Title:      Moondyne (1879)
Author:     John Boyle O'Reilly (1844-1890)
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Title:      Moondyne (1879)
Author:     John Boyle O'Reilly (1844-1890)





BOOK ONE - THE GOLD MINE OF THE VASSE.



THE LAND OF THE RED LINE

WESTERN AUSTRALIA is a vast and unknown country, almost mysterious in
its solitude and unlikeness to any other part of the earth. It is the
greatest of the Australias in extent, and in many features the richest
and loveliest.

But the sister colonies of Victoria, New South Wales, and Queensland are
famous for their treasure of gold. Men from all lands have flocked
thither to gather riches. They care not for the slow labour of the
farmer or grazier. Let the weak and the old, the coward and the dreamer,
prune the vine and dry the figs, and wait for the wheat to ripen. Strong
men must go to the trial--must set muscle against muscle, and brain
against brain, in the mine and the market.

Men's lives are short; and unless they gather gold in the mass, how
shall they wipe out the primal curse of poverty before the hand loses
its skill and the heart its strong desire?

Western Australia is the Cinderella of the South. She has no gold like
her sisters. To her was given the servile and unhappy portion. The dregs
of British society were poured upon her soil. The robber and the
manslayer were sent thither. Her territory was marked off with a Red
Line. She has no markets for honest men, and no ports for honest ships.
Her laws are not the laws of other countries, but the terrible rules of
the menagerie. Her citizens have no rights: they toil their lives out at
heavy tasks, but earn no wages, nor own a vestige of right in the soil
they till. It is a land of slaves and bondmen--the great penal colony of
Great Britain.

"There is no gold in the western colony," said the miners
contemptuously; "let the convicts keep the land--but let them observe our
red line."

So the convicts took the defamed country, and lived and died there, and
others were transported there from England to replace those who died,
and every year the seething ships gave up their addition to the terrible
population.

In time, the western colony came to be regarded as a plague-spot, where
no man thought of going and no man did go unless sent in irons.

If the miners from Victoria and New South Wales, however, had visited
the penal land some years after its establishment, they would have heard
whispers of strange import--rumours and questions of a great golden
secret possessed by the western colony. No one could tell where the
rumour began or on what it was based, except perhaps the certainty that
gold was not uncommon among the natives of the colony, who had little or
no intercourse with the aborigines of the gold-yielding countries of the
south and east.

The belief seemed to hover in the air; and it settled with dazzling
conviction on the crude and abnormal minds of the criminal population.
At their daily toil in the quarries or on the road parties, no rock was
blasted nor tree uprooted that eager eyes did not hungrily scan the
upturned earth. At night, when the tired wretches gathered round the
camp-fire outside their prison hut, the dense mahogany forest closing
weirdly round the white-clad group, still the undiscovered gold was the
topic earnestly discussed. And even the government officers and the few
free settlers became after a time filled with the prevailing expectancy
and disquiet.

But years passed, and not an ounce of gold was discovered in the colony.
The Government had offered reward to settlers or ticket-of-leave men who
would find the first nugget or gold-bearing rock; but no claimant came
forward.

Still, there remained the tantalizing fact--for, in the course of years,
fact it had grown to be--that gold was to be found in the colony, and in
abundance. The native bushmen were masters of the secret, but neither
bribe nor torture could wring it from them. Terrible stories were
whispered among the convicts of attempts that had been made to force the
natives to give up the precious secret. Gold was common amongst these
bushmen. Armlets and anklets had been seen on men and women; and some of
their chief men, it was said, wore breast-plates and enormous chains of
hammered gold.

At last the feeling in the west grew to fever heat; and, in 1848, the
Governor of the penal colony issued a proclamation, copies of which were
sent by native runners to every settler and ticket-of-leave man, and
were even surreptitiously distributed amongst the miners on the other
side of the red line.

This proclamation intensified the excitement. It seemed to bring the
mine nearer to every man in the colony. It was a formal admission that
there really was a mine; it dispelled the vague uncertainty, and left an
immediate hunger or greed in the minds of the population.

The proclamation read as follows:


L5.000 REWARD!

The above Reward will be paid for the discovery of the Mine from which
the Natives of the Vasse obtain their Gold.

A Free Pardon will be granted to the Discoverer, should he be of the
Bond Class.

No Reward will be given nor terms made with Absconders from the Prisons
or Road Parties.

By order, F. R. HAMPTON, Governor.
Official Residence, Perth, 28th June, 1848.

But nothing came of it. Not an ounce of gold was ever taken from the
earth. At last men began to avoid the subject. They could not bear to be
tantalized nor tortured by the splendid delusion. Some said there was no
mine in the Vasse, and others that, if there were a mine, it was known
only to a few of the native chiefs, who dealt out the raw gold to their
people.

For eight years this magnificent reward had remained unclaimed, and now
its terms were only recalled at the fires, of the road-making convicts,
or in the lonely slab huts of the mahogany sawyers, who were all
ticket-of-leave men.



THE CONVICT ROAD PARTY.

IT was a scorching day in midsummer--a few days before Christmas.

Had there been any moisture in the bush it would have steamed in the
heavy heat. During the midday hours not a bird stirred among the
mahogany and gum trees. On the flat tops of the low banksia the round
heads of the white cockatoos could be seen in thousands, motionless as
the trees themselves. Not a parrot had the vim to scream. The chirping
insects were silent. Not a snake had courage to rustle his hard skin
against the hot and dead bush-grass. The bright-eyed iguanas wee in
their holes. The mahogany sawyers had left their logs and were sleeping
in the cool sand of their pits. Even the travelling ants had halted on
their wonderful roads, and sought the shade of a bramble.

All free things were at rest; but the penetrating click of the axe,
heard far through the bush, and now and again a harsh word of command,
told that it was a land of bondmen.

From daylight to dark, through the hot noon as steadily as in the cool
evening, the convicts were at work on the roads--the weary work that has
no wages, no promotion, no incitement, no variation for good or bad,
except stripes for the laggard.

Along the verge of the Koagulup Swamp--one of the greatest and dismallest
of the wooded lakes of the country, its black water deep enough to float
a man-of-war--a party of convicts were making a government road. They
were cutting their patient way into a forest only traversed before by
the aborigine and the absconder.

Before them in the bush, as in their lives, all was dark and
unknown-tangled underbrush, gloomy shadows, and noxious things. Behind
them, clear and open, lay the straight road they had made--leading to and
from the prison.

Their camp, composed of rough slab huts, was some two hundred miles from
the main prison of the colony, on the Swan River, at Fremantle, from
which radiate all the roads made by the bondmen.

The primitive history of the colony is written for ever in its roads.
There is, in this penal labour, a secret of value to be utilized more
fully by a wiser civilization. England sends her criminals to take the
brunt of the new land's hardship and danger-to prepare the way for
honest life and labour. In every community there is either dangerous or
degrading work to be done: and who so fit to do it as those who have
forfeited their liberty by breaking the law?

The convicts were dressed in white trousers, blue woollen shirt, and
white hat; every article stamped with England's private mark--the broad
arrow. They were young men, healthy and strong, their faces and bare
arms burnt to the colour of mahogany. Burglars, murderers, garotters,
thieves--double-dyed law-breakers every one; but, for all that, kind
hearted and manly fellows enough were among them.

"I tell you, mates," said one, resting on his spade, "this is going to
be the end of Moondyne Joe. That firing in the swamp last night was his
last fight."

"I don't think it was Moondyne," said another; "he's at work in the
chain-gang at Fremantle; and there's no chance of escape there--"

"Sh-h!" interrupted the first speaker, a powerful, low-browed fellow,
named Dave Terrell, who acted as a sort of foreman to the gang. The
warder in charge of the party was slowly walking past. When he was out
of hearing, Dave continued, in a low but deeply earnest voice: "I know
it was Moondyne, mates. I saw him last night when I went to get the
turtle's eggs. I met him face to face in the moonlight, beside the
swamp."

Every man held his hand and breath with intense interest in the story.
Some looked incredulous--heads were shaken in doubt.

"Did you speak to him?" asked one.

"Ay," said Terrell, turning on him; "why shouldn't I? Moondyne knew he
had nothing to fear from me, and I had nothing to fear from him."

"What did you say to him?" asked another.

"Say?--I stood and looked at him for a minute, for his face had a white
look in the moonlight, and then I walked up close to him, and I says--'Be
you Moondyne Joe, or his ghost?'

"Ay?" said the gang with one breath.

"Ay, I said that, never fearing, for Moondyne Joe, dead or alive, would
never harm a prisoner."

"But what did he answer?" asked the eager crowd.

"He never said a word; but he laid his finger on his lips, like this,
and waved his hand as if he warned me to go back to the camp. I turned
to go; then I looked back once, and he was standing just as I left him,
but he was looking up at the sky, as if there was some'at in the moon
that pleased him."

The convicts worked silently, each thinking on what he had heard.

"He mightn't ha' been afraid, though," said low-browed Dave; "I'd let
them cut my tongue out before I'd sell the Moondyne."

"That's true," said several of the gang, and many kind looks were given
to Terrell. A strong bond of sympathy, it was evident, existed between
these men and the person of whom they spoke.

A sound from the thick bush interrupted the conversation. The convicts
looked up from their work, and beheld a strange procession approaching
from, the direction of the swamp. It consisted of about a dozen or
fifteen persons, most of whom were savages. In front rode two officers
of the Convict Service, a sergeant, and a private trooper, side by side,
with drawn swords; and between their horses, manacled by the wrists to
their stirrup-irons, walked a white man.

"Here they come," hissed Terrell, with a bitter malediction, his low
brow wholly disappearing into a terrible ridge above his eyes. "They
haven't killed him, after all. O, mates, what a pity it is to see a man,
like Moondyne in that plight."

"He's done for two or three of 'em," muttered another, in a tone of grim
gratification. "Look at the loads behind. I knew he wouldn't be taken
this time like a cornered cur."

Following the prisoner came a troop of "natives," as the aboriginal
bushmen are called, bearing three spearwood litters with the bodies of
wounded men. A villainous-looking savage, mounted on a troop-horse,
brought up the rear. His dress was like that of his pedestrian fellows,
upon whom, however, he looked in disdain--a short boka, or cloak of
kangaroo skin, and a belt of twisted fur cords round his, naked body. In
addition, he had a police-trooper's old cap, and a heavy "regulation"
revolver stuck in his belt.

This was the tracker, the human bloodhound, used by the troopers to
follow the trail of absconding prisoners.

When the troopers neared the convict party, the sergeant, a man whose
natural expression, whatever it might have been, was wholly obliterated
by a frightful sear across his face, asked for water. The natives
halted, and squatted silently in a group. The wounded men moaned as the
litters were lowered.

Dave Terrell brought the water. He handed a pannikin to the sergeant,
and another to the private trooper, and filled a third.

"Who's that for?" harshly demanded the sergeant.

"For Moondyne," said the convict, approaching the chained man, whose
neck was stretched toward the brimming cup.

"Stand back, curse you!" said the sergeant, bringing his sword flat on
the convict's back. "That scoundrel needs no water. He drinks blood."

There was a taunt in the tone, even beneath the brutality of the words.

"Carry your pail to those litters," growled the sinister looking
sergeant, "and keep your mouth closed, if you value your hide. There!"
he said in a suppressed voice, flinging the few drops he had left in the
face of the manacled man, "that's water enough for you, till you reach
Bunbury prison tomorrow."

The face of the prisoner hardly changed. He gave one straight look into
the sergeant's eyes, then turned away, and seemed to look far away
through the bush. He was a remarkable being, as he stood there. In
strength and proportion of body, the man was magnificent--a model for a
gladiator. He was of middle height, young, but so stem and massively
featured, and so browned and beaten by exposure, it was hard to
determine his age. His clothing was only a few torn and bloody rags; but
he looked as if his natural garb were utter nakedness or the bushman's
cloak, so loosely and carelessly hung the shreds of cloth on his bronzed
body. A large, finely-shaped head, with crisp, black hair and beard, a
broad, square forehead, and an air of power and self-command--this was
the prisoner, this was Moondyne Joe.

Who or what was the man? An escaped convict. What had he been? Perhaps a
robber or a mutineer--or, maybe, he ad killed a man in the white heat of
passion. No one knew--no one cared to know.

That question is never asked in the penal colony. No caste there. They
have found bottom, where all stand equal. No envy there, no rivalry, no
greed nor ambition, and no escape from companionship. They constitute
the purest democracy on earth. The only distinction to be won--that of
being trustworthy, or selfish and false. The good man is he who is kind
and true; the bad man is he who is capable of betraying a confederate.

It may be the absence of the competitive elements of social life that
accounts for the number of manly characters to be met among these
outcasts.

It is by no means in the superior strata of society that abound the
strong, true natures, the men that may be depended upon, the primitive
rocks of humanity. The complexities of social life beget cunning and
artificiality. Among penal convicts there is no ground for envy,
ambition, or emulation; nothing to be gained by falsehood in any shape.

But all this time the prisoner stands looking away into the bush, with
the drops of insult trickling from his strong face. His self-command
evidently irritated the brutal officer, who, perhaps, expected to hear
him whine for better treatment.

The sergeant dismounted to examine the handcuffs, and, while doing so,
looked into the man's face with a leer of cruel exultation. He drew no
expression from the steady eyes of the prisoner.

