At Large

"I know; I have seen it for myself. But I am going too."

This was precisely what Pound did not want. He was treating the woman with unwonted civility, not to say respect, with a view to the more easily dissuading her from dangerous projects. And this was a dangerous project from Pound's point of view; but Mrs. Ryan had set her soul upon it. Argue as Jem would, she was bent upon seeing her husband with her own eyes, and at once. And there, with that thin white face of hers she might go and get him actually to pity her, and spoil everything – for Jem Pound.

"After finding him again, do you think I will endure this a moment longer?" asked Elizabeth scornfully.

Pound's reply was in the reflective manner.

"Well," said he, with slow deliberation, "I'm not sure but what it mightn't, after all, do good for you to see him."

"Good – do good! To whom? What do you mean? What have you to do with it?"

Pound ground his teeth; he had everything to do with it. It was the old story over again: this woman was using him as the guide to her own ends, yet would cut him adrift the very moment those ends were in sight. How he hated her! With his lips he cringed to her, in his heart he ground her to powder; but if he was not in the position to bully her to-day, he had lost few opportunities when he was; and he was at least forearmed against her.

He affected a bluff kindliness of manner that would not have deceived her had Mrs. Ryan been a little more composed.

"Look here, missis, you and me, we've been bound up in a ticklish job together. I don't say as I've always done by you as I should, but there is allowances to be made for a man that carries, as they say, his life in his hand, and that's staked his life on this here job. I don't say, either, as we're both on the exact same tack, but one thing's certain; we must work together now, and if you can't work my way, why, I must work yours. Now, missis, you ain't fit for the strain of seeing him. If you could see your own face you'd know it, ma'am."

Her eyes had opened wide at his tone; she sighed deeply at his last words.

"No," she said sadly, "I know I'm not fit for much. But I must go – I must go."

"Then if you must, ma'am, take a teaspoonful of this first. It'll help you through, and anyway keep you from fainting, as you did last time. I got it in Melmerbridge this afternoon, after I see you look so sick."

He uncorked a small flask and held it to her lips.

"What is it?"

"Brandy – the best."

"And water?"

"Half and half. Remember that other night!"

"He is right," muttered the woman: "there must be no fainting this time."

She sipped from the bottle and felt revived.

"Now we will go," she said, sternly.

They crossed the meadow, and so over the stile into the potato-field that came next. Then Pound began to lag behind and watch his companion. When they reached the gate she was reeling; she clung to the gate-post, and waited for him to come up.

"You fiend!" she screamed, glaring impotently upon him. "Poisoner and fiend! You have – you – "

She fell senseless at his feet without finishing the sentence. Pound surveyed the helpless heap of clothes with complete satisfaction.

"Drugged you, eh? Is that what you'd say? Nay, hardly, my lass: p'r'aps the brandy was risky for a fool of a woman that won't eat – p'r'aps it was very near neat – p'r'aps there was more in it than that; anyway you took it beautiful – lovely, you devil in petticoats!"

He raised her easily enough in his strong arms, carried her through the gate into the next field, and dropped her upon a late heap of hay some distance from the track.

"Playing at triangles," said Pound, "it must be two to one, or all against all: one thing it sha'n't be – two to one, and Jem Pound the one! There you lie until you're wanted, my dear. So long to you!"

And with that this wretch strolled off.

The gap in the hedge dividing the last of these few fields from the road, and ending the path, occurred a few yards below the shooting-box. Pound crept along the ditch between hedge and field until he judged he was opposite the gate of the shooting-box. Then he stood up, parted the hedge where it was thinnest, and peered through. The room to the right of the porch was lit up within; though the blinds were drawn, the windows were wide open. Pound could hear a low continuous murmur of voices and other sounds, which informed him that the party were still dining. He waited patiently. At last he heard a pushing back of chairs: it must be over now, he thought; but no, the voices recommenced, pitched in a slightly louder key. The windows on the left of the porch shone out as brightly as their neighbours on the right of it. Light fingers ran nimbly over the keys of a piano – only once – no tune came of it.

