Robbery Under Arms

R >> Rolf Boldrewood >> Robbery Under Arms

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Rainbow rears up, gives one spring, and falls backward with a crash.
I thought Starlight was crushed underneath him, shot through
the neck and flank as he was, but he saved himself somehow,
and stood with his hand on Rainbow's mane, when the old horse rose again
all right, head and tail well up, and as steady as a rock.
The blood was pouring out of his neck, but he didn't seem to care two straws
about it. You could see his nostril spread out and his eye looking
twice as big and fiery.

Starlight rests his rifle a minute on the old horse's shoulder,
and the man that had fired the shot fell over with a kick.
Something hits me in the ribs like a stone, and another on the right arm,
which drops down just as I was aiming at a young fellow with light hair
that had ridden pretty close up, under a myall tree.

Jim and Sir Ferdinand let drive straight at one another the same minute.
They both meant it this time. Sir Ferdinand's hat turned part round
on his head, but poor old Jim drops forward on his face and tears up the grass
with his hands. I knew what that sign meant.

Goring rides straight at Starlight and calls on him to surrender.
He had his rifle on his hip, but he never moved. There he stood,
with his hand on the mane of the old horse. `Keep back if you're wise,
Goring,' says he, as quiet and steady as if he'd been cattle-drafting.
`I don't want to have your blood on my head; but if you must ----'

Goring had taken so many men in his day that he was got over confident-like.
He thought Starlight would give in at the last moment or miss him in the rush.
My right arm was broken, and now that Jim was down we might both be took,
which would be a great crow for the police. Anyhow, he was a man
that didn't know what fear was, and he chanced it.

Two of the other troopers fired point blank at Starlight
as Goring rode at him, and both shots told. He never moved,
but just lifted his rifle as the other came up at the gallop.
Goring threw up his arms, and rolled off his horse a dying man.

Starlight looked at him for a minute.

`We're quits,' he says; `it's not once or twice either
you've pulled trigger on me. I knew this day would come.'

Then he sinks down slowly by the side of the old horse and leans against
his fore leg, Rainbow standing quite steady, only tossing his head up and down
the old way. I could see, by the stain on Starlight's mouth and the blood
on his breast, he'd been shot through the lungs.

I was badly hit too, and going in the head, though I didn't feel it so much
at the time. I began to hear voices like in a dream; then my eyes darkened,
and I fell like a log.

When I came to, all the men was off their horses, some round Goring --
him they lifted up and propped against a tree; but he was stone dead,
any one could see. Sir Ferdinand was on his knees beside Starlight,
talking to him, and the other saying a word now and then,
quite composed and quiet-like.

`Close thing, Morringer, wasn't it?' I heard him say. `You were too quick
for us; another day and we'd been out of reach.'

`True enough. Horses all dead beat; couldn't raise a remount
for love or money.'

`Well, the game's up now, isn't it? I've held some good cards too,
but they never told, somehow. I'm more sorry for Jim -- and --
that poor girl, Aileen, than I am for myself.'

`Don't fret -- there's a good fellow. Fortune of war, you know.
Anything else?'

Here he closed his eyes, and seemed gone; but he wakes up again,
and begins in a dreamy way. His words came slowly, but his voice
never altered one bit.

`I'm sorry I fired at poor Warrigal now. No dog ever was more faithful
than he has been to me all through till now; but I was vexed
at his having sold Dick and poor Jim.'

`We knew we should find you here or hereabouts without that,'
says Sir Ferdinand.

`How was that?'

`Two jockey-boys met you one night at Calga gate; one of them
recognised Locket by the white patch on her neck. He wired to us
at the next station.'

`So you were right, after all, Dick. It was a mistake to take that mare.
I've always been confoundedly obstinate; I admit that.
Too late to think of it now, isn't it?'

`Anything else I can do?' says Sir Ferdinand.

`Give her this ring,' he pulls it off his finger, `and you'll see
Maddie Barnes gets the old horse, won't you? Poor old Rainbow!
I know she'll take care of him; and a promise is a promise.'

`All right. He's the property of the Government now, you know;
but I'll square it somehow. The General won't object
under the circumstances.'

Then he shuts his eyes for a bit. After a while he calls out --

`Dick! Dick Marston.'

`I'm here,' says I.