There was an old score to be settled between those men, and it was plain
that each knew the metal of the other.

"I'll break that look," said the sergeant between his teeth, but loud
enough for the prisoner's ear. "Curse you, I'll break it before we reach
Fremantle." Soon after he turned away, to look to the wounded men.

While so engaged, the private trooper made a furtive sign to the convict
with the pail; and he, keeping in shade of the horses, crept up and gave
Moondyne a deep drink of the precious water.

The stern lines withdrew from the prisoner's mouth and forehead; and as
he gave the kindly trooper a glance of gratitude, there was something
strangely gentle and winning in the face.

The sergeant returned and mounted. The litters were raised by the
natives, and the party resumed their march, striking in on the new road
that led to the prison.

"May the lightning split him," hissed black-browed Dave, after the
sergeant. "There's not an officer in the colony will strike a prisoner
without cause, except that coward, and he was a convict himself."

"May the Lord help Moondyne Joe this day," said another, "for he's
chained to the stirrup of the only man living that hates him."

The sympathizing gang looked after the party till they were hidden by a
bend of the road; but they were silent under the eye of their warder.



NUMBER 406.

SOME years before, the prisoner, now called Moondyne Joe, had arrived in
the colony. He was a youth--little more than a boy in years. From the
first day of his imprisonment he had followed one course: he was quiet,
silent, patient, obedient. He broke no rules of the prison. He asked no
favours. He performed all his own work, and often helped another who
grumbled at his heavy task.

He was simply known to his fellow-convicts as Joe; his other name was
unknown or forgotten. When the prison roll was called, he answered to
No. 406.

In the first few years he had made many friends in the colony--but he had
also made one enemy, and a deadly one. In the gang to which he belonged
was a man named Isaac Bowman, one of those natures seemingly all evil,
envious, and cruel; detested by the basest, yet self-contained, full of
jibe and derision, satisfied with his own depravity, and convinced that
everyone was secretly just as vile as he.

From the first, this fellow had disliked and sneered at Joe; and Joe,
having long observed the man's cur-like character, had at last adopted a
system of conduct toward him that saved himself annoyance, but secretly
intensified the malevolence of the other. He did not avoid the fellow;
but he never looked at him, saw him, spoke to him--not even answering him
when he spoke, as if he had not heard him.

This treatment was observed and enjoyed by the other prisoners, and
sometimes even adopted by themselves toward Bowman. At last its effect
on, the evil nature was too powerful to be concealed. With the others he
could return oath for oath, or jibe for jibe, and always came off
pleased with himself but Joe's silent contumely stung him like a
scorpion.

The convicts at length saw that Bowman, who was a man capable of any
crime, held a deep hatred for Joe, and they warned him to beware. But he
smiled, and went on just as before.

One morning a poor settler rode into the camp with a cry for justice and
vengeance. His hut was only a few miles distant, and in his absence last
night a deed of rapine and robbery had been perpetrated there--and the
robber was a convict.

A search was made in the prisoner's hut, and in one of the hammocks was
found some of the stolen property. The man who owned the hammock was
seized and ironed, protesting his innocence. Further evidence was found
against him--he had been seen returning to the camp that morning--Isaac
Bowman had seen him.

Swift and summary is the dread punishment of the penal code. As the
helpless wretch was dragged away, a word of mock pity followed him from
Bowman. During the scene, Joe had stood in silence; but at the brutal
jibe he started as if struck by a whip. He sprang on Isaac Bowman
suddenly, dashed him to the ground, and, holding him there like a worm,
shook from his clothing all the stolen property, except what the caitiff
had concealed in his fellow's bed to insure his conviction.

Then and there the sentence was given. The villain was hauled to the
triangles and flogged with embittered violence. He uttered no cry; but,
as the hissing lashes swept his back, he settled a look of ghastly and
mortal hatred on Joe, who stood by and counted the stripes.

But this was years ago; and Bowman had long been a free man and a
settler, having served out his sentence.

At that time the laws of the Penal Colony were exceedingly cruel and
unjust to the bondmen. There was in the colony a number of "free
settlers" and ex-convicts who had obtained land, and these, as a class,
were men who lived half by farming and half by rascality. They sold
brandy to the convicts and ticket-of-leave men, and robbed them when the
drugged liquor had done its work. They feared no law, for the word of a
prisoner was dead in the courts.

The crying evil of the code was the power it gave these settlers to take
from the prisons as many men as they chose, and work them as slaves on
their clearings. While so employed, the very lives of these convicts
were at the mercy of their taskmasters, who possessed over them all the
power of prison officers.

A report made by an employer against a convict insured a flogging, or a
number of years in the terrible chain-gang at Fremantle. The system
reeked with cruelty and the blood of men. It would startle our
commonplace serenity to see the record of the lives that were sacrificed
to have it repealed.

Under this law, it came to Joe's turn to be sent out on probation.
Application had been made for him by a farmer, whose "range" was in a
remote district. Joe was a strong and willing worker, and he was glad of
the change; but when he was taken to the lonely place, he could not help
a shudder when he came face to face--with his new employer and
master--Isaac Bowman.

There was no doubting the purpose of the villain who had now complete
possession of him. He meant to drive him into rebellion--to torture him
till his hate was gratified, and then to have him flogged and sent to
the chain-gang; and from the first minute of his control he began to
carry out his purpose.

For two years the strong man toiled like a brute at the word of his
driver, returning neither scoff nor scourge.

Joe had years to serve; and he had made up his mind to serve them, and
be free. He knew there was no escape--that one report from Bowman would
wipe out all record of previous good conduct. He knew, too, that Bowman
meant to destroy him, and he resolved to bear toil and abuse as long as
he was able.

He was able longer than most men; but the cup was filled at last. The
clay came when the worm turned--when the quiet, patient man blazed into
dreadful passion, and, tearing the goad from the tyrant's hand, he
dashed him, maimed and senseless, to the earth.

The blow given, Joe's passion calmed, and the ruin of the deed stared
him in the face. There was no court of justice in which he might plead.
He had neither word nor oath nor witnesses. The man might be dead; and
even if he recovered, the punishment was the lash and the chain-gang, or
the gallows.

Then and there, Joe struck into the bush with a resolute face, and next
day the infuriate and baffled rascal, rendered ten-fold more malignant
by a dreadful disfigurement, reported him to the prison as an absconder,
a robber, and an attempted murderer.



BOND AND FREE.

THREE years passed. It was believed that Joe had perished in the bush.
Bowman had entered the convict service as a trooper, but even his
vigilance brought no discovery. Absconders are generally found after a
few months, prowling around the settlements for food, and are glad to be
retaken.

But Joe was no common criminal nor common man. When he set his face
toward the bush, he meant to take no half measures. The bush was to be
his home. He knew of nothing to draw him back, and he cared not if he
never saw the face of a white man again. He was sick of injustice and
hardship sick of all the ways of the men he had known.

Prison life had developed a strong nature in Joe. Naturally powerful in
mind, body, and passions, he had turned the Power in on himself, and had
obtained a rare mastery over his being. He was a thoughtful man, a
peacemaker, and a lover of justice. He had obtained an extraordinary
hold on the affection of the convicts. They all knew him. He was true as
steel to everything he undertook; and they knew that, too; He was
enormously strong. One day he was working in the quarries of Fremantle
with twenty others in a deep and narrow, ledge. Sixteen men were at work
below, and four were preparing a blast at the head of the ledge, which
ran down at an eagle of fifty degrees, like a channel cut in the solid
rock. The men below were at the bottom of the channel. A pebble dropped
by the four men above would have dashed into their Midst.

Suddenly there was a cry above, sharp, short, terrible--

"Look out down there!"

One of the half-filled charges had exploded with a sullen, mischievous
puff, and the rocks at the head of the ledge were lifted and loosened.
One immense block barred the tumbling mass from the men below. But the
increasing weight above grew irresistible--the great stone was
yielding--it had moved several inches, pressed on from behind. The men
who had been working at the place fled for their lives, only sending out
the terrible cry to their fellows below--

"Look out down there!"

But those below could only look out--they could not get out. There was no
way out but by the rising channel of the ledge. And down that channel
would thunder in a quarter of a minute the murderous rocks that were
pushing the saving stone before them.

Three of the men above escaped in time. They dared not look behind--as
they dung to the quarry-side, out of danger, they closed their eyes,
waiting for the horrible crash.

But it did not come. They waited ten seconds, then looked around. A man
stood at the head of the ledge, right before the moving mass--a
convict--Moondyne Joe. He had a massive crowbar in his hands, and was
strongly working to get a purchase on the great stone that blocked the
way, but which actually swayed on the verge of the steep decline. At
last the bar caught--the purchase was good--the stone moved another inch,
and the body of the man bent like a strong tree under the awful strain.
But he held back the stone.

He did not say a word--he did not look below--he knew they would see the
precious moment and escape. They saw it, and, with chilled hearts at the
terrible danger, they fled up the ledge and darted past the man who had
risked his own life to save theirs.

Another instant and the roar went down the ledge, as if the hungry rocks
knew they had been baffled.

Moondyne Joe escaped--the bar saved him. When the crash came, the bar was
driven across an angle in the ledge, and held there, and he was within
the angle. He was mangled and bruised--but life and limb were safe.

This was one of several instances that proved his character, and made
him trusted and loved of his fellow-convicts.

Whatever was his offence against the law, he had received its bitter
lesson. The worst of the convicts grew better when associated with him.
Common sense, truth, and kindness were Joe's principles. He was a strong
man, and he pitied and helped those weaker than himself. He was a bold
man, and he understood the timid. He was a brave man, and he grieved for
a coward or a liar. He never preached; but his healthy, straightforward
life did more good to his fellows than all the hired bible-readers in
the colony.

No wonder the natives to whom he fled soon began to look upon him with a
strange feeling. Far into the mountains of the Vasse he had journeyed
before he fell in with them.

They were distrustful of all white men, but they soon trusted him. There
was something in the simple savage mind not far removed from that of the
men in prison, who had grown to respect, even to reverence, his
character. The natives saw him stronger and braver than anyone they had
ever known. He was more silent than their oldest chief; and so wise, he
settled disputes so that both sides were satisfied. They looked on him
with distrust at first; then with wonder; then with respect and
confidence; and before two years were over, with something like awe and
veneration, as for a superior being.

They gave him the name Of "MOONDYNE," which had some meaning more than
either manhood or kingship.

His fame and name spread through the native tribes all over the country.
When they came to the white settlements, the expression oftenest heard
was "Moondyne." The convicts and settlers constantly heard the word, but
dreamt not then of its significance. Afterwards, when they knew to whom
the name had been given, it became a current word throughout the colony.

Towards the end of the third year of his freedom, when Moondyne and a
party of natives were far from the mountains, they were surprised by a
Government surveying party, who made him prisoner, knowing, of course,
that he must be an absconder. He was taken to the main prison at
Fremantle, and sentenced to the chain-gang for life; but before he had
reached the Swan River every native in the colony knew that "The
Moondyne" was a prisoner.

The chain-gang of Fremantle is the depth of penal degradation. The
convicts wear from thirty to fifty pounds of iron, according to their
offence. It is riveted on their bodies in the prison forge, and when
they have served their time the great rings have to be chiselled off
their calloused limbs.

The chain-gang works outside the prison walls of Fremantle, in the
granite quarries. The neighbourhood, being thickly settled with pardoned
men and ticket-of-leave men, had I been deserted by the aborigines; but
from the day of Moondyne's sentence the bushmen began to build their
myers and hold their corroborees near the quarries. For two years the
chain-gang toiled among the stones, and the black men sat on the great
unhewn rocks, and never seemed to tire of the scene.

The warders took no notice of their silent presence. The natives never
spoke to a prisoner, but sat there in dumb interest, every day in the
year, from sunrise to evening.

One day they disappeared from the quarries, and an officer who passed
through their village of myers, found them deserted. It was quite a
subject of interesting conversation among the warders. Where had they
gone to? Why had they departed in the night?

The day following an answer came to these queries. When the chain-gang
was formed, to return to the prison, one link was gone--Moondyne was
missing.

His irons were found, filed through, behind the rock at which he worked;
and from that day the black face of a bushman was never seen in
Fremantle.



THE KOAGULUP SWAMP.

WE arrive now at the opening scene of this story. Eight days after his
escape from Fremantle, Moondyne was seen by the convict Dave Terrell, on
the shores of the Koagulup Swamp. In those eight days he had travelled
two hundred miles, suffering that which is only known to the hunted
convict. When he met the prisoner in the moonlight and made the motion
to silence, Dave Terrell saw the long barrel of a pistol in his belt. He
meant to sell his life this time, for there was no hope if retaken.

His intention was to hide in the swamp till he found an opportunity of
striking into the Vasse Mountains, a spur of which was not more than
sixty miles distant.

But the way of the absconder is perilous; and swift as had been
Moondyne's flight, the shadow of the pursuer was close behind. No tardy
step was that of him who led the pursuit of a man with a terribly maimed
face--a new officer of the penal system, but whose motive in the pursuit
was deadlier and dearer than the love of public duty.

