Part 19 (1/2)
The first man repeated his question in another form.
Bradby looked at him with a strangely inscrutable face and with eyes that were already darkening with the shadow of death.
”Where's the gold? Where's ... my ... mates?” The last three words were almost whispered.
”Yes,” said the trooper eagerly. ”Where are they?”
The dying man moved his lips, but no sound issued from them. The other bent down closer to him.
”That,” said the bushranger with long and painful pauses between each word, ”you ... will ... never ... know.”
And with that last taunt on his lips he died.
”Game to the end,” the trooper said to his comrades with an admiration he made no effort to hide.
The blow had not killed Abel c.u.mshaw. He lay unconscious for the better part of the night, and even when the day dawned he was too weak at first to do more than crawl a few paces at the most. His head was throbbing, his mouth was a raging furnace, and all his limbs felt as if they had been racked and twisted. When daylight came at length he lay still for a while, trying to recollect what had happened. But his mind was a perfect blank and he himself was a man without an ident.i.ty. The blow that had knocked him unconscious had somehow affected his memory, and he knew no more about himself than he did about the man in the moon. Something terrible had happened, something in which he had played a very prominent part, that much he realised; but beyond that simple fact his recollection did not extend. He groped about in the gra.s.s in the hope that he might find something that would give him a clue to the situation. His hand fell on his revolver. That at least was tangible, but there was nothing enlightening about it. Further search revealed a small flat piece of wood. He picked it up curiously and stared at it.
Two or three sentences had been hurriedly scratched on its smooth surface with the point of a sharp knife, but though they were intelligible enough they did not appear to refer to anything concerning him. The mere fact that he had been lying almost on top of the wood struck him as strange, and in a moment of unusual thoughtfulness he slipped it into his pocket.
It was bright day by then, and the warmth of the sun seemed to revive him to a marvellous extent. He got on his feet more by sheer will-power than by any sudden accession of strength. He found that he could stagger along, though his pace was necessarily slow and his course very erratic.
Some uncharted sense, instinct perhaps, led him along the track to the creek where he had pitched his camp the previous evening. There was a dim familiarity about the place that puzzled him. He felt in some absurd way that he should recognise it, and he was both angry and surprised that he could not. He found the remains of the parrot that Bradby had eaten for breakfast, and he wondered vaguely who the man might be who had been so close to him that morning. His wonder was such an impersonal thing that he did not connect his own condition with the fact of the other man's presence. Something had given way inside his head, that something that controlled rational and consecutive memory. He sat down on the bank of the creek and gazed into s.p.a.ce. It would be incorrect to say that he was dazed or that he behaved like a man in a dream. Those are stock terms that in themselves are quite inadequate to convey his peculiar state of mind and body. It was something more than la.s.situde, yet it was not quite fatigue. It was rather as if some integral part of his brain had been removed.
It is impossible to say just how long he remained on the bank of the creek. At last his hunger became so acute that he determined to go off foraging. He had his revolver with him; he was a fair enough shot, and so it was not long before he tumbled a 'possum out of a tree. He made a rough meal of it, and after that set off aimlessly into the bush. Had he kept to his original intention he would have speedily wandered into the Mallee, and would have run a good chance of dying of starvation in that thinly-populated district. But his mind was still in a whirl, and instinct alone guided his footsteps to the east. He was many miles north of the valley and during his travels he moved further north, so that he did not come across it during his journey back.
His subsequent adventures are not very clear. Early in his travels the piece of wood began to trouble him, and he decided that the sooner he got rid of it the better. It is more than likely that he connected it in some way with that blank feeling of inexplicable tragedy which seemed to overshadow him. His instinct, however, led him to hide rather than destroy it. He read the wording very carefully, but it failed to awaken any responsive chords in his memory. As an after-thought, just as he was about to slide the wood into the hole he had sc.r.a.ped out, he took his knife and cut his name below the screed. Then he thrust it into the hole and stamped the earth in on top of it. In this relation it is interesting to notice the connection between the hiding of the money and the burying of the wood that held the key to the position of the former.