`If you ever leave this, tell Aileen that her name was the last word
I spoke -- the very last. She foresaw this day; she told me so.
I've had a queer feeling too, this week back. Well, it's over now.
I don't know that I'm sorry, except for others. I say, Morringer,
do you remember the last pigeon match you and I shot in, at Hurlingham?'

`Why, good God!' says Sir Ferdinand, bending down, and looking into his face.
`It can't be; yes, by Jove, it is ----'

He spoke some name I couldn't catch, but Starlight put a finger on his lips,
and whispers --

`You won't tell, will you? Say you won't?'

The other nodded.

He smiled just like his old self.

`Poor Aileen!' he says, quite faint. His head fell back. Starlight was dead!

Chapter 50

The breath was hardly out of him when a horse comes tearing through the scrub
on to the little plain, with a man on his back that seemed hurt bad or drunk,
he rolled in his saddle so. The head of him was bound up with a white cloth,
and what you could see of it was dark-looking, with bloodstains on it.
I knew the figure and the seat on a horse, though I couldn't see his face.
He didn't seem to have much strength, but he was one of those sort of riders
that can't fall off a horse, that is unless they're dead.
Even then you'd have to pull him down. I believe he'd hang on somehow
like a dead 'possum on a branch.

It was Warrigal!

They all knew him when he came close up, but none of the troopers
raised their pieces or thought of stopping him. If a dead man
had rode right into the middle of us he'd have looked like that.
He stopped his horse, and slipped off on his feet somehow.

He'd had a dreadful wound, any one could see. There was blood on the rags
that bound his head all up, and being round his forehead and over his chin
it made him look more and more like a corpse. Not much you could see,
only his eyes, that were burning bright like two coals of fire.

Up to Starlight's body he goes and sits himself down by it.
He takes the dead man's head into his lap, looks down at the face,
and bursts out into the awfullest sort of crying and lamenting
I ever heard of a living man. I've seen the native women mourning
for their dead with the blood and tears running down their faces together.
I've known them sit for days and nights without stirring from round a corpse,
not taking a bite or sup the whole time. I've seen white people
that's lost an only child that had, maybe, been all life and spirits
an hour before. But in all my life I have never seen no man,
nor woman neither, show such regular right-down grief as Warrigal did
for his master -- the only human creature he loved in the wide world,
and him lying stiff on the ground before him.

He lifts up the dead face and wipes the blood from the lips so careful;
talks to it in his own language (or leastways his mother's)
like a woman over a child. Then he sobbed and groaned and shook all over
as if the very life was going out of him. At last he lays the head
very soft and gentle down on the ground and looks round.
Sir Ferdinand gives him his handkerchief, and he lays it over the face.
Then he turns away from the men that stood round, and got up
looking that despairing and wretched that I couldn't help pitying him,
though he was the cause of the whole thing as far as we could see.

Sudden as a flash of powder he pulls out a small revolver -- a Derringer --
Starlight gave him once, and holds it out to me, butt-end first.

`You shoot me, Dick Marston; you shoot me quick,' he says.
`It's all my fault. I killed him -- I killed the Captain.
I want to die and go with him to the never-never country
parson tell us about -- up there!'

One of the troopers knocked his hand up. Sir Ferdinand gave a nod,
and a pair of handcuffs were slipped over his wrists.

`You told the police the way I went?' says I. `It's all come out of that.'

`Thought they'd grab you at Willaroon,' says he, looking at me quite sorrowful
with his dark eyes, like a child. `If you hadn't knocked me down
that last time, Dick Marston, I'd never have done nothing to you nor Jim.
I forgot about the old down. That brought it all back again.
I couldn't help it, and when I see Jimmy Wardell I thought they'd catch you
and no one else.'

`Well, you've made a clean sweep of the lot of us, Warrigal,' says I,
`poor Jim and all. Don't you ever show yourself to the old man
or go back to the Hollow, if you get out of this.'

`He's dead now. I'll never hear him speak again,' says he,
looking over to the figure on the grass. `What's the odds about me?'

. . . . .

I didn't hear any more; I must have fainted away again.
Things came into my head about being taken in a cart back to Cunnamulla,
with Jim lying dead on one side of me and Starlight on the other.
I was only half-sensible, I expect. Sometimes I thought we were alive,
and another time that the three of us were dead and going to be buried.

What makes it worse I've seen that sight so often since --
the fight on the plain and the end of it all. Just like a picture
it comes back to me over and over again, sometimes in broad day,
as I sit in my cell, in the darkest midnight, in the early dawn.

