It Is Never Too Late to Mend Part 146

Thus it was. Mr. Crawley had a natural love of spirits, without a stomach strong enough to deal with them. When he got away from Mr.

Meadows he indulged more and more, and for some months past he had been subject to an unpleasant phenomenon that arises now and then out of the fumes of liquor. At the festive board, even as he raised the gla.s.s to his lips, the face of Crawley would often be seen to writhe with a sort of horror, and his eyes to become fixed on unseen objects, and perspiration to gather on his brow. Then such as were not in the secret would jump up and say, "What on earth is the matter?" and look fearfully round, expecting to see some horrid sight to justify that look of horror and anguish; but Crawley, his gla.s.sy eyes still fixed, would whimper out, his teeth chattering, and clipping the words: "Oh, ne-ne-never mind, it's o-o-only a trifling ap-parition!" He had got to try and make light of it, because at first he used to cry out and point, and then the miners ran out and left him alone with his phantoms, and this was terrible. He dreaded solitude; he schemed against it, and provided against it, and paid fellows to bear him company night and day, and at the festive board it was one thing to drink his phantoms neat and another to dilute them with figures of flesh and blood. He much preferred the latter.

At first, his supernatural visitors were of a unfavorable but not a ghastly character.

No. 1 was a judge who used to rise through the floor, and sit half in and half out of the wall, with a tremendous flow of horse-hair, a furrowed face, a vertical chasm between the temples, and a strike-me-off-the-rolls eye gleaming with diabolical fire from under a gray, s.h.a.ggy eyebrow.

No. 2 was a policeman, who came in through the window, and stood imperturbable, all in blue, with a pair of handcuffs, and a calm eye, and a disagreeable absence of effort or emotion--an inevitable-looking policeman.

But as Crawley went deeper in crime and brandy, blood-boltered figures, erect corpses, with the sickening signs of violence in every conceivable form, used to come and blast his sight and arrest the gla.s.s on its way to his lips, and make his songs and the boisterous attempts at mirth of his withered heart die in a quaver and a s.h.i.+ver of fear and despair.

And at this period of our tale these horrors had made room for a phantom more horrible still to such a creature as Crawley. The air would seem to thicken into sulfurous smoke, and then to clear, and then would come out clearer and clearer, more and more awful, a black figure with hoof and horns and tail, eyes like red-hot carbuncles, teeth a _chevaux-de-frise_ of white-hot iron, and an appalling grin.*

* The G.o.d Pan colored black by the early Christians.

CHAPTER LXXII.

THE party, consisting of Jacky, Jem, Robinson and George, had traversed about one half the bush, when a great heavy crow came wheeling and cackling over their heads, and then joined a number more who were now seen circling over a gum-tree some hundred yards distant.

"Let us go and see what that is," said Jem.

Jacky grinned, and led the way. They had not gone very far when another great black bird rose so near their feet as to make them jump, and peering through the bushes they saw a man lying on his back. His arm was thrown in an easy, natural way round his gun, but at a second glance it was plain the man was dead. The crows had ripped his clothes to ribbons with their tremendous beaks, and lacerated the flesh and picked out the eyes.

They stepped a few paces from this sight. There was no sign of violence on the body.

"Poor fellow!" said Jem. "How did he come by his end, I wonder?" And he stretched forward and peered with pity and curiosity mingled.

"Lost in the bus.h.!.+" said Robinson, very solemnly. And he and George exchanged a meaning look.

"What is that for?" said George, angrily, to Jacky--"grinning in sight of a dead body?"

"White fellow stupid fellow," was all Jacky's reply.

The men now stepped up to the body to examine it; not that they had much hope of discovering who it was, but still they knew it was their duty for the sake of his kindred to try and find out.

George, overcoming a natural repugnance, examined the pockets. He found no papers. He found a knife, but no name was cut in the handle. In the man's bosom he found a small metal box, but just as he was taking it out Jem gave a halo!

"I think I know him," cried Jem. "There is no mistaking that crop of black hair; it is my old captain, Black Will."

"You don't say so! What could he be doing here without his party?"

"Anything in the box, George?" asked Robinson.

"Nothing but a little money. Here is a sovereign--look. And here is a bank-note."

"A five-pound note?"

"Yes--no; it is more than that a good deal. It is for fifty pounds, Tom."

"What?"

"A fifty-pound note, I tell you."

"Jem!"

"Captain!"

A most expressive look was exchanged between these two, and by one impulse they both seized the stock of the gun that was in the dead man's hand. They lifted it, and yes--two fingers were wanting on the right hand.

"Come away from that fellow," cried Robinson to George. "Let him lie."

George looked up in some wonder. Robinson pointed sternly to the dead hand in silence. George, by the light of the other men's faces, saw it all, and recoiled with a natural movement of repugnance as from a dead snake. There was a breathless silence--and every eye bent upon this terrible enemy lying terrible no longer at their feet.

"How did he die?" asked Robinson, in a whisper.

"In the great snow-storm," replied George, in a whisper.

"No," said Jem, in the same tone, "he was alive yesterday. I saw his footprint after the snow was melted."

"There was snow again last night, Tom. Perhaps he went to sleep in that with his belly empty."

"Starvation and fatigue would do it without the snow, George. We brought a day's provisions out with us, George. He never thought of that, I will be bound."

"Not he," said Jem. "I'll answer for him he only thought of robbing and killing--never thought about dying himself."

"I can't believe he is dead so easy as this," said Robinson.

The feeling was natural. This man had come into the wood and had followed them burning to work them ill, and they to work him ill. Both were utterly baffled. He had never prevailed to hurt them, nor they him.

He was dead, but by no mortal hand. The immediate cause of his death was unknown, and will never be known for certain while the world lasts.

_L'homme propose, mais Dieu dispose!_

CHAPTER LXXIII.

"DON'T keep staring at it so, farmer, it is an ugly sight. You will see him in your sleep if you do that. Here is something better to look at--a letter. And there I carried it and never once thought of it till the sight of his hand made me feel in my pocket, and then my hand ran against it. 'Tis from Mr. Levi."

"Thank you, Jem. Tom, will you be so kind as read it me while I work?"

"Yes, give it me. Work? Why, what are we going to work at in the bush?"

"I should think you might guess," replied George quietly, while putting down his pickax and taking off his coat. "Well, I am astonished at both of you. You ought to know what I am going to do. Humph! Under this tree will be as good a place as any."

"Jem, as I am a sinner, he is going to bury him."

"Bury what? The nugget?"

"No, Jem, the Christian."*