Tom Gerrard

CHAPTER XXX

“What a lovely spot!” thought Gerrard, as he caught sight of the Rocky Waterholes, whose calm, placid surfaces were gleaming like burnished silver under the rays of the sinking sun.

It was indeed a beautiful scene, for the five pools were surrounded by noble Leichhardt and wattle trees, the latter all in the full glory of their golden flowers, the sweet perfume of which scented the air for miles around. Close in to the bank of the largest pool were a number of teal feeding on the green weed, and chasing each other over the shining water. As they caught sight of the intruders, they rose with a whir and disappeared, followed a few seconds later by a pair of snow-white cranes, which, however, merely flew noiselessly upward, and settled on the branches of a Leichhardt.

The day had been intensely hot, and now, as the sun sank, there was presage of a thunderstorm, and Gerrard and Tommy quickly unsaddled, hobbled, and turned out the horses to feed upon the thick buffalo grass that grew in profusion around the bases of the vine-clad rocks which overlooked the pools. Then they hurriedly collected some dead wood for their camp fire, and threw it, together with their saddles, blankets, etc., under an overhanging ledge which would afford them complete shelter from the coming downpour.

A fire was soon lit, and whilst Tommy attended to making the tea, his master unrolled his own blanket and spread it out; then, from mere force of habit, he took his revolver from his saddle and strapped it to his belt, placed his Winchester and Tommy’s Snider against the side of the rock, where they would be within easy reach, and then told the black boy that he was going to have a bathe before supper.

“No, no, boss!” cried Tommy, energetically, “baal you bogey longa that waterhole. Plenty fellow blue water snake sit down there—plenty. One bite you little bit, you go bung quick. Plenty fellow myall go bung longa baigan.”9

Gerrard could not repress a shudder. He had often seen the dreaded “baigan”—a bright blue snake which frequented waterholes and lagoons, and whose venom equalled that of the deadly fer-de-lance of Martinique and St Vincent. Years before he had seen a cattle dog swimming in a lagoon attacked by a “baigan,” which bit it on the lip, and, although a stockman, as soon as the animal was out of the water, cut out a circular piece of the lip, it died in a few minutes.

“Very well, Tommy. I’ll wait till after supper and have a bogey in the rain.”

As he spoke, the low rumble of thunder sounded, and deepened and deepened until it culminated in a mighty clap that seemed to shake the foundations of the earth, then followed peal after peal, and soon the rain descended in torrents, beating the waters of the pools into froth, and making a noise as of surf surging upon a pebbly beach.

For twenty minutes the downpour held; then it ceased suddenly, and, like magic, a few stars appeared. The fire was now blazing merrily in the cave. Tommy had made the two quart pots of tea, and Gerrard was taking the beef and damper out of his saddle-bag when the black boy started.

“What is it, Tommy?”

“Horse neigh!”

Gerrard listened. The boy was right, for he, too, heard a second neigh, and their own horses, which they could see standing quietly under a big Leichhardt tree, undisturbed by the storm, pricked up their ears and raised their heads.

“Quick, take your rifle, Tommy!” and Gerrard seized his own, then taking up the two quart pots of tea, he threw the contents over the fire, and partly extinguished it—not a moment too soon, for almost at the same moment a volley rang out, and he knew he was hit; and Tommy also cried out that he was shot in the face. Seizing him by the hand, Gerrard dragged him outside, stooping low, and bullet after bullet struck the wall of the cave. As he and the black boy threw themselves flat on the ground a few yards away, they both saw the flashes of rifles less than a hundred yards distant, and knew by the sound of and the rapidity of the firing that their unseen foes were using Winchesters.

“Keep still, Tommy, don’t fire. Wait, wait!” said Gerrard in an excited whisper. “Let them go on firing into the cave. Can you make out where they are?”

Pressing his hand to his cheek, which had been cut open by a bullet, the black boy watched the flashes.

“Yes, boss, I see him—four fellow altogether. You look longa top flat rock, they all lie down close together.”

But keen as was his sight, Gerrard could see nothing but the flat moss and vine-covered summit of a huge granite boulder, from which the flashes came. Presently a bullet struck a piece of wood on the still smouldering fire, and scattered the glowing coals, then the firing ceased, and they heard voices.

“Keep quiet, Tommy. Don’t move, for God’s sake, or they’ll see us. They are reloading. They think they have killed us. Is your Snider all right?”

“Yes, boss,” was the whispered and eager reply, “rible and rewolber too.”

“Are you much hurt, Tommy?”

“Only longa face, boss.”

“And I’m hit too, Tommy, but not much hurt.” A bullet had ploughed through the lower part of his thigh, and as he spoke he tore two strips from his handkerchief, and bidding Tommy watch their hidden foes, cut open his moleskin pants, and hurriedly plugged the holes. As he was doing this, the firing again began, and they could hear the bullets spattering against the granite rock, or striking the saddles. After about thirty shots had been fired it again ceased.

