The Bushranger's Secret Part 10

Gray leisurely took his cigar from his mouth and said:

"With pleasure, my man, if I knew it myself; but you see I don't."

Lumley gave him a savage frown.

"Think I'm going to believe that? Look here, I'm in a hurry, and you've just got to tell me all you know. If you don't, I'll--"

He lifted the revolver again with a significant gesture.

Gray did not speak for a moment. His hand might have trembled slightly as he stroked his moustache, but he showed no other sign of agitation.

Lumley watched him narrowly.

"Ain't you goin' to tell me?" he said.

"Yes I am," said Gray; "on one condition."

"What's that?"

"Unload that pretty little weapon of yours, and hand it over to me. I don't trust you, you see, Mr. Lumley, alias Clay. You might find it convenient to leave this place all by yourself. Dead men tell no tales."

"Good for you they don't, ain't it?" Lumley answered darkly.

Gray looked sharply up.

"What do you mean by that?"

"I don't mean anything. But you're a pretty fellow, ain't you, to crow over me?"

The taunt was more than Gray could bear.

"What do you mean?" he exclaimed again, with sharper emphasis as he leapt to his feet. "How dare you?"

Lumley laughed out--a rough, coa.r.s.e, jeering laugh, which filled Gray with sickening, helpless rage.

"Don't you be afraid of me," he said; "a partner's always safe with me.

I don't set up to be a virtuous cove like you, but a partner's always safe with me. We'll go shares, mate--share and share alike. That's a fair offer, ain't it?"

His manner was as coa.r.s.e and offensive as he could make it. He seemed to find delight in the sort of torture he was inflicting on Gray.

Gray seated himself again and tried hard to recover his coolness.

After all, he told himself, he had but to bear Lumley's insults for a time. He had but to wait till they reached a settlement for this hideous partners.h.i.+p to be over.

"It seems to me we are wasting good time, my man," he said, in the lofty tone that so nettled Lumley. "I don't pretend to understand your innuendoes, but let that pa.s.s. What you want is the money, isn't it?"

"What _I_ want? You don't want it; no, of course not? You didn't come here to get it?"

Lumley laughed.

"I certainly came here to get it. There's a considerable reward offered for its recovery, as I daresay you know. I intended to claim that reward."

Lumley looked at him in silence for a moment, and then burst out into another laugh.

"You are a cove!" he said, when his mirth would let him speak. "So that's your game, is it? Bah!"

He spat on the ground in fierce derision, and then with a sudden change of manner he came close up to Gray.

"Stow all that nonsense, lad. Tell me what Dearing said, and be quick about it. We're goin' to be fond partners, share and share alike.

Come, sh.e.l.l out this minute!"

Gray looked up at him; then he took out his note-book and rapidly reproduced the map he had destroyed, and handed it to Clay without a word. The light was fading, and he took it to the door to examine it.

Gray's eyes followed him with a savage concentrated hate in them.

It was the man's coa.r.s.e scorn of himself that was hardest to bear--harder even than the knowledge that he had lost the money he had sacrificed so much to gain. Gray had been accustomed to the admiration of his fellow-men. He had been liked and respected wherever he had been. It was horrible to him to be the object of this convict's coa.r.s.e taunts and sneers. He, who had so prided himself on his clean name and unblemished record, had fallen low indeed. And he could not feel that the taunts were undeserved. Slowly and grudgingly, just for a moment, the curtain that hid his true self was lifted for Gray, and with a shudder he confessed that Lumley did him no wrong in claiming partners.h.i.+p with him.

His gloomy thoughts were broken into by a chuckle from Clay.

"I always said he was the 'cutest of us all," he declared in an admiring tone, as he came back to Gray. "Too soft for me. We lost a goodish pile once because he wouldn't use these little beauties," and he touched the revolver in his hand. "But that 'cute he was; up to every trick of the profession. You couldn't understand this, couldn't you?"

He did not wait for an answer, but went on in a quicker tone.

"Of course you couldn't; you'd have been searching here for a month of Sundays if I hadn't kindly come to help you. '_Big Gum Tree_.' Ha!

ha! Tom was 'cute, to be sure."

Gray did not speak; he did not even look up.

"Don't be down on your luck, my lad," said Clay jocosely; "there's enough for both of us. It'll be more than the reward, any way," and he chuckled with a cruel sort of mirth. "You've got a handy little pick in that knapsack of yours; just fetch it, will you?"

"Get it yourself!"

Clay gave him a fierce threatening look.

"None of your airs and graces here, young man. You do what I tell you, or it'll be the worse for you."

He sat down on the block of wood opposite Gray, folded his arms and added:

"You're the junior partner, and you'll just wait on me, my fine fellow.

You go and fetch me that pick to begin with."

Gray ground his teeth with helpless rage, but he got up and took the pick from his knapsack. It was a small slender tool, but very strong.

Clay looked at it approvingly.

"Now, you dig up that hearth-stone, mate, and you'll see what you'll see."

"The hearth-stone?"

"You do what I tell you," returned Lumley with a nod. "You go and dig up that hearth-stone."

Gray flung down the pick.