It rises before my eyes -- the bare plain, and the dead men lying
where they fell; Sir Ferdinand on his horse, with the troopers standing round;
and the half-caste sitting with Starlight's head in his lap,
rocking himself to and fro, and crying and moaning like a woman
that's lost her child.

I can see Jim, too -- lying on his face with his hat rolled off and both arms
spread out wide. He never moved after. And to think that only the day before
he had thought he might see his wife and child again! Poor old Jim!
If I shut my eyes they won't go away. It will be the last sight
I shall see in this world before -- before I'm ----

The coroner of the district held an inquest, and the jury found
a verdict of `justifiable homicide by Sir Ferdinand Morringer
and other members of the police force of New South Wales
in the case of one James Marston, charged with robbery under arms,
and of a man habitually known as "Starlight", but of whose real name
there was no evidence before the jury.' As for the police,
it was wilful murder against us. Warrigal and I were remanded to Turon Court
for further evidence, and as soon as we were patched up a bit by the doctor
-- for both of us looked like making a die of it for two or three weeks --
we were started on horseback with four troopers overland all the way back.
We went easy stages -- we couldn't ride any way fast -- both of us handcuffed,
and our horses led.

One day, about a fortnight after, as we were crossing a river,
Warrigal's horse stopped to drink. It was a swim in the middle of the stream,
and the trooper, who was a young chap just from the depot,
let go his leading rein for a bit. Warrigal had been as quiet as a lamb
all the time, and they hadn't a thought of his playing up.
I heard a splash, and looked round; his horse's head was turned to the bank,
and, before the trooper could get out of the river, he was
into the river scrub and away as fast as his horse could carry him.
Both the troopers went after him, and we waited half-an-hour,
and then went on to the next police station to stop till they came back.

Next day, late, they rode in with their horses regularly done and knocked up,
leading his horse, but no Warrigal. He had got clear away from them
in the scrub, jumped off his horse when they were out of sight,
taken off his boots and made a straight track for the West Bogan scrub.
There was about as much chance of running him down there
as a brumbie with a day's start or a wallaroo that was seen on a mountain side
the week before last. I didn't trouble my head that much
to think whether I was glad or sorry. What did it matter?
What did anything matter now? The only two men I loved in the world
were dead; the two women I loved best left forsaken and disgraced;
and I -- well, I was on my way to be hanged!

I was taken along to Turon and put into the gaol, there to await my trial.
They didn't give me much of a chance to bolt, and I wouldn't have taken it
if they had. I was dead tired of my life, and wouldn't have taken my liberty
then and there if they'd given it me. All I wanted was to have
the whole thing done and over without any more bother.

It all passed like a dream. The court was crowded till
there wasn't standing room, every one wanting to get a look at Dick Marston,
the famous bush-ranger. The evidence didn't take so very long.
I was proved to have been seen with the rest the day the escort was robbed;
the time the four troopers were shot. I was suspected of being concerned
in Hagan's party's death, and half-a-dozen other things. Last of all,
when Sub-Inspector Goring was killed, and a trooper, besides two others
badly wounded.

I was sworn to as being one of the men that fired on the police.
I didn't hear a great deal of it, but 'livened up when the judge
put on his black cap and made a speech, not a very long one,
telling about the way the law was set at naught by men who had dared
to infest the highways of the land and rob peaceful citizens
with arms and violence. In the pursuit of gain by such atrocious means,
blood had been shed, and murder, wilful murder, had been committed.
He would not further allude to the deeds of blood with which the prisoner
at the bar stood charged. The only redeeming feature in his career
had been brought out by the evidence tendered in his favour
by the learned counsel who defended him. He had fought fairly when opposed
by the police force, and he had on more than one occasion acted in concert
with the robber known as Starlight, and the brother James Marston,
both of whom had fallen in a recent encounter, to protect from violence
women who were helpless and in the power of his evil companions.
Then the judge pronounced the sentence that I, Richard Marston,
was to be taken from the place whence I came, and there hanged by the neck
until I was dead. `And might God have mercy upon my soul!'

My lawyer had beforehand argued that although I had been seen
in the company of persons who had doubtless compassed
the unlawfully slaying of the Queen's lieges and peace officers,
yet no proof had been brought before the court that day
that I had wilfully killed any one. `He was not aware,'
would his Honour remark, `that any one had seen me fire at any man,
whether since dead or alive. He would freely admit that.
I had been seen in bad company, but that fact would not suffice to hang a man
under British rule. It was therefore incumbent on the jury
to bring in a verdict for his client of "not guilty".'

