E. W. Hornung

“ Often as I filled it, I had to light it still oftener at the flame which I had left burning in the hut, for I was rapt in thought. You are nowhere nearer to God than when alone in the bush beneath the undimmed tropic stars. I cannot say what brought it home to me, or by what chain of thought I chanced on the conclusion, but all at once I stood still and knew that the hand of God was in the apparition which I had seen. It meant something.
What did it mean? There must be some reason why I alone, and not Wylie for example, had been made to see the lost man, Powell, sitting on his bunk. ”

“ And at the men's hut I found the whim-driver, the center still of an attentive group, but no longer, I thought, the target of questions and cross-questions implying criticism and blame. On the contrary, there was now every token of sympathy with the anxiety and distress of mind from which Wylie was obviously suffering, and at the sight of which I also could spare him some of the pity which I felt for the missing rabbiter.
The whim-driver was an elderly man, with brown wrinkles all over his face, and gray whiskers parting at a baggy throat ”

“ One murder you could only conceal one day, and how long are you going to conceal two? Besides, you've got to kill me first!”
And I was on my legs with the long shovel in both hands.
“That's soon done,” he answered with a laugh, and then I saw my mistake. What I had taken for a mere stick was the missing axe; he must have hidden it somewhere outside and, after first catching me at work, stolen away and come back with it on tiptoe. Now he took two strides into the hut, and, as the axe came up over his shoulder and hung there, I saw blood upon the blade. ”

“ It was too dark for me to see Wylie's face, but he tumbled rather than dismounted from his horse, and I felt him trembling as he brushed past me into the hut. I followed him, but during the single instant my back had been turned the rabbiter had moved. He was not on the bunk. Wylie kicked the logs into a blaze and then turned upon me fiercely. For the rabbiter was not in the hut at all.
“What d'ye mean,” he roared, “by playing tricks on a chap who's lost his mate? “Out of my hut, you young devil—out of my hut!”
Never have I seen man more completely beside himself ”

“ God forgive me, I never even thought of telling the bosses when they passed this morning on their way to the out-station. Yet I might ha' known—I might ha' known! He was a sailor, poor Powell was, and sailors are always the worst bushmen. I've known him get bushed before, but only for an hour or two. And to think of him being out all this time—in this heat, with not a drop of water in the crab-holes! He may—he may be dead already—my poor mate, my poor mate! ”

“ The time goes so slowly when one is alone, and midnight begins so soon; but I was thankful it was earlier than I had thought. Now I could make sure—it would all be less ghastly than in the veritable dead of night—and then to the station with my news before anybody was in bed.
The miscreant Wylie! How well he had acted his diabolical part—in there at the men's hut, out here before the owner and the manager! ”

“ A hot north wind of several days' duration had flown suddenly into the south, whence it was now blowing hard and chill, so that I buttoned my coat up as we cantered side by side, and took off my eye-glasses, lest the rushing wind should lift them from my nose. ”

“ Clouds of sand were whirling in the wind, which had risen greatly in the night, and was rising still; puffs of sand kept breaking from the plain to join the clouds; and we coughed, all three of us, as we cantered neck and neck.
“Do you think you could drive a whim?” said Mr. Armit, drawing rein as we sighted the Five-mile, and suddenly turning to me.
“I believe I could, sir. I have seen one working, and it looks simple enough,”
“It's as easy as it looks if you keep your tank nice and full, and feed your troughs regularly. Wylie will show you all that's necessary in five minutes ”