It seems as if the sub-conscious memory of the one act had its influence on the man in his performance of the other.
Thereafter Mr. c.u.mshaw simply disappeared off the face of the earth. His son's story is that he went to New South Wales, married there and raised a family, and in the light of subsequent events that seems to be what most likely occurred. It is known, however, that the c.u.mshaws were in Victoria again somewhere about nineteen hundred and two or three, Albert being at that time seven years old.
With the lapse of years Abel had gradually recovered his memory, and bit by bit most of the incidents of the robbery had stolen out of the shrouded darkness of the past. He appears to have been perfectly contented with his family, and for one reason and another the gold remained undisturbed through the long years. The time was coming when the old play would be staged again and new actors would arise to carry it through.
The tale of the gold robbery and the shooting of Mr. Jack Bradby, as the reader will readily understand, pa.s.sed into the police records and thus became matters of history. Though no definite statement has been left us, Mr. Bryce must have first come across the story during his researches into Victorian history. He had friends in the Department, and it is quite feasible that he had ready access to many official doc.u.ments that are usually beyond the reach of the ordinary public. He was not the only one in this enviable position. There were other students of the past who were moving along the same lines, and as he pieced together the puzzle of the robbery he was followed by a pair of agile, unscrupulous brains every whit as clever as he. The police records told Mr. Bryce just this much:--On the first day of December, 1881, there had been a gold robbery, and the robbers had got completely away. They had been followed, and subsequently a man had been killed in the Grampians who had been identified as John Bradby, a noted sheep and cattle-duffer.
When dying he refused to tell who his pals were, and had in the same breath stated that the police would never find the gold. That in itself was conclusive, yet the additional fact remained that the whereabouts of the gold was still as big a mystery as ever it had been. The opinion of the police was that the other members of the gang--they seemed to think that it was a fairly large one--had returned when the hue and cry had died away and recovered the plunder. Bryce, reading between the lines of the dry official record, rather thought that they hadn't. At any rate the element of mystery was sufficiently strong to induce him to investigate the matter further. That was really the beginning of the trouble.
CHAPTER VI.
THE HEGIRA OF MR. ABEL c.u.mSHAW.
Early in January, 1919, Mr. Bryce had advanced so far in his investigations that he resolved on taking a trip to the country around the Grampians. He had nothing very definite to go on beyond the facts that the robbery had been committed at one spot and Mr. Bradby had been killed at another, and logically the gold must have been hidden somewhere in between. He had hopes that he might stumble on something that in his capable hands would prove to be a clue to the long-lost hiding-place of the gold. Before he made any preparations he inserted an advertis.e.m.e.nt in several of the leading dailies. It ran somehow like this:--”Wanted--A capable and intelligent a.s.sistant to take part in dangerous expedition to Grampians. Apply,” and then followed his name and address. He was convinced in his own mind that someone amongst those who read this notice would have some inkling at least of the events of 1st December, 1881, and he rather fancied that he or they would be on the alert. In that case it was just possible that the persons concerned would either approach him with a guarded offer or would dog his footsteps. In either case there was a chance of Mr. Bryce picking up information that might be to his immediate advantage. He convinced himself that there were still people living who had played an intimate part in the affairs of that memorable night.
The advertis.e.m.e.nt, however, had two results that were unforeseen by Mr.
Bryce. The third day after the insertion of the notice he was informed that a gentleman wanted to see him. He requested that the man be shown into his study. In due course the visitor arrived. He was a man somewhere in the neighbourhood of sixty, but, save for a slight greying of the hair about his temples, he showed little outward signs of his age. His eyes, which were of a deep, unfathomable black, were very alert and followed Mr. Bryce's every movement with a glittering serenity, if one can use the expression, that was very disturbing.
”Sit down,” said Mr. Bryce, and he waved his visitor to a chair.
The man sat down in the chair indicated, looked Mr. Bryce up and down, without, however, the least sign of offensiveness in his gaze, and said without any further preliminary, ”I've come to see you about that advertis.e.m.e.nt.”