E. W. Hornung

“ Other offices had buildings to themselves, such as the kitchen and the cook's room, the school-room and those of the three young men, wash-house and dairy, iron-store and blacksmith's forge. All these stood in hollow square, looking inward on the yard. And with the moon shining like a tempered sun on every roof, and the pine-trees whispering on all sides but one, there were worse tasks than learning the names of things from the mouth of Irralie Villiers. ”

“ Irralie started. But the step was not Fullarton's. And the two-edged stab of disappointment and relief, instantly experienced by the girl, alarmed her later when she found time to think of it. At the moment, however, there was George Young—for he it was—to be faced and fenced with; and one glance at his heavy, wholesome face discovered it alight with unmistakable news.
"Well?" cried Irralie, and held her breath with the monosyllable. The luggage, like the overcoat, had not been found! The impostor was already exposed! That must be the news; what else? ”

“ Irralie sprang to her feet and looked at Fullarton in sudden terror; and Fullarton laid his hand firmly on her shoulder, while Dawson, now sitting on his heels in front of the fire, had one eye for them and one for the doorway of cold pink sky. As Howie filled it with his powerful frame, the deaf man seized a log and hurled it at his body, then leapt upon him like a cat, dug his fingers inside the tight white collar, and cracked the great skull like an egg against the door-jamb. The thing was done in an instant, and the two men on the ground in a heap, with Howie insensible on top. ”

“ The veranda was deserted; so was the yard. The very sentinel had been withdrawn from the iron-store door.
Irralie could scarce believe her eyes. Her heart beat high; and yet the seeming safety had in ways a greater terror for her than danger seen and realized. She bent her head and listened intently. At first nothing; then a clink, then a laugh, in the middle distance, through closed doors; and then a snatch of Mendelssohn, wonderfully played on the harsh old school-room piano, but with the soft pedal down all the time. ”

“ No retort could have stung Irralie more.
"Then presume," she said. "Yes, presume is the better word for you. You do presume when you take a scunner against a man you know nothing about!"
"A man I know nothing about! That's it—exactly."
He turned, and walked toward the pines. She followed him until their ordinary voices were out of earshot of the veranda. At the wire fence they stopped, and Irralie turned upon him with subdued fury.
"At all events you know who he is!"
"Who is he?"
"You know as well as I do that he's the son of an Earl—Lord Fullarton!" ”

“ Anything more painful, anything so raucous, ear-splitting, and grotesque, Irralie had never heard. It stabbed her nerves like the squeak of a slate-pencil. It was no more certain of a note than a drunken man of his steps. And it came from lips which Irralie had so recently suspected of falsehood and deceit, that, but for the incident of the tennis-racket, her new-born faith had been once more shaken to its base. ”

“ Every blow left a smear. But the end came suddenly; the gallant wretch was grasped from behind in deadly grips; a heavy, livid face writhed beside his own, and George Young bore him to the ground.
Irralie turned away her head. The veranda was all red lanterns and white faces and torn trains. But among them was a new face, with drooping whiskers and a single eye-glass; and as Irralie looked a dapper Englishman, in gaiters, riding-breeches, and twinkling spurs, stepped down from the veranda, and strutted over to the fence with his hands in his pockets. ”

“ The boys were sleeping heavily: they did not hear her open the door, but one of them moved in his sleep as she struck a match and then shaded it with her hand. The tool-box was under their dressing-table. She carried it bodily to her room; there were pincers, and strong ones too. But would they answer?
She crept round the veranda once more, and was about to dart across to the pines at their nearest point when once again the spruce, straight figure in the gaiters and riding-breeches strode out into the yard. He stood there a moment whistling Chopin to himself, and looking about him smartly. ”

“ The store was the nearer to the school-room block, and in front of it, with a pipe in his mouth and a repeating-rifle under his arm, stood George Young on guard in the moonlight.
Irralie watched him from the shallow veranda, for which she presently forsook her school-room door. The veranda was in deep shadow, and she stood unobserved within ten paces of Young. His head was bent and his shoulders rounded. He looked a man dejected rather than alert, and the girl wondered whether he was thinking of the previous night, and of her hard words to him then. ”

“ So saying, he turned abruptly to the piano; and Irralie, turning also, stole in deeper among the trees, with the first notes of Chopin's funeral march in her ears, and clear in her brain the image of a very formidable opponent indeed. He was brisk, alert, resolute, educated, masterful, indeed all one could wish one's opponent not to be; and the mannerisms of a coxcomb made him, even in the girl's eyes, all the more dangerous a man. ”

“ He was a man not generally liked upon the station; a man who kept himself to himself in his outlying hut, where he was seldom visited by anybody except on business. But Irralie had stopped in her rides to shout into his ear-trumpet. And she had credited the man with some slight fondness for her; and had determined to put it to the test, if fortune favored her with a faster horse than might fall to Stingaree. ”

“ She left him, passing through the narrow cut between the forge and the iron-store: partly because that was her bee-line for the beloved pines, and partly she knew not why. There was a small window high up at the back of the store. A human head would hardly have passed through; but when Irralie glanced up at the aperture her heart leapt to her throat. ”

“ Stingaree looked round the hut; there was but the one door, and no window save those on either side of it; inner compartment there was none, and the floor was honest earth.
"All right—a few yards," said he. "I tell you, Howie, I mean to have my way; and you know what that means. So let's fix it here on the spot. You may go to the devil or stop where you are. I'll have my way about the girl!"
Howie's reply was inaudible; they were well outside the hut; but before Irralie and Fullarton could exchange more than glances, he was back, and had snatched the ear-trumpet from the deaf man's neck. ”