On the very day that Moondyne Joe reached the great swamp, the mounted
pursuit tracked the fugitive to the water's edge. A few hours later,
while he lay exhausted on an island in the densely-wooded morass, the
long sedge was cautiously divided a few yards from his face, and the
glittering eyes of a native tracker met his for an instant. Before he
could spring to his feet the supple savage was upon him, sending out his
bush cry as he sprang! A short struggle, with the black hands on the
white throat; then the great white arms closed around the black body,
and with a gasping sob it lost its nerve and lay still, while Moondyne
half rose to listen.

From every point he heard the trackers closing on him. He sank back with
a moan of despair; but the next instant the blood rushed from his heart
with a new vigour for every muscle.

It was the last breath of his freedom, and he would fight for it as for
his life. He sprang to his feet and met his first brutal assailant, a
native dog--half-wolf, half-greyhound--which sprang at his throat, but
sank its fangs in his shoulder.

A bullet through the animal's brain left him free again, with steadied
nerves. Even in the excitement of the moment a thrill of gratitude that
it was not a man that lay there passed through him; He flung his pistol
into the swamp, and dashed towards the log on which he had gained the
island. Beside it stood two men, armed. Barehanded, the fugitive flung
himself upon them, and closed in desperate struggle. It was vain,
however; others came and struck him down and overpowered him.

He was put in irons, and found himself in charge of the most brutal
officer in the penal service--his old fellow-convict and employer, Isaac
Bowman.



THE BRIBE.

WHEN the party had travelled a dozen miles from the convict camp, the
evening closed, and the sergeant called a halt. A chain was passed round
a tree; and locked; and to this the manacles of the prisoner were made
fast, leaving him barely the power of lying down. With a common prisoner
this would have been security enough; but the sergeant meant to leave no
loophole open. He and the private trooper would keep guard all night;
and according to this order, after supper, the trooper entered on the
first four hours' watch.

The natives and wounded men took their meal and were stretched on the
soft sand beside another fire, about a hundred paces from the guard and
prisoner.

The tired men soon slept, all but the sentry and the captive. The
sergeant lay within arm's length of the prisoner; and even from deep
sleep awoke at the least movement of the chain.

Towards midnight, the chained man turned his face toward the sentry, and
motioned him to draw near. The rough, but kind-hearted, fellow thought
he asked for water and softly brought him a pannikin, which he held to
his lips. At the slight motion, the light motion, the sergeant awoke,
and harshly reprimanded the trooper, posting him at a distance from the
fire, with orders not to move till his watch had expired. The sergeant
returned to his sleep, and again all was still.

After a time the face of the prisoner was once more raised, and with
silent lip, but earnest expression, he begged the sentry to come to him.
But the man would not move. He grew angry at the persistence of the
prisoner, who ceased not to look towards him, and who at last even
ventured to speak in a low voice. At this the fearful trooper grew
alarmed, and sternly ordered him to rest. The sergeant awoke at the
word, and shortly after relieved the trooper, seating himself beside the
fire to watch the remainder of the night.

When the prisoner saw this, with a look of utter weariness, though not
of resignation, he at last closed his eyes and sank to rest. Once having
yielded to the fatigue which his strong will had hitherto mastered, he
was unconscious. A deep and dreamless sleep fell on him. The sand was
soft round his tired limbs, and for two or three hours the bitterness of
his captivity was forgotten.

He awoke suddenly, and, as if he had not slept, felt the iron on his
wrists, and knew that he was chained to a tree like a wild beast.

The sleep had given him new strength. He raised his head, and met the
eyes of the sergeant watching him. The look between them was long and
steady.

"Come here," said the prisoner, in a low tone; "I want to speak to you."

Had the gaunt dog beside him spoken, the sergeant could not have been
more amazed.

"Come here," repeated Moondyne. "I have something important to say to
you."

The sergeant drew his revolver, examined the caps, and then moved
towards his prisoner.

"I heard you say you had spent twenty-five years in this colony," said
Moondyne, "and that you might as well have remained a convict. Would you
go away to another country, and live the rest of your life in wealth and
power?"

The sergeant stared at him as if he thought he had gone mad. The
prisoner understood the look.

"Listen," he said impressively; "I am not mad. You know there is a
reward offered for the discovery of the Vasse Gold Mine. I can lead you
to the spot!"

There was that in his voice and look that thrilled the sergeant to the
marrow. He glanced at the sleeping trooper, and drew closer to the
chained man.

"I know where that gold mine lies," said Moondyne, reading the greedy
face, "where tons and shiploads of solid gold are waiting to be carried
away. If you help me to be free, I will lead you to the mine."

The sergeant looked at him in silence. He arose and walked stealthily
towards the natives, who were soundly sleeping. To and fro in the
firelight, for nearly an hour, he paced, revolving the startling
proposition. At last he approached the chained man.

"I have treated you badly, and you hate me," he said. "How can I trust
you? How can you prove to me that this is true?"

Moondyne met the suspicious eye steadily. "I have no proof," he said;
"you must take my word. I tell you the truth. If I do not lead you
straight to the mine, I will go back to Fremantle as your prisoner."

Still the sergeant pondered and paced. He was in doubt, and the
consequences might be terrible.

"Have you ever known me to lie?" said Moondyne.

The sergeant looked at him, but did not answer.

At length he abruptly asked: "Is it far away?" He was advancing towards
a decision.

"We can reach the place in two days, if you give me a horse," said
Moondyne.

"You might escape," said the sergeant.

"I will not; but if you doubt me, keep the chain on my wrist till I show
you the gold."

"And then?" said the sergeant.

"Then we shall be equals. I will lead you to the mine. You must return
and escape from the country as best you can. Do you agree?"

The sergeant's face was white, as he glanced at the sleeping trooper and
then at the prisoner.

"I agree," he said; "lie down and pretend to sleep."

The sergeant had thought out his plan. He would insure his own safety,
no matter how the affair turned. Helping a convict to escape was
punished with death by the penal law; but he would put another look on
the matter. He cautiously waked the private trooper.

"Take those natives," he said, "all but the mounted tracker, and go on
to Bunbury before me. The wounded men must be doctored at once."

Without a word the disciplined trooper shook the drowsiness from him,
saddled his horse, and mounted. In half an hour they were gone. Moondyne
Joe and the sergeant listened till the last sound died away. The tracker
was curled up again beside the fire.

Sergeant Bowman then unlocked the chain, and the powerful prisoner rose
to his feet. In a whisper the sergeant told him he must secure the
native before he attempted to take the horse.

Moondyne went softly to the side of the sleeping savage. There was a
smile on his face as he knelt down and laid one strong hand on the man's
throat, and another on his pistol.

In a few moments it was over. The bushman never even writhed when he saw
the stem face above him, and felt that his weapon was gone. Moondyne
left him tied hand and foot, and returned to the sergeant, who had the
horses ready.

When the convict stood beside the trooper he raised his hand suddenly,
and held something toward him--the tracker's pistol, loaded and capped!
He had played and won. His enemy stood defenceless before him--and the
terror of death, as he saw the position, was in the blanched face of the
sergeant.

"Take this pistol," said Moondyne, quietly. "You may give it to me, if
you will, when I have kept my word."

The sergeant took the weapon with a trembling hand, and his evil face
had an awed look as he mounted.

"Call the dogs," said Moondyne; "we shall need them tomorrow." In answer
to a low whistle the wolf-like things bounded through the bush. The men
struck off at a gallop, in the direction of the convicts' camp, the
sergeant a little behind, with his pistol ready in the holster.



THE IRON-STONE MOUNTAINS.

MOONDYNE took a straight line from the Koagulup Swamp, which they
"struck" after a couple hours' ride. They dismounted near the scene of
the capture, and Moondyne pulled from some bushes near the edge of a
short raft of logs bound together with withes of bark. The sergeant
hesitated, and looked on suspiciously.

"You must trust me," said Moondyne quietly; "unless we break the track
we shall have the sleuth-dog tracker after us when he gets loose."

The sergeant got on the raft, holding the bridles of the horses.
Moondyne, with a pole, pushed from the bank, and entered the gloomy
arches of the wooded swamp.

It was a weird scene. At noonday the flood was black as ink, and the
arches were filled with gloomy shadows. Overhead the foliage of trees
and creepers was matted into a dense roof, now pierced by a few thin
pencils of moonlight.

Straight toward the centre Moondyne steered from several hundred yards,
the horses swimming behind. Then he turned at right angles, and pushed
along from tree to tree in a line with the shore they had left. After a
while the horses found bottom, and waded.

"No more trouble now," said Moondyne. "They're on the sand. We must keep
along till morning, and then strike toward the hills."

They went ahead rapidly, thanks to Moondyne's amazing strength; and by
daylight were a long distance from the point at which they entered. A
wide but shallow river with a bright sand bottom emptied into the swamp
before them, and into this Moondyne poled the raft and tied it securely
to a fallen tree, hidden in sedge grass.

They mounted their horses, and rode up the bed of the river, which they
did not leave till near noontime. At last, when Moondyne deemed the
track thoroughly broken, he turned toward the higher bank, and struck
into the bush, the land beginning to rise toward the mountains when they
had travelled a few miles.

It was late in the afternoon when they halted for the day's first meal.
Moondyne climbed a mahogany tree, which he had selected from certain
fresh marks on its bark, and from a hole in the trunk pulled out two
silver-tailed 'possums, as large as rabbits. The sergeant lighted a fire
on the loose sand, and piled it high with dry wood. When the 'possums
were ready for cooking, the sand beneath the fire was heated a foot
deep, and making a hole in this, the game was buried, and the flies
continued above. After a time the embers were thrown off and the meat
dug out. It looked burnt and black; but when the crust was broken the
flesh within was tender and juicy. This, with clear water from the
iron-stone hills, made a rare meal for hungry men; after which they
continued their travel.

Before nightfall they had entered the first circle of hills at the foot
of the mountains. With a springing hope in his heart, Moondyne led the
way into the tortuous passes of the hills; and in a valley as silent as
the grave, and as lonely, they made their camp for the night.

They were in the saddle before sunrise, and travelling in a strange and
wild country, which no white man, except Moondyne, had ever before
entered. The scene was amazing to the sergeant, who was used to the
endless sameness of the gum forests on the plains of the convict
settlement. Here, masses of dark metallic stone were heaped in savage
confusion, and around these, like great pale serpents or cables, were
twisted the white roots of tuad trees. So wild was the scene with rock
and torrent, underbrush and forest, that the sergeant, old bushman as he
was, began to feel that it would be dangerous for a man who had not
studied the lay of the land, to travel here without a guide. However, he
had a deep game to play, for a great stake. He said nothing, but watched
Moondyne closely, and observed everything around that might assist his
memory by-and-by.

In the afternoon they rode through winding passes in the hills, and
towards sunset came on the border of a lake in the basin of the
mountains.

"Now," said Moondyne, dismounting by the lake-side, and turning loose
his horse to crop the rich grass, "now we may rest. We are inside the
guard of the hills."

The sergeant's manner had strangely altered during the long ride. He was
trembling on the verge of a great discovery; but he was, to a certain
extent, in the power of Moondyne. He could not help feeling that the man
was acting truly to his word; but his own purpose was so dark and
deceitful, it was impossible for him to trust another.

The punishment of falsehood is to suspect all truth. The mean of soul
cannot conceive nobility. The vicious cannot believe in virtue. The
artificial dignity imparted by the sergeant's office had disappeared, in
spite of himself; and in its place returned the caitiff aspect that had
marked him when he was a convict and a settler. Standing on an equality
with Moondyne, their places had changed, and the prisoner was the
master.

On the sandy shore of the beautiful lake they found turtles' eggs, and
these, with baked bandicoot, made supper and breakfast.

On resuming their ride, next morning, Moondyne said: "To-night we shall
reach the gold mine."

The way was no longer broken; they rode in the beds of grassy valleys,
walled by precipitous mountains. Palms, bearing large scarlet nuts,
brilliant flowers and birds, and trees and shrubs of unnamed species-all
these, with delicious streams from the mountains, made a scene of
wonderful beauty. The face of Moondyne was lighted up with appreciation;
and even the sergeant, coarse, cunning, and brutish, felt its purifying
influence.

It was a long day's ride, broken only by a brief halt at noon, when they
ate a hearty meal beside a deep river that wound its mysterious way
among the hills. Hour after hour passed, and the jaded horses lagged on
the way; but still the valleys opened before the riders, and Moondyne
advanced as confidently as if the road were familiar.

Towards sunset he rode slowly, and with an air of expectancy. The sun
had gone down behind the mountains, and the narrow valley was deep in
shadow. Before them, standing in the centre of the valley, rose a tall
white tuad tree, within fifty paces of the underwood of the mountain on
either side.

When Moondyne, who led the way, had come within a horse's length of the
tree, a spear whirred from the dark wood on the right, across his path,
and struck deep into the tuad tree. There was not a sound in the bush to
indicate the presence of an enemy. The gloom of evening had silenced
even the insect life and the silence of the valley was profound. Yet
there was startling evidence of life and hostility in the whirr of the
spear that had sunk into the tree before their eyes with such terrific
force that it quivered like a living thing as it stood out from the
tuad.

Moondyne sprang from his horse, and, running to the tree, laid his hand
on the shivered spear, and shouted a few words in the language of the
aborigines. A cry from the bush answered, and the next moment a tall
savage sprang from the cover and threw himself with joyful acclamations
at the feet of Moondyne.