But that cock wouldn't fight. I was found guilty by the jury
and sentenced to death by the judge. I expect I was taken back
without seeing or hearing to the gaol, and I found myself alone
in the condemned cell, with heavy leg-irons -- worn for the first time
in my life. The rough and tumble of a bush-ranger's life was over at last,
and this was the finish up.

For the first week or two I didn't feel anything particular.
I was hardly awake. Sometimes I thought I must be dreaming -- that this man,
sitting in a cell, quiet and dull-looking, with heavy irons on his limbs,
could never be Dick Marston, the shearer, the stock-rider, the gold-miner,
the bush-ranger.

This was the end -- the end -- the end! I used to call it out sometimes
louder and louder, till the warder would come in to see if I had gone mad.

Bit by bit I came to my right senses. I almost think I felt
sharper and clearer in my head than I had done for ever so long.
Then I was able to realise the misery I had come down to
after all our blowing and roving. This was the crush-yard and no gateway.
I was safe to be hanged in six weeks, or thereabouts -- hanged like a dog!
Nothing could alter that, and I didn't want it if it could.

And how did the others get on, those that had their lives
bound up with ours, so that we couldn't be hurt without their bleeding,
almost in their hearts? -- that is, mother's bled to death, at any rate;
when she heard of Jim's death and my being taken it broke her heart clean;
she never held her head up after. Aileen told me in her letter
she used to nurse his baby and cry over him all day, talking about
her dear boy Jim. She was laid in the burying-ground at St. Kilda.
As to Aileen, she had long vowed herself to the service of the Virgin.
She knew that she was committing sin in pledging herself to an earthly love.
She had been punished for her sin by the death of him she loved,
and she had settled in her mind to go into the convent at Soubiaca,
where she should be able to wear out her life in prayer for those of her blood
who still lived, as well as for the souls of those who lay
in the little burying-ground on the banks of the far Warrego.

Jeanie settled to stop in Melbourne. She had money enough
to keep her comfortable, and her boy would be brought up in a different style
from his father.

As for Gracey, she sent me a letter in which she said she was like the bird
that could only sing one song. She would remain true to me
in life and death. George was very kind, and would never allow any one
to speak harshly of his former friends. We must wait and make the best of it.

So I was able, you see, to get bits of news even in a condemned cell,
from time to time, about the outside world. I learned that
Wall and Hulbert and Moran and another fellow were still at large,
and following up their old game. Their time, like ours,
was drawing short, though.

. . . . .

Well, this has been a thundering long yarn, hasn't it? All my whole life
I seem to have lived over again. It didn't take so long in the telling;
it's a month to-day since I began. And this life itself has reeled away
so quick, it hardly seems a dozen years instead of seven-and-twenty
since it began. It won't last much longer. Another week and it will be over.
There's a fellow to be strung up before me, for murdering his wife.
The scoundrel, I wonder how he feels?

I've had visitors too; some I never thought to see inside this gaol wall.
One day who should come in but Mr. Falkland and his daughter.
There was a young gentleman with them that they told me was an English lord,
a baronet, or something of that sort, and was to be married to Miss Falkland.
She stood and looked at me with her big innocent eyes,
so pitiful and kind-like. I could have thrown myself down at her feet.
Mr. Falkland talked away, and asked me about this and that.
He seemed greatly interested. When I told him about the last fight,
and of poor Jim being shot dead, and Starlight dying alongside the old horse,
the tears came into Miss Falkland's eyes, and she cried for a bit,
quite feeling and natural.

Mr. Falkland asked me all about the robbery at Mr. Knightley's,
and took down a lot of things in his pocket-book. I wondered what
he did that for.

When they said good-bye Mr. Falkland shook hands with me,
and said `he hoped to be able to do some good for me,
but not to build anything on the strength of it.'

Then Miss Falkland came forward and held out her beautiful hand to me
-- to me, as sure as you live -- like a regular thoroughbred angel,
as she always was. It very nigh cooked me. I felt so queer and strange,
I couldn't have spoken a word to save my life.

Sir George, or whatever his name was, didn't seem to fancy it over much,
for he said --

`You colonists are strange people. Our friend here may think himself
highly favoured.'

