Part 12 (2/2)
NIGHTFALL.
Far away to the west the fiery globe of the setting sun dropped lazily down to rest behind the quaint goblin peaks of the Grampians. Its last lingering rays touched their summits with a crimson glow, flooded the valleys with garish light, and even penetrated into the recesses of the nearby woodlands until the whole place seemed to blaze as with the red fire of h.e.l.l. It was not a peaceful sunset; it did not even hold the promise of peace. It was alive and active, in the sense that light can live, and one could but feel that its potency was malignant and a.s.sured.
There were clouds aplenty in the sky, light clouds looking as if they had been trailed through red ink, but there was nothing about them to suggest that a storm was brewing, or that even the slightest change in the weather could be expected. Nevertheless the air contained a hint of evil, so much so that an imaginative person would have peopled the hills with gnomes and the woods with devils. Even had fairies existed in the glades, one would have instinctively known them to be bad fairies. Yet one could not say offhand whence or from whom the evil that was to be, would originate; all earth and sky seemed somehow to be in the dread conspiracy.
The lurid hues of the sunset flared and faded into the drabber colors of twilight, the shadows swept down in phalanxes from the hills, and the still lifeless trees, stirring in the evening breeze, became black mocking shapes of infamy. The yellow disc of a moon, climbing up over the woods, took on the semblance of the leering face of a drunken man.
The two men who presently came riding along through the tangled fastnesses of what a couple of score years or more ago were the untenanted and, to a great extent, the unexplored depths of a Victorian forest, were very evidently unaffected by the grim fancies of the evening. They were not laughing certainly, and when they spoke it was in whispers, but the younger man hummed a music-hall tune under his breath.
There was something rakish, not to say reckless, in the way the elder sat his mount. They went carefully, though, taking every possible precaution against making needless noise. Once the horse of the elder man stumbled and set a stone rolling down a declivity. Both men reined in instantly and listened until the echoes died away in the distance.
”You're as nervous as a rabbit, Jack,” the younger man remarked when presently they resumed their journey. ”Every little sound seems to startle you.”
”There's no sense in taking chances, man,” said the one called Jack.
”If it comes to that there's no chances to take.”
”Only that of being caught and hanged, Abel.”
”There's not much hope of that,” Abel c.u.mshaw replied. ”Gentry like ourselves are rather out of fas.h.i.+on now since they've squashed the Kellys. The country's quietened down a lot, and a 'ranger's supposed to be a thing of the past. As it is, there's never been bushrangers in this part of the State, and what hasn't been is the least likely to happen in most people's estimation.”
”I'm with you there, Abel,” Jack said. ”But even that's no reason why we shouldn't go carefully. You must remember that we don't know this part of the State too well. That's the beauty of it, I suppose. n.o.body knows it very much.”
”It'll make pursuit difficult,” the other suggested. ”But what I can't understand is why the banks should send so much gold across country when there's the railway.”
”The railway, friend c.u.mshaw, isn't the safest route. There's just as clever men working that as used to be working the stages. Moreover, this cross-country route's much the quicker way of the two.”
”For which we may thank the Lord,” said Abel c.u.mshaw, with cheerful impiety.
”Time enough to thank the Lord,” the other retorted, ”when we've finished the job successfully. All the same, I wish we had a pack horse.”
”If we had brought a pack-horse,” said c.u.mshaw, ”we'd have had half the country-side wondering what the deuce was up. Like as not they'd think there was a new gold-strike on.”
”And they wouldn't have been wrong in that,” the other answered with grim humor. ”But let's get to the business of the evening, Abel. I've got a good idea to put the pursuers off the scent, that is, if there's any pursuit.”
”Out with it, then,” said c.u.mshaw.
The elder man reined in his horse, and, leaning over, whispered in his companion's ear. As the tale proceeded a cheerful grin spread over c.u.mshaw's face.
”That'll do fine,” he said gleefully. ”You almost make me wish they do pursue us just for the fun of seeing them fall in.”
”There's nothing to be gained by being foolhardy,” the elder man warned him. ”Now we can't afford to waste time. Let us get to work at once.”
Without more ado he led the way down through the tangle of forest and across the open glades until they reached the narrow track that wound like a monstrous brown ribbon through the enormous gums. At the edge of the road they both dismounted and tethered their horses to convenient trees. Then, stepping very gingerly, and taking extreme care not to leave any footprints on the dusty surface of the track, they groped about on the roadside. Presently they both returned to the horses, each of them carrying an armful of heavy stones which they loaded carefully into the enormous saddle-bags that dangled one on each side of the saddle-flaps.
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