Tall, lithe, and powerful was the young bushman. He arose and leant on
his handful of slender spears, speaking rapidly to Moondyne. Once he
glanced at the sergeant, and, smiling, pointed to the still quivering
spear in the tuad. Then he turned and led them up the valley, which soon
narrowed to the dimensions of a ravine, like the bed of a torrent,
running its perplexed way between overhanging walls of iron-stone.

The sun had gone down, and the gloom of the passage became dark as
midnight. The horses advanced slowly over the rugged way. A dozen
determined men could hold such a pass against an army. Above their heads
the travellers saw a narrow slit of sky, sprinkled with stars. The air
was damp and chill between the precipitous walls. The dismal pass was
many miles in length; but at last the glare of a fire lit up the rocks
ahead.

The young bushman went forward alone, returning in a few minutes. Then
Moondyne and the sergeant, proceeding with him to the end of the pass,
found themselves in the opening of a small valley or basin, over which
the sky, like a splendid domed roof, was clearly rounded by the tops of
the mountains.

A few paces from the entrance stood a group of natives, who had started
from their rest at the approach of the party.



THE KING OF THE VASSE

BESIDE the bright fire of mahogany wood, and slowly advancing to meet
the strangers, was a venerable man-an aborigine, tall, white-haired, and
of great dignity. It was Te-mana-roa (the long-lived), the King of the
Vasse.

Graver than the sedateness of civilization was the dignified bearing of
this powerful and famous barbarian. His erect stature was touched by his
great age, which outran, it was said, all the generations then living.
His fame as a ruler was known throughout the whole Western country; and
among the aborigines even of the far Eastern slope, two thousand miles
away, his existence was vaguely rumoured, as in former times the
European people heard reports of a mysterious oriental potentate called
Prester John.

Behind the aged king, in the full light of the fire, stood two young
girls, dark and skin-clad like their elder, but of surpassing symmetry
of body and beauty of feature. They were Koro and Tapairu, the
grandchildren of Te-mana-roa. Startled, timid, wondering, they stood
together in the intense light, their soft fur-bokas thrown back, showing
to rare effect their rounded limbs and exquisitely curved bodies.

The old chief welcomed Moondyne with few words, but with many signs of
pleasure and deep respect; but he looked with severe displeasure at his
companion.

A long and earnest conversation followed; while the cunning eyes of the
sergeant, and the inquiring ones of the young bushman and his sisters,
followed every expression of the old chief and Moondyne.

It was evident that Moondyne was telling the reason of the stranger's
presence--telling the story just as it had happened--that there was no
other hope for life--and he had promised to show this man the gold mine.

Te-mana-roa heard the story with a troubled brow, and when it had come
to an end, he bowed his white head in deep thought. After some moments,
he raised his face and looked long and severely at the sergeant, who
grew restless under the piercing scrutiny.

Still keeping his eyes on the trooper's face, he said in his own tongue,
half in soliloquy and half in query--

"This man cannot be trusted."

Every eye in the group was now centred on the sergeant's face.

After a pause, Moondyne simply repeated the words of the chief--

"He cannot be trusted."

"Had he come blindfolded from the Koagulup," continued the chief, "we
might lead him through the passes in the night, and set him free. He has
seen the hills and noted the sun and stars as he came: he must not leave
this valley."

The old chief uttered the last sentence as one giving judgment.

"Ngaru," he said, still gazing intently on the trooper's face. The young
bushman arose from the fire.

"He must not leave the pass, Ngaru."

Without a word the young and powerful bushman took his spears and
womerah, and disappeared in the mouth of the gloomy pass.

Te-mana-roa then arose slowly, and, lighting a resinous torch, motioned
the sergeant to follow him toward a dark entrance in the iron-stone
cliff that loomed above them. The sergeant obeyed, followed by Moondyne.
The men stooped to enter the face of the cliff, but once inside, the
roof rose high, and the way grew spacious.

The walls were black as coal, and dripping with dampness. Not cut by the
hands of man, but worn perhaps in ages past by a stream that worked its
way, as patient as Fate, through the weaker parts of the rock. The roof
soon rose so high that the torchlight was lost in the overhanging gloom.
The passage grew wide and wider, until it seemed as if the whole
interior of the mountain were hollow. There were no visible walls; but
at intervals there came from the darkness above a ghostly white
stalactite pillar of vast dimensions, down which in utter silence
streamed water that glistened in the torchlight.

A terror crept through the sergeant's heart, that was only strong with
evil intent. He glanced suspiciously at Moondyne. But he could not read
the faces of the two men beside him. They symbolized something unknown
to such as he. On them at that moment lay the great but acceptable
burden of manhood--the overmastering but sweet allegiance that a true
man owes to the truth.

It does not need culture and fine association to develop in some men
this highest quality. Those who live by externals, though steeped in
their parrot learning, are not men, but shells of men. When one turns
within his own heart, and finds there the motive and the master, he
approaches nobility. There is nothing of a man but the word, that is
kept or broken--sacred as life, or unstable as water. By this we judge
each other, in philosophy and practice; and by this test shall be ruled
the ultimate judgment.

Moondyne had solemnly promised to lead to the mine a man he knew to be a
villain. The old chief examined the bond of his friend, and acknowledged
its force.

The word of the Moondyne must be kept to-night. Tomorrow the fate of the
stranger would be decided.

They proceeded far into the interior of the mountain, until they seemed
to stand in the midst of a great plain, with open sky overhead, though
in truth above them rose a mountain. The light was reflected from myriad
points of spar or crystal, that shone above like stars in the blackness.
The air of the place was tremulous with a deep, rushing sound, like the
sweep of a river; but the flood was invisible.

At last the old chief who led the way, stood beside a stone trough or
basin, filled with long pieces of wood standing on end. To these he
applied the torch, and a flame of resinous brightness swept instantly
over the pile and licked at the darkness above in long, fiery tongues.

The gloom seemed to struggle with the light, like opposing spirits, and
a minute passed before the eye took in the surrounding objects.

"Now," said Moondyne to the sergeant, raising his hand sweeping it
around--"now, you are within the GOLD MINE OF THE VASSE."

The stupendous dimensions of the vault or chamber in which they stood
oppressed and terrified the sergeant. Hundreds of feet above his head
spread the shadow of the tremendous roof. Hundreds of feet from where he
stood loomed the awful blackness of the cyclopean walls. From these he
scarce could turn his eyes. Their immensity fascinated and stupefied
him. Nor was it strange that such a scene should inspire awe. The
vastest work of humanity dwindled into insignificance beside the
immeasurable dimensions of this mysterious cavern.

It was long before consciousness of his purpose returned to the
sergeant; but at length, withdrawing his eyes from the gloomy sketch of
gloomy stretch of iron-stone that roofed the mine his glance fell upon
the wide floor, and there, on every side, from wall to wall, were heaps
and masses of yellow metal--of dust and bars, and solid rocks of gold.



A DARK NIGHT AND DAY.

THE old chief led the way from the gold mine; and the strangely assorted
group of five persons sat by the fire while meat was cooked for the
travellers.

The youth who had escorted the white men from the outer valley was the
grandson of the chief, and brother of the beautiful girls. Savages they
were, elder and girls, in the eyes of the sergeant; but there was a
thoughtfulness in Te-mana-roa, bred by the trust of treasure and the
supreme confidence of his race, that elevated him to an exalted plane of
manhood; and the young people had much of the same quiet and dignified
bearing.

The revelations of the day had been too powerful for the small brain of
the cunning trooper. The came before his memory piecemeal. He longed for
an opportunity to think them over, to get them into grasp, and to plan
his course of action.

The splendid secret must be his own, and he must overreach all who would
to-morrow put conditions on his escape. While meditating this, the
lovely form of one of the girls, observed by his evil eye as she bent
over the fire, suggested a scheme, and before the meal was finished, the
sergeant had worked far on the road of success.

The chief and Moondyne talked long in the native language. The sisters,
wrapped in soft furs, sat and listened, their large eyes fixed on the
face of the Moondyne, their keen senses enjoying a novel pleasure as
they heard their familiar words strangely sounded on his lips.

To their simple minds the strongly marked white face must have appeared
almost superhuman, known as it had long been to them by hearsay and the
unqualified affection of their people.

Their girlhood was on the verge of something fuller; they felt a new and
delicious joy in listening to the deep, musical tones of the Moondyne.
They had long heard how strong and brave he was; they saw that he was
gentle when he spoke to them and the old chief. When he addressed them,
it seemed that the same thrill of pleasure touched the hearts and
lighted the faces of both sisters.

"One outside, and two here," was the dread burden of the sergeant's
thought. "Two days' ride--but, can I be sure of the way?"

Again and again his furtive eyes turned on the ardent faces of the
girls.

"Ay, that will do," he thought; "these can be used to help me out."

The sisters retired to a tent of skins, and, lighting a fire at the
opening to drive off the evil spirit, lay down to rest. Sleep came
slowly to every member of the party.

The old chief pondered on the presence of the stranger, who now held the
primal secret of the native race.

The sergeant revolved his plans, going carefully over every detail of
the next day's work, foreseeing and providing for every difficulty with
devilish ingenuity.

The sisters lay in dreamy wakefulness, hearing again the deep musical
voice, and seeing in the darkness the strange white face of the
Moondyne.

Before sleeping, Moondyne walked into the valley, and lifting his face
to heaven, in simple and manful directness, thanked God for his
deliverance; then, stretching himself beside the fire, he fell into a
profound sleep.

In the morning, Moondyne spoke to Koro and Tapairu in their own tongue,
which was not guttural on their lips. They told him, with much earnest
gesture and flashing of eyes, about the emu's nest in the valley beyond
the lake, and other such things as made up their daily life. Their steps
were light about the camp that morning.

At an early hour the old man entered the gold mine, and did not return.
To look after the horses, Moondyne, with the girls, crossed the valley,
and then went up the mountain towards the emu's nest.

The sergeant, with bloodshot eyes from a sleepless night, had hung
around the camp all the morning, feeling that, though his presence
seemed unheeded, he was in the deepest thought of all.

Whatever his purpose, it was settled now. There was dark meaning in the
look that followed Moondyne and the girls till they disappeared on the
wooded mountain. When at last they were out of sight and hearing, he
arose suddenly and moved towards the mouth of the mine. At that moment,
the young bushman from the outpost emerged from the pass, and walked
rapidly to the fire, looking around inquiringly for Moondyne and the
girls.

As the sergeant explained in dumb show that they had gone up the
mountain yonder, there rose a gleam of hideous satisfaction in his eyes.
The danger he had dreaded most had come to his hand to be destroyed. All
through the night he had heard the whirr of a spear from an unseen hand,
and he shuddered at the danger of riding through the pass to escape. But
there was no other course open. Were he to cross the mountains, he knew
that without a guide he never could reach the penal colony.

Had the sage Te-mana-roa been present, he would at once have sent the
bushman back to his duty. But the youth had drawn his spear from the
tuad tree at the outpost, and he proceeded to harden again its injured
point in the embers of the fire.

The sergeant, who had carelessly sauntered around the fire till he stood
behind the bushman, now took a stride towards him, then suddenly
stopped.

Had the native looked around at the moment, he would have sent his spear
through the stranger's heart as swiftly as he drove it into the tuad
yesterday. There was murder in the sergeant's face as he took the silent
stride, and paused, his hand on his pistol.

"Not with this," he muttered; "no noise with him. But this will do."

He stooped for a heavy club, and with a few quick and stealthy paces
stood over the bushman. Another instant, and the club descended with
crushing violence. Without a sound but the deadly blow, the quivering
body fell backward on the assassin's feet.

Rapidly he moved in his terrible work. He crept to the entrance of the
mine, and far within saw the old man moving before the flame. Pistol in
hand he entered the cavern, from which, before many minutes had passed,
he came forth white faced. As he stepped from the cave, he turned a
backward glance of fearful import. He saw that he had left the light
burning behind him.

Warily scanning the mountain side, he dragged the body of the youth
inside the mouth of the cavern; then, seating himself by the fire, he
examined his pistols, and awaited the return of Moondyne and the girls.

In the sweet peace of the valley, the livid and anxious wretch seemed
the impersonation of crime. He had meditated the whole night on his
purpose. All he feared was partial failure. But he had provided for
every chance; he had more than half succeeded already. Another hour, and
he would be sole master of the treasure--and, with the sisters in his
power, there was no fear of failure.

It was a terrible hour to wait; but at last he saw them coming, the
lithe figures of the girls winding among the trees as they crossed the
valley.

But they were alone: Moondyne was not with them!

They came with bent faces, as if thinking of pleasant things; but they
started with affright, and drew close together, when they saw the
stranger, alone, rise from the fire and come towards them.

With signs, he asked for Moondyne, and they answered that he had gone
across the mountain, and would return when the sun had gone down. This
was an ominous disappointment; but the sergeant knew that his life would
not be worth one day's purchase with such an enemy behind him. He must
wait.

He returned to the fire, the girls keeping distrustfully distant. He
feared they might enter the mine, and too soon discover the dreadful
secret; so, getting between them and the rock, he lay down at the
entrance.

Like startled deer, they looked around, instinctively feeling that
danger was near. The evil eyes of the sergeant never left them. He had
not foreseen this chance and for the moment knew not how to proceed.