Pound, too, had fingers that could not long be idle: thick, knotty, broad-nailed, supple-jointed; fingers that showed the working of the mind. They were busy now. In a little while all the hedge within their reach was stripped of its simple charms – its bluebells, its pink foxgloves, its very few wild roses. Even the little leaves of the hedge were plucked away by the handful; and on the grass, had it been lighter, you might have discovered in the torn and mutilated shreds of leaf and petal some index to the watcher's thoughts. At last there was a general movement inside. Dark forms appeared on the steps. Two or three came down the steps, and turned the corner of the house. One sauntered to the gate and peered up and down the road. There was no mistaking this figure.

Pound uttered in a low key a cry that is as common in the Australian bush as it is uncommon elsewhere. He expected his man to start as though shot, but he was disappointed. Ryan gave one sharp glance towards the hedge, then passed through the gate, and on to the gap.

"Lord! how he takes it!" murmured Pound. "Did he expect me? Has he been on the look-out night and day all this while?"

At the gap they met. Pound could restrain his exultation no longer.

"At last!"

"Yes," said the other, stepping quietly through the gap. He had given the whole day to preparation for this interview; but he had expected it to be an interview of three. Where was his wife? "Yes, and the fewer words the better. How you got here I neither know nor care; tell me what you want now that you are here."

"You know very well what I want."

"I may make a rough guess."

"I want money!"

"I thought so. It is a pity. You must go somewhere else for it: I have none."

"What!" cried Pound, savagely, "is it all gone? All that you landed with? Never! You have never got through all that!"

"'All that' is under a gum-tree somewhere in Queensland, unless some one has found it lately. I told you so before, didn't I? How could I clear out with the gold? How could I risk going back for it when once I got away? All I brought with me was what never left my body: the notes and some gold. It didn't come to much; the last of it went long since."

"Then how have you lived – what on?"

"My wits."

Jem Pound was in a towering passion.

"If I believed you," he hissed out, among his oaths, "I'd make a clean breast of everything – every blessed job – though I swung for it! No; I'd swing merrily, knowing they'd got you snug for the rest of your days, for you'd be worse off than me, Ned Ryan! But I don't believe a word of it; it's a lie – a lie – a lie!"

The utterance was that of a choking man. Miles wondered whether the man had the spirit to carry out what he threatened; he seemed desperate, and such confessions had been made before by desperate men. That the five hundred ounces of gold had been abandoned by Sundown in his flight was the simple truth. Yet if Pound realised this, he was capable of any lengths of vengeance – even to putting his own neck in the noose, as he said. Better, perhaps, leave him his delusion, and let him still think that the gold had been brought over; better give a sop to Cerberus – even though it were only a promise to-day and a few pounds to-morrow; for the next day – well, the next day Cerberus might growl in vain. But a fair round sum for Pound, if only it could be raised and handed over immediately, would raise high hopes of "the share" he coveted; would make him believe that the stronger man had given way at last; would pacify him for the time being – which was all that was necessary. For in two days Ned Ryan meant to fly from that place – in three, the shores of England should fade from his sight for ever. Pound must be put off his guard, like the rest; a fair round sum might do it – say fifty pounds. Fifty pounds, then, must be raised that night.

"Jem Pound," said Sundown, in tones of capitulation, "there is no getting over you! I throw up my hand, for the game's up. I thought I could get the best of you, Jem, but, Lord! I didn't know my man, and that's the fact. But listen to sense: you don't suppose I've got that money here, do you? It's in London; you shall have five hundred of it in hard cash, if you swear to stand by me, next week. I go up next week; you go before me and wait. You refuse? Stay, then; hear me out: you shall have fifty down, on this very spot, at this very hour, to-morrow night!"

"Do you mean it?" asked Pound, suspiciously, his breath coming quick and rapid with the excitement of the moment – his moment of victory.

"Every word of it."

"Fifty pounds – to-morrow night?"

"Every penny of it. Oh, there's no use in disguising it; you've got the better of me, Jem, and I must stump up."