Settling Day Part 43

'I have never known him do so in a serious case,' answered Nix. 'He has even attended Abe Dalton and pulled him through a severe illness. If he attended Dalton surely he will come to you.'

'I tell you it is useless,' persisted Shaw. 'There are matters you know nothing of that will prevent his coming.'

Rodney Shaw, however, knew it would not be long before someone else came, the man he dreaded most to see--Jim Dennis. He wished the shot he had aimed at him had taken effect, then he would have been well rid of him.

He knew when Jim Dennis heard the truth nothing would keep him from Cudgegong. If it had not been for his wound he would have been well on his way to Sydney, and might have escaped. He made an effort to rise, but fell back exhausted. He felt it would be better to risk everything rather than face this angry, wronged man. He called Nix and said,--

'If Jim Dennis calls tell him I am too ill to see him.'

'I will,' was the reply; but Nix thought to himself, 'If Jim Dennis wishes to see you no one can stop him after what you have done.' He meant the abduction of Sal; he did not know of Rodney Shaw's greater sin.

When Jim Dennis arrived at Cudgegong he got off his horse and strode into the house.

Benjamin Nix barred the way, and asked,--

'Do you wish to see Mr Shaw? If so, he is too ill; it would be dangerous to disturb him.'

Jim Dennis laughed.

'I have no quarrel with you, Ben,' he said, 'but I must see him. If the shock of my presence kills him, well, so much the better, it will save me doing it.'

'You don't mean to harm him?' said Nix, alarmed.

'That's precisely what I do mean,' said Jim.

'Then you must be prevented from doing so,' said Nix.

Jim Dennis knew there were several people about the place, and he did not wish to be hindered in his work, so he tried to propitiate Ben Nix.

'I shall not be long with him,' he said; 'and when I have done with him, and you know all, you will side with me.'

'I always do that,' said Ben. 'You and I have never been bad friends.'

'But we shall fall out if I do not see him quietly,' said Jim. 'I mean to do so, and you had better let me pa.s.s.'

Benjamin Nix saw he meant it, and stood on one side.

He argued that a disturbance would probably be as dangerous to Rodney Shaw, or more so, as an interview with Dennis.

'Which room is he in?' asked Jim.

Ben pointed it out to him, and he went to the door.

He knocked, and Rodney Shaw said angrily,--

'Come in. There is no occasion for you to knock, Nix. I have not had a wink of sleep for hours.'

'You will have plenty of sleep shortly,' said Jim Dennis, entering the room.

Rodney Shaw lay on his bed and stared with gla.s.sy eyes at the speaker.

He felt as though his last hour was at hand, and he wished he could rise and fight for his life. He could not move without causing intense pain, and there he lay, helpless, at the mercy of his bitterest enemy.

Jim Dennis strode up to the bedside and shook him roughly.

'Get up and answer for your sins, you black-hearted scoundrel!' he said in a voice of suppressed pa.s.sion. 'No shamming sick with me, remember.

Stand up and fight for your life like a man--Heaven forgive me for calling you one!'

Rodney Shaw groaned.

'I am wounded,' he said. 'I have been shot.'

'Where?' asked Jim Dennis. 'Show me the wound.'

'I cannot.'

'Show it me.'

'It is in my back, between my shoulders,' said Shaw.

Jim Dennis laughed savagely.

'In your back. A fitting place for it. Things such as you never face an enemy, they are always wounded in the back.'

He pushed him over and saw there was blood on the bed.

'So you have not lied this time,' said Jim. 'I have come to have a settling day with you. It is a long-standing account and a heavy one.

You are the scoundrel who stole my wife and robbed my child of its mother. You are the man, and you have taken my hand in friends.h.i.+p since.'

He raised his whip and was about to bring it down across Rodney Shaw's body. He hesitated. He would not strike a wounded man with his whip.

'I meant to thrash you, but you cannot stand up and take it. That part of your punishment I will count out, but you must pay the rest in full.'

'What do you mean to do?' asked Shaw.

'Kill you before I leave the house, antic.i.p.ate death by a few hours. You are bound to die anyway. I can see it in your face. Your miserable victim is at my house, dying, and you are going fast, but I will not give you that chance, for I mean to kill you, Rodney Shaw.'

'At your house?' gasped Shaw.

'Yes, she dragged herself there to die, a victim to your treachery and cruelty. Even when you had stolen and dishonoured her you could not be true to her. You are too vile a thing to live, therefore you must die.'

'One word, Dennis. I wronged you, but not knowingly. I did not know she was your wife.'

'That makes no difference to me. You wronged her, that is sufficient.

Leave me and my wrongs out of the question. I have waited for this day for years and have sworn you shall pay the penalty.'

Rodney Shaw was gasping for breath. The excitement and the moving of his body had caused his wound to bleed profusely, and he soon became exhausted, and fainted.

Jim Dennis watched him with a bitter smile on his face.

'I have been cheated at last. He cannot stand up and take the punishment I would give him. I cannot shoot an insensible man, it would be murder.