“Be ready, Tommy,” whispered Gerrard; “they’ll be here presently. Don’t fire till they are quite close, then drop rifle and take pistol.”

“All right, boss. Look, look! You see one fellow now stand up—there ‘nother, ‘nother—four fellow.”

The increasing starlight just enabled Gerrard to catch a brief glimpse of four figures moving about on the top of the boulder, then they disappeared, and he clutched his Winchester.

Five anxious minutes passed, and then one by one the four forms appeared coming round from the other side of the boulder. For a few moments they halted, then came boldly out of the shadows into the starlight, and then a deadly rage leapt into Gerrard’s heart as he recognised two of them. First the man whom Kate’s father had handled so roughly on board the Gambier, and then the tall, imposing figure of Forreste.

“Can you see their horses anywhere?” said the man who was in advance of his three companions, and they again stopped and looked about them.

“Oh, they are all right,” said a second voice; “well find ‘em easy enough in the morning. They’re both hobbled, and won’t be far away. Now come on, Pinky, and show us your nigger with the top of his head off. You’re a great gasser, I know. Strike a match, Barney, and I’ll get a bit of dry ti-tree bark to give us a light.”

Gerrard pressed Tommy’s arm. “Wait, Tommy, wait. Let them get a light. All the better for us. Listen!”

“I suppose they are properly done for, Cheyne?” said Forreste, who had a revolver in his hand.

“Oh, put your flaming pistol back into its pouch, you funky owl,” snarled Barney Green, “they both dropped at the first time, as I told you. Gerrard fell on to the fire, and you’ll find him cooking there, and that both of ‘em are as full of holes as a cullender. We’ve wasted a hundred cartridges for nothing, but I daresay we’ll get some more. He had a forty-four Winchester, and the nigger a Snider.”

A match was struck, and the two motionless watchers saw Cheyne go to a ti-tree, which grew on the edge of the large pool, tear off the outer thin and wet bark, and then make a torch of the dry part, which lit easily. Pinkerton waved it to and fro for a few moments, and then held it up. It burst into flame.

“Now, Tommy, quick! Take the big man,” and as Gerrard spoke he covered Green.

The two rifles rang out, and Forreste and the Jew fell. Pinkerton dropped the torch and tried to draw his revolver, but a second shot from Gerrard broke his leg, and he too dropped. Cheyne sprang off towards the pool, leapt in, and swam across to where their horses were hidden. Tommy, with all the lust of slaughter upon him, tomahawk in hand, ran round the pool to intercept him on the other side.

“Let him go, Tommy, let him go!” shouted Gerrard, who was now feeling faint from loss of blood. “Come back, come back!” and as he spoke, Pinkerton, who could see him, began firing at him.

The black boy obeyed just as Gerrard sank back upon the ground. The still blazing torch, however, revealed his prone figure to the American, who, rising upon one knee, reloaded his revolver. Then Tommy leapt at him, raised his tomahawk, and clove his head in twain.

“Did he hit you, boss?” he cried, as, still holding the ensanguined weapon in his hand, he darted to his master.

“No, Tommy, I’m all right, but bingie mine feel sick.10 Get water for me, Tommy.”

The black boy ran down to the waterhole, filled his cabbage-tree hat with water, and Gerrard drank.

“Go and see if those two men are dead, Tommy, If they are not, take their pistols away. Then make a big fire, and I will come and look at them.”

“All right, boss, but by and by.” He raised and assisted Gerrard into the cave, laid him down upon his blanket, and placed his head upon one of the bullet-riddled saddles, re-lit the extinguished fire, took off his shirt, tore off the back, and bandaged his master’s thigh with it.

“You like smoke now, boss?” “Yes, fill my pipe before you go.” Five minutes later Tommy returned. “All three fellow dead,” he observed placidly, as he stooped down to the fire and lit his own pipe with a burning coal. “Big man me shoot got him bullet through chest; little man with black beard and nose like cockatoo you shoot, got him bullet through chest too, close up longa troat.”

Then he asked if he might go after the two horses, which, hobbled as they were, had gone off at the first sound of the firing, and were perhaps many miles away.

“All right, Tommy. We must not let them get too far away.”

The black boy grunted an assent, made the fire blaze up, and taking up his own and Gerrard’s bridles, disappeared.

In less than half an hour he returned, riding one horse and leading the other, and found that Gerrard had risen and was looking at the bodies of the three men, which lay stark and stiff under the now bright starlight. Tommy’s face wore an expression of supreme satisfaction as he jumped off his horse.

“Other fellow man bung11 too,” he said in a complacent tone.

“Did you shoot him?” cried Gerrard, aghast at more bloodshed.