“ Irralie looked in the handsome, reckless face, and involuntarily drew back. "You must do as you please," she said.
"I could trust you? Yes, yes, I could trust you with my life. You are not the one to give a fellow away!"
"I hope not. But that would depend."
"That—would—depend," he repeated slowly. "On the nature of the confidence, of course! Well, well, let it rest. There was something else you were going to show me before we went in?"
"There was," said the girl. "Come this way; it's something that I think is certain to appeal to you." ”

“ And before striking into the paddock to look for one, the bushranger hung the saddles over the top bar to rest his arm.
"And where have you both been ever since?" inquired Irralie, finessing still, but also interested to know.
"Aha!" said he. "I'm not sure that I shall tell you that. Yet I don't know; have you ever heard of a man they call Deaf Dawson?"
"Heard of him! Why, he drives the whim at our Seven-mile."
"Yes; but did you never hear my name coupled with his? I don't mean my real name. There's not a soul in the Colony knows that. But Stingaree?"
"Yes, I have," said Irralie. ”

“ They squeezed through the wires, and had the yard to themselves. And here Irralie was still further mystified. The ball-room windows stood open to the floor; nobody was dancing, and yet the room was full. The music had ceased, but the sound of a high, drawling voice floated out into the yard. ”

“ Men were tumbling pell-mell through them, shouting like lunatics, and armed with native weapons snatched from the walls.
"Stingaree!" they roared. "There he is! Run, Miss Villiers; that's Stingaree!"
Irralie never forgot the wild voices or the wilder scene. As one man they had dashed at her companion. He turned and ran for the tethered horse. The reins were whipped from the fence before he could mount; but he was first through the wires, when, instead of running on, he wheeled round to reason or remonstrate with his pursuers. Irralie saw his gestures without hearing a word ”

“ I'm glad to hear you say that, for in my opinion a more——"
"That'll do," replied Irralie, tartly. "Don't hang a man before you try him!" And with a sudden, feverish haste, she led the way homeward through the pines; the overseer following, with a very healthy craving for the new owner's blood.
On the veranda, sure enough, were the portmanteaus, hat-box, gun-case, and dressing-bag of a sufficiently new chum. The labels of the voyage still adhered to the raw, unseasoned leather. ”

“ She must now think of some other plan; and as she thought, they were walking off the track among the salt-bush in search of horses; and as they walked half-a-dozen came suddenly like phantoms across their path.
Stingaree caught one adroitly, and Irralie was no less quick to secure another by the mane. She was as anxious as he to be in the saddle; and the saddling fell to her, while Stingaree stood at the horses' heads. So Irralie left the girths of the man's saddle judiciously loose; but when he had helped her to mount he would not let her handle her own reins ”

“ He had spoken with smiling eyes upon the girl; and his smile broadened as he specified, with more and more exactitude, the precise position of the racket. It was the address of a conjurer before his greatest trick; yet Irralie alone understood. As he finished speaking, he raised the knife and stabbed with sudden energy at the leather above the lock. Indeed the point of the blade caught the plate of brass, and the blade itself closed upon his hand amid the exclamations of the onlookers.
"You'll ruin it!" cried one or two, meaning the portmanteau.
"He's cut himself," said another. ”

“ There will be less fear of a noise." For now, when it was wanted most, the school-room piano was still, And the night was darker than ever, an unmixed blessing when a ray of moonshine would have meant discovery. But Irralie felt her way and persevered. ”

“ Listen hardest when he's not playing! If they come you must make a noise, and I'll get away while they're opening the door."
"You are very good."
"Not a word about that—or anything else. Now let me try. Ah, how difficult to do it quietly!"
For the pincers were large enough to bite the nuts, but first they snapped together, and then they banged heavily against the iron. Irralie desisted and held her breath in despair. The music had not recommenced, and sure enough there came footsteps; but the prisoner instantly began beating with his head or his knee against the corrugated iron. ”

“ Mrs. Villiers had made herself a new gown for the occasion. The tutor had saved up his tallest collar. Everybody had made some little difference, and the condition of the Englishman was an inexplicable insult to one and all.
Heavy, excellent George Young, the overseer, was perhaps the most indignant spirit at the table. But the English tutor, Hodding by name, endured the, keenest disappointment. The overseer and the store-keeper were natives of the colony; so were the entire managerial brood. Hodding had counted upon the arrival of an even newer chum than himself ”

“ She was taken, however, with her protégés appearance, which was quite romantically devil-may-care; and she chiefly viewed him with a very genuine curiosity as he returned to the buggy, dashing the water from his long mustache.
"Now we can push on for ourselves," said he. "You have saved us both, and we are grateful. Allow me to relieve you of my saddle and valise."
"But may I ask where you are going?"
"Surely; to the station."
"This station? Arran Downs?"
"Why, yes; but I really can't think of putting you to any more trouble. I am quite well able to ride——"
"Nonsense!" said Irralie. ”

“ Music one must have—especially in the desert—music and flowers. I mean to make this place one mass of geraniums! Geraniums and pansies and sweet-williams. I love those old crude flowers!"
He struck a match, and Irralie snatched a straw from the skirts of her cloak. She saw the rings blazing on his fingers as the tobacco caught and burnt. To her disappointment, however, instead of continuing the conversation, he looked at his watch by the match-light, and professed surprise at the time. ”