The sisters stood near the fire, alarmed, alert, the left hand of one in
the right of the other. At length their quick eyes fell upon blood on
the sand, and followed the track till they met again the terrible face
at the mouth of the mine.

And, as they looked, a sight beyond the prostrate man, coming from the
dark entrance, froze their hearts with terror.

The face of the aged chief, his white hair discoloured with blood,
appeared above the dreadful watcher, and looked out towards the girls.
The old man, who had dragged his wounded body from the cave, rose to his
feet when he saw the sisters, tottered forward with a cry of warning,
and fell across the murderer.

Paralyzed with horror, the sergeant could not move for some moments. But
soon feeling that he was not attacked, he pushed aside the senseless
body, and sprang to his feet with a terrible malediction. In that moment
of his blind terror the girls had disappeared.

He ran hither and thither searching for them, but found no trace of
their hiding place or path of escape. At length he gave up the search, a
shivering dread growing upon him every instant, and hastened to catch
the horses. He began to realize that his well-laid plan was a failure.

There was now only one course open. He must take his chance alone, and
ride for his life, neither resting nor sleeping. The girls would run
straight to Moondyne; and he must act speedily to get beyond his reach.

In a few minutes the horses were ready, standing at the entrance of the
mine. The sergeant entered, and, passing the flaming basin, loaded
himself with bars and plates of gold. Again and again he returned, till
the horses were laden with treasure. Then, mounting, he called the dogs;
but they had gone with Moondyne.

Once more the chill of fear struck like an icicle through his heart at
his utter loneliness. Leading the spare horse by the bridle, he rode
headlong into the ravine and disappeared.



ON THE TRAIL.

IT was evening and the twilight was grey in the little valley, when
Moondyne reached the camp. He was surprised to find the place deserted.
He had expected a welcome--had been thinking, perhaps, of the glad faces
that would greet him as he approached the fire. But the fire was black,
the embers were cold. He looked and saw that there was no light in the
gold mine.

A dreadful presentiment grew upon him. A glance for the saddles, and
another across the valley, and he knew that the horses were gone.
Following the strange action of the dogs, he strode towards the cave,
and there, at the entrance, read the terrible story.

The sight struck this strange convict like a physical blow. His limbs
failed him, and his body sank till he knelt on the sand at the mouth of
the mine. He felt no wrath, but only crushing self-accusation.

"God forgive me!" was the intense cry of heart and brain: "God forgive
me for this crime!"

The consequence of his fatal selfishness crushed him; and the
outstretched arms of the old chief, whose unconsciousness--for he was not
dead--was fearfully like death, seemed to call down curses on the
destroyer of his people.

The years of his life went miserably down before Moondyne till he
grovelled in the desolation of his dismal abasement. A ban had followed
him, and blighted all he had touched.

Years were pressed into minutes as he crouched beside the maimed bodies
of his friends. The living man lay as motionless as the dead. The strong
mind brought up the whole scene for judgment. His inward eye saw the
fleeing murderer; but he felt more of pity for the wretch than of
vengeance. The entire sensibility of Moondyne was concentrated in the
line of his own conscience. Himself accused himself--and should the
criminal condemn another?

When at last he raised his face, with a new thought of duty, the trace
of the unutterable hour was graven upon him in deep lines.

Where were the sisters? Had they been sacrificed too? By the moonlight
he searched the valley; he entered the cave, and called through all its
passages. It was past midnight when he gave up the search and stood
alone in the desolate place. In the loose sand of the valley he scooped
a grave, to which he carried the body of the young bushman, and buried
it. When this was done he proceeded to perform a like office for
Te-mana-roa, but looking toward the cave he was startled at the sight of
the sisters, one of whom, Koro, stood as if watching him, while the
other, aided by an extremely old woman, was tending on the almost dying
chief, whose consciousness was slowly returning.

Benumbed and silent, Moondyne approached the cave. The girl who had
watched him shrank back to the others. Tapairu, the younger sister, rose
and faced the white man with a threatening aspect. She pointed her
finger towards the pass.

"Go!" she said, sternly, in her own tongue.

Moondyne paused and looked at her.

"Begone!" she cried, still pointing; and once again came the words,
"begone, accursed!"

Remorse had strangled grief in Moondyne's breast, or the agony of the
girl, uttered in this terrible reproach, would have almost killed him.
Accursed she said, and he knew that the word was true.

He turned from the place, not towards the pass, but towards the
mountains, and walked from the valley with an aimless purpose, and a
heart filled with ashes.

For hours he held steadily on, heedless of direction. He marked no
places--had no thoughts--only the one gnawing and consuming presence of
the ruin he had wrought.

The dogs followed him, tired and spiritless. The moon sank, and the sun
rose, and still the lonely man held his straight and aimless road--across
mountains and through ravines, until at last his consciousness was
recalled as he recognized the valley in which he stood as one he had
travelled two days before, on the way to the gold mine.

Stretching his exhausted body on a sheltered bank beside stream, he fell
into a deep sleep that lasted many hours.

He awoke with a start, as if a voice had called him. In an instant his
brow was set and his mind determined. He glanced at the sun to settle
his direction, and then walked slowly across the valley, intently
observing the ground. Before he'd had taken a hundred paces he stopped
suddenly, turned at right angles down the valley, and strode on with a
purpose, that though rapidly, almost instantaneously formed, had
evidently taken full possession of his will.

Sometimes persons of keen sensibility lie down to sleep with a trouble
on the mind, and an unsettled purpose, and wake in the night to find the
brain clear and the problem solved. From this process of unconscious
cerebration Moondyne awoke with a complete and settled resolution.

There could be no doubt of the determination in his mind. He had struck
the trail of the murderer.

There was no more indirection or hesitation in his manner. He settled
down to the pursuit with a grim and terrible earnestness. His purpose
was clear before him--to stop the devil he had let loose--to prevent the
escape of the assassin--to save the people who had trusted and saved him.

He would not turn from this intent though the track led him to the
prison gate of Fremantle; and even there, in the face of the guards, he
would slay the wretch before he had betrayed the secret. Death is on the
trail of every man; but we have grown used to him, and heed him not.
Crime and Sin are following us--will surely find us out, and some day
will open the cowl and show us the death's-head. But more terrible than
these Fates, because more physically real, is the knowledge, ever
present, that a relentless human enemy is on our track.

Through the silent passes of the hills, his heart a storm of fears and
hopes, the sergeant fled toward security. Every mile added to the light
ahead. He rode wildly and without rest--rode all day and into the night,
and would still have hurried on, but the horses failed and must have
rest.

He fed and watered them, watching with feverish eyes the renewal of
their strength; and as he watched them eat, the wretched man fell into a
sleep, from which he started in terror, fearful that the pursuer was
upon him.

Through the day and night, depending on his great strength, Moondyne
followed. While the fugitive rested, he strode on; and he knew by
instinct and observation that he was gaining in the race.

Every hour the tracks were fresher. On the morning of the second day, he
had found the sand still moist where the horses had drank from a stream.
On the evening of that day he passed the burning embers of a fire. The
murderer was gaining confidence, and taking longer rest.

The third day came with a revelation to Moondyne. The sergeant had lost
the way--had turned from the valley that led towards the settlement, and
had sealed his doom by choosing one that reached towards the
immeasurable deserts of the interior.

The pursuer was not stayed by the discovery. To the prison or the
wilderness, should the track lead, he would follow.

At first the new direction was pleasant. Dim woods on either side of a
stream, the banks fringed with verdure and pranked with bright flowers.
But like the pleasant ways of life, the tempting valley led to the
desolate plains; before night had closed, pursuer and pursued were far
from the hills and streams, in the midst of a treeless sea of sand.

Nothing but fear of death could drive the sergeant forward. He was
bushman enough to know the danger of being lost on the plains. But he
dare not return to meet him whom he knew wag hunting him down.

There was but one chance before him, and this was to tire out the
pursuer--if, as his heart suggested, there was only one in pursuit--to
lead him farther and farther into the desert, till he fell on the barren
track and died.

It was sore travelling for horse and man under the blazing sun, with no
food or water save what he pressed from the pith of the palms, and even
these were growing scarce. The only life on the plains was the hard and
dusty scrub. Every hour brought a more hopeless and grislier desolation.

How was it with Moondyne? The strong will still upheld him. He knew he
had gained till they took to the plains; but he also knew that here the
mounted man had the advantage. Every day the track was less distinct,
and he suffered more and more from thirst. The palms he passed had been
opened by the sergeant; and he had to leave the trail to find one
untouched. The sun flamed in the bare sky, and the sand was so hot that
the air hung above it in a tremulous haze. In the woods the dogs had
brought him food; but no living thing was to be hunted on the plains. He
had lived two days on the pith of the palms.

On the third day Moondyne with difficulty found the sand trail, which
had been blown over by the night breeze. He had slept on the shelterless
desert and had dreamt of sweet wells of water as the light dew fell on
his parched body.

This day he was quite alone. The dogs, suffering from thirst, had
deserted him in the night.

He began the day with a firm heart but an unsteady step. There was not a
palm in sight. It was hot noon before he found a small scrub to moisten
his throat and lips.

But to-day, he thought, he must come face to face with the villain, and
would kill him like a wild beast on the desert; and the thought upheld
him.

His head was bare and his body nearly naked. Another man would have
fallen senseless under the cruel sun; but Moondyne did not even rest--as
the day passed he did not seem to need rest.

It was strange how pleasant, how like a dream, part of that day
appeared. Sometimes he seemed to be awake, and to know that he was
moving over the sand, and with a dread purpose; but at these times he
knew that the trail had disappeared--that he was blindly going forward,
lost on the wilderness. Toward evening the cool breeze creeping over the
sand dispelled the dreams and made him mercilessly conscious.

The large red sun was standing on the horizon of sand, and an awful
shadow seemed waiting to fall upon the desert.

When the sun had gone down, and the wanderer looked at the stars, there
came to him a new Thought, like a friend, with a grave but not unkind
face--a vast and solemn Thought, that held him for a long time with
upraised face and hands, as if it had been whispered from the deep quiet
sky. Slowly he walked with his new communion, and when he saw before him
in the moonlight two palms, he did not rush to cut them open, but stood
beside them smiling. Opening one, at length, he took the morsel of pith,
and ate, and slept.

How sweet it was to wake up and see the wide sky studded with golden
stars--to feel that there were no bonds any more, nor hopes, nor
heart-burnings.

The Divine Thought that had come to him the day before was with him
still--grave and kindly, and now they two were so utterly alone, it
seemed almost to smile. He raised his body and knelt upon the sand,
looking upward, and all things seemed closing quietly in upon him, as if
coming to a great rest, and he would have lain down on the sand at
peace; but a cry, a human-like cry, startled him into wakefulness--surely
it was a cry!

It was clear, and near, and full of suffering. Surely he had heard--he
had not dreamt of such a cry. Again--God! how near and how keen it
was--from the darkness--a cry of mortal agony!

With a tottering step Moondyne ran towards the woeful sound. He saw by
the moonlight a dark object on the sand. The long, weak cry hurried him
on, till he stood beside the poor throat whence it came, and was smote
with pity at the dismal sight.

On the sand lay two horses chained at the neck--one dead, the other dying
in an agony of thirst and imprisonment. Beside the dead horse almost
buried in the sand, as he had fallen from the saddle, lay a man,
seemingly dead, but whose glazing eyes turned with hideous suffering as
Moondyne approached. The wretched being was powerless to free himself
from the fallen horse; and upon his body, and all around him, were
scattered heavy bars and plates of gold.

Moondyne loosed the chain from the suffering horse, that struggled to
its feet, ran forward a few yards, and fell dead on the sand.

The men's eyes met, and the blistered lips of the sergeant for it was
he--moved in piteous appeal. Moondyne paused one stern moment, then
turned and ran from the place--ran towards the palm near which he bad
slept. With hasty hand he tore it open and cut out the pith, and sped
back to the sufferer. He knelt down, and squeezed the precious moisture
into the mouth of the dying man--the man whom he had followed into the
desert to kill like a wild beast.

Till the last drop was gone he pressed the young wood. Then the guilty
wretch raised his eyes and looked at Moondyne--the glazed eyes grew
bright, and brighter, till a tear rose within them, and rolled down the
stained and sinlined face. The baked lips moved, and the weak hands were
raised imploringly. The sergeant back dead.

Moondyne knew that his last breath was contrition, and his last dumb
cry, "Pardon."

Then, too, the strength went from the limbs and the light from the eyes
of Moondyne--and as he sank to the earth, the great Thought that had come
to him filled his heart with peace--and he lay unconscious beside the
dead.

The sun rose on the desert, but the sleeper did not move. Before the day
was an hour old, other forms rapidly crossed the plain--not wanderers,
but fierce, skin-clad men, in search of vengeance.

They flung themselves from their horses when they reached the scene; and
one, throwing himself upon the body of the sergeant, sprang back with a
guttural cry of wrath and disappointment, which was echoed by the savage
party.

Next moment, one of the natives, stooping to lay his hand on the heart
of the Moondyne, uttered an excited call. The spearmen crowded around,
and one poured water from a skin on the face and body of the senseless
man.

They raised him to the arms of a strong rider, while another took the
reins, and the wild party struck off at a fall gallop towards the
mountains.