“Baal me shoot him, boss. I find him longa place where all four fellow been camp in little gully. He been try to put saddle on horse, but fall down and die—boigan been bite him I think it, when he swim across waterhole.”

“Come and show me,” said Gerrard, and, suffering as he was, he mounted his horse, and followed Tommy. In a few minutes they came to the place where Forreste and his gang had hidden their horses, all of which were tethered.

Lying doubled up on the ground beside a saddle, was the body of Cheyne. He had succeeded in putting the bridle on his horse, and then had evidently fallen ere he could place the saddle on the animal.

Gerrard struck a match, and held it to the dead man’s face; it was purple, and hideous to look upon.

“Boigan,” said Tommy placidly, as he re-lit his pipe.

CHAPTER XXXI

Three days passed before Gerrard and the black boy were able to leave the Rocky Waterholes. The bodies of their treacherous assailants they interred in the soft, sandy soil at the foot of one of the granite pillars, and then Gerrard took their valises containing their gold, together with their arms and saddle pouches, and rolled them in a blanket, which he strapped on one of the gang’s horses, which was to serve as a pack. He intended to hand everything over to the Gold Commissioner, whom he expected to see at Ochos Rios in a few weeks, and who having judicial powers, would, he expected, hold the official inquiry into the deaths ‘of the men at the station itself.

Tommy made but little of his wound, and only grinned when Gerrard said he was lucky not to have had his jaw smashed by the bullet. He doctored it in the usual aboriginal manner: first powdering it with wood ashes, and then plastering the whole side of his face with wattle gum.

“My word, Tommy,” observed his master gravely, “you got him handsome fellow face now—all the same as me. Plenty fellow lubra want catch you now for benjamin.”12

Gerrard’s own wound, although painful, did not prevent him from either walking or riding. The soft wattle gum was a splendid styptic, and two whole days and nights of complete rest did much to accelerate his recovery; and game being plentiful at and about the waterholes, he and Tommy made themselves as contented as possible, for there was still a clear week before the pearling lugger was due at the mouth of the Coen. He had changed his mind about letting Tommy go back alone along the beach, and decided to take him with him in the vessel. The boy’s bravery had impressed him greatly, and although he knew his resourcefulness and abilities as a bushman, he thought it would not be fair—for the sake of two horses—to let him run the risk of being cut off by the coastal blacks, while on his way to the station. As for the horses, they would find their way home safely in all likelihood, unless they came across poison bush. The blacks did not often succeed in spearing loose horses, the slower-moving cattle being their favoured victims.

They left the Rocky Waterholes as the strength of the afternoon sun began to wane, and headed due west As they rode round the side of the largest pool, the three horses of the dead men, which were camped under the shade of the Leichhardt trees, brushing the flies off each other’s noses with their long tails, raised their heads inquiringly as if to say. “Are you going to leave us here?” and then sedately trotted after them.

Gerrard turned in his saddle. “Let them follow us, if they like, Tommy. They will be company for ‘Dutchman’ and ‘Waterboy.’ I think they’ll all turn up at the station by and by.”

The unexplored country from the Waterholes to the coast was very pleasant to see in all its diversified beauties: deep water-worn gullies whose sides were clothed with wild fig, wattle, and cabbage palms, opening out into fair forest country, well timbered with huge acacias and a species of white cedar, whose pale blue flowers filled the air with their delicious perfume. Bird life was plentiful, the chattering of long-tailed pheasants and the call of many kinds of parrots resounding everywhere, and filling the tree-clad gullies with melodious, reverberating echoes.

Night came on swiftly, but a night of myriad stars in a sky of cloudless blue; and then, fifteen miles from the Rocky Waterholes, they came to a wide but shallow creek, whose banks were well grassed, and which offered a tempting resting-place. Here and there were clumps, or rather groves, of graceful pandanus palms, with long pendant leaves, rustling faintly to the cool night breeze.

“We’ll camp here till daylight, Tommy. I’m feeling a bit stiff.”

As Tommy unsaddled and hobbled out the horses, Gerrard lit a fire, made the two quart pots of tea, and he and the native had their supper. Then, although they had seen no signs of blacks since they had left Hansen’s, they took unusual precautions to prevent being surprised, for Gerrard especially was not in a fit condition for much exertion. Letting the horses graze where they listed, they put out the fire, and carried their saddles, blankets, arms, etc., out to a sandbank in the middle of the creek, and made themselves comfortable for the night on the soft, warm sand—too far away from either bank to fear any danger from a shower of spears.

The night wore all too quickly away for Gerrard, for as he lay on his blanket, gazing upward to the star-studded heavens, he forgot the pain of his wounds in his thoughts of Kate, and he sighed contentedly. In two weeks or so he would be by her side at Ocho Rios.

