles swiftly changed his key; but it was his words that were startling now.
"You are mad!" he said, pityingly—"you are mad; and I have known it for weeks. Your last words put your delusion in a nutshell. You have not a proof to bless yourself with. You are a madman on one point; and here comes the man that knows it as well as I do!" ”

“ Instead of the bored outsider, with his shallow appreciation of everything, you become at once a discriminate observer and intelligent critic, and sightseeing for once loses its tedium. Dick wandered from aisle to aisle, from stand to stand, in rapt attention. At every turn he found something of peculiar interest to him: here it was a view of some township whose every stick he knew by heart; there a sample of wood bearing on the printed label under the glass the name of a sheep station where he had stayed time out of number. ”

“ At the foot of the bed a tall figure loomed through the darkness. The challenge was answered: first with a short, soft laugh, then in the mildest tones of the man who had passed himself off as Miles the squatter.
"Hush! I have come to explain."
"Oh, it is you!" though Dick had known who it was from the moment the light, stealthy step disturbed him.
"Yes; it isn't a burglar, so lie down again. I tell you I come with a frank explanation. I suppose you will listen to a man?" ”

“ Dear Dick," she added in a tone of earnest entreaty, "cannot we be friends still?"
"No!" exclaimed Dick, hoarsely.
The flush died away from the girl's face, to return two-fold.
"No!" he repeated. "You give me your love, and then, after years of separation, you offer me your friendship instead. What is that to me? How can I make that do—a lamp instead of the sun? It is too much to ask of any man: you know it. Who has taught you to play with men's hearts like this?"
"I have been too kind," said Alice, coldly. She had stifled her humiliation, and was preparing to leave the boat. ”

“ Now he remembered everything: how he had come to his senses at the very moment that Pound was handling this cherished tress, which alone was sufficient reason and justification for shooting Jem Pound on the spot; how he had been on his way to fetch help—help for Alice Bristo!
He pressed the slender tress passionately to his lips, then twined it tightly in and out his fingers.
Faint and bleeding as he was, he started to his feet. New power was given him; new life entered the failing spirit: new blood filled the emptying vessels. For a whole minute Ned Ryan was a Titan. ”

“ Poor Laurence Pinckney, however, had hit nothing at all; and, indeed, his shooting must be execrable, to judge by what one hears. I heard Mr. Oliver muttering that he would not get within range of him, not if he knew it; while Captain Awdry's contempt lies too deep for smiles or sneers. But Mr. Pinckney does not care; he carries a notebook with him, which he whips out whenever the view strikes him as worth remembering, or whenever something happy occurs to him. He says it is extraordinary what happy thoughts do come to a man who carries a gun. ”

“ Jack Flint looked quaintly solemn; his face was in shadow, luckily.
"Yes," said Dick, gravely, "my mother is right; there was a good impulse left in that poor fellow, and if you find gold in an outlaw and a thief, you may look for it anywhere. But in my opinion there was more than a remnant of good in that man. Think of it. He saved me from being knifed, to begin with; well, it was to his own interest to do that. But after that he took pity, and left us our money. That needed more than a good impulse; it needed a force of character which few honest men have. ”

“ You smile—but before Heaven it is the truth! I had lived for weeks as I never lived before—among good people. Bad as I was, they influenced me, at first without my knowing it. It was a new side of life to me. I found it was the best side. I grew—well, call it happy. Then I looked back and loathed the old days. I began to map out a better life for myself. I was a new man, starting afresh. I thanked God for my escape, for it seemed like His act."
"If the fellow isn't in earnest," thought Dick, "this is the worst blasphemy I ever heard. ”

“ The stars blinked high overhead, and the stars deep down in the tranquil water answered them. The voice of the weir seemed nearer and louder. A gentle breeze stirred the line of poplars by the river's brink in the meadow, and fanned the temples of the motionless man at their feet. A bat passed close over him, lightly touching his hair with its wing. Miles did not stir. ”

“ As Dick could at a pinch be fluent—when Australia was the subject—and as his mood to-night was sufficiently bitter, his intelligent questioners shortly sheered off. They left him at least better-informed men. Thereupon Dick returned to the ballroom with some slight access of briskness, and buried himself in a little knot of wall-flowers of both sexes.
A dance had just begun—scarcely necessary to add, a waltz. Every man blessed with a partner hastened to fling his unit and hers into the whirling throng. ”

“ Then her heart must be his still; her heart must be his for ever—dead or living, false or true, villain or hero. Poor Alice! What a terrible thing for a girl to have so misplaced her love. Dick felt his heart bleeding for her, but what could he do? He could do nothing but go back to Australia, and pray that some day she might get over it and be consoled. Now that he thought of it, he had not told her about Australia. ”

“ Dick rowed into the little inlet with the white bridge across it, landed, and nodded, in the spirit, to a hundred spots marked in his mind by the associations of last June; those of an older day were not thought of. Here was the place where Alice's boat had been when he had found her reading a magazine—and interrupted her reading—on the day after his return. There were the seven poplars, in whose shadows he had found Miles on the night of the ball, when the miscreant Pound came inquiring for him. ”

“ In the relentless glare that took its place the doomed wretch, sitting in a heap on the low parapet, read his death-warrant.
There was a pause, a hush, of very few moments. Pound tried to use his tongue, but, like his lips, it was paralysed. Then the echoes of the cliff resounded with a second, short, sharp pistol shot, and when the white smoke cleared away the parapet was bare; Jem Pound had vanished; the account was squared.
Ryan fell back. The pistol dropped from his hand. Again he became well-nigh senseless, but this time consciousness refused to forsake him utterly; he rallied. ”

“ He pointed through the rain to the red roofs of Melmerbridge, on the edge of the tableland below. It was then that Dick noticed the lock of hair twisted about the fingers of Ryan's right hand.
"There it is, quite close—don't you see it? Go! go—I can't! Fly for your life to the township, and fetch him—not to me—to her! For God's sake, fetch him quick!"
For all the use of the word "township," his mind was not wandering in Australia now.
"Why don't you go? You may be too late! Why do you watch me like that? Ah, you won't go! You don't care for her as I did; you want her to die!" ”

“ Nothing directs attention to the face so surely as the voice. There was such utter weariness in this one word that Fanny glanced keenly at her brother, saw the dulness of his eyes, read for apathy agony, and knew that instant that there had been a cruel crisis in his affair with Alice Bristo. ”