When Moondyne returned to consciousness, many days after his rescue, he
was free from pursuit, he had cut for ever the bond of the Penal Colony;
above him bent the deep eyes and kind faces of the old chief and the
sisters, Koro and Tapairu, and around him were the hills that shut in
the Valley of the Vasse Gold Mine.

He closed his eyes again and seemed to sleep for a little while. Then he
looked up and met the face of Te-mana-roa kindly watching him.

"I am free!" he only said. Then turning to the sisters: "I am not
accursed;" and Koro and Tapairu. answered with kind smiles.




BOOK TWO - THE SANDALWOOD TRADE.



THE MATE OF THE CANTON.

IT is midwinter, in a little Lancashire village on the coast, not far
from Liverpool. One quiet main street, crossed by three or four short
side streets, that lead in the summer days into the sweet meadows and
orchards. One of these side streets has only three houses on one side,
separated by goodly gardens. The house in the centre is the smallest,
but it is extremely neat, and the garden fairly glows with colour.

This is the home of Mrs. Walmsley, a Widow; and the garden is looked
after by herself and her daughter Alice, about sixteen years old. The
house on the right of Mrs. Walmsley's belongs to Mr. Draper, the richest
man in the village, a retired shopkeeper. The house on the left belongs
to Captain Sheridan, a bluff old Irishman retired from the navy, and now
Inspector of Coast Guards, whose family consists of his son and
daughter--Will Sheridan, the son, being just twenty years old.

At the gate of Draper's garden, opening on the streets, stands a
handsome young man in the uniform of the merchant marine. He is Sam
Draper, first officer of the Canton, arrived a few weeks before from
China.

"Good-morning, Alice," he says in a cheerful but not a pleasant voice,
as Alice Walmsley passes down the road.

Alice stopped and chatted lightly for a minute with her old schoolmate.
Draper evidently paid her a compliment, for her cheeks were flushed as
she entered her mother's gate standing near which was young Sheridan,
whom she slightly saluted and hurriedly passed, much to his surprise,
for their relations were, at least, of the oldest and closest
friendship.

"Alice," said Will, in a wondering tone as the girl passed with her
flushed face.

"Well--did you speak?" And she paused and turned her head.

Will Sheridan loved Alice, and she knew it, though no word had been
spoken. He had loved her for years in a boy's way, cherishing her memory
on his long voyages, for Will, too, was a sailor, as were almost all the
young men of the village; but he was soon to leave home for a two years'
service on Sam Draper's vessel, and of late his heart had been urging
him to speak to Alice.

He was a quiet, thoughtful, manly young fellow, with nothing particular
about him, except this strong secret love for the prettiest girl in the
village.

"Yes, I spoke," he answered hesitatingly, as if wounded; but perhaps you
haven't time to listen."

"What is it, Will?" she said in a kindlier tone, and smiling, though
before she spoke she saw with a side glance that Sam Draper had gone
away from the gate.

"O, it isn't anything particular," said Will; "only there's rare skating
on the mill-pond, and I was going there this afternoon."

"And--?" queried Alice, archly.

"Yes--I wish you would," said Will, earnestly.

"Well, I think I will," she replied, laughingly, "though you haven't
told me yet what I am to do."

"Why, go skating with me," said Will, highly pleased; "Sam Draper and
his sisters are going, and there will be a crowd from the village.
Shall I come for you at three?"

"Yes," she replied, "I'll be ready--" and as she turned towards her
mother's house the flush was in her face again.

Will Sheridan walked lightly on, thinking happy thoughts. Passing
Draper's gate, Sam Draper stepped from the shrubbery, whence he had
observed the interview. He was a tall, handsome fellow, with fair hair
and blue eyes; not the soft blue which usually denotes good-nature, but
a pale, slaty blue that has a hard and shallow look. He had a free and
easy way with him, that made people who met him for the first time think
he was cheerful and amiable. But if you observed him closely you would
see, in the midst of a boisterous laugh, that the cold, blue eyes were
keenly watching you, without a particle of mirth.

There was something never to be forgotten by those who discovered this
double expression in Draper's face. He had a habit of waving his arms in
a boisterous way, and bending his body, as if to emphasize the
heartiness of his laugh or the warmth of his greeting. But while these
visible expressions of jollity were in full play, if you caught the cold
and calculating look from the blue eyes that were weighing you up while
off your guard, you would shudder as if you had looked suddenly into the
eyes of a snake.

Draper knew, too, that his face could be read by keen eyes; and he tried
to mask even the habit of concealment, until, at last, his duplicity had
become extremely artful and hard to be discovered. But he always knew
the people who bad caught his eye and read his soul. He never tried his
boisterous manner on them again, but treated them gravely and quietly.
But these were the people be bated.

Seven years before, when he and Will Sheridan were schoolboys, Sheridan
not only saw through the falsehood of Draper's manner, but exposed it
before the whole school. Nearly every boy in the school had had some
reason to dislike Draper, but his loud, good-natured way had kept them
from speaking. But when Will Sheridan publicly pointed out the warm
laugh and the cold eye, the friendly word and the cruel act, everyone
saw it at a glance, and a public opinion against Draper was instantly
made among his schoolfellows, which no after effort of his could quite
remove.

From that day be nourished in his soul a secret desire to do Sheridan
some injury that would cut him to the quick.

Not that Draper had no friends--indeed, he was always making new
friends--and his new friends were always loud in his praise; but when
they ceased to be new, somehow they ceased to admire Sam Draper, and
either said they were mistaken in their first impression, or said
nothing.

Both young men were sailors. Some years ago the English merchant service
was almost as well ordered and as precise in discipline and promotion as
the Royal Navy, and young men of good position entered it as a
profession. On his last voyage Draper had become first mate; and Will
Sheridan had lately engaged to take his old place on the Canton as
second mate.

As Draper stepped from the shrubbery and hailed Will with a cheery word,
his hand was outstretched in a most cordial way, and his lips smiled;
but his eye was keen and smileless, and as cold as ice. He had known for
years of Will's affection for Alice Walmsley; and it was commonly said
in the village that Alice returned his love.

"Why don't you ask Alice to go skating this afternoon?" said Draper.

"I Have just asked her," said Will, "and she is going."

"Bravo!" said Draper, in a hearty tone, so far as the sound went; "I
thought she would like to be asked, when I told her, half an hour ago,
we were going."

Will Sheridan had some light word on his lip, but he did not speak it;
and his smile faded, though without apparent cause, while he looked at
Draper's pleasant face.

"She didn't say he had told her," he thought, and somehow the thought
troubled him. But he put it away and forgot all about it before the
afternoon.

The mill-pond was covered with skaters when Will and Alice arrived. They
had often skated together before, and because Alice was timid on the
ice, she used to hold Will's hand or take his arm; and now and then, and
as often as he could, Will's arm was around her, as he struck out
strongly and rapidly.

Unconsciously they had assumed settled relations towards each other--she
resting on him with confidence, and he quite assured of her trust.

To-day there was a disturbing element somewhere. Before they had been
ten minutes on the ice, Will noticed that Alice was, for the first time
in her life, listening inattentively to his words. And more than once he
saw her looking over his shoulder, as if seeking someone in the crowd of
skaters. After a while she evidently found whom she had sought, and her
face brightened. Will, at the moment, asked her some question, and she
did not hear him at first, but made him repeat the word.

With a strange sinking of the heart, he followed the direction of the
girl's eyes, and was just in time to see Sam Draper kiss his hand to
her--and Alice smiled.

Will Sheridan was a sensitive and proud young fellow, and his quick
feelings of honour were wounded by what he perhaps too hastily deemed
the deceit of Alice Walmsley. A change had certainly come in her
relation to him, but what right had he to charge her with deceit? He had
no claim on her--had never spoken a word of love to her in his life.

The evening had closed when he left her at her mother's gate. They said
"Good-night" in a new fashion--the words were as cold as the wind, and
the touch of the hands was brief and formal.

After that Will did not ask Alice to walk or skate with him. He called
no more at her mother's house as he used to do. He went to none of the
usual places of meeting with her. If he had gone, he should have been
all the more lonely; for he could not pretend to be pleasantly engaged
with others while his heart was full of pain and unrest. But he could
not help watching for her from his room window; and surely it were
better for his happiness had he overcome this too.

He saw that where he used to be, there every day was his rival. He heard
Draper's loud and happy voice and laughter--and he noticed that Alice was
happier and far more boisterous than ever he had known her--and that her
happiness and gaiety became even louder when she knew he was observing.

But at last came the time of the Canton's sailing. On the evening before
leaving, Will Sheridan went to Mrs. Walmsley's to say good-bye, and, as
Alice was not there, he remained talking with her mother, with whom he
had always been a favourite. After a while he heard the gate swing, and
saw Alice approaching the house, and Draper looking after her from the
gate.

When Alice entered, he was standing and bidding farewell to her mother,
who was weeping quietly.

Alice understood all, and the flush faded from her cheek.

"Good-bye, Alice," he said, holding out his hand. "You know I am going
away in the morning." He had walked towards the door as he spoke,
keeping her hand, and now they stood in the porch.

He saw the tears in her eyes, and his courage gave way, for he had only
a boy's heart to bear a man's grief; and he covered his face with his
hands and sobbed.

In a few minutes he was calm, and he bent over the weeping girl.
"Alice," he whispered, tenderly, and she raised her tear-stained face to
his breast. Poor Will, yearning to take her in his arms, remembering
what he had seen, only pressed her hands in his, and, stooping, kissed
her on the forehead again and again Then he walked, tear-blinded, down
the straight path to the gate.

A moment after, he felt a man's hand on his collar, and, turning, met
the hard eyes of Draper. Sheridan's face was still quivering with the
powerful emotion.

"What do you mean, Draper?" he demanded angrily, dashing the hand aside.

"I mean to let you know," said Draper, contemptuously, weighing the
words, "that I saw all your snivelling scene, and that I have seen all
your impertinent attentions to that girl."

Will Sheridan controlled himself by a violent effort, because the name
of Alice Walmsley was in question.

"That girl, as you impertinently call her," he said, calmly, "is one of
my oldest friends. My attentions have never been impertinent to her."

"You lie, you cur!" brutally answered Draper.

Though few words had been spoken, here was the culmination of an enmity
that was old and rankling. On both sides there had been repression of
feeling; but now the match had touched the powder, and the wrath flamed.

The word had barely passed the insulter's lips, when he reeled and
tumbled headlong from Sheridan's terrible blow. As soon as the blow was
delivered, Will turned, and walked towards his own home, never even
looking behind.

It was half a minute before Draper picked himself from the frozen earth,
still dazed with the shock. He showed no desire to follow, or continue
the quarrel. With teeth set like a vice, and a livid face, he looked
after the strong figure of Will, till he turned into his father's house.

Next day the young men left the village, and entered on their duty as
officers of the Canton, which lay in a Liverpool dock. No one knew of
their quarrel, as neither had spoken of it, and there had been no
witnesses.

The preparations for sea kept them apart for several days the vessel
sailed from Liverpool, and soon cleared the Channel. Two weeks later,
when the ship passed, on a beautiful night, within right of the Western
Islands, the young men came face to face on the poop. Will Sheridan had
come on deck to enjoy the delightful scene, not thinking that the first
mate was officer of the watch.

"Draper," said Will, in a friendly tone, holding out his hand when they
met, "I did not know you were engaged to Miss Walmsley. We should both
be sorry for what happened that night."

The eyes of Draper glittered like steel as he answered in a sneering
tone--

"And who told you, Sir, that I was engaged?"

"I judge so from your conduct," said Will.

"You are not a good judge, then," answered Draper.

"Then there's all the less reason for us to quarrel, man. Take back your
insulting words, and let me apologize for my violence."

"My insulting words--let me see, what were they? Ah, yes,"--he spoke
slowly, as if he meant to wound with the repetition--"I think I said that
I had been a witness to your snivelling scene of farewell--and that I was
acquainted with your unsought and impertinent attentions to that girl.
By the way, I may tell you that she herself made me acquainted with the
offensive persistence of her obtuse admirer."

"She told you?" said Will, staggered by the word. "She said my love was
offensive to her?"

"Ha! No--not love exactly," said the other, with the same biting sneer;
"I believe you never gave her a chance to fling that in your teeth."

"Take care, Draper!" said Sheridan.

"Well, let us go on with the insulting words, as you choose to call
them. I also said you were a liar, if I remember well and a cur--did I
not?"

"Why do you repeat the foul words, man?" asked Sheridan, indignantly.

"Why, because I used them after careful choosing and because they are
true! Stay!--" he added, raising his voice, and backing to the rail, as
he saw Sheridan approaching. "I am the first officer of this ship, and
if you dare to raise your hand against me, I will shoot you like a dog.
We'll have no mutiny here."

"Mutiny!" cried Sheridan, more astounded and puzzled than angry. "What
in heaven's name are you talking about? I want to be calm, Draper, for
old times' sake. You call me vile names, and threaten my life, and yet I
have given you no earthly cause. What do you mean?"

"I mean, that he who pretends to be my friend, while he ruins my
character, is a liar; and that he who tells a slander in secret is a
coward."

"Slander your character?" said Sheridan, "I never said an ill word of
you--though I have unwillingly become acquainted with some things that I
wish I had never known."

The latter part of the sentence was slowly added. Draper winced as if
cut with a whip.