There had never been what some people call “courtship” between Kate and Gerrard. When she came to the station on her promised visit, her father had come with her. He stayed a few days at Ocho Rios, and then set out on his return to Black Bluff Creek, accompanied by Gerrard, who was going part of the way with him. They had ridden for a mile or two from the station, chatting on various matters, when Gerrard suddenly drew rein.

“Mr Fraser!”

The old man looked up, wondering at the “Mr.”

“What is it, Gerrard?”

“I am going to ask your daughter to marry me.”

Fraser could not help a smile. “There’s no beating about the bush with you, Tom Gerrard.” Then he put out his hand, and said with grave kindness: “You are the one man whom I should like to see her marry.”

“Thank you,” and the younger man’s face flushed with pleasure.

Then Fraser, like the tactful man he was, said not a word more on the matter.

“Look here, Gerrard, what is the use of your coming any further with me when you have so much to do? Get back, my son—and I wish you luck. Give Kate my love, and tell her I said so,” and then shaking hands with his friend, he struck into a smart canter.

Gerrard rode slowly home. Kate, Jim, and Mary were engaged in making a seine in the cool back verandah. Kate looked up with a smile, surprised and pleased to see him back so soon.

“Will you come with me and shoot some guinea-fowl, Miss Fraser?” Then he hurriedly turned to Jim: “You need not come, Jim. Go on with the seine.”

An hour later they returned—without any guinea-fowl. Gerrard was in high spirits. He slapped Jim on the back.

“Let the seine rip, Jim, and get your gun, and we’ll try and get some pheasants. We couldn’t see a blessed guinea-fowl anywhere; could we, Kate?”

“No, Tom, we could not; they are horribly scarce to-day, Jim,” she replied demurely, as she fled to her room.

After a quiet, restful night, Gerrard and Tommy made an early start, driving the pack-horse in front of them, and followed by the three spare horses. All that day they travelled slowly, and at sunset reached the mouth of the alligator-haunted Coen, where, to Gerrard’s delight, they saw a smart, white-painted lugger lying at anchor. In answer to their loud coo-e-e! a boat manned by two Malays, put off, and the master jumped ashore.

“How are you, Mr Gerrard? You see I’m three days sooner than I said, but we got a rattling north-westerly as soon as we rounded Cape York. But what is wrong with your face, Mr Gerrard?” he added sympathetically; “and you’re lame too, I see. Niggers, I suppose?”

“No, we haven’t even seen a nigger, Captain Lowry. But I’ll tell you the whole yarn by and by, after we get aboard. Got any arnica?”

“Plenty, and whips of plaster too. I’ll soon fix you up, ship-shape and Bristol fashion.”

“Thank you, captain,” said Gerrard, as he and Tommy began to unsaddle the horses; “I’ll be glad if you will. I don’t want to get back to the station until I look a little bit less patchy. And so if you are agreeable, I’ll be glad if we go on a bit of a cruise along the coast for about ten days or so.”

“I’m agreeable—more days, more dollars. But it will cost you another fifty pounds or so above the charter money.”

“Well, I shall spend it for the benefit of my complexion, Lowry. Now, hurry up with our traps, Tommy, I’m going to eat a supper that will astonish you, Lowry.”

As soon as he reached the vessel he went below, and wrote letters to his sister and Kate, enclosed them in an old piece of an oilskin coat given him by Lowry, then called Tommy, and told him to go on shore again, and secure it to Waterboy’s mane. His object was to allay any fears about him if the two station horses got to Ocho Rios before the lugger. The yellow packet would be sure to be noticed, and opened. He had carefully avoided any mention of his encounter with Aulain, and had also cautioned Tommy on the subject: he did not want his sister and Kate to know anything of the matter, from himself at least. He had decided upon a pardonable fiction—he would tell them that he had been thrown from his horse, and received a rather bad cut; of his bullet wound and the tragedy at the Rocky Waterholes he made no allusion.

“It’s no use worrying them over nothing,” he said to Lowry, when he had told the seaman the story of the attack by Forreste and his gang. “In a week or so I’ll be as fit as you are. But you’ll have to back me up in what I have written about you being afraid that we are in for a week or two of calm; they won’t forgive me in a hurry if they ascertain that instead of being becalmed, the Fanny Sabina was cruising merrily about the Gulf of Carpentaria.”

Lowry gave his promise, and then he and his passenger had supper on deck under the awning which covered the smart little vessel’s deck from bow to stern.

At dawn next morning, Gerrard, after a delightfully refreshing sleep, was awakened by the captain.

“Rouse up, Mr Gerrard. We’re underway, and I want to know the programme.”

“How far to Cape Keerweer?”

“Four days’ sail in such light weather as this.”

“That will suit me. I’ll be able to begin to enjoy myself by then, and I want to see those big lagoons near the Cape. Tommy says that they are alive with game, and you and I can put in a day or two there.”

“Just the thing. I’ve a couple of good guns on board,” then he turned to the man at the tiller.