Miss Falkland turned towards him and held up her head, looking like a queen,
as she was, and says she --

`If you had met me in the last place where I saw this man and his brother,
you would not wonder at my avowing my gratitude to both of them.
I should despise myself if I did not. Poor Jim saved my life on one occasion,
and on another, but far more dreadful day, he -- but words, mere words,
can never express my deep thankfulness for his noble conduct,
and were he here now I would tell him so, and give him my hand,
if all the world stood by.'

Sir George didn't say anything after that, and she swept out of the cell,
followed by Mr. Falkland and him. It was just as well for him
to keep a quiet tongue in his head. I expect she was a great heiress
as well as a great beauty, and people of that sort, I've found,
mostly get listened to when they speak. When the door shut
I felt as if I'd seen the wings of an angel flit through it,
and the prison grew darker and darker like the place of lost souls.

Chapter 51

One day I was told that a lady wanted to see me. When the door of the cell
opened who should walk in but Aileen! I didn't look to have seen her.
I didn't bother my head about who was coming. What did it matter,
as I kept thinking, who came or who went for the week or two
that was to pass before the day? Yes, the day, that Thursday,
when poor Dick Marston would walk over the threshold of his cell,
and never walk over one again.

The warder -- him that stopped with me day and night
-- every man in the condemned cell has to be watched like that --
stepped outside the door and left us together. We both looked at one another.
She was dressed all in black, and her face was that pale
I hardly knew her at first. Then she said, `Oh, Dick -- my poor Dick!
is this the way we meet?' and flings herself into my arms.
How she cried and sobbed, to be sure. The tears ran down her cheeks
like rain, and every time the leg-irons rattled she shook and trembled
as if her heart was breaking.

I tried to comfort her; it was no use.

`Let me cry on, Dick,' she said; `I have not shed a tear
since I first heard the news -- the miserable truth that has crushed
all our vain hopes and fancies; my heart has nearly burst for want of relief.
This will do me good. To think -- to think that this should be
the end of all! But it is just! I cannot dare to doubt Heaven's mercy.
What else could we expect, living as we all did -- in sin -- in mortal sin?
I am punished rightly.'

She told me all about poor mother's death. She never held up her head
after she heard of Jim's death. She never said a hard word about any one.
It was God's will, she thought, and only for His mercy
things might have gone worse. The only pleasure she had in her last days
was in petting Jim's boy. He was a fine little chap, and had eyes
like his father, poor old Jim! Then Aileen broke down altogether,
and it was a while before she could speak again.

Jeanie was the same as she had been from the first, only so quiet
they could hardly know how much she felt. She wouldn't leave
the little cottage where she had been so happy with Jim, and liked to work
in the chair opposite to where Jim used to sit and smoke his pipe
in the evenings. Most of her friends lived in Melbourne,
and she reckoned to stay there for the rest of her life.

As to father, they had never heard a word from him -- hardly knew
whether he was dead or alive. There was some kind of report
that Warrigal had been seen making towards Nulla Mountain,
looking very weak and miserable, on a knocked-up horse; but they did not know
whether it was true or false.

Poor Aileen stopped till we were all locked up for the night. She seemed
as if she couldn't bear to leave me. She had no more hope or tie in life,
she said. I was the only one of her people she was likely to see again,
and this was the last time -- the last time.

`Oh, Dick! oh, my poor lost brother,' she said, `how clearly
I seem to see all things now. Why could we not do so before?
I have had my sinful worldly dream of happiness, and death has ended it.
When I heard of his death and Jim's my heart turned to stone.
All the strength I have shall be given to religion from this out.
I can ease my heart and mortify the flesh for the good of my soul.
To God -- to the Holy Virgin -- who hears the sorrows of such as me,
I can pray day and night for their souls' welfare -- for mine, for yours.
And oh, Dick! think when that day, that dreadful day, comes that Aileen is
praying for you -- will pray for you till her own miserable life ends.
And now good-bye; we shall meet on this earth no more.
Pray -- say that you will pray -- pray now that we may meet in heaven.'

She half drew me to my knees. She knelt down herself
on the cold stone floor of the cell; and I -- well -- I seemed to remember
the old days when we were both children and used to kneel down
by mother's bed, the three of us, Aileen in the middle and one of us boys
on each side. The old time came back to me, and I cried like a child.