"You have made a charge" continued Sheridan, sternly, "and you must
explain it. How have I slandered you?"

Draper hesitated. He hated the man before him, like a fiend; but he
hated still more the subject he had now to touch.

"You knew about that girl in Calcutta," he said, now fairly livid with
passion; "no one in England knew it but you."

"Yes," said Sheridan, slowly, "I learned something about it, against my
will."

"Against your will," sneered the other, "was it against your will you
told the story to--her?"

Draper never repeated Alice's name, as if it were unpleasant to his
tongue.

"I never mentioned your shameful affairs," answered Sheridan, with scorn
and indignation; "but you are justly punished to have thought so."

"You did tell her!" cried Draper, terribly excited; "you told her about
my marriage in Calcutta."

"Your marriage!" and Sheridan stepped back, as recoiling from a reptile.
Then, after a pause, as if speaking to a condemned culprit--

"Your infamy is deeper than I thought. I did not know till now that your
victim in Calcutta was also your wife."

With lightning rapidity Draper saw the dreadful confession his error had
led him into. He knew that Sheridan spoke the truth, and he hurriedly
attempted to close the grave he had exposed.

"She is dead," he said, searching Sheridan's face; "you should have
known that, too."

"Dead or alive, God have pity on her!" answered Sheridan whose face and
voice were filled with revulsion and contempt. "For her sake, I pray
that she may be dead; but I do not believe you. I shall see that those
be warned in time who are still in danger."

Sheridan deliberately turned on his heel and entered the cabin, while
Draper, confounded and dismayed at his self conviction, leant on the
rail looking out at sea, cursing his own stupidity that had betrayed
him.

"Who else could have known?" he muttered; "and who else could have told
her? But she doesn't wholly believe it and, when I swore it was false
that last evening, I think she believed me. I'll take care, at all
events, that he shall have no chance to unsay my word."

For hours the brooding rascal walked the poop deck, till the watch was
changed, when he went below, and tried to sleep.



COUNTERNINING THE MINER.

WILL SHERIDAN'S life on the Canton was a restless and unhappy one from
the night of his altercation with Draper. He was daily associated with a
man who had exposed his own villainy; a caitiff so vile, that he had
sought, and probably still intended, to blight the life of a girl he had
known from childhood.

The discipline of the ship required a certain courtesy and respect
towards the first officer. This formal recognition Will paid, but
nothing more.

A few days after this meeting Draper made an advance towards intimacy;
but this was repelled with such cold severity as showed him that he had
nothing to expect in future from Sheridan's forbearance.

"Do not dare to address me as a friend again," Will said, sternly; "I
shall write to England from the first port, and expose you as the
scoundrel you are."

Draper's dry lips--his lips were always dry--moved as if he were speaking,
but no words came. His shallow eyes became wells of hate. He passed by
Sheridan without reply, and went to his room.

There are a hundred ways in which the chief officer of a large ship can
grind his inferiors; and Sheridan every day felt the subtle malevolence
of his enemy. But these persecutions he did not heed. He knew that
underneath these symptoms lay a more dangerous rancour that, sooner or
later, would try to do him a deadly injury.

What the form of the attack might be, he knew not. But he prepared
himself for emergencies. Will Sheridan was not only a brave and
straightforward young fellow, but he had a clever head on his shoulders.

"Why should I let this cunning scoundrel injure me?" he asked himself.
"His villainy is easily seen through--and I'm going to watch him
closely."

He did watch him, and it served him well. Every secret and dangerous
move he saw and disarranged. A trumped-up plan of mutiny among the
men--which would have excused bloodshed, and the shooting of an officer,
perhaps, by accident--he nipped in the bud, and almost exposed the
machinations of him who hatched it.

Draper soon understood that he was playing with his master, and changed
his method. He began to wait for an opportunity instead of making one.

This will be the case almost invariably; when honest men axe fighting
cowards and slanderers, the surest way to defeat them is by constant
watchfulness. Evil-minded people are generally shallow, and easily
countermined. Only, when they axe countermined, they should be blown up,
and never spared.

The Canton touched at Singapore for orders, and was detained a week.
Will Sheridan resolved that on the night before she sailed he would
leave the ship. Draper seemed to divine his purpose, and watched him
like a tiger. But Will's constant attention to duty, and his equable
temper, deceived the watcher.

The night before the Canton was to sail, Will dropt a bundle into a
dingy under the bow, swung himself after it, and went ashore. A close
search was made for him next day by the police, headed by Draper, the
law in those ports being rigid against deserters. But he could not be
found, and the Canton sailed without her second officer.

The first thing Will Sheridan did when he knew he was out of danger was
to write to Mrs. Walmsley, warning her of Draper's marriage in India.
This done, he set about getting some sort of employment.

He was in a strange place, and he knew no business except that of the
sea. In a few days he shipped as mate on a barque bound found for West
Australia, in the sandalwood trade.

A large and lucrative trade in sandalwood is carried on between China,
India, and the penal colony. Vast districts in West Australia are
covered with this precious wood, which is cut by ticket-of-leave men,
and shipped to China and India, where it is used in the burning of
incense in the Josshouses or temples, and in the delicate cabinet and
marquetry work which is so plentiful in oriental countries.

This was a life that suited Sheridan's vigorous temperament. He found
his occupation pleasant, and would have quite forgotten the enmity of
Draper; but he still feared that his influence over Alice Walmsley had
not been broken.

He spent a year in the sandalwood trade, and was thinking of taking a
trip to England, when he received a package through the post-office at
Shanghai, containing all his letters, and a brief unfriendly message in
Alice Walmsley's handwriting, informing him that she was Captain
Draper's Wife, and that she scorned the cowardly nature that sought to
destroy an honourable man's good name by malicious falsehood.

Will Sheridan was dumbfounded and grieved to the heart. In all he had
previously borne, in his efforts to crush out of his heart a hopeless
passion almost as strong as his life, he had, he thought, sounded the
depths of his love for Alice Walmsley. But now, when he knew her utterly
beyond his reach, and saw opening before her a desert life of misery and
despair, the pity in his heart almost killed him. He would have given
his life then that his enemy might be an honourable man. Her letter did
not wound him, because he knew she had been deceived.

At first, he knew not what to do. He feared he had been hasty--he did not
actually know that Draper was a villain his own accusing word was not
enough, perhaps, or it might bear an explanation. Should he write to
Alice and take back his cruel charges? Or should he remain silent, and
let time unravel the trouble?

To do the first would be wrong--to do the second might be woefully
unjust. The true course was to find out the truth; to go to Calcutta and
learn for himself; and if he were wrong, to publicly make
acknowledgment. If he were right, he could remain silent if it were for
the best.

Two months afterwards, Will Sheridan returned from Calcutta to Shanghai.
He had found out the truth. He proceeded at once to West Australia to
join his ship, and from that time he wrote no more to England. One part
of his life, the sweet and tender part, without fault of his, had
suffered woefully, and had died before his eyes. It was shrouded in his
memory, and buried in his heart. Like a brave man, he would not sit and
mourn over the loss. He set his face to his duty, hoping and praying
that time would take the gnawing pain from his heart.



THE SANDALWOOD AGENCY.

ABOUT a year after his trip to Calcutta, while his ship lay in Shanghai,
Sheridan received an invitation to dinner from the chief owner, a
wealthy and acute old Scotchman, whose palatial residence and beautiful
grounds overlooked the town. He was surprised at the courtesy, and
showed the invitation to the captain, a kind old sailor, who had formed
an affection for Will from the first.

"Go, go, my lad," said Captain Mathews. "It's a piece of luck, no doubt.
I've heard that the old man has a daughter, or a niece, though I believe
she's rather tough; but what's that, when she has a shipload of money?
You're in luck, youngster; of course you'll go, and in your best rig,
too. I'll lend you my old claw-hammer coat."

"Thank you, Captain," said Will, smiling inwardly, as his eye took in
the short but portly dimensions of his old friend; "but I think I'll go
as a plain sailor, without any pretence at society dress."

"Well, I don't know but you're right, Sheridan," responded the captain;"
a sailor's jacket is fit for any man or any place, lad, when he who
wears it loves his profession, and is worthy of it."

That evening saw Will Sheridan enter Mr. MacKay's drawing-room, as
handsome and gentlemanly a fellow as ever gave an order through a
trumpet.

"Mr. Sheridan," said the kind old merchant, coming forward to meet him,
"you are welcome, for your own sake, and for that of a dear old friend.
You are not aware, I think, that your father and I were midshipmen
together forty years ago."

Will was surprised, but gratified. He had half expected to be
patronized, and indeed was more than half prepared to resent such
treatment. Mr. MacKay presented Will to his family--Mrs. MacKay, an
invalid, and his step-daughter, Miss Gifford, a handsome, buxom,
good-natured maiden lady of a certain age.

They were all very kind, and they treated Will as an old and privileged
friend. He forgot all about the patronage, and enjoyed himself
immensely. Such an evening of home life, after years of rugged
seafaring, was delightfully restful.

At dinner, Mr. MacKay recalled story after story of the time when he and
Will's father were careless youngsters on His Majesty's ship Cumberland.
Will was still more surprised to find that Mr. MacKay had recently been
in communication with his father.

"I saw your papers, Mr. Sheridan," explained Mr. MacKay; "and knowing
that my old friend was in the Coastguard Service in England, I wrote to
him. I found I was right in my conclusion; but I thought I would say
nothing about the matter for some time. You will pardon me when I tell
you that I have been observing you closely since you entered the service
of our Company."

This was the first reference to their relative positions which had been
made. Will did not know what to answer.

"You have seen a good deal of our sandalwood trade," said Mr. MacKay,
changing the subject; "what do you think of its prospects, Mr.
Sheridan?"

This was too extensive a question for Will, and he faltered in his
reply. He had, he said, only considered his own duties in the trade, and
they offered a limited scope for observation.

The old merchant, however, returned to the point.

"Captain Mathews tells me that you have expressed to him your
dissatisfaction at the management of our affairs in West Australia."

"No, Sir," answered Will, with a smile, "not with the management, but
with the mismanagement."

"Ah, just so," said Mr. MacKay, "we will talk more about this
by-and-by."

When the ladies had retired, Mr. MacKay again took up the subject.

"You think our affairs in Australia are mismanaged, then?"

"Well, Sir, it appears to me there is no system whatever on the other
side, so far as the Company's interests are concerned."

"How is that?" asked the keen business man opening his eyes. "Does not
our agent purchase and ship the sandalwood?"

"Yes, he certainly does, and that's all be does--and that's nothing,"
said blunt Will, "at least for the Company's benefit."

"Please explain," said Mr. MacKay, nervously.

"Well," said Will, in his earliest way when interested, "as you know,
the sandalwood is cut away in the bush, from sixty to a hundred miles
from the shipping station at Bunbury. It is cut by ticket-of-leave men.
From them it is bought by speculators, who team it to Bunbury; and from
these fellows, who manage to control the wood, your agent buys it at the
wharf, paying whatever price is asked."

"You would have him do more?" asked Mr. MacKay.

"I would change the whole plan, sir, if it were my concern. First, I
would lease all or as much as I could, of the sandalwood land direct
from the Government, then I would set my hired cutters to work and then
carry the wood in my own teams to the wharf. The original cost can be
decreased by at least fifty per cent. And, besides this, there are other
valuable substances, such as gum, tan-bark, and skins, that could be
carried and shipped at the same time."

The merchant listened attentively to the broad outline of Will's plans,
which he spoke about quite freely, as one outside the matter, but
familiar with it.

"Mr. Sheridan," said Mr. MacKay at length "our Company has decided to
change our agent in West Australia, and it gives me great pleasure to
offer you the position. I will see," he added, interrupting Will's
surprised exclamation, "that you shall have sufficient power at your
disposal to carry out your ideas with regard to the extension of the
trade."

Will hardly heard another word for the rest of the evening. His mind
scarcely took in the change--from the poor and unknown sailor, at one
step, to a man of large influence and position, for such would be the
Australian agent of so wealthy a Company.

When he returned to the ship his face flamed with excitement, as he
related the wonderful story to his old friend Captain Mathews, who
became even more excited than Will and declared many times over his
glass of "Old Tom," "that they were beginning to see things right at
last," and that "no man could do land business so well as him who was
trained at sea," and divers other sentences filled with wisdom drawn
from personal pride and marine philosophy.



THE TEAMSTERS' TAVERN.

"CURSE that fellow!" hissed Lame Scotty through his clenched teeth; "I
hate him." The word was emphasized by a blow on the rickety table that
made the glasses jump.

The scene was a public-house in the little mahogany town of Bunbury,
West Australia; the time, six months after Will Sheridan had assumed the
sandalwood agency. The speaker was a ticket-of-leave man, a wiry,
red-eyed fellow of middle age, whose face had the cunning ferocity of a
ferret. His auditors were a shaggy crowd of woodcutters and ex-convict
teamsters, the latter group sitting, with him at a long table.

"Don't talk so loud, Scotty," said a rough-looking man of immense
stature, with an axe strapped on his back, who leant smoking against the
fireplace; "don't shout so, my friend, or Agent Sheridan will hear it,
and kick you out of the team he gave you for charity."

"Kick me out!" retorted Scotty, with an oath; "he daren't touch me.
Curse his charity; he gave me a team for his own interest."

