about?”
I flung my arms around him, to prevent him springing down the shaft.
“Bill, this is an awful moment, and Lizzie’s life may hang upon our keeping steady. As you love your dear little one, don’t give way yet awhile. She wants your help to raise her. Do you hear me? She wants your help.”
“Ay,” he replied vacantly.
“I am going to tie this rope round her. Will you stand steady here above, and raise her, while I support her below?”
He nodded, and made motions with his lips, as though he were speaking. But no sound came from them.
“For our precious darling’s sake, Bill,” I said, as I prepared to descend again, “be steady, lad.”
I tied the rope round her slender body—ah, me! ah, me! the pretty little hands that did not respond to the touch of mine! the soft face that rested on my shoulders!—and slowly, slowly, we brought her to the surface, where I tenderly set her down.
She was dead! The angels had taken her from us.
As she lay with her eyes turned blindly to the sun that was smiling on the hills, and bathing them in light, I could scarcely believe that she was dead. In her innocent young face the roses were still blooming, and in her pretty little hands were grasped a few of the wild flowers she had been gathering. I stooped, and kissed her pure fresh lips. Then I turned away, for blinding tears were in my eyes, and a darkness fell upon me.
“O my darling! my darling!” I heard Bill say. “You are not dead—you cannot be dead! Look at me, speak to me, my pet! Throw your arms round my neck.” And he pressed her to his breast, and kissed her many times.
“She is only sleeping. Feel her heart, Tom, it is beating. Feel, feel, I say!”
I placed my hand on her heart, to soothe him; alas, its pulse was stilled for ever!
“Bill,” I said solemnly, for it was an awful thing was the sight of the dear angel lying dead upon the grass, “do not deceive yourself; she is dead. She has gone to a better world than this.”
“Dead!” he cried, springing to his feet, and looking wildly upwards. “Then strike me dead, too!”
He threw himself beside her again; he clasped her in his arms, nursing and rocking her as he would have done if she had been sleeping; he called her by every endearing name; and suddenly became quite still.
“Tom,” he said presently, in a strangely quiet and eager tone, “look at this mark on my child’s neck. What is it? God! what is it?”
I looked. It was a discoloured mark, and I shuddered to think that it might have been caused by the grasp of a cruel hand. But I would not madden him utterly by a whisper of my suspicions.
“It is impossible to say what it is, Bill, without evidence.”
“True,” he replied, still more quietly; “without evidence. Where’s Rhad?”
The absence of the dog had been puzzling me. That he would not have voluntarily deserted little Liz was as certain as fate.
“Stay here with my child,” said Bill; “I am going to search for her dog. He loved my Liz, and was faithful to her. He would have laid down his life for her.”
He disappeared in the bush, and within ten minutes I heard him call out that he had found Rhadamanthus. He stepped from the shadows of the trees, and placed Rhad at my feet. Poor Rhad! He was dead—shot through the heart.
“You see, Tom, he’s been shot. Who did it? We want evidence. Whoever killed the dog killed my child.”
I knelt and examined the dog’s body. Three bullets had been fired into it, and there was something in the dog’s mouth. Forcing the jaws open, I took it out, and recognised it immediately. It was a piece of the coloured silk handkerchief I had thrown out of the tent to Teddy the Tyler, the first night he came to the gully. The dog had evidently torn it away in a desperate struggle, for shreds of it were sticking between his teeth so firmly that I could not drag them away.
“There has been foul play here, Bill,” I said.
“I know it, I know it. What is that between his teeth? Faithful Rhad! It is part of a handkerchief. O, I know without your telling me! But whose handkerchief?—do you hear me?—whose handkerchief? Speak the name. Out with it, man!”
“Teddy the Tyler’s,” I said.
I had no time to add another word, for Bill was off with the speed of the wind in the direction of Teddy’s gully. I hurried after him, but he was too swift for me, and I lost him. When I reached the gully, neither Teddy nor Bill was in sight, and though I searched for an hour I could see nothing of them. Not knowing which way to turn to look for them, I hastened back to where our dear dead Liz was lying, and carried her in my arms to our tent. My first impulse was to put everything in order. I tidied up the place, and arranged our darling’s bed, my scalding tears almost blinding me as I worked. Then I laid the body on it, and covered it up, all but the face, which was still bright with roses soon to fade. About her head I scattered some wild flowers growing near our tent; and on her breast I placed the Bible, our only book. This done, I went again in search of Bill, with no better success than before. I was full of fears, but was powerless to act. All I could do was to wait. My next impulse was to bring Rhad’s body home. I did so, and placed it at the foot of the bed, on the ground. The hours went by, and Bill did not appear. Noon was past, and still no sign. The sun set, and still no sign. Half a dozen times at least I went to Teddy’s gully, only to find it deserted. What was I to do? What could I do? I would have gone to the cattle-station, where we purchased our food, but that I was loth to leave our darling alone. It seemed like deserting her. No; I would wait till the morning. Night coming on, I lit a candle, and sat in the dim tent, keeping watch—for the living and the dead. It was an awful, awful time. Sounds without warned me that the weather was changing. Dark clouds were in the skies; the wind sighed and moaned. I knew the signs. A storm was coming. It came, sooner than I expected, bursting upon us with frightful fury. One of the most terrible storms in my remembrance. The rain poured down in floods—the thunder shook the hills—the lightning played about the peaceful face of little Liz, and cast a lurid glare upon the flowers and the Bible on her breast. I knelt by the side of the bed, and prayed, keeping my face buried in the bed-clothes, and holding the dead child’s cold fingers in mine. I may have knelt thus for an hour, and the storm raged on without abatement. Then I raised my head. My heart leaped into my throat. At the door stood my mate Bill, haggard and white, with blood oozing from between the fingers which he pressed upon his heart. It was but a vision, and it lasted but a moment; but so terrible an impression did it leave upon me, that I ran into the open air for relief. And in that moment a voice fell on my ears:
“Liz! My pet! My darling!” The voice of a dying man. But the darkness was so thick that I could not see my hand before me.
“Bill!” I cried. “Where are you?”
I received an awful answer. A hand stretched itself from out the darkness, and, clutching me with a strength so fierce and resistless that I had no power to resist, forced me back into the tent. The candle was still burning, and by its light I saw my dear old mate standing before me, grasping with his other hand the lifeless body of Teddy the Tyler. Bill’s hand upon my breast relaxed, and the body of the murderer slid from his grasp, and lay in a heap on the soddened ground.
“Liz!”