"Bah!" said the big woodcutter, without moving, "you were always a brag.
He gave work and wages to you and a lot of your ugly gang there, for
downright charity; and, like the hounds you always were, you have no
thanks in you."

Though the gang so broadly referred to were at the table with Scotty, no
one resented the woodcutter's epithet, though dark looks were flung at
him.

"This agent has ruined the sandalwood trade," said Scotty, addressing
himself to the aroused woodcutters. "Before he came here, a poor man
could earn a few pounds; but now we ain't any better than chain-gang
men."

A murmur of approval from the teamsters followed the remark, and Scotty
felt that he had struck a popular note. Even one or two of the
woodcutters at another table struck the board in approval.

"No, you ain't any better than chain-gang men, that's true," said the
brawny bearer of the axe, still quietly smoking; "it nor you never were.
There's where the whole boiling lot of you ought to be still. You talk
of ruining poor men," he continued, slightly shifting his position, so
as to face Scotty, "you darned fox! I know you-and these men know you,"
pointing to the group of woodcutters. "Before this new system came with
this new agent, you and your rats there had the whole trade in your
hands. You bought from the cutters at your own price, and you paid them
in rum. You cheated the woodcutters and swindled the dealers, till the
wonder was that some day you weren't found chopped to pieces for our
villainy."

"That's true as Gospel," said one of the woodcutters who had lately
applauded Scotty. "You're an infernal set of vampires, you are."

Scotty and his ill-looking crew realized that the woodcutter had got the
drop on them, dead sure."

A stamping and tramping in the outer room or store suggested new
arrivals, as the place was a kind of inn. All eyes were turned on the
door, where entered, one after another, about a dozen powerful fellows,
in the picturesque garb of stockriders, who noisily but good-humouredly
sat them down to the large central table, and called for something to
eat and drink.

The interrupted discussion was not resumed but a whispered and earnest
comment on the new-comers began among Scotty's gang.

"Where do you fellows hail from?" asked the big woodcutter, after
waiting a while, and in a friendly tone.

"From Dardanup," said one of the stockriders. The whispering between
Scotty and his friends ceased, the last word passed round being strongly
emphasized, "Dardanup Irish."

There was a colony of Irish settlers at Dardanup, free men, who had
emigrated there forty years before, when the Western colony was free
from the criminal taint. The families were all related to each other by
intermarriage; and the men of the whole settlement, who had been born
and reared in the bush, were famous throughout the colony for strength,
horsemanship, good-fellowship, and hard fighting qualities.

"From Dardanup-eh?" said the big woodcutter, with a mischievous smile at
Scotty's group. Then you be Agent Sheridan's new teamsters, maybe?"

"Ay, we're going to take those teams up to-morrow," said a strong
fellow; and then, to call the waiter, he hammered the table with his
enormous fist.

"Why," said the woodcutter, in his bland way, "it might be as you're the
Maguire boys from Dardanup?"

"Only eight Maguires in this crowd," said the table-hammerer, with a
pleasant look round the circle.

Scotty and one or two of his friends here gently left their seats, and
sauntered towards the door.

"Don't go," said the woodcutter pressingly; "don't be in a hurry,
Scotty, man; why, it isn't ten minutes ago since you wanted to chaw up
that d--d Sheridan and his teamsters."

Scotty scowled at the woodcutter. "A man can come and go as he pleases,
can't he?" he growled.

"O, ay; but don't leave the friends as you wanted to meet, just now.
Here, you Dardanup fellows, this is your ganger in the teams; this is
your 'boss,' as Yankee Sullivan says. This is the fellow that says Agent
Sheridan darsn't order him, and that the agent went down on his knees
and begged him to drive his black ox team."

"He'll never drive it again," said one of the Dardanup men.

"Why won't he?" demanded one of Scotty's friends.

"Because I'm going to drive that team," said the six-foot Australian,
wheeling his seat with an ominous velocity.

"Ho, ho! ha, ha!" roared the big woodcutter, enjoying the fallen crest
of the braggart; "but you can't have that team Maguire; Scotty will make
ribbons of you."

And the man with the axe heavily stamped on the floor in his boisterous
enjoyment of Scotty's discomfiture.

The Dardanup man rose and walked toward Scotty, who sank back with so
sudden a dismay that he stumbled and fell headlong, while a waiter,
entering with a tray of plates and glasses, tumbled across the prostrate
bully.

At this there was a loud laugh, and the six-footer from Dardanup sat
down again. Scotty, too, was wise enough to profit by the hilarity. He
picked himself up, laughing with the rest.

"Come," he cried in a jolly tone, but with a humiliated aspect, as if he
feared his offer would be refused, "let us have a drink and shake hands,
no matter who has the teams."

"Bravo!" cried the Dardanup men, who were just as ready to drink as to
fight.

The bottle was passed round, and every man drank with Scotty, except the
big woodcutter.

Scotty handed him the bottle and a glass, noticing that he had not
tasted.

"No, thank you," said the big man, with a shake of the head, "none of
that for me."

A few moments afterwards one of the Dardanup men held up his glass to
the big man of the axe. "Drink with me," he said.

"Ay, lad," said the woodcutter, "pass your bottle. I'll drink with you
all night."

Scotty pretended not to have noted nor heard; but as soon as he could he
escaped from the room with his associates. The Dardanup men ate a mighty
supper, and afterwards had a wild time, in which the woodcutter was a
partaker.

Powerful and hearty fellows, full of good-nature, but dangerous men to
rouse, these young Australians, and their strong blood was excited by
the new enterprise they had undertaken.

A combination had been made among the ticket-of-leave teamsters and
buyers against the new agent of the sandalwood trade, who had
revolutionized the old system. It had come to a serious pass with the
business, and Agent Sheridan, knowing that a weak front would invite
ruin, had resolved to test the opposition at once rather than wait for
its bursting.

He rode to Dardanup, and called a meeting of the stockriders, who,
though every one born in Australia and bred to the bush from infancy,
had a warm feeling for Sheridan, perhaps because of his Irish name. He
laid the case before them without hiding the danger.

The ticket-of-leave teamsters were resolved to destroy the Sandalwood
teams of the Company by rolling great rocks on them as they passed
through the Blackwood Gorge.

The Blackwood Gorge was the narrow bed of a stream that wound among the
Iron-stone Hills. In the rainy season it was filled with a violent
flood; but for six months of the year its bed was quite dry, and was
used as a road to reach the sandalwood districts. For more than thirty
miles the patient oxen followed this rugged bridle path; and for the
whole distance the way zigzagged between the feet of precipices and
steep mountains.

It would be an easy matter to block up or destroy a slow moving train in
such a gully. And that the discharged ticket-of-leave teamsters had
determined on this desperate revenge, the fullest proof was in the hands
of Agent Sheridan.

He had considered the matter well, and he was resolved on a plan of
action. He told the Dardanup bushmen that he wanted twenty-four men,
twelve to act as teamsters and twelve as a reserve. In a few minutes he
had booked the names and settled the conditions with two dozen of the
strongest and boldest men in West Australia.

The meeting in the tavern was the first intimation the ticket-of-leave
men had that their plan had been discovered.

Next morning the teams passed peacefully through the little town, while
the discomfited Scotty and his friends looked on from their
skulking-places, and never stirred a finger.

That evening, in the tavern, Scotty and his men were moodily drinking,
and at another table sat half-a-dozen Dardanup stockriders. The
woodcutter with the axe was smoking, as he lounged against the
fireplace.

Why didn't you Dardanup boys go alone, with the others? he asked the
stockriders.

Scotty and his ill-looking group turned their heads to hear the reply.

"We staid behind to watch the wind!" answered one, with a laugh.

"To watch the wind?" queried the big woodcutter.

"Ay," said the Dardanup man, very slowly, and looking squarely at the
ticket-of-leave teamsters; "if the wind blows a stone as big as a
turtle's egg down the Blackwood Gorge to-morrow, we'll put a swinging
ornament on every one of those twenty gum trees on the square. The rope
is ready, and someone ought to pray for fine weather. Just one stone,"
continued the giant, who had risen to light his pipe; and as he passed
he laid a heavy hand on Scotty's shoulder, as if by chance; "just one
stone, as big as a turtle's egg, and we begin to reeve that rope."

"Ha, ha! ho, ho!" roared the woodcutter, and the shanty shook with his
tremendous merriment. When his derision had exhausted itself, he sat
with the Dardanup men, and drank and sang in great hilarity over the
routing of Scotty's gang.

From that day, the new agent of the sandalwood trade was treated with
marked respect by all classes in West Australia.



IN SEARCH OF HIS SORROW.

NINE years crowded with successful enterprise had made Will Sheridan a
strong man in worldly wisdom and wealth. His healthy influence had been
felt and acknowledged all over the West Australian colony. His direct
attack on all obstacles never failed, whether the barriers were
mountains or men.

He had raised the sandalwood trade into cosmopolitan commerce. In nine
years he had made a national industry for the country in which he lived;
had grown rich himself, without selfishly seeking it; and, in
proportion, had made millionaires of the company that employed him.

When men of large intelligence, foresight, and boldness break into new
fields, they may gather gold by the handful. So it was with this
energetic worker. His practical mind turned everything into account, He
inquired from the natives how they cured the beautiful soft kangaroo
skins they wore as bokas, and learned that the red gum, tons of which
could be gathered in a day, was the most powerful tan in the world.

He at once shipped twenty tons of it to Liverpool as an experiment. The
next year he transported two hundred thousand pounds' worth; and, five
years from that time, Australian red gum was an article of universal
trade.

He saw a felled boolah-tree change in the rainy season into a
transparent substance like gum arabic; and, three years afterwards, West
Australia supplied nearly all the white gum in the markets of
civilization.

One might conclude that the man who could set his mind so persistently
at work in this energetic fashion must be thoroughly engaged, and that
his rapid success must have brought with it a rare and solid
satisfaction. Was it so with Agent Sheridan?

Darkest of all mysteries, O secret heart of man, that even to its owner
is unfathomed and occult! Here worked a brave man from year to year,
smiled on by men and women, transmuting all things to gold; vigorous,
keen, worldly, and gradually, becoming philosophic through large
estimation of values in men and things; yet beneath this toiling and
practical mind of the present was a heart that never for one day,
through all these years, ceased bleeding and grieving for a dead joy of
the past.

This was the bitter truth. When riding through the lonely and beautiful
bush, where everything was rich in colour, and all nature was supremely
peaceful, the sleepless underlying grief would seize on this strong
man's heart and gnaw it till he moaned aloud and waved his arms, as if
to put physically sway--from him the felon thought that gripped so
cruelly.

While working, there was no time to heed the pain--no opening for the
bitter thought to take shape. But it was there: always--it was alive
under the ice--moving in restless throbs and memories. It stirred at
strange faces, and sometimes it beat wofully at a familiar sound.

No wonder that the man who carried such a heart should, sooner or later,
show sign of the hidden sorrow in his face. It was so with Will
Sheridan. His worldly work and fortune belonged only to the nine years
of his Australian life; but he knew that the life lying beyond was that
which gave him happiness or misery.

He became a grave man before his time; and one deep line in his face,
that to most people would have denoted his energy and intensity of will,
was truly graven by the unceasing presence of his sorrow.

He had loved Alice Walmsley with that one love which thorough natures
only know. It had grown into his young life as firmly as an organic part
of his being. When it was torn from him, there was left a gaping and
bleeding wound. And time bad brought him no cure.

In the early days of his Australian career he had received the news of
his death. His mother and sister had been well provided for. They
implored him to come home but he could not bear to hear of the one being
whose memory filled his existence; and so he never wrote to his people.
Their letters ceased; and in nearly nine years he had never heard a word
from home.

But now, when his present life was to outward appearance all sunshine,
and when his future path lay through pleasant ways, the bitter thought
in his heart rankled with unutterable suffering. Neither work nor
excitement allayed the pang. He shrank from solitude, and he was
solitary in crowds. He feared to give rein to grief; yet alone, in the
moonlit bush, he often raised his face and hands to heaven, and cried
aloud in his grievous pain.

At last the thought came that he must look his misery in the face--that
he must put an end to all uncertainty. Answering the unceasing yearning
in his breast, he came to a decision.

"I must go home," he said aloud one day, when riding alone in the
forest, "I must go home--if only for one day."



THE DOOR OF THE CELL.

IT was winter again. A sunburnt, foreign-looking man stood on the poop
deck of a steamer ploughing with decreased speed past the docks in the
long line of Liverpool shipping. The man was young, but, with deep marks
of care and experience on his face, looked nearly ten years older than
he really was. From the face, it was hard to know what was passing in
the heart; but that no common emotion was there might be guessed by the
rapid stride and the impatient glance from the steamer's progress to the
shore.

It was Will Sheridan; but not the determined, thoughtful Agent Sheridan
of the Australian sandalwood trade. There was no quietness in his soul
now; there was no power of thought in his brain; there was nothing there
but a burning fever of longing to put his foot on shore, and then to
turn his face to the one spot that had such power to draw him from the
other side of the world.

As soon as the steamer was moored, heedless of the Babel of voices
around him, the stranger passed through the crowd, and entered the
streets of Liverpool. But he did not know the joy of an exile returning
after a weary absence. He did not feel that he was once more near to
those who loved him. It was rather to him as if he neared their graves.

The great